The Order Of Constituents

The order of constituents (Summary of Di Tullio, chapter 19) The relationships between certain constituents and the discourse of which they form part are known as Theme and Rheme. Theme: the starting point. It carries old or presupposed information (already known) and it establishes what the rest of the sentence will be about. Rheme: it carries new (or asserted) information. It is highlighted by means of phonological and syntactic resources. It usually appears at the end of the sentence. The cannonical (or unmarked) order goes from known to new information. Thus, the theme appears in initial position and the rheme in final position. Postverbal subjects are normally the rheme (or part of it). In transitive structures the typical position of the subject is preverbal. Por las tardes, Maria visitaba a la enferma. If there is a focalized constituent in initial position, the subject will be postponed. POR LAS TARDES visitaba Maria a la enferma ¿A QUIEN visitaba Maria por las tardes? In intransitive structures both orders are possible. La canilla sigue goteando. Sigue goteando la canilla. According to the type of information, the first one presents old information first, given that “la canilla” is the theme. In the second example, everything is the rheme, as it can answer the question “What happened”. So, this sentence is called “presentational”. There are several factors that trigger postposing of the subject: 1. The type of verb (unaccusative: stative or psychological) 2. The presence of an initial focus (questions, exclamatives and imperatives) 3. The type of sentence (declarative or presentational) 4. The structure of the NP ( heavy) The lexical characteristics of the verb determine the order of constituents. In presentational sentences, the verb has little informative value or content (for example existence, appearance and some verbs of movement), so the postverbal subject becomes the most important constituent as regards content. Their basic function is to introduce an entity or event in the discourse, or to situate something in space or time. This last subset of presentational sentences sre referred to as LOCATIVE INVERSION; that is to say, the PP appears in topic position and the subject moves to postverbal position. Alli se alzaba un edificio imponente. Other instances of postverbal subjects are those sentences that include a stative unaccusative verb (faltar, sobrar, corresponder, etc.), a verb of emotion or pshycological (gustar, interesar, doler, fascinar, etc.) and instances of heavy NP shift ( movement of long and complex constituents). Me faltan unas paginas para terminar el libro. A nadie le gusto la pelicula. Por las tardes visitaba a la enferma una misteriosa mujer que se decia que era su hija. Heavy or complex NP