Information on the thesis

This research offers a complex structural-semantic and communicative-pragmatic analysis of English-language prose polypredicative complex sentences. Attention is paid to the phenomenon of polypredicativity which is viewed as an obligatory formal-grammatical and semantic feature of the polypredicative complex sentence forming this sentence as an integral communicative unit and functioning as a complex speech act.

The generation process and connection types of dependent clauses in English-language prose polypredicative complex sentences are described in the thesis from the perspective of transformational-generative grammar. Three types of polypredicative hypotactic constructions – with sentential actants, circonstants and adjuncts – have been singled out with the help of X-bar theory.

English-language prose polypredicative complex sentences are structures in which two or three subordination types – homogeneous, heterogeneous and consecutive – are combined. The syntactic structure expansion in polypredicative complex sentences results in the singling out of external and internal division levels.

A specific character of semantic relations in English-language prose polypredicative complex sentences is the penetration of meanings of its constituents showing syncretic relations between them. Such relations are manifested both in formal-grammatical and semantic-syntactic aspects, and the overlapping of meanings endows the sentences with artistic figurativeness.

The actual division of the English-language prose polypredicative complex sentence is realized by three communicative types: chain, stepping and contaminated. English-language prose polypredicative complex sentences are found in three basic actual division models: with the theme expansion, the rheme expansion, and with the expansion of the theme and the rheme.

The order of polypredicative hypotactic construction components is determined by the structure of the sentence as a communicative unit, and its actual division participates in the formation of non-identical communicative-syntactic sentence types.

The English-language prose polypredicative complex sentence is defined as a complex speech act characterized by the syncretism of pragmatic meanings of its constituents. The overlapping of identical illocutions results in the formation of homogeneous complex speech acts, whereas the combination of non-identical illocutions leads to the formation of heterogeneous complex speech acts.

Heterogeneous complex speech acts are represented by heterogeneous polyillocutionary and heterogeneous biillocutionary complex speech acts. In the group of heterogeneous biillocutionary complex speech acts the following types are singled out: complex injunctives, requestives, promissives, menasives, expressives, quesitives and metacommunicatives.

Polypredicative complex sentences function as indirect speech acts if their expression and content planes do not correlate. Such speech acts express nuanced pragmatic meanings.

Key words: polypredicativity, polypredicative complex sentence, clause, actual division, complex speech act.