Loose elements in colloquial English
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 1987 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Brno Studies in English 17 |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | Linguistics |
| Keywords | loose elements; functional sentence perspective; intonation |
| Description | The paper investigates language units that are less firmly integrated in the structure of a sentence than the regular sentence elements (subject, verb, object, adverbial, and complement) from the viewpoint of functional sentence perspective. The label 'loose elements' covers e.g. discourse markers, polarity particles, question tags, or adverbial elements presenting afterthoughts. From the viewpoint of functional sentence perspective, loose elements are interpreted as transitions proper, loose diathemes, or loose rhemes proper. The paper provides an overview of loose elements occurring in scripted spoken dialogues in O'Connor and Arnold's Intonation; the analysis is based on semantic, syntactic, and prosodic criteria. |