BASIC STRUCTURAL SENTENCE PATTERNS IN THE ALBANIAN LANGUAGE

Abstract

This paper describes and analyzes the basic structural sentence patterns in the Albanian language. The internal structure of sen-tences is determined by the verb, which serves as its predicator: the type of verb/ verb valence determines the number and type of complements, and consequently determines the minimal structure of the sentence. A verb like vdes “die”, which is monova-lent-intransitive, requires only one complement in the function of the subject to complete the sentence. Unlike vdes “die”, the bivalent verb takoj “meet” requires two complements to convey its meaning: an internal complement in the function of the direct object and an external complement in the function of the subject. Thus, the verb vdes “die” forms one of the basic sentence pat-terns in the Albanian language: S + intransitive verb, whereas the verb takoj “meet” forms another basic pattern, namely the pattern S + monotransitive verb + DO. The minimal sentence structure contains the verb together with its valence complements. Therefore, in order to derive the basic sentence patterns in Albanian, the sentence constituents that function as complements were first distinguished from adjuncts, and then it was proceeded with the classification of the type of complements. The de-scription of the basic sentence patterns is made according to the syntactic function carried by verb complements, supplemented by the description according to the syntactic categories and the semantic roles that complements carry.