Indefinite Subjects in Specificational Clauses
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The primary goal of this paper is to account for indefinite specificational subjects, the data that previous studies could not explain properly. There have been two approaches to specificational clauses: the concealed-question approach and the topic-focus approach. However, it has been observed that none of the two approaches can adequately handle indefinite specificational subjects. Mikkelsen (2004) has previously attempted to explain indefinite specificational subjects but has hastily concluded that specificational clauses are a type of inversion structure by treating noun phrases containing discourse-old information as discourse- old themselves. However, discussing several problems of Mikkelsen (2004), this paper proposes a new condition for topichood that allows the topic-focus approach to address the seemingly apparent counterexamples. Yet, the contribution of this paper is not confined to specificational clauses per se but sheds light on bigger pictures of linguistics since proposing a Anchored Brand-New Condition for topichood that works conjunctively with the aboutness condition helps us to understand the larger scale of discourse structure. The new condition on topichood permits indefinites to be topics. It is the aboutness condition that explains the fact that the majority of topics are realized by definites.
Abstract
The primary goal of this paper is to account for indefinite specificational subjects, the data that previous studies could not explain properly. There have been two approaches to specificational clauses: the concealed-question approach and the topic-focus approach. However, it has been observed that none of the two approaches can adequately handle indefinite specificational subjects. Mikkelsen (2004) has previously attempted to explain indefinite specificational subjects but has hastily concluded that specificational clauses are a type of inversion structure by treating noun phrases containing discourse-old information as discourse- old themselves. However, discussing several problems of Mikkelsen (2004), this paper proposes a new condition for topichood that allows the topic-focus approach to address the seemingly apparent counterexamples. Yet, the contribution of this paper is not confined to specificational clauses per se but sheds light on bigger pictures of linguistics since proposing a Anchored Brand-New Condition for topichood that works conjunctively with the aboutness condition helps us to understand the larger scale of discourse structure. The new condition on topichood permits indefinites to be topics. It is the aboutness condition that explains the fact that the majority of topics are realized by definites.
참고문헌 (23)
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