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1.2 Traditional grammar: Categories and functions
أبريل 23rd
If we take the traditional definition of a clause as a predication structure (more
precisely, a structure containing a predicate which has a subject, and which may or
may not also contain one or more complements and adjuncts), it follows that since
there are two predicates (knows and smokes) in (10), there are correspondingly
two clauses – the smokes clause on the one hand, and the knows clause on the
other. The smokes clause comprises the subject John and the predicate smokes; the
knows clause comprises the subject Mary, the predicate knows and the complement
John smokes. So, the complement of knows here is itself a clause – namely
the clause John smokes. More precisely, the smokes clause is a complement
clause (because it serves as the complement of knows), while the knows clause is
the main clause (or principal clause or independent clause or root clause). The
overall sentence (10) Mary knows John smokes is a complex sentence because
it contains more than one clause. In much the same way, (11) below is also a
complex sentence
1.2 Traditional grammar: Categories and functions
أبريل 23rd
The labelled bracketing in (5b) tells us that the is a D/determiner, president
a N/noun, is a T/present tense auxiliary, clearly an ADV/adverb, feeling a
V/verb, angry an A/adjective, that a C/complementiser, Congress a N/noun,
has a T/present tense auxiliary, refused a V/verb, to a T/infinitival tense particle,
negotiate a V/verb, with a P/preposition and him a PRN/pronoun.
The discussion of grammatical categories presented above is merely a brief
sketch: however, it suffices to illustrate the point that when traditional grammarians
analyse the syntax of sentences, they begin by assigning each of the words
in the sentence to a grammatical category which describes how it is being used
in the sentence concerned.
Traditional grammar: Categories and functions
أبريل 23rd
D-pronouns: the rationale for this is that some such pronouns can be used as
determiners which modify a following noun (as in We republicans don’t trust
you democrats, where we could be argued to be a determiner modifying the
noun republicans, and you could be seen as a determiner modifying the noun
democrats). While, as noted here, pronouns can be argued to belong to a number
of distinct types of category, in order to simplify discussion I shall simply refer
to them as belonging to the category PRN throughout this book. (Because there
are a number of different types of pronoun, some linguists prefer to refer to them
by using the more general term proform
