Теоретическая грамматика английского языка

2. Give the classification of sentences according to the purpose of communication, according to the structure CWhat is the predicative line of the sentence?) Main parts of the sentence. The subject and the predicate. All words in a sentence perform definite syntactic fimctions. As a rule, every English sentence contains words or groups of words functioning as tlie subject and the predicate. Grammatically, these fimctions are independent and equally significant in the sentence. For that reason they are called the principal! main parts of the sentence. It is considered that the subject and the predicate being the main parts of the sentence constitute its backbone. Words performing all other fimctions in the sentence depend either on the subject (and together they form the subject-phrase of the sentence) or on the predicate (together they form the predicate-phrase of the sentence). The subject and the predicate have more than one definition. The Subject is a word or a group of words which names the person, object or phenomenon the sentence informs us about. It may be expressed by a noun, a pronoun, a substantivized adjective, a numeral, an infinitive and an ing-form. e.g. The stranger came early in February. Hospitality was a passion with him. You're not a bad fellow. This is my son Henry. Someone was singing an Italian tune. Much depends on the letter. What has become of him? It has been raining since the morning. It's hard to forget one's past. The young often complain that the elders do not understand them. Two of the letters werefirom my uncle. The Dutch are famous for their tulips. To know all about English is one thing; to know English is quite another. Watching TV has become his favourite pastime. The Predicate is a word or a group of words that inform us of what is happening to the person, object or phenomenon indicated as the subject in the sentence. The predicate differs from all other parts of the sentence in that it relates the information contained in the sentence to reality, i.e. it is the means of expressing predication and modality for the whole sentence. For that reason there is only one part of speech that can fimction as predicate - it is the verb in one of its finite forms. A finite verb may be used in this function alone or combined with other parts of speech. Depending on the structure, predicates are divided into the following kinds: 1) simple verba! predicates - they consist of only a notional verb (in any tense, aspect, voice or mood form) e.g. His words ffightened me. I have given her every chance. 32