Nominal Sentence
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In
linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
, a nominal sentence (also known as equational sentence) is a sentence without a
finite verb A finite verb is a verb that contextually complements a subject, which can be either explicit (like in the English indicative) or implicit (like in null subject languages or the English imperative). A finite transitive verb or a finite intra ...
. As a nominal sentence does not have a verbal
predicate Predicate or predication may refer to: * Predicate (grammar), in linguistics * Predication (philosophy) * several closely related uses in mathematics and formal logic: **Predicate (mathematical logic) **Propositional function **Finitary relation, o ...
, it may contain a nominal predicate, an adjectival predicate, in Semitic languages also an
adverbial In English grammar, an adverbial ( abbreviated ) is a word (an adverb) or a group of words (an adverbial clause or adverbial phrase) that modifies or more closely defines the sentence or the verb. (The word ''adverbial'' itself is also used as a ...
predicate or even a
prepositional Adpositions are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositions (which precede their complemen ...
predicate. In
Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
ian- Coptic, however, as in the majority of
African languages The number of languages natively spoken in Africa is variously estimated (depending on the delineation of language vs. dialect) at between 1,250 and 2,100, and by some counts at over 3,000. Nigeria alone has over 500 languages (according to SI ...
, sentences with adverbial or prepositional predicate show a distinctly different structure. The relation of nominal sentences to verbal sentences is a question of tense marking. In most languages with nominal sentences such as
Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...
,
Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
and
Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
, the
copular verb In linguistics, a copula (; : copulas or copulae; abbreviated ) is a word or phrase that links the subject of a sentence to a subject complement, such as the word ''is'' in the sentence "The sky is blue" or the phrase ''was not being'' in the ...
does not surface in indicatival present tense sentences. Conversely, these languages allow the copular verb in non-present sentences.


History

Historically, nominal sentences have posited much controversy regarding their identity as an existent linguistic phenomenon. Ancient grammatical tradition did not uncover such sentences, or if they did, they were only found as an exception to the language structure. This was the view taken by the Western grammatical tradition, which began with an analysis of Ancient Greek followed by an analysis of Latin. However, this Western/European approach to nominal sentences was not how the Arab grammarians of the early Middle Ages approached it. Arab grammarians did not feel as bound by the classical grammatical categories as did the European counterparts of that historical period. Rather, they viewed a sentence as having two basic categories: 1. a verbal sentence that begins with a verb, and 2. a nominal sentence that begins with a noun and may or may not have a verb within it. Moving forward in the historical time period,
Orientalists In art history, literature, and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects of the Eastern world (or "Orient") by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. Orientalist painting, particularly of the Middle ...
later borrowed the ''nominal sentence'' terminology from the early Arab grammarians, however modified it slightly to be defined solely with respect to the absence of the verbal predicate, rather than with respect to the first word of the sentence (the noun) that may or may not have a verb in it, as the Arab grammarians defined it. This slight shift in the definition of nominal sentences corresponds partly to both the Western and the Arabic grammar tradition. The Orientalists' definition agrees with the Western grammar's focus of the predicate orientation, and it supports how the Arab grammarians included a sentence category of nominal sentences (nonverbal sentences). Since this new definition of nominal sentences corresponded more accurately to the notion of ''non-verbal sentences'', compared to the Arab definition of 'it may or may not contain a verb', the Orientalists' definition included predicate types other than verbs (nouns, adjectives, etc.).


Syntactic structure and analyses

To successfully account for the syntactic structure of a nominal sentence, there must either be a change in the
phrase structure rules Phrase structure rules are a type of rewrite rule used to describe a given language's syntax and are closely associated with the early stages of transformational grammar, proposed by Noam Chomsky in 1957. They are used to break down a natural langu ...
or a
zero copula Zero copula, also known as null copula, is a linguistic phenomenon whereby the subject is joined to the predicate without overt marking of this relationship (like the copula (linguistics), copula ''to be'' in English). One can distinguish languag ...
must be assumed. This is because nominal sentences cannot be accounted for using traditional phrase structure rules, which state: TP → (T) ( VP). In other words, a tense phrase must consist of a
noun phrase A noun phrase – or NP or nominal (phrase) – is a phrase that usually has a noun or pronoun as its head, and has the same grammatical functions as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently ...
or
complementizer phrase In linguistics (especially generative grammar), a complementizer or complementiser (glossing abbreviation: ) is a functional category (part of speech) that includes those words that can be used to turn a clause into the subject or object of a ...
, an optional tense head, and a
verb phrase In linguistics, a verb phrase (VP) is a syntax, syntactic unit composed of a verb and its argument (linguistics), arguments except the subject (grammar), subject of an independent clause or coordinate clause. Thus, in the sentence ''A fat man quic ...
. Less technically, this means each sentence must have a noun and verb component. Because there is no overt verb in a nominal sentence, this creates a challenge for the theory. In the Arabic sentence (), literally "I happy", which is fully grammatical in the language, there is a pronoun, and an adjective, . The first satisfies the sentence requirement of having a noun, but the latter being an adjective, the verb requirement remains unfulfilled. In order to allow this construction, the theory would have to be revised to state *TP → NP (the * indicates that this is actually an ungrammatical construction), meaning there could be a sentence that breaks down to either a verb phrase or an adjective phrase (see the above figure). However, phrase structure rules are supposed to be universal, therefore this new rule would also allow us to generate "I happy" in English. Since this is not a grammatical sentence, this is an issue that requires attention. Another problem is that each phrase must consist of a
head A head is the part of an organism which usually includes the ears, brain, forehead, cheeks, chin, eyes, nose, and mouth, each of which aid in various sensory functions such as sight, hearing, smell, and taste. Some very simple ani ...
which bears its name. Therefore, in a verb phrase, the head is always a verb. Again, nominal sentences like do not have a verb, so the verb head position in the verb phrase cannot be filled. Having a zero copula is one way to solve the problems listed above without compromising the existing syntactic theory. The verb is present, just covertly, as "null". Using
X-bar theory In linguistics, X-bar theory is a model of phrase structure and a theory of syntactic category formation that proposes a universal schema for how phrases are organized. It suggests that all phrases share a common underlying structure, regardless ...
, it is possible to both account for the grammaticality of constructions such as "I happy" as well as explain how the subject DP is derived. In X-bar theory, there are no obligatory lexical categories that make up a sentence; instead, there are only general X-bar rules: the specifier rule, adjunct rule, and complement rule. Therefore, the theory accurately permits the AP "happy" as grammatical even without a verb since AP can be a complement to the T head (see aside).
Additionally, under the VP-internal subject hypothesis, the subject "I" will be generated in the specifier of VP and, using the DP movement, it will move to the specifier position of TP. Consequently, the resulting surface structure of the nominal sentence "I happy" is properly generated under this analysis.


In English

Nominal sentences in English are relatively uncommon, but may be found in non-finite
embedded clause A dependent clause, also known as a subordinate clause, subclause or embedded clause, is a certain type of clause that juxtaposes an independent clause within a complex sentence. For instance, in the sentence "I know Bette is a dolphin", the claus ...
s such as the one in "I consider John intelligent", where ''to be'' is omitted from ''John to be intelligent''. They can also be found in newspaper headlines, such as "Jones Winner" where the intended meaning is with the copular verb, "Jones is the Winner". Other examples are proverbs ("More haste, less speed"); requests ("Scalpel!"); and statements of existence (" Fire in the hole!"), which are often warnings. The omission of the verb 'to be' can also provide basis for nominal sentences: for example, in the sentence "the higher I am, the hungrier I feel", the verb 'to be' can be omitted to form a nominal sentence thus: "The higher, the hungrier". A sentence such as "What a great day today!" is, for example, considered nominal since there are no verbs.


In Arabic


Present tense

A verbless sentence in Arabic ( ) does not consist of a subject but rather a topic followed by a predicate. They are only possible in present tense sentences. Below are examples of verbless sentences with NP, AdjP or PP predicates. ;NP predicate ;AdjP predicate ;PP predicate All the examples above are perfectly grammatical in Arabic since they all refer to the present tense and therefore do not require verbs.


Past tense

As stated above, verbless sentences occur only in the present tense thus, a formal nominal sentence in Arabic can never express something in the
past tense The past tense is a grammatical tense whose function is to place an action or situation in the past. Examples of verbs in the past tense include the English verbs ''sang'', ''went'' and ''washed''. Most languages have a past tense, with some hav ...
. That is, the past feature has to always be indicated morphologically to convey accurate information of (+past), unlike the present which can be referred to as tenseless. The following is an example of a past tense sentence in formal or written Arabic: Demonstrated by the sentence above is the idea that tense is a guiding factor to the use of nominal sentences in Arabic. A sentence in the past always requires the (+past) verb.


Negation

Nominal sentences can be negated in different ways depending on tense and whether or not they are embedded. The following is an example of a negative nominal sentence in the present tense, using the formal Arabic negative particle : The negative particle () by itself has the meaning of a present tense and it is used to negate a general existence; so it means something along the lines of "there does not exist" or "there is not". Thus, it can only negate a tenseless sentence where an overt copula is not necessary. In order to negate a nominal sentence in the past, however, the copular verb must be included. The following is an example of a negative past sentence using the negative particle : It is important to note that the negative particle () is a tense marker of (+past). Therefore, it negates a lexically present tense to refer to the past, making past negative sentences similar to the affirmative past tense sentences in that a past feature must be marked.


In other languages


Hungarian

For some languages, nominal sentences are restricted to third person only. Hungarian is an example of such a language. In Hungarian, the copular verb simply expresses something that exists, such as something, someone, a place, or even time, weather, a material, an origin, a cause or purpose. In third person proposition sentences (both singular and plural), there are no copular verbs required and instead, the copular is null.


Russian

In Russian, there are no restrictions on verbless propositional sentences as they can occur with all persons and all numbers (i.e., singular or plural). However, despite such restrictions and variability seen in both Arabic and Hungarian above, there are no structural differences between the languages. Instead, these differences are derived by whether or not there must be a relation with the verbal constructions and the copular verb.


Hebrew

In Hebrew, sentences may or may not include verbs since verbs are optional and not at all obligatory. Also, the order of words is quite flexible such that for the sentences that do include verbs, the verb can appear either before or after the nominal predicate, adjectival predicate or prepositional predicate; the nominal predicate can appear either before or after the adjectival predicate, prepositional predicate; and so on, all of which are possible combinations that still mean the same thing. Although for the sentences that lack verbs, only two combinations are possible: either the nominal predicate appears before or after the adjectival/prepositional predicate. And like in Arabic, the copular verb is simply implied, in fact, there are no present tense forms of the verb "to be" in any stage of Hebrew, ancient or modern.


Ancient Indo-European languages

In ancient
Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...
, verb inflections and context both play a significant role in determining the structure of the sentence as well as their translations to other languages. Verb inflections are used to indicate person (first, second or third), number (singular, dual or plural), tense, voice, and mood. Also, personal endings, which are suffixes that attach to verbs, are specifically used to express person and number and consist of nine different forms: alternating combinations between the three persons and three numbers. Context determines whether the simple present and present progressive (for example, "I eat" vs. "I am eating") indicates the present or future tense. This is a common phenomenon found in English as well, since the sentence "I am eating in the cafeteria" can either mean "I am eating in the cafeteria ight now or "I am eating in the cafeteria ext Tuesday. Additionally, the present tense can be used to talk about either the present or the past and which one it implies is determined by context. For instance, "We went to the mall esterday James ''buys'' a new bike", where without the context (''yesterday'') the action of buying would take place in the present but in this very sentence, it occurs in the past. Thus for the examples below, the omitted copular verb only acts and implies a connection between the subject and predicate. Due to the missing verbal inflections, only the suffixes that are attached to the nominal predicates can be used to determine such things as number and possession. As to what time the sentences are describing, it depends entirely on the context of when the sentences are being used and/ or the preceding and following sentences. ;
Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...
;
Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
;
Old Persian Old Persian is one of two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of the Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native speakers as (I ...
;
Tocharian A Tocharian A, also known as Tokharian A, Eastern Tocharian, Agnean (), Karashahrian or Turfanian is a dead language that was in use in the 1st millennium AD in the Karashahr and Turpan, Turfan region of the Tarim Basin, present-day Xinjiang, West ...


See also

*
Phrase In grammar, a phrasecalled expression in some contextsis a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English language, English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adject ...
*
Predicate (grammar) The term predicate is used in two ways in linguistics and its subfields. The first defines a predicate as everything in a standard declarative sentence except the subject (grammar), subject, and the other defines it as only the main content verb ...
*
Zero copula Zero copula, also known as null copula, is a linguistic phenomenon whereby the subject is joined to the predicate without overt marking of this relationship (like the copula (linguistics), copula ''to be'' in English). One can distinguish languag ...


References


Sources

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Further reading

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Nominal Sentence Sentences by type