Syntactic relationships are either paratactic, holding between clauses of equal status, or

hypotactic, holding between clauses of unequal status.

Paratactic relationships can further be subclassified into: coordination and juxtaposition.

I. Coordination

Coordination results in compound constituents: compound sentences or compound

We have linguistic classes of Monday morning and on Friday morning.

Clauses are linked together by means of coordinating conjunctions or adverbs

II. Juxtaposition

If no coordinators are present, the relationship between the clauses in a compound

The moon went down, the stars grew pale, the cold day broke, the sun rose.

Subordination- Embedding and Dependency Relationships

The complex clause may contain a main /root/matrix clause or several such clauses and
subordinate clauses of different types.

Within the complex clause, linguists have further identified two types of subordination
relationships: embedding and dependency.

An embedded clause is a clause functioning as a constituent of another clause which is called

Why he gave up his job was a mystery for all of us.

These embedded clauses function as immediate constituents of what is sometimes called

[[Why he gave up his job] was a mystery for all of us].

Embedded clauses comprise two subclasses nominal and relative clauses.

Nominal clauses are in a relationship of embedding with the main clause. The term nominal
refers to the fact that these clauses replace noun phrases inside the main clause and take
their syntactic function.

George thought that the landlord behaved rudely with his friends.
Nominal clauses carry out the same syntactic functions as the noun phrases , namely
subject, direct object , indirect object, prepositional object , predicative.

According to their inner structure, nominal clauses fall into the following major classes:

- clauses introduced by the complementizer that

The conductor claimed that the concert hall was unsuitable for that orchestra. .

- nominal-relative clauses : introduced by relative pronouns and adverbs whoever,

You should vote for which(ever) candidate you think best.

- wh-clauses : introduced by relative pronouns and adverb :

How the accident happened re4mains to be seen.

- non finite clauses (infinitiv and ing-clauses.)

They planned to sell the house immediately.

The Subject clause functions as a subject to the predicating verb or adjective of the main
clause and the characteristic question identifying it is Who ? and What?

That my sister led a double life never dawned on me.

The Direct Object Clause

The questions used to identify it are whom and what?

It is introduced by the complementizer that, by relative or indefinite pronouns, adverbs

She asked where you worked.

The Prepositional Object Clause

The prepositional object clause has the function of a prepositional object for a verb or
adjective from the main clause.

For some reasons he was terrified about what he might have said of him behind his
back.
The Indirect Object Clause

This type of clause is generally expressed by the nominal relative clauses.

She told her sad story to whomever she met during the journey.

The Relative Clause

The relative clause, also called the attributive clause, is placed after a noun phrase
describing or identifying the person or thing referred to by the noun phrase.

The subordinating relation between the main clause and the relative clause is consists in the
fact that they share a coreferent, usually a noun phrase.

The gift that the child received made him very happy.

This is the place where he lives.

Relative clauses are classified according to their structure into:

i) finite relative clauses;

The old man that was reading in front of the bay window was a well known lawyer.

ii) non-finite

Do you know the girl crossing the street?

Generally the most well known classification of relative clauses is based on semantic criteria
and distinguishes the following types:

1) Restrictive Relative Clauses, clauses which delimit or identify the antecedent.

Anybody that is lazy must be punished.

2) Non-Restrictive Relative Clauses, which merely add supplementary information about an

The teacher waved to the child, who was walking slowly along the river bank.

3 ) Independent Relative Clauses which refer to the proposition of the main clause, they do
not have an antecedent and are rather a commentary of the main clause . This type is also
called sentential relative claus.

Mary visited London last summer but couldn’t get to the Tower, which was a pitty.
The Adverbial of Time

It determines a verb or an adjective, denoting the time when a certain action or state
becomes manifest. It highlights the starting or ending moment, the succession in time, the
period, frequency, etc. The questions identifying the adverbial of time are : When? Since
when? Until when? How long? ( examples : soon, all the time, on Monday, the 17th of
February 1990, at ten o’clock on Sunday ).

The Adverbial of Manner

The adverbial of manner- determines a verb or an adjective denoting the manner in which
an action/ event is carried out. We can distinguish three subclasses of manner adverbials:
adverbials of manner proper, and comparative adverbials of manner.

The adverbial of manner proper denotes the manner in which an action, event, state, is
performed.

She went softly out of the room. The cook was tremendously busy. The guide was speaking
too fast.

The Adverbial of Place –

This adverbial determines a verb or an adjective, indicating the place, the starting point or
limit of an action, state or characteristic. It can be identified using the following questions:
Where? Where from? Where to? Up to where? ( examples : into the reading room,
Somewhere near the river, at the baker’s ) .