Sentence in the text

We have repeatedly shown throughout the present work that sentences in continual speech are not used in isolation; they are interconnected both semantically-topically and syntac-tically.

Inter-sentential connections have come under linguistic in-vestigation but recently. The highest lingual unit which was approached by traditional grammar as liable to syntactic study was the sentence; scholars even specially stressed that to surpass the boundaries of the sentence was equal to sur-passing the boundaries of grammar.

In particular, such an outstanding linguist as L. Bloomfield, while recognising the general semantic connections between sentences in the composition of texts as linguistically relevant, at the same time pointed out that the sentence is the largest grammatically arranged linguistic form, i.e. it is not included into any other linguistic form by a grammatical arrangement.*

However, further studies in this field have demonstrated the inadequacy of the cited thesis. It has been shown that sentences in speech do come under broad grammatical arrangements, do combine with one another on strictly syntactic lines in the for-mation of larger stretches of both oral talk and written text.

It should be quite clear that, supporting the principle of syn-tactic approach to arrangement of sentences into a continual text, we do not assert that any sequence of independent sen-tences forms a syntactic unity. Generally speaking, sentences in a stretch of uninterrupted talk may or may not build up a co-herent sequence, wholly depending on the purpose of the speaker. E.g.:

Barbara. Dolly: don't be insincere. Cholly: fetch your con-certina and play something for us (B. Shaw).

The cited sequence of two sentences does not form a unity in either syntactic or semantic sense, the sentences being ad-dressed to different persons on different reasons. A discon-nected sequence may also have one and the same communica-tion addressee, as in the following case:

Duchess of Berwic... I like him so much. I am quite de-lighted he's gone! How sweet you're looking! Where do you get your gowns? And now I must tell you how sorry I am for you, dear Margaret (O. Wilde).

But disconnected sequences like these are rather an excep-tion than the rule. Moreover, they do not contradict in the least the idea of a continual topical text as being formed of gram-matically interconnected sentences. Indeed, successive sen-tences in a disconnected sequence mark the corresponding tran-sitions of thought, so each of them can potentially be expanded into a connected sequence bearing on one

* See: Bloomfield L. Language. N.-Y., 1933, p. 170. 362unifying topic. Characteristically, an utterance of a personage in a work of fiction marking a transition of thought (and break-ing the syntactic connection of sentences in the sequence) is usually introduced by a special author's comment. E.g.:

"You know, L.S., you're rather a good sport." Then his tone grew threatening again. "It's a big risk I'm taking. It's the big-gest risk I've ever had to take" (C. P. Snow).

As we see, the general idea of a sequence of sentences forming a text includes two different notions. On the one hand, it presupposes a succession of spoken or written utterances ir-respective of their forming or not forming a coherent semantic complex. On the other hand, it implies a strictly topical stretch of talk, i.e. a continual succession of sentences centering on a common informative purpose. It is this latter understanding of the text that is syntactically relevant. It is in this latter sense that the text can be interpreted as a lingual element with its two distinguishing features: first, semantic (topical) unity, second, semantico-syntactic cohesion. Sentences in a cumulative sequence can be connected either "prospectively" or "retrospectively".

Prospective ("epiphoric", "cataphoric") cumulation is ef-fected by connective elements that relate a given sentence to one that is to follow it. In other words, a prospective connector signals a continuation of speech: the sentence containing it is semantically incomplete. Very often prospective connectors are notional words that perform the cumulative function for the nonce. Poetical text is formed by cumulemes, too:

She is not fair to outward view, | As many maidens be; | Her loveliness I never knew | Until she smiled on me. |Oh, then I saw her eye was bright, | A well of love, a spring of light (H. Coleridge).

But the most important factor showing the inalienable and universal status of the cumuleme in language is the indispensa-ble use of cumulemes in colloquial speech (which is reflected in plays, as well as in conversational passages in works of vari-ous types of fiction). The basic semantic types of cumulemes are "factual" (narra-tive and descriptive), "modal" (reasoning, perceptive, etc.), and mixed.

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