La oración y sus clases

Abstract

Though the concept of the sentence has historically lacked a systematic definition, nowadays it alternates with the concept of the clause and is distinguished from that of the utterance by its internal properties: a sentence is thus a declarative structure in which the presence of a verb is mandatory. Among the criteria for classifying sentences is modality or attitude of the speaker. Thus, sentences can be categorized as affirmative, interrogative, imperative, exclamative or desiderative. In the first type, speakers communicate information to which they become committed. Interrogative sentences are open expressions that raise an uncertainty for the listener, concerning either the whole process or a particular component. Imperative sentences try to influence the listener. As for exclamative and desiderative sentences, they have not always been considered as independent sentence categories. Exclamative sentences express emotive reactions, while desiderative ones allow speakers to communicate their wish that the content of their message becomes true. Each sentence category can be identified by encoded linguistic features such as intonation, use of specific verbal forms, grammatical constituents with a particular functional value, or certain lexically specific expressions.