Preposing In English and Its Trigger

• 발행기관: 경희대학교 언어정보연구소
• 저자명: Taeho Kim
• 간행물 정보: 『언어연구』제29권 제2호, 315~327쪽, 전체 13쪽
• 주제분류: 인문학 > 언어학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2012.08.31

영문 초록

This study explores the preposing phenomenon in English from a discourse-functional perspective, and discusses what seems to cause a given sentential element to be placed in a position ahead of its original position. Unlike many previous studies on this well-known phenomenon, this study seeks to explain the phenomenon introducing the notions of ‘cognitive accessibility’ and ‘discourse relevance’, and suggests that a given entity is preposed due to its high cognitive accessibility and discourse relevance. More specifically, it argues that the syntactic structure of a given utterance would be determined by the information structure that a speaker chooses for the message to deliver. The information structure would be constructed based on the cognitive accessibility and discourse relevance of a given entity to the speaker’s consciousness at the time of utterance. In this study, the author takes postposing phenomenon in Korean as supporting evidence to account for the preposing phenomenon in English.

목차

1. Introduction

2. Information Structure

3. Pragmatic Factors as the Trigger for the Syntactic Operation?

4. Semantics as the Trigger?

5. Cognitive Accessibility, Discourse Relevance and Preposing of NPs

6. Conclusion

References

키워드

cognitive accessibility consciousness discourse relevance focus topic preposing postposing information structure