Dynamic semantic scales in sentences with rhematic preverbal subjects and it-clefts with focused subjects: centre and periphery
2016
Abstrakt
The paper discusses some results from the analysis that was the core of my thesis, "Rhematic subjects in written English: regular preverbal position vs. focusing by it-cleft", which compares two structures mentioned in the title mainly from a Functional Sentence Perspective (FSP) viewpoint, with the goal of determining whether they are strictly exclusive, and if not, under what circumstances they can overlap. Using the Praguian concept of centre and periphery, and marginally a comparison with Czech, an attempt is made to explain the ambiguous and problematic cases, find their characteristic features and locate them in the FSP system as described by numerous scholars, mainly from Charles University in Prague and Masaryk University in Brno.