DESCRIPTION OF SENTENCES AND CLAUSES IN LINGUISTICS AND VIETNAMESE STUDIES

Abstract

This study examines the formation and application of the terms Sentence and Clause in general linguistics and Vietnamese language studies, highlighting the distinction between a sentence as the smallest communicative unit of language and clause as a structural unit for sentence construction. Sentences and clauses occupy different hierarchical ranks in linguistic analysis. Clauses as well as Phrases are clausal elements - intermediate syntactic units between Words and Sentences. By comparing how sentences and clauses are described across various grammatical theories by different linguists, the article traces the chronological evolution of the grammar description across languages. On that basis, this study proposes a suitable approach to Vietnamese grammar description: considering the predicate as the center of the clauses, distinguishing the description of clauses and sentences, and eliminating the conception that a sentence must have a subject and a predicate.