Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech by Edward Sapir
page 41 of 283 (14%)
page 41 of 283 (14%)
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conveyed by _The-mayor is-going-to-deliver-a-speech_ in two words, a
subject word and a predicate word, but English is not so highly synthetic. The point that we are really making here is that underlying the finished sentence is a living sentence type, of fixed formal characteristics. These fixed types or actual sentence-groundworks may be freely overlaid by such additional matter as the speaker or writer cares to put on, but they are themselves as rigidly "given" by tradition as are the radical and grammatical elements abstracted from the finished word. New words may be consciously created from these fundamental elements on the analogy of old ones, but hardly new types of words. In the same way new sentences are being constantly created, but always on strictly traditional lines. The enlarged sentence, however, allows as a rule of considerable freedom in the handling of what may be called "unessential" parts. It is this margin of freedom which gives us the opportunity of individual style. [Footnote 7: "Coordinate sentences" like _I shall remain but you may go_ may only doubtfully be considered as truly unified predications, as true sentences. They are sentences in a stylistic sense rather than from the strictly formal linguistic standpoint. The orthography _I shall remain. But you may go_ is as intrinsically justified as _I shall remain. Now you may go_. The closer connection in sentiment between the first two propositions has led to a conventional visual representation that must not deceive the analytic spirit.] [Footnote 8: Except, possibly, in a newspaper headline. Such headlines, however, are language only in a derived sense.] The habitual association of radical elements, grammatical elements, words, and sentences with concepts or groups of concepts related into |
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