ABSTRACT
Wehavesetourselvestheaimofdescribingthegrammaticalpatternsthatcharacterizesentences.Thereisgoodreasontobelieve thatwecannotachievethisatonefellswoop.Itisnotjustthat sentencesarestructurallyverycomplex,butthattheyhavebuilt intothemawholehierarchyofsubstructures(andsubsubstructures,etc.).Wemayrecall(fromchapter1)thatlinguistic structuresarelikebuildingstructuresinthisrespect:thatasentence islikeahouseinnotsimplybeinganassemblageofitsultimate constituents,morphemesinthecaseoflanguage,orbricks,timbers andglass(etc.)inthecaseofahouse.Eachwordormorpheme,as anultimateconstituentofitssentence,exhibitswhatBolinger(1975:136-7)terms"togetherness"towardsoneormoreofits neighbours,formingjointlywithit/themanintermediatestructural unitsuchasaphrase.Indescribingsentencestructurewemusttake accountofintermediatestructuralelements,thelinguistic analoguesofwalls,windowsandthelike.Thisisthesyntagmatic axisofsyntax.
