Clause as a linguistic category

Clause is the linguistics equivalent of the term sentence.

How do we identify a clause and differentiate it from a word? There is a longer and decisive pause after a clause.

3 kinds of clauses- functional division based on Mood
There are only 3 moods. Therefore there are only 3 kinds of clauses. They are:

1. Imperative clauses- expect someone to act on the information in the clause
2. Interrogative clauses- seek information
3. Declarative clauses- give information

Generally language speakers confuse mood and modality. (Modality: The expression of the speaker's opinions about present likelihood or about obligation: (a) (narrowly) by means of a modal auxiliary verb; (b) (more widely) using any of the linguistic means available.)

In linguistics, there are only 3 moods, they are attributes of clauses. Modality is an attribute of verbs.

Clauses can be studied syntactically and pragmatically.
Syntactically, we look at types of clauses.

• Relative clause
• main clause
• subordinate clause
• complement clause
• etc.

1. In a complex clause structure, the main clause is simple and is the central element. We can add or embed other clauses to/within this main clause. Main clause is simple and finite (Finite clauses must contain a verb which shows tense). 
2. Relative clause is related to the argument of the predicate. 
3. Subordinate clause is called so because the information given there is dependent on the argument of the main clause. 
4. Complement clause gives extra information about the main clause. 

Inside a Clause

Clauses have a predicate-argument structure. Predicate is the necessary part of a clause. Predicate is the main verb and its auxiliaries put together. An argument is an expression that helps complete the meaning of a predicate. Arguments are different from adjuncts. Adjuncts are optional while arguments are necessary components of a clause. 

The field of study of predicates, arguments and adjuncts is called valency theory. Predicates have a valence. They determine the number and type of arguments that can or must appear in their environment.

Valency

A Predicate can take one or more arguments depending on its valency. 

Valency refers to the number of arguments controlled by a verbal predicate. Verb valency includes all arguments including the Subject (unlike verb transitivity which counts only Object arguments). The meaning of valency is derived from Chemistry (as used by  Lucien Tesnière). 

Types of Valency

1. Avalency - Impersonal verb
   An impersonal verb has no valency/ no determinable subject: It rains. 'It' is a dummy subject- a syntactic placeholder with no concrete referent. 
2. Monovalency - Intransitive verb
   An intransitive verb takes one argument. She sleeps.
3. Divalency - Transitive verb
   A transitive verb takes two arguments. He kicked the ball.
4. Trivalency -ditransitive verb
   A ditransitive verb takes three arguments. He gave her a flower.
5. Quadrivalent - tritransitive verb
   Some tritransitive verbs take four arguments. I bet you two dollars it will rain.

Valency is a semantic property while Transitivity is a syntactic property. 

Valency reduction (to eat is divalent as in He eats an apple. But it can become monovalent as in he eats.) and expansion (to sleep is monovalent. But it can be expanded as in He sleeps the sleep of death.) can happen. 
An important aspect of Tesnière's understanding of valency was that the subject is an argument of the verb in the same manner that the object is.

Passivization is to decrease the valence of a verb. Causativization increases valence as in ditransitivity: I made you run.

A one argument predicate is called an intransitive clause (related to the verb). Argument of an intransitive verb is called Subject (S). Argument of a transitive verb is called Agent (A) and/or Direct Object (O). O is anything that gets affected by A. 

When predicate doesn't have a normal verb- like 'is' in the clause Ram is a good boy, the verb 'is' acts as a copula relating the S and the predicate. Some verbs need a copula verb. They do a relational activity, relating subject and predicate. 

Normally verb is the head of a predicate. 

Peripheral argument: I hit you on Monday. S, O and A are core arguments. Peripheral argument is an adjunct.

* Class notes

Psychological background of language acquisition, Contrastive Analysis

Language learning and Associate theories have derived their Technology from Psychology of learning. Behaviourism was the leading school of thought at that time. One of the key concepts of behaviourism was the notion of transfer. Concept says that if you learn concept A first, then all the concepts that you learn after that concept will be influenced by the first concept. If someone has learned tennis, she will use this knowledge when she learns to play table tennis. Old knowledge is thus transferred to new situation.

Learning is cumulative for behaviourists. The more knowledge someone has, the more likely it is that her learning is influenced by her past experiences and learning. An adult rarely finds something 'completely' new. 

The implication is that speed of learning can be influenced by what you already know. That is old knowledge will be transferred to new situation. Behaviourist notion underlines Expectations of habit and cumulative learning. For an adult the point of departure is learning of his/her past.

Let us now see how this concept is applied to second language learning. The concept of transfer has two aspects. Positive transfer or facilitation and negative transfer or Interference- these are not two distinct cognitive processes, but points to whether the process gives correct or incorrect results.

Example: If a Spanish speaker is learning Italian, when asking a question that speaker might correctly produce - Mangia bene  il   bambino?      eats     well the   babybecause in Spanish one uses the same word order to form questions.- ¿Come bien el   niño?       eats  well the babyThis is known as positive transfer. But if that same speaker is learning English and produces- Eats well the baby?the incorrect utterance is known as negative transfer. (Gass, 113)

There are two types of interference. Retroactive inhibition and proactive inhibition. Retroactive inhibition is when someone forgets something that was learnt earlier because of the new learning - language loss. Proactive inhibition is when previously learned responses appear in situations where new ones are required. This is more similar to second language learning since the first language in this model influences the learning of the second language.

But most of the experiments and results are gathered inside the laboratory. Their application in the real world has to be meticulously tested. 

Lado was the one who brought the theoretical underpinnings of behaviourist position explicit. Now turning to the work on second language acquisition based on the behaviourist positions, the major reason behind all this work was pedagogical. Behaviourists believed that problems in second language acquisition arise not out of difficulty in the features of language, but out of the special set created by the first language  itself.

Thus in the 1950s and 60s, language was understood as habit. Second language learning is the development of a new set of habits. And native language was seen as an impediment to learning L2. Childhood habits interfered with the establishment of new set of habits. 

From this framework, contrastive analysis (CA) emerged, because one needs to compare the rules of two languages. There are two traditions in contrastive analysis- North American and European. North American tradition emphasized on language teaching and learning. The goal of analysis was improvement of class room materials (Applied contrastive analysis according to Fisiak). In European tradition, goal was not pedagogical, but to gain a greater understanding of languages. Here, CA is a sub-discipline of linguistics.

Reference

Gass, Susan M. Second Language Acquisition, Routledge, New York 2008.