Understanding Sentence Structure: Pronouns, Complements, and Clauses
Understanding Sentence Structure
Pronouns are words that refer to the same entities as nouns and can function as a noun phrase.
Personal Pronouns
Personal pronouns designate the speaker, the listener, and other entities, forming a grammatical person notion. They can be stressed (tonic) or unstressed (atonic).
Other Pronoun Types
Possessive pronouns, demonstratives, numerals, indefinite, interrogative, and exclamatory pronouns express concepts or relationships similar to their corresponding adjectives.
The Subject
The subject is a noun phrase that maintains consistency with the verb and designates the person, animal, or thing performing the action. It can be lexical or grammatical.
Impersonal Sentences
Impersonal sentences do not have a lexical subject.
The Predicate
The predicate is a verb phrase with a verb as its core, expressing what is said about the subject. It may be nominal or verbal.
Verbal Periphrasis
Verbal periphrasis is a group consisting of a simple or compound verb form and a non-personal form.
Direct Object
The direct object is the entity that directly receives the action of the verb.
Indirect Object
The indirect object designates the recipient of the action, jointly affected by the verb and direct object.
Prepositional Complement
The prepositional complement is a supplement introduced by a preposition required by the verb.
Circumstantial Complement
The circumstantial complement expresses the circumstances of place, time, manner, cause, purpose, instrument, etc., framing the verbal action.
Agent Complement
The agent complement indicates who performs the action in passive sentences.
Predicate Complement
The predicate complement names a quality or condition of the subject or direct object in verbal predicate sentences.
Simple and Compound Sentences
Simple sentences have a single verb and, therefore, a single predicate.
Compound sentences have two or more verbs and, therefore, two or more predicates.
Propositions
Each segment of a compound sentence is a proposition.
Links
Links are words that establish relationships between words or groups of words.
Juxtaposed and Coordinated Propositions
Two independent propositions can be juxtaposed (directly attached) or coordinated (joined by a link).
Subordinate Propositions
A subordinate proposition is integrated into another proposition as an element of it.
Types of Compound Sentences
- Juxtaposed sentences consist of two or more juxtaposed propositions.
- Coordinated sentences consist of two or more coordinated propositions.
Types of Coordinated Sentences
- Copulative sentences express addition or accumulation, using conjunctions like and, e, ni.
- Adversative sentences express opposition, using conjunctions like but, sinó.
- Disjunctive sentences express choice or alternation, using conjunctions like o, u.
Subordination
Subordination is a syntactic dependency showing one linguistic unit’s influence over another.
Subordinate Clauses
Subordinate clauses, also called complex sentences, are formed when a proposition (the subordinate clause) depends on another (the main clause).
Types of Subordinate Clauses
- Substantive clauses behave like nouns and perform noun functions (subject, direct object, etc.).
- Adjective clauses behave like adjectives and complement nouns.
- Adverbial clauses behave like adverbs and function as circumstantial complements. They can also express cause, condition, consequence, purpose, and other circumstances.