ion, inviting a subordinative exposition) Mary promised to come and he was determined to wait. ? He was determined to wait because Mary had promised to come. (Cause and consequence, inviting a subordinative exposition)
Among the various connective meanings expressed by the conjunction and in combination with the corresponding lexemic constituents of the sentence there are two standing very prominent, due to the regular correlations existing between such constructions and semi-complex patterns with verbid phrases - infinitival and participial.
The first construction expresses a subsequent action of incidental or unexpected character:
He leaped up in time to see the Colonel rushing out of the door (HE Bates). ? He leaped up in time and saw the Colonel rushing out of the door. Walker woke in his bed at the bourbon house to hear a strange hum and buzz in the air (M. Bradbury). ? Walker woke in his bed at the bourbon house and heard a strange hum and buzz in the air. p align="justify"> In these constructions the leading clause, as a rule, includes verbs of positional or psychological change, while the expansion, correspondingly, features verbs of perceptions. As is seen from the examples, it is the semi-compound pattern that diagnoses the meaning of the pattern with the infinitive, not the reverse. The infinitive pattern for its part makes up an expressive stylistic device by virtue of its outward coincidence with an infinitive pattern of purpose: the unexpectedness of the referent action goes together with the contextual unexpectedness of the construction. p align="justify"> The participial construction expresses a parallel attendant event that serves as a characteristic to the event rendered by the leading clause:
He sat staring down the gardens, trying to remember whether this was the seventh or eighth day since the attack had begun (HE Bates). ? He was sitting and staring down the gardens, and was trying to remember ... Rage flamed up in him, contorting his own face (M. Puzo). ? Rage flamed up in him and contorted his own face. p align="justify"> With the participial pattern, the same as with the infinitival one, the diagnostic construction is the semi-compound sentence, not vice versa.
The nature of the shown correlations might be interpreted as a reason for considering the relations between the head-verb and the verbid in the tested patterns as coordinative, not subordinative. However, on closer analysis we must admit that diagnosis of this kind is called upon to expose the hidden meanings, but not to level up the differences between units of opposed categorial standings. The verbid patterns remain part of the system of semi-complex sentences because of the hierarchical ranking of their notional positions, while the correlation with semi-compound sentences simply explain their respective semantic properties. p align="justify"> В§ 4. The asyndetic formation of the semi-compound sentence stands by its functional features close to the syndetic and-formation in so far as it does not give a rigorous characterisation (semantic mark) to the introduced expansion. At the same time its functional range is incomparably narrower than that of the and-formation. p align="justify"> The central connective meaning distinguishing the asyndetic connection of predicative parts in semi-compound sentences is enumeration of events, either parallel or consecutive. In accord with the enumerative function, asyndetic semi-compounding more often than not is applied to a larger set of base sentences than the minimal two. E.g.:
He closed the door behind him with a shaking hand, found the old car in its parking place, drove along with the drifting lights. They talked, laughed, were perfectly happy late into the night. p align="justify"> Asyndetic semi-compound sentences are often used to express gradation of intensity going together with a general emphasis. E.g.:
He would in truth give up the shop, follow her to Paris, follow her also to the chateau in the country (D. du Maurier). He never took the schoolbag again, had refused to touch it (J. Updike). p align="justify"> Characteristic of enumerative and gradational semi-compound sentences is the construction where the first two parts are joined asyndetically, and the third part syndetically, by means of the conjunction and. In such three-base constructions the syndetic expansion finalises the sentence both structurally and semantically, making it into an intensely complete utterance. E.g.:
He knows his influence, struts about and considers himself a great duellist. They can do it, have the will to do it, and are actually doing it. p align="justify"> Of the meanings other than enumerative rendered by the construction in question, the most prominent is elucidation c...
