derivation sentence-base the construction "The thing bothers me". This sentence, in the above oppositional sense, is predicatively "non-loaded", or has the "zero predicative load". The predicative structure of the sentence can be expanded by the expression of the modal subject-action relation, for instance, the ability relation. The result is:? "The thing can bother me"; the predicative load of the sentence has grown to 1. This construction, in its turn, can be used as a derivation base for a sentence of a higher predicative complexity; for instance, the feature of unreality can be added to it:? "The thing could bother me (now)". The predicative load of the sentence has grown to 2. Though functionally not simple, the sentence still presents a more or less ordinary English construction. To continue with our complicating it, we may introduce in the sentence the feature of passivity:? "I could be bothered (by the thing now)". The predicative semantics expressed has quite clearly changed into something beyond the ordinary; the sentence requires a special context to sound natural. Finally, to complicate the primary construction still further, we may introduce a negation in it:? "I could not be bothered (by the thing now)". As a result we are faced by a construction that, in the contextual conditions of real speech, expresses an intricate set of functional meanings and stylistic connotations. Cf.: p align="justify"> "... Wilmet and Henrietta Bentworth have agreed to differ already." - "What about?" - "Well, I couldn't be bothered, but I think it was about the PM, or was it Portulaca? - They differ about everything "(J. Galsworthy). p align="justify"> The construction is indeed semantically complicated; but all its meaningful complexity is linguistically resolved by the demonstrated semantico-syntactic oppositional analysis showing the stage-to-stage growth of the total functional meaning of the sentence in the course of its paradigmatic derivation.
XXVI. COMPOSITE SENTENCE AS A POLYPREDICATIVE CONSTRUCTION
The composite sentence, as different from the simple sentence, is formed by two or more predicative lines. Being a polypredicative construction, it expresses a complicated act of thought, ie an act of mental activity which falls into two or more intellectual efforts closely combined with one another. In terms of situations and events this means that the composite sentence reflects two or more elementary situational events viewed as making up a unity; the constitutive connections of the events are expressed by the constitutive connections of the predicative lines of the sentence, ie by the sentential polypredication.
Each predicative unit in a composite sentence makes up a clause in it, so that a clause as part of a composite sentence corresponds to a separate sentence as part of a contextual sequence. E.g.:
When I sat down to dinner I looked for an opportunity to slip in casually the information that I had by accident run across the Driffields; but news travelled fast in Blackstable (S. Maugham).
The cited composite sentence includes four clauses which are related to one another on different semantic grounds. The sentences underlying the clauses are the following:
I sat down to dinner. I looked for an opportunity to slip in casually the information. I had by accident run across the Driffields. News travelled fast in Blackstable. p align="justify"> The correspondence of a predicative clause to a separate sentence is self-evident. On the other hand, the correspondence of a composite sentence to a genuine, logically connected sequence of simple sentences (underlying its clauses) is not evident at all; moreover, such kind of correspondence is in fact not obligatory, which is the very cause of the existence of the composite sentence in a language. Indeed, in the given example the independent sentences reconstructed from the predicative clauses do not make up any coherently presented situational unity; they are just so many utterances each expressing an event of self-sufficient significance. By way of rearrangement and the use of semantic connectors we may make them into a more or less explanatory situational sequence, but the exposition of the genuine logic of events, ie their presentation as natural parts of a unity, achieved by the composite sentence will not be, and is not to be replaced in principle. Cf.: p align="justify"> I ran by accident across the Driffields. At some time later on I sat down to dinner. While participating in the general conversation, I looked for an opportunity to slip in casually the information about my meeting them. But news travelled fast in Blackstable. p align="justify"> The logical difference between the given composite sentence and its contextually coherent de-compositional presentation i...
