Contextual semantic functions of the nuclear sentence patterns in expending the communicative intention of the speaker and ways of their teaching

Position →state, condition: In/out of danger; amidst many troubles.
Enclosure → abstract inclusion: In stories/plays; in a group/party; in/out of the race
ABOVE / BELOW / BENEATH: Vertical direction → abstract scale: Such behavior is beneath (not below) him; he’s above me in salary.
UNDER: Vertical direction → subjection, subordination: Under suspicion/orders/compulsion.
UP / DOWN: Movement on vertical axis → movement on list or scale: Up/down the scale; up/down the social ladder.
FROM / TO: Starting point/destination → originator/recipient: A letter/present from Browning to his wife.
BEYOND / PAST / OVER: Resultative meaning; physical → abstract: Beyond/past endurance; we’re over the worst.
BETWEEN / AMONG, AMONGST: (esp BrE) Relative position → abstract relation between participants: a flight between two boys; they agree among(st) themselves.

CHAPTER II. DATA COLLECTION AND DATA ANALYSIS OF THE SIMPLE METHODS OF TEACHING GRAMMAR TO THE ELEMENTARY, INTERMEDIATE AND PRE-INTERMEDIATE LEVELS

2.1 The importance of the semantic valency of nuclear sentence patterns and grammar in the assimilation of the language material studied in expressing the communicative intention of the speaker

Complementation of the verb refers to the syntactic patterns made up by configurations of the clause elements that we examined individually in the previous chapter. Each pattern contains a Subject and a Predicator. The number and type of other elements in each pattern is determined by the verb. Complementation of the verb is a very rich and complex area of English grammar. The aim here is to outline as simply as possible the main choices open to speakers from the standpoint of the verb. Choices are, however, balanced by requirements. Certain verbs in English may not admit a pattern, or a realisation of a pattern, that is perfectly normal in another language. There are three main types of complementation: intransitive, copular and transitive. The transitive has three sub-types. The number of verbs in common use in English is very large, especially in certain constructions, such as the monotransitive. In addition, many verbs – especially those of general meaning, such as get, turn and make – admit more than one type of complementation, each of which reflects a different type of situation. Make, for instance, can enter into all but intransitive patterns:
I’ll make some tea. SPOd I’ll make you a pizza. SPOiOd
He made the coffee too strong. SPOdCo They make a good couple. SPCs
It makes for good relations. SPOp
The potential number of participants, including the subject – that is, the number of ‘places’ in the clause that the verb controls – is sometimes referred to as its semantic valency. Different classes of verbs have different semantic valencies. The verb eat, for example, is a two-place verb: it has a semantic valency of two, because in any event of eating there must be an eater and a thing eaten. There are one-place verbs, which have a subject only, belonging in principle to the SP pattern. Two-place verbs have a subject and one other element, as in the SPC and SPO patterns. Three-place verbs have a subject and two other elements as in the SPOO and SPOC patterns. Syntactic valency refers to the number of nominal elements present in any given clause that have a direct grammatical relation to the verb. In The lions ate away at their prey, there is one nominal element, as their prey does not have a direct grammatical relation to the verb. Syntactic valency often corresponds to its semantic valency, but not always. Weather verbs such as rain and snow, for instance, have no semantic participant and so have a semantic valency of zero. As finite clauses in English require a subject, however, dummy it is used with such verbs, giving a syntactic valency of 1. Valency is reduced when one or more elements are omitted in use. For instance, eat has a semantic valency of 2 as in He ate an orange; the valency is reduced to 1 in What time do you eat here?
SUBJECT – PREDICATOR pattern contains a one-place verb such as sneeze, which has a subject but no complement. We distinguish the following types of intransitive verb: verbs of behaviour which is typically involuntary or semi-voluntary: laugh, smile, cry, blink, blush, cough, sneeze, sigh, tremble, yawn; wait, stay; die, collapse, faint, fall. (They all laughed, someone yawned, one soldier fainted.); verbs of weather: rain, snow (It’s raining. It’s snowing. The sun rose.); verbs of occurrence: appear, disappear, go, come, arrive, depart, vanish, fade, happen: Has everyone arrived? Hopes of avoiding war are now fading, and idiomatic intransitive phrasal verbs such as crop up as in a problem has cropped up, where there is no verb ‘crop’ of the same meaning. By contrast, with free combinations of verb + particle used literally as in the bird flew away, the particle is analysed as a directional Complement. Opinions differ in this respect, however, some preferring Adjunct in the case of free combinations.¹⁵
SUBJECT–PREDICATOR–LOCATIVE COMPLEMENT
Other intransitives of the following types typically require a complement of place, direction or destination to complete their meaning. Location in space is extended to include location in time: location in place or time (be, stand, live, lie, remain) and movement + manner of movement (walk, run, stroll, crawl, fly).
The National Theatre stands near the river. We walked home.
The amusement park is just over there. She is lying in a hammock.
The soldier crawled under the wire fence. Lunch was at one o’clock. We can compare this verb lie, meaning to be in a prone position, with lie, a ‘pure’ intransitive, meaning to tell lies: He is lying in hammock vs He is lying. We can also contrast uses of the same verb, such as run, which can occur either as a pure intransitive in the answer to How does Tom keep fit? – He runs, or with a Goal Complement in He runs to the bus-stop every morning. Similarly, other verbs of position, such as wait and stay, and verbs of movement such as go, leave, come and walk can either function as pure intransitives or be followed by a Locative/Goal Complement. The choice depends to a great extent on whether there is sufficient support from the context to sustain the intransitive. For example, if a contrast is being made – as in Do you want to leave or would you rather stay? – the intransitive verb alone is sufficient, because the location is pragmatically inferred as being the place where the addressee is. Similarly, in You can either take the bus or walk, the destination is obviously known from the context, and a suitable reply would be ‘I’ll walk’. However, if the location or destination are not inferrable, a locative or Goal Complement becomes necessary as in We went home. Without the specification ‘home’, the verb would carry insufficient semantic ‘weight’ and informativeness to complete the predicate. Complements are more tightly integrated than Adjuncts, the tightest being the Subject and Object complements following copular verbs.