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

Questions and tasks for discussion 
 
1. What are the main approaches to the study of the sentences in cognitive 
linguistics? 
2. What is essence of the notion “semantic constraints”? 
3. What semantic types of causation do we observe in English sentence? 
4. What is a configurational format? 
5. What is the essence of L. Talmy’s theory? 
6. How is the sentence classified in cognitive linguistics? 
TEXT AS AN OBJECT OF SYNTACTIC STUDY 
I. The inter-sentence connections in the text. 
II. The textual linguistics: history of the textual linguistics, categories of
textuality.
I. The inter-sentence connections in the text. 
Text is the unit of the highest (supersyntactic) level. It can be defined as a 
sequence of sentences connected logically and semantically which convey a 
complete message. The text is a language unit and it manifests itself in speech as 
discourse. Textlinguistics is concerned with the analysis of formal and structural 
features of the text. Textual basic integrative properties can be described with the 
help of the notions of coherence, cohesion and deixis. 
Coherence is a semantic or topical unity of the spoken or written text - that 
is, the sentences within the text are usually connected by the same general topic. 
Generally speaking, a coherent text is the text that 'sticks together' as a whole unit. 
Coherence is usually achieved by means of the theme and rheme progression. 
There exist various types of the theme and rheme progression, e.g. 
Naturally, in the process of text development different types of theme and 
rheme progression are combined. 
Cohesion is a succession of spoken or written sentences. Sometimes the 
sentences may even not coincide topically. The connection we want to draw 
between various parts of the text may be achieved by textual and lexical cohesion. 
Textual cohesion may be achieved by formal markers which express conjunctive 
relations and serve as text connectors. Text connectors may be of four different 
types: 
a) additive – and, furthermore, similarly, in addition, etc. 
b) adversative - but, however, on the other hand, infact, anyway, after all, 
nevertheless, etc. 
c) causal - so, consequently, for this reason, thus, etc. 
d) temporal- then, after that, finally, at last, in the long run, etc. 
The full list of text connectors is very long. Some of them do not possess 
direct equivalents in the Ukrainian language. At the same time it is impossible to 
speak and write English naturally without knowing for sure when and how to use 
text connectors of the English language. 

---

158 
Lexical cohesion occurs when two words in the text are semantically related 
in the same way - in other words, they are related in terms of their meaning. Two 
major categories of lexical cohesion are reiteration and collocation. Reiteration 
includes repetition, synonym or near synonym use and the use of general words. 
E.g. (1.) You could try driving the car up the slope. The incline isn't at all that 
steep. (2) Pneumonia arrives with the cold and wet conditions. The illness can 
strike everyone from infants to the elderly.