2. LANGUAGE AND MEANING: Basic Concepts Language communication. In whatever type of conversation, for instance the following dialogue, we can distinguish various types of communicative acts, (llocutiona acts) by which people communicate with each other: making statements, asking ques giving directives, making offers or promises, thanking or expressing an exclamation, Offer J: Ifyou like, Il came into your shop tomorrow and get some mene ‘model aeroplane kits Directive © OK, Don't forget to bring the bill with you this time Promise E Twon't Question Do yon enjoy working there? Statements C:_ Its allright, I suppose. Gets a bit boring. I'll do fora while, ['ve Trad other jobs. My Dad keeps on at me to go into his business, He Exclamation keeps offering me better wages, but the ast thing to do is to work for him! Question & Why? Echo question C: Why? You don’t know my old man! Exclamation wouldn't work for hin Statement We don’t get on well together Question EDyou think it’s possible to get me on a part time job? Offer’Promise C: Tring him up tomorrow, Fanice, and find out for you. ‘Thanking J Thanks a lot In a communicative exchange between speaker and hearer/interlocutor such as this, inds of speech roles: that of giving and of demanding information, an opinion, or some type of goods or services (asking a favor, making a promise). Whether spoken or written, illocutionary acts take place in a social context: telephone conversation, giving or attending a lecture, writing a letter, buying something, ie. doings and happenings in which we are involved or which affect us. These are also called situations or states of affairs. From the linguistic point of view (the spcaker’s conccptualization of the cextralinguistic reality), such contexts arc made up of semantic roles or functions such as: there are two basic 1. processes: actions, events, states, types of bchavior, 2. participants: animate and inanimate entities; 3. attributes: the qualities and characteristics of the participants: 4. circumstances: the prevailing conditions in which a situation exists or takes place (time, place, manner, cause, and other circumstances of an action). I “come into your shop Tomorrow Participant process circumstance ‘Circumstance In traditional grammar, the basic unit for the expression of interpersonal and experiential meanings (information, opinions, ete) is the independent clause, “the simple sentence.” Nevertheless, a message (communication), in order to be coherent, must consist of clauses and sentences in relation to what precedes them, i.e, the linguistic context (co-text). Within the independent clause, the initial element is called “Theme,” and the rest of the clause is called “Rheme.” Janice will give, Chris the address tomorrow ‘Theme RhemeThe Theme may coincide with one of the participants, the Agent as in the example above, or it may ‘set the scene’ by coinciding with Circumstance (an initial expression of time, place), Oi (Recipient), Od (Affected). In a typical declarative clause such as this, Agent, Subject and Theme coincide and are realized in one wording, JANICE. However, a situation can be expressed in different ways, ie. the order of the clause elements can vary, since owing to the desired emphasis different elements of structure can be placed in initial position. Here are a few possible variants to the above example: 1. Chris will be given the address by Janice tomorrow. 2. ‘The address —__ will be given to Chris tomorrow by Janice. 3. The address Janice will give Chris tomorrow. 4. The address —_Tanice will give it to Chris tomorrow. 5. Tomorrow Chris will be given the address (by Janice). 6. ‘Tomorrow the address will be given to Chris by Janice. Itean be seen that the Theme coincides here with the Subject in 1 and 2, with the Direct Object in 3 and 4 and with Adjunct in 5 and 6. The Agent no longer coincides with the Theme in any of the variants. In 1 the Recipient is Theme: in 2.3 and 4 the Affected is ‘Theme, whereas in 5 and 6 the Circumstance is Theme. [Adjuncts are optional elements providing circumstantial elements which can be added or omitted without producing an ‘ungrammatical clause] The configurations for 1 are: Chris willbegiven | the address ‘by Janice tomorrow Recipient Process “Affected ‘Agent Circumstance Subject Finite F [Direct Object | Adjunct “Adjunct Predicator Theme ‘Rheme ‘The configurations for 6 are as follows: “Tomorrow the address will begiven | to Chis by Janice Circumstance [Affected Process Recipient ‘Agent “Adjunct Subject Finite F] Oprep Circumstance Predicator (Means) Theme Rheme By means of such reorganizations of the message, the content of the elause can be made to relate to the rest of the discourse and to the communicative context in which it is produced. The next step in our structural analysis would be a closer look at the full range of grammatical units in which the clause is central. The unit above the clause is the clause complex and the units immediately below the clause are the groups. In this respect, the basic syntactic concepts with which we operate are: structural units which can be arranged on a scale of rank, the elasses into which these units can be divided, and the elements of which they are composed, We shall also consider the relationship of realization by means of which the units of one rank are related to those of another. Language is not a series of words strung together like beads on a string. Language is patterned, in other words, certain structures and regularities ean be distinguished throughout covery language manifestation in a text. A unit is “any stretch of language which constitutes a tic whole and which has a semantic pattern that is repeated regularly in speech and 10writing.” (Downing and Locke, 1992:9) For example: “repeated regularly” or writing” as they represent a semantic whole and a syntactic pattern. Let’s take another example: “His attempts ended in failure.” Here we deal with one single syntactic unit which is composed of further structural units which can be arranged in order of magnitude on a four element rank-scale: in speech and UNIT BOUNDARY EXAMPLE MARKER Clause: (clause) his attempts ended in failure Group, (group) J his attempts/endediin failure! Word: ‘a space (word) his attempts ended in failure Morpheme:_| + {ATTEMPT } + { PLURAL}, realized by the morphemes attempts. ‘The independent clause is the equivalent of the traditional “simple sentence,” as it has already been mentioned above, whereas combinations of clauses, for which the boundary marker is /i/, will be dealt with later on. In terms of relationship, each unit consists of one or more units of the rank below it. Thus, a clause consists of groups, a group consists of words and a word consists of morphemes. Moreover, at each rank of linguistic unit, there are various classes of unit. At the rank of “CLAUSE” we first distinguish between independent clauses (indep.cl) complete in themselves — and dependent clauses (dep.cl) which are necessarily related to ‘one or several independent clauses: e.g. He locked up his office (indep.cl), before he went home (dep.cl). A further distinction is to be made between finite clauses (CIf — based on finite forms of the verbs, expressing thus tense, person or number) and non-finite clauses (Clnf — based on finitive and participial groups). Compare the following fragments: a) / Thad a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong hills. " /// the Equator runs across these highlands, a hundred miles to the north, ”!// and // the farm Jay at an altitude of over six thousand feet. "!/// in the daytime you felt that you had got high up, near the sun, "! // but // the early momings and evenings were limpid and restful") // and // the nights were cold, Karen Blixen, Out of Africa (finite clauses) and b) Three men, cramped "| together on their bellies in a dead end, were doing their best ro revive "I another man who lay in a huddled attitude, his body slewed"! sideways, one shoulder pointing “backwards, lost"! seemingly, in the mass of rock behind him. A. I. Cronin, The Citadel (non-finite clauses) All independent clauses are finite, as seen above, whereas dependent clauses are either finite or non-finite, Another type of clause is the minor elause (Cim), which lacks all/part of the Mood element (Subject + Finite) and is therefore “moodless.” The omitted verb is a form of *to be” and is recoverable from the context. €.g. Though rather too cold for the month of September, the trip there was both relaxing and rewarding. (= Though it way rather too ....) Many other irregular constructions can be classified as minor clauses, such as: a) WH-questions without a finite verb: u