Search

This paper discusses the information structural properties of so-called premise (also factual) conditionals, conditional sentences whose antecedent repeats previously evoked content. We argue that, semantically, premise conditionals are hypothetical conditionals, with two pragmatic properties: their antecedent is echoic and thematic. We show that some of the differences identified in the literature between hypothetical and premise conditionals follow from the informational status of the antecedent. While the antecedent of a premise conditional is thematic, the antecedent of a hypothetical conditional can also be rhematic. Rhematic conditionals happen to be compatible with all the characteristics that stand out as incompatible with premise conditionals. Additionally, we argue that echoicity is a definitional property of the premise reading of indicative conditionals. • Premise (also called factual) conditionals are not a syntactic/semantic object on their own. • They are just a possible interpretation of an indicative conditional given the right discourse conditions. • We define them as thematic and echoic; the antecedent need not be Common Ground. • Thematicity explains previously observed characteristics of premise conditionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there have been several studies on the linguistic features of the Christ Hymn in Col 1:15–20, they rarely start with the "clauses" or investigate how messages are conveyed in the clauses in this hymn. This article will adopt Michael A. K. Halliday's systemic functional system of theme and rheme, particularly his perception of the clause as message, to gain insights into the ways in which information is managed into categories of given and new at the clause level, and thereby accomplishing rhetorical purposes in the Christ Hymn. This article will seek to demonstrate how Paul intimates point of view by employing the linguistic device of "thematization" to foreground "the Son" to be the chief topic of the Christ Hymn and thereby underline his universal Lordship. The result of this thematic analysis will underline the textual cohesion of the Christ Hymn and lend support to the view that this hymn comprises the two stanzas in vv. 15–18a and vv. 18b–20. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article introduces a comparative analysis of the word order in the communicative structure of the sentence in Russian and Persian. The research also covered means and methods of expressing communicative structure, as well as the rules and patterns of word order on the communicative level. In both languages, the communicative aspect of the sentence is closely related to the word order, which is the main tool of expressing the semantic division of the sentence. However, the communicative word order patterns are different. In the neutral speech, both languages put the theme (background information) in front of the rheme (actual information). In expressive speech, the Russian rheme is placed at the beginning of the sentence while the theme follows it. In other words, the thought moves from the actual information to the background information. When the communicative division of the sentence changes, the word order also changes. Based on the analysis of the word order in neutral and expressive speech, direct and inverted word orders are associated with the function that these components perform in the theme-rheme relationship. Persian, however, has a fixed word order, and allows for no inversion: the theme and the rheme are fixed, and the background information always precedes the new one. In the Russian language, any part of the sentence can be the theme or the rheme. In Persian, the function of the theme or the rheme belongs to particular sentence components.

Анализируется актуальное членение предложения в русском и персидском языках. Рассмотрение и сопоставление коммуникативного строя русского и персидского предложения, а также закономерностей порядка слов является актуальным как в теоретической, так и в практической сфере, в том числе с целью развития иноязычных коммуникативных навыков у студентов, изучающих указанные языки как иностранные, для повышения качества перевода предложения с персидского языка на русский и наоборот. Проведено исследование, в рамках которого проанализирована смысловая структура предложения, а также выявлены особенности и правила порядка слов на уровне коммуникативного строя предложения в данных исследуемых языках в сравнительном аспекте. Существуют сходства и различия в коммуникативной структуре предложения в русском и персидском языках. В нейтральной речи тема находится в начале предложения в обоих языках, а рема – в конце. Однако в экспрессивно окрашенной речи каждый из этих языков обладает своей спецификой, что обусловлено структурными особенностями персидского и русского языков. Члены предложения в русском языке не имеют строго фиксированной позиции и могут перемещаться в предложении в зависимости от коммуникативной ситуации. Так, в экспрессивно окрашенной речи меняется коммуникативная структура предложения, поскольку в таких высказываниях отражается движение мысли от сообщаемого к исходной информации, рема находится в начале предложения и тема – после нее, то есть актуальная информация предшествует известной. Прямой и обратный порядок слов в русском языке имеет тесную связь с той ролью, которую эти компоненты предложения играют в тема-рематических отношениях. В действительности рассмотрение коммуникативной структуры предложения в русском языке позволяет определить синтаксический и стилистический строй предложения. Однако персидский язык характеризуется фиксированным словопорядком в предложении и инверсии на уровне членов смыслового членения предложения не существует. В этом языке, в отличие от русского, исходная информация (тема) всегда как в нейтральной, так и в экспрессивно окрашенной речи выражается в начале предложения, а актуальная информация (рема) всегда следует за ней и стоит в конце предложения.

Systemic functional linguistic analyses of texts provide in-depth assessments of an author's strategic choice of metafunctional markers. Specialised applications also serve to examine key rhetorical marker choices in the context of unique groups or communities such as the discourse generated by criminal groups and marginal actors. This study applies an SFL-based analysis of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski's (1995) manifesto, Industrial Society and Its Future. The study examines the use of textual-based markers as a way of exploring the author's imagined connection between his text and its arguments, and to his targeted readers. Analysis deriving from this assessment illustrated that while all metafunctional markers perform many of their typical and associative functions, they also take on a renewed importance within the context of this text and the history surrounding its publication. In this case, Kaczynski's use of the devices also serves to consciously reinforce the text's scientific and academic pretentions. This distinguishes the Manifesto from other forms of discourse produced by criminal or marginal groups and distinguishes Kaczynski as a marginal actor who attempted to justify his actions through appeals to logic and empirical reasoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates how the content of consumer safety instructions is organized in Themes and N-Rhemes and connected by thematic progressions. The Themes are chiefly directives or representations of the product and its usage. The goal of safety instructions, on the other hand, i.e. avoiding dangers and their negative outcomes, is mainly represented in the N-Rhemes. Thematic progressions are frequently linear, which reflects the expert/non-expert relationship between the writers and readers, or derived, which reflects the somewhat disjointedness of this text type. There are also many Rheme iterations connecting imperative clauses. In this respect the thematic organization of procedural texts differs significantly from texts where declarative clauses are predominant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article contains a description of the informational structure of the sentence in its capacity as a layer of meaning constituted as an effect of its contextual updating. A complex phenomenon of a discursive nature, the informational structure of the utterance requires an interpretation of the facts of language by taking into account the interrelationship between the semantic, syntactic and discursive factors involved in the act of communication. The semantic-pragmatic specificity of the informational structure of the sentence is analysed starting from the extralinguistic factors that control it. Particular attention is paid to the distinctive features of the minimal units of this structure. The criteria for identifying the topic and the rhyme of a sentence are presented, with emphasis on the recognition of the units in question in the process of linguistic analysis. By examining this layer of meaning, our goal is to show that the Romanian language has a complex mechanism that allows its expression and variation in relation to other layers of meaning of the sentence.

This paper examines the thematic structure of a corpus of insults using the inference-boundary model of Theme and Rheme. It focuses on the concept of negative inference—which must be generated for an insult to be successfully delivered—and shows how it allows us to better understand and characterize the form that insults generally take. The analysis suggests that insults are typically structured to generate backward-looking negative inferences from the decoder, much in line with how new information (in this case, the thrust of the insult) is generally located in final position. The paper also proposes a summary statement capturing the general configuration of insults and suggestions for further research.

The paper examines the contexts of using the preposition "de" regarded as a thematic one. The methodological framework here is cognitive linguistics, which means that we will try to examine a cognitive context which influences the use of the preposition "de". The starting point of our study is the notion that the preposition "de" is a marker of thematization; however, we would like to demonstrate that thematization is not only a textual or discursive phenomenon; it also depends on the prior knowledge of the speaker. Thus, for example, Merci de m'avoir aidé/de ton aide and J'ai décidé de partir en vacances, the information introduced by the preposition "de" is thematic in the sense that it is posed and that it is about something which is said. But in, e.g., Il se mêle des affaires d'autrui, Il parle de politique and Je te conseille de te reposer (vs. Je te conseille le repos), the use of the preposition "de" - if it remains thematic - requires a redefinition of the topic including the prior knowledge of the speaker. The preposition de therefore serves as a marker of this knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Annotation. In linguistics, the issue of theme and rheme is one of the topical issues that have been studied in almost all languages for several years. The purpose of this article is to talk about the theme and rhyme of sentences in Uzbek and English, and discuss its types and several differences. From the point of view of the actual task, the elements that make up the sentence are divided into theme (known) and rheme (new) parts. The rhema part of the sentence is important from a communicative (informational) point of view. The question is asked to determine this rheme. If the subject part of the sentence is known, it is repeated exactly in the interrogative sentence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When it comes to language, it's not just the grammatical structure and the literal meaning of words that matter. The way a predicate imposes inferences on its propositional arguments is crucial to understanding the true meaning of a message. However, these inferences are influenced by many factors, such as prosody, world knowledge, speakers' expectations regarding language use, situational stereotypes, and other implicit or contextual elements. In this paper, we examine the inferential status of the verbs referred to by Karttunen as "implicative verbs". On the one hand, two-way implicative verbs, and on the other, one-way implicative verbs. The latter have been little studied from this perspective. This will lead us to highlight the fundamental role, too often forgotten, of prosody and focus/theme in this type of analysis and in determining the inferential status of predicates. Our analyses show that, once prosody has been considered, the classification of theoretically possible verb inferences accepted until now needs to be modified. We do not have 4 groups of one-way implicative verbs, as has been argued, but 2, namely the groups: [+/+/- // -/-] [affirmed > true or false // denied > false] of the type être capable, pouvoir and [+/+/- // -/+] [affirmed > true or false // denied > true] of the type hésiter à. The remaining two groups, considered as distinct and autonomous one-way implicative verbs with the suggested characteristics: [+ + // - +/-] [affirmed > true // denied > true or false] of the type forcer to and [+ - // - +/-] [affirmed > false // denied > true or false] of the type refuser de, belong to the canonical groups of two-way implicative verbs, respectively: forcer à to the group of verbs of the type réussir à: [+/+ // -/-] [affirmed > true // denied > false] and refuser de to the group of verbs of the type oublier de: [+/- // -/+][affirmed > false // denied > true]. Naturally, this classification differentiation, important as it is, only reflects the different behaviour of certain types of predicate, and this is the most important element of these analyses with a view to automating the recognition of predicate inferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Hallidayan Theme-Rheme framework is commonly used to account for the message structure of language. Much has been done to investigate the message structure of different text types using the Hallidayan framework and Daneš’s notion of thematic progression (TP). Similar studies targeting scientific research articles, however, are few, and the Rhemes in these studies are almost always sidelined. Diagrams capturing the development patterns of Themes and Rhemes at the whole-text level are also lacking. To address these gaps, this study compared the TP and rhematic progression (RP) patterns of 50 scientific research articles, adopting both a diagrammatic and quantitative approach. The quantification of TP and RP was based on the thematic-density index (TDI) and rhematic-density index (RDI), respectively. The results revealed that TDI was greater than RDI at all levels of the text. The TP and RP patterns were also different and distinct. Whereas the TP pattern comprised a simple-linear progression in the introduction section followed by a constant development in the rest of the article, the RP pattern was generally simple-linear in its shape. The observed TP and RP patterns capture not merely the message structure of scientific writing, but its communicative function. Further work involving more varied scientific texts is recommended to investigate whether these patterns are robust across disciplines.

В статье впервые образный параллелизм макро- и микромиров исследуется на основе выявленных чешским ученым Ф. Данешем тема-рематических прогрессий, которые составляют матрицы структурообразования приема. Исследование проведено на материале текстов различных фольклорных жанров: обрядовых и необрядовых песен, исторических песен, причитаний, баллад, заговоров и заклинаний, пословиц и поговорок, былин, частушек, загадок, примет, быличек и бывальщин, сказок и др. Абстрактные модели связного текста как способы его развития применяются в качестве инструмента изучения внутренней динамики фольклорного текста: разработана типология моделей и псевдомоделей матриц структурообразования образного параллелизма макро- и микромиров, определены три основные группы тема-рематических прогрессий, имеющих универсальный статус, характеризующихся избирательным статусом и не имеющих статуса матрицы структурообразования образного параллелизма макро- и микромиров.

From the perspective of the binary flat theme-rheme structure, 98% of the sentences contain a theme and a rheme, while 2% are all-rhematic. The same phenomenon occurs in embedded rheme spans (R1(SP1), R1(R1), R1(P2), R1(P4), and R1(P5)). From the perspective of the hierarchical tripartite thematicity structure, all sentences contain a rheme (R1), 98% have a theme (T1), and 30% include a specifier (SP1). Studies that have been carried out on the IS-prosody interface in the context of speech technologies are limited to the rather simple correlation of a flat binary theme-rheme structure with rising-falling intonation contours in terms of the labels from the ToBI convention ([51]) on short made-up question-answer examples; see, e.g., [9]) and [52]). Keywords: communicative structure; information structure; intonation; prosody; rheme; specifier; thematicity; theme; ToBI EN communicative structure information structure intonation prosody rheme specifier thematicity theme ToBI 419 445 27 05/12/22 20220501 NES 220501 1 Introduction Natural and contextualized prosody is a key feature of synthesized speech that text-to-speech (TTS) applications have been striving to achieve since the early 1990s. [Extracted from the article]

The article presents a comprehensive multifaceted analysis of directive speech acts (based on modern media texts from the popular Ukrainian newspaper Day) taking into account the following approaches: 1) cognitive-semantic, with the projection of directive statements on extralingual reality, the study of their propositional-syntactic structure, and semantic relations between components; 2) formal-grammatical, which involves the identification of morphological and syntactic means of expression of motivation and the specifics of the positional structure of sentences; 3) communicative-syntactic, which allows for the characterization of directive statements in terms of their intonation and actual articulation; 4) communicative-pragmatic and discursive, which focuses on the specifics of certain types of directive speech acts in specific discourses, their perlocutionary effect, pragmatic intentions of the speakers, their communicative strategies and tactics, the interaction of the addresser and the recipient and more. Directive speech acts with infinitives, verbs of imperative, conditional and optative moods, present, past and future tenses, which are based on performative constructions, are distinguished from the formal-grammatical point of view. They all have the same propositional meaning, which at the semantic-syntactic level of the sentence is implemented in the following obligatory syntaxemes: the subject (speaker), the predicate of volitional action, the recipient of volitional action or the potential subject of action, and the predicate of potential action. In specific communicative acts, the syntaxeme of the subject of volitional action is correlated with the recipient of speech, i.e., the speaker expressing the communicative intention of motivation, and the complex syntax of the recipient of volitional action-subject of potential action - with the recipient of speech, i.e., the interlocutor from whom the speaker expects on his volition. The core of directive speech acts is formed by sentences with verbs in the imperative mood (imperatives) and vocatives. The periphery is formed by indirect statements (including narrative, interrogative, conditional), the motivational modality of which is due to context or extra-lingual situation. Verbal predicates as the centre of directive speech acts, with the semantics of order, command, request, supplication, imploration, persuasion, invitation, permission, demand, coercion, appeal, instruction, direction, recommendation, suggestion, warning, precaution, advice, admonition, preaching, etc., are usually in a communicative position rheme with the actual articulation of statements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to describe the Information Structure (IS) of Romanian negative statements by using an F0 contour interpretation at the cognitive level. The IS analysis of contours is based on a cognitive (pre-linguistic) model. The descriptions of IS partitions deduced from F0 contours are then related to the semantic aspects of the negation phenomenon: the phrase accent and the focus position of the new information element within the rheme part of sentence. Important prosodic characteristics are added to those presented in Dascălu-Jinga 2001 şi Dascălu-Jinga 1998 related to Romanian intonational contours of negative sentence utterances. The new aspect introduced by the paper in the F0 contour analysis is the cognitive IS model which interprets melodic forms of prosodic words as functional element marks. In section 2 the IS model at the cognitive level is presented by defining information unit, the two structural levels and nuclear accent rules. The model can describe a cognitive reality of information packaging within utterances that is different from the syntactic and semantic organization of sentences. In section 3 are presented 5 utterances of negative sentences. After their F0 contours partitioning, IS model-based descriptions are applied to the resulted partitions and they can explain how is implemented at the pragmatic level the semantic focus function of the constituent which is responsible from the non-realization of the action within negative sentence. The examples of negative sentences include cases where the negation particle bears only acoustic prominence (constituent negation) and others, where it also bears functional prominence at the cognitive and semantic IS level. In the latter case, the particle nu negates the whole sentence and it has a positive acoustical prominence (melodic peak) and a functional prominence at the cognitive and semantic level. The F0 contour analysis leads to the conclusion that focus event usually shares the same position with the nuclear element within one partition but there are cases when they have different positions. This is an argument to treat them as different structural aspects of utterances at the semantic level and at the information packaging level, respectively. We conclude that the paper is useful for students and linguist researchers who are interested to deepen the comprehension of the pragmatic realization of the negation phenomenon within Romanian utterances by identifying the IS partition hierarchy of utterances at the cognitive level, including local and global nuclear elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In writing argumentative essay, the writer should mind complete parts of the essay and other linguistic elements. The two important linguistic elements are theme and rheme. Since theme and rheme are crucial in clause structure, thematic development is regarded important in the development of text. There are three patterns of thematic development proposed by Eggins, i.e., theme reiteration, zig-zag pattern, and multiple-theme pattern. This research states its objective as to analyze the thematic development occurred in students' argumentative essay. The occurrence of thematic development is analyzed and elaborated into the finding and discussion. This research is a qualitative research. There are 13 essays written by students. The essays are chosen randomly to maintain the objectiveness of the analysis. Those essays consist of 323 clauses. They are analyzed based on the concept of thematic development proposed by Eggins. The analysis of thematic development of the clauses shows that theme reiteration emerges as the most preferable thematic development pattern. It can be seen that 217 clauses (67,2%) in students' essay are in forms of theme reiteration. 84 clauses (26,0%) of the essay apply zig-zag pattern in thematic development. Multiple-theme pattern comes as the least preferred thematic development pattern. It only comes up in 22 clauses (6,8%) out of 323 clauses. It can be concluded that students understand the way to develop their essays by implementing combination of thematic development. It marks a successful phase of students' writing skill. Nevertheless, students need writing practice intensively to make their writing skill grow better. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The topic of this study is the textual meaning on students‟ recount texts of the 4th semester students of English Department, Semarang State University in the Academic Year 2016/2017. The analyses intend to figure out what Thematic structures are displayed and what Thematic progressions are employed in the students‟ recount texts. The approach used in this study is qualitative descriptive method, and some quantitative approaches to enhance the depth of results. The units of analysis of this study were clauses in the 4th semester students‟ recount texts taken from Genre-Based Writing course. The results of the Thematic structures analysis show that unmarked topical Theme is the most frequently used rather than the marked one. Modal adjunct is the only constituent of interpersonal Theme that is found to show the writer‟s judgment. Moreover, structural and conjunctive adjunct are used in relating the clause to its context or another clause. In addition, there only one continuative found in the text to signal a new move is made. The study also shows that the students used re-iteration (constant) to make the text keep focused. Then, zigzag pattern is commonly used in relative clauses which replace subject. While multiple (split) pattern is used to introduce a number of different pieces of information which is made as Theme in subsequent clauses.

This paper is about theme and rheme in the text of short story as approach using a Functional Grammar. The aims of this study are to identify theme and rheme, to classify the types and components of theme and to describe the correlation both theme and text development. The method used in this research is qualitative method. The data is taken from a short story entitled Sleeping Beauty by Charles Perrault. The data were analysed using some theories based on a Functional English Grammar. The findings of the research are there are two types of theme (Topical and Textual Theme) that could be found while Interpersonal theme couldn’t be found in the data. Moreover, the components of theme in the category of textual theme are conjunctive adjunct, conjunctive, structural, continuative and conjunction. Meanwhile for topical theme, the components of theme are as subject and marked topical theme (adverbial as theme). To know the correlation theme and text development, the researcher has identified and classified the text of short story. Therefore, in the Theme-Rheme structure of a text clause by clause, to gain an insight into its texture and understand how the writer clarify the nature of his underlying concerns.

The article presents a comprehensive multifaceted description of interrogative sentences in terms of the interaction of their semantic-syntactic (syntaxeme) and formal-grammatical articulation with their communicative articulation (relevant). The syntaxeme structure of interrogative sentences is determined according to the communicative intentions of the speaker. In particular, the following substantial syntaxemes, which serve as a means of modelling questions, are outlined: 1) the indefinite-interrogative subject of an action (physical, locative, intellectual, verbal); 2) the indefinite-interrogative subject of a state (physical, psycho-emotional, intellectual, locative, emotional-evaluative attitude, possessive); 3) the indefinite-interrogative subject of qualification feature, identification; 4) the indefinite-interrogative subject of a qualitative feature; 5) the indefinite-interrogative subject of a process; 6) the indefinite-interrogative object of an action (physical, intellectual-mental, verbal, perceptual); 7) the indefinite-interrogative object of a state (desire, intellectual); 8) the indefinite-interrogative object of a process (physical, psycho-emotional); 9) the indefinite-interrogative object of a qualitative feature; 10) the indefiniteinterrogative addressee of an action or state; 11) the indefinite-interrogative means or instrument of an action; 12) the indefinite-interrogative locative. All of these syntaxemes replace the positions of controlled subordinate parts in the formalsyntactic structure of a simple sentence. The emphasis is placed on interrogative words in the field of adverbial syntaxemes, in particular time, reasons, purposes, conditions, manner, and sources of information, which at the formal-syntactic level remain in the position of determinants -- subordinate parts of the sentence. The specifics of the thematic-rhematic articulation of interrogative utterances and their communicative variants are examined. It is found that the communicative intention of the speaker's request determines the intonation type of the question (full dictal, partial dictal, full modal, partial modal), and the syntaxeme and formal structure of the interrogative sentence. The communicative intention also determines the semantic, morphological and positional variants of the interrogative marker. It is observed that interrogative words are usually positioned at the beginning of the sentence and form the rheme of the sentence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Language: Meaning & Form / Valoda: Nozime un Forma is the property of University of Latvia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The meaning that a communicator intends to make determines the choice of the lexemes that the individual employs. Thus, this study explored the textual choices of MTN advertisements; as such entities were utilised to generate meaning potential. Seven advertisements of MTN functioned as the objects of analysis. The application of Halliday’s Theme-Rheme theoretical lens permitted the processing of the MTN advertisements into various semiotic slots. Such conceptual procedure informed the calibration of the textual components into different frequencies, using the table and graph to demonstrate clearer pictures of the outcomes. Observations showed the kinds of MTN advertising textual choices in two distinct sequences. The first was the thematic choices in the form of marked (As Nigerians, we can weave…), unmarked (Friends are the reason…) and conjunctive logical (so, and, that) constructs. The second aspect was the clause choices available in the texts. These clause choices emanated as declarative (Love is a feeling…), imperative (So reach out) with predicated themes (Share the priceless gift of love), and interrogative (Are you in love?) elements. One could also acknowledge disjunctive grammar (A year of new challenges…) and minor clauses (Happy Valentine’s Day), operating in the communications. Contextually, the study might influence the MTN telecommunications operator to review the nature of textual choices of persuasion, having understood the structures available in the current analysis.

This study aims at finding out the metafunction patterns of clauses of the Toba Batak Language. The data was gained from the speech of tulang (the mother’s brother) in delivering ulos saput at the Bataknese sari matua (an old person who died but he/she still has children who are unmarried) ceremony. The result shows that 74% of the clauses are patterned with Predicator, Complement, and Adjunct followed by Mood, whereas 26% of them are patterned with Mood followed by Predicator, Complement, and Adjunct. The majority of the clause pattern is Predicator followed by Mood. The most dominant theme is the Marked Topical Theme that reached 73% whereas 26% of them have Unmarked Topical Themes; the rest clause is imperative that has no theme. It can be concluded that clauses in the Toba Batak Language are dominantly patterned by Predicator followed by Mood. The Mood consists of Finite preceding the Subject. Residue itself mostly precedes Mood. The most dominant theme is the Marked Topical Theme in which the theme is not the Subject. BAHASA INDONESIA ABSTRAK: Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menemukan pola metafunction dalam bahasa Batak Toba. Data peneltian ini adalah klausa-klausa yang disampaikan oleh tulang (saudara laki-laki dari ibu) ketika menyerahkan ulos saput dalam acara saur matua (orang Batak yang meninggal dalam kondisi sudah lanjut usia akan tetapi masih memiliki anak yang belum menikah). Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa 74% klausa terdiri dari Mood yang didahului oleh Predicator, Complement dan Adjunct, dan hanya 26% Mood mendahului Predicator, Complement, dan Adjunct. Kebanyakan klausa dalam bahasa Batak Toba dibentuk dengan pola Predicator yang kemudian diikuti oleh Mood. Theme yang paling dominan adalah Marked Topical Theme yang mencapai 73% sementara 26% merupakan Unmarked Topical Theme; selebihnya merupakan kalimat perintah yang tidak memiliki theme. Dapat disimpulkan bahwa pola klausa dalam bahasa Batak Toba adalah Predicator diikuti oleh Mood. Mood terdiri dari Finite yang mendahului Subjek. Kebanyakan Residue mendahului Mood. Theme yang paling dominan adalah Marked Topical Theme dimana Theme bukan merupakan Subjek.

The article summarizes results achieved by scholars representing different generations and linguistic traditions in studies of Mongolian sentence information structure. The notion of information structure was introduced by M. A. K. Halliday on the grounds of V. Mathesius’s theory of “the actual division of the sentence” (or “thematic-rhematic articulation of the sentence”), but the former developed his own view on this issue. The principal distinction between these two theories is that M. Halliday treats such entities as givenness, focus, topic, etc. as matters of individual cognitive process, whereas V. Mathesius considers them to depend mainly on context and “consituation”. Currently, M. A. K. Halliday’s information structure theory is deemed to be more consistent and, therefore, referred to more frequently. Nevertheless, back in the 1980s when first articles on Mongolian sentence information structure started to appear the views of the Prague Linguistic Circle were more widely accepted among Soviet specialists in Mongolian studies, and the pioneer works on information structure of a Mongolian sentence were written in the mould of structuralism. The first papers written on the subject belonged to Moscow and Leningrad scholars Z. K. Kas’yanenko (1973), M. N. Orlovskaya (1984), Z. V. Shevernina (1984), and the American linguist L. B. Hammar (Indiana University Bloomington) who had presented her Ph. D. thesis under the title “Syntactic and Pragmatic Options in Mongolian: a Study of Bol and N” (1983). Those works by the afore-mentioned linguists mostly concerned word order in a Mongolian sentence from the perspective of the “actual division”, and special particles, which are viewed in modern linguistics as topic, focus, verification, and emphasis markers. A couple of decades later, Mongolian scholars attempted to describe their native language in terms of the latest trends of the world linguistics and their works - those by M. Bazarragcha, Z. Guliranz, G. Jambalsuren, B. Purev-Ochir - have become a valuable source of examples, showing various types of structures, such as thetic sentences, sentences with preposition of rheme and so on. Lately several works on intonation in the contemporary Mongolian language have been published. However, unfortunately, one can hardly find any comprehensive study of the relation between information structure and intonation in modern Mongolian. This subject is likely to be a fruitful field for further research.

Copyright of Cognitio - Revista de Filosofia is the property of Cognitio - Revista de Filosofia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Language is generally seen as a necessary rule in human life to make social activities successful. From the perspective of speech, languages are used for a variety of purposes such as giving thoughts, communicating, disseminating ideologies and influencing the public. Effective speeches typically have a compromise of orderly information through a pattern of informational compilation as a theme and rheme. The use of theme and rheme allows the verses in a paragraph to be well organized until the sequence of information is smoothly delivered and independent. Therefore, this paper aims to identify the type of pattern of information arrangement and clarify its usage in the 2019 Budget speech text. The data of the speech text in Malay language was downloaded by the researchers through the official portal of the Ministry of Finance Malaysia (MOF) on March 25th, 2019 - http://www.treasury.gov.my/pdf/bajet/ucapan/ub19.pdf. This research is a descriptive study using qualitative method. The theory of the thematic progression that Danes (1974) inspired was used throughout the research process. Based on the results of the study, there are four types of information ordering patterns used by the speaker, namely, linear thematic (zig-zag), perpetual theme tematic, thematic theme from hypertheme and thematic theme from detailed breakdown rheme. The collaboration of all four patterns of information shows that these patterns play a role in creating contextual, structured and easy-to-read 2019 Budget speech text. In this way, the pattern of structured information is able to structure a logical and systematic flow of information dissemination by the speaker to the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper is concerned with the the communicative structure of the sentence in Uzbek and the importance of word order in it. A certain sentence can be used with different informative shades and carry out different communicative functions, depending on the purpose of the speaker/author, and in Uzbek, it is mainly carried out through word order. As word order is relatively free in Uzbek, it is considered to be a dominant factor in the information structure of the sentence. The main characteristics of word order variations are highlighted through examples from literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reconstruction of connections at supraphrastic level of information structure in discourse The aim of this paper is to analyse the connections between global theme and thematic segments which constitue the intermediate level of information structure in discourse. The information structures are defined as hierarchically organized thematic-rhematic structures and, in their thematic part, the author distinguishes three levels represented by: global theme, themes of thematic segments and themes of phrases. The author focuses her attention on explicite and implicite connections appearing in the place where global theme and different thematic segments contact. Rekonstrukcja nawiązań na poziomie ponadzdaniowym struktury informacyjnej dyskursu Cel artykułu to analiza nawiązań między tematem globalnym a segmentami tematycznymi, które tworzą pośredni poziom struktury informacyjnej dyskursu. Struktura ta jest zdefiniowana jako hierarchicznie zorganizowana struktura tematyczno-rematyczna. W części tematycznej wyróżniono trzy poziomy reprezentowane przez temat globalny, tematy segmentów dyskursu i tematy zdań. Przeprowadzone analizy koncentrują się na eksplicytnych i implicytnych nawiązaniach wyższego rzędu pojawiających się w tych miejscach struktury informacyjnej dyskursu, w których spotykają się jednostki pierwszych dwóch poziomów: temat globalny i różne segmenty tematyczne.

This paper presents an analysis of the preferred thematic progression patterns used in a sample of online English versions of Algerian news articles written by Algerian journalists and appearing originally in Arabic. The purpose is to detect the recurrent patterns in this media genre. Departing from the more clause-centered models for the analysis of thematic development, the present study uses a categorization of thematic progression patterns derived from McCabe's (1999) and Daneš's (1974) models as a framework for the analysis. The corpus of the study comprises 30 online English articles that appeared in two Algerian newspapers Echorouk and Ennahar. The analysis proceeded by a T-unit segmentation of the collected articles in terms of themes and rhemes. Subsequently, determining intersentential connections as to the reiteration, alteration, or splitting of these two central constituents followed. Ultimately, patterns of sequencing were defined in the entirety of texts in the corpus. The results point toward a more frequent use of Simple Linear Progression and Constant Theme Progression. Derived Theme and Split Theme patterns are rarely used, while Split Rheme Progression does not feature in the data. Significant rates of ruptured themes are also recorded. The paper concludes by deriving useful insights as to finding ways of upgrading the writing of more coherent newspaper articles based on careful consideration of thematic progression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Procesamiento del Lenguaje Natural is the property of Sociedad Espanola para el Procesamiento del Lenguaje Natural and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Historiografía Lingüística (BSEHL) is the property of Sociedad Espanola de Historiografia Linguistica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Reconstruction of connections at supraphrastic level of information structure in discourse. The aim of this paper is to analyse the connections between global theme and thematic segments which constitue the intermediate level of information structure in discourse. The information structures are defined as hierarchically organized thematic-rhematic structures and, in their thematic part, the author distinguishes three levels represented by: global theme, themes of thematic segments and themes of phrases. The author focuses her attention on explicite and implicite connections appearing in the place where global theme and different thematic segments contact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study investigated the waves of information of Osundare's Harvestcall to show textual movements as layered by the poet. To achieve that objective, the poem of about 76 lines was collapsed into 44 clauses as a tradition that paves a way for systemic analysis of texts in different shapes, sizes and constructs. Halliday's Theme and Rheme served as analytical tools that processed the text after which the investigation utilized tables and graphs as indicators of waves of information of Harvestcall. The analysis reveals three separate waves of the text, namely: (i) sectional organization - perceives Sections I, II and III as the Theme while Section IV is the Rheme; (ii) clause constructs - demonstrate multiple Themes that flow to rhematic structures; and (iii) time frame exposition - espouses the past farming commitment as Theme and its current neglect as Rheme. In addition, observation shows waves interference. That is, the switching of Theme 2 and Subject Theme in Sections I, II and III for Subject Theme and Theme 2 respectively in Section IV. As linguistic concepts can reveal so much meanings of a literary device, the study suggests their applications across the board of genres of literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Brünner Hefte zu Deutsch als Fremdsprache is the property of Masaryk University, Faculty of Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

It is generally recognized that many second language learners have difficulties with cohesion in academic texts. Writing seems to be the most difficult subject for many students. To produce good writing, it is necessary to know how to organize Theme and Rheme in a text. Thematic structure as an important feature in textual metafunction plays a significant role in promoting the textual coherence. This research is concerned with the insights presenting the relationship between theme and rheme derived from Systemic Functional Linguistics. Halliday (1994) claimed that the structuring of language as a message is realized in the thematic structures of the constituent clauses of a text. To Halliday, the basic unit for thematic analysis is the clause. Thereby, this study was an attempt to compare different thematic types and thematic progression patterns in EFL students' academic writing texts. For this purpose, the researcher selected 30 MA students of English language teaching as the participants of the study after administering a TOEFL test and excluding the outliers. Each participant was required to write three different types of argumentative, process and cause & affect compositions. The collected data were analyzed according to the Thematization process from the textual metafunction aspects. The results showed some differences in the thematic structure of the different types of compositions. The findings of this study have some implications to the EFL students. They can learn to perform the same analysis in their own writings; thus improving cohesion in their own texts. Theme/rheme plays a major role in organizing the message and in enabling it to be communicated and understood clearly.

The paper deals with linguistic phenomena at suprasentential level. In particular, it looks into how textual analysis can be enhanced by supplementing the Parisian programme of interpretive semantics, as devised by François Rastier, namely his theory of isotopies, with elementary aspects of topic-focus articulation (TFA), as well as contextual boundness (CB) and contextual non-boundness (CN), as elaborated within the Praguian linguistic tradition (V. Mathesius, P. Sgall, E. Hajičová, F. Daneš, J. Firbas), and how the descriptive power of the former can be increased by the latter. In this respect, it is argued that two types of TFA phenomena interact during any process of textual interpretation: those of topic-focus articulation at the level of sentence, conceiving lexical morphs as thematic (T) and/or rhematic (R), as well as contextually bound (CB) and/or contextually non-bound (CN), and those of topic-focus articulation at the level of isotopy, with each isotopy being conceived as structured around a center (an abstract semantic unit) and periphery (a span of concrete utterances). Two types of such interaction are described, each defined by either correlation, or non-correlation of the CB and CN semes at the levels of isotopy and sentence, respectively: thematic-rhematic isotopy, induced by co-occurrence of the CB seme of the center and the CB seme of the periphery; and thematic-rhematic allotopy (i.e. non-isotopy), induced by co-occurrence of the CB seme of the center and the CN seme of the periphery. Since topic-focus isotopies and allotopies can be perceived as members of privative oppositions, a tentative system of such oppositions is presented, based on linguistic analyses of selected European Commission texts drafted in English and their Czech translations. The author’s ultimate intention is to show that the semantic features of topic-focus articulation at the sentential and suprasentential levels are both structurally parallel and functionally complementary.

This paper discusses the contributions of professor Vladimír Skalička and his disciples, especially professor Petr Sgall, towards the understanding of the functional sentence perspective from the angle of Vladimír Skalička’s language typology. Based on their conclusions about the existence of an important fault line between the inflexional languages and all the other types of languages as far as the character and the interpretation of the so-called “free word order“ is concerned, the author goes on showing how sentence constructions in Vietnamese, a predominantly polysynthetique language, can function in similar ways as word order does in the inflexional languages, when expressing the opposition of the theme and the rheme in various patterns of functional sentence perspective.

After recalling the principal characteristics of the Functional Sentence Perspective formulated by Mathesius and the Prague Linguistic Circle, this paper aims to propose a new approach to the informational structure of the message, which is based on referential semantics and functional syntax. The theme is defined as a salient element, which means a center of a set of relationships involving intra- or inter-sentence connections. It underlines the interaction between sentence and text.

Thematisationis one of the troublesome areas both for translation purposes from or into English and also for learning EFL. The main reason for the problem lies in the fact that usually different languages structure thematisation in different ways. Therefore, the present research is an attempt to investigate contrastively: experiential (topical), interpersonal and textual themes in a sample of Azeri Turkish and English short stories. Specifically, it aims to find out whether these three kinds of themes have similar occurrences in these two languages or not. To characterize thematising in fictional texts on an empirical basis the model of analyzing theme as suggested by Halliday (2002) is applied to a small corpus of two short stories. The study revealed that in both English and Azeri Turkish, experiential, textual and interpersonal themes are used more frequently in this order respectively. It is hoped that the results of this study can contribute to both theoretical and applied linguistics.