The English sentence as a whole: complex condensation and word order

This article is an extract from a chapter in A Functional Analysis of Present Day English on a General Linguistic Basis, edited posthumously by Josef Vachek from Mathesius's lecture notes and translated into English by Libuše Dušková. In his book, which has been a classic textbook for Czech students of English for decades, Mathesius describes the typical properties of modern English using the method of synchronic comparison, i.e. contrasting data in genetically unrelated languages. The juxtaposition of comparable data in English, Czech and other languages inevitably reveals many valuable properties that may remain unnoticed in accounts lacking such a comparative approach. The chapter reproduced below deals with the differences between English and Czech in the area of syntax. The first issue concerns the tendency of English towards non-finite expression, as manifested in the diverse means contributing towards "complex condensation", such as the infinitive, gerund, and nominalization. The second topic discusses the English word order, which is regulated by different rules than word order in Czech.