Esther García Martínez
1. COORDINATION AND APPOSITION
Introduction
● The sentence is traditionally the highest grammatical unit: The simple
sentence consists of one independiente clause (already seen)
● The compound sentence consists of two or more independent clauses of
equal status, linked in a relation of coordination (parasintaxis).
Coordinate Clauses
● Linked in a relation of equivalence and interdependency based on
similarity of function and relevance.
● Coordination is a type of relation that holds between units of similar
function, and often similar form (independiente clauses, dependiente
clauses, phrases, words). Ex: Pete and Mary speak excellent French; He can
see you this afternoon or tomorrow morning; John stayed at home but I
went out .
●Ellipsis is often involved, since part of the information in one unit may be
recoverable from the other unit.
●Ambiguity is often present in coordinated structures.
● When no explicit formal maker of coordination is present, and the relationship
is of equivalence, we have apposition:
Apposition is a construction in which a NP specifies another NP
Ex. The murderer, the man with a scar, will be arrested soon; A
university lecturer, Dr Smith, has won the Nobel Prize.
● There are two types of apposition:
1. Full aposition: Each unit can be
omitted without affecting the
acceptability of the sentence;
same syntactic function;
interchangeability.
2. Partial apposition: Non meeting
all three conditions: Mr Jones, at
that time a student, wrote
several best-sellers. ; *At that
time a student, Mr Jone, wrote several best-sellers.
2. COMPLEX SENTENCES
Introduction
● It consists of one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses, linked in
a relationship of dependency (subordination/hypotaxis).
● The speaker/writer presents states of affairs as being foregrounded (Main clause)
and backgrounded (subordinate clause).
● Dependency is not an absolute property, but a question of degree. The stronger the
semantic and pragmatic connectivity, the stronger syntactic connectivity.
● EMBEDDING: “NESTING”: The dependent clause functions as a constituent of the
independent clause (subject, DO, CS…) or as a constituent of a phrase. * Clauses
functioning as Adjuncts/ Adverbials are considered constituents of the clause but the
degree of integration is relative.
