UNIVERSIDAD CAECE – TRADUCTOR PUBLICO EN INGLES – GRAMATICA INGLESA I

PROF. LUIS POSADAS

CLAUSE ELEMENTS

Clause elements are phrases that serve syntactic roles in the clause.

THE SEVEN BASIC CLAUSES TYPES:

VERB PHRASE (V)

The verb phrase is the central element of the clause, because it expresses the action or state to which
other elements relate, and it controls the other kinds of elements and meanings that can be in the
clause.

SUBJECT (S)
The second most important element is the subject. In syntactic terms, a number of criteria can be used
to define the subject:

 The subject is a noun phrase.

 It occurs with all types of verbs.
 Subject pronouns are in the nominative case. For example, he, she are the forms of the
pronouns used as subject, while the accusative forms him, her are used as object. Compare
He likes her with She likes him.
 The subject precedes the verb phrase (except in clauses with inversion, such as questions,
where the subject follows the operator).
 The subject determines the number of the verb phrase, depending on whether the subject is
singular or plural. Compare She works late with They work late .
 The subject noun phrase of a transitive verb can be moved after the verb, and preceded
by by to make a clause with a passive verb. Compare Kate saw it with It was seen by Kate.

The six criteria above deal with structure. Turning to meaning:

 The subject denotes the most important participant in the action or state denoted by the verb.
With transitive verbs, this is generally the ‘doer’ or agent of the action.
  The subject generally represents the topic, i.e. the entity that the clause is about. But
sometimes English requires a subject, even if the subject has no actual meaning: It’s warm in
here. (CONV) It never rains in Albuquerque. (conv)
 In these cases, English uses it as a pronoun that fills the place of the subject but has no
content—> a dummy pronoun.
OBJECT (0)
 An object is a noun phrase.
 It usually follows the verb.
 It only occurs with transitive verbs.
 An object pronoun is in the accusative case. For example, in He likes her and She likes him,
the accusative forms her and him fill the object position.
 The object noun phrase of a transitive verb can be moved to become subject of the
corresponding passive clause. Compare Everyone deserted me with I was deserted (by
everyone).

Three valency patterns contain direct objects: the monotransitive, ditransitive, and complex transitive
patterns. The ditransitive pattern contains first an indirect object followed by a direct object.

DIRECT OBJECTS (DO)

A direct object generally follows immediately after the verb, except where an indirect object
intervenes. Its most common semantic role is to denote the entity affected by the action or process of
the verb:
He bought biscuits and condensed milk. (FICT)

the subject denotes the doer of the action, and the clause fits the template: ‘X did something’ (where
‘something’ is the direct object). However, there is a wide range of transitive verbs where the
meanings of direct objects are less typical. Here is an example:
Oh, are you having a lovely time? (conv)

The direct objects express abstractions, which are not actually affected by the action of the verb.
Nevertheless, grammatically, they are direct objects.
Sometimes English verbs require a direct object even though it has no meaning. Such is the case with
the verb take:
Take it easy Tina. (CONV)
As with subjects, English uses it as the dummy pronoun for direct objects.

INDIRECT OBJECTS (IO)

An indirect object occurs after ditransitive verbs such as give and tell, and comes before the direct
object. It conforms to the other criteria for objects, including the formation of passives. To illustrate
this last point, consider example 1, where the indirect object is in bold and the direct object is
coloured. In the passive counterpart l a, the indirect object you becomes the subject:
1 Ben Franklin Transit gave you additional funding. (conv)
l a You were given additional funding by Ben Franklin Transit.
In contrast, the direct object additional funding cannot easily become the subject of a corresponding
passive without the insertion of a preposition (here to):
l b [Additional funding] was given (to) you by Ben Franklin Transit.

As for their semantic role, indirect objects generally denote people receiving something or benefiting
from the action of the verb:
Well actually he brought us the big menu first. (conv)
I cooked the kids dinner. (conv)
‘Agnes has been showing me her prize,’ said Mynors. (FICT)

PREDICATIVE (P)
 A predicative can be an adjective phrase, a noun phrase, or occasionally a prepositional
phrase.
 It follows the verb phrase and (if one is present) the direct object.
 It has the semantic role of characterizing a preceding noun phrase.
 There are two major types of predicative, the subject predicative and the object
predicative:

Subject Predicatives (SP)

Subject predicatives characterize or specify the subject noun phrase (coloured in the following
examples):

1 His skin was very pink. (ACAD) SP = adjective phrase

2 That tall fellow over there is Dr Fraker. (FICT) SP= noun phrase

3 But his wife Shelley seemed in great shape. (NEWS) For SP= prepositional phrase

For example, in 1, the adjective phrase very pink is the subject predicative, and it characterizes his
skin (that is, it says what kind of skin he has). Special distinguishing features of the subject
predicative are:

 It immediately follows the verb phrase.

 The main verb has to be a copular verb, such as be, seem, and become. Subject predicatives
are also sometimes called ‘subject complements’.

Object predicatives (OP)

Object predicatives characterize or specify the direct object noun phrase (object predicatives are in
bold, direct objects are coloured):

1 Oh, I can’t get this milk open. (conv) OP= adjective phrase

2 Many consider these new gates something of a menace. (NEWS) OP= noun phrase

3 He was surprised to find himself out of breath. (FICT) OP= prepositional phrase

Thus in 1, open characterizes this milk. The distinguishing features of the object predicative are:
  It generally immediately follows the direct object.
 The main verb has to be a complex transitive verb, such as make, find, consider, and
name. The object predicative is sometimes called the ‘object complement’.

ADVERBIALS (A)
Obligatory adverbials

Some verbs take an adverbial in order to complete their meaning. This is known as an obligatory
adverbial. Obligatory adverbials can occur with two patterns: the copular pattern and the complex
transitive pattern. Obligatory adverbials usually express place or direction, although they can also
express time or manner meanings:

Examples Clause pattern

Your toast is on the table. (conv) S+V+A

The pleasant summer lasted well into March. (FICT) S+V+A

She placed the baby on a blanket in the living room. (FICT) S+V+DO+A

I treated her badly, very badly. (FICT) S+V+DO+A

In these clause patterns, the adverbial has to be present in order to complete the structure and
meaning of the verb. This may be tested by removing the adverbial
(in bold), resulting in an incomplete clause (e.g. your toast is or she placed the baby).

Optional adverbials

Only a few verbs require adverbials to be complete; however, adverbials occur widely in clauses as
optional elements.

 Optional adverbials can be added to clauses with any type of verb.

 They are usually adverb phrases, prepositional phrases, or noun phrases.
 They can be placed in different positions within the clause-in final, initial, or medial
positions.
 More than one of them can occur in a single clause.
 They are rather loosely attached to the rest of the clause. Whereas the verb phrase is
central, the adverbial is relatively peripheral (except in those clause patterns that require
adverbials).
Optional adverbials add additional information to the clause, covering a wide variety of meanings,
such as place, time, manner, extent, and attitude.

examples clause pattern

S+(A) +
I only bought one today. (conv)
V+DO+(A)

I was here, with Uncle Nick, thirty years ago. (FICT) S+V+A+(A)+(A)
 They are peculiarly susceptible to drought.
They therefore benefit considerably from periodic S+(A)+V+(A)+(A)
submergence. (ACAD)

The above examples illustrate some of the variety of adverbials, showing a range of meanings and
functions, showing how a number of adverbials can co-occur in
a single clause, and showing the optionality of most adverbials. However, notice that ‘optionality’
here means that the adverbial could be omitted without making
the clause structurally incomplete. Of course, even optional adverbials cannot be omitted without
making a difference to meaning.

LONG VERB PHRASES

Verb phrases are introduced as phrases containing a main verb sometimes preceded by one or more
auxiliary verbs. There is another ‘bigger’ notion of verb phrase commonly used in grammar,
including not only the verb phrase in this sense, but also any other clause elements which follow the
main verb (object, predicative, adverbial), depending on the valency of the main verb: e.g.
monotransitive, ditransitive. We will call this ‘umbrella constituent’ a long verb phrase (shown in
bold below):
My mother was born in Canada. (conv)
Some clauses consist only of a long verb phrase, as with imperative constructions:
Look at that nice dog. (conv)
The long verb phrase corresponds roughly to a traditional grammatical notion of ‘predicate’. It is
useful for analysis particularly when a complex clause consists of a subject followed by a series of
conjoined long verb phrases:
The firefighters grabbed me and pulled me up. (conv)

TRULY PERIPHERAL ELEMENTS

Some elements are even more peripheral to the clause than adverbials. These are attached to the
clause in a loose way, but do not form part of the main message of the clause. In fact, it may be
unclear whether they are truly part of the clause at all. They are often set off from the rest of the
clause by punctuation (in writing), intonation (in speech), or by being placed immediately before or
after the clause. Sometimes these peripheral elements are complete clauses in their own right. They
will simply be listed here with a brief explanation and one or two examples.

Conjunctions

Coordinating and subordinating conjunctions are fixed in initial position in the clause, even ahead of
other peripheral adverbials:
And, of course, now Keely doesn’t have any teeth. (conv)
Because he and Jane aren’t married. (CONV)

Parentheticals

Parentheticals are set off from the surrounding clause by parentheses (in writing), or sometimes by
dashes:
At precisely 11.07 (Earth time), a message flashed up on the ITN screen. (NEWS)
One of the first to make it in modern times (some Greeks had known it long before) was Leonardo
da Vinci. (ACAD)
Prefaces

Prefaces are noun phrases placed before the subject, which typically have the same reference as a
personal pronoun in the clause. In the following examples,
the preface is in bold, and the personal pronoun with the corresponding reference is coloured:
This woman, she’s ninety years old. (cow)
But Anna-Louise what could have attracted her to a man in his fifties? (FICT)

Tags

In contrast to prefaces, tags are normally added at the end of a clause, and can be either noun phrase
tags (1), question tags (2) or declarative tags (3):
1 It’s nice that table anyway. (conv)
2 She’s so generous, isn’t she? (conv)
3 Yeah I thoroughly enjoyed it I did. (conv)
Noun phrase tags are comparable to prefaces, except that they follow the main part of the clause.
Inserts

These are extra words which can be ‘slipped into’ spoken discourse, mainly to convey interactive
meanings. They can occur as stand-alone elements, or as peripheral elements in a clause. Examples
with clauses are:
Hello is that Cindy Jones? (conv)
You know who Stan is, right? (conv)
Some multi-word expressions may be considered inserts because they have become so formulaic that
they seem like single units rather than syntactic constructions:
Er no I’ll give it a – miss right now thank you. (conv)
You know she went all the way up to calculus in high school. (conv)

Vocatives

Vocatives are nouns or noun phrases which generally refer to people, and serve to identify the
person(s) being addressed:

 Mum, I’m making such a big sandwich. (conv)

 Oh, make your bloody mind up, boy! (conv) –> note: bloody is a taboo word and may be
offensive to some people.
 Come on you reds, come on you reds, come on you reds. (conv) –> addressing a
football team during a match.
All the above types of peripherals, except for conjunctions and parentheticals, are more frequently
found in spoken language.

SUMMARY OF MAJOR POINTS

 Clauses (in their simplest form) are composed of phrases that function as clause elements
such as subject and object.
  The main elements of clauses are subject, verb phrase, object (direct object or indirect object),
predicative, and adverbial.
 These elements combine in seven basic clause patterns: intransitive, monotransitive,
ditransitive, two types of copular, and two types of complex transitive patterns.
 Adverbials are usually optional elements. This means that they can be added to the basic
clause patterns-either at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a clause.
 An ‘umbrella constituent’, the long verb phrase, includes the verb phrase and the clause
elements which follow it.
 There can also be peripheral elements in a clause, such as conjunctions, tags, and vocatives.

REFERENCES:

Douglas Biber, Susan Conrad, Geoffrey Leech – Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written
English -Pearson ESL (2002).