Connecting utterances to the background
Connecting utterances to the background
The adaptations include focal stress (as in the contrast between “Meg’s a SCOT” and “MEG’s a Scot” – where the capitals indicate syllables pronounced with stronger stress); definiteness, often seen in the choice among determiners, for example the versus a; and distinct syntactic patterns (such as It’s Mary who is Scottish and Mary is Scottish).
Definiteness
Definiteness in noun phrases is a significant aspect of the grammar of English and will be used as a starting point here.
The definite article the signals ‘this reference is constrained: I am referring to something that you know about’. One class of example is (9.1), which might be spoken by someone phoning from the other side of town.
(9.1) Go and have a look outside, there’s a weird green glow in the sky.
the same sky is outside almost everywhere, so the phone caller can expect the receiver of the call to know about the sky; and that is what makes immediate definite reference appropriate. The sky is a topic. A topic ‘is what the utterance is primarily about’ (Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 236).
Topics are entities easily accessible in the presupposed background, like the sky. For a topic there should not be any need to run a preparatory check: “If I were to say sky, would you know which one I was talking about?”
Pseudo-clefts
In June 2004 a hot rock fell out of the sky, went through the roof of a house in New Zealand and bounced off the sofa, leaving a big dent. Any of the sentences in (9.4) could accurately describe the rock hitting the sofa.
(9.4) a. What hit the sofa was the meteorite.
b. What the meteorite hit was the sofa.
c. The meteorite hit the sofa.
Unmarked means that it is a “default” pattern, the normal one. Thes sentence pattern in (9.4a, b) is called pseudo-cleft and has three distinguishing characteristics:
a wh-clause with (in the technical sense of argument explained in Chapter 4) an unspecified argument (what hit the sofa is not explicit about the subject, and what the meteorite hit lacks detail regarding the object)
a noun phrase that supplies the missing details for the unspecified argument in the wh-clause (the meteorite in 9.4a, the sofa in 9.4b)
BE is the main verb (appearing as was in 9.4a, b).
It-clefts
Connecting Utterances To The Background
(9.7) a. It was her grandma who took Judy to the Potter film.
b. It was Judy who her grandma took to the Potter film.
c. It was the Potter film that her grandma took Judy to.
It-clefts highlight a noun phrase, often in order to contrast it with another. For instance, (9.7a) is an it-cleft when used to convey ‘In spite of what you might think, the person who took Judy to the film was her grandmother, not her aunt’.
It-clefts have similar distinguishing traits to the ones listed earlier for pseudo-clefts:
a clause with an unspecified argument (who took Judy to the Potter film does not provide details about the subject, though who suggests a human subject, rather than, say, the no. 12 bus; who her grandma took to the Potter film does not specify the object; and that her grandma took Judy to has a gap after the preposition to)
a noun phrase that specifies the missing argument (her grandma, Judy and the Potter film in, respectively (9.7a–c))
BE is the main verb (was in (9.7)
It is the grammatical subject.
Passives
(9.11) a. The conspirators liked the scheme.
b. The scheme was liked by the conspirators.
c. (9.11a ⇒ 9.11b) & (9.11b ⇒ 9.11a)
Sentence (9.11b) is of a type called passive. Grammarians call the unmarked transitive type of clause (9.11a) active, when contrasting them with passive clauses. A passive is longer than the corresponding active. This is because passives are marked by a greater number of grammatical morphemes (BE – showing up as was in (9.11b) – the preposition by and, for some verbs, a past participle form). By contrast actives have fewer “markings”, which is a reason for calling them unmarked
The adaptations include focal stress (as in the contrast between “Meg’s a SCOT” and “MEG’s a Scot” – where the capitals indicate syllables pronounced with stronger stress); definiteness, often seen in the choice among determiners, for example the versus a; and distinct syntactic patterns (such as It’s Mary who is Scottish and Mary is Scottish).
Definiteness
Definiteness in noun phrases is a significant aspect of the grammar of English and will be used as a starting point here.
The definite article the signals ‘this reference is constrained: I am referring to something that you know about’. One class of example is (9.1), which might be spoken by someone phoning from the other side of town.
(9.1) Go and have a look outside, there’s a weird green glow in the sky.
the same sky is outside almost everywhere, so the phone caller can expect the receiver of the call to know about the sky; and that is what makes immediate definite reference appropriate. The sky is a topic. A topic ‘is what the utterance is primarily about’ (Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 236).
Topics are entities easily accessible in the presupposed background, like the sky. For a topic there should not be any need to run a preparatory check: “If I were to say sky, would you know which one I was talking about?”
Pseudo-clefts
In June 2004 a hot rock fell out of the sky, went through the roof of a house in New Zealand and bounced off the sofa, leaving a big dent. Any of the sentences in (9.4) could accurately describe the rock hitting the sofa.
(9.4) a. What hit the sofa was the meteorite.
b. What the meteorite hit was the sofa.
c. The meteorite hit the sofa.
Unmarked means that it is a “default” pattern, the normal one. Thes sentence pattern in (9.4a, b) is called pseudo-cleft and has three distinguishing characteristics:
a wh-clause with (in the technical sense of argument explained in Chapter 4) an unspecified argument (what hit the sofa is not explicit about the subject, and what the meteorite hit lacks detail regarding the object)
a noun phrase that supplies the missing details for the unspecified argument in the wh-clause (the meteorite in 9.4a, the sofa in 9.4b)
BE is the main verb (appearing as was in 9.4a, b).
It-clefts
Connecting Utterances To The Background
(9.7) a. It was her grandma who took Judy to the Potter film.
b. It was Judy who her grandma took to the Potter film.
c. It was the Potter film that her grandma took Judy to.
It-clefts highlight a noun phrase, often in order to contrast it with another. For instance, (9.7a) is an it-cleft when used to convey ‘In spite of what you might think, the person who took Judy to the film was her grandmother, not her aunt’.
It-clefts have similar distinguishing traits to the ones listed earlier for pseudo-clefts:
a clause with an unspecified argument (who took Judy to the Potter film does not provide details about the subject, though who suggests a human subject, rather than, say, the no. 12 bus; who her grandma took to the Potter film does not specify the object; and that her grandma took Judy to has a gap after the preposition to)
a noun phrase that specifies the missing argument (her grandma, Judy and the Potter film in, respectively (9.7a–c))
BE is the main verb (was in (9.7)
It is the grammatical subject.
Passives
(9.11) a. The conspirators liked the scheme.
b. The scheme was liked by the conspirators.
c. (9.11a ⇒ 9.11b) & (9.11b ⇒ 9.11a)
Sentence (9.11b) is of a type called passive. Grammarians call the unmarked transitive type of clause (9.11a) active, when contrasting them with passive clauses. A passive is longer than the corresponding active. This is because passives are marked by a greater number of grammatical morphemes (BE – showing up as was in (9.11b) – the preposition by and, for some verbs, a past participle form). By contrast actives have fewer “markings”, which is a reason for calling them unmarked
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