Word Order and Zero Anaphora
yochanan bitan
ButhFam at compuserve.com
Sat Oct 7 01:19:46 EDT 2000
shalom miyrushalayim
mind if I present another view?
>I love studying languages.
>Hebrew is fun,
>but Greek, I love.
>
>"Greek" is in pragmatic focus in my last clause because it is contrastive
or
>emphasized, which is a high level of pragmatic focus. Normally, however, I
>would say
>
>I love Greek ...
Greek is pragmatically marked, Yes.
But Focus?!?
In the above ditty Greek is Topicalized, and "I love" appears to be the
main point of the clause
--why? because it contrasts with the Hebrew clause.
'Greek' is used to set up the stage,
a contextualizing constituent (my rename of what Topicalization really is),
then 'I love' walks on..
ERRWSQE
Randall Buth
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