Linguists are more unanimous in their interpretation of subordination in comparison with co-ordination. Traditionally, subordination is thought to be based on inequality of combining words: one of the components domi­nates over the rest and subordinates them when their form and position are concerned. The dominating element is called head of a subordinate word combination and […]

The tertiary opposition is not sufficient to characterize all types of syn­tactic relations. And though Hjelmslev claims that there may be only three types of relations between two elements, the claim is correct only in the sphere of logic. Language material proves that, here, the situation is more complicated, and logical relations are not able […]

Traditionally, the main types of relations in syntax are believed to be co-ordination (parataxis) and subordination (hypotaxis). Besides this two-member opposition, there may be distinguished one more, consisting of four members, namely predicative, object, adverbial and attributive rela­tions. How these two oppositions correlate, their similarities and differences remain unclear though this question is quite essential […]

The theory of valence stems from the study of combining properties of language units. The theory, like the term itself, has appeared in linguistics comparatively recently: it was used for the first time in works by the fa­mous French structuralist, L. Teniere, who introduced the term “valence” in linguistics borrowing it from chemistry. A little […]

Structural completeness of linear language organization is provided in two ways: by means of substitution and representation. Substitution is based on inclusion of a unit that replaces the unit mentioned before in order to avoid repetition as well as for the sake of brevity: the substituting unit may be much shorter than the substituted one, […]

The meaning of a word combination does not equate to a simple sum of the meanings of its components but appears an intricate interlacement of lexical meaning of combining units. Thus, for instance, the isolated use of the noun axis is associated, first of all, with a part of a construction. However, when this noun […]

Word combinations may be classified according to their function in the sentence. This criterion divides word combinations into 1) those which perform the function of a sentence part, for example, predi­cate, object, adverbial modifier etc., and 2) those which do not perform any such function but whose function is …. equivalent of that of a […]

Beginning: Classifications of word combination Word combinations without head Word combinations with the head element are represented by word groups that form a grammatically organized structure with one element sub­ordinate to the other element. The subordinating element is called the head of the word combination. In the following examples, the head elements are underlined: green […]

Beginning: Classifications of word combination Word combinations with the head element As to word combinations without head, they do not seem to share any common structure, peculiar to all groups within this type. In other words, word combinations without the head are structurally more various than word combinations with the head. Elements in word combinations […]

In this book, we shall operate with the term “word combination”, though it should be pointed out that the syntactic terminology varies from author to author. Thus, Professor Illiysh operates with the term “phrase”. The definition given by the scholar to the phrase (“every combination of two or more words which is a grammatical unit […]