D. V. Demidov

Questions for Reflection: 
1. What does syntax deal with? 
2. What are the basic approaches to the problem of syntax 
definition? 
3. What basic syntactic units do you know? 
4. How can you describe the main syntactic notions 
(meaning, form, function, position)? 
5. What relations between words are called syntactic?
6. What are the types of syntactical relations according to 
the form of the constituents? 
7. What kind of syntactic analysis theory do you consider 
the most adequate? 

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83 
Topic 7. The Theory of the Word Group and the Sentence. 
Actual Division of the Sentence. 
Questions for Discussion:
1. The phrase as a polynominatlve lingual unit. 
The problem of definition. 
2. Structural types of phrases. Phrase vs. Sentence.
3. The definition and characteristic features of the sentence.
4. Actual division of the sentence. 
1. The phrase as a polynominatlve lingual unit. 
The problem of definition. 
The main object of study in syntax is the communicative 
unit of the language, the sentence. The phrase is the syntactic unit 
used as a notional part of a sentence. As a level- forming unit, it is 
characterized by some common and some differential features 
with the unit of the lower level, the word, and the unit of the upper 
level, the sentence. Like the word, the phrase is a nominative unit, 
but it provides a complex nomination of the referent, a 
polynomination consisting of several (at least two) nominative 
components, 
presenting 
the 
referent 
as 
a 
complicated 
phenomenon, e.g.: a girl – a beautiful girl; a decision – his 
unexpected decision; etc. Moreover, the regular free phrase does 
not enter speech as a ready- made unit like the word; it is freely 
formed in speech, like the sentence according to a certain 
grammatical pattern. As for the fixed word-combinations, idioms, 
they are closer to the word in the type of nomination: they are 
ready-made units fixed in dictionaries and studied mainly by 
lexicology.
The definition of the phrase is rather a controversial issue. 
In Russian linguistics, the narrow approach, which was put 
forward by V. V. Vinogradov, traditionally prevails: only a 

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84 
combination of two notional words, one of which dominates the 
other, is considered a word-combination. A much broader 
approach was proposed by Leonard Bloomfield and it is shared by 
many modern linguists [15, p. 212]. One of the leading specialists 
in this field, V. V. Burlakova, defines a word-combination as any 
syntactically organized group of syntagmatically connected words 
[7, p. 134]; this includes combinations of functional and notional 
words, and predicative and coordinative combinations of words. 
Critical revision of these two approaches is possible on the basis 
of the above given description of the phrase (the phraseme) as a 
separate lingual unit.