The Classification of Words

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We should naturally consider the analysis of a word in­complete without its combinability. But for some reason the combinability of sentences is not regarded important. One might think that each sentence is an absolutely indepen­dent unit, that its forms and meanings do not depend on its neighbours in speech. But it is not so. As H. Kufner has it, "In a very real sense very few groups of words which we would unanimously punctuate as sentences can really be called com­plete or capable of standing alone ... Most of the-sentences that we speak ... are dependent on what has been said before". ¹
It goes without saying that in a book of this kind the uninvestigated problem of the combinability of sentences cannot get adequate treatment. We can only point out some lines of approach.
§ 417. As we have already noted (§ 399), the demarcation line between a sentence and a combination of sentences is very vague. Some part of a simple or composite sentence may become detached from the rest and pronounced after a pause with the intonation of a separate sentence. In writing this is often marked by punctuation. Here are some examples from A Cup of Tea by Mansfield.

She'd only to cross the pavement.
Give me four bunches of those.
Give me those stumpy little tulips.
But still she waited. And that jar of roses. Those red and white ones.

The connection between such sentences is quite evident. The word-combination those red and white ones can make a communication only when combined with some sentence whose predication is understood to refer to the word-combi­nation as well.
But even in case a sentence has its own predication, it may depend on some other sentence, or be coordinated with it, or otherwise connected, so that they form a combination of sentences. In the first of the examples above this connection is expressed by the conjunction but. The following sentences are connected by the pronominal subjects.
piece of writing or talking. These can be investigated by more differen­tiated tools."
¹ H. Kufner, op. cit., p. 1—2.
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Rosemary had been married two years. She had a duck of a boy ... They were rich. (Mansfield). ^l
The sentences below are connected by what we might be tempted to call 'pronominal predicates', and by the implicit repetition of the notional predicate (group) of the first sentence.
Come home to tea with me. Why won't you? Do. (Mansfield).
The second sentence might be extended at the expense of the first into Why won't you come? or even Why won't you come home to tea with me! Similarly, the third sentence is understood by the listener as Do come, or Do come home to tea with me. .