Re: topic/focus or theme/rheme

At 8:56 pm -0500 22/2/99, Tim Smith wrote:
>At 03:46 PM 2/21/99 +0000, Raymond A. Brown wrote:
>>That German fronting is topicalization (thematization?) he shows by:
>>TOPIC/THEME         COMMENT/RHEME
>>Meine Mutter   ist 85 Jahre alt.
>>Diesen Mann    kenne ich seit zwanzig Jahren
>>Auf dem Tish   steht eine gro=DFe Lampe.
>>
>>And similar word orders are possible in English, tho the 2nd & 3rd
>>sentences would probably be considered poetic and/or archaic:
>>My mother is 85 years old.
>>This man have I known for 20 years.
>>On the table stands a large lamp.
>>
>>That this is not focussing is shown by:
>>(i)
>>A: Was hat sie ihm zum Geburststag geschenkt?
>>B: Zum Geburtstag hat sie ihm ein Buch geschenkt.
>>
>>What has she given him for his birthday?
>>For his birthday she's given him a book.
>>
>>(ii)
>>A: Wird sie ihm zu Weihnachten ein Buch schenken?
>>B: Nein. Ein Buch hat sie ihm zum Gerburtstag geschenkt.
>>
>>Will she give him a book for Christmas?
>>No. She gave him a book for his birthday.
>>
>>In each case speaker B begins by taking up a known element from speaker A,
>>i.e. speaker B puts the topic first. In the first sentence the focus is
>>"ein Buch", (and in Welsh we'd answer by putting "Llyfr", the focus, first=
)
>>and in the second sentence "zum Gerburtstag" is the focus.
>
>You're right, it's quite clear that the fronted constituent in a German mai=
n
>clause is a topic, not a focus, and thus that German is a clear exception t=
o
>the "focus-immediately-before-finite-verb" tendency.
I forgot to add that Fox does add a rider to the effect that the theme/
rheme (his terms, i.e. topic/ comment) interpretation is not always
appropriate.  The examples he gives are:
(i) Jetzt fahren wir los    - now we're off.
(ii) Da kommt er schon.     - there he is comming sure enough.
(iii) Es regnet wieder.     - it's raining again.

(My translations - some adverbs like 'schon' are very idiomatic.)

=46ox concedes that "jetzt" in the first sentence could arguably be
considered the topic in that refers to 'what is happening now'.  But in
(ii) and (iii) it is difficult to see how 'da' and, still less, 'es' can be
topics.

> However, it's
>interesting to note that German _does_ clearly have a focus position, as
>your examples show: it's immediately before the place where the finite verb
>_would_ be if the word order were verb-final (as it is in subordinate
>clauses, and as, if I'm not mistaken, it's thought to have been in
>Proto-Germanic).
Yes, verb-final seems to have been a protoIE trait.

>Thus, it looks as if the focus position was originally in
>the "default" place, but that somewhere in the course of the evolution to
>modern German, the (finite) verb moved but the focus position didn't move
>with it.
>
>It's also interesting how German and Welsh both do this trick of separating
>the verb into a finite auxiliary and a non-finite lexical verb, which don't
>have to be adjacent, but end up using it in very different ways.  In Welsh
>you have:
>
>[focus] - auxiliary - subject - lexical verb - everything else
>
>While in German you have:
>
>topic - auxiliary - everything else - [focus] - lexical verb
>
>In some ways they're almost mirror images of each other.
Yes, I hadn't thought about it before, but there does seem to be something
in it.

[a lot of interesting stuff snipped - but certainly noted]

>undermining and destabilizing it.  Barry Blake, in _Australian Aboriginal
>Grammar_, says that the two basic principles that determine word order in
>the Australian languages are: (1) topic before comment; (2) focus first.
>Obviously these two "rules" are mutually contradictory, because the focus i=
s
>part of the comment.  So there's a constant tension between them that may b=
e
>one of the driving forces behind language change.  (There are similar
>competing motivations in many other areas of grammar.)
I agree very much with the last sentence (and much of the preceeding
sentences); indeed, I think competing motivations are responsible for
change in other areas such as, e.g. phonology.  This competing of mutually
contradictory trends surely gives dynamism to language.  I agree there are
no optimal "solutions" and certainly IMHO no single direction of change,
otherwise, as you say, after the very many millennia humans have been using
language we would surely have arrived at these optima - and how boring
things would be then!

>Well, I guess that's enough windy speculation for one night.  But I do have
>some questions for you:
>
>1.  What's the basic word order of subordinate clauses in Welsh?  (And is i=
t
>the same in the other Celtic languages?)
VSO as in main clauses - and as regards the VS bit (I like to think of a
"verb-subject nexus", but I don't think I've seen the term used) we have
either: <synthetic verb + subject> or <aux. verb + subject + lexical verb>
as in main clauses.

As far as I can ascertain, adjectival clauses (i.e. relative clauses) &
adverbial clauses there is no variation.

Noun clauses, however, while having this order for unmarked (i.e.
unfocussed) clauses, do allow variation for focus in the noun clause.  In
the former type of clause the verb may be preceeded by 'y(r)' [normally
omitted in speech] if it is a synthetic tense or by having the verb-noun
'bod' to be with the subject treated as its possessor in analytic tenses
etc (actually, quite a bit of complicated variation, but the SVO order is
basically preserved.  However, we can keep the orginal focus first order by
using 'taw' or 'mai' as as a conjunction, e.g.
Gareth sy'n byw yma.  It's Gareth that live there.
Rydw i'n gwybod mai/taw Gareth sy'n byw yma.  I know *Gareth* lives there.

'mai' or 'taw' are interchangeable and depend upon dialect.

AFAIK the Celtic langs also basically preserve the VSO order in subordinate
clauses.  But I don't know enough about Breton, but as it has adopted SVO
as its normal word order, I suspect the subordinate clauses have tended to
follow the same trend.

>2.  How do Latin and Greek use word order to mark topic and/or focus?
Oh dear - it's nearly half a century since I and my schoolmates were doing
Greek & Latin prose compositions  :=3D(

Latin & Classical Greek are basically of the SOV type and are certainly
topic first.  This probably accounts for the fondness of both languages for
beginning sentences with conjugations, either picking up, contrasting or
highlighting the topic.  Indeed, in both languages many co-ordinating
conjunctions are never used first word but come second after the topic.
Doesn't German have quite a few co-ordinating comjunctions which behave in
a similar way?

In Latin it is not at uncommon to start with a relative pronoun that refers
back to the previous sentence and means "And he...", "And they...." etc. We
may even have "Quod" (neuter sing) or "Quae" (neuter plural) picking up the
whole idea expressed in the previous sentence. "And this [situation].....".
And, of course, we even have the not uncommon clause "Quae cum ita
essent.." (Since these things are so) beginning sentences  :)

As for focus - I tread more cautiously.  But we were told those many years
back that the two places in a Latin sentence to receive emphasis were the
beginning and end.  I think our masters, tho not knowing it, we saying that
if we want to focus something, move it to the end after the finite verb.
The least important place is mid sentence, which is why 'esse' (to be) can
often be found there.

In subordinate clauses the verb-final position seems to have been more
firmly adhered to mainly, I think, because the verb clearly does mark the
boundary to the clause, so it may be - I haven't really examined this -
that we'd find something more close to German in such cluses if focus is
required, i.e. a preverbal position.

Of course, one must remember that Classical Latin was essentially a
literary conlang, built out of the raw materials of the spoken language of
the Romans and contructed very much after late Classical Greek models (as
the Romans understood them) and rhetorical considerations such rhythmic
patterns certainly played a part in both verse and prose writing.  But I
think in prose such devises would be found to enhance focusing.

Ancient Greek is, in many ways, a much more interesting case.  In the
earliest period there were several dialects and not much standardization;
the latter came about slowly with the gradual - and certainly not unopposed
- rise of Athens as a cultural center leading to the development of an
internationalized Athens-based koine after the Alexandrine conquests.
There is a great deal more variation from the "norm" among the Greeks and I
suspect the subject of topic-comment and focus in Ancient Greek could well
form a weighty tome and provide ample material for a doctoral thesis.
Alas, I have neither the time nor the means for doing this  :=3D(

Ray.