Nominal sentence

Nominal sentence

The term nominal sentence can refer to two different phenomena:

Contents

Examples of sentences lacking a finite verb

While nominal sentences are rare in English, they are far more common in certain other languages:

  • Russian: Вот человек, потерявший надежду. "Here is a man who has lost hope", literally "Here a man who has lost hope"
  • Arabic: هذا الكاتبُ مشهورٌ (hāḏā 'l-kātibu mašhūrun) "This writer is famous", literally "This writer famous"
  • Hebrew: המלך ערום (ha-melex 'erom) "The king [is] naked"

Nominal sentences were also common in the old Indo-European languages:[4]

  • Ancient Greek: ἐμοὶ δ'ἄχος (emoì d'áchos) "and to me [there is] pain"
  • Latin: ūna salūs victīs "one salvation [is/remains] for the conquered"
  • Old Persian: manā pitā Vištāspa "my father [is] Vištāspa"
  • Tocharian A: tsraṣiñ waste wrasaśśi "the strong [are] the protection of the creatures"

Nominal sentences are common in American newspaper headlines:

  • "First Animal Cloned"

And in English play-by-play sports announcing:

  • "The batter 0 for 6 against Matthews this year."

See also

References

  1. ^ a b (in German) Duden. Deutsches Universalwörterbuch, Mannheim/Leipzig/Wien/Zürich: Dudenverlag, 2007, ISBN 3-411-05506-5 
  2. ^ Bußmann, Hadumod (2002) (in German), Lexikon der Sprachwissenschaft, Stuttgart: Kröner, ISBN 3-520-45203-0 
  3. ^ Glück, Helmut, ed. (2005) (in German), Metzler Lexikon Sprache, Stuttgart/Weimar: Kröner, ISBN 978-3-476-02056-7 
  4. ^ a b Fortson, Benjamin W. (2004), Indo-European Language and Culture, Blackwell Publishing, p. 143, ISBN 1-4051-0316-7 

Further reading