{"product_id":"the-subject-notion-and-functional-ways-of-structuring-language-von-eric-weidner","title":"The subject notion and Functional Ways of Structuring Language","description":"\u003cp\u003eSeminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,3, University of Heidelberg (Institut für Anglistik), course: Hauptseminar Functional Syntax, language: English, abstract: In this term paper I will investigate the structure of English sentences with the subject\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003enotion as a starting point. It presents a classical notion to analyse clauses and sentences\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ebut how exactly can a subject be defined? For this purpose, I will show that the notion is\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003enot detailed enough and suggest a distinction into grammatical, logical and psychological\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003esubject. This proves useful to analyse sentences which at first glance do not appear to have\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eany subject at all. In a next step I will focus on features of the grammatical subject\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eaccording to the Cambridge Grammar of the English language (2005). The discussion will\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eprove that the properties given for grammatical subjects do not constitute a fixed frame\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ewhich sharply distinguishes between elements eligible to be subjects and others that are\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003enot. Instead I will argue that the subject category is best analysed as a prototype category\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eand that its features have prototypical character.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe second section is concerned with different ways of accounting for particular\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003estructures of language. If various syntactic functions can appear at the beginning of\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003esentences then why does a speaker choose a particular construction instead of another? I\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ewill argue that this question is closely related to analyses of clauses, sentences and\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eutterances going beyond a mere subject vs. predicate dichotomy. I will start with a\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ediscussion of the thematic structure of sentences and clauses and introduce the distinction\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eof topic and comment. The second step complements the thematic structure of language\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ewith the information structure, in which constituents can be labelled ¿given¿ and ¿new¿.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis analysis also considers the intra- and extra-linguistic context of clauses and sentences\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eand can thereby account for a fair share of speaker-choices between differing\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003econstructions. Since there are still some cases that cannot be explained by looking at the\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003einformation structure, I will then present the notion of perspective as very helpful. Taking\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003etogether these different levels of analysis one is enabled to account for a large quantity of\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003epossible constructions in the English language.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"aw-variant-hidden-subtitle-div\" id=\"aw-variant-subtitle-9783640335121\"\u003e\u003ch3\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Libri","offers":[{"title":"Softcover - 9783640335121","offer_id":39429222301789,"sku":"9783640335121","price":15.95,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0940\/0622\/files\/dc2c6672-aa01-46b1-bf05-7eee0ae95a0a.jpg?v=1777613975","url":"https:\/\/shop.autorenwelt.de\/en\/products\/the-subject-notion-and-functional-ways-of-structuring-language-von-eric-weidner","provider":"Autorenwelt Shop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}