e English grammatical structure. The combination of the English finite verb with the subject is obligatory not only in the general syntactic sense, but also in the categorial sense of expressing the subject-person of the process. p align="justify"> An objection to this thesis can be made on the ground that in the text the actual occurrence of the subject with the finite verb is not always observed. Moreover, the absence of the subject in constructions of living colloquial English is, in general, not an unusual feature. Observing textual materials, we may come across cases of subject-wanting predicative units used not only singly, as part of curt question-response exchange, but also in a continual chain of speech. Here is an example of a chain of this type taken from E. Hemingway:
"No one shot from cars," said Wilson coldly. "I mean chase them from cars." p align="justify"> "Wouldn't ordinarily," Wilson said. "Seemed sporting enough to me though while we were doing it. Taking more chance driving that way across the plain full of holes and one thing and another than hunting on foot. Buffalo could have charged us each time we shot if he liked. Gave him every chance. Wouldn't mention it to any one though. It's illegal if that's what you mean. "p align="justify"> However, examples like this cannot be taken for a disproof of the obligatory connection between the verb and its subject, because the corresponding subject-nouns, possibly together with some other accompanying words, are zeroed on certain syntactico -stylistical principles (brevity of expression in familiar style, concentration on the main informative parts of the communication, individual speech habits, etc.). Thus, the distinct zero-representation of the subject does give expression to the verbal person-number category even in conditions of an outwardly gaping void in place of the subject in this or that concrete syntactic construction used in the text. Due to the said zero-representation, we can easily reconstruct the implied person indications in the cited passage: "I wouldn't ordinarily"; "It seemed sporting enough"; "It was taking more chance driving that way"; "We gave him every chance"; "I wouldn't mention it to any one".
Quite naturally, the non-use of the subject in an actual utterance may occasionally lead to a referential misunderstanding or lack of understanding, and such situations are reflected in literary works by writers - observers of human speech as well as of human nature. A vivid illustration of this type of speech informative deficiency can be seen in one of K. Mansfield's stories:
"Fried or boiled?" asked the bold voice.
Fried or boiled? Josephine and Constantia were quite bewildered for the moment. They could hardly take it in. p align="justify"> "Fried or boiled what, Kate?" asked Josephine, trying to begin to concentrate.
Kate gave a loud sniff. "Fish." p align="justify"> "Well, why didn't you say so immediately?" Josephine reproached her gently. "How could you expect us to understand, Kate? There are a great many things in this world, you know, which are fried or boiled. "p align="justify"> The referential gap in Kate's utterance gave cause to her bewildered listener for a just reproach. But such lack of positive information in an utterance is not to be confused with the non-expression of a grammatical category. In this connection, the textual zeroing of the subject-pronoun may be likened to the textual zeroing of different constituents of classical analytical verb-forms, such as the continuous, the perfect, and others: no zeroing can deprive these forms of their grammatical, categorial status.
Now, it would be too strong to state that the combination of the subject-pronoun with the finite verb in English has become an analytical person-number form in the full sense of this notion. The English subject-pronoun, unlike the French conjoint subject-pronoun (eg Je vous remercie - "I thank you"; but: mon mari et moi - "my husband and I"), still retains its self-positional syntactic character , and the personal pronominal words, without a change of their nominative form, are used in various notional functions in sentences, building up different positional sentence-parts both in the role of head-word and in the role of adjunct-word. What we do see in this combination is, probably, a very specific semi-analytical expression of a reflective grammatical category through an obligatory syntagmatic relation of the two lexemes: the lexeme-reflector of the category and the lexeme-originator of the category. This mode of grammatical expression can be called "junctional". Its opposite, i.e. the expression of the categorial content by means of a normal morphemic or word-morphemic procedure, can be, by way of contrast, tentatively ...
