Table Of Content1. the principles of distinction of the secondary parts of the sentence.
2. The definition of the object. The ways of expressing object.
3. Structural classification of the object.
4. Types of objects.
5. Objects to verb: direct, indirect, cognate.
6. Objects to adjective, statives, adverbs.
7. The definition and the ways of expressing of the attributes.
8. Detached and nondetached attributes.
9. The status of the attribute.
10. E definition of the adverbial modifier.
11. Obligatory and non-obligatory adverbials.
12. Ways of expressing adverbial modifier.
1. the principles of distinction of the secondary parts of the
sentence.
Raevska
The secondary parts of the sentence are classified according to the syntactic
relations between sentence elements. These relations differ in character.
Oppositional relations between the principal and secondary parts of the sentence
are quite evident. The former are the core of the communicative unit, the latter
develop the core as being a) immediately related to some of the sentence-
elements or b) related to the predicative core as a whole.
The closest bond is commonly observed in attributive relationships.
Attributive adjuncts expand sentence-elements rather than the sentence itself.
His possessive instinct, subtler, less formal, more elastic since the War, kept
all misgivings underground. (Galsworthy) The second type of non-predicative
bond, the completive one, is more loose. It develops the sentence in another
way. In this type of bond the secondary parts relate, to the predicative core as
a whole.
The same number of the unemployed, winter and summer, in storm or calm ,
in good times or bad, held this melancholy midnight rendezvous at
Fleishmann's bread box. (Dreiser) The completive bond can expand the
sentence indefinitely.
sentence indefinitely.
The copulative bond connects syntactically equivalent sentence elements.
With the money he earned he bought novels, dictionaries and maps browsed
through the threepenny boxes in the basement of a secondhand bookshop
downtown. (Sillitoe) In actual speech various types of syntactic bond can
actualise various types of syntactic meaning. Thus, for instance, both process
and qualitative relationship can find their expression in: (a) the attributive
bond an easy task;
playing boys;
(b) the completive bond I found the task; I found the boys playing;
(c) the predicative bond The task was easy; The boys were playing.
Korbina
The theory of the secondary parts is one of the last developed sections of
linguistics. The usual classification of these parts into objects, attributes, and
adverbial modifiers is familiar to everyone, no matter what his mother tongue
may be and what foreign language he may study. Yet it has many weak points.
The characteristic features of each of the three types are not clearly defined, and
describing a given word or phrase as an object or an attribute in some cases, or
again describing it as an object or an adverbial modifier, in others, often proves
to be a matter of personal opinion or predilection. Such statements then lack all
scientific value. Indeed, with some scholars the theory of secondary parts of the
sentence as usually given has been discredited to such an extent that they have
attempted to discard it altogether. For instance, Prof. A. Peshkovsky, in his very
valuable book on Russian syntax, does not use the notions of object, attribute,
and adverbial modifier at all. Instead, he classifies the secondary parts of a
sentence into those which are governed and those which are not.1 The notion of
government, however, properly belongs to the level of phrases, not to that of the
sentence and its parts. So we will not follow Peshkovsky in this method of
classification. But his decision to do without the traditional categories of
secondary parts is very instructive as an attempt to do away with a method
whose weaknesses he realised well enough.
We will now look at the three traditional secondary parts of a sentence
(object, attribute, and adverbial modifier) and try to find out on what
principles their distinction is based and what objective criteria can be found to
principles their distinction is based and what objective criteria can be found to
identify them. Apart from that there will be a special problem concerning the
attribute.
The object is usually defined in some such way as this: It is a secondary part of
the sentence, referring to a part of the sentence expressed by a verb, a noun, a
substantival pronoun, an adjective, a numeral, or an adverb, and denoting a thing
to which the action passes on, which is a result of the action, in reference to
which an action is committed or a property is manifested, or denoting an action
as object of another action.
2. The definition of the object. The ways of expressing object.
Raevska
The object is a linguistic unit serving to make the verb more complete, more
special, or limit its sphere of distribution.
The divergency of relations between verbs and their objects is manifold. The
completive bond in many, if not in all, languages covers a wide and varied range
of structural meaning. This seems to be a universal linguistic feature and may be
traced in language after language. But though English shares this feature with a
number of tongues its structural development has led to such distinctive
idiosyncratic traits as deserve a good deal of attention.
A verb-phrase has frequently a dual nature of an object and an adverbial
modifier. Structures of this sort are potentially ambiguous and are generally
distinguished by rather subtle formal indications aided by lexical probability.
The syntactic value of linguistic elements in a position of object is naturally
conditioned by the lexical meaning of the verb, its related noun and their
correlation. Regrettable mistakes occur if this is overlooked.
The dichotomic classification into prepositional and prepositionless objects
seems practical and useful. It is to be noted, however, that the division based on
the absence or presence of the preposition must be taken with an important point
of reservation concerning the objects which have two forms: prepositional and
prepositionless depending on the word-order in a given phrase, e. g.: to show
him the book — to show the book to him; to give her the letter — to give the
letter to her.
The trichotomic division of objects into direct, indirect and prepositional has its
The trichotomic division of objects into direct, indirect and prepositional has its
own demerits. It is based on different criteria which in many cases naturally
leads to the overlap of indirect and prepositional classes.
Object relations cannot be studied without a considerable reference to the lexical
meaning of the verb.
Instances are not few when putting an object after the verb changes the lexical
meaning of the verb. And there is a system behind such developments in the
structure of English different from practice in other languages.
Korbina
The object is a secondary part of the sentence referring to some other part of the
sentence and expressed by a verb, an adjective, a stative or, very seldom, an
adverb completing, specifying, or restricting its meaning.
She has bought a car. I’m glad to see you. She was afraid of the dog. He did it
unexpectedly to himself.
The object can be expressed by:
1. A noun in the common case or a nominal phrase, a substantivized adjective or
participle.
I saw the boys two hours ago. The nurses were clad in grey. First of all she
attended to the wounded. Greedily he snatched the bread and butter from the
plate.
2. A noun-pronoun. Personal pronouns are in the objective case, other pronouns
are in the common case, or in the only form they have.
I don’t know anybody here. I could not find my own car, but I saw hers round
the corner. He says he did not know that.
3. A numeral or a phrase with a numeral.
At last he found three of them high up in the hills.
4. A gerund or a gerundial phrase.
He insists on coming. A man hates being run after.
5. An infinitive or an infinitive phrase.
She was glad to be walking with him. Every day I had to learn how to spell
She was glad to be walking with him. Every day I had to learn how to spell
pages of words.
6. Various predicative complexes.
She felt the child trembling all over. I want it done at once. Everything depends
on your coming in time.
7. A clause (then called an object clause) which makes the whole sentence a
complex one.
I don’t know what it was. He thought of what he was to say to all of them.
Thus from the point of view of their structure, objects may be simple, phrasal,
complex or clausal.*
3. Structural classification of the object.
The complexity of the object as a sentence member makes difficult to work out
an adequate approach to describing this phenomenon. Different classifications of
objects have been proposed both by Russian and foreign scholars. The most
common ones are as follows: 1. Objects are divided into direct, indirect and
prepositional. This classification is far from perfect since the principle it is based
on is not consistent. Direct and indirect objects are singled out on the basis of the
contents while prepositional objects are differentiated based on the formal
feature (presence of preposition). Besides, indirect and prepositional objects can
overlap.
2. Objects are grouped into prepositional and non-prepositional.The drawback of
this classification is that the underlying principle is not specific uniquely to
objects.
3. Prof. Pocheptsov singles out the following types of objects:
Object object (дополнение объекта) is a sentence member dependent on the
verb, adjective or a word of the category of state that denotes an object of action
or of quality. It can be prepositional or non-prepositional.
Addressee object (дополнение адресата) denotes a person or an object to which
some action performed by the subject (if the verb is in the Active Voice) is
directed.
e.g. I called her.
prepositional: I sent a letter to her.
non-prepositional: I sent her a letter.
Subject object (дополнение субъекта) is used with a verb in Passive and
denotes the doer of the action expressed by the verb. It is always prepositional -
by/with N
4. Types of objects.
In attempting to identify the linguistic status of different kind of objects in
Modern English G. G. Pocheptsov advocates other criteria for their classification
based on the relation between the verb and its object in the syntactic structure of
the sentence. Due attention is given to the formal indications which, however,
are considered secondary in importance to content. The classification is based on
the dichotomy of the two basic types:object-object and addressee-object. The
former embraces the traditional direct object and the prepositional object as its
two sub-types. The addressee-object has two variants different in form:
prepositionless and prepositional. The object of result, cognate object, etc., are
considered to have no status as object types and are but particular groupings
within the boundaries of the two basic types of object outlined above1. This may
be diagrammed as follows: Types of Object Object-object Addressee-
object Sub-types of Object direct ,prepositional
Types of Bond prepositionless,
prepositional prepositionless,prepositional Examples:
He knew this. He knew of this. He gave me a letter. He gave a letter to
me.
The identification of object relations from the above given angle of view is not
devoid of logical foundation and seems practical and useful.
Verb-phrases with Prepositionless Object
To identify the semantic and structural traits of different variants of verb-phrases
we shall compare the following: (A) dig ground, meet our friends, build a
house, observe the stars, etc.
(B) walk the streets, sit a horse, smile a sunny smile, bow one's thanks, nod
approval, etc.
With all their similarity, the two types of verb-phrases differ es-sentially in their
With all their similarity, the two types of verb-phrases differ es-sentially in their
syntactic content. The former imply that the person or thing is directly affected
by the action, i. e. the action is directed to the object which completes the verbal
idea and limits it at the same time. The duty of the object in examples (B) is to
characterise the action; the phrase therefore is descriptive of something that is
felt as characteristic of the action itself.
Phrases of group (A) are fairly common. A limiting object may be expressed by
nouns of different classes, concrete and abstract, living beings and inanimate
things, names of material, space and time. The range of verbs taking such kind
of objects is known to be very wide.
Phrases of group (B) are somewhat limited in their use. The range of verbs
taking such descriptive objects is rather small. Many patterns of this kind are
idiosyncratic in their character. Some verbs which are generally intransitive
acquire a transitive meaning only in such collocation.
Objects of group (A) are functionally identical in their limiting character but are
contrasted to each other in the following terms: 1) the outer character of the
action: the object is acted upon without any inner change in the object itself, as
in: dig the ground, clean the blackboard, apply the rule, dress the child, take a
book, send a letter, etc.; 2) the inner character of the action: the object is
acted upon, which results in some inner changes in the object itself: improving
the method, injured the tree, weakened the meaning, intensified the idea, etc.;
3) the resultative character of the action. This kind of objects presents no
difficulty and no particular interest, e. g.: painted a picture, made the dress,
wrote a monograph, built a house, etc The same kind of object is obvious after
verbs like beget, create, develop, draw, construct, invent, manufacture, etc.
In terms of transformational analysis, phrases of group (A) are characterised by
the following: 1) pronominal transformation — noun-objects may be replaced
by corresponding pronominal forms, e. g.: dug it, dressed it, took it, washed it
(the linen), violated it (the rule), etc.
2) transformation through nominalisation: dig the ground — digging the
ground;
violating the rule — the violation of the rule;
he approved our choice — his approval of our choice.
3) adjectivisation:
she washed her linen — her washed linen; he deserted his friend — his deserted
friend; forgot his promise — forgetful of his promise.
Verb-phrases of group (B) have some characteristic features of their own.
Compare the following:
(a) He writes a good letter;
(b) He writes a good hand.
He strikes me as capable, orderly, and civil; I don't see what more you want in a
clerk. He writes a good hand, and so far I can see he tells the truth. (Galsworthy)
Phrases of group (B) can have overlapping relations of manner and consequence:
Such are phrases with the so-called cognate object 1, e. g.: to live a life, to fight
a fight, to laugh a laugh, to smile a sunny smile, to fight a battle, etc.
The syntactic content of such verb-phrases can be adequately explained by
transformational analysis, e. g.: He has fought the good fight → ...has fought so
as to produce the good fight.
He lived the life of an exile →... his manner of living was that of an exile.
Combinations of this kind are found with verbs that are otherwise intransitive
(live, smile).
Phrases with the cognate object are stylistic alternatives of corresponding simple
verbs: to live a life = to live; to smile a smile = to smile, etc. functioning as an
easy means of adding some descriptive trait to the predicate which it would be
difficult to add to the verb in some other form. To fight the good fight, for
instance, is semantically different from to fight well; he laughed his usual
careless laugh is not absolutely synonymous with he laughed carelessly as usual.
Cognate objects commonly have attributive adjuncts attached to them.
Having said that Jolyon was ashamed. His cousin had flushed a dusky yellowish
red. What had made him tease the poor brute? (Galsworthy) He laughed
suddenly a ringing free laugh that startled the echoes in the dark woods.
(Mitchell) She frowned at his facetiousness — a pretty, adorable frown that
made him put his arm around her and kiss it away. (London) Winter snowed its
snow, created a masterpiece of arctic mist and rain until a vanguard convoy of
warm days turned into Easter, with supplies of sun run surreptitiously through
from warmer lands. (Sillitoe) The chief point of linguistic interest is presented
by V + N phrases with intransitive verbs where the relations between verb and
noun lead to the formation of special lexical meanings. The use of verbs which
are otherwise semantically intransitive in V + N patterns is fairly com mon.
Verbs involved in such syntactic relations undergo considerable semantic
changes. Some of them acquire a causative meaning, e. g. to run a horse, to run a
business, walk the horses, etc.
Verbs of seeing, such as to look, gaze, stare, glare, which are generally used with
a prepositional object, when employed in V + N patterns develop the meaning
"to express by looking", as in: She looked her surprise; He said nothing but
glanced a question; She stared her discontent.
Similarly: to breathe relief, to sob repentance, to roar applause, to smile
appreciation, to bray a laugh and still others.
As we see, patterns of this sort are frequent with verbs which are otherwise
intransitive, as in: "Because..." Brissenden sipped his toddy and smiled
appreciation of it. (London)
Further examples are:
She nodded approval.
He bowed his thanks.
She beamed satisfaction.
She laughed her thanks.
He breathed his astonishment.
He could only stare his surprise.
Somewhat related to these formations are such grammatical idioms where some
special addition to a secondary word cannot conveniently be expressed by means
of a subject: a predicative-word is consequently loosely attached to the sentence
as the bearer of the specialisation in the form of modifier, as in: her face was
very pale, a greyish pallor.
Not infrequently modifying words are introduced by the preposition with.
Not infrequently modifying words are introduced by the preposition with.
Consider the following examples: Not much give and take about Desert —
restless, disharmonic, and a poet! And proud — with that inner self-depreciation
pride which never let up on a man. (Galsworthy) Similarly:
She was pretty, with the prettiness of twenty.
He was sick with a sickness more than of a body, a sickness of mind.
5. Objects to verb: direct, indirect, cognate.
Korbin a
. From the point of view of their value and grammatical peculiarities, four types
of objects can be distinguished in English: the direct object, the indirect object,
and the cognate object.
1. The direct object is a non-prepositional one that follows transitive verbs,
adjectives, or statives and completes their meaning. Semantically it is usually a
non-person which is affected by the action of the verb, though it may also be a
person or a situation. The situation is expressed by a verbal, a verbal phrase, a
complex, or by a clause.
I wrote a poem.
You like arguing, don’t you?
Who saw him leave?
I don’t know what it all means.
She was ready to sing.
When the direct object is expressed by an infinitive (or an infinitive phrase or a
clause) it may be preceded by the formal introductory object it (see § 78).
I find it exciting to watch tennis.
He found it hard to believe the girl.
2. The indirect object also follows verbs, adjectives and statives. Unlike the
direct object, however, it may be attached to intransitive verbs as well as to
transitive ones. Besides, it may also be attached to adverbs, although this is very
rare.
From the point of view of their semantics and certain grammatical characteristics
