1st Edition

The Discourse Function of Inversion in English

By Betty Birner Copyright 1996
    204 Pages
    by Routledge

    204 Pages
    by Routledge

    First published in 1997. This dissertation presents a discourse-functional account of English inversion, based on an empirical study of natural language data. The central finding is that inversion is subject to a pragmatic constraint on the information status of its constituents; specifically, the information represented by the preposed constituent must be at least as familiar within the discourse as is that represented by the postposed constituent.

    Chapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2 Definition and Preliminary Taxonomy; Chapter 3 Previous Analyses; Chapter 4 The Function of Inversion; Chapter 5 Verbs and Related Issues; Chapter 6 Summary and Conclusions;

    Biography

    Birner, Betty