1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910461431703321

Autore

Birner Betty J

Titolo

Information status and noncanonical word order in English [[electronic resource] /] / Betty J. Birner, Gregory Ward

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Amsterdam ; ; Philadelphia, Pa., : John Benjamins Pub. Co., 1998

ISBN

1-283-28033-7

9786613280336

90-272-8190-4

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (328 p.)

Collana

Studies in language companion series, , 0165-7763 ; ; v. 40

Altri autori (Persone)

WardGregory L

Disciplina

401/.41

Soggetti

English language - Word order

English language - Discourse analysis

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 289-306) and index.

Nota di contenuto

CONTENTS; Acknowledgments; 1 Introduction; 2 Preposing; 3 Postposing; 4 Argument Reversal; 5 Noncanonical Word Order and Discourse Structure; 6 Extensions and Implications; Appendix; References; Index

Sommario/riassunto

This work provides a comprehensive discourse-functional account of three classes of noncanonical constituent placement in English - preposing, postposing, and argument reversal - and shows how their interaction is accounted for in a principled and predictive way. In doing so, it details the variety of ways in which information can be 'given' or 'new' and shows how an understanding of this variety allows us to account for the distribution of these constructions in discourse. Moreover, the authors show that there exist broad and empirically verifiable functional correspondences within classes of