SYNTACTIC PROCESSES IN MODERN ENGLISH (EXPANDING AND NARROWING SENTENCES)

Abstract

In the modern English grammar, until recently, there was no specific term for the process of expansion (compound or complex) or contraction (compression) of sentences; in some works, the term composite sentence was encountered (B. A. Ilish); in the manuals of the 20th and 21st centuries, a new one appears – multiple sentence. “It should be noted that British and American grammar books tend to interpret the term “clause” far more loosely: it is generally applied to simple sentences, when regarded in their structural aspect, and various gram- matically arranged constituents of which sentences (simple or multiple) are composed, including noun and verb phrases and predicative constructions with verbals” (A New University Grammar, 2003). Sentences are divided by the number and type of relationships between predicative units. Traditionally, there are two types: parataxis and hypotaxis. In parataxis, parts of the extended sentence are coordinated; in parataxis, they are subordinated. This study focuses on both the extension and contraction of sentences. The material for this work is a few examples collected by random sampling from the works of classics of English literature, such as P. G. Wodehouse, Jerome K Jerome, W. Thackeray, F. Scott Fitzgerald (Selected prose) and modern writers as Stephen Fry (The stars’ tennis balls), Louise Erdrich, Stephenie Meyer and others. The materials of such outstanding scientists as B. A. Ilish (“Structure of the English language”, “Modern English”), Graddol D. (“the Future of English”), A. A. Ionina (“Global English”), V. V. Burlakov (“ Theoretical grammar of the English language”) and others are also used.