The Discourse Function of Inversion in English (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781138967755)

First published in 1997. This dissertation presents a discourse-functional account of English inversion, based on an empirical study of natural language data. The central finding is that inversion is subject to a pragmatic constraint on the information status of its constituents; specifically, the information represented by the preposed constituent must be at least as familiar within the discourse as is that represented by the postposed constituent.

Author: Betty Birner
ISBN-10: 1138967750
ISBN-13: 9781138967755
Publisher: Routledge
Language: English
Published: 11/24/2015
Pages: 204
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.53lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.43d