A Descriptive Grammar of English (Part 3)
Lecture 4. Word Order and Focus
An Outline of the present lecture
The gist of the present lecture
Word order and the significance of the elements. Theme and rheme. Focus.
The unmarked word order: a misconception of monotony
Unmarked and marked word order
Available options in choosing word order in English
Fronting
Headers and tails
Structural options: end-focus; active and passive voice; cleft-sentences, raising, etc.
A summary of the content of the present lecture and the student's gain
The gist of the present lecture. This lecture focuses on the applied aspect of English syntax. The syntax of the sentence is reviewed to show how it may be exploited to bring out the essential and to manage the continuity of sense by sentence structure. Minding unmarked word order and the basic patters of the English sentence, marked word order is analysed to show how focus is created in the English sentence for emphasis and how significant the arrangement of elements in the sentence is. A number of individual sentence patters are described to enable the student to exploit English syntax to convey intelligent and focused messages with a sufficient variety of means. The interdependence of words and of the elements of the sentence with syntactical structures is key.
Word order and the significance of the elements. Theme and rheme. Word order here means the arrangement of the elements (subject, verb, object, complement and adjunct) in a clause. Word order is the principal and powerful means of ensuring comprehension and progress in communication by the development of content.
As is known, the elements of the clause can be single words but more often they are phrases. The arrangement of the elements of the clause is not a mechanical and independent process. The arrangement of the elements of the clause affects the choice of concrete words in a clause and of words in the phrases. Finally, word order conveys a message with emphasis on its different elements and with respective significance of the message itself. Cf. the message of the following text and the role of word order in its sentences:
The Treaty of Paris had recognized the United States as an independent nation. But it
was not one nation as it is today. In 1783 most Americans felt more loyalty to their
own state than to the new United States. They saw themselves first as Virginians or
New Yorkers rather than as Americans.
Each individual American state had its own government and behaved very much like
an independent country. It made its own laws and its own decisions about how to run its affairs. The first big problem that faced the new United States was how to join together these sometimes quarrelsome little countries into one united nation.
(Bryn O'Callaghan. An Illustrated History of the USA. - Longman, 1991, 32)
The message of this paragraph is the status of and attitudes in the United States before it became a united country. The constituents of this message are variously highlighted in the few sentences of the paragraph. But the structure of the sentences is fairly uniform. Except for the fronted adjunct in sentence 3, regular word order is observed in all the sentence in this paragraph. The fronted coordinating conjunction but in sentence 2, which emphasises the opposite sense of a whole sentence, is commonly used at the beginning of such short sentences and it does not upset the regular word order.
The regular word order in English has elements of the sentence arranged in the following way: S(subject) + V(verb) + O(object)+/- A(adjunct). This word order simplifies understanding by the fixed place of the elements and by its predictability (= przewidzienje). The regular word order is called the unmarked word order in The Cambridge Grammar of English (CGE), and both these terms mean the most typical sequence of the elements in the sentence. As the paragraph quoted above shows, the unmarked word order permits variations by which emphasis is achieved. This is obvious in the last sentence, in which the extended subject phrase receives the focus and highlights the predicate complement which is a clause of manner.
This same last sentence in the paragraph above shows how the topic (or the theme) of the sentence relates to the comment (or the rheme) in the sentence and which is considered the new information.
This is a convenient division of the sentence. These terms explain how the content of the sentence divides and how the sentence is integrated in larger stretches of discourse or text. The theme is the pivotal point which is often known or predictable from previous discourse. The rheme is a comment or the new information which amplifies on the theme. The initial part of the last sentence in the quoted paragraph, “The first big problem that faced the United States”, is the theme in this sentence. As an extended subject group and a noun phrase, the theme is also a generalising link with the previous part of the text. The remaining part of this sentence, “was how to join together these sometimes quarrelsome little countries into one united nation” is the new information. It is linked like a comment to the theme or to the known in the sentence. The further text, which is missing here, takes up with the initial aspects of cooperation among the individual states. The rheme of this sentence becomes a constituent of the theme in the following sentence and so the content of the text builds on. (CGE, 778:472)
In these final lectures of the course, we consider how units of sense/information are organized in English, as signaled by intonation. We also consider what structural units are available in English grammar to express one's idea and emphasis best of all. “Each tone unit represents a unit of information, and the place where the nucleus falls is the focus of information. As the clause is the unit of grammar that most closely corresponds to the tone unit, the best way to consider the positioning of the information focus is to relate it to clause structure.” (Quirk, et al., 1982, 353: 14.2)
3.The unmarked word order, which is retained in the paragraph quoted above and which is desirable in English, means no monotony, but this may be a false impression of the student. First, sentences differ literally, and the regularity of word order is not obtrusive. Second, the unmarked word order aids understanding by its regularity and general clarity. The general clarity of the English sentence owes to the fact that the unmarked word order identifies the sentence with a proposition, i.e. the simplest logical structure which consists of a topic and a comment (of theme and rheme). Third, even when the unmarked word order is preserved as in the text quoted above, the give and take between the rheme and the theme creates a dynamic development of the content. The rheme of one sentence comes to be exploited as the theme in the following sentence and so on. This dynamic development of the content exploits rather than exposes the unmarked word order which serves the build-up of the content while bypassing any monotony.
4. Unmarked and marked word order. The unmarked word order means the usual word order with most typical sequence of sentence elements. The unmarked word order is fully sufficient to convey both the known and the new information. Cf. the following answers to a few questions, in which the new information is underlined: (1) `What's on today?' `We're going to the races.' (2) `What are we doing today?' `We're going to the races.' (3) `Where are we going today?' `We're going to the races.' (4) `Who's going to the races?' `We are going to the races.' The significance of the highlighted new information depends considerably on intonation.
The unmarked word order in English typically observes the SVO (Subject + Verb + Object) structure.
The marked word order is an untypical arrangement of sentence elements. E.g.: (5) That furniture we bought years ago, this lot is more recent. This utterance may have been said in and related to the immediate context. That is why its word order is comprehensible, although untypical. It is not we, it is rather that furniture that is the theme of this utterance.
The marked word order covers numerous variations in the pattern of the English sentence. This is helpful in creating “various kinds of focus, that is, special emphasis on particular elements for a variety of purposes.” (CGE, 778: 472)
5. The available options in choosing word order in English. In Part 2 of the present course of a descriptive grammar of English, we studied the basic patterns of the English sentence and their making. We discussed simple, compound and complex sentences, main and subordinate clauses, the basic features of clauses and clause structure. We also analysed clause functions and verb complementation. All these aspects of the building of the English sentence were related to the regular or the unmarked word order in the sentence.
To highlight any element of the sentence or to emphasise in a statement, the marked word order can be exploited. The authors of The Cambridge Grammar of English single out simple word order choices and choices of structure.
Simple word order choices mean the arrangement of elements within the sentence while making no other grammatical changes. Fronting and the use of headers and tails mean the principal ways of the rearrangement of the elements in the sentence. Fronting means the moving of objects, complements and adjuncts to front position in the clause, which is the position of the subject in the unmarked word order. E.g.: (6) That bowl we got in Italy. The other one's from Spain, I think. (The object is fronted in (6) “to focus on a contrast between the two bowls”). (7) First thing tomorrow morning we'll have to check all the plants for frost damage. (The adjunct is fronted in (7) “to emphasise when the task must be done”) (CGE, 779: 472). “The creation of headers and tails is another way of putting extra focus on selected entities.” (CGE, 779: 472)
“In the case of fronting, the elements remain fully integrated within the clause. In the case of headers and tails, elements of the clause are placed outside of the clause structure, either immediately before the first clause element or after all other elements in the clause.” This is a feature of the grammar of spoken English. E.g.: (8) My husband, he decided to take him to the party. (Extra focus is on the subject My husband).(9) That brown chair, we bought that years and years ago. (Extra focus is on that brown chair). (10) They're awful people, my neighbours. (Extra focus is on the subject) (11) They're incredibly nice, our neighbours. (CGE, 779: 472)
The choice of structure involves first of all the employment of alternative structures. For example, one can choose “to use an indirect object or a prepositional complement with verbs such as give or bring” or to use either active or passive voice. E.g.: (12) Do you send birthday cards to your friends? The prepositional complement to your friends would be stressed in this utterance if it were spoken. This complement is new information in this utterance, while everything associated with birthdays is the known information or the theme. (13) Do you send your friends birthday cards? In this utterance, which is as correct, but the focus would be on birthday cards as new information or the rheme and it would receive a stress. These examples also illustrate the significance of the end of the clause in English. The end position attracts the weight of the focus in English and thus emphasises the new information.
Structural choices also include more complex grammatical structures, such as embedded clauses or cleft sentences (= . “A cleft structure involves recasting a normal sentence pattern to give focus to a particular topic: It is tennis that Catherine plays (the focus is on the sport). It is Catherine who plays tennis (the focus is on the person) (CGE, 894: 539). E.g.: (14) It was on Sunday I first noticed I had a rash. (This cleft sentence enables emphasis on on Sunday.) (15) So what you really want is a hotel that's got the facilities for the children, isn't it? (this wh-cleft sentence enables extra focus on the complement a hotel that's got… (CGE, 779: 472)
6.Fronting involves several elements in the sentence, especially those which follow the verb in the unmarked word order. Most of the cases of fronting belong to spoken English in which intonation makes up for the broken word order.
A direct object may be fronted for the basic word order to become OSV. The fronted object becomes the theme in a declarative clause. The speaker's most often may be aiming to contrast things. E.g.: (16) I must admit, my favourite books I do read over and over. Objects of prepositional verbs and phrasal verbs may also be fronted: (17) The other list we can look at later. (18) I do the flowers, the vegetables he looks after. (CGGE, 780: 473a)
Subject predicative complements can also be fronted for extra focus or for contrast. E.g.: (19) Mm, my very first car, that was. (20) Jack, could it have been? (21) Ambitious it may be, but when a club… makes (so much) during the summer, it knows it is back in the big league.
“Fronted complements which are expressions of comparison may be followed by subject verb inversion, especially in more formal written styles.” E.g. (22) Least of all was it a triumph for the British Prime Minister. (23) But much more important for me was to be exposed to the experience of people working with the poor… (CGE, 780-781: 473b) These cases of subject verb inversion are analogous to the inversion which takes place when negative adverbs begin at utterance (Never once did she complain to the attendant) and which are described further.
Adjuncts may also be fronted for emphasis or contrast.: (24) Ten years we've lived here. (25) Without my glasses I can't see a thing. Adjuncts of negative meaning, which are fronted for emphasis, are followed by subject-verb inversion: (26) Not once did she thank me. (27) Seldom had we witnessed such bad behaviour. Inversion can further occur after initial thus, and after such expressions as in this way, for this reason in more formal styles: (28) Thus does Mr Blair find himself ever more closely closeted with Mr Campbell. (CGE, 781-2: 473c)
A lexical verb with an accompanying complement may be fronted “for the purpose of focusing on some other element of the verb phrase: (29) Sitting in the garden I've been, all morning.” (CGE, 782: 473d)
7. Headers and tails remain outside the standard structure of subject - verb - object - complement - adjunct. They appear in informal spoken language. Both headers and tails make use of noun phrases to highlight contrasts. A typical header is a fronted noun phrase singled out into a unit. It refers to the same entity as respective pronoun which appears further on in the utterance. E.g.: (30) Edward, he's always the first person to complain. (31) That key, did you put it there or did I? Headers may be lengthy phrases which include a couple of noun phrases when these mean the known information (the theme). Such headers introduce the speaker step-by-step into a new entity on which the speaker intends to focus. E.g.: (32) His cousin in Bedford, her boyfriend, his parents bought him a car for his birthday. (CGE, 782-3: 474) As is obvious, headers highlight the items which introduce the point in focus. This is done with the help of mere phrases, which is possible in spoken language when intonation gives sense to the phrases as verbal fragments. Tails are noun phrases which refer to the same person or thing as a previous pronoun and which are added to a clause the message of which is more or less complete. Such word order permits to highlight judgment, comment or evaluation by the tail. E.g.: (33) And he's quite a comic, the fellow, you know. (34) It's really nicely done out, this place, all wooden. (35) It's a speciality, that. (36) It's driving me crazy, this.
(CGE, 783: 474)
IMPORTANT! The student learning English as a foreign language might be advised to remember that the usages described above are deviations from the standard sentence patterns in English. These constructions - fronting and the accompanying inversion, headers and tails should not be the target in learning. The foreign student should be familiar with them. To use them, there should be a context demanding them and they should sound natural.
8.Structural options. Structural variation in English syntax is considerable. There is, for example, a choice between an indirect object or a prepositional complement in a sentence of SVO structure. Unmarked word order has the following basic pattern: S + V + indirect object (IO) + direct object (DO): Did you give him the money? Has she brought me the book? To give the recipient more focus, “it can be expressed as a prepositional complement (PC) and placed at the end of the clause, giving it endweight: (36) [Spoken on receiving a present] `Oh, you didn't have to do that!' (Countered with] `I bought a present for Rhonda as well.' (`Rhonda' is the new important information here and therefore highlighted by a prepositional complement; `presents' are old, given information). (37) The plans were revised about 1974 but they still gave a disproportionate focus (DO) to France (PC).
Endweight or end-focus (= nacisk) is the neutral position of focus but it is rather significant. Intoning differently, the focus may be moved in a clause. Cf., for example: Dylan Thomas was born in SWANsea. [Who was born in Swansea?] Dylan THOMas was born in Swansea. (Focus on S) [Dylan Thomas was married in Swansea, wasn't he?] NO, he was BORN in Swansea. (Focus is on V). (Quirk et al, 1982. 353: 14.2)
Where two pronouns are involved in a sentence, a prepositional complement is often preferred: (38) She wrote her name and address on a card and gave it to me. (This is preferred to `gave me it'/'gave it me')
In clauses with verbs such as do, get, give, make, take, a verb-type meaning may be expressed in the noun object. Therefore in expressions with the verb to give, for example, the structure IO + DO is preferred to DO + PC: (39) Well, I gave them a song (= I sang) (NOT `I gave a song to them').
(40) The doctor gave him a quick examination (= examined him) (NOT `The doctor gave a quick examination to him'). (CGE, 784: 475a) The student shall note that the verb `to give' is not used in its instrumental sense in these examples. Such expressions are called `delexical expressions' and they determine the preferable syntactical structure.
Another structural option is a variation of active and passive voice. In sentences with the unmarked active voice word order, subject comes first (SVO) and it is usually the theme in the sentence. Passive voice “enables the speaker either to omit reference to the agent altogether or to place it in a prepositional phrase after the verb and thus create focus on it”: (41) I was admitted to hospital.” The focus is on the rheme, which is the end word. If this word were turned into the subject of a sentence with the active voice verb, it would lose its focus.
Cf.: (42) He got arrested. (The focus is on the arrest as the event; the agent is not mentioned. If the agent were added, for example, `by a huge policeman' , it would receive the focus).
(43) The audio-lingual method of teaching was imposed upon us. (No agent is mentioned, nobody is blamed).
(44) The hotel was owned by the Greek Church, wasn't it? (The agent receives the focus. In the sentence `The Greek Church owned the hotel', the owner would lose its focus.) (CGE, 784-5: 475b)
Cleft sentences (= zdanie rozpadline) used for emphasis, is one more structural option in English syntax. A cleft sentence is “one where a single message has been split/divided (or `cleft') into two clauses” (CGE, 785: 475c). Cleft sentences are of several kinds.
“In a typical it-cleft structure, the focus is on the final element of the it-clause, with the subsequent wh-clause reiterating given or previously known information”. E.g.: (45) It was David who called. (46) It was an elderly lady who had this house…(47) So it was in March that you went? (48) It's the pain I can't cope with.
Wh-cleft sentences are typically introduced by what. They shift the focus to the end of the sentence, while the information in the wh-clause is known or given in the context. E.g.: (49) What we need is a hammer. (50) What you need is a telephone bank account. (51) Well what gets me is the way he spends his time… (CGE, 786: 475d) “The wh-cleft construction may itself receive end-focus by occupying the complement slot in the main clause”. E.g.: (52) No that's what I don't want to say. (53) But I think that's what James thought I wanted to say. (CGE, 786:475d)
Cleft sentences with a what-clause as subject are frequent. Cleft sentences with why, where and how-clauses as subject are rarer. This may be because the meanings of why, where, who, when and how “are often expressed by nouns such as the person, the place, the way, used in front position to create the same kind of focus on the complement of the main verb”. E.g.: (53) Well, the way I see it is going is that the European Union will expand…(54) The reason it wasn't sorted out earlier was because they were short of staff. (55) The person you need to talk to is the manager. But wh-clauses are often used when the wh-cleft clause is in complement position. (CGE, 787:475d)
Constructions with the, a, something + a relative clause can be used initially “to create focus on subsequent clause elements in a similar way to other cleft construction: (56) The thing I was struck by was their complacency. (57) One thing she's been doing recently is buying white shoes to decorate them for people. (58) Something you might like to look at is the sequence of events in the story.
There is one other It-clause which creates end-focus and emphasis. It is the so-called anticipatory(= wyprzedzajacy) It. “Anticipatory It often enables the subject to appear at the end of the clause and thus produces end-focus: (59) It amazes me how open and honest the staff are.
Additional focus may be created by using construction with it is/was not until, it is/was only when: (60) It's not until we rearrange the plans that we'll succeed with the project. (61) It was only when he mentioned that he lived in Cambridge that I knew who he was. (CGE, 788: 475d-f).
Sentences with existential there are available to create clauses with an indefinite subject. In these sentences, the subject is located in the rheme instead of its usual position as the theme. The focus on the subject in the rheme creates emphasis. This is an optional syntactical pattern but it is often preferred over the clauses with the subject in its regular place. E.g.: (62) A few days after that meeting with Lucian, there came the letter. (63) We drove past it one time and there was a woman standing outside, she said, `Oh what do you want?' (64) All sings of the market had vanished and in its place…, there stood only a platform.
There is a device known as raising (= podnoszenie). It consists in patterns determined by certain adjectives (certain, difficult, easy, hard, impossible), verbs of impression (appear, look, seem) and by verbs of mental processes in the passive (be considered, be estimated, be found). The adjectives enumerated above most frequently occur with anticipatory It and, in addition, with an infinitive-clause complement. E.g.: (65) It was impossible to say hello to everyone. (66) It was hard to believe her story. “The infinitive complement may also occur as the subject of the clause or as a `raised subject' to create different types of focus: (67) To summarise our work is impossible. (68) In practice, however, this distinction is impossible to make.” Example (68) illustrates the case of `object-raised-to-subject'. (CGE, 789:475h)
The verbs of impression mentioned above “present various structural options, which include raising: (69) He always seems to come at some unlucky moment. (Subject-to-subject - he - come - seem raising). Cf. a possible alternative: It always seems (that) he comes at some unlucky moment. (70) It seems that nobody does anything. (It + seem, nobody + does ). Cf. an alternative: Nobody seems to do anything. (71) That looks to be the right place. (Subject-to-subject raising). Cf. a possible alternative: It looks as if that is the right place.
The mental process verbs in the passive mentioned above also present raising options, especially in formal academic styles: (72) Overall, the scheme was found to produce clear benefits on an individual level…(73) On analysis of the women's diets, it was found that all the women… consumed …milk daily. (CGE, 789-790: 475h)
The group of words that create raising options illustrated above produces patterns which have a wide currency. Statements of this kind limit the directness of the proposition, express interpersonality and are a favoured device of English syntax.
9. A summary of the content of the present lecture and the student's gain.
Making a reference to the unmarked word order and the standard patterns of the English sentence, this lecture extends the student's view of the available syntactical structures in English and their employment with a purpose. The central idea is to review select syntactical patterns while explaining how they create focus and emphasis in intelligent speech and writing. Focus is that point of the clause on which the nucleus of intonation falls, which is highlighted by the structure of the clause and which is therefore significant in the continuity of discourse or in the delivery of the speaker's message. As the elements of the sentence do not combine mechanically but rather determine one another and the choice of the syntactical pattern, mere rearrangement of the elements achieves emphasis and creates typical patterns. To explain the meaning conveyed by different syntactical patterns, the marked word order is described. The known (theme) and the new (rheme) meaning in the clause are defined. Fronting, headers and tails are discussed as patterned varieties of the marked word order, which result in emphasis or contrast but which are allowed only when the context determines their necessity and when they sound natural. Structural options are a major section in the present lecture. Such choices of syntactical structures as an alternative of an indirect object or a prepositional complement to create end-focus, as a preferable combination of an indirect and direct object in `delexical' expressions and a variation of active and passive voice are described. Typical syntactical patterns to achieve emphasis through the alternating focus are discussed. They include cleft-sentences, clauses with anticipatory it and sentences with existential there. The device known as `raising' which is based on the employment of certain adjectives and verbs in active and passive voice is treated separately. This device is significant for its bearing on interpersonal meaning.
What have we learned? We have learned that elements of the sentence and syntactical structures are interdependent and that the arrangement of the elements may be exploited for emphasis as in the case with fronting, headers and tails. The student, who is familiar with the basic patterns of the English sentence, has numerous structures of the marked word order available to create focus and emphasis. If he has memorised cleft-sentences, clauses with anticipatory it, sentences with existential there and the device called `raising', his set of syntactical patterns to invigorate his expression is not meager for a start.
Essential Reading
Ronald Carter, Michael McCarthy. The Cambridge Grammar of English. - CUP, 2007.
Quirk, Sir Randolph, et al. A University Grammar of English. - Longman/V.Shkola, 1982.
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