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Return to IEL Homepage Index Department of English Introduction to English Language Online Unit 6: The Structure of the Clause

Introduction

In Units 4 and 5, we looked briefly at the components of the clause. We established the five components of Subject, Verb, Object, Complement and Adjunct. In this unit we shall look at each of these components in more detail.

Class and Function

It is traditional in linguistics to assert two things which sometimes seem to conflict. First, as explained in Unit 3, it is said that word classes must be established on distributional rather than notional or referential grounds. Second, it is asserted that it is vital to distinguish between word classes and the functions which they perform in clauses. Let us illustrate with an example.

In this clause we have labelled the functional components as SVO and the word classes as noun, verb, noun. Here is another example:

These two clauses both have SVC structure, but one has an adjective at C (clever) and the other a noun phrase (a good mouser). We can see that it is necessary in principle to distinguish class from function, since nouns can have more than one function, and functional slots can be occupied by more than one class. In other words, we cannot map classes on to distributional facts on a one-to-one basis. However, there is only one label for the middle slot in all the above examples, whether we are talking about class or function: verb. This looks anomalous.

Some models of grammar accept the dual use of the term verb quite happily, on the grounds that the functional category V is always realised by a verb, so we do not need two labels. This seems to be the position adopted by Crystal. Other models argue that, in the interests of holding the two types of labelling consistently apart, we should use an alternative functional label: predicator. So instead of saying SVO, we would say SPO, retaining V simply as a class label. This is the position adopted by Freeborn (1987). From now on, we shall move to the Freeborn position, and when talking about the function of words in clauses, refer to the verb as a predicator. There is an additional advantage of this approach. The predicator in many clauses does not consist of one word, but several, each of which is a verb. For example, in You might have told me sooner! , the predicator is might have told and it consists of three different kinds of verb, joined together in what is often known as a verb phrase. Distinguishing between verb as class and predicator as functional slot makes the discussion of such verb phrases easier.

Activity 1

Words, Phrases and Clause Components

It should have become apparent by now that functional slots in the clause are not necessarily filled by a single word, but are just as likely to be filled by a group of words. We noted above that might have told is a verb phrase and a predicator, and that a good mouser is a noun phrase and a complement. In Unit 6, we also saw that noun phrases as Subjects can be extremely long, containing much embedded material, including other noun phrases, and even clauses. We shall explore the complexities of verb phrases and noun phrases in more detail later, but here we shall look at some relatively simple noun phrases to enable you to match them up with subjects and objects.

Any noun phrase consists of one word which is definitely a noun, plus other words either before or after it, or both. The noun which is the essential part of the phrase is known as the head. Words which come in front of it are known as modifiers, (also premodifiers), to distinguish them from words which come afterwards, which are known as qualifiers (also postmodifiers). Both sets of terms are common in the literature. We shall use modifier and qualifier here. A good mouser consists of the head noun mouser preceded by two other words. In the clause mice like chocolate, both subject and object are occupied by single nouns, but we can include these under the heading of noun phrases - they simply consist of one word in this case, without modifiers or qualifiers. The clause I do like that doggie in the window can be analysed as follows:

Any analysis of this kind can include or omit points of detail, depending on what you are trying to show. Here, we have not included more detailed information about the structure of the verb phrase; nor have we broken down the structure of the element in the window, but simply labelled it as a prepositional phrase. The important thing to note is that the words in the window operate together to qualify the head noun doggie. Together, as one unit, they identify the doggie in question. It would also be possible to enter noun phrase in the top left-hand cell of the table, as a superordinate label for the pronoun I.

The prepositional phrase in the window is part of the noun phrase that doggie in the window. In Unit 6, we saw that prepositional phrases can also be adjuncts. However, in the window cannot be an adjunct in this example because the sentence does not mean that I like the doggie when I am in the window. We could not paraphrase the sentence as: It is in the window that I like that doggie, or The place where I like that doggie is in the window. We can paraphrase it as: The thing that I like is that doggie in the window. >From this we can see that that doggie in the window acts together as one constituent, and that in the window is part of it, and not an adjunct.

Activity 2

Clauses within Noun Phrases

In that doggie in the window, we said that in the window identified which doggie we were talking about, and that the whole structue was a noun phrase. Other qualifying structures apart from prepositional phrases may also do this. In the noun phrase book title The Tiger Who Came To Tea, the relative clause who came to tea identifies which tiger we mean. The whole noun phrase could be the object or subject of a clause, as in The tiger who came to tea drank all the water in the tap. This we would analyse as follows:

So it is possible for clauses to appear inside noun phrases, which are in turn the subjects or objects of longer clauses. This process can be repeated many times.

The complement is a noun phrase, but there is a lot of extra information about the dog in question. This information is encoded in a series of relative clauses each one of which is part of a noun phrase. For example, the relative clause that Jack built is part of the noun phrase the house that Jack built. And the relative clause that lay in the house that Jack built is part of the noun phrase the malt that lay in the house that Jack built. And so on.

Normally speaking one expects to find noun phrases as subjects, complements or objects in clauses. In principle, clauses are at a higher level of analysis than phrases. Here we do have a noun phrase as complement - a long one at that. However, we also see that the noun phrase itself contains a number of clauses.

Activity 3