The order of words in an English sentence is observed much more strictly than in Russian. The Russian language is rich in endings and therefore has a freer word order, because they show the function of each word in a sentence. English words cannot boast of an abundance of endings and their relationship to each other is shown through place in a sentence, and not through form. This is the reason for the fixed word order in English. You cannot change the places of various parts of a sentence, especially the subject and object. Let's, for a more clear example, try to make sentences in English and swap words.

Mr. Smith sent the boys to school. – The boys sent Mr. Smith to school.

In Russian, we would say in the second case - “Mr. Smith sent the boys to school” - the meaning of the sentence is clear. In the English version, it turned out that the boys sent Mr. Smith to school - this is no good anymore, we urgently need to learn how to construct sentences in English!

English sentence structure

Let's look at the standard sentence scheme and at the same time examine the example already given above.

Subject (Mr. Smith) + predicate (sent) + object (the boys) + adverbial (to school).

Construction of an English sentence, diagram

Subject

The subject can be either a single word or a group of words that represent an animate or inanimate object that performs an action. It can be expressed as a noun, pronoun, substantivized adjective, numeral, infinitive and word form ending in –ing.

Three of the parcels were from my uncle. – Three parcels were from my uncle.

Knitting became her hobby. – Knitting became her hobby.

Predicate

Thanks to the predicate, we find out what happens to the subject. It can also be represented by one (simple verb) or several words - the latter group includes compound nominal and verbal predicates.

The nominal part of a compound predicate follows after the linking verb and can be expressed as a noun, adjective, numeral, infinitive, pronoun and –ing form.

Second sequential action

Often the sentence indicates the next action that occurs after the action of the predicate. The second action is expressed by the impersonal form of the verb - the infinitive, the –ing form and the gerund.

She turned her head to see him looking at her. (She turned her head and saw him looking at her.)

She walked in singing a song. (She came in and sang a song.)

Addition

Objects can be expressed by a noun, pronoun, infinitive, substantive adjective and –ing form.

• The addition can be direct or direct (answers the questions of whom? What?).

  I saw him yesterday. – I saw him yesterday.

  They were busy packing. - They were busy collecting things.

• Indirect or indirect without pretext (to whom?).

  She offered Ashley a new position. “She offered Ashley a new position.

• Indirect with the prepositions to, for – Object of the Preposition (for whom? with whom? about what? about whom?).

  We have been waiting for you since morning. – We have been waiting for you since the morning.

  If there are several additions in a sentence, then the following diagram will help to place them correctly after the predicate.

• Indirect Object + Direct Object

  I gave Edward the car. – I gave Edward the car. (First who, then what.)

• Direct Object + Object of the Preposition

  I gave my car on rent. – I rented a car. (First what, and then where - with a preposition).

Circumstance

Circumstances show where, when, why and other conditions under which the action could occur. Let's look at the types of circumstances and examples with them.

Please note: the place of the adverb in an English sentence corresponds to the place of the adverb. When setting, be guided by the order in which the adverbial modifiers were listed above.

You may also encounter accompanying circumstances, circumstances of description, purposes, reasons, comparisons, sequences, concessions, conditions and reservations.

If there are several circumstances, then you should first use those that relate to the course of action, and then those indicating the place and time.

If there are several circumstances of one group, then you should first put the one whose meaning is more specific, and then the one with a general concept.

My train is at 7 o’clock on Sunday.

Sentence constructions in English

Definition

The order of adjectives in an English sentence, as well as nouns, pronouns, infinitives, –ing forms, and sometimes adverbs that act as modifiers, depends on whether their relationship with the noun being modified is close or not.

A large cat jumped on my bad. – A big cat jumped onto my bed. (Close connection).

He is not a friend to rely on. “He’s not the kind of friend you can rely on.” (Close connection.)

Painted yellow, the boat looked like a lemon. – Painted yellow, the boat looked like a lemon. (Free communication.)

Reverse word order

This is an order (also called inversion) in which the subject is placed after the predicate.

Hasn't he any friends? - Doesn't he have friends?

Inversion is required in certain types of sentences; let’s look at them in more detail.

• Interrogative sentences.

  In most of them, the inversion is partial, because only part of the compound predicate is placed before the subject, namely the auxiliary or modal verb.

  Where did they eat yesterday? -Where did they eat yesterday?

  The entire predicate is placed before the subject when it is expressed by the verbs to be and to have.

  Please note: the word order in a question is maintained when the question word is a subject or a subject modifier: Who understands English here? What book are you reading?

• Suggestions are entered there.

  There is nothing surprising in his behavior. “There is nothing surprising in his behavior.”

• Complex sentences.

  The second part of which begins with so or neither.

  She decided to learn English, so did her sister. – She decided to learn English, and so did her sister.

• Simple exclamatory sentences.

  Expressing desire.

  Be it so!

  May you have the day filled with happiness and joy! – May your day be filled with happiness and joy!

You can always repeat this topic using a video lesson:

Sometimes the syntactic analysis of an English sentence can be difficult due to the fact that the form of the word is unclear and therefore it is unclear what part of speech is in front of us. In Russian, suffixes and endings accurately characterize the part of speech: the indefinite form of the verb ends in -т, -ти (ask, carry). Nouns are characterized by the suffixes -chik (pilot); -tel (teacher); -ets (businessman), etc.; for adjectives the suffixes -iv (beautiful); -sk (rural), etc. In addition, case endings help determine which part of speech a given word belongs to.

The situation is completely different in the English language, in which there are no case endings (the only surviving ending of the possessive case "s" characterizes the noun: Petrov's report - Petrov's report; a wetek's absence - weekly absence, etc.). There are a number of multifunctional suffixes and endings found in various parts of speech, namely:

The English language has a very large number of grammatical homonyms - words that have the same spelling and sound, but belong to different parts of speech. In some cases, words belonging to the same homonymous group have the same origin and are related by common semantics, for example: limit- border, limit, and limit- limit, head- head and head- lead. In other cases, homonym words have no semantic relationship and only coincidentally coincide in pronunciation and spelling, for example: sound- healthy and sound- strait.

The English dictionary clearly shows this characteristic feature of the English language and gives examples of how the same word acts as a verb and a noun, an adjective and an adverb, etc. Yes, word still has the following four meanings:

In English, new words are often created by so-called root word formation, in which a new part of speech is formed without adding a suffix. Sometimes a noun is formed from a verb in this way, for example: to stand(stand), stand(position), to stay(to be, to remain), stay(residence); to wash(wash) (a) wash(washing), etc.

In other cases, a verb is formed from a noun: iron(iron, iron), to iron(ironing, ironing); number(number, quantity), to number(to count); cause(cause), to cause(cause, bind); border(border), to border(border); form(form), to form(form, form); man(person, man) to man(recruit a team, staff), etc.

Some English nouns, which have suffixes characteristic of this part of speech, began to be used as a verb, for example: condition(condition), to condition(to condition); occasion(happening), to occasion(cause, cause); implement(tool, tool) to implement(realize); instrument(tool), to instrument(instrument), etc.

The presence of a large number of homonyms in the English language makes translation very difficult; it is necessary to acquire the skill of accurately recognizing parts of speech in a sentence, guided by the following rule:

In this regard, syntactic parsing of a sentence is closely related to morphological parsing.
An example of analyzing a sentence by parts of speech:

Compare the word: in the first example before man there is a demonstrative pronoun this, which can only apply to him, so man can only be a noun.

In the second example the word man comes after an auxiliary verb shall- an indicator of the future tense, which must be followed by the infinitive of the semantic verb. Since all other words in the sentence cannot be infinitives ( our- possessive pronoun; ship- a noun that modifies this possessive pronoun, in- pretext, this- demonstrative pronoun and port-the noun to which this demonstrative pronoun refers), we come to the conclusion that man must be an infinitive verb since no other word in the sentence can be a verb. Our conclusion is confirmed in the dictionary, where the meaning of the word is given man as a verb "to recruit a command."

Usually from an elementary English course you know the word long in the meaning of the adjective "long". However, in this example it seems out of place in this meaning; besides, the adjective, as a rule, comes before the noun it defines, here the noun peoples standing in front long, and the prepositional phrase of the noun (for) peace worth after long, so it cannot define either noun. We do a morphological analysis of the sentence:

According to the place occupied in the sentence (to the right of the subject), long must be the predicate of the sentence, therefore it is a verb. Checking the dictionary, we find that long, as a verb, means “to thirst, to ardently desire,” etc.

As mentioned above, in imperative sentences (order, request), the subject is omitted, and therefore the sentence begins with a predicate, for example: Put down this expression!- “Write down this expression!” However, it can be difficult to understand which part of speech is in front of us and which member of the sentence it is in those cases when the predicate in the imperative form is expressed by a word whose use as a verb is unusual, for example:

Words bottle, milk, iron learned in the meaning of the nouns “bottle, milk, iron”; however, syntactic and morphological analysis of the sentence helps to establish that these are verbs in the imperative form, while the verbs are transitive, requiring a direct object, since all three nouns bottle, milk, iron, which do not have a preposition in front of them, must be the direct object of the word in front.

Having learned a little (but quite enough) about nouns and verbs, let's move on to another extremely important topic - word order. Although the lesson is relatively overview, please be careful as you study it - the theoretical information learned today will be used in almost everything later in the course.

To begin with, we should remember that there are five (main) members of a sentence:
subject, predicate, addition, definition And circumstance.

The members of a sentence can be expressed by different parts of speech: noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, numeral and others (which we, of course, will talk about later).

For translation, it is very important to find out first of all which member of the sentence a particular word is. And the word order of an English sentence helps us significantly with this.

But first, a few words about the members of the sentence. Their definition is practically no different from the definition in Russian.

The Subject

The Subject is a member of a sentence that denotes the subject about which something is said in the sentence. It answers the question who? Who? or what? What?.

Note!!! Very often, language learners mistakenly believe that the subject (especially what is called The Subject in English) is expressed by a name (noun, numeral) or pronoun. This is completely wrong!

The subject can be expressed by: noun, pronoun, numeral, infinitive and gerund (one of the non-finite forms of the verb, which we will talk about later. For now, just remember this).

The Predicate

The Predicate is called a member of a sentence that denotes what is said about the subject. The predicate answers the questions: what does the subject do? what is done with the subject? who, what is he/she/it?

There are two types of predicate - simple and compound. In the next lessons we will look at the simple predicate, and we will talk about compound predicates later. Just remember that a simple predicate is expressed by a verb in the personal form in any tense, voice and mood.

Addition (The Object)

Addition (The Object) is called a minor member of a sentence, which denotes the subject and answers questions corresponding in Russian to questions of indirect cases, both without a preposition and with a preposition: whom? whom? what? What? to whom? to whom? by whom? by whom? about what? about what? etc.

Note: there are two types of cases - direct and indirect.

Direct case- nominative (answers the question who? what?). Accordingly, genitive (whom? what?), dative (to whom? what?), accusative (whom? what?), instrumental (by whom? what?) and locative (on whom? on what?) are indirect.

Let's say just a few words about definitions and circumstances - to complement the overall picture. We will return to them in more detail, studying adjectives and adverbs.

Definition (The Attribute)

The Attribute called a minor member of a sentence, which denotes a feature of the subject and answers questions Which? whose? which? Which? How many? The definition usually refers to a noun. Much less often it refers to pronouns-nouns.

The Adverbial Modifier

Circumstances (The Adverbial Modifier) called the minor members of the sentence, which indicate how or under what circumstances ( those. where, when, why, why, etc.) the action is performed. Adverbs usually refer to the verb.

Now we have all the necessary information to understand the word order in an English sentence.

Know that, unlike a Russian sentence with a free word order (which is possible due to the fact that, recall, the Russian language is synthetic and, therefore, the connection between words is “contained” in the words themselves), an English sentence has a fixed (fixed) word order, which can be represented in the most general terms in the diagram.

Subject And predicate are the “core” of an English sentence, that is, those members that are usually present in every sentence. Therefore, when analyzing a sentence, you should first of all find the subject and predicate, and then determine the remaining members of the sentence in relation to them.

Addition, if present, is found after the predicate. This means that having an English sentence of three words not connected by any prepositions, we can confidently say that the first word is the subject, the second is the predicate, and the third is the object.

Let's take, for example, the sentence

Students face problems.

First word students- subject expressed by a plural noun. including students.

The subject is followed by the predicate, which means the word face- the verb to face (and not the noun a face), one of the meanings of which is to face (face to face).

Following the predicate, according to the fixed word order, comes the object problems.

So the sentence should be translated as follows: "Students face (many) problems".

And if we swapped the words students And problems, then you would get an offer "Problems face students", and then would be forced to translate it as follows: "Problems Students Face", despite the fact that it sounds absurd.

Circumstance usually found at the end or beginning of a sentence, but it also occurs in the middle of a sentence (most often in the form of an adverb of indefinite time). Nouns that are part of an adverbial clause usually have a definite article.

Definition can define any member of a sentence and is usually located before or after the word being defined, so it can be in any part of the sentence. Definition often makes it difficult to understand the structure of a sentence, especially when it is expressed not in one word, but in a group of words or a subordinate clause. Therefore, during the initial analysis of a sentence, common definitions can be “isolated” to identify the main members - the subject and the predicate.

Let's summarize what we need to know:
A) in an English sentence, the location of the word determines which member of that sentence it is; changing the order of words in a sentence leads to a change in its meaning;
b) the same word, depending on the modifiers (as well as its place in the sentence) can denote different parts of speech.

What else do you need to know:

Despite the fixed order of words in an English sentence, there are several cases of deviation from direct word order, called inversion, which are caused by various reasons. Among them:

• interrogative formation
• the need to especially highlight one or another member of the sentence
• need to improve sentence rhythm

Naturally, all these cases will be considered in our lessons. Remember that the most common reason is the formation of a question form; you will practically never encounter the other two on the Internet.

• It– subject;
• was a house– compound nominal predicate, where was– linking verb;
• a house– predicative member;
• gentle old-fashioned– homogeneous members – definitions to the predicative member;
• quiet and orderly– isolated homogeneous members – definitions to the predicative member;
• very– a circumstance of degree to these homogeneous members – definitions.

Exercise. Determine which parts of the sentence are introduced by the prepositions with, by and to. Translate the sentences into Russian.

with:
1)Mr. Peggotty ruffled his hair again with both hands. 2) The ship sank with all her passengers and cargo. 3) The mountains with all their beauty did not appeal to them. 4) Anyone will improve his spelling with patience. 5) A large dog rushed past the house, with its tail down and the tongue out. 6) Do you see the tall young woman with blue eyes and with a basket on her arm? 7) Let us then step into the coach with the Russell Square family. 8) Do you like to play with children? 9) Go into the house at once, you are blue with cold.

by:
1) Sit by me.
2) This carpet is sold by the square yard.
3) Trams are driven by electricity.
4) Who is standing by the window?
5) Many people travel by air.

for:
1) I could not sleep for the flies. 2) As it was very dark, we were taken for somebody else.

to:
1) “O heavenly, heavenly flowers,” exclaimed Miss Sharp and smelled them delicately and held them to her bosom, and cast up her eyes to the ceiling in an ecstasy of admiration. 2) I handed the letter to the secretary. 3) We opened the door to the office. 4) I hope you will find it to your own advantage.

Parsing by sentence members, like any other type of grammatical parsing, requires a conscious attitude of students towards it; therefore, analysis by members of a sentence cannot be done mechanically, from the first word in the sentence, without taking into account what member it is, what its relationship to other members of the sentence is.

1. Name the main members of the sentence (subject and predicate);
2. In relation to each member of the sentence being analyzed, whether expressed in one word or a combination of words, it is necessary to indicate: a) which word or member of the sentence does it refer to? b) what question does it answer?

In addition, before starting to analyze the members of the sentence, it is advisable to give a general description of the proposal, indicating which of the types and types of simple sentence it is:

1. declarative, interrogative, imperative or exclamatory;
2. two-part or one-part;
3. common or uncommon;
4. complete or incomplete;
5. definitely personal, indefinitely personal or impersonal.

It is possible to distinguish groups of subject and predicate.

Sometimes the prepositional phrase of a noun appears in a sentence or definition, or circumstance.

The definition in English is characterized by its place immediately after the defined, therefore, although the prepositional phrase of a noun gives an adverbial characteristic, it performs the function of a definition, but an adverbial definition.

Examples: The trees in the park were tall and stately. The brazen plate upon the door bore this description.

In the sentence As we passed, I remarked a beautiful church-spire rising above some old elms in the park – prepositional phrase of a noun– in the park- can also be understood as a circumstance to the participle rising and as a modifier (adverbial modifier) ​​to a noun elms.

Distinguishing definition from addition

Definition and indirect addition should be distinguished from circumstance:

The man with a gray beard. A man with a pink carnation. It was an evening dress, with a lace mantilla over it.

In all these sentences, the prepositional phrase of the noun is a modifier.

Other examples:

Olives from France, with Russian caviare, were placed on the little plates.

The cozy drawing-room, with its balcony facing the square, was flooded with light.

In these cases, the prepositional phrase is a separate object.

The girl with pretty black eyes (what girl?) reminded me of her mother. - definition

The girl looked at me with her black eyes. (How did she look at me?) - circumstance

Compare: The girl danced with infinite grace (in a graceful manner). - circumstance

When analyzing the sentence members, it turns out that in a number of cases the boundary between them turns out to be unclear: one or another sentence member may occupy an intermediate position between two syntactic categories. The difficulty that a student may experience during analysis is further aggravated by the fact that different members of a sentence are sometimes formed in the same way - for example, by combining a noun with the same preposition, i.e., the prepositional phrase of the noun.

Often there may be difficulties when distinguishing the following members of a sentence, expressed by the prepositional group of a noun:

1. indirect addition from circumstance;
2. definitions from circumstances;

Sometimes the prepositional group of a noun allows for a double interpretation: it is either an indirect addition or a circumstance in a sentence, depending on what content is seen in this prepositional group by the speaker or reader.

Both interpretations are correct. In Russian grammar it is proposed to introduce the term “adverbial addition” in this case.

Examples of distinguishing an indirect object from a circumstance

1. A little girl, playing one day in her fathers’s grounds, fell into a stream that flowed through the estate.

To prepositional phrases of a noun – into a stream, through the estate- There are two types of questions you can ask:

a) What did she fall into? What did the stream flow through? – i.e. these prepositional phrases are perceived by the speaker as indirect objects.

b) Where did she fall? Where did the stream flow? – i.e. the above prepositional groups of words are perceived by the speaker as adverbs of place.

To the prepositional group of words: in her father's grounds– it seems logical to ask the question: Where was she playing? – and not What was she playing in?

2. A small pony happened to be grazing on the rich grass that grew on the bank.

To the prepositional group of words - on the rich grass– it’s logical to ask the question: Where was the pony grazing? – since the question is: What was the pony grazing on? could be understood as: What was the pony feeding on?

To the prepositional group of words - on the bank– you can ask two questions: Where did the grass grow? What did the grass grow on?

3. The cries of his little mistress fell on his ears.

To the prepositional group of words - on its ears– you can only ask one question: What did they fall on?

4. Plunging into the stream (where?) it seized her frock between her teeth (between what?) and drew her ashore with such gentleness (how?) that she was not hurt by anything worse (by what?) than the fright.

Today we will look a little at the syntax of the English language, that is, we will look at what is happening inside English sentences.

Let's remember what a proposal is

We all know that a combination of words that express a complete thought is called a sentence. It consists of sentence members - words that answer a specific question. They, in turn, can be main and secondary.

The main ones are the subject (who? what?) and the predicate (what does?). Secondary ones are addition, definition and circumstances.

The sentences themselves can be simple or complex, while complex ones are divided into complex and complex.

In the first case, the simple sentences that make up a complex sentence are equal in meaning and they are connected by conjunctions. In the second, one simple sentence is subordinate in meaning to the second and is connected with it either by a conjunctive word or a subordinating conjunction.

Offers can be of the following types:

• narrative;
• interrogative;
• exclamation marks;
• incentive.

With the exception of the exclamation, they can be negative or affirmative. The syntax of the English language is in many ways similar to our native Russian.

Simple sentences in English

A simple sentence may be common or uncommon. The uncommon consists only of a subject and a predicate:

The car (subject) stopped (predicate). - The car stopped.

The sun (subject) is shining (predicate). - The sun is shining.

A common sentence must contain at least one of the minor members, which explains the main members of the sentence.

The blue (definition) car (subject) stopped (predicate) at the gate (adverbial). – The blue car stopped at the gate.

A subject with minor members related to it constitute a subject group (common subject). Accordingly, the predicate group is formed (common predicate).

Subject group: The blue car - Blue car

Predicate group: stopped at the gate. – stopped at the gate.

Subject group: A pretty young woman - A pretty young woman

Predicate group: came up to me. – came up to me.

Incomplete sentences in English: Incomplete

The syntax of the English language also implies the presence of incomplete sentences in the language structure. This is when individual main members in a simple sentence are omitted, while the completeness of the sentence is achieved by special intonation, and the meaning is made clear in context.

For example, an imperative sentence that does not contain a subject:

An exclamatory sentence that contains either a noun or an adjective:

One-part sentences in which the main member is expressed by a noun, gerund or infinitive:

Incomplete sentences are also a characteristic feature of colloquial speech.

Complete sentence Translation Incomplete sentence

We have just begun to understand the syntax of the English language and the structure of sentences. We invite everyone who studies English via Skype to reinforce this topic in class. And in the next article, look forward to the continuation and a detailed story about declarative sentences!

www.site. English via Skype – Veronika Language School.

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