Abstract
A sentence, as has been suggested before in this study, consists of one or more elements, each consisting of one or more than one word. We have mentioned the subject as an important element, because it denotes the person or thing about whom (which) a statement is made. The other basic elements, as they are now sometimes called,1 are the verb, the object(s) and the complement(s). Although these are called basic (or major) elements, it does not follow that no sentence can be complete without them. In fact it is very seldom that they are all present in a sentence in PC. Carlton (see op. cit. chapter II) divides them into mandatory (subject and verb) and optional basic elements (objects and complement), and defines the mandatory ones as “those that are found in every sentence” and the optional ones as “those that may or may not be used in combination with other basic elements.” This is certainly not the state of affairs in PC. In this text we find at least one verb in practically all sentences; the subject is not expressed in about 200 main clauses in A and in about 130 main clauses in B. There are also sentences in which we find no basic elements at all. Those without a finite verb are sometimes called elliptical sentences.
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References
Prof. R. W. Zandvoort (see op. cit. 573 ff.) uses the term neucleus (plural nuclei), for basic (or major) elements, and adjuncts for secondary (or minor) elements. I cannot see, however, that he is entirely consistent: in 581 he suggests that, in My sister married young, “young is just as essential as married” (i.e. a nucleus); in 592 he calls clear in Have I made this clear? a predicative adjunct (i.e. no nucleus). But surely young and clear are syntactically on the same level, the only difference being that, whereas both are related to the verb, young also relates to the subject, and clear also to the object. I prefer the terms subject and object complement.
cp. Sapir, op. cit., p. 36.
cp. Zandvoort, op. cit., 584.
cp. Kruis.-Erades, p. 38.
cp. Kruis.-Erades, p. 23: “An object may be defined as an adjunct that completes the meaning of the verb.”
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© 1973 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Sprockel, C. (1973). The Basic Elements of the Sentence. In: The Language of the Parker Chronicle. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2436-5_7
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