Publications

Publication details [#4903]

Hopper, Paul J. and Sandra A. Thompson. 1980. Transitivity in grammar and discourse. Language 56 (2) : 251–299.

Publication type

Article in journal

Publication language

English

Keywords

backgrounding | discourse structure | foregrounding | transitivity

Annotation

The grammatical and semantic prominence of transitivity is said to derive from its characteristic discourse function: high transitivity is correlated with foregrounding and low transitivity with backgrounding.

Reviewed by

DeLancey, Scott. 1987. Transitivity in grammar and cognition. In Tomlin, Russell S., ed. Coherence and grounding in discourse. Outcome of a symposium, Eugene, Oregon, June 1984. John Benjamins. pp. 53–68.