Bruce,
Maybe I haven’t heard it as often
because I don’t watch tennis, which ranks fifth on my boredom scale,
after poker, golf, NASCAR, and the real estate channel, roughly in that order.
But I suspect that you’re right. Right dislocation has discourse
functions other than repair, but I’m not sure it serves to take the
subject out of focus, since the subject is normally not in focus. Rather, it
serves as a way of increasing the salience of something that’s topical
without makng it focus. There has to be some scalarity to both topicality and
focus.
Herb
From:
Sent: Monday, October 31, 2005
1:27 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Syntax question
Herb,
My first
impression also was that it was some sort of discourse repair mechanism, but it
is found so frequently on a typical broadcast (though I must admit it seems to
predominate on tennis programs), that I'm wondering whether it maybe ought to
be classed as a regular means of taking the subject out of focus and putting
the comment in focus.
Bruce
>>> [log in to unmask] 10/31/2005 8:30:40 AM >>>
As a grammatical structure, “He
seldom votes, my father” is referred to in the syntax literature as
“right dislocation”, assuming a transformational derivation moving
the subject to the end and leaving behind a resumptive pronoun. The
dislocated subject is topical, not focus, even though it comes at the end, as
can be seen from its intonation. The tonic accent of the sentence will be
on either SELdom or VOTES, but both “he” and “my
father” will be unstressed and low pitched, at least in a declarative
sentence. The sentence would be very odd with “he” stressed
and only a bit less odd with “my father” stressed, although a
context demanding that isn’t hard to devise. Rhetorically, I think
right dislocation acts as a sort of discourse repair mechanism, and so
it’ll be found much more frequently in extemporaneous speech than in writing.
Herb
From:
Sent: Monday, October 31, 2005
10:22 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Syntax question
ATEGers,
It occurred to me again last July during the Wimbledon Tennis
matches how often the commentators would use what might be a comment-topic
arrangement. Instead of "My father, he seldom votes" they would
say, "He seldom votes, my father." This structure is surprisingly
common, "He has a wicked backhand, McEnroe." Does it make sense
to call this a "comment-topic style"? Or is this just a question of
putting the topic-comment in the reverse order, so that what would normally be
a comment has become the topic? Is it significant that it is commentators
that are doing this?
Bruce
>>> [log in to unmask] 10/30/2005 9:16:38 PM >>>
Topic-comment
terminology and concepts come out of several strands of functional linguistic
analysis, starting at least with early Halliday work and probably going back
farther than that. Topic has been discussed extensively in connection
with definitions of subjecthood. The Chinese example that Johanna gave is
an example why linguists argue that Chinese is a topic-comment language rather
than a subject-predicate language. Topic comes initially in a sentence,
but there is no other grammatical or morphological marking of subjecthood in
Chinese. In English, subjects are usually topics, but we have structures,
like some of those under discussion in this thread, which allow us to make
something else topic. We also have sentences that start with subjects
that aren't topics, like
It's raining.
It looks like UCLA will win the PAC-10.
There's an elephant behind that tree.
Typically such sentences are used to introduce new content (focus) at the end
of the sentence that then becomes the topic of the discourse.
"Topical" refers usually to nominal structures in a sentence that are
neither topic nor focus, have been previously mentioned or are in some other
way salient, and are not in topic or focus position. In the sequence
I just talked to Mary. John gave her a ring. It had a fake stone.
"Mary" is in focus. "John" is topic.
"her" is topical, and "a ring" is in focus.
"It" is topic, and "a fake stone" is in focus, so it might
well become the subject of the next sentence.
Topic continuity and the given-new contract are concepts that can be very
useful in the teaching of writing because they name crucial elements of
discourse structure.
Herb
Herb
-----Original Message-----
From:
Sent: Sun 10/30/2005 9:09 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Syntax question
Johanna is right. I didn't know that the reduntant pronoun was called
"topic-comment" (it sounds like an odd term to me), but it seems to
me that it can be very effective rhythmically. Labelling it as ungrammatical in
all cases does seem extreme.
It occurs in French, too. I think it's a song by Edith Piaf that has the line,
"Quand j'ai fame, moi j'ai le pain." It's a downright beautiful line!
Paul D.
Johanna Rubba <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
..........
As to topic-comment, this terminology appears in some writing manuals
with reference to structures such as "My father, he seldom votes".
They
are labeled outright ungrammatical, which I find a little extreme. I
view the Beowulf example as similar. Topic-comment syntax is standard
in some languages. A rough example I recall from my
structure-of-Chinese course is "Elephant, nose is long", which would
be
translated as "Elephants have long noses". I can imagine a novice
writer writing something like "As far as elephants, they have long
noses".
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This message may contain confidential information, and is
intended only for the use of the individual(s) to whom it
is addressed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select
"Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To
join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave
the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This message may contain confidential information, and is
intended only for the use of the individual(s) to whom it
is addressed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/