LECTURE 16
From sentence to text:
1. TEXT - is a stretch of language which makes coherent sense in the context of its use. Textual structure requires firm orientation in respect to place and time.
2. Place relators:
certain spatial relations are firmly linked to grammatical expressions:
Where are we going tonight?,
It's ages since I was over there.,
at the front door,
just opposite,
across/out/along/up the street,
back in/down the road/in/to the side.
3. Ellipsis:
We examined the car. The front was slightly damaged.,
The traffic lights eventually changed. She walked across very quickly.
4. Time relators:
time has its lexically specific and babelled 'areas':
NPs: century, decade, week, Thursday, a long time, for ages, etc.,
APs: earlier, previous, prior, etc.,
adverbials: already, before, so far, up to now.
5. Tense, aspect and narrative structure:
all finite clause carry an indication of tense and aspect:
She told me all about the operation on her ship.,
It seemed to have been a success.
6. Tense complexity in narrative:
mixture of tenses and aspects,
complex time reference,
narrative within narratives.
7. Determiners, pro-forms and ellipsis:
An argument over unilateral disarmament broke out between them.,
An argument over unilateral disarmament finally put an end to their friendship.
8. Formulaic utterances:
not at all,
not a bit,
don't mention it,
It's nothing.
9. The textual role of adverbials:
The dog is fourteen months/years old and he is very frisky.,
My next-door neighbour is an entomologist/is a travelling salesman/works for an oil company.
10. Adverbials as structural indicators:
general to particular,
progression,
compatibility.
11. Coordination and subordination:
He ate too much for dinner and was ill the next day.,
Because he ate too much for dinner, he was ill the next day.
12. Prosody and punctuation:
I smiled at the supervisor and she greeted me.,
... and that was how I came to have some weeks observing the behaviour of their, eight-year-old son. He broke eggs on the carpet. He twisted his kitten's tail till it mewed in anguish. He put garbage in his parent's bed and burned holes in his sister's clothes.,
He was extraordinary... (adj.),
His parents intended to send him to a special school... .
13. Questions:
directives,
rhetorical questions.
14. Information processing:
To an anvil. The way forward is to seek higher.,
an intricate and arduous task/an arduous task and intricate task.