Re: topic/focus or theme/rheme

At 10:11 pm -0500 20/2/99, Tim Smith wrote:
>At 05:39 PM 2/20/99 +0000, Raymond A. Brown wrote:
=2E.....
>>Fe aeth Si=F4n i'r lyfrgell.  - finite verb 'aeth' - non-focussed sentence=
:
>>John went to the library.
>>
>>I'r lyfrgell aeth Si=F4n. - focus on "i'r lyfrgell" 'to the library'.
>>
>>Si=F4n aeth i'r lyfrgell. - focus on "Si=F4n" 'John'
>>
>>Mynd i'r lyfrgell wnaeth Si=F4n. - focus on "mynd" 'to go' - John *went* t=
o
>>the library.
>>
>>Is this right? Or am I way off beam?
>
>This sounds right to me.
Thanks :)

>I gather that the most common focus position,
>cross-linguistically, is immediately before the finite verb.  (That is, for
>languages that _have_ a focus position -- as opposed to those like English
>that rely mostly on intonation and context to mark focus, or resort to
>clefting in situations where explicit focus-marking is really needed.)  Fro=
m
>your examples, Welsh seems to fit neatly into this pattern.  However, for V=
O
>languages, this creates a conflict of sorts, because the immediate
>pre-verbal position is also usually the sentence-initial position, which is
>by far the most common position for the _topic_ (hence the prevalence of SV=
O
>word order, since the topic more often than not is the subject).  So, if
>there's one constituent before the verb, how do you tell whether it's the
>topic or the focus?
Yes, indeed.  Breton seems to have this problem.  The Welsh order "Si=F4n
aeth i'r lyfrgell", which is the colloquial form of the literary "Si=F4n a
aeth i'r lyfrgell" ([It is] John who went to the library - the relative
pronoun "a" usually being omitted in speech), has become the normal
'unfocussed' form:

Yann a yeas d'al levraoueg.
John [who] went to the library.

We can focus the library just as in Welsh:
I'r lyfrgell (yr) aeth Si=F4n.
D'al levraoug e yeas Yann.

Breton "e" corresponds to literary Welsh "y(r)" which is an adverbial
relative particle, normally omitted in spoken Welsh: [It was] to the
library [that] John went.

And we can focus the verb by using the irregular verb "ober" (to do/ make)
exactly as Welsh uses "gwneud", thus:

Mynd i'r lyfrgell wnaeth Si=F4n.
Mond d'al levraoug a reas Yann.

But Breton does not have a form corresponding to the unfocussed Welsh:
=46e aeth Si=F4n i'r lyfrgell.
*yeas Yann d'al levraoug.

[snip]

>
>(Actually, one of the things I find interesting and esthetically appealing
>about Welsh is the way it "compromises" between VSO and SVO in some tenses,
>by splitting the verb into an auxiliary and a non-finite lexical verb and
>putting the subject between them, so that it's technically verb-initial, bu=
t
>still has the subject before the lexical verb.  This is a very neat
>resolution to the topic-initial vs. focus-initial problem:
Yep - but even here there is a difference between the unfocussed forms and
those that focus the subject:

Mae Si=F4n yn mynd   i'r   lyfrgell. =3D John is going to the library.
Is  John YN going to the library.  [YN is a predicate marker]

If want to focus the subject it becomes:
Si=F4n sy'n mynd i'r lyfrgell.    [sy(dd) =3D who is]

Similarly with the perfect tense we find:
Mae Si=F4n wedi  mynd    i'r  lyfrgell =3D John has been to the library.
Is  John after going to the library.

If we want to focus the subject, we say:
Si=F4n sy wedi mynd i'r lyfrgell.


>it puts the topic
>before any non-focal lexical material, while still leaving the immediate
>pre-verbal position open for the focus.
Yep - but if we assume the grammatic subject is the topic in an unfocussed
sentence, then it always comes either immediately after the verb, if the
verb is a simple synthetic form, or _between_ the constituent parts of the
verb if, as is more common, the verb is a composite analytical one.   And
if we want to focus the verb itself, we have:
either:  VERBNOUN + synthetic tense of "gwneud" + subject
    or:  VERBNOUN + analytic tense of "gweund" encompassing the subject.

>One thing I'd like to do someday in
>some future conlang project is to extend that idea to all
>tenses/moods/aspects and to non-subject topics.)
Yep - the idea has occurred to me  :)

>>I guess the German feature, however, of keeping the finite verb as second
>>idea (I'm not referring, of course, to subordinate clauses) and moving the
>>subject behind the verb if some other constituent (e.g. direct object,
>>adverb, adverbial phrase) is put first is topicalization.  This would
>>explain why the verb itself cannot be fronted, unless to ask a question.
>>
>>I do find some of the literature on this somewhat confusing (or even
>>contradictory) and am trying to sort of the two different concepts of
>>topic/ comment and of focus.  Is the rheme/ theme concept essentially the
>>same as topic/ comment?
>
>R.L. Trask, in _A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in Linguistics_, states
>flatly that "theme" and "rheme" are synonymous with "topic" and "comment",
>respectively.  But I know that some of Trask's definitions are not
>universally accepted.  (I once inadvertently triggered a flame war by
>quoting Trask on center-embedding.)
I recall more than one flame war on that subject (tho' one of them was
certainly on AUXLANG).

Anthony Fox in "The Structure of German" also treats "theme" and "rheme" as
synonymous with "topic" and "comment" respectively.  So, unless any
'rhematists' can shows differently, I'll assume this equivalence.

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?
=46or 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.

I think I've got it!

Thanks,
Ray.