Understanding Clause Elements and Embedding
NOUN PHRASE, ADJECTIVE PHRASE, PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE.
When we talk of sensitive elements, we are thinking of the way different kinds of formal phrases FUNCTION, how the same kind of phrase can express different elements.
Noun Phrases
Noun phrases can be: subject, object, object of preposition, and complement.
Adjective Phrases
Adjective phrases can be: complement.
Prepositional Phrases
Prepositional phrases can be: part of a noun phrase, an adverbial.
Semantic Functions of Clause Elements
Subject
- AGENTIVE: The animate participant that instigates or causes the happening denoted by the verb. Margaret is mowing the grass.
- INSTRUMENTAL: The entity which an agent uses to perform an action or instigate a process. The computer has solved the problem.
- EXTERNAL CAUSER: It expresses the unwitting cause of an event: The electric shock killed him.
- AFFECTED: A participant which does not cause the happening denoted by the verb, but is directly involved in some other way. James sold his digital watch yesterday.
- RECIPIENT: The animate being that is passively involved by the happening or state. We paid them the money.
- LOCATIVE: Role of designating the place of the state or action. Los Angeles is foggy.
- TEMPORAL: Role of designating its time. Yesterday was a holiday.
- EVENTIVE: The noun at the head of the noun phrase is commonly deverbal or a nominalization. The match is tomorrow.
- EMPTY “IT” SUBJECT: There are clauses in which no participant is required. In such cases, the subject function may be assumed by the word “it”. It’s not very far to York.
Direct Object
- AFFECTED:
- LOCATIVE: Role with such verbs as: walk, swim, pass, jump, turn, leave, reach, surround, cross, climb. Joan swam the river.
- EFFECTED/ RESULTANT: Object is an object whose referent exists only by virtue of the activity indicated by the verb. They are designing a new car.
- COGNATE: Object is similar to a resultant object in that it refers to an event indicated by the verb. She lived a good life.
- EVENTIVE: Object is semantically an extension of the verb and bears the major part of the meaning. They are having an argument.
Indirect Object
- RECIPIENT
- AFFECTED: The affected indirect object is the one exception to the normal role of recipient taken by the indirect object. Judith paid me a visit.
Subject Complement
- CURRENT ATTRIBUTE
- RESULTING ATTRIBUTE
Object Complement
- CURRENT ATTRIBUTE: The attribute may be current, normally with verbs used statively. He seems unhappy.
- RESULTING ATTRIBUTE: The attribute may be resulting from the event described by the verb with verbs used dynamically. He turned traitor.
Embedding
Represents an oversimplified view of the relation between units. This is the example of the phenomenon of EMBEDDING which accounts for the indefinite extensibility of certain units of grammar. Both the noun phrase and the prepositional phrase may be immediate constituents of a clause.
Some students will be working late in their rooms.
Both units likewise can consist of more than one word; they are both as phrases, placed at the same position in the hierarchy. But each unit can be a constituent of the other.
Embedding can be defined as the occurrence of one unit as a constituent of another unit at the same rank in the grammatical hierarchy.