Johanna,
   I'd like to echo Herb.  Great post.
   The 'focus' position (tonic prominence) is generally the last lexical
group in the rheme (in clause ending position.) But that is another way
of saying that this is the usual position for new information. You need
two sentences (at least) to see it work. These are two of your own
sentences (nicely flowing.)   >

"My main question about this sentence is how on earth a patch of white
> hair can get from the front of the skull to a position opening up into
> one's lips. Is this a description of a noseless jetti??"

In sentence one, the question is thematically introduced as a main
question.  "How" functions thematically in the extraposed clause.
(Possibly extending to 'how on earth") In the second sentence, we have a
"this" to function as given and as unmarked theme. ("Is", of course, sets
it up as yes/no question.  In that sense it's thematic, but pretty much
frozen into that spot.)  The principal information focus is on "a noseless
jetti", which empahsizes both content and tone (humor) by coming last
(like a good punch line.  Consider this poor alternative: Is this a
noseless jetti we have a description of?)

When theme is marked, there are at least two intonation waves.  (A
sentence can have several.)
"Outside of his sister and brother, he could think of no one to call for
help."  Here, "sister and brother" gather a kind of information focus
(tone stress) of their own.  we can compare it to a more usual rendering,
which would give us one point of focus (One tone group).  "His sister and
brother were the only ones he could think to call for help."

This is very fruitful territory for analysis, as it pays attention to how
our meanings are portioned out and how some meaning carries over as
coherent thread while new information is being woven in. Given/new and
theme/rheme are not the same, though they often coincide. Focus can be
distributed throughout the sentence in various ways, marked theme being
one of them.

    Thanks again for the delightful exploration of these grammatical
metaphors. "Rear-end lubed jumps out at us."  Maybe the guy was just
feigning innocence.

Craig



Great post, Joanna, as usual!
>
> Herb
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Johanna Rubba [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Sunday, March 12, 2006 10:03 PM
> To: Stahlke, Herbert F.W.
> Cc: Jo Rubba
> Subject: post, please?
>
> Hi, Herb,
>
> My account is supposed to be fixed, but apparently it is not. Could you
> post this for me?
>
> "Running from the back of his skull down to the front, is a patch of
> white hair that opens up into his lips."
>
> My main question about this sentence is how on earth a patch of white
> hair can get from the front of the skull to a position opening up into
> one's lips. Is this a description of a noseless jetti??
>
> The comma shouldn't be there. Beyond that, this is a sentence with a
> non-basic order: the participal phrase "running from the back of his
> skull down to the front" is placed before the verb, and the subject ("a
> patch of white hair that opens up into his lips") after the verb.
> "Running" etc. is not in focus position. Here, systemic grammar gives
> us a better way to think about it, as "theme", i.e., a phrase that
> introduces or sets the scene for the rest of the sentence. Subject is
> not a typical focus position; if I'm right, focus position is usually
> after the verb. In fact, I would say that "a patch of white hair
> [etc.]" is in focus position -- it is the salient part of the sentence;
> the participial phrase is set up to give us a reference point by which
> we can locate it. There is no other possible analysis of this
> sentence's structure.
>
> Other examples of this kind of structure:
>
> a. Lying on the table was the bloody knife that had been used in the
> murder.
> b. Gone were the ancestors we so revered.
>
> Some will say that the participials here are part of the verb phrase,
> since we can paraphrase them thus:
>
> i. The bloody knife that had been used in the murder was lying on the
> table.
> ii. The ancestors we so revered were gone.  -- That "gone" is
> predicative here and not part of the verb phase is proven by "was",
> which would need to be "have" if "gone" were in the verb phrase.
>
> These are similar to those cases in which it is hard to tell whether a
> sentence is passive or predicative:
>
> iii. The windows of the old house were broken.
> iv. The windows were broken by the storm's strong winds.
>
> Aspect helps sort out which structure underlies the sentence. The reason
>
> "A patch of white hair that opens up into his lips is running from the
> back of his skull down to the front."
>
> sounds bad is that the aspect is wrong. With an action verb like "run",
> the default reading of progressive aspect ("be" + "-ing") is present
> time, as in:
>
> "Time is running out as we speak."
>
> The sentence we are discussing here describes a state, a stable
> situation that holds over time, or an abiding characteristic of a
> person. For such sentences we use plain present tense, one of whose
> functions is to describe states that hold at the time of speaking or
> generic truths:
>
> "A patch of white hair that opens up into his lips runs from the back
> of his skull down to the front."
>
> Regarding "run", this kind of meaning is known as "fictive motion" in
> Cognitive Grammar. "Running" describes the trajectory your vision would
> trace if you were looking at him (with the back of his skull specified
> as the starting point). Similar examples:
>
> v. The road winds through the mountains.  -- It's the traveling
> object/person that does the winding, not the road. The road just lies
> there.
> vi. The sea bottom slopes steeply down beyond this point.  -- "Slope"
> is used as a verb describing the motion of an object that would move
> along the sea bottom, not the sea bottom itself. The sea bottom just
> has a particular geometric relationship to nearby reference points.
>
> Note that the simple present tense is used to describe the stable
> configuration of the road and the sea bottom.
>
> This is a metonymy, not a metaphor. The object viewed or traveled upon
> (patch of white hair, road, sea bottom) stands in for the vision of an
> observer or the motion of an object. In metaphor, properties of the
> source are transferred to the target. The speaker is not suggesting
> that the patch of hair, road, or sea bottom has the properites of the
> directed vision of an observer or an object that moves. Metonymy
> underlies many, many everyday expressions, and serves as a mechanism to
> extend the meanings of verbs. Examples:
>
> Your dog smells bad.  (It's the nose that does the smelling.)
> Your dog smells badly. (It would fail a bloodhound test.)
>
> John looks a little sick. (John is not doing the looking, an observer
> is.)
>
> My favorite metonymy is one that was spoken by a garage mechanic in
> Ohio or Indiana many years ago when I was on a long drive from Illinois
> to New Jersey. I was driving a Pinto that had occasional leaks from its
> universal joint. I stopped at a garage on the way to have it looked at
> and greased if necessary. Here's what the man said:
>
> "Hey, Joe, open up Bay Three. This lady needs her rear end lubed."
>
> This is an example of POSSESSOR FOR POSSESSED -- we use a phrase naming
> to the owner to refer to the object owned. Nobody else in the shop
> batted an eye, but for some reason the literal meaning hit me between
> the eyes, and I blushed. This sentence is not metaphorical -- it does
> not attribute to the car any of my characteristics. It is merely an
> abbreviated reference, shortening "This lady's car".
>
> Other typical metonymies:
>
> NAME OF PLACE FOR INSTITUTION LOCATED AT THAT PLACE:  "Washington has
> not yet taken a position on the treaty."
> AUTHOR FOR WORK: "James Mitchener takes up a full two feet of my
> bookshelf."
> PRODUCER FOR PRODUCT: "Can you hand me a Kleenex?"
> SUBSTANCE USED FOR ACTION OF USING IT: "Please butter my toast."  "I
> have to grease the pan."
> ACTION FOR INSTRUMENT: "She was hammering away at the floorboards."
>
> And numerous others. For a fuller list, see George Lakoff and Mark
> Johnsons' _Metaphors We Live By_, 1982, U Chicago Press.
>
>
> Johanna Rubba, Assoc. Prof., Linguistics
> Linguistics Minor Advisor
> English Department
> Cal Poly State University
> San Luis Obispo, CA 93047
> Tel. 805.756.2184
> Dept. Tel. 805.756.6374
> Home page:
> http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
>
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