karin aijmer, anne-marie simon-vandenbergen pragmatic markers in contrast sip 2, volume 2 studies in...

PRAGMATIC MARKERS IN CONTRAST

STUDIES IN PRAGMATICS General Editor: Bruce Fraser Associate Editors: Kerstin Fischer, Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen The Studies in Pragmatics series is dedicated to publishing innovative, authoritative monographs and edited collections from all micro-, macro- and metapragmatic linguistic perspectives. Rooted in the interdisciplinary spirit of the Journal of Pragmatics, it welcomes not only book proposals from linguistics proper but also pragmatically-oriented proposals from neighboring disciplines such as interactional sociology, language philosophy, communication science, social psychology, cognitive science, and information science. The goal of the series is to provide a widely read and respected international forum for high quality theoretical, analytical, and applied pragmatic studies of all types. By publishing leading edge work on natural language practice, it seeks to extend our growing knowledge of the forms, functions, and foundations of human interaction. Other titles in this series: FISCHER Approaches to Discourse Particles Forthcoming: HABERLAND, CAFFI, Future Prospects for Pragmatics HIRAGA & JANNEY FETZER & FISCHER Lexical Markers of Common Grounds Proposals for the series are welcome, please contact the General Editor, Bruce Fraser: [email protected]

PRAGMATIC MARKERS IN CONTRAST EDITED BY KARIN AIJMER Gothenburg University, Sweden ANNE-MARIE SIMON-VANDENBERGEN Ghent University, Belgium

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Studies in Pragmatics (SiP) General Editor Bruce Fraser Boston University, USA Associate Editors Kerstin Fischer University of Bremen, Germany Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen University of Copenhagen, Denmark Consulting Editor Jacob L. Mey University of Southern Denmark, Denmark Editorial Board Kent Bach, San Francisco State University, USA Diane Blakemore, University of Salford, UK Shoshana Blum-Kulka, Hebrew University, Israel Claudia Caffi, University of Genoa, Italy Alessandro Duranti, UCLA, USA Marjorie Goodwin, UCLA, USA Hartmut Haberland, University of Roskilde, Denmark William F. Hanks, University of California, USA Sachiko Ide, Tokyo Womens University, Japan Mikhail Ilyin, Moscow State Institute of International Relations of the Foreign Affairs Ministry of the Russian Federation (MGIMO), Russia Richard W. Janney, University of Munich, Germany Kasia Jaszczolt, University of Cambridge, UK Elizabeth Keating, University of Texas, USA Sotaro Kita, University of Bristol, UK Ron Kuzar, University of Haifa, Israel Alec McHoul, Murdoch University, Australia Brigitte Nerlich, Nottingham University, UK Etsuko Oishi, Fuji Womens University, Japan Srikant Sarangi, Cardiff University, UK Marina Sbis, University of Trieste, Italy Maxim Stamenov, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria Deborah Tannen, Georgetown University, USA

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 1 Karin Aijmer, Gothenburg University Anne-Marie Simon-Vandenbergen, Ghent University

The Function of Adverbial Connectors in Second Initial Position in English and Swedish.... 11 Bengt Altenberg, University of Lund

The English Pragmatic Marker surely and its Functional Counterparts in Spanish................. 39 Angela Downing, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Polysemy Patterns in Contrast: The Case of Dutch toch and German doch ........................... 59 Ad Foolen, Radboud University Nijmegen

On the Universality of Discourse Markers .............................................................................. 73 Bruce Fraser, Boston University

Not now On Non-Correspondence between the Cognate Adverbs now and n ............... 93 Hilde Hasselgrd, University of Oslo

How Well can well be Translated? On the English Discourse Particle well and its Correspondences in Norwegian and German ........................................................................ 115 Stig Johansson, University of Oslo

Contrastive Analysis of Adversative Relational Markers, Using Comparable Corpora ....... 139 Diana M. Lewis, University of Lyon 2

The Spanish Discourse Markers o sea and pues and their English Correspondences .......... 155 Anna-Brita Stenstrm, Bergen University

Aspectual Particles in some European Languages ................................................................ 173 Willy Vandeweghe, Hogeschool Gent

Dialogistic Positions and Anticipated Audiences a Framework for Stylistic Comparisons 189 Peter R.R White, University of Adelaide Motoki Sano, University of Wollongong

Vraiment and really in Contrast. When Truth and Reality Meet .......................................... 215 Dominique Willems, Ghent University Annemie Demol, Ghent University

Constructions in Cross-Language Research. Verbs as Pragmatic Particles in Solv ............. 237 Jan-Ola stman, University of Helsinki

List of Contributors ................................................................................................................. ix

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Karin Aijmer, Gothenburg University Anne-Marie Simon-Vandenbergen, Ghent University Bengt Altenberg, Lund University Annemie Demol, Ghent University Angela Downing, Universidad Complutense de Madrid Ad Foolen, Radboud University Nijmegen Bruce Fraser, Boston University Hilde Hasselgrd, University of Oslo Stig Johansson, University of Oslo Diana Lewis, University of Lyon 2 Jan-Ola stman, University of Helsinki Motoki Sano, University of Wollongong Anna-Brita Stenstrm, University of Bergen Willy Vandeweghe, Hogeschool Gent Peter White, University of Adelaide Dominique Willems, Ghent University

INTRODUCTION

Karin Aijmer, Gteborg University Anne-Marie Simon-Vandenbergen, Ghent University

1. CHALLENGES IN THE FIELD

As a result of internationalisation and new developments in linguistics there has been an increasing interest in cross-linguistic studies, shedding light both on similarities and differences between languages. Moreover, during the last decades contrastive studies have moved into new areas of research such as pragmatics and discourse analysis. This new direction in linguistics has also led to more interest in spoken communication and the study of pragmatic markers. From a modest start, research on pragmatic markers has exploded in the last 20 years both from an empirical point-of-view and theoretically. There are various important books in this area including Schiffrin (1987), Jucker & Ziv (1998), Lenk (1998), Hansen (1998), Andersen & Fretheim (2000), Fischer (2000), Aijmer (2002). In addition, empirical research has yielded in-depth analyses of particular items in different languages, described in a wide range of articles. Nevertheless, there are still major theoretical and descriptive challenges in this field of research. On the theoretical side there is a clear need for a model of communication which is rich enough to account for the complexity of the functioning of pragmatic markers in different languages. Pragmatic markers have been analysed in different frameworks (discourse analysis, relevance theory, argumentation theory), but a general model is currently lacking, and research findings regarding various aspects of the functions of pragmatic markers have as yet not been accommodated within an overarching theoretical framework. In order to establish such a common framework we need, for example, to agree on what we mean by pragmatic markers and what dimensions of the context are referred to by the pragmatic markers. A second challenge for research in this area is to deepen our insight into the multifunctionality of the pragmatic markers in order to arrive at a functional typology and a satisfactory account of meaning relations on the semantic and pragmatic levels. Much work remains to be done to get a better idea of the functions and distributions of pragmatic markers both monolingually and in a contrastive perspective. Empirical studies of pragmatic markers from many different languages and language pairs are needed to show to what extent similar discourse functions are found in the languages of the world. The aim of this volume is to bring together empirical studies of pragmatic markers across languages and to discuss the larger theoretical and methodological issues which such studies give rise to. The volume is innovative in its coverage of many different pragmatic markers which have not been discussed before in a contrastive perspective. The individual articles explore the possibility of comparing pragmatic markers across languages in order to

Pragmatic Markers in Contrast edited by K. Aijmer and A.-M. Simon-Vandenbergen 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

establish correspondences and to find out more about similarities and differences between languages. Different approaches and different languages are represented. Translation serves a crucial role and many papers make use of translation corpora for exploring meanings and correspondences between pragmatic markers across languages. The empirical analysis includes pragmatic markers in different languages and can also shed new light on the analysis of the markers in the source and the target language, for example showing whether they are polysemous and if so how many meanings they have. We believe that the comparison of the distribution and function of markers in several languages may result in a more precise circumscription of the range of meanings that pragmatic markers can have and may show where there are specific meanings which are lexicalized (or grammaticalized) in the form of pragmatic markers. The articles are synchronic but the functional variation also opens up a grammaticalization perspective. We shall first discuss the lack of a generally accepted terminology and justify our own use of the term pragmatic marker (Section 2). Section 3 discusses the problem of multifunctionality and the lack of functional taxonomies and ways of dealing with it. Different methodologies for studying pragmatic markers cross-linguistically are discussed in Section 4. An overview of the different contributions is given in Section 5.

2. TERMINOLOGY

The question of terminology is less crucial but needs to be tackled. There is a lack of a generally accepted terminology and useful taxonomies in this area. A variety of different terms are used to refer to the items discussed here which are sometimes difficult to distinguish from each other. The terms pragmatic marker, discourse marker, pragmatic particle, discourse particle are used by some as synonyms, by others as partly overlapping categories. Some researchers prefer the term connective (cf. Crystal & Davy, 1975; Blakemore,1987; Bazzanella, 1990 phatic connective). The diversity of terms may reflect different linguistic approaches of the markers. The connection between the term discourse marker and textual function is very clear in Schiffrins analysis. Schiffrin (1987) establishes a discourse model consisting of a number of extralinguistic structures (ideational, action, exchange structure) and regards (discourse) markers as indicators of the location of utterances within the emerging structures (Schiffrin, 1987: 24). On the other hand, Jucker & Ziv (1998: 2) chose the term discourse marker as a convenient cover term because it seems to be the one with the widest currency and with the least restricted range of application; one that enables us to include a broad variety of elements under a single conceptual umbrella. We have opted here for pragmatic marker rather than discourse marker as a broad term. Discourse marker is the term which we use when we want to describe how a particular marker signals coherence relations. Pragmatic markers as we see them are not only associated with discourse and textual functions but are also signals in the communication situation guiding the addressees interpretation. The term as we are using it can also be defined negatively: if a word or a construction in an utterance does not contribute to the propositional, truth-functional content, then we consider it a pragmatic marker. In this we follow Fraser (1996: 168) who distinguishes pragmatic markers from propositional content items and

2 Pragmatic Markers in Contrast

Introduction

defines them as the linguistically encoded clues which signal the speakers potential communicative intentions. For us pragmatic marker is also a broad enough term to cover items which can then be further subclassified according to more detailed functional and formal characteristics. (For a list of formal, functional, phonological, sociological and stylistic features see e.g. Jucker & Ziv, 1998: 3). For example, discourse markers, adverbial connectors and routines are subclasses of pragmatic markers.

3. WHY A CROSS-LINGUISTIC STUDY OF PRAGMATIC MARKERS?

Cross-linguistic studies of pragmatic markers are needed to find out more both about what is universal and what is language-specific. In this work we want to shed light on this question by including more empirical analyses of particular markers in a cross-language perspective. By adding more languages and more pragmatic markers we can also establish if there are specific meanings which are sources of pragmatic markers and learn more both about universal processes involved in grammaticalization and about how these processes are affected by sociolinguistic and cultural factors. We expect the volume to contribute to elucidating both what elements in different languages have in common and how they differ. The investigation of cross-linguistic correspondences can help us to find answers to different questions. First, such work can provide a detailed picture of the correspondences of words which do not have a direct correspondence in another language. Much recent comparative work has been concerned with typological questions and finding discourse universals. However, when we compare pragmatic markers across languages complete equivalence between words in different languages is unusual. Pragmatic markers operate at several linguistic levels simultaneously and a function which is expressed by a lexical item in one language can be expressed grammatically or by another word class in another language. For example, on the formal level a pragmatic marker can be translated into an auxiliary or a verb and it can be placed in a different position in the target language. Thus a sentence with German sondern corresponds to a cleft or a pseudo-cleft (John didnt go to London, it was Peter) as well as to but (Peter is not stupid but lazy) in the English translations (Fernandez 1994: 77). Another example is provided by the German Abtnungspartikeln (mal, eben, auch, doch), which have a wide range of correspondences in various languages, including lexical items, structural variation, prosodic shifts and other rhetorical procedures (Fernandez 1994: 78). Well has been the subject of several cross-linguistic studies. Bazzanella & Morra (2000) compared well and its Italian cognate bene in the translation of an English novel and found only a small overlapping area of meaning. In a study investigating well and its translations into Swedish and Dutch in bilingual corpora, Aijmer & Simon-Vandenbergen (2003) found that the marker was translated in many different ways reflecting the fact that neither Swedish nor Dutch have an equivalent marker. Among other forms, Swedish also used response particles (ja yes), conjunctions, modal particles and routine phrases. In Dutch the most

3

frequent correspondence was the pragmatic marker nou (now). There were also interesting quantitative differences between the languages shown by translations. Another striking result was the high frequency of omission, especially in Swedish, which could be explained as reflecting the lack of conceptual content of the marker. Secondly, the cross-linguistic method can be used to investigate a larger semantic field. Simon-Vandenbergen & Aijmer (2002/2003) have shown how we can go from form to function and from function to form and construct a semantic field of of course. For example, naturally and obviously, both found as back-translations of items which came up as translation equivalents of of course, may be shown to be close synonyms in the field because they share a correspondence in the translation while, for instance, naturally and after all (which also occurs as an English translation of Dutch and Swedish equivalents of of course) share little meaning since they are not translated back with the same item in Swedish or Dutch. Thirdly, the cross-linguistic method can be used to investigate etymological or semantic cognates. This is an open field of research. Diverging polysemy (Altenberg & Granger, 2002:23) is illustrated by the case where markers develop in different directions. On the other hand, there are also examples where we find that markers in two languages have roughly the same meaning extensions (overlapping polysemy Altenberg & Granger, ibid.). For example Suzanne Fleischman and Marina Yaguello have suggested (1999) that similar meanings or functions may be lexicalized in several languages, suggesting that we can discover discourse universals on the basis of cross-linguistic research. As a contribution to cross-linguistic pragmatics they undertook a comparison of like in English and genre in French. It was shown that the markers had the same functions, although the lexical origin of the markers in the languages compared was not the same. This study is particularly interesting since it gives support to the hypothesis that grammatical and semantic changes follow certain paths which can explained in terms of a movement from propositional meaning to textual or interpersonal meaning or in terms of a development towards more subjectification and intersubjectivity (the unidirectionality hypothesis; Traugott & Dasher 2002). Another good example that elements which have the same source or a similar meaning develop in the same direction in different languages is a study by Fraser & Malamud-Makowski (1996). A comparison of a group of discourse markers in English and Spanish with the same function showed that the functions of denial and contrast corresponded closely. The authors therefore concluded that the function of Spanish en real dad is exactly the same as that of English in reality, viz. the utterance U2 denying the explicit proposition of U1, with the same constraints for mood and responsibility of the assertion being denied (Fraser & Malamud-Makowski 1996: 878). It is clear that we need many similar investigations. Cross-linguistic comparisons help us to identify both similarities and differences between the markers and what it is that marks the boundary between the acceptable and unacceptable translations. A marker may lack a correspondence in another language; if there is a cognate in the other language it may have a different semantic value. Cross-linguistic comparison may also reveal partially overlapping distributions between languages. The area of functional equivalence can range from complete overlap to cases where the area amounts to almost nothing. Bruti showed, for example, that


there is very little equivalence between Italian infatti and in fact in spite of the etymological relationship between the two markers (Bruti 1999).

4. METHODOLOGY

It goes without saying that the basic methodology for studying the function of pragmatic markers is the analysis of natural discourse and that the methods used are those common in discourse analysis. However, additional methods of a more experimental type can yield deeper insights or provide answers to questions that cannot easily be answered on the basis of conversational or discourse analysis alone. Fischer (2000), for instance, has shown that varying the communicative situation in an experimentally controlled way leads to differences in the occurrence and use of certain pragmatic markers. This seems a productive way to test hypotheses about the dimensions of the communicative situation that the markers relate to. Moreover, the use of translation corpora and corpus linguistic methodology have revolutionized contrastive linguistics and made it possible to make more detailed comparisons of usage in two or more languages. Several types of bilingual or multilingual corpora can be used. A distinction can be made between comparable corpora and translation corpora. Comparable corpora are matched in terms of text type, subject matter and function with a corresponding corpus in another language. An advantage of consulting comparable corpora is that one avoids the influence of the translation effects on the data which are used. The difficulty with comparable corpora is, however, that one first needs to establish what it is one wants to compare. Especially in the case of pragmatic markers, where the other language frequently offers a large number of alternatives, it is difficult to establish correspondences between the languages. A translation corpus, on the other hand, makes it possible to establish cross-linguistic paradigms showing how an element in Language A is rendered by alternative variants in Language B. It is also possible to go from translations to sources in order to establish equivalents. The drawback of using translation corpora is that the translations are affected by the source language or by the individual translator (Gellerstam 1996). Comparable corpora and translation corpora can also be used in combination. This is the case with the English-Norwegian and the English-Swedish Parallel Corpus which contain comparable texts in the two languages as well as translations into the other language. Bilingual and multilingual corpora are used for research in a large number of areas and new methodologies and tools are developed for using them for empirical research. An approach which uses translation equivalents in a corpus to get a better picture of the meanings of lexical items has been proposed by Dyvik (2004). Dyviks method implies that we look at the meanings of a lexical item as mirrored in another language. Translation equivalents are based both on translations and sources. By going back and forth between sources and translations we can calculate an intertranslatability index between elements in two languages (Altenberg & Granger, 2002: 17f). The translations make it possible to confront elements in the two languages with each other and thus provide a better picture of similarities, differences and overlapping meanings. The methodology has for instance been used in Johansson & Oksefjell (1998), Hasselgrd & Oksefjell (1999), Altenberg & Granger

5 Introduction

(2002), Simon-Vandenbergen & Aijmer (2002/2003). The advantage of using translation corpora is especially strong for pragmatic markers, precisely because of their underspecified core meaning and their polysemous nature. Translations can moreover serve as a heuristic device for discovering the relevant contextual dimensions or for making more fine-grained divisions in these dimensions. The reason is that the translations force one to account for the contextual factors that lead to particular choices.

5. STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK

The book consists of twelve chapters. The papers originate from a colloquium Pragmatic markers in contrast, held in Brussels 22 23 May 2003, subsidised by the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts, with invited speakers representing expertise in this area of research. What the contributions show is that the picture of similarities and differences is a complex one and that many different factors need to be taken into account to explain these similarities and differences. The articles have been arranged in alphabetical order. In our brief description of the contents below, however, we shall deviate from alphabetical order to group certain articles. There are parallels between some contributions on the basis of the types of markers contrasted, on the basis of the types of data used, and on the basis of the types of questions raised. For instance, some articles share the comparison of cognates, many share the reliance on translation data, most articles are primarily descriptively oriented, while others (stman and White & Sano) tackle broader issues, and one paper (Vandeweghe) is typological rather than contrastive. Various studies focus on cognates. Stig Johanssons study of well goes beyond earlier cross-linguistic work on well (e.g. Aijmer & Simon-Vandenbergen, 2003; Bazzanella & Morra, 2000) by extending the analysis to more language pairs (English-Norwegian, English-German). Johansson analysis is particularly interesting because Norwegian has vel which is a cognate of well. Although vel can have a large number of different functions it is shown to be more marginal than well, which covers a wider area of use. The zero correspondences in the data were fewer than in Swedish (no doubt because of the frequency of vel) but more frequent than in Dutch, where well frequently corresponds to nou. The translations into Norwegian and German represented a wide range of correspondences in both languages. Another interesting cognate pair is now and n which is studied in an English-Norwegian perspective by Hilde Hasselgrd. Now/n has meanings (functions) on three different levels which can be described with the help of the three Hallidayan metafunctions. As a temporal adverb n/now has an ideational function. However, it can also be described on the textual level as a continuative and on the interpersonal dimension as a modal particle. Translations are used to describe quantitative and qualitative differences between the languages. English and Norwegian were seen to differ most markedly when now/n was a discourse marker with continuative meaning. The Norwegian modal particle was often omitted in translation, indicating that it has little meaning.


Ad Foolen compares the Dutch toch with the cognate German doch on the basis of data from the translation of a Dutch novel into German. Foolen found a recurrent schematic meaning in all the uses of toch and doch where the different steps in the scheme could be described as affirmation-negation- (re)affirmation. This was seen to correspond to different functional subsystems (such as connectives, modal particles, causal markers, dialogic particles) in the languages in which doch and toch function. Although all the meanings were plausible applications of the schematic meaning of the particle there were language-specific uses, for example in causal contexts and when toch and doch are modal particles. The topic of Diana Lewis contribution is the cognates au contraire in French and on the contrary in English. The methodology in this case involves using comparable corpora of French and English political speeches. The differences established were both quantitave and qualitative. Au contraire was for instance more frequent than on the contrary in the compared databases suggesting that it has a wider functional domain. Diana Lewis paper draws attention to the fact that the conceptual meaning of related connectives can differ depending on the language. Thus on the contrary is inherently negative as a result of semantic shift and therefore not appropriate in the same contexts as au contraire. Because of its meaning it seems to be restricted to argumentational contexts in which one idea is rejected as false and replaced by a preferred, true idea. Anna-Brita Stenstrms paper shows that when we include several related markers in the comparison the result is a complicated network of contrastive correspondences. The author compares two common Spanish discourse marker o sea and pues with the equally frequent English cos and well. The investigation is based on frequencies of the different markers in comparable corpora of adolescent speech in Spanish and in English. The markers are multifunctional, which is reflected in the translations into the other language. For example when o sea is analysed as a connective it can be translated by well or that is. O sea can also be epistemic. In this case it can also be translated by well but other translations are preferred. Pues corresponds to cos as a causal connector although it would probably be untranslated in many cases. As a pragmatic marker on the discourse level it would, however, be translated by well. The careful comparison of cognates such as Angela Downings comparison of surely and its Spanish correspondences is additional evidence that we find a complex intertwining between universal and language-specific features when we compare pragmatic markers. Despite the fact that there are a number of lexemes in Spanish which are etymological cognates of surely (seguramente, seguro, (que)) they do not have the same functions, as is illustrated by translational mismatches. In conclusion, it is shown that the Spanish phrases are only partial equivalents of English surely mapping only some of the variations expressed by the English word and that they then express a weaker epistemic stance. In the paper by Dominique Willems and Annemie Demol vraiment in spoken and written French is compared with different uses of really. Moreover vraiment and really were compared with their Dutch correspondences echt and werkelijk. When one compares vraiment with really in English, they seem to be almost perfect equivalents. In Dutch both echt and werkelijk can be translation equivalents of really and vraiment. However they did not seem to share the more pragmaticalized meaning extensions. A striking finding was that really was

7 Introduction

often not translated into Dutch and that really was sometimes inserted in the translation of Dutch sources containing no lexical counterpart of really. The contrastive analysis can also be used to shed light on phenomena in a single language. Bengt Altenberg investigates the text strategic principles determining the variation between (a) However, my father didnt worry and (b) My father, however, didnt worry and examines how the functional difference between the (a) and the (b) versions is expressed contrastively by studying the translations into Swedish. Because of the V2-constraint the Swedish correspondences of English connectors in second position are only exceptionally placed in this position. The typological difference between the languages explains that initial English connectors tend to drift into the middle field in the Swedish translations although there were differences depending on the semantic type of connector. Another approach represented in this volume is the language-typological one. Willy Vandeweghe discusses aspectual particles in some of the languages in Europe (cf English already/not yet/still/not anymore). It is shown that a large number of factors interact with aspectuality and that some of the factors which distinguish between aspectual predicates can be described on a duality square. The sample of languages and the conclusions drawn from it in Vandeweghes study are compared with the results from the EUROTYP project led by van der Auwera (van der Auwera 1991). It is for instance shown that there are few languages with no aspectual particles at all. Bruce Frasers paper also deals with a large number of different languages in a typological perspective. It is concerned with contrastive discourse markers, in particular with but, and with the question whether there is an equivalent in other languages that functions as but does in English. In order to test this, different contrastive contexts are established. The methodology used to gather the data for the contrastive analysis is particularly interesting. In order to determine if other languages also had a primary contrastive discourse marker equivalent to but, and if so whether it patterned like but, a survey was sent to native speakers of a large number of languages which included both contexts that accepted but in English and those which did not. There are, as we suggested earlier in this introduction, a number of theoretical issues which need to be confronted in (contrastive) work on pragmatic markers, and Jan-Ola stmans contribution tackles some of these wider issues. One question dealt with is that of the so-called multifunctionality of pragmatic markers. Another issue is how we can find an adequate tertium comparationis in the field of cross-cultural research on pragmatic markers. stman argues for a constructional approach to pragmatic phenomena and to pragmatic particles in particular. Cross-linguistic comparisons are, in this view, possible at the level of constructions only. The usefulness of a Construction Grammar approach is illustrated with particles in Solv (a dialect of Finland Swedish), and it is argued that detailed descriptions of language-internal phenomena are a prerequisite for cross-linguistic comparisons. Peter White and M. Sano also go beyond the analysis of specific items and propose a broader framework for analysing pragmatic makers intra-linguistically and cross-linguistically. Pragmatic markers are dealt with as options in the system of engagement, from which speakers select to position themselves dialogistically. The focus in this contribution is on those markers which are traditionally called epistemic, including I think, obviously, of course. The functionality of such items is examined in public discourse. While


Introduction

the engagement meanings are primarily studied in English, the authors raise the question to what extent the same options would be available in other languages. A preliminary study of the dialogistic positioning of the British and Japanese Prime Ministers at press conferences suggests, however, that there are similarities. The cross-linguistic applicability of the framework is a fascinating topic for further research. In conclusion, we hope that the diversity of approaches, theoretical frameworks, methodologies and language data brought together in this volume will both contribute to answering some questions and raise new ones, thus stimulating further research in this area. Finally, we would like to thank the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts for its generous support of the colloquium which was at the origin of this book. We also owe special thanks to the anonymous referees of Studies in Pragmatics, whose suggestions have been very helpful, and to Lars Malmsten for his expert help with the technical aspects of this volume.

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Johanssson, S. and S. Oksefjell (eds) (1998). Corpora and Cross-linguistic Research: Theory, Method and Case Studies. Rodopi, Amsterdam & Atlanta, GA.

Jucker, A. H. and Y. Ziv (eds) (1998). Discourse Markers. Descriptions and Theory. John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam/Philadelphia.

Lenk, U. (1998). Marking Discourse Coherence. Functions of Discourse Markers in Spoken English. Gunter Narr Verlag, Tbingen.

Schiffrin, D. (1987). Discourse Markers. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Simon-Vandenbergen, A.-M. and K. Aijmer (2002/2003). The expectation marker of course.

Languages in Contrast 4(1), 13-43. Traugott, E. C. and R. B. Dasher (2002). Regularity in Semantic Change. Cambridge

University Press, Cambridge. van der Auwera, J. (1991). Beyond duality. In: Adverbs and Particles of Change and

Continuation (J. van der Auwera, ed.), Eurotyp Working Papers Vol. 2, pp. 131-159. Strasbourg, European Science Foundation,


THE FUNCTION OF ADVERBIAL CONNECTORS IN SECOND INITIAL POSITION IN ENGLISH AND SWEDISH

Bengt Altenberg, University of Lund

1. INTRODUCTION

Most adverbial connectors have a variable clause position in English, but their favoured position is clause-initial (see Quirk et al., 1985: 643, Biber et al., 1999: 891). This seems natural in view of their function: their role is to relate a unit of discourse to the preceding context, and to signal the nature of this relationship as early as possible is likely to facilitate the listeners or readers comprehension of the progression of discourse. However, the exact position of a connector at the beginning of a clause may vary:

1. (a) However, in Britain the situation was different.

(b) In Britain, however, the situation was different.

Both these examples have a multiple theme, to use Hallidays (1994: 52 ff.) terminology. Two adverbials occur before the subject but their order is different: in (a) the connector is placed initially before a place adverbial; in (b) it is placed parenthetically in second position after the place adverbial. Both elements are thematic in Hallidays sense (1994: 38), i.e. they indicate the point of departure or framework of the message, but they do this in different ways (on various types of framework, see Downing, 1991). While the connector is a textual theme signalling a contrastive relationship with the preceding discourse (not indicated here), the place adverbial is an ideational theme setting up a spatial framework for the rest of the message. By varying the order of these, different thematic priorities are indicated and the examples can be seen to fit into different contexts. While (a) suggests a logical or rhetorical type of discourse in which the main point is to signal a contrast, (b) also draws attention to a spatial break or shift in the progression of discourse. The discourse-related order of complex sentence beginnings realized by two or more adverbials has been investigated by Aletta Smits (2002) on the basis of a corpus of native and learner English. She makes a distinction between (a) sentences that have what she calls a stepwise orientation, as in (1a), where an initial connector (or other peripheral adverbial) takes in its scope a clause which is itself preceded by a frame-setting adverbial, and (b) those that have a complex orientation, as in (1b), where the second adverbial is syntactically and prosodically parenthetic and serves to highlight (and in some sense modify) the first.1 1 Smits also distinguishes other types of orientation (2002: 80 ff.), but only the stepwise and complex types

are relevant here. Smits explains the textual function of elements in second position in terms of grounding

Pragmatic Markers in Contrast edited by K. Aijmer and A.-M. Simon-Vandenbergen 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Following Virtanen (1992), who in turn develops ideas put forward by Givn (1983) and Enkvist (e.g. 1987), Smits demonstrates convincingly that while stepwise orientations are especially suited to types of discourse that have a predominantly rhetorical progression or text strategic continuity highlighting a logical development of ideas, complex orientations fit most naturally into discourse types dominated by shifts in a spatial, temporal or topical line of development (cf. also Altenberg, 1998). Another pair of examples illustrating the two types of orientation are:

2. (a) For instance, last week Johns neighbour complained about the noise. (b) Last week, for instance, Johns neighbour complained about the noise.

Smits analysis goes a long way to explaining the discourse-driven order of initial adverbials in English. However, some aspects remain unclear. For one thing, her study is restricted to complex beginnings consisting of two (or more) adverbials but, as she herself points out (2002: 135 f.), connectors (and other higher-level adverbials) may also alternate with a subject to create different discourse-related orientations:

3. (a) However, my father didnt worry.

(b) My father, however, didnt worry.

It is consequently of interest to find out what text strategic principles determine this kind of alternation. Secondly, one intriguing problem in Smits investigation is that the distinction between stepwise and complex orientations is particularly clear in cases involving certain connectors like however and for instance but less so in examples containing, for example, an additive connector like moreover. Thus, in the following pair, the (b) version, although quite acceptable in the right context, seems less likely to occur than the (a) version:

4. (a) Moreover, the Belgians have their chocolate.

(b) The Belgians, moreover, have their chocolate.

(2002: 59 ff.), but I will simply talk of highlighting since a parenthetical connector typically draws attention to

a preceding element by separating it from the rest of the clause and putting special focus on the highlighted

element. The prosodic treatment of parenthetical connectors supports this (cf. Smits, 2002: 87 f). In the London-

Lund Corpus of Spoken English (LLC) parenthetical examples of however either have no nuclear tone at all or,

more commonly, carry a rising tone; in either case the connector is also normally followed (but not preceded) by

a tone-unit boundary. In other words, clause-internal however typically closes a tone unit and is prosodically

integrated into it:

(a) ^one "!m\/ight want to 'argue how'ever# [] that it ^might a'waken the 'urges of a :psychopath whose

:sadism was !still 'sub":l/iminal# (LLC 12.7: 593-595)

(b) ^fr\equently how/ever# . the ex^p\onents of c/ensorship# "^cl\aim to 'base their obj/ections# ^on "!purely

pru"!d\/ential 'grounds# (LLC 12.7: 82-85)

Other parenthetical connectors have a similar prosody, a tendency that clearly reveals their backward-focusing

function.


This suspicion is supported by one of the informant experiments Smits conducted to supplement her corpus investigation (see Smits, 2002: 239 ff.). In this experiment (an unscrambling task, without a context guiding the production), the great majority of her test subjects preferred to place moreover in absolute initial position (stepwise orientation), as in (4a), while very few chose to place it in second initial position (complex orientation), as in (4b). Interestingly, this tendency was much stronger among her native informants than among the Dutch learners of English that were also tested (2002: 255). Smits suggests that these results would have been different if moreover had been replaced by a more mobile connector like furthermore (2002: 241). Although this is doubtful, the suggestion indicates a complicating factor in the placement of mobile connectors in English: individual connectors tend to have very different positional preferences and our knowledge of these is insufficient. Descriptive grammars give information about certain general tendencies (see e.g. Quirk et al., 1985: 643, Biber et al., 1999: 890 ff.), but little is known about the positional profiles of individual connectors, especially their ability to occur parenthetically in second initial position. It is therefore important to investigate these tendencies in greater detail. Finally, the highlighting function of parenthetical connectors is also of contrastive interest. Swedish is a verb-second language that normally only permits one clause element before the finite verb in declarative main clauses. This means that, theoretically speaking, none of the initial sequences illustrated in (1) (4) should be possible in Swedish. The question then is: how is the functional difference conveyed by the (a) and (b) versions above handled in Swedish? Is thematic highlighting of the kind illustrated in the (b) versions quite impossible or can a similar effect be achieved by other means?

2. AIMS AND MATERIAL

In the present study I will briefly examine the questions raised above on the basis of a bi-directional English-Swedish translation corpus. I will first explore the positional tendencies of some common English adverbial connectors, with special focus on their readiness to occur parenthetically in second initial position. Using Smits approach, I will then examine the discourse factors promoting the placement of certain types of connectors in the thematic field in English, focusing again on parenthetic second position but extending the analysis to include connectors following subjects as well as adverbials. Finally, I will briefly look at the treatment of the corresponding phenomena in Swedish original texts and translations. The study is based on the English-Swedish Parallel Corpus (ESPC) (see Altenberg and Aijmer, 2000). This corpus consists of a wide range of text samples from original English and Swedish sources and their translations into the other language. Both fiction and non-fiction texts are represented in the corpus. The original English and Swedish texts have been matched as far as possible in terms of text type and purpose and the corpus can therefore be used both as a comparable corpus and as a translation corpus (on the advantages of this, see Johansson, 1998). The total size of the corpus (including original texts and translations from both languages) is over 2,8 million words. For a detailed description of the corpus, including an explanation of the text codes used in the paper, see Altenberg et al. (2001).

13Adverbial Connectors in Second Position

The notation describing the clause positions of adverbial connectors in both languages is that of Quirk et al. (1985: 490 ff.). The symbols used for the various positional slots (indicated by arrows) are shown in Figure 1.

I I2 iM M iE E By then the book had been placed on the shelf

Figure 1. Adverbial positions in English

The parenthetic positions that are of special interest here are I2 (between an initial adverbial and the subject), iM (between the subject and an operator) and M (between the subject and the main verb). When no further specification is needed, these positions will be referred to as second position. Only connectors occurring in declarative main clauses have been examined. Connectors with narrow phrasal scope of the following kind have also been disregarded:2

5. Document leaks concerning, for example, intended social security cuts were always a hazard.

(FF1)

3. POSITIONAL TENDENCIES OF ENGLISH CONNECTORS

To establish the positional preferences of the English connectors in the corpus the clause position of connectors occurring at least twenty times in the English original texts were examined. Connectors having a fixed clause-initial position (so, yet) were excluded. As it turned out that many interesting connectors were not frequent enough in the original texts, positional data from the English translations were added for these connectors.3 The results are shown in Table 1. The connectors are sorted according to their tendency to occur in initial position (I). Connectors whose distribution is based on both the English original texts and translations are marked by an asterix. The table shows that the majority of the connectors prefer initial position, some almost exclusively so (e.g. besides, in other words, in addition, even so, furthermore). However, with quite a few connectors at the bottom of the list other positions predominate. Though, for example, never occurs at I (where it functions as a subordinating conjunction) and therefore

2 It should be added that many adverbial connectors are of course frequently used parenthetically to highlight an

element elsewhere in a clause, for example after the operator or a negator to emphasize the truth value or polarity

of a proposition:

I do, however, recall one moment of piercing sadness. (JB1)

Though this is another interesting property of mobile connectors, it will be ignored here. 3 It may be objected that data from the English translations are unreliable because of possible influence from the

Swedish source texts. However, since Swedish connectors are (as we shall see) extremely rare in second

position, placement of connectors in this position in the English translations is unlikely to be triggered by the

Swedish source texts. As a control measure, the positional tendencies of some connectors were also examined in

the British ICE-GB corpus (see note 5).


and after all occur at I in less than a third of the cases. On the whole, the table gives clear evidence of individual positional profiles among the connectors. Some have a strong tendency to occur at E (though, anyway, then), others prefer M (accordingly, therefore, still), while others are never placed there in the corpus (furthermore, consequently, moreover). Some connectors are extremely mobile without any clear preference for any position (e.g. however, for example, for instance), while others are practically restricted to one position (e.g. besides at I). Of special interest here are connectors appearing at I2, i.e. between an initial adverbial and the subject. As shown in the table, comparatively few connectors are used in this position, some notable exceptions being however (21%), for example (16%), for instance (14%), moreover (10%) and though (10%). I will return to these below.

Table 1. Positional tendencies of English connectors (%)

Connector I I2 iM M iE E Total (n)

besides* 98 0 0 0 0 2 46 in other words* 94 0 0 0 0 6 32

in addition 93 0 0 0 3 3 30

even so* 92 0 0 0 0 8 24 furthermore* 92 2 4 2 0 0 49

as a result* 89 3 3 0 0 5 37 on the contrary* 84 0 6 3 3 3 32

consequently* 83 0 0 17 2 0 48

moreover* 77 10 2 6 4 0 48

above all* 72 3 0 10 7 7 29

thus 66 0 2 30 2 2 61

in any case* 63 0 6 9 3 20 35 on the other hand 63 0 17 17 4 0 24

nevertheless 61 3 6 26 3 0 31

instead 58 0 2 2 29 10 52

by the way* 57 0 5 5 0 33 21

anyway 52 0 0 1 0 47 79

all the same* 50 3 0 0 3 43 30 for example 49 16 4 14 8 10 51

for instance 45 14 9 14 9 9 22

then 42 8 3 8 2 37 91

still 40 0 12 48 0 0 42

accordingly* 37 0 3 57 3 0 35

however 35 21 11 18 6 9 190

therefore 31 3 3 56 4 2 93

after all 22 2 11 26 4 35 46

though 0 10 12 2 7 68 41

Total 55 6 5 16 4 14 1319


Despite the great positional diversity demonstrated in Table 1, it is of some interest to see if the position of the connectors is related to the semantic type of relation they express. To establish this, the connectors were grouped into semantic categories in accordance with the classification in Quirk et al. (1985: 634) and the (combined) positional tendency of each category was calculated.4 The distribution of the five most common categories is shown in Table 2. As the table demonstrates, the additive connectors strongly prefer initial position (88%), while the other categories have a more varied distribution. The I2 position is rare with all the categories except those containing exemplifying and contrastive connectors. Hence, what this semantic grouping of the connectors suggests is that additive connectors tend to take scope over the entire clause in which they occur, whereas exemplifying and contrastive connectors often occur in second initial position highlighting a preceding adverbial for special thematic attention.

Table 2. Positions of English connectors by semantic type (%)

Type I I2 iM M iE E Total (n)

Additive 88 3 1 3 2 2 202 Resultive 53 3 2 29 2 11 365

Exemplifying 48 15 5 14 8 10 73

Concessive 48 2 5 12 2 31 282 Contrastive 46 13 9 14 9 8 298

Total 56 6 5 16 4 13 1220

4. ENGLISH CONNECTORS IN PARENTHETIC SECOND POSITION

While Tables 1 and 2 give a good indication of which connectors tend to occur at I2, i.e. after an initial adverbial, they tell us little about connectors placed parenthetically after the subject. To establish this, it is necessary to examine connectors occurring at iM and M and distinguish cases where the connector is parenthetic from those where it is not. Parenthetic connectors are normally, but not always, set off by commas in the corpus. However, even in cases without

4 The classification agrees with that of Quirk et al. (1985: 634) with the exception that a distinction has been

made between contrastive (adversative) and concessive connectors. The borderline between these is not

always clear, however. Though, for example, is functionally (and prosodically) similar to the contrastive

connectors, but I have followed Quirk et al. (1985) and classified it as concessive (for a more detailed

discussion, see Fraser 1998 and Altenberg 2002). The exemplifying category only contains two appositive

connectors, for example and for instance. Connectors that are not common enough in the corpus to form a

category (e.g. summative or transitional connectors) are excluded in the table.


commas the reading pronunciation of the connector as parenthetic or non-parenthetic (i.e. prosodically integrated) is usually clear. Table 3 shows the same connectors as in Table 1 listed in terms of their tendency to occur in parenthetic second position following either an adverbial or a subject.

Table 3. Tendency of English connectors to occur parenthetically in second position

Second position Connector

Paren-thetic

Inte-grated

Total % paren-thetic

however 78 0 190 41

on the other hand 8 0 24 33

for instance 7 0 22 32 for example 16 0 51 31

though 10 0 41 24 after all 7 0 46 15

moreover* 6 0 48 13

furthermore* 3 0 49 6

on the contrary* 2 0 32 6 therefore 6 14 93 6

as a result* 2 0 37 5 by the way* 1 0 21 5

then 4 7 91 4

accordingly* 1 8 35 3

in addition* 0 0 30 0

all the same* 0 0 30 0

anyway 0 0 79 0 besides* 0 0 46 0

consequently* 0 0 48 0

even so* 0 0 24 0

in other words* 0 0 32 0

still 0 13 42 0 nevertheless 0 6 31 0

thus 0 8 61 0

in any case* 0 2 35 0

instead 0 1 52 0

As the table shows, the connectors describe a cline from those having a relatively strong tendency to occur parenthetically in second position to those that never do so in the corpus. At the top of the scale we recognize the contrastive connectors however and on the other hand, concessive though and the exemplifying connectors for instance and for example. Connectors with a weaker parenthetical tendency (< 20%) include concessive after all, the additive connectors moreover and furthermore and a mixture of resultive and other contrastive connectors. The table also shows that some connectors that do occur very often in second position are commonly or exclusively prosodically integrated into their clause. These include


therefore, still, accordingly, thus and then. Some of these can be either parenthetical or integrated, as illustrated by therefore in the following examples:

6. Columbus had been an itinerant peddler of old maps and an assiduous reader of the books by

and about the ancient geographers [] But for the Enterprise of the Indies to work, for ships

and crews to survive the long voyage, the Earth had to be smaller than Eratosthenes had said.

Columbus therefore cheated on his calculations, as the examining faculty of the University of

Salamanca quite correctly pointed out. (CSA1)

7. Of course they sentenced him [Socrates] to death.

He'd mentioned also that friends of his wished him to recommend a fine of thirty minae,

which they would guarantee, and this, therefore, was what he consented in the end to do.

(JH1)

When the subject presents given information, as in (6), connectors like therefore are usually prosodically integrated in middle position in the clause. However, the subject in (7) is also given, so a simple given-new distinction is not sufficient to explain the difference. What seems to be decisive for the parenthetic treatment of therefore in (7) is its strong deictic character. The pronominal subject of reversed wh-clefts is normally anaphorically emphatic and it is this quality that is highlighted by therefore. Hence, unlike therefore in (6), which focuses on the predicate, parenthetical therefore in (7) has a clear backward-focusing effect. If we look at the five semantic types distinguished above, we find two divergent tendencies (see Table 4). While exemplifying and contrastive connectors are used parenthetically in second position in about a third of the cases, additive, concessive and resultive connectors are relatively seldom used in this way.

Table 4. Parenthetical connectors in second position by semantic type

Types Parenthetical % Total

Exemplifying 23 32 73 Contrastive 95 30 322

Additive 10 5 218

Concessive 15 4 368 Resultive 13 3 373

In other words, the position and functional use of the connectors seems to be closely related to their meaning. Exemplifying and contrastive connectors appear to be especially suited for highlighting a preceding adverbial or subject, while other types of connectors either tend to be placed initially (especially the additives) or be prosodically integrated within the clause. This difference will be examined more closely in the following section.


5. THE DISCOURSE FUNCTION OF ENGLISH CONNECTORS IN SECOND POSITION

Let us now examine the function of some English connectors occurring in parenthetic second position in the corpus. The scrutiny will be limited to three types of connectors, those expressing contrast, exemplification and addition. The focus will be on the textual role played by the clause element preceding the connector. The examples are drawn from the English original texts; the Swedish translations will also be presented but comments on these will be postponed to section 6.

5.1 Contrastive connectors

The contrastive connectors occurring in second position in the corpus are however, on the other hand, by/in contrast and on the contrary. When a contrastive connector is placed parenthetically after an initial adverbial the latter is often a phrase or clause indicating a temporal or spatial shift in a dominant text strategic continuity (TSC), as illustrated in the following examples:

8. By March 1905 the confidence of French investors had been so shaken by both the

abortive Russian revolution and Russian

reverses in the war against Japan that with

the support of Delcass, the French Foreign

Minister, Raffalovich was distributing bribes

to the tune of 200,000 francs a month. As

usual in the case of agents of influence, it is

difficult to assess the importance of the press

support purchased in this way. In March

1905 even Raffalovich's largesse failed to

prevent French banks breaking off

negotiations for a further loan. By 1914,

however, 25 per cent of France's foreign

investment was in Russia (four-fifths of it in

government loans) as compared with only

9 per cent in the vast French Empire.

(CAOG1)

I mars 1905 var de franska investerarnas

frtroende s rubbat av bde den felslagna

ryska revolutionen och Rysslands motgngar

i kriget mot Japan att Raffalovitj med std av

den franske utrikesministern, Delcass,

delade ut mutor till ett belopp av 200 000

franc i mnaden. Som vanligt nr det gller

inflytelseagenter r det svrt att uppskatta

betydelsen av det std frn pressen ryssarna

kpte sig p detta stt. I mars 1905 kunde

inte ens Raffalovitjs frikostighet frhindra att

de franska bankerna avbrt frhandlingarna

om ytterligare ett ln. r 1914 dremot lg

tjugofem procent av Frankrikes utrikes-

investeringar i Ryssland (fyra femtedelar av

dem i ln till regeringen) vilket kan

jmfras med bara nio procent i det vldiga

franska imperiet.

9. In Western Europe the development of the cabinets noirs was disrupted in varying

degrees during the nineteenth century by

public and parliamentary protests at

interference with the post. In Britain, for

example, the Decyphering Branch was

I Vsteuropa avbrts utvecklingen av

cabinets noirs i varierande grad under 1800-

talet p grund av allmnhetens och

parlamentens protester mot att posten lstes. I

till exempel Storbritannien lades

Decyphering Branch (forceringsavdelningen)


abolished in 1844 after a Commons row over

the opening of the correspondence of the

exiled Italian nationalist, Giuseppe Mazzini.

British sigint did not resume until the First

World War. In autocratic Russia, however,

the development of sigint was undisturbed by

parliamentary protests. (CAOG1)

ned 1844 sedan grl utbrutit i underhuset

betrffande det faktum att den landsfrvisade

italienske nationalisten Giuseppe Mazzinis

post ppnades. Den brittiska signalspaningen

terupptogs inte frrn under frsta

vrldskriget. I det autokratiska Ryssland

kunde signalspaningen emellertid utvecklas

utan att stras av parlamentariska protester.

In (8) there is a dominant temporal TSC, as indicated by the underlined adverbials in clause-initial position. By 1914 marks a clear shift in this continuity at the same time as a contrast is expressed in the rest of the clause (the size of French investment in Russia before and after this year). In a sense, the clause can be said to express a double contrast, one signalled by the temporal adverbial and one in the rest of the clause. Prosodically, however neatly divides this contrastive information into two information (and intonation) units, each with a focus of its own. The effect is that the temporal shift is highlighted. In (9) the dominant TSC is spatial. The underlined initial adverbials signal the shifts and the final one is combined with a contrast (the undisturbed state of affairs in contrast to the the disrupted situation in Western Europe and Britain). Again, the position of the connector sets off the initial adverbial, highlighting the spatial shift and the double contrast created by the prosodic division. However, an initial adverbial does not have to take part in a dominant TSC to be highlighted. As long as it signals a clear temporal or spatial shift in the progression of the discourse, it can be set off by a parenthetic contrastive connector:

10. We have thus long had the people specially fitted to participate in such an expedition, but

what we have lacked until very recently is the

man with the qualifications to be the leader.

Now, however, I believe, that we have such a man: he, who has had his Arctic

baptism with an enterprise which has aroused

attention all over the civilised world. (RH1)

Vi har sledes lnge haft folk som r speciellt

lmpade fr att delta i en sdan expedition,

men till helt nyligen har vi saknat en man

som r kvalificerad att leda den.

Nu har vi emellertid enligt min mening en sdan man: han som har ftt sitt arktiska

dop med ett fretag som har vckt

uppmrksamhet i hela den civiliserade

vrlden.

Here there is no dominant TSC, yet the temporal shift is clear: while the first paragraph describes a situation in the past, the second moves the time frame to the present at the same time as a contrastive state of affairs is presented (the existence of a leader). Temporal shifts of this kind are in fact more common than shifts in a dominant TSC in the corpus. Often they indicate a global time shift changing the temporal frame backwards or forwards across a considerable stretch of discourse. In such cases the change often coincides with a paragraph shift:

11. It was not until years later that Kate, looking back, began to think that Miss Simmons had

Inte frrn mnga r senare brjade Kate, nr

hon tnkte tillbaka, f en knsla av att miss


been physically frightened of her pupils, that

the sight of them sitting or standing before

her, sullen, bored, ominously fertile,

potentially rebellious, must have been as

unnerving to her as the sight of an angry mob

to a Victorian millowner, as the sight of a

mutinous hungry crew to a captain far from

land. Kate even began, posthumously, to feel

sympathy, for on the few occasions in adult

life when she found herself before an

audience of teenage girls, she could see that

it took a good deal of nerve to face such a

mass of young restless and hopeful bodies

with confident equanimity, and poor Miss

Simmons had not had much.

At the time, however, Kate, like the other girls, chafed against restrictions, talked

in class, picked up one or two O levels with

not very good grades [] and found herself,

by the age of sixteen, with not much idea of

what she wanted to do next. (MD1)

Simmons hade varit rdd fr sina elever, rent

fysiskt; att synen av dem dr de satt eller

stod framfr henne, buttra, uttrkade,

olycksbdande knsmogna, potentiellt

upproriska, mste ha varit lika skrmmande

fr henne som synen av en retad

arbetarskara fr en viktoriansk fabriksgare

eller synen av en hungrig om myteri

mumlande besttning fr en kapten lngt frn

land. Kate brjade till och med i efterhand

knna en viss identifiering med henne, fr

vid de f tillfllen i sitt vuxenliv d hon

talade till en publik av tonrsflickor fann hon

att det krvdes en hel del mod fr att st infr

en sdan massa rastlsa och

frhoppningsfulla unga kroppar med

bibehllet sinneslugn och sjlvfrtroende,

och stackars miss Simmons hade inte haft

mycket av ngondera.

Men d gjorde Kate som de andra flickorna, trotsade reglerna, pratade under

lektionerna, fick dliga betyg i det mesta []

och fann sig vid sexton rs lder st dr utan

ngon egentlig uppfattning om vad hon hade

lust att gra.

Although the most common function of highlighted initial adverbials in the corpus is to signal temporal or spatial shifts in discourse, other reasons are not uncommon. Various modal and circumstantial adverbials can act as thematic frameworks such as speaker attitude, viewpoints, reasons, conditions, purpose etc (cf. Downing, 1991). Unlike temporal and spatial adverbials they rarely take part in a TSC, but in contrastive contexts they can sometimes be seen to signal significant shifts in the progression of discourse. Two examples will suffice to illustrate this:

12. Securing titles to the land was theoretically possible, because the government operates

various programmes as a means of providing

land for the landless. In reality, however, the

process is a nightmare of applications,

appeals and procedures which can take years.

(LT1)

Det var teoretiskt mjligt att skra jorden,

eftersom staten har olika program fr att de

jordlsa ska f mark. I praktiken r det dock

en mardrmslik uppgift med en rad

anskningar och papperskvarnar som kan ta

r.

13. The Bolsheviks saw the Civil War from the beginning as part of a great Allied plot. In

reality, the revolt of the Czechoslovak

Redan frn brjan betraktade bolsjevikerna

inbrdeskriget som en del av en stor allierad

komplott. I sjlva verket var det inte de


Legion had been prompted not by the Allies

but by fears for its own survival after

attempts by Leon Trotsky, now Commissar

for War, to disarm it. To Lenin and

Sovnarkom, however, it seemed evident that

the Czechs were the tools of 'the Anglo-

French stockbrokers'. (CAOG1)

allierade som hade framkallat den tjeckiska

legionens revolt, utan dess oro fr den egna

verlevnaden sedan Lev Trotskij, nu

folkkommissarie fr krigsrenden, frskt

avvpna legionen. Fr Lenin och sovnarkom

tycktes det emellertid uppenbart att tjeckerna

var redskap t "de engelsk-franska

brsmklarna".

In (12) In reality contrasts with theoretically in the preceding sentence. It thus creates a double contrast which is emphasized by the parenthetic connector. In (13) the initial adverbial expresses a viewpoint which is linked to, and partly contrasts with, other perspectives expressed in the preceding text (The Bolsheviks, In reality). The examples presented so far have all contained an initial adverbial. However, equally common in the corpus are cases in which a subject is set off by a following contrastive connector. In most of these cases the highlighting of the subject is clearly discourse-related. Sometimes the subject signals a break in a dominant topic continuity, i.e. a line of development marked by a sequence of animate or inanimate participants in initial clause position. Two examples illustrating this are:

14. Mars and Venus both had atmospheres dominated by carbon dioxide, with only

small proportions of oxygen and nitrogen.

More important, both had atmospheres close

to the chemical equilibrium state; if you took

a volume of air from either of those planets,

heated it to incandescence in the presence of

a representative sample of rocks from the

surface, and then allowed it to cool slowly,

there would be little or no change in

composition after the experiment. The Earth,

by contrast, has an atmosphere dominated

by nitrogen and oxygen. (JL1)

Bde Mars och Venus atmosfrer

dominerades av koldioxid. Bara en liten del

av deras atmosfrer utgjordes av syre och

kvve. Vad som var nnu viktigare var att de

bda planeternas atmosfrer bestod av en

gasblandning vars sammansttning var nra

kemisk jmvikt. Om man tog en del av

planeternas atmosfrer tillsammans med en

typisk del av det material dess yta bestod av

och hettade upp alltsammans till gldgning,

d skulle proportionerna mellan de olika

gaserna vara ungefr densamma som frn

brjan nr det hela hade svalnat av. Jorden

andra sidan har en atmosfr som domineras

av kvvgas och syrgas.

15. There are two human types, basically, people who bottle their emotions up and people who

let it all come roaring out. Introverts and

extraverts if you prefer. Introverts, as is well

known, tend to internalise their emotions,

their rage and their self-contempt, and this

internalisation, it is equally well known,

produces cancer. Extraverts, on the other

hand, let joyous rip, rage at the world, divert

I grund och botten finns det tv

mnniskotyper, folk som lgger lock p sina

knslor och folk som lter allting vlla ut.

Introverta och extroverta, om ni s vill. Som

bekant lutar introverta t att stnga inne sina

knslor, sin vrede och sitt sjlvfrakt, och

just den dr internaliseringen terigen ett

vlbekant faktum framkallar cancer.

Extroverta andra sidan ser p fr fullt,


their self-contempt on to others, and this

over-exertion, by logical process, causes

heart attacks. (JB1)

tmmer sin vredes sklar ver omvrlden,

lter sitt sjlvfrakt g ut ver andra; det r

bara logiskt att den sortens verspel leder till

hjrtattacker.

As these examples show, the highlighted subjects are part of a dominant TSC and separately contrasted with a preceding member of this continuity. The result is a double contrast which is emphasized by the parenthetical connector. The introduction of a new contrastive topical theme is usually highlighted in this way, whether it participates in a dominant topic continuity or not. An example of a contrast that is not part of a continuity is (16) where Few contrast with everyone:

16. He took out his cheque book. His credit card would not be needed here to back the

cheque, for everyone knew him, this was

where he had his account; he had already

caught the eye of one of the cashiers and

said good morning.

Few, however, knew his Christian name. (RR1)

Hans id-kort skulle inte behvas hr fr att

styrka checken, eftersom alla knde honom;

det var hr han hade sitt konto. Han hade

redan mtt blicken frn en av kassrskorna

och hlsat godmorgon.

Men det var inte mnga som knde till hans frnamn.

Although the highlighted subject normally presents new or contrastive information, this is not always the case:

17. For this reason, the genre of myth has never been entirely abandoned, although we are

inclined to think of it as archaic. If it

dwindled to the children's bedtime tale in

some societies, in parts of the world

protected by forests or deserts from

international megaculture it has continued,

alive, to offer art as a system of mediation

between the individual and being. And it has

made a whirling comeback out of Space, an

Icarus in the avatar of Batman and his kind,

who never fall into the ocean of failure to

deal with the gravity forces of life. These

new myths, however, do not seek so much to

enlighten and provide some sort of answers

as to distract, to provide a fantasy escape

route for people who no longer want to face

even the hazard of answers to the terrors of

their existence. (NG2)

Av detta skl har myten som genre aldrig helt

vergivits, trots att vi har en bengenhet att

betrakta den som arkaisk. Om den i en del

samhllen har reducerats till godnattsagor fr

barn, har den i andra delar av vrlden, vilka

skyddas ifrn den internationella

megakulturen av skogar och knar, fortsatt

att leva och erbjuda konsten som ett stt att

frbinda individen och existensen. Och den

har dessutom gjort en virvlande come-back

utifrn Rymden, en Ikaros inkarnerad i

Lderlappen och hans gelikar som aldrig

faller ner i misslyckandets hav fr att ta itu

med livets tyngdlagar. Dessa nya myter

frsker emellertid inte s mycket upplysa

och komma med ngot slags svar som de vill

roa, erbjuda en fantasins flyktvg fr

mnniskor som inte lngre ens vill utstta sig

fr risken att f svar p sin tillvaros fasor.


Here the subject is clearly given (referring back to myths that have made a whirling comeback) but it nevertheless represents a referential shift in the topic continuity initiated by the genre of myth and continued by it in the intervening text. Occasionally even a personal pronoun may be highlighted:

18. Progress on Agenda 2000 I do not need to remind the President-in-

Office of how essential it is to meet the

timetable, not only to secure the necessary

democratic legitimacy for the Agenda 2000

package but also to allow programmes and

policies to be implemented in a timely and

effective manner. We welcome his efforts in

this respect.

We, however, need to make progress on our priorities. Parliament's priorities on

the general framework regulation are, in fact,

clear. (EMCC1)

Framstegen fr Agenda 2000

Jag behver inte pminna rdets ordfrande

om hur viktigt det r att tidsplanen kan hllas,

inte bara fr att skerstlla det ndvndiga

demokratiska berttigandet av Agenda 2000-

paketet utan ven fr att lta alla program och

politiska planer genomfras i tid och p ett

effektivt stt. Vi vlkomnar hans insatser i

det avseendet.

Vi behver dock gra framsteg i vra prioriteringar. Parlamentets prioriteringar

med avseende p de allmnna

rambestmmelserna r faktiskt tydliga.

In this extract from a speech in the European Parliament there is a clear contrast between the priorities of the Council (represented by the President-in-Office and his efforts) and those of the Parliament (we). We is a given participant (and can even be regarded as being part of a topic continuity represented by I we we) but is nevertheless highlighted because of the double contrast. In other words, the subject does not have to convey new information to be highlighted. An example of a slightly different kind is the following:

19. These improvements in safety have been achieved particularly by the use of on-site

assistance teams, supported by the PHARE

and TACIS programmes. These have

resulted in a radical change in safety culture.

I would note that this change in safety

culture and the increased operational safety

cannot be measured in direct monetary terms.

The fact that these benefits cannot be readily

measured, however, does not make them any

less real. (EADA1)

Dessa skerhetsfrbttringar har srskilt

uppntts genom det arbete som har utfrts av

assisterande grupper p plats, stdda av

Phare- och Tacis-programmen. Detta har

resulterat i en radikal frndring i

skerhetskulturen. Jag mste sga att denna

frndring i skerhetskulturen och den

frbttrade driftskerheten inte direkt kan

mtas i pengar. Det faktum att dessa

skerhetsvinster inte lter sig mtas p ett

enkelt stt, gr dem dock inte mindre

verkliga.

Here the subject is not contrastive; instead it sums up the information in the previous sentence and so provides a cohesive link with the preceding text. This anaphoric chaining strategy (see Smits, 2002: 129) is not very common in the corpus. Occasionally a fronted complement is highlighted by a contrastive connector:


20. Stora Enso is, by capacity, the world's

second largest forest products company,

holding a leading position, in many of its

core businesses. More important than the

size of the company, however, are our

strategic objectives. (STO1)

I frga om tillverkningskapacitet r Stora

Enso vrldens nst strsta

skogsindustrikoncern med en ledande

stllning inom mnga av sina

krnverksamheter. Viktigare n koncernens

storlek r dock dess strategiska inriktning.

Here a comparative attribute of the subject has been fronted as a marked theme. The construction achieves two things: the comparative link with the preceding sentence is emphasized and the subject is given end-focus as the most important part of the message.

5.2 Exemplifying connectors

Two exemplifying connectors have a tendency to highlight a clause-initial element in the corpus: for example and for instance. The initial element is either a subject or an adverbial. The adverbial is usually a temporal or spatial phrase or clause. The highlighted element, especially when it functions as subject, typically represents an instance (hyponym) of a larger (superordinate) set mentioned in the preceding context:

21. The Scots have a well deserved reputation for innovation and inventiveness. In my

particular part of Scotland, the North-East,

we have many businesses, enterprises and

academic and research institutions working

on projects and ideas that are very worthy of

dissemination both throughout Europe and in

the wider world. Dundee, for example, one

of the two cities in my area, is well and truly

becoming a centre of excellence in life

sciences. Aberdeen is acknowledged as the

energy capital of Europe. (EHUD1)

Skottarna har ett vlfrtjnt gott rykte fr

uppfinningsrikedom och nyskapande. I den

del av Skottland jag kommer ifrn, den nord-

stra delen, har vi mycket affrsverksamhet

och mnga fretag och akademiska och

forskningsinstitutioner som arbetar med

projekt och ider som r vl vrda att spridas

bde ver Europa och i vriga vrlden.

Dundee t.ex., en av de tv stderna i mitt

omrde, hller verkligen p att bli ett utmrkt

center fr biovetenskap. Aberdeen r knt fr

att vara Europas energihuvudstad.

22. When Plato died, he was working on the Laws, his bleak, misanthropic proposal for a

totalitarian society in which all members

were prisoners of a rigid orthodoxy that

would not tolerate thinkers like himself and

Socrates and in which the penalties for

varieties of common transgressions were

unmerciful.

For a first offense of impiety, for example, the punishment was five years in

prison. For a second, it was death without

burial. (JH1)

Nr Platon dog arbetade han p "Lagarna",

sitt dsligt misantropiska frslag till ett

totalitrt samhlle dr alla medborgare var

fngar under en strng ortodoxi som inte

skulle tolerera tnkare sdana som han sjlv

och Sokrates och dr straffen fr olika slag

av vanliga vertrdelser var skoningslsa.

Fr en frsta ogudaktighetssynd var straffet till exempel fem rs fngelse. Fr en

andra var det dden utan begravning.


In both these examples the highlighted element can also be seen as initiating a TSC (for another example, see the function of in Britain in (9)). In most cases, however, the highlighted element is not part of a dominant TSC. What triggers the presentation of an example with its highlighted initial element is often a general statement in the preceding context a claim that raises expectations of a clarification or illustration. An example is presented, prefaced by a new topical theme (the subject) or a circumstantial framework (an adverbial) specifying the conditions under which the example is valid. Whether the highlighted element is part of a dominant TSC or not is immaterial, but it typically indicates a thematic shift of some kind:

23. How did I get on to that? Oh yes, everyone else around here has changed their name. Its true,

and its quite a thought, isnt it? Gillian, for

example, she changed her name when she

married me. Her maiden name was Wyatt, but

now shes called Hughes. I dont flatter myself

that she was eager to take my name. I think it

was more that she wanted to get rid of Wyatt.

(JB1)

Hur kom jag in p det hr? Javisst ja: det

var ju detta med att man byter namn, lite

till mans! Det gr "man" minsann, vilket

kan f en att fundera, inte sant? Gillian, till

exempel, hon bytte namn nr hon gifte sig

med mig. Hennes flicknamn var Wyatt,

men nu heter hon Hughes. Jag inbillar mig

inte att hon hyste ngon strre iver

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