Types of sentences, according to a type of communication, continued

Imperative sentences - commands

1. The most ordinary category of command differs from a statement in the following points. First, it
has no subject. Second, it has a finite verb in the imperative mood. This is a sentence like:

Speak to the boss today.

The imperative is severely restricted as to tense aspect, voice and modality. There is no tense
distinction, no perfect forms, and the progressive form occurs only very rarely, as in the following
example:

Be preparing the dinner when he comes in.

A passive form is equally rare. It occurs in some set commands with Be (Be prepared. Be seated. Be
reassured by me) when the passive auxiliary is not Be but get passive forms are somewhat more
frequent (Get washed, get dressed, get lost)
In modern English the imperative is not used with stative verbs. For example you can’t say:

Sound louder.

Modal auxiliaries do not occur at all in an imperative sentences. In this ordinary type of imperative
sentence, although there isn't verb subject, it is implied that the imperative verb has a subject. This
implied subject is the second person pronoun you. This is intuitively clear, but there is also some
syntactic evidence for that.
a/ The subject of a tag question appended to an imperative sentence is you
Be quiet, will you?
Since the subject of the tag should be the same as the subject of the preceding sentence, it is clear
that the implied subject is you.
b/ the admitted subject is you is also confirmed by the occurrence of yourself as object , as in the
example.
Behave yourself (and you don't say behave herself too).
2. There is also a type of command in which the subject is retained, in which the subject is overt
(obvious). For example:
You be quiet!
You mind your own business and leave this to me.

These commands are usually admonitions, warnings and frequently express strong irritation. As
such, they cannot naturally be combined with markers of politeness such as please. You can’t say:
Please. you be quiet. However, these commands can be used to single out by pointing two or more
distinct addressees. For example:
You come here, Jane!
You go there Mary.
3. There are also imperative sentences with a third person subject. For example:
Somebody open this door.
Everybody shut their eyes.
 Jack and Susan stand over there
4. Using the verb let.
We can form first person imperatives. The verb let opens the sentence, followed by a subject in the
objective case, for example:
Let me have a look. Singular.
Let us all work. Plural.
5. Using the verb let followed by a subject in the objective case. We can also form third person
commands, for example:
Let her speak now.
Let each man decide for himself, not Urbani.
In very colloquial English, let is sometimes used for the first person singular. For example:
Let's give you a hand, which means. Let me give you a hand.
Now look at the table of the structural types of commands in which you are presented with a
summary. The negative commands to negate the first three types of command. We simply add an
initial dont first, for example.
Open the door becomes. Don’t open the door.
Second, You open the door. Becomes Don’t you open the door.
Third, someone open the door becomes. Don't anyone open the door.
Fourth. First person imperatives are generally negated by the insertion of not after the pronoun
following let. For example,
Let’s not open the door
Informally, however, the negation with don't is frequently heard.
Don't let's open the door.
Fifth type five is negated in the same way by Don't
Let someone open the door becomes. Don't let anyone open the door.
Don't let anyone fool himself that he can get away with it.

Exclamatory sentences

In discussing exclamations as a formal category of sentence, we shall now restrict our attention to
the type of exclamatory sentence introduced by an exclamatory WHO element (wh element such
as what or how) The exclamatory elements may have different syntactic functions. It can be object,
complement, adverbial or subject. For example, what an enormous crowd came. What an
enormous crowd is subject. What a time we've had today. What a time is object. How delightful her
manners are, how delightful is subject compliment. How I used to hate mathematics. How is
adverbial. What a mess we are in. What a mess is a prepositional object.
It is also possible for the whole prepositional phrase to occur initially as an exclamatory element.
For example: For how many years have I waited? The exclamatory element is for how many years
and it is a prepositional phrase. This example also illustrates the occasional inversion of subject and
operator in literary English.
Wh-exclamations or w h exclamations are frequently reduced by ellipses to the single exclamatory
element. For example, What a terrible wind!, How encouraging! etc. Sentences like these are a kind
of one member sentences.
Finally, we must bear in mind the following in relation with the types of sentences according to
types of communication. The four classes of sentences discussed so far have the following functions
of discourse. Statements are primarily used to convey information. Questions are primarily used to
express lack of information on a specific point and usually to request the listener to supply this
information verbally. Commands are primarily used to instruct, to urge somebody to do something.
Exclamations are primarily used for expressing the speaker's own feelings. So such is the relation
between sentence types and discourse functions. However, the syntactic classes of sentences do
not always correspond one to one to the discourse functions. Here are some examples illustrating
such discrepancies.
What on earth are you doing?
The syntactic class of this sentence is that of a question. So it is an interrogative sentence. But the
discourse function is that of an exclamation. It is an exclamatory sentence.
The next example was similarly illustrating this discrepancy.
I wonder if you would kindly open the window.
The syntactic class is that of statement. But the discourse function is that of request or command.
Also, the following example. I'd love a cup of tea, syntactic class statement, discourse functions
possibly, three one statement. two exclamation, three request.

Another type of sentences are the so-called one member sentences.

These are sentences which have no separate subject and predicate, but instead they have one main
part only. Consider the following sentences from the novel Bleak House by Charles Dickens.
London. Implacable November weather. Dogs indistinguishable in minor. Horses, scarcely better
splashed to their very blinkers. Fog everywhere.
The main part of a one member sentence is neither the subject nor the predicate. This does not
mean that some member of the sentence missing. For the one member makes the sense complete.
From the point of view of their structure, one-member sentences are classified into nominal and
infinitive. The nominal one member sentence is a sentence the main part of which is expressed by a
noun. This noun may be accompanied or modified. That is by other words or phrases which
function as its attributes. The meaning of such a sentence is that the thing denoted by the noun
exists in a certain place or at a certain time. For example: Dusk of a summer night. And also as an
example, we can take all the examples quoted above by Dickens. Nominal one member sentences
are frequently used in stage directions in place. For example: Night. A lady's bed chamber in
Bulgaria in a small town near the Dragoman Pass late in November in the year eighteen eighty five.
This example comes from Bernard Shaw.
There are also imperative one member sentences. For example, Attention! Silence, woman on your
way. These are nominal imperative one member sentences.
There can also be exclamatory one member sentences. For example: A scandal! A possible scandal!
What a picture! What a life! Such clear water!
Exclamatory one member sentences can be adjectival. How strange! How awful! How disgusting!
With nominal one member sentences the use of determiners of the noun, such as demonstrative
pronouns and the definite article have special connotations of assessment. That woman said somes
The angry sadness of the creatures eyes.
This mean that you pass judgment on that woman or you comment on the angry sadness of the
creatures eyes. You assess them. The nominal part is frequently modified by an off-phrase, for
example, The unfairness of it all! The noise of it! Oh, the relief and the sense of humiliation. Oh, the
shame of this day. Notice that this one member sentences are also exclamatory. The infinitive one
member sentences are sentences with an infinitive as their main part. They may be of two kinds.
1/ One type is an exclamatory sentence in which the two infinitive stands at the beginning of the
sentence. The general meaning of the sentence is strong feeling on the part of the speaker, such as
the first line of a poem by Robert Browning. Oh, to be in England, infinitive sentences of this type
are very common in represented speech. Represented speech is a halfway between between direct
and indirect speech used in narrative writing. It's very often represents a person's stream of
thought, for example, To be alive, to have youth and the world before one. To think of the eyes and
the smile of some youth in the region, these examples come from Dreiser. These one member
infinitive sentences express the heroine's feelings.
2/The second type of infinitive one member sentence is an interrogative sentence beginning with
the adverb y, which is followed by the bare infinitive. The bare infinitive is the infinitive without the
particle to for example, why waste time? Why go to all that trouble?

The bare infinitive is sometimes preceded by the negative particle not, for example.

Why not see me again? Why not give your friend the same pleasure? Why not refuse the offer?

Nota bene, there are also two member infinitive sentences. In them the infinitive is preceded by a
noun phrase functioning as subject. The infinitive can be the two infinitive or the bare infinitive, and
the sentences are exclamatory. A gentleman to strike a lady! That fellow to talk of injuries! My
daughter marry you! Mary, take Valium! Such an old lady to come so far! George mind tennis on
Sunday!

3/And yet another type of sentences, the so-called elliptical sentence. Now, what is ellipsis?
Ellipses in sentence structure is a natural syntactic process presented in all languages, ellipsis
means emission of words. Words are elipted only if they are uniquely recoverable. That is, if there
is no doubt as to what words are to be supplied and if it is possible to add the recovered words to
the sentence. For example. She might come, but I don't think she will. Here the word come is
ellipted. What is uniquely recoverable depends on the context. We don't have to repeat the verb
come. What is the motivation for ellipses? A. Ellipsis is most commonly an abbreviating device that
reduces redundancy. It reduces superfluity, repetitiveness. That is a major use of ellipses is the
avoidance of repetition. B. Another important motivation for ellipsis is f ocusing by omitting items
that are shared attention is focused on the new material in the sentence. That is the Rheem, as in
the following mini dialogue person A: Have you spoken to him? Person B: Not yet. Person B, instead
of giving a full repetitive answer: I have not yet spoken to him. He uses only the. The new
information. Not yet. And it is enough for the purposes of communication the given, the shared, the
old information is I have spoken to him. But it is elided for the purposes of economy. So, elliptical
sentences are sentences with one or more of their parts left out. Which can be unambiguously
inferred or recovered from the context. All kinds of parts of the sentence can be elipted, can be
elided, can be omitted. For example, we can omit the subject.

See you tomorrow. Much obliged. We don't say We'll see you tomorrow. I am much obliged.

The verb. For example: Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa. The link verb. His eyes were
a golden brown, his hair dark allburn. We don't repeat. His hair was was is a myth. It was dark.
Allburn, the subject complement. I am no judge of music. But Mr. Roacher is. We don't repeat the
subject complement to judge of music. We don't say. But Mr. Roacher is there is a judge of music.
The context makes this clear. The object can also be omitted. Don't you know her address? No, I
forget. You don't have to repeat the object. You don't have to say no. I forget her address. Her
address is elided. In tag questions. Tag questions are usually elliptical constructions. We have been
good friends, haven't we? Here again, you don't have to repeat Good friends come and we being
good friends because that will be redundant. You just say, haven't we? And the rest is provided by
the context. Block language or the so-called telegraphic ellipses. Oh, so you're kind of present a
kind of elliptical sentences. English spoken here. Smoking strictly prohibited, Wet paint such and
other elliptical inscriptions or notices can be seen in public places.