Talk:Sentence (linguistics)
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[edit] Who's in Charge Here?
I'd venture to say that 99.99% of English-speaking people would never answer the above question with "I". In this case, if one were to use a single word to reference one's self, that word would be "me". It may not fit neatly into some linguistic theories, but it's the correct word by convention. Little things like that bug me ;) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.56.24.188 (talk • contribs) .
- I'd venture to say 35-75% of the population would say "I am." At least, that'd feel more natural to me. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 130.58.241.222 (talk • contribs) .
[edit] A more global view might be warranted
Shouldn't this article take a more global view of the sentence.... not just the strict linguistic one? At the moment it discusses legal and correct sentences without making it clear that this is only meaningful in some contexts. In popular usage the definition of sentence is a little bit more lax. fabiform | talk 20:32, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Lauri from The Rasmus' marital status-what does it say?
Estado Marital: Por el momento no esta casado por que suele enamorarse de las personas equivocadas. Dice que su corazón pertenece a The Rasmus
Anybody who can help me understand what this says please feel free to answer this...I'm very confused.
Thankyou
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.137.86.89 (talk • contribs) .
[edit] Another definition of sentence.
I'm of the opinion that a sentence is a group of words that communicates a complete idea.
I believe a sentence must have a subject and a predicate.
The shortest sentence in the bible is "Jesus wept."
I don't think "Go!" is a sentence, as it is incomplete. Sure we use it in speech and in text, but I still don't think it is definitevly a sentence. Go where?
The same applies for "No." No what?
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 147.66.131.10 (talk • contribs) .
"Die!" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kdammers (talk • contribs).
[edit] Sentence definition
I think it is important to understand that a "sentence" is a graphological convention; that is, the sentence came into being and developed as writing systems came into being and developed. The term 'sentence' is probably best reserved to label stretches of written text. See Halliday and Matthiessen, An Introduction to Functional Grammar and Geoff Thompson, Introducing Functional Grammar.
--Jim 20:19, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Bad example "The more, the merrier"
The more, the merrier is just a shorthand. The full expanded sentence would be regular compound sentence using the verb 'to be' twice, right? :
The more [persons there are], the merrier [the situtation/event will be].
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 198.185.18.207 (talk • contribs) .
- It's certainly not a regular compound sentence. You could argue that it's a regular complex sentence, with "the more [people there are]" serving as a adverb clause modifying "the merrier [the situation/event will be]", but I think this is missing the point, which is that the verb is implied; the sentence itself ("the more, the merrier") has no verbs. It's true that some more-normal structure can be imposed by taking fuller clauses to be elided, but the primary structure is one of parallel phrases, the implication being that two things go together. Similarly with many such adages: "in for a penny, in for a pound"; "like father, like son"; "no pain, no gain"; "out of sight, out of mind"; "once bitten, twice shy"; "waste not, want not"; and so on. (Well, that last one does have verbs, but I still think the true structure is one of parallel phrases rather than one of coordinated or subordinated clauses.) Ruakh 19:28, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
