1. What linguistic unit is called a sentence? What are the main features of sentences?

1. What linguistic unit is called a sentence?
2. What are the main features of sentences?
3. What theories on sentence do you know?
4. What is the difference between primary and secondary predication?
5. What criteria are used to classify sentences?
6. What do you understand by structural classification of sentences?
7. What do you understand by the classification of sentences according to the aim
of the speaker?
8. What do you understand by the classification of sentences according to the
existence of the parts of the sentence?

Answer.

1. In non-functional linguistics, a sentence is a textual unit consisting of one or more words that are grammatically linked. In functional linguistics, a sentence is a unit of written texts delimited by graphological features such as upper case letters and markers such as periods, question marks, and exclamation marks.

2. A complete sentence has three characteristics:

• 
  First, it begins with a capital letter.
  
• 
  In addition, it includes an end mark—either a period ( . ), question mark ( ? ), or exclamation point ( ! ).
  
• 
  Most importantly, the complete sentence has at least one main clause. Each main clause contains a subject and a verb.
  

4. The communicative function of the sentence distinguishes it from phrases and words, which have only one function-naming.

1. 
   The doctor’s arrival;
   
2. 
   The doctor arrived;
   

These 2 structures name the same event, but (1) is not correlated with the situation of speech and doesn’t convey information about the reality or the time of the event.

2 is correlated with the situation of speech and shows that the event took place in the past.

So, the correlation of the thought expressed in the sentence with the situation of speech is called predicativity. It’s property of the sentence. It’s a sort of syntactic relations exciting between the Subject and the Predicate.

It’s consisted by 3 components:

• 
  Modality – the category of Mood }
  
• 
  Time – the category of Tense} Predicate Verb
  
• 
  Person- the category of Person }
  

The boy has laughed out loudly.

The predicative category of person (first, second, third) finds its expression either in the inflection of the verbal component (e.g. the inflection -s signals the third person singular in the present indefinite) or in the nominal component. When the nominal component is expressed by a personal pronoun, it serves as a lexical exponent of the predicative category of person. When the nominal component is expressed by a noun or a pronoun that does not distinguish persons, they serve as onomaseological exponents of the third person, common to the class of things

5. Classification

• 
  A simple sentence consists of a single independent clause with no dependent clauses.
  
• 
  A compound sentence consists of multiple independent clauses with no dependent clauses. ...
  
• 
  A complex sentence consists of one independent clause and at least one dependent clause.
  

6. From the point of view of their structure sentences can be divided into: two-membered; one-membered; complete; incomplete; simple; composite (compound, complex). ... A simple sentence contains a subject and a verb followed if necessary. There are four types of sentences: simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex: 1) The SIMPLE sentence contains ONE INDEPENDENT clause. Example: The man standing in the doorway is my Uncle Fred. Notice that the sentence does not have to be short to be simple.

7. The declarative sentences: This type of sentence may be called basic, when compared with other types of sentences because all other types of sentences are the result of transformation of kernel sentences which are affirmative in their origin (kernel sentences).

• 
  they convey some statement. Maybe because of this fact these sentences are called declarative.
  
• 
  theyusuallyhavethefallinganintonation
  
• 
  usuallytheyhaveregularorderofwordswithnoinversion.