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Distributed for Karolinum Press, Charles University

From Syntax to Text

The Janus Face of Functional Sentence Perspective

The volume deals with the interaction between syntax, informational structure (or functional sentence perspective), and text in present-day English and Czech. Libuše Dušková focuses on the two facets of functional sentence perspective: syntactic structures as carriers of informational structure functions and the connection of functional sentence perspective within the level of text. Functional sentence perspective is investigated as a potential factor of syntactic divergence between English and Czech, and the role of functional sentence perspective is examined with respect to theme development, text build-up, and style. Other topics include the hierarchical relationship between syntax and functional sentence perspective and general and specific questions of word order, with major attention paid to the role of semantics.

400 pages | 6 1/2 x 9 1/2 | © 2015

Language and Linguistics: General Language and Linguistics


Table of Contents

Preface

1. Syntactic Constancy
1. Constancy of the syntactic and FSP function of the subject
2. Syntactic constancy of adverbials between English and Czech
3. A side view of syntactic constancy of adverbials between English and Czech
4. Syntactic constancy of the subject complement. Part 1: A comparison between Czech and English
5. Syntactic constancy of the subject complement. Part 2: A comparison between English and Czech
6. Syntactic constancy of clause elements between English and Czech
7. Syntactic constancy of the verb between English and Czech
8. Noun modification in English and Czech: a contrastive view

2. Syntax FSP Interface
9. From the heritage of Vilém Mathesius Jan Firbas: Syntax in the service of FSP
10. Basic distribution of communicative dynamism vs. nonlinear indication of functional sentence perspective
11. Synonymy vs. differentiation of variant syntactic realization of FSP functions
12. Syntactic forms of the presentation scale and their differentiation
13. Systemic possibilities of variable word order and their realization in text
14. Note on a potential textual feature of putative should
15. On Bohumil Trnka’s concept of neutralization and its nature on the higher language levels
16. Some thoughts on potentiality in syntactic and FSP structure


3. FSP and Semantics
17. The relations between semantics and FSP as seen by Anglicist members of the Prague Linguistic Circle
18. Expressing indefiniteness in English

4. Syntax, FSP, Text
19. Theme movement in academic discourse
20. Theme development in academic and narrative text
21. Syntactic construction, information structure and textual role: An interface view of the cleft sentence
22. A textual view of noun modification

5. Style
23. Textual links as indicators of different functional styles
24. Noun modification in fiction and academic prose

References

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