M. Iriskulov, A. Kuldashev a course in Theoretical English Grammar Tashkent 2008

participants and their syntactic expression in the clause.
One –participant clause (intransitive) presents a situation as involving only one 
participant, which is an Experiencer, Mover or Patient. There are three types of 

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intransitives: unergatives, e.g.: The child slept., unaccusatives, e.g.: The building 
collapsed., middles, e.g.: The car drives smoothly. The poem doesn’t translate. I 
don’t photograph very well. 
Two- participant clause (transitive) prototypically involves the transfer of 
energy from an Agent (the subject) to a Patient (the object), e.g.: The farmer shot 
the rabbit. The prototypical transitive clause can also be made passive, e.g.: The 
rabbit was shot by the farmer. A remarkable fact about the schema for a 
prototypical transitive clause is that it accommodates all manner of relations 
between entities. The following examples exhibit this fact, though exhibiting fewer 
and fewer characteristics of a transitive interaction, e.g.: I remember the event. My 
car burst a tyre. The road follows the river. Joe resembles his grandfather. 
The non-prototypical status of these transitives is proven by the fact that they 
cannot be made passive. 
Three-participant clause (double-object clause) is a clause where a second 
post-verbal object is obligatory, its presence determines the existence of the clause 
as such, e.g.: I’ll mail you the report. I’ll bake you a cake.
The three participants are the Agent, the thing that undergoes changes at the hands 
of the Agent, and the person which benefits from the change (Beneficiary). 
Characteristic of this clause type is that the Beneficiary is construed as the Patient 
of the interaction and it appears immediately after the verb, as the verb’s object (it 
means that “my” action directly affects “you”, in that “you” come to receive the 
report). The clause profiles the relation between the Agent and Beneficiary by 
means of placing the Beneficiary immediately after the verb. The sentence renders
the idea of “possessivity”. The same situation can be conceptualized in an 
alternative way, e.g.: I’ll mail the report to you. I’ll bake a cake for you. The 
clause bears the intermediary status between the prototypical two-participant 
clause and prototypical three-participant clause. It profiles the relation between 
the Agent and Patient. The sentence renders the idea of “path”. 
In the end it should be noted that different types of processes (event concepts) 
appear to be “packed” into two basic syntactic configurations: transitive and 
intransitive constructions. It becomes possible due to the fact that the subject and 
object can instantiate not only their prototypical use, the Agent and Patient, but 
also other semantic roles. This mechanism is the basis of alternative 
conceptualizations (imagery) of situations of the real world in syntactic forms.
The c l a s s i f i c a t i o n of larger syntactic units - c l a u s e c o m b i n a t 
i o n s (c l a u s e c o m p l e x e s) - is based on the criterion of the degree of 
integration between clauses
J.R. Taylor distinguishes minimal integration, coordination, subordination, 
complementation, clause fusion which reveals the highest degree of integration.
Clause complexes of minimal integration. Two clauses are simply 
juxtaposed, with no overt linking, e.g.: I came, I saw, I conquered. The clauses are
in sequential relation to each other – the first mentioned was the first to occur.
Clause complexes of coordination. Each clause could in principle stand 
alone as an independent conceptualization. The clauses are linked by means of 
words such as and, but, or, e.g.: She prefers fish, and/but I prefer pasta. A slightly 

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higher degree of integration is possible if both clauses share the same subject, e.g.: 
I went up to him and asked the way.
Clause complexes of subordination. Here, there are two clauses, but one is 
understood in terms of a particular semantic relation (temporal, causal, etc.) to each 
other. Typical subordinators are after, if, whenever, although. 
Clause complexes based on complementation. Complementation
represents a closer integration of clauses, in that one clause functions as a 
participant in another. There are different syntactic forms that a complement clause 
can take. A complement clause functions as the subject or the object of the main 
verb. The complement clause may appear as: 
- an infinitive without to, e.g.: I saw them break into the house; 
- “to”-infinitive, e.g.: To finish it in time was impossible. I advise you to wait 
a while. I want to go there myself;
- “ing”-form of the verb, e.g.: I avoided meeting them. I can’t imagine him 
saying that; 
- subordinate clause, introduced by that or question words e.g.: I hope that 
we will see each other again soon, I wonder what we should do. 
Clause fusions represent the highest degree of integration. It occurs when
two clauses fuse into a single clause, e.g.: These cars are expensive to repair. One 
could “unpack” this sentence into two independent clauses, designating two 
different processes: “someone repairing the cars” and “this process is expensive”. 
In the example the two clausal conceptions have fused into one. We characterize 
the cars as “expensive” with respect to a certain process. (For details see: Taylor 
J.R. Cognitive Grammar. 2002).
Summing it all up, it is necessary to mention that sentence classifications 
proposed by different linguists within a cognitive approach are aimed at grouping 
sentences on the basis of their formal properties in relation to the concepts they 
represent as well as the conceptual mechanisms which enable the creation of 
different types of sentences (cognitive functions of Figure and Ground in 
L.Talmy’s conception or operations of conceptual integration in J.R. Taylor’s
typology). It is evident that such like classifications bear the status of more unified 
theories of sentences compared to the classifications introduced within the
traditional approaches to syntax. Traditional syntax profiles the formal 
characteristics of syntactic units which results in the strict division: “the simple 
sentence, the composite sentence: the complex and the compound sentences”. 
Sentence classifications proposed within a cognitive approach profile the concepts 
represented by syntactic constructions, conceptual mechanisms which determine 
the production of different types of sentence and which in the most general sense 
reflect the basic conceptualization processes. “Cognitive” classifications, by their 
nature, are more likely to show that the distinctive features of sentence types form 
a continuum rather than discreet categories which reflect the work of human mind. 

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