The following list is a basic summary of what we have learned about constituent order so far:
- The default order is to place the verb first (with certain exceptions, such as conjunctions)
- The default order can be violated by placing constituents in a marked position in front of the verb
- Marked preverbal constituents can be of two types: points of departure and marked focus
- Points of departure can be either referential or situational
- Points of departure look backward, signaling a shift from a prior referent or situation, and also look forward, providing a starting point for what follows
- Points of departure always appear before marked focus constituents
How are most sentences structured
most sentences are structured as topic-comment expressions with the comment making an assertion about the sentence’s topic. The topic of a sentence will be presupposed information, that is, information that has already been explicitly mentioned in the preceding context or that is otherwise established by its associations with what has already been stated.
What is it called when a sentence presents all new information?
a presentational sentence
Examples of topic-comment sentences
“[1] Once upon a time there lived a man with his son, Jacob. [2] Jacob had a beautiful chestnut-colored stallion. [3] The stallion had a fiery temperament and could run like the wind.”
The second and third sentences are topic-comment sentences. Notice that the topic of the second sentence is “Jacob,” which is established information since Jacob was introduced in the first sentence. The predicate of the second sentence, “had a beautiful chestnut-colored stallion,” is the comment. The topic “Jacob” is the established concept that the second sentence is about, and the comment “had a beautiful chestnut-colored stallion” is what is asserted about the topic. In the third sentence, the topic shifts to “the stallion,” about which a new comment is made, namely that, it “had a fiery temperament and could run like the wind.”
What is the term that refers to the information that is typically new and that is being asserted in a clause?
Focus (this will typically be in the comment portion of the topic-comment sentence; the topic will typically be information that has already been established, or is easily related to something already mentioned. But sometimes at the beginning of a discourse, the focus can be an entire sentence (“Once upon a time there lived a man with his son, Jacob”) since everything in the sentence is new and being asserted.)
Topic
Information Type: old
Information Status: presupposed
Focus (i.e. comment)
Information Type: typically new
Information Status: asserted
What is a clause-focus construction?
A sentence that consists entirely of new asserted information (typically, but not always is the first sentence)
What is a predicate-focus construction?
Where there is a topic that is presupposed (already having been introduced previously) and the rest of the sentence asserts new information.
What is a narrow-focus construction?
When the focus is limited to a single element or constituent in the clause and everything else is presupposed (both the topic and some information in the focus are already established, but there is only a limited amount of new information)
Examples of clause, predicate, and narrow focus?
(Husband to relatives) [1] Mr. Smith lives next door. [2] He has three daughters.
(Wife to Husband) [3] Mr. Smith has two daughters.
Sentence one is clause-focus; sentence two is predicate focus; and sentence 3 is narrow focus.
Summary of the three types of focus constructions:
- Clause Focus: the subject and the verb are asserted information as well as most or all of the other constituents of the clause.
- Predicate Focus: the subject is presupposed but some if not all of the information in the predicate is asserted.
- Narrow Focus: only one constituent is asserted information, and this constituent fits into a presupposed framework.
When will you most often see a clause focus? (aka presentational clause)
- when a new participant is introduced, whether for the first time or whether to an existing scene. In the earlier example “Once upon a time there lived a man with his son, Jacob,” everything in the sentence is new information. More common, however, is to introduce a new participant to an existing scene, in which case we are likely to find a bit of old information in the clause-focus (or presentational) construction as a way of linking the new participant to the existing scene.
[Mark 5:2 provides an example of this. In this case a new participant, the man possessed by a legion of demons, is introduced to a scene in which Jesus is arriving on shore: εὐθὺς ὑπήντησεν αὐτῷ ἐκ τῶν μνημείων ἄνθρωπος ἐν πνεύματι ἀκαθάρτῳ (“immediately a man with an unclean spirit greeted him from the tombs.”) Almost everything in this clause is new: the subject (“a man with an unclean spirit,” the verb (“greeted”), and the place from which he emerged (“from the tombs”). The only piece of established information is the pronoun αὐτῷ, referring to Jesus. This mention of Jesus allows the demon-possessed man to be connected to the current scene by means of the most important participant in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus.]
True or False? Constituent order in Greek is more about the organization of information rather than the position of subjects and objects
Your answer : True
Which kind of information is typically referred to by the term focus?
- topical information
- unimportant information
- presupposed information
- asserted information
- asserted information
In the clause-focus construction, which is the asserted information?
- the verb
- the topic
- the subject
- the subject and the verb plus other constituents
- the subject and the verb plus other constituents
In the predicate-focus construction, which is the asserted information?
- the entire clause
- the subject and the object (if there is one)
- the verb and its subject
- constituents other than the subject
- constituents other than the subject
rue or False? Topics are presupposed information.
Your answer : True
What type of information is typically included in a narrow-focus construction?
(1) a correction, [Husband to Relative: Mr. Smith lives next door. He has three daughters.
Wife to Husband: Mr. Smith has two daughters.]
(2) a choice between alternatives or [Teacher: You must skip recess or write 100 sentences.
Student: I will skip recess.]
(3) a question or an answer to a question. [Where did John eat dinner?
He ate dinner at Giordano’s Pizza.]
What type of information is most often included?
questions and answers
In the ordering of constituent parts, where does the construction of the narrow-focus usually go, and why is this a problem? And how does this get resolved?
- before the verb
- this is where a point of departure normally goes
- points of departure always precede preverbal focus constituents.
True or False? The narrow-focus construction makes an assertion about a single grammatical element in the clause.
True
Consider the question/answer pair: “Where did John eat dinner? He ate dinner at Giordano’s Pizza.” In the answer, which is the narrow focus?
Your answer : at Giordano’s Pizza
Where do we normally expect a narrow-focus constituent to appear in the clause?
- directly after the verb
- preceding the point of departure
- in front of the verb
Your answer : in front of the verb
Correct! In other words, we expect it in a marked position. Note that since it is the new information of the clause, if it appeared after the verb, it would still be focal (i.e., it would still be in “focus,” just not in “marked focus”).
