Word Order and Zero Anaphora

Philip Graber omc01091 at mail.wvnet.edu
Sat Oct 7 08:51:28 EDT 2000


----- Part of Original Message from Randall Buth -----
>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..
----- End of Original Message from Randall Buth -----

Why not both?  In the clause "Greek I love," it seems quite clear to me that
"Greek" is both the contextualizing constituent and a constituent receiving
contrastive Focus.  In "I love Greek" "I" is the contextualizing constituent
and "Greek" has unmarked Focus (I don't like that term any more than Topic,
but I do like "contextualizing constituent").

Philip Graber
Ronceverte, West Virginia, USA





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