Syntax of the Simple Sentence

SYNTAX

The purpose of a course in the syntax of the English language is to identify and present the main patterns and structures of expression in contemporary English. The educated speaker of English must not only be aware of the complex meaning of the sentences and structures he comes across while reading or researching, but also be able to express complex thoughts in a way that can best render the meaning of what he conveys. Accuracy is a condition that will best be found in the awareness of using the correct rules governing the structures of a language.

I.Definition and Role of Syntax

Syntax is that branch of linguistics which describes the phenomena of the contemporary language in point of relations between words and their correct arrangement in units of expression apt to reflect logical units and patterns.

It actually consists of a whole set of principles and rules which help govern communication, whether written or oral. That’s why its structure and terms are related to logics.

Regarded in its most important functions, it describes the situations and contexts themselves, the relations between words.

Before being expressed in the form of communication, thoughts are described by logic as sentences or propositions. When they are expressed in speech or writing, these propositions or sentences are analysed by syntax again as sentences or clauses. The main part of the sentence will be described as the subject and the predicate in both logic and linguistics.

Thoughts, therefore, communicated or not, constitute themselves as logical units, materialized in a written or oral form, having specific rules, and grammar analyses them as syntactic units.

As basic syntactic units are called sentences, the syntactic subunits are necessarily called parts of the simple sentence (or clauses in the case of compound or complex sentences). The parts of the simple sentence will be divided into main/principal (the subject and the predicate) and secondary (the attribute – which gravitates around the subject or, less frequently round the predicate etc. – the direct, indirect and prepositional objects and the adverbial modifiers – connected with the predicate).

The parts of the sentence can take the form of words or combinations of words, words + prepositions or other particles, all these being called phrases (=locuţiuni). According to their role in the sentence, i.e. to the word they substitute for, these phrases are called attributive, adverbial, predicative etc.

Syntax is concerned with the analysis of the complete logical units mainly, therefore with syntactic units or sense/semantic units, which can be classified in various ways.

Thus, the surface structures of the communication may appear in the form of declarative, an