Major components of the noun-head phrase 14 page

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 363.

Exclamations can be expressed in a range of structures, both clausal and non-clausal. What a good dad he is! (conv) What a cheek! (conv) The above examples illustrate special exclamative structures, one in the form of a full exclamative clause, the other in the form of a phrase. In the following examples, the exclamations are expressed by other clause types or structures: an interrogative clause: Isn't that infuriating though! (conv); an imperative clause: Look at that! Incradible! (conv); declarative clauses: Oh, that's a shame! (conv); non-clausal forms: Oh great! (conv).

An exclamation as a sentence type opens with pronominal words what or how. It has a subject-predicate structure: What a lovely day it is! What a mess you've made! How beautifully she sings! How nice she looks! Exclamatives with subject and verb inverted are very rare. They can sometimes be found in literary English: How often have I cursed that terrible day! Exclamatory sentences can be reduced to the word or phrase immediately following what or how: What a lovely day! What a mess! What a terrible noise! How nice! Yes-no questions may function as exclamations owing to the falling tone, stress on both the operator and the subject in speaking and an exclamation mark in writing: Wasn't he angry! Was he angry! Isn't it funny! Hasn't she grown!

7. Negation. Both structural and communicative types of sentences fall into affirmative sentences and negative sentences. Negation is a marked member of the “affirmation-negation” opposition. The scope of negation is that part of a clause that is affected by the negative form: the negator not or by some other negative word ( no, nothing, never, none etc) The scope of negation may be restricted to a single word or phrase. If Negation refers to any sentence part except the predicate, it is called local (also called partial): 1. You've abducted a not unknownholder of government office, a member of the House of Representatives. (fict) 2. One rabbit can finish off a few hundred young trees in no time.(fict) 3.Not surprisingly, two GOP Assembly incumbents were defeated for re-election in California that November. (news) 4. Robertson, not unexpectedly,claimed afterwards that his strike should have been recognised. (news) 5.Not infrequently two or more adjacent cells may become confluent owing to the atrophy of the vein or veins separating them. (acad)

In 1 the negative effect is located within a noun phrase. In the other examples, it is limited to time adverbials or stance adverbials. In all these cases, there is no doubt that the propositions expressed in the clause as a whole are positive. A special type of local negation is found with nowhere and nobody: 6. It's in the middle of nowhere,isn't it? (conv) 7. Cats appear from nowhere.(fict) 8. "You murdered Schopee, and he's not a nobody." - "Nobody's a nobody." (fict) Nowhere in 6 and 7 means 'an unknown or little known place' and cannot be paraphrased by not... anywhere. In 8 nobody is used as a noun meaning 'a person of no importance' (note the indefinite article) and does not allow a paraphrase with not... anybody. This use freely combines with other negative forms.

With clausal (also calledgeneral) negation,the entire proposition is denied or rejected, and the negative scope extends from the negative form until the end of the clause. It concerns predication and is concentrated in the finite part of the predicate: I do not understand what you are talking about. You can't do such things! Placement of the adverbial before or after not may correlate with a difference in meaning: 9. "Our investigations indicate that this substance was not deliberatelyadministered." (fict) 10.Alexander looked at Wilkie who deliberately did notsee him. (fict) 11.Don't just see the world, see how it works, do some work yourself. (news ) 12. You're not being serious. I just can'tbelieve you. (fict) Thus, in 9 and 11the adverbial is inside the scope of negation, while in 10 and 12the adverbial is outside the scope of negation.

In a number of cases negative sentences are not characterized as such by any grammatical peculiarities. For instance, there is no grammatical difference between the sentences Nobody knows it and Everybody knows it. The difference lies entirely in the meaning of pronouns functioning as subjects, i.e. it is lexical, not grammatical. Since in a number of cases negative sentence are not characterized as such by any grammatical peculiarities, they are not a grammatical type. They are a logical type, which may or may not be reflected in grammatical structure: I did not know anybody. I knew nobody. Accordingly, the division of sentences into affirmative and negative is not included into their grammatical classification.

Full form VS contraction form. A sentence is made negative by the particle not which is the most widely used negatorput immediately after the auxiliary or modal verb. The negator not has two forms: uncontracted and contracted. There are two possible forms of negation contraction: one is when the operator is contracted and the negator uncontracted (They've not come), and the other is when the negator is contracted but the operator is used in its full form (They haven't come). Only the full negative form is possible for the first person singular of the verb be in declarative sentences (am not), the form ain't is not accepted as a standard form. However, the verb contraction I'm is possible: I'm not late. In questions the contracted form is aren't (informal) or am I not: Aren't I early? Am I not early? I'm early, aren't I? I'm early, am I not?

Function words in English frequently have reduced forms. Here the focus is on contracted forms in negative constructions. There are three possible ways of realizing an operator followed by the negator not, though the two contracted ways are not equally available for all operators: Full forms:I hope you are not a "Van Gogh". (fict) Not-contraction:You're alright aren'tyou? (conv)This isn'ta bad sort of place at all. (fict)He can'tdo anything else. (news) It should be noted that there are special contracted forms of shall and will + not: shan't, won't: But it won'tbe good for the party. (news) Operator contraction: It's not a secret. (fict) I hope we're not a contrary indicator. (news) This is only available, at least as a written variant, for am/is/are, have/has/had and modals will and would. In archaic or jocular use, main verbs are sometimes used before not: I know not what to say! Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country!

In negative questions the place of the negator not depends on whether it is contracted or uncontracted. The contracted form n't is not separated from the auxiliary or modal verb, whereas the uncontracted not comes after the subject: Don't you see? Do you not see? Can't you coma with me? Can you not come with me? Not can be attached to other parts of the sentence, not only the predicate verb: It's here, not upstairs. It's a tiger, not a cat. The question is important and not easy to answer.

After the verbs think, believe, suppose, imagine the negation which belongs to the object clause is transferred to the principal clause. This is called transferred negation:I don't believe he has come (= I believe he hasn't come). I don't think you've heard about it. Besides not there are other words that can serve as negators to make the sentence negative. They are: no and its derivatives: one, nobody, nothing, nowhere, none (of) and also neither (of), the conjunction neither... nor. Besides all the N-negators (beginning with the letter n, such as not, no, never, none) there are other words that make a sentence negative in meaning: seldom, rarely, scarcely, barely, hardly, ever, little, few.

As a rule, a sentence can contain only one negator: I didn't tell anything to anybody. Double negativesare sometimes possible in English, but only if both negative words have their full meaning and the meaning is emphasized: You've no reason not to trust me. I just don't do nothing. It's not only not important, it's not a fact.

Multiple negation.Sometimes two or more negative forms co-occur in the same clause. There are two basically different types of multiple negation, one - dependent - in which the negative forms co-occur in the same clause to express a single negative meaning, and one in which the negative forms have independent negative force.Dependent multiple negation. Two or more negative forms may co-occur within the same clause to express a single negative meaning. This represents a very old pattern which is found in casual speech, although it is socially stigmatized:You've neverseen nothinglike it. (conv) cf. You've never seen anything like it.I told her notto say nothingto nobody.(conv) cf. ... not to say anything to anybody.Besides, I neversaid nothingabout fishing. (fict) cf. I never said anything about fishing.There ain't nothingwe can do. (fict) cf. There isn't anything we can do.There ain't noelm trees on the North Moors, (fict) cf. There aren't any elm trees ...In examples such as these, negative forms are used where non-assertive forms would occur in writing and careful speech. Because of the repetition of the negative forms, this type of negation appears to have a strengthening effect. This is no doubt true of: And now they just don't know what to do, there's no jobs, there's no nothing. (conv) But without that heater they've no hot water, no nothing!(conv) Here no nothing equals not anything.

Multiple negation of this kind is relatively rare and is generally restricted to conversation and fictional dialogue. Interestingly this distribution does not fit the picture seen earlier for no-negation. As with no-negation, this type of multiple negation is very old, so it ought to be better represented in the written registers. This is apparently a case where prescriptive traditions have been particularly influential, resulting in the present-day distribution of this form. A special type of dependent multiple negation, which is not of the stigmatized kind, is found with repetition of not: 1.A: Did Jill say what time Caroline's appointment was? B: No. Er - not to me she didn't. (conv) 2. A: The fact you get the films or - recent films. B: Not all of them they're not. (conv) 3."Can I speak to Peter Holmes?" - "Not here, you can't." (fict) These examples exploit the two most prominent positions in the clause, i.e. the beginning and the end. One element (usually an adverbial) is fronted for emphasis, and the preceding not makes it clear that it is included within the scope of negation while at the same time strengthening the negation. A less emphatic form would be: She didn't, not to me; this would be a case of independent multiple negation.

Independent multiple negation. Negative forms may naturally co-occur in cases of repetition or reformulation.In these cases, the negative forms are not integrated within the same clause: Won't eat any veggies you know, none.(conv) No, not tomorrow, she said. (fict) Rising, working, there is no reason any more, no reason for anything, no reason why not, nothingto breathe but a sour gas bottled in empty churches, nothing to rise by. (fict) There's no oneto blame, not really. (fict) In these examples, the negative forms are independent, since none of them can be replaced by non-assertive forms (without also adding not). Repeated occurrences of not within the same clause, each with its own negative force, are also found. Here two negatives can make a positive meaning: Oh well you sleep on sherry though - it makes you sleepy, you can't not sleep. (conv) <meaning that you just have to sleep> Of the many directives gummed to the glass partition, one took the trouble to thank me for not smoking. I hate that. I mean, it's a bit previous, isn't it, don't you think? I haven't not smoked yet. As it did turn out, I neverdid notsmoke in the end. I lit a cigarette and kept them coming. The frizzy-rugged beaner at the wheel shouted something and threw himself around for a while, but I kept on not notsmoking quietly in the back, and nothing happened. (fict) Other cases of independent multiple negation are illustrated in: 1. A: Well at a price yeah. I mean - they don't do nothingfor nothing.B: No of course not. They're are out to get money, aren't they? (conv) 2. Not a house in the country ain't packed to its rafters. (fict) 3.It was notfor nothingthat he was chosen as Mr Squeaky Clean after the sexual and financial aberrations of his two predecessors. (news) 4. Do we not in fact have no decent idea of a set of things if we have no settled rule as to counting them, whether or not we are able to act effectively on the rule? (acad)

While dependent multiple negation is characteristic of, and virtually restricted to, conversation (and dialogue in fiction), independent multiple negation is a complex choice which requires deliberate planning. It is not stigmatized and is found particularly in writing. However, there are also colloquial examples. In 2 the two negatives cancel each other, and the result is a positive statement 'Every house in the country is packed to its rafters.' Example 1 is of particular interest in that it illustrates how dependent and independent multiple negation may combine. The first occurrence of nothing corresponds to a non-assertive form, the second carries independent negative force. The meaning is presumably 'They don't do anything for nothing.'

Not-negation VS No-negation.The negator not is inserted after the operator in the verb phrase. If there is no other auxiliary, do is obligatorily inserted as operator:You can do this but you can't do that. (conv)I didn't study the label. (conv) cf. I studied the label. All uses of be behave like auxiliaries and require no do-insertion: It just wasn't worth our while. (conv) They are not that little. (news) The exception to this rule is negative imperatives:Don't be silly! (conv) Don't be so hard on yourself. (fict)The use of the auxiliary do varies with the transitive verb have, and with have to and the marginal modal auxiliaries dare, need, ought to, and with used to.The negator not is usually attached as an enclitic to the preceding operator and appears in informal writing as the contracted form n't. In speech and informal written English the auxiliary may alternatively be contracted with a preceding word, leaving a full form of not . The transitive verb have (got) has a bewildering number of possible negative forms. There are five main types:(1)not-negation, lexical verb construction (with do): She doesn't have a dime. (fict) We simply do not have enough money. (news)(2)Not-negation, auxiliary-like construction (without do): I haven't a clue what her name was! (conv) I haven't any spirit to argue. (news)(3)Not-negation, have got:We haven't got any cheesecake. (conv) (4)No-negation, have:He had no clue that I liked him. (conv) He liked the fact that Venice had no cars. (fict)

Such rocks have no fossils. (acad) (5) No-negation, (have) got:According to you I've got no friends. (conv) I said to him, "I've got no work now, what can I afford?" (fict)

According to LGSWE Corpus findings, with an indefinite object, no-negation with have is the majority form in all registers except British conversation. With a definite object, not-negation with do is the majority choice, except in BrE conversation and BrE fiction. Preferences differ in BrE and AmE: do-insertion is more common in AmE in clauses with a definite object. Got-forms are frequent in BrE, but rare in AmE. Not-negation with have is rare in all registers, except in British fiction. Clauses can be negated by other negative forms than not: They had no sympathy for him. (fict) cf. They didn't have any sympathy for him. There was nobody in the hut and the fireplace was cold. (fict) cf. There wasn't anybody in the hut. Now, West Ham have no one with the wit to surmount such obstacles. (news) cf. West Ham do not have anyone ... It's no good pretending you've any aptitude for art when it's quite clear you've none at all. (fict) cf. It's not any good pretending ... when you haven't any at all. Say nothing! (conv) cf. Don't say anything. There's nowhere to stand, (fict) cf. There isn't anywhere to stand. I'll never be able to tell her. (fict) cf. I won't ever be able to tell her. Not-negation is the more neutral choice in such constructions. It can be used both to give a neutral characterization and to express a judgement. The latter is characteristic of no-negation. Compare also: 1. He's a teacher, like you. (fict) v. He's not a teacher. 2. He's some mensch. (fict) v. He's no mensch. He's not much of a mensch. In 1 there is a neutral description of category membership. However, the forms in 2 are all evaluative. Similarly, He's no teacher would be much more likely than 1 to be evaluative and refer to a person's pedagogical abilities rather than his actual objective profession. We note that a quantifier may be used to highlight an evaluation both in positive and negative contexts. Although it is hard to pin down differences in communicative effect between the two negation types, it seems that no-negation may be more emphatic. It is probably significant that no-words normally receive some stress, while not is characteristically reduced and appended to the preceding auxiliary. No-negation is decidedly emphatic where it occurs repeatedly in the same context: And we will keep on winning with no wheeling, no dealing, no horse-trading and no electoral pacts. (news) In the drunk tank it is not so good. No bunk, no chair, no blankets, no nothing. (fict) A paraphrase using without any/not any would be far less expressive. A no-negated form can usually be replaced with no-negation (c. 80% of the time), while not-negation can be formally replaced by no-negation only about 30% of the time. For a not-negated structure to be restated in terms of no-negation, not must co-occur with some other form which can incorporate the negative element (most typically an any-form). The negative element can also be incorporated in an indefinite noun phrase without any: She doesn't have a car yet. (fict) cf. She has no car yet. Contrast She doesn't have the car yet where a no-negated form is impossible. In the position following not a far greater number of forms with a high co-occurrence score, chiefly lexical verbs are found, as is to be expected. There is a preponderance of mental verbs, and this is even more striking if the comparison is restricted to forms following contracted n't. which for the most part represent the patterns of co-occurrence in conversation. The co-occurrence of negation and mental verbs appears to be an important factor contributing to the very high frequency of negative forms in spoken discourse.

Implicit negationis presented a major interest. By implicit negation we mean implied non-grammatical negation in sentences without negative words: A lot you know about love! (= You know nothing about love). Much she knew of it himself (= He didn't know it himself). I didn't worry about him any more because he was going to believe him (= nobody was going to believe him). Some grammarians hold the view that rhetorical questions presuppose a negative answer and are a special form of implicit negation: Who knows? (= Nobody knows). How do I know? What can I do? What business is it of yours? Lexical indicators of implicit negation include verbs fail, miss, cease, finish, drop, particles even and only, the adjectives last then I fail to understand you (= I can't understand you). Now I'm only afraid of loosing her(= Now I'm not afraid of anything else). Phraseological indicators of implicit negation are phrases like ell, like devil, my eyes, my foot, the hell with sb (sth), God knows, le hell knows: I'll try lo help you. — Like hell you will. Surely we are civilized people nowadays? — Civilized people my foot! Morphological indicators of implicit negation include verbs in past tense: Do you love him? — I loved him (= I don't love him now), forms of the imperative and subjunctive mood: Catch her! I wish I had it now. Syntactical indicators of implicit negation include compound sentence with the adversative conjunction but: I tried to follow the professor, but he pulled me back (= I couldn't follow the priest); pseudo-subordinate clauses introduced by as if, as though. As if I'd give up my dream to leave this country for ever! Implicit negation blended with irony may be rendered by a) inversion; b) inversion in combination with words like fine, good, swell, excellent, precious, lovely, likely, much, a(fat)lot, c) repetition+indeed, d) repetition of the noun/personal pronoun + and + possessive pronoun + repetition of the noun: The children I'm raising! A fine friend she turned out to be. A fine product they put out! A likely story that is! Here's a nice scarf for you. — A nice scarf indeed! I want my revenge. — You and your revenge. It is also interesting to note that negative sentences mayhave affirmative meaning: Blame me, if it didn't come into my head once or twice (= it came into my head) [Beйxмaн, 1990: 67-68].

8. Syntactic non-clausal units.There are utterances which do not constitute sentences - non-sentence utterances, quasi - or minor sentences, or non-clausal units, which do not contain a message and are devoid of the binary Subject - Predicate structural opposition. They can be given a syntactic description in terms of the structures and categories of sentence grammar. These units are often classifiable according to standard phrase categories, such as noun phrases ( poor kids, no sweat), adjective phrases (perfect, good for you), adverb phrases (not really, absolutely!) or prepositional phrases ( for goodness' sake!). On the other hand, they are often phrases augmented by inserts or other syntactically peripheral elements, such as vocatives (oh shame! Ah you cunt, this way please, good play there, dude) which help to underline their discourse roles, e.g. as exclamations or directives. Others have the form of unembedded dependent clauses (e.g. not to worry is a negative infinitive clause). Non-clausal units are not constructed in a regular way. They use abnormal patterns which cannot be clearly analyzed into a sequence of clause elements, as sentences can. Various types of non-clausal units are frequently used in everyday conversation and when conversations are represented in fiction. These units do not follow all the rules of English grammar. For example, in a major or proper sentence, verbs can change their tenses from present to past: How do you manage? — How did you manage? But the greeting How do you do? is a non-clausal unit. We cannot change its tense, and say *How did you do? Nor can we change the pronoun and ask *How does he do?

Looking at syntactic non-clausal units more carefully, it is useful to note the varied functions they perform. In most cases, the “ fragmentary” nature of these units, i.e. the absence of a clausal unit structure, reflects a dependence of the message on context, explicable in general terms either by anaphoric or situational ellipsis. For example, perfect could in principle be elaborated into that's perfect, or absolutely into I agree with you absolutely, but many such “reconstructions” have dubious linguistic motivation: indeed, in the above cases alternative verbalizations could be proposed (e.g. this is perfect; that's absolutely true).

Non-clausal units may consist of a single word or a functionally equivalent phrase expressing affirmation, negation, exclamation, an address, some emotive, incentive or metacommunicative meanings. It is necessary to find some name and classification for the many English non-clausal communications which are not sentences. Such communications are common – on windows, buildings, and billboards; on cards, letters, and envelopes; in conversation and in formal writing. They have been variously called partial, and incomplete sentences, verbless sentences, nonsentences or non-clausal units.A number of functional categories can be usefully distinguished.

8.1. Elliptic replies.In the to-and-fro of conversation, it is natural for one speaker to build on the content of what a previous speaker has said, and to avoid unnecessary repetition. Thus ellipsis is a pervasive feature of conversational dialogue. In cases of anaphoric ellipsis the missing content is directly recoverable from the preceding utterance(s). The paradigm case is an elliptic reply to a wh-question: 1. A: Where did you guys park? B:Right over here.(AmE) <i.e. We parked right over there.> Less typically, the roles of question and assertion may be reversed, the assertion eliciting a question in reply: 2. A: Well I personally think it's too cold to snow tonight.
B: Too cold?(BrE) <i.e. Is it too cold to snow tonight?> An assertion may also elicit another assertion in reply, particularly in the case of co-construction: 3. A: It takes about – well B: About two ticks, ya. Alright. (AmE) Alternatively, a question may elicit another question which is elliptic:4. A: Did you have a good weekend? B: Yeah. / Yourself?(AmE) Example 5 combines two kinds of ellipsis pattern: A's assertion elicits from B an elliptic question, consisting just of a wh-word, which in turn elicits an elliptic answer, in the form of a because-clause, from A: 5. A: This is what gets me, this is what gets me about people, you know periodically there's this effort to, to ban Tarzan from the school somewhere. B: Why? A: Because he and Jane aren't married.(AmE) In example 6, there is a yet more complex case of continuing ellipsis, where B's first turn sparks off a disagreement from A, which is in turn queried by B, and confirmed further by A. The same syntactic frame underlies turns A2, B2, and A3, but in each case the subject and verb - they started - are ellipted: 6. A1: and one, one is from the Hotel <unclear> in Paris which is one of the oldest hospitals in the, in the world. B2: <unclear> where they started in fourteen hundred, fifteen <unclear> A2: No, earlier than that B2: Earlier even?A3: Probably the tenth, eleventh century.(AmE)

Turn B2 has two separate adverbials: a time adverbial (earlier) and a focus adverbial (even). Similarly, turn A3 contains an adverbial (probably) followed by the noun phrase (the tenth, eleventh century). These units with two clause elements (either adverbial + adverbial or adverbial + noun phrase), even though they lack a finite verb, more closely approximate to full clauses than those consisting of just one phrase.