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Part of
Discourse Phenomena in Typological Perspective
Edited by Alessandra Barotto and Simone Mattiola
[Studies in Language Companion Series 227] 2023
► pp. 337–368

Chapter 12
On the topic-marking function of left dislocations and preposings

Variation across spoken and written Italian and English

| Università degli Studi di Salerno

This chapter is devoted to the functional variation of Left Marked Structures (LMSs) – namely, Left Dislocations (LDs) and Preposings (PRs) –, which are generally described as topic-marking discourse strategies. Results from a corpus-based and multi-level investigation demonstrate that in spoken and written Italian and English the claimed iconic relation between LMS’s syntactic form and information structure does not hold. Moreover, at the discourse level, LMSs impact not only the topical, but also the logico-semantic dimension of texts. The study proposes a reinterpretation of the general function of LDs and PRs in terms of textual prominence, showing how a corpus-based and multilevel analysis method could guide and in turn benefit from a typological investigation of LMSs’ inter- and intra-linguistic variation.

Keywords: Left Marked Structures, Discourse functions, Italian, English, Textual Promince
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Left dislocations and preposings in Italian and English
    • 2.1Definitions
    • 2.2Topicality of the left marked constituent
    • 2.3Discourse functions
  • 3.Method of analysis
    • 3.1The utterance level: LMSs’ syntax and information structure
      • 3.1.1Syntactic partition
      • 3.1.2Information partition
    • 3.2Discourse level: LMSs’ interaction with the left and right co-texts
      • 3.2.1Givenness
      • 3.2.2Thematic progression and topic dynamism
      • 3.2.3Logical dimension
  • 4.Data basis for the analysis
    • 4.1Corpus resources
    • 4.2Data
  • 5.Analyses and results
    • 5.1Correlation between syntactic and information partition in Italian and English LDs and PRs
    • 5.2Discourse functions of Italian and English LDs and PRs
      • 5.2.1Informationally partitioned LMSs: Topicalizing and counter-expectative functions
      • 5.2.2Informationally non-partitioned LMSs: Presentative function and emphatic use
    • 5.3The textual prominence hypothesis
  • 6.Discussion and conclusion: Towards a typological perspective
    • 6.1Disproving the topic-marking hypothesis in a typological perspective
    • 6.2The textual approach for discourse-sensitive typology
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 1 March 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.227.12cim
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