All of these sentences use the verb submit<\/em>, which has the valency pattern [ NPAgent<\/sub> ___ NPPatient<\/sub> ] and all of them could be uttered in the same situation, but they differ in their structure and in the intention with which they would typically be used:<\/p>\n Sentences like that in (1) are called declaratives<\/strong>. Such sentences follow the phrase-structure rule [S<\/sub> NP VP] that we introduced in Section 7.6 and would typically be used as statements.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Sentences like that in (2) are called polar interrogatives<\/strong>. They always start with the auxiliary, followed by the subject NP, followed by the verb phrase. They would typically be used to ask a question about the truth or falsity of a situation (a typical answer would be yes<\/em> or no<\/em>).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Sentences like those in (3) are called wh-interrogatives<\/strong>. Their phrase structure is more variable and more difficult to describe \u2014 they always start with an interrogative pronoun (most of which start with wh<\/em>– in English, which is where the name of the sentence type comes from), followed by a verb or an auxiliary, followed by what looks like a verb phrase which, in some cases, is missing one of its complements. Such sentences would typically be used to ask a question aimed at identifying an unknown aspect of a situation (a typical answer would consist of the constituent that would correspond to the interrogative pronoun if the sentence were declarative).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Sentences like those in (4) are called imperatives<\/strong>. Their phrase structure can be described as [S<\/sub> VP] for now, i.e., they seem to consist of a verb phrase without a subject. They would typically be used to present a possible course of action to someone, for example, as a request or as advice.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Finally, sentences like those in (5) are called exclamatives<\/strong>. Their phrase structure may resemble that of wh-interrogatives at first sight, as in the case of (5a), or it may consist of a noun phrase with an additional word in front of the determiner, as in the case of (5b, c). They are used to express surprise, often coupled with a strong positive or negative evaluation.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n Sentence types are interesting in (at least) three ways. First, in terms of their functions, which we characterized very briefly in the list above and will look at more closely in Chapter 9. Second, in terms of their structure, which we will discuss next, and third, in terms of their relation to each other, which we will come back to later.<\/p>\n Let us begin with the simplest case, imperatives. They have the phrase structure shown in (6), i.e., the subject is optional (and typically omitted), so that they often consist of nothing but a verb phrase; note that the verb must always be in the infinitive:<\/p>\n Imperatives are the only exception to the requirement that all English sentences must have a subject \u2014 the reason presumably being that imperatives are used to instruct a person to do something, so the subject would always correspond to the person that is being addressed. However, note that you can<\/em> include a subject in imperatives if you want to put emphasis on it or if you are addressing more than one person and want to avoid ambiguity:<\/p>\n Polar interrogatives are already quite a bit more complex. Their structure seems simple at first glance:<\/p>\n But there are two complications. First, as (8) indicates, they always contain an auxiliary. In (2) above, this is not a problem \u2014 it uses the future construction with will<\/em>, so we have an auxiliary anyway (the corresponding declarative also contains one). But if you look at the declaratives in (8), you may wonder what the corresponding polar interrogatives would be:<\/p>\n As you know, they look like this:<\/p>\n So where does the auxiliary do<\/em> come from, all of a sudden? It turns out that English does not allow lexical verbs to have tense in polar interrogatives. This is not a problem in cases like that in (2) above, where the tense is expressed by the modal will<\/em>, but it is a problem in sentences like the ones in (7a, b), because the tense has to be expressed somewhere<\/em>. Speakers of English solve this problem by inserting the auxiliary do<\/em>.<\/p>\n In the case of have<\/em> and do<\/em>, polar interrogatives need\u00a0do<\/em>-support, suggesting that they are lexical verbs, but in the case of\u00a0be<\/em>, no\u00a0do<\/em>-support is necessary (or possible), suggesting it is still an auxiliary verb, even though there is no other verb:<\/p>\n In this function,\u00a0be<\/em> is referred to as a\u00a0copula.<\/strong><\/div>\n <\/p>\n English is quite odd in this way \u2014 there are no other languages that have obligatory do-<\/em>support in interrogatives. In other languages,\u00a0if the declarative clause does not have an auxiliary, neither does the polar interrogative, as these examples from Danish (10) and Polish (11) show:<\/p>\n This fact that English polar interrogatives always contain an auxiliary is represented in (8), but the fact that that auxiliary is do<\/em> unless the corresponding declarative contains some other auxiliary is not represented, and it is difficult to see how we would do so. In other words, phrase structure rules are not enough to describe the grammar of a language.<\/p>\n\n
The structure of different clause types<\/h2>\n
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