Fronting
Wayne Leman
wayne_leman at sil.org
Tue Oct 16 13:38:40 EDT 2001
Clay asked a parenthetical "what?":
> Here we have clause initial EGENONTO which has low semantic content just
> like ESTIN. But in narrative EGENONTO is very often toward the front of
the
> clause. This has something (what?) to do with narrative discourse patterns
> but I don't think it has anything to do with the level of semantic content
> (a completely different issue than relative prominence).
Clay, I would think that EGENONTO likely marks progression points on the
narrative time line. The passage of time is probably the most salient
feature of narrative discourse genre, so it is not surprising that EGENONTO
would be positioned where readers can spot it quickly in relation to what is
stated that occurred at that point in time.
Wayne
-----
Wayne Leman
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