Functional Sentence Perspective There are three dominant

Functional Sentence Perspective

There are three dominant conceptions of functional sentence perspective (FSP): (1) a sentence should be analyzed into several segments, each having a different degree of what is called communicative dynamism; (2) a sentence should be analyzed into two segments, theme and the rheme; and (3) a sentence should be analyzed into two segments, the topic and the comment.

ACTUAL DIVISION OF THE SENTENCE • • • the Prague Lingistic Circle 20 th century Vilém Mathesius informative value of parts of the sentence informative perspective of an utterance “actual division” = the functional analysis of the sentence = the communicative analysis = the actual division analysis =the informative perspective analysis.

• theme (“already known” information) = “the basis” • the rheme (new information)= “the nucleus” • “a transition” a secondary rheme, the “subrhematic” part of a sentence • Again Charlie is late. – Again (transition) Charlie (theme) is late (rheme).

The principal parts of the proposition are • the logical subject = theme • the logical predicate = the rheme ;

• “direct”, “unspecialized”, or “unmarked” = theme precedes the rheme; • Charlie is late. - Charlie (theme) is late (rheme). • “inverted”, “reverse”, “specialized”, or “marked” = the rheme precedes theme • Who is late today? – Charlie (rheme) is late (theme).

• Their house will ultimately be rebuilt. → It will be some time before their house is rebuilt. • Peter sent a message to Kate. → Kate received a message from Peter. • The teacher punished his pupils. → What the teacher did was punish the pupils.

• This beautiful song was composed Paul White. by

1. ‘The Given-New Principle’ (Principle of End Focus) ‘Who wrote this message? ’ may be: [a] ‘Heather wrote it. ’, or [b] ‘It was written by Heather. ’

2. ‘The Principle of Clause-initial Topic’ (Topic Preservation) “… the point of departure for the rest of the message. ” Halliday M. A. K. The initial sentence in a paragraph ‘The teacher entered the room. ’ may be continued in more ways: [a] ‘He was greeted by the pupils. ’ [b] ‘The pupils greeted him. ’

3. ‘The Principle of End-Weight’: Example: [a] That he’s done it without help is obvious. [b] It is obvious that he’s done it without help.

grammatical devices used for reordering the information in the message a) Thematic Re-ordering b) Subject-Complement Switching c) Passivization d) Extraposition e) Existential ‘There’ f) Cleft and Pseudo-Cleft Sentences

1) Thematic Re-ordering and Subject. Complement Switching Thematic-reordering takes two forms: fronting and postponement. Fronting [a] We admire his dexterity. → His dexterity we admire. [b] She is pretty, but she is not witty. → Pretty she is, witty she is not. The fronted element becomes emphatic, which is common in informal speech as in [a], or shows contrast [b]. Postponement (to final position) A dirty old sock lies under the table. → Under the table lies a dirty old sock. ‘A dirty old sock’ now receives end-focus as the most important part of the message.

Subject-Complement Switching Subject-Verb Inversion The tourists ran into thick fog on their way home. → Into thick fog ran the tourists on their way home. Subject-Operator Inversion Albert walked so slowly that he missed the last bus. → So slowly did Albert walk that he missed the last bus. Subject operator inversion is found after opening negative or restrictive coordinators or adverbials, such as: neither, nor, never, nowhere, on no condition, , not only, hardly, no sooner, rarely, scarcely, seldom, little, less, only. I have never seen this picture. → Never have I seen this picture. Rarely does he stay at home after dinner. Only later did they realise how difficult it was.

Subject-complement switching and thematic re -ordering typically have the effect of moving an element of the clause to the front, thereby giving it topic status, a special prominence. The fronted element may then become an emphatic topic, a contrastive topic, or a given topic:

- an emphatic topic In informal conversation it is quite common for a speaker to front an element (particularly complement) and to give it nuclear stress, thus giving it double emphasis: Her sister I’m interested in. Joe his name is. It is as if the speaker says the most important thing in his mind first. The ordering of the elements here is OSV, CSV instead of normal order SVO and SVC.

- a contrastive topic Clever she is, pretty she’s not. The fronting of the adjective emphasises the contrast between these two personal characteristics.

- a given topic - This gossip I heard when I met them (topic = object). - Yesterday John was late for school. - Willingly he will never do it. Into the smoke we plunged.

2) Passives (passivization) There are various motivations for deleting the agent: - the agent is unknown - the agent has already been mentioned - the agent is irrelevant or unimportant - the implied agent is non-specific - we want to be impersonal or avoid attributing responsibility - to focus attention on the process/action not doer. The chairman finished the meeting. When he left the room, he was accompanied by his young secretary. Not; his young secretary accompanied him.

3) Extraposition It is said that Mr. Thompson has got divorced for the second time. That we had been misled was obvious. → It was obvious that we had been misled. To go there alone was stupid of her. → It was stupid of her to go there alone. Noun phrases alone cannot be extraposed. Extraposition is obligatory with such verbs as seem, appear, happen, as well as with phrases like look as if, it’s high time and the passive of hope, say, and intend. Then normal (unmarked) construction is preferred over an extraposed one: That she is the best student in the class is a well known fact.

4) Existential ‘There’ Some children were playing in the street. → There were some children playing in the street. ‘There’ is typically followed by the verb ‘be’, however, verbs such as appear, arise, seem, emerge, follow, etc. can also be used with ‘there’.

5) Cleft and Pseudo-cleft Constructions If-Cleft Sentences He called the police, not his parents. → It was the police that he called, not his parents. His car was stolen last night. → It was his car that was stolen last night. or It was last night that his car was stolen. It was only because of his friends that they enjoyed the party.

Wh-cleft Sentences what + be + the focused element (a noun phrase, an infinitive clause, or a finite nominal clause). Wh-cleft sentences introduce a new topic, refer to a part of the preceding discourse, or correct an earlier statement. I really need another credit card. → What I really need is another credit card. What they will be hoping for is that they can get a few weeks of holiday. To highlight the action we use a form of ‘do’ in the wh-clause. The highlighted phrase usually contains a to-infinitive or bare infinitive. He visited her without being invited. → What he did was to visit her without being invited.

Clauses introduced by where and when are sometimes acceptable, but mainly when the whclause is the subject complement. Here is where the accident took place. In the autumn is when the countryside is most beautiful. Cleft constructions are usually used to show contrast, as in: It is her face that I like, not her behaviour. Or; What they want is money, not happiness.

In written speech the logical accent is represented by all the other rheme-identifying lingual means, which indicate its position directly or indirectly. They can be technically supported by special graphical means of rheme-identification, such as italics, bold type, underlinings, etc.

In oral speech • Intonation is universal and inseparable from the other means of actual division described above, especially from word-order patterns: • stress which identifies the rheme; • it is traditionally defined as “logical accent” or “rhematic accent”. • in cases of direct actual division (which make up the majority of sentences) the logical stress is focused on the last notional word in the sentence in the predicate group, identifying it as the informative center of the sentence; in cases of reverse actual division, the logical stress may indicate the rheme at the beginning of the utterance, e. g. : Charlie (theme) is late (logical accent, rheme). - Charlie (logical accent, rheme) is late (theme).

Communicative dynamism is defined as the relative extent to which a sentence element contributes to the further development of the communication within the sentence. [Firbas 1987]. The elements which have the lowest degree of communicative dynamism are thematic; those with the highest degree, rhematic; some other elements may rank between the two and are therefore called ‘transitional’. The most strictly context dependent elements are thematic: personal pronouns are a case in point. On the other hand, substantives (especially in object function) are mainly rhematic; transitional elements are typically verbs.

The role of semantic structure may be seen in the case of adverbial elements: their degree of communicative dynamism is normally lower than that of the verb and of the object, since the time location of the event is less important than the even itself. For example, the communicative dynamism of the ‘the book’ is greater than that of ‘yesterday’ in both ‘Yesterday I bought the book’ and ‘I bought the book yesterday’ (provided, of course, that both sentences are not uttered with a particular emphasis on any element).

There are qualities or organizational principles in discourse that determine its information structure and contribute to its communicative dynamism. A "wave" model of discourse analysis shows graphically how each successive item of new information in a text provides a platform for the next new item, or "wave, " of information. The model is based on the following concepts: (1) new information tends to come near the end of information units, and assumed or understood information at the beginning; (2) information tends to be ordered from left to right in the information unit according to its degree of informativity; (3) in descriptive scientific texts, there is a tendency for the structural/concrete to precede the functional/abstract; and (4) the degree of informativity of a clause or sentence can determine its position in the left-right hierarchy of a sentence or thematic unit.

• Inside the box was a microphone; the adverbial modifier of place =the theme, the subject =the rheme; the word order -inverted, its actual - direct. • Reversed order: Off you go! What a nice little girl she is!

There is a book on the table. • the subject = the rheme, • theme (usually it is an adverbial modifier of place) is shifted to the end of the utterance, The actual division of such sentences is reverse without any emotive connotations expressed

The book is on the table • both the word order and the actual division are direct: the subject is theme of the sentence.

Charlie, not John, is absent today • The opposed nominative parts of the sentence are marked as rhematic in sentences with contrastive complexes.

• The man (theme) appeared unexpectedly. – A man (rheme) appeared. • A voice called Mary.

• Various intensifying particles, such as only, just, merely, namely, at least, rather than, even, precisely, etc. , identify the nominative part of the sentence before which they are used as the rheme, e. g. : Only Charlie is late today

• the intensifying auxiliary verb ‘do’, which turns the predicate into the rheme of the sentence, while the rest of the predicate group is turned into the transition or even theme, e. g. : I did help your sister (cf. : I helped your sister).

Article • A copper water-carrying cooling coil was activated during the freezing of the material. (indefinite article = the rheme) • В процессе замораживания материала включался в работу медный змеевик с охлаждённой водой.

• Nonlinear programming methods are applied to the grinding model for calculating the optimum grinding parameters. (zero article, subject plural) • Для расчёта оптимальных значений параметров шлифования в модели использованы методы нелинейного программирования.

• Side lightning was used in making the photographs exhibited here. (subject is singular, zero article) • При получении показанных здесь фотографий применяли боковое освещение.

that - clause • A section through this fatigue spall shows that cracking did not originate at the bore. • Любой разрез через этот усталостный скол показывает, что трещины на поверхности отверстия не возникли.

• It was generally observed that a heat affected zone was present in the surface region of each specimen. • В поверхностной зоне каждого образца обычно наблюдалось присутствие зоны термического влияния.

• The data clearly show that large quantities of pyrites can be removed from coal. • Эти данные убедительно показывают, что из геля можно удалить большое количество пирита.

as, after, where (subordinate clause of time) • Other instabilities generally became increasingly important as the coupling factor was increased. • По мере увеличения параметра связи все более важным становились другие неустойчивые решения.

• One sensor was positioned in each of 25 tubes after the bundle was assembled and installed in the test facility. • После сборки и монтажа пучка в экспериментальной установке в каждую из его 25 труб установили датчик.

since, inasmuch as (subordinate clause of cause) • Tests with the Total emulsifier were more limited since a different high pressure nozzle had to be installed for each emulsion flow rate. • Опыты с использованием диспергатора фирмы Total проводились в более ограниченных масштабах, так как для каждого расхода эмульсии приходилось устанавливать другое сопло высокого давления.

• This is a surprising outcome, inasmuch as larger differences would have been expected on the basis of geometrical differences between the two types of channels. • Это несколько неожиданно, поскольку из геометрических различий для этих двух типов каналов можно было бы ожидать большего расхождения результатов.

• Results were rewarding, since much knowledge was derived for a relatively small investment in computer time. • Результаты окупили эти усилия, так как за относительно малое компьютерное время была получена большая информация.

• Thus, to reduce the resistance of the bed, larger particles were required. • Таким образом, чтобы уменьшить сопротивление (кипящего) слоя, требовалось использовать более крупные частицы.

only, just, merely, such as, at least, rather than (rheme just after them) • Fig. 13 suggests total flame radiation is reduced rather than increased by using emulsified fuels. • Из рис. 13 следует, что при использовании эмульгированных топлив суммарное излучение племени уменьшается, а не возрастает.

• Little attention has been given, however, to the combustion of pyrites as an impurity in coal fired in a furnace for the purpose of rising steam. • Однако вопросу горения пиритов как примесей угля, сжигаемого в топке с целью парогенерации, уделяется мало внимания.

• Very little machining is necessary to prepare the sample. • Для приготовления такого образца требуется очень небольшая механическая обработка.

• • It (formal subject) There …. as (в качестве) of particular interest, of particular concern … • http: //www. scribd. com/doc/24271137/Theme. Rheme •

• • • The dog bit the little girl. The little girl was bitten by the dog. It was the little girl that the dog bit. Speaking of the girl, she was bitten by the dog. The little girl, the dog bit her.

Means to signal a new topic: • Stating it explicitly as the subject • Using passive form to transform an object into a subject • Emphasizing the topic using clefting • Through periphrastic constructions like “As for…”, “Speaking of …” etc. • Using left dislocation (topic fronting or topicalization)

• They found the report extremely valuable. – Extremely valuable they found the report. • It is the report that I need. • I need the report, not the statistical data. • I need only the report. • The orchestra greeted the guests at the entrance. – There was an orchestra greeting the guests at the entrance. • Where are you going? – To the movies. • Please be careful. – I am being careful.

1. The informative part of the sentence known as “the transition” is otherwise called “secondary …”.

2. Characterize the rheme in the following types of the sentence: A. the rheme in general questions B. the rheme in special questions C. the rheme in alternative questions D. the rheme in disjunctive questions a) explicitly alternative b) implicitly alternative c) “open” (“zero”) rheme

3. The primary and obligatory lingual means of actual division are: A. the grammatical means B. the phonetical means C. the contextual means D. the graphic means

4. V. Mathesius used the term “the basis” to denote: A. theme of the sentence B. the rheme C. the transition

5. Define the type of the word order and the actual division of the following sentence: On the top of the shelf sat a big vase. A. the word order is: a) direct; b) reverse (inverted) B. the actual division is: a) direct; b) reverse (inverted)

6. The informative peak of the sentence (the basic informative part of the sentence) is called: A. theme of the sentence B. the rheme C. the transition

7. The theory of communicative syntax (actual division of the sentence) was first developed by: A. Ch. Fillmore B. N. Chomsky C. the linguists of the Prague linguistic school D. J. L. Austin and J. R. Searle

8. In cases of free ellipsis (contextual ellipsis, e. g. : Who is absent? – John. ) the remaining part of information is: A. theme B. the rheme

Прокомментируйте актуальное членение приведенных ниже предложений и те языковые средства, которые используются для его выражения: 1) There was a studio couch and on the studio couch lay a man (Chandler). 2) There are several dialects in England. 3) Only then he realized the truth. 4) Chopra has the look of a guru who has arrived. And arrived he has (Time). 5) Appeal and fear were in his glance. 6) It was at that moment that I realized the truth. 7) Who will read next? Sam wants to do it. 9) A long silence followed.

Приведите собственные примеры предложений с прямым актуальным членением и используйте все возможные языковые средства, чтобы изменить прямое актуальное членение на обратное: например: Her friend was sitting next to her in an armchair. It was her friend who was sitting next to her in an armchair; Next to her in an armchair was sitting her friend; etc.