Particle "a" in the West-Saxon Gospels: A Discourse-Level Analysis: v. 249 - Brossura

Kim, Taejin

Brossura

ISBN 10: 3261045124 ISBN 13: 9783261045126

Casa editrice: Peter Lang AG, 1992

Riassunto

The purpose of this study is to determine the function of the particle ‘a’ in the West-Saxon Gospels. In order to test the often-articulated view that ‘a’ is a foregrounding marker, the syntactic categories of the primary topics in clauses containing ‘a’ are investigated. If a passage is foregrounded, its primary topic must have high topicality. However, the primary topics of the sentence-initial ‘a’-clauses have low topicality. A search for other features of foregrounding in the data resulted in similar negative results. This leads the author to conclude that ‘a’ is an indicator of multifunctional discontinuity, signaling a shift of topic, scene, listener, content, deviation of time-line, or a combination of any of these. The instances which do not fall in these categories are treated as signaling action/thematic discontinuity inherently syntacticized in the form of parataxis. This book will be of special interest to scholars working in the fields of discourse analysis and Old English syntax.

Dettagli dell?edizione

• Editore: Peter Lang AG
• Data di pubblicazione: 1992
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 3261045124
• ISBN 13: 9783261045126
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero edizione: 1
• Numero di pagine: 178
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: non disponibile