Typology of the Complex Sentence with Nominal Clauses

Nominal clauses in complex sentences of the contrasted languages are characterised by some isomorphic as well as by several allomorphic features. The latter find their expression in the structural forms of the nominal clauses. Common, first of all, is the general function of nominal clauses which approximates the function of a noun or a nominal word-group. Hence, a subject clause functions as the subject of the matrix clause, the predicative clause functions as the predicative to the linking verb of the matrix clause, the object clause functions respectively as the object to the verbal predicate, its non-finite forms, adjectives, statives, verbal nouns. That is why an object clause may be obligatory in the complex sentence or optional, like the descriptive and limiting attributive clauses respectively. Common by nature is also the dependence of subordinate clauses on matrix clause with which they form a syntactic (and communicative) unit. When taken in isolation, however, they may often lose their sentence completeness, to say nothing about their syntactic/func-

tional nature as they cease to be component parts of complex sentences. The principal isomorphic feature of nominal clauses in the contrasted languages lies in their general implicit meaning, which manifests itself respectively in the nature of their syntactic relations with the matrix clause. These relations are predicative, objective or attributive/appositive. It is only expedient to contrast the typological feature of these clauses here in this same order as well.