9;t afford to join their Sunday outing. ? As all this work is waiting for me ... "
The rule of the predicate is observed in absolulive complicators the same as in conjoint adverbial complicators. Its only restriction concerns impersonal sentences where the link-verb is not to be deleted. Cf.: p align="justify"> The long luncheon over, the business friend would bow and go his way. ? When the long luncheon was over ... It being very hot, the children gladly ran down to the lake. ? As it was very hot ...
Semi-complex sentences of nominal phrase complication are derived from two base sentences one of which, the insert sentence, is partially norninalised (changed into a verbid phrase of infinitival or gerundial type) and embedded in one of the nominal and prepositional adverbial positions of the other sentence serving as the matrix. The nominal verbid constructions meet the demands both of economy and expressiveness, and they are widely used in all the functional orders of speech. The gerundial phrase is of a more substantive semantic character, the infinitival phrase, correspondingly, of a more processual semantic character. The gerundial nominalisalion involves the optional change of the noun subject into the possessive, while the infinitival nominalisation involves the use of the preposition for before the subject. E.g.
Tom's coming late annoyed his mother. ? The fact that Tom came late annoyed his mother. For him to come so late was unusual. ? It was unusual that he came so late. p align="justify"> The rule of the subject exposed in connection with the adverbial semi-complexing (see above) applies also to the process of partial nominalisation and is especially important here. It concerns the two types of subject deletion; first, its contextual identification; second, its referring to a general (indefinite) person. Thus, the rule can be formulated in this way: the subject of the verbid phrase is deleted when it is either identified from the context (usually, but not necessarily, from the matrix sentence) or denotes an indefinite person. Cf. the contextual identification of the subject:
We are definite about it. ? Our being definite about it. ? Let's postpone being definite about it. Mary has recovered so soon. -ТЛ For Mary to have recovered so soon-ТЛ Mary is happy to have recovered so soon. p align="justify"> Cf. the indefinite person identification of the subject:
One avoids quarrels with strangers. -ТЛ One's avoiding quarrels with strangers. ? Avoiding quarrels with strangers is always a wise policy. One loves spring. -ТЛ For one to love spring.? It's but natural to love spring. p align="justify"> A characteristic function of the infinitive phrase is its use with subordinative conjunctions in nominal semi-clauses. The infinitive in these cases implies modal meanings of obligation, admonition, possibility, etc. E.g.:
I wondered where to go. -ТЛ I wondered where I was to go. The question is, what to do next. ? The question is, what we should do next. p align="justify"> In contrast with nominal uses of infinitive phrases, gerundial phrases are widely employed as adverbial semi-clauses introduced by prepositions. Semi-clauses in question are naturally related to the corresponding adverbial pleni-clauses. Cf.: p align="justify"> In writing the letter he dated it wrong. ? White he was writing the letter he dated it wrong. She went away without looking back. ? As she went away she didn't look back. I cleaned my breast by telling you everything. ? I cleaned my breast because I told you everything. p align="justify"> The prepositional use of gerundial adverbial phrases is in full accord with the substantival syntactic nature of the gerund, and this feature differentiates in principle the gerundial adverbial phrase from the participial adverbial phrase as a positional constituent of the semi -complex sentence.
XXX. SEMI-COMPOUND SENTENCE
The semi-compound sentence is a semi-composite sentence built up on the principle of coordination. Proceeding from the outlined grammatical analysis of the composite sentence, the structure of the semi-compound sentence is derivationally to be traced back to minimum two base sentences having an identical element belonging to one or both of their principal syntactic positions, ie either the subject, or the predicate, or both. By the process of semi-compounding, the sentences overlap round the identical element sharing it in coordinative fusion, which can be either syndetic or asyndetic. Thus, from the formal point of view, a sentence possessing coordinated notional parts of immediately sentential reference (directly related to its predicative line) is to be treated as semi-co...
