t of the sentence is as follows.
All simple sentences of English should be divided into two-axis constructions and one-axis constructions.
In a two-axis sentence, the subject axis and the predicate axis are directly and explicitly expressed in the outer structure. This concerns all the three cardinal communicative types of sentences. E.g.:
The books come out of the experiences. What has been happening here? You better go back to bed. p align="justify"> In a one-axis sentence only one axis or its part is explicitly expressed, the other one being non-presented in the outer structure of the sentence. Cf.: p align="justify"> "Who will meet us at the airport?" - "Mary." The response utterance is a one-axis sentence with the subject-axis expressed and the predicate-axis implied:? * Mary will meet us at the airport. Both the non-expression of the predicate and its actual implication in the sub-text are obligatory, since the complete two-axis construction renders its own connotations. p align="justify"> "And what is your opinion of me?" - "Hard as nails, absolutely ruthless, a born intriguer, and as self-centred as they make 'em." The response utterance is a one-axis sentence with the predicate-axis expressed (partially, by its predicative unit) and the subject-axis (together with the link-verb of the predicate) implied:? * You are hard as nails, etc. p align="justify"> "I thought he might have said something to you about it." - "Not a word." The response utterance is a one-axis sentence with the predicate-axis partially expressed ( by the object) and the subject-axis together with the verbal part of the predicate-axis implied:? * He said not a word to me. p align="justify"> "Glad to see you after all these years!" The sentence is a one-axis unit with the predicate-axis expressed and the subject-axis implied as a form of familiarity:? * I am glad to see you ...
All the cited examples belong to "elliptical" types of utterances in so far as they possess quite definite "vacant" positions or zero-positions capable cf being supplied with the corresponding fillers implicit in the situational contexts. Since the restoration of the absent axis in such sentences is, So to speak, "free of avail", we class them as free one- axis sentences. The term "elliptical" one-axis sentences can also be used, though it is not very lucky here; indeed, "ellipsis" as a sentence-curtailing process can in principle affect both two-axis and one-axis sentences, so the term might be misleading.
Alongside of the demonstrated free one-axis sentences, ie sentences with a direct contextual axis-implication, there are one-axis sentences without a contextual implication of this kind; in other words, their absent axis cannot be restored with the same ease and, above all, semantic accuracy.
By way of example, let us read the following passage from S. Maugham's short story "Appearance and Reality";
Monsieur Le Sueur was a man of action. He went straight up to Lisette and smacked her hard on her right cheek with his left hand and then smacked her hard on the left cheek with his right hand. "Brute," screamed Lisette. p align="justify"> The one-axis sentence used by the heroine does imply the you-subject and can, by association, be expanded into the two-axis one "You are a brute" or "You brute" , but then the spontaneous "scream-style" of the utterance in the context (a cry of indignation and revolt) will be utterly distorted.
Compare another context, taken from R. Kipling's "The Light that Failed":
"... I'm quite miserable enough already." - "Why? Because you're going away from Mrs Jennett? "-" No. "-" From me, then? "- No answer for a long time. Dick dared not look at her. p align="justify"> The one-axis sentence "No answer for a long time" in the narrative is associated by variant lingua! relations with the two-axis sentence "There was no answer ...". But on similar grounds the association can be extended to the construction "He received no answer for a long time" or "No answer was given for a long time" or some other sentence supplementing the given utterance and rendering a like meaning. On the other hand, the peculiar position in the text clearly makes all these associations into remote ones: the two-axis version of the construction instead of the existing one-axis one would destroy the expressive property of the remark conveying Dick's strain by means of combining the author's line of narration with the hero's inner perception of events.
Furthermore, compare the psychologically tense description of packing up before departure given in short, deliberately disconnected nominative phrase...
