The Discourse Function of Inversion in English

First published in 1997. This dissertation presents a discourse-functional account of English inversion, based on an empirical study of natural language data. The central finding is that inversion is subject to a pragmatic constraint on the information status of its constituents; specifically, the information represented by the preposed constituent must be at least as familiar within the discourse as is that represented by the postposed constituent.

List of contents

Chapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2 Definition and Preliminary Taxonomy; Chapter 3 Previous Analyses; Chapter 4 The Function of Inversion; Chapter 5 Verbs and Related Issues; Chapter 6 Summary and Conclusions;

About the author

Birner, Betty

Summary

First published in 1997. This dissertation presents a discourse-functional account of English inversion, based on an empirical study of natural language data. The central finding is that inversion is subject to a pragmatic constraint on the information status of its constituents; specifically, the information represented by the preposed constituent must be at least as familiar within the discourse as is that represented by the postposed constituent.

Product details

• Authors: Betty Birner, Betty J. Birner
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 24.11.2015
• EAN: 9781138967755
• ISBN: 978-1-138-96775-5
• No. of pages: 204
• Dimensions: 138 mm x 11 mm x 216 mm
• Weight: 380 g
• Series: Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics; Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative linguistics; Language, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / General, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General, Language and Linguistics