Sentence topics in the languages of Europe and beyond

Maslova, Elena; Bernini, Giuliano

doi:10.1515/9783110892222.67

Cited by 7 publications

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“…In contrast, Davison (1984: 806) considers all three types of topic constructions together with those realized in other syntactic positions 'sentence topic'/'topic' . Maslova & Bernini (2006) categorize topicalization, left-dislocation, and passivization as instances of 'packaging topic' . To avoid confusion, I will call these topic-related structures 'hanging topic' , 'left-dislocation' , and 'topicalization' respectively in this paper.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…In (1) and (2), the topic does not bear any syntactic relation with the verb, nor is it co-referential with any argument in the clause. This kind of topic is called a hanging topic (Maslova & Bernini 2006) or a double subject construction. 3 In (3), the topic is coreferential with a pronominal within the sentence and this structure is called left-dislocation (Ross 1967).…”

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Nonmanual markings for topic constructions in Hong Kong Sign Language

Sze

2011

SL&L

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Across sign languages, topic constructions are marked by nonmanual features such as a brow raise and head tilt. This study investigates whether a topic constituent is marked nonmanually in Hong Kong Sign Language. Spontaneous and elicited data show that the majority of 'scene-setting' topics, which provide a temporal, spatial or individual framework for the proposition in the sentence, are accompanied with a brow raise and a specific head/body position different from the rest of the sentence. In contrast, 'aboutness' topics that represent what a sentence is about are neither marked by nonmanuals consistently nor separated intonationally from the rest of the sentence. Grammatical objects fronted to the sentence-initial position are not marked nonmanually, either. The findings suggest that there are cross-linguistic differences with respect to the functions of nonmanuals in the information structuring of sign languages.

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Nonmanual markings for topic constructions in Hong Kong Sign Language

Sze

2011

SL&L

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“…A literatura sobre este fenômeno é vasta, mas não unificada (cf. LI; THOMPSON, 1976;PONTES, 1987;JACOBS, 2001;BELFORD, 2006;MASLOVA;BERNINI, 2006). Em relação ao uso de construções de tópico por sujeitos afásicos, Webster et al (2001) mostra evidências de que sujeitos com agramatismo fazem uso regular de padrões de tópico-comentário, contendo estruturas de comentário normais, porém pouco complexas.…”

Section: Estruturas De Tópico-comentáriounclassified

Interações fictivas enquanto estratégia comunicativa em sujeitos com agramatismo: um estudo de caso

Kleppa

2016

Estudos Linguisticos

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Resumo: Este estudo se insere na Neurolinguística discursivo-enunciativa e pretende apresentar o potencial comunicativo de interações fictivas em estruturas sintaticamente reduzidas, produzidas por dois sujeitos afásicos com agramatismo. Os dados apresentados são estruturados em forma de tópico-comentário e são não-finitos. O conceito de interação fictiva (fictive interaction) foi elaborado por Pascual em 2002 e desde então a autora e colegas vêm trabalhando com o fenômeno no sentido em que são trazidas vozes ao discurso que não correspondem necessariamente a discursos diretos reportados. Nos dados examinados aqui, interações fictivas apresentam um formato peculiar: na fala de OJ, percebe-se predominância de pares de pergunta e resposta, já na fala de MS há maior recorrência de discursos diretos enquadrados numa encenação que demonstra o seu querer-dizer.Palavras-chave: interações fictivas; agramatismo; fala reduzida; tópico-comentário; não-finitude. Fictive Interactions as a Communicative Strategy in Speakers with Agrammatis m: a Case StudyAbstract: This study is grounded in Enunciative-Discursive Neurolinguistics and intends to present the communicative potential of fictive interactions in syntactically reduced structures produced by two aphasic individuals with agrammatism. The data presented here are syntactically structured in the form of a topic-comment sentence and are non-finite. Pascual elaborated the concept of fictive interaction in 2002; since then, the author and colleagues have been working on the phenomenon in the sense that voices are brought into discourse and do not necessarily correspond to direct reported speech. In the data examined here, fictive interactions have a peculiar format: in OJ's speech, a predominance of question and answer pairs can be observed, while in MS' speech there is a greater recurrence of direct discourse framed in a scenario that demonstrates what he wishes to say.Keywords: fictive interactions; agrammatism; reduced speech; topic-comment structure; nonfiniteness. Interações fictivasEstudos sobre fictividade desenvolvidos na Linguística Cognitiva (TALMY, 2000 apud PASCUAL 2006b LANGACKER 1991, 1999 apud PASCUAL 2006b apontam que certas expressões linguísticas são apenas indiretamente relacionadas a seus referentes e que uma cena não real é comumente apresentada por falantes como um meio de acessar mentalmente a cena real. Já o conceito de interação fictiva (fictive interaction) foi elaborado por Pascual em 2002 e, desde então, a autora e colegas vêm

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“…From a purely semantic perspective, topic tends to be defined as the constituent which expresses what the clause is about, thus assuming the position of the referent about which something is predicated (Levelt 1989: 151; Lambrecht 1994; Kiss 1998; Sornicola 2006: 375–7). At the pragmatic level, topic has generally been viewed as having an anchoring function, that is, it provides information which is given or old in the listener's presumed state of knowledge, hence available for quick retrieval (Dahl 1974; Chafe 1976; Prince 1981; Maslova & Bernini 2006: 70). These two characterisations, which point to a high degree of accessibility, 3 determine the eligibility of noun phrases to become topics and thus have an effect on the choice between active and long passive (see the familiarity hierarchies , section 3).…”

Section: Active Vs Long Passive Variation In English: Choice Of Topicmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When trying to express an action or process involving an agent and a patient, speakers of English are faced with a choice between two basic options, the active and the passive voice, as in (1) and (2) respectively: My boss has hired John as her new assistant.John has been hired by my boss as her new assistant. While the active sentence in (1) displays an agent + patient word order, the long passive (or passive with an overt agent, see Biber et al 1999: 154) illustrated in (2) serves as a reversing-order strategy, yielding the opposite arrangement of constituents, patient + agent 2 . Other strategies, such as topicalisations and left-dislocations, are available in English to alter the basic configuration of linear order, but they differ from passives in being clearly more marked from both a pragmatic and a stylistic point of view, mostly because they result in deviation from the basic SV(O) order (see Siewierska 1984: 234−6; Maslova & Bernini 2006: 113, Sornicola 2006: 392). As for short passives, they are in fact a more frequent alternative to the active than long passives, accounting for more than 80 per cent of all passive constructions in Svartvik (1966: 141), 86 per cent in Biber et al (1999: 938), and more than 88 per cent in my own corpus here (see table 2).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Syntactic complexity, discourse status and animacy as determinants of grammatical variation in Modern English

Seoane

2009

English Language and Linguistics

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The aim of this article is to provide an overview of the syntactic, pragmatic and semantic determinants of word-order variation in Modern English, exemplified by the specific case of the use of long passives as order-rearranging devices. Word order in English and in most other SVO languages is affected by a number of factors such as animacy, semantic role, discourse status and syntactic complexity (Sornicola 2006). In this article, which analyses the influence of such factors in the use of long passives, I will try to show that their effects are construction-specific; in particular, that factors which are crucial in determining word order in some constructions – factors such as the animacy of the constituents involved – are entirely overruled by others in the case of Modern English long passives. Corpus data presented here will also serve to address issues pertaining to the nature of the determinants of grammatical variation, such as their independent versus epiphenomenal character, their interactions, and the locus of their effects on word order.

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Sentence topics in the languages of Europe and beyond

Cited by 7 publications

References 1 publication

Nonmanual markings for topic constructions in Hong Kong Sign Language

Nonmanual markings for topic constructions in Hong Kong Sign Language

Interações fictivas enquanto estratégia comunicativa em sujeitos com agramatismo: um estudo de caso

Syntactic complexity, discourse status and animacy as determinants of grammatical variation in Modern English

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