HOMOGENEOUS PREDICATES IN THE GENERAL SYNTACTIC THEORY

Abstract

In terms of formal, semantic complexity and role in a sentence, no part of the sentence can compete with the predicate. The functioning of grammatical categories of the predicate covers the whole sentence and determines its specificity. The predicate is included in the structural scheme of the sentence as its principal part; it adds the modal and temporal characteristics to the predicative feature, correlates with the subject in the semantic and syntactic structure of the sentence. The article deals with the analysis of the features of homogeneous predicates in a simple sentence. The author describes evolution of the views of Eastern European and Western European linguists concerning the predicate, in general, and sentences with homogeneous predicates, both verbal and nominal, in particular. In the article, the status of these structures in modern linguistic studies is discussed. Western European linguists concentrate either on a typology of sentences, or separate complex predicates from serial verbal predicates in the study of homogeneous parts of sentence. The solution to the predicate problem is directly related to the general problem of the parts of sentence, the problem of syntactic connection between parts of sentence. The predicate is considered to be a part of sentence on which the secondary parts of sentence as the most significant elements of the sentence structure are dependent (object, adverbial modifier). Both predicate and dependent on it secondary parts of а sentence help the sentence to function and express the main meaning contained in it. This is the necessary structural and informational sufficient minimum, without which the sentence as a communicative unit does not exist. It can be defined as the semantic and grammatical nucleus or the semantic and grammatical minimum of a sentence. Since the predicate determines predicative categories of a sentence, it can be considered a constituent element of the sentence. The article also deals with the common and distinctive features of homogeneous predicates, depending on their functioning in the women’s novels of the early XXI century. In the course of the research, varieties of semantic and syntactic relations between homogeneous predicates were highlighted; patterns of functioning of homogeneous predicates in the structure of a simple sentence and their connection with grammatical markers were established.