What is a two-part proposal? How to distinguish it from a single-member?

What is a two-part proposal? Let's work with you to understand the terminology. As you know, all of them are divided into single-component and two-part by composition of the main members. The grammatical basis of a two-component sentence has two main terms: the subject and the predicate, the single-member one - only one, which is called the special term - "the main member of a single-sentence sentence."

Types of two-part sentences

In turn, two-parted according to the type of the predicate are divided into nominal and verbal, which are further divided. So, among the two-component verbal sentences there are conjugally-verbal (for example, "The child laughed" ) and infinitive ( "The child is to laugh!" ); Among the nominative, there are sentences with a predicate expressed by the adjective ( "The night is surprisingly light , " "This noise is forest" ) or a noun in the form of any case ( "He seemed to be twenty years old" ).

Incomplete two-part

In order to determine exactly what a two-part sentence is, one should understand the difference between an incomplete one and a one- part sentence .

An incomplete offer is one in which one of the members (main or secondary) is omitted. They are often used in colloquial speech. Examples of sentences of this type are common in dialogs.

"What did they give him?"

- A kitten.

In this dialogue, the second sentence is incomplete. Its meaning is understood by us from the context. The supplement "to him" is skipped here and the predicate "presented". The full proposal would look like this: "He was given a kitten".

Signs of incomplete sentences

If in a two-part sentence the predicate or subject is omitted, then it can be confused with a single-member sentence. To prevent this from happening, you need to know the signs of an incomplete sentence.

1. It feels like skipping a certain word, which can be restored from the situation of speech or from previous sentences.

So, having a dash can tell us that one of the members is missing. Consider, for example, the following sentence: "The sister wants to go to the theater, and I - to hockey." The second part of this sentence - with the skip of the predicate ("I want to go"). However, not all cases with dashes are incomplete sentences. So, for example, "Beetle is a dog" - complete.

2. In the proposal there are minor members, which can be attributed only to the missed member.

- Where are you going?

- I'm shopping.

In this example, the circumstance "(for) purchases" can only refer to a skipped predicate "go" or "go," so this is an incomplete two-part sentence.

3. There is no subject, and the predicate is represented by a verb in the form of a third person singular in the future or in the present tense or in the form of an singular number of past tense. Exception - impersonal verbs (such as "forbidden", "relies", "light"), as well as personal in an impersonal meaning ("darkens"). We give the following two-part sentence with the pass of the subject as an example.

The athlete was well prepared for the competition. Immediately won all the competitors.

Here in the second sentence there is a pass of the subject "he". This example is an incomplete two-part sentence.

Context value

Sometimes it is only in context that one can determine whether a proposal is two-part incomplete or one-part. So, consider, for example, a typical case that is used in two different situations.

- What kind of music does it sound like?

- They play the piano.

Here the second sentence is indefinite-personal, one-part, since it is impossible to determine the person who performs the action.

- What do your students do?

- They play the piano.

In this case, the incomplete two-part is presented, since it is said about the specific pupils of one of the interlocutors. What is a two-part proposal was determined by us at the beginning of the article.

The predicate is the verb in the plural of the past tense

A sentence with a predicate expressed by a verb in the past tense and plural can also be either an incomplete two-component or an indefinite-personal one-component, depending on the context.

It's dark in your house, because another one was built opposite it.

In this complex sentence, the second part is an indefinite-personal one-part sentence, since it is impossible to determine the person who committed the action.

- What did you do this year?

"We built a house."

In this context, it is clear that the speaker (and, possibly, his family) have acted, so this sentence can not be called indefinite-personal. This is an example of an incomplete two-part.

We hope that we clearly explained what a two-part proposal is, and how to distinguish it from a single-piece proposal. More detailed information can be found in any Russian grammar textbook, in the "syntax" section. There you can find examples of these two types of offers.