‘구’, ‘절’과 관련된 몇 가지 문제

Abstract

Words are the minimal units of syntax, and sentences are the maximal ones. Phrases and clauses are transitional units between words and sentences. So we may have regarded them as less important than words and sentences. Maybe for this reason, there is some confusion about the concepts of these two grammatical units. Let me be specific. There is much diversity of opinion about the relations between phrases and clauses and between clauses and sentences. Traditional grammarians think that a phrase is smaller than a clause and it may be a constituent of a clause. But it is clear that this opinion is absurd, because a clause may be a constituent of a phrase. So I would like to revise the traditional notion about these two grammatical units. That is, I classify every transitional unit between word and sentence as a phrase. Then, a clause is a sort of phrase which has a grammatical subject and a predicate. The concept of clauses is necessary to distinguish complex sentences from simple sentences, and it is very helpful when explaining the structures of complex sentences. A controversial issue about the relation between clauses and sentences is whether a simple sentence can be a clause as well. In traditional grammar, scholars think clauses can be found only in complex sentences. But, recently some people believe that a simple sentence is also a clause, because it contains a grammatical subject-predicate relation just like the other clauses. I think the traditional concept is better than the new one, as the borderlines between grammatical units should be clear. Furthermore, if we say a simple sentence is a type of clause, ordinary people or students may think that a complex sentence is a complex of simple sentences. This is a big mistake. A complex sentence is not a complex of sentences but a single sentence. So in this paper, I choose the old notion about clauses and sentences. A direct quote that has a grammatical subject-predicate relation has been regarded as a subordinate clause. But it is totally different from the other ones. The components in the other subordinate clauses and the components of the main clauses can affect each other. But it is impossible for the components of a direct quote. This is so natural, because the direct quote is not ‘real speech’ but a record of the other person's speech. So this can not be a clause. In this paper, I classify this as a simple noun equivalent.