Meaningful Structures: Prof. Abdellah Elhalo I

Meaningful Structures
Prof. Abdellah Elhaloui

Pages 9-14; 59-66
• Jane word angry decision without office a turned the
the he and left uttering Museum her confirmed a when
with return director of to home
• When Jane confirmed with the director of the Museum
her decision to return home, he became angry and left
the office without uttering a word. Some word orders are
meaningless; other are
meaningful.
Changing word order may

1. Mack loves Nan. change meaning.
2. Nan loves Mack.
 Nahita ny mpianatra ny vehivavy We interpret sentence

VOS
saw the student the woman meaning only when we
know word order.
Mr Straw decided to appoint a panel of

independent doctors to examine General Some word orders induce
Pinochet on January the fifth. ambiguity of meaning.
Sentence Types
1. Simple sentences
2. Complex clauses
3. Compound sentences
Simple sentences
I tried to examine myself. I felt my pulse. I could not at

first feel any pulse at all. Then, all of a sudden, it
seemed to start off. I pulled out my watch and timed
it. I made it a hundred and forty-seven to the minute.
I tried to feel my heart. I could not feel my heart. It
had stopped beating.
Jerome, K. Jerome Three Men on Wheels, 1900
Simple sentences

frenetic or fast-paced feel to a passage of description. In this

narrative context, their sense of speed and urgency helps deliver a
melodramatic mock tension as the hypochondriac narrator’s self-
examination unfolds.
frenetic or fast-paced feel to a passage of description. In this

narrative context, their sense of speed and urgency helps deliver a
melodramatic mock tension as the hypochondriac narrator’s self-
examination unfolds.
VP
V complement
Compound sentences
They sat on the terrace and many of the fishermen made

fun of the old man and he was not angry.
• I said, "Who killed him?" and he said, "I don't
know who killed him but he's dead all right," and
it was dark and there was water standing in the
street and no lights and windows broke and boats
all up in the town and trees blown down
and everything all blown and I got a skiff and
went out and found my boat where I had her
inside Mango Key and she was all right only she
was full of water.
• After the Storm”
They sat on the terrace and many of the fishermen made
fun of the old man and he was not angry.
“Then he was sorry for the great fish that had nothing to eat
and his determination to kill him never relaxed in his sorrow
for him. How many people will he feed? he thought.”
Complex sentences (1)
1. When he had eaten his supper, he went to

bed.
2. Having eaten his supper, he went to bed.
3. Although he had just eaten his supper, he
went to bed.
4. If he has eaten his supper, he must have gone
to bed.
1. When he had eaten his supper, he went to

bed.
2. Having eaten his supper, he went to bed.
3. Although he had just eaten his supper, he
went to bed.
4. If he has eaten his supper, he must have gone
to bed.
1. Mary realized he had eaten his supper.

2. She announced that he had gone to bed.
3. That he had eaten his supper was obvious to
everyone.
1. Mary realized he had eaten his supper.

2. She announced that he had gone to bed.
3. That he had eaten his supper was obvious to
everyone.
1. When he had eaten his supper, he went to bed.
2. Mary realised he had eaten his supper.
adjunct
VP
V complement
Exercise 1
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day.
(Macbeth, V.v.19–20)
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Subject V PP PP PP Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Exercise 2
You walked with me among water mint

And bog myrtle when I was tongue-tied . . .
(Longley 1995)
Subject V PP Adjunct
Exercise 3
Adjunct Subject V complement
• On my right hand there were lines of fishing-

stakes resembling a mysterious system of half
submerged fences . . . To the left a group of
barren islets had its foundations set in a blue sea .
. . And when I turned my head to take a parting
glance, I saw the straight line of the flat shore . . .
Corresponding in their insignificance to the islets
of the sea, two small clumps of trees . . .
(Conrad 1995 [1912]: 1)
(1) Fog everywhere. (2) Fog up the river, where it flows among green
aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled
among the tiers of shipping, and the waterside pollutions of a
great (and dirty) city. (3) Fog on the Essex Marshes, fog on the
Kentish heights. (4) Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-
brigs; fog lying out on the yards, and hovering in the rigging of
great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small
boats. (5) Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich
pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the
stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper,
down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers
of his shivering little ’prentice boy on deck. (6) Chance people on
the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog,
with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon, and
hanging in the misty clouds.
(Dickens Bleak House 1986 [1853]: 49)

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Meaningful Structures

Prof. Abdellah Elhaloui

Changing word order may

 Nahita ny mpianatra ny vehivavy We interpret sentence

Mr Straw decided to appoint a panel of

I tried to examine myself. I felt my pulse. I could not at

I tried to examine myself. I felt my pulse. I could not at

frenetic or fast-paced feel to a passage of description. In this

frenetic or fast-paced feel to a passage of description. In this

They sat on the terrace and many of the fishermen made

1. When he had eaten his supper, he went to

1. When he had eaten his supper, he went to

1. Mary realized he had eaten his supper.

1. Mary realized he had eaten his supper.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

You walked with me among water mint

• On my right hand there were lines of fishing-

(Dickens Bleak House 1986 [1853]: 49)

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