D. V. Demidov

3. The definition and characteristic features of the
sentence. 
The sentence, as has been mentioned, is the central object 
of study in syntax. It can be defined as the immediate integral unit 

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of speech built up by words according to a definite syntactic 
pattern 
and 
distinguished 
by 
a 
contextually 
relevant 
communicative purpose. 
The correlation of the word and the sentence shows some 
important differences and similarities between these two main 
level- forming lingual units. Both of them are nominative units, but 
the word just names objects and phenomena of reality; it is a 
purely nominative component of the word-stock, while the 
sentence is at the same time a nominative and predicative lingual 
unit: it names dynamic situations, or situational events, and at the 
same time reflects the connection between the nominal denotation 
of the event, on the one hand, and objective reality, on the other 
hand, showing the time of the event, its being real or unreal, 
desirable or undesirable, etc. A sentence can consist of only one 
word, as any lingual unit of the upper level can consist of only one 
unit of the lower level, e.g.: Why? Thanks. But a word making up 
a sentence is thereby turned into an utterance-unit expressing 
various connections between the situation described and actual 
reality. So, the definition of the sentence as a predicative lingual 
unit gives prominence to the basic differential feature of the 
sentence as a separate lingual unit: it performs the nominative 
signemic function, like the word or the phrase, and at the same 
time it performs the reality-evaluating or predicative function. 
Being a unit of speech, the sentence is distinguished by a 
relevant intonation: each sentence possesses certain intonation 
contours, including pauses, pitch movements and stresses, which 
separate one sentence from another in the flow of speech and, 
together with various segmental means of expression, participate 
in rendering essential communicative-predicative meanings (for 
example, interrogation). 
The definition of the category of predication is similar to 
the definition of the category of modality, which also shows a 

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connection between the named objects and actual reality. 
However, modality is a broader category, revealed not only in 
grammar, but in the lexical elements of language; for example, 
various modal meanings are expressed by modal verbs (can, may, 
must, etc.), by word-particles of specifying modal semantics (just, 
even, would-be, etc.), by semi- functional modal words and 
phrases of subjective evaluation (perhaps, unfortunately, by all 
means, etc.) and by other lexical units. Predication can be defined 
as syntactic modality, expressed by the sentence. 
The center of predication in the sentence is the finite form 
of the verb, the predicate: it is through the finite verb‘s categorial 
forms of tense, mood, and voice that the main predicative 
meanings, actual evaluations of the event, are expressed. 
L. Tesnière, who introduced the term ―valency‖ in linguistics, 
described the verbal predicate as the core around which the whole 
sentence structure is organized according to the vale ncies of the 
predicate verb; he subdivided all verbal complements and 
supplements into so-called ―actants‖, elements that identify the