nglish anguage verseas erspectives and nquiries Volume X – Autumn Editors: SMILJANA KOMAR and UROŠ MOZETIČ Slovensko društvo za angleške študije Slovene Association for the Study of English Oddelek za anglistiko in amerikanistiko, Filozofska fakulteta, Univerza v Ljubljani Department of English, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana ContentS LANGUAGE Martin Adam S–V Semantic Ainity in Presentation Sentences with Preverbal Rhematic Subject Prisojevalno razmerje v predstavitvenih povedih z jedrnim osebkom pred glagolom Paul Brocklebank 21 Johnson and the Eighteenth–Century Periodical Essay: A Corpus–Based Approach Johnson in periodični eseji 18. stoletja: korpusni pristop Laura Mrhar 33 A Functional Approach to Compiling a Specialized English–Slovene Dictionary of Green Energy Terms Funkcijski pristop pri sestavljanju specializiranega Angleško–slovenskega slovarja terminov zelene energije Mojca Šorli 45 Corpus–Based Lexicographical Descriptions with a Special Focus on Pragmatics: he Case of the Slovene Lexical Database Na korpusu temelječi leksikografski opisi s poudarkom na pragmatiki: Leksikalna baza za slovenščino LITERATURE Iva Polak 69 Indigenous Australian Texts in European English Departments: A Fence, a Bridge and a Country as an Answer to the Debate over Multiculturalism Avstralska besedila domorodcev na angleških oddelkih v Evropi: ograja, most in dežela kot odgovor na razpravo o multikulturnosti Staša Sever 83 Prostheses, Cyborgs and Cyberspace – the Cyberpunk Trinity Proteze, kiborgi in kiberprostor – kiberpankovska trojica ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE TEACHING Janez Skela A Retrospective View of English Language Learning Materials Produced in Slovenia from 1945 to the Present Retrospektivni pregled v Sloveniji ustvarjenih učbenikov za učenje angleščine v obdobju od leta 1945 do danes 97 TRANSLATION STUDIES Lara Burazer Examining the Diferences in Assessing Quality of Translations and Acceptability of Texts Preverjanje razlik med ocenjevanjem kakovosti prevodov in sprejemljivosti besedil. Danica Čerče Shaping Images of Australia through Translation: Doris Pilkington and Sally Morgan in Slovene Translation Oblikovanje podob o Avstraliji v prevodnih besedilih: Doris Pilkington in Sally Moran v slovenskem prevodu nataša Hirci 127 139 149 Changing Trends in the Use of Translation Resources: he Case of Trainee Translators in Slovenia Novi časi, nove navade: bodoči slovenski prevajalci in raba prevajalskih virov I. LANGUAGE 8 DOI: 10.4312/elope.10.2.9-19 Martin Adam Department of English Language and Literature Faculty of Education Masaryk University, Brno S–V Semantic Ainity in Presentation Sentences with Preverbal Rhematic Subject Summary Firmly anchored in the Praguian theory of functional sentence perspective (FSP), the present paper discusses the prototypical type of sentences implementing the so–called Presentation Scale (i.e., that containing a rhematic subject in preverbal position) within iction narrative discourse. Special attention is paid to the semantic ainity operating between the subject and the predicate; in such distributional ields (cf. A bird chirped on the twig) the verbs seem to semantically support the character of their subjects. hus, the S–V ainity appears to play a signiicant role in enabling the English verb to express existence or appearance on the scene in an implicit way. he phenomenon of semantic ainity is discussed on the basis of FSP investigation of a sample corpus of narrative texts compiled and processed by the author. Apart from the syntactic–semantic analysis, S–V ainity is also examined through the prism of eminent Czech representatives of the Prague School legacy, such as Vilém Mathesius, Jan Firbas, Aleš Svoboda and Libuše Dušková. Key words: presentation, scale, ainity, FSP, Firbas, existence, appearance Prisojevalno razmerje v predstavitvenih povedih z jedrnim osebkom pred glagolom Povzetek Članek, zasnovan na praški teoriji členitve po aktualnosti, obravnava prototipske povedi v literarnem pripovednem diskurzu s pomočjo t. im. predstavitvenih tipov (t.j. povedi, ki vsebujejo jedrni osebek v predglagolski poziciji). Posebej se posveča prisojevalnemu razmerju, ki je vzpostavljeno med osebkom in povedkom; zdi se, da v takšnih distribucijah (gl. A bird chirped on the twig) glagoli pomensko usmerjajo tip osebka. Tako se zdi, da prisojevalno razmerje med osebkom in povedkom v veliki meri omogoča angleškemu glagolu, da implicitno izrazi bivanjskost ali pojavnost. Pojem prisojevalnega razmerja obravnavamo na osnovi aktualnostno–členitvene raziskave izbranega korpusa pripovednih besedil, ki jih je avtor zbral in obdelal. Poleg skladenjsko–pomenske analize je prisojevalno razmerje obravnavano tudi skozi perspektivo pomembnih čeških naslednikov praške šole, npr. Viléma Mathesiusa, Jana Firbasa, Aleša Svobode in Libuše Duškove. Ključne besede: predstavitveni tipi, prisojevalno razmerje, členitev po aktualnosti, Firbas, bivanjskost, pojavnost UDK 811.111’367.52:81’322.3’42 – 116.3 LANGUAGE S–V Semantic Ainity in Presentation Sentences with Preverbal Rhematic Subject 1. Fundamentals: the corpus and the method Exploiting the theory of functional sentence perspective (FSP) and drawing on the indings presented especially by Mathesius (1975), Firbas (1992), Svoboda (2005, 2006) and Dušková (1998, 2005), the paper looks at one of the most frequent types of sentences implementing the Presentation Scale (Pr–Scale), i.e., that containing a rhematic subject in preverbal position. It deals with the phenomenon of so–called semantic ainity of the verb with the subject, the principal focus being the semantic classiication of the Pr–sentences that display an obvious degree of such a semantic ainity. For the purpose of analysis two novels are used: C. S. Lewis’ he Chronicles of Narnia: he Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (in the corpus abbreviated as N) and D. Lodge’s Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses (in the corpus abbreviated as C). As a mere fraction of a larger tagged corpus under our current examination, the present subcorpus consists of ca 125,000 words and their FSP analyses. Within the corpus, there are 5,946 basic distributional ields, which are technically counted as inite clauses; non–inite clauses being regarded as separate communicative units within the basic distributional ields. Out of all the basic distributional ields in the corpus, 488 instances of sentences that implement the Presentation Scale were identiied, which represents 8.2 percent. Apparently, a low number of the basic distributional ields in the corpus follow the general occurrence pattern of the Pr– Scale; it is possible to claim, however, that such an incidence is in full compliance with other indings and other genres examined so far (see e.g., Adam 2009, 2010, 2011). In Firbas’ view (for further information on FSP the reader is referred especially to Firbas 1992), the sentence is a ield of semantic and syntactic relations that in its turn provides a distributional ield of degrees of communicative dynamism (CD); Firbas deines a degree of CD as “the extent to which the element contributes towards the development of the communication” (Firbas 1964, 270). he most prominent part of information is the ‘high point’ of the message, i.e., the most dynamic element (rheme proper); other elements of the sentence are less dynamic (have a lower degree of CD). he degrees of CD are determined by the interplay of FSP factors involved in the distribution of degrees of CD: linear modiication, context and semantic structure (Firbas 1992, 14–6). In spoken language, the interplay of these factors is joined by intonation, i.e., the prosodic factor. It is the continuum of the degrees of CD along with the interplay of the basic FSP factors that make FSP speciic within the ield of text linguistics. In his opus magnum, Firbas (esp. 1992, 66–9) introduced the idea of the so–called dynamic semantic scales that are implemented in sentences; they functionally relect the distribution of CD and operate irrespective of word order. In principle, Firbas distinguishes two types of dynamic– semantic scales: the Presentation Scale (Pr–Scale) and the Quality Scale (Q–Scale). In these scales, each element is ascribed one of the dynamic–semantic functions (DSFs) (Firbas 1992). In contrast with a static approach towards semantic functions of sentence constituents (e.g., agent, instrument etc.), the dynamic semantic functions may change in the course of the act of communication; the same element may thus perform diferent functions in diferent contexts and under diferent conditions (cf. also Svoboda 2005, 221). 10 Martin Adam S–V Semantic Ainity in Presentation Sentences with Preverbal Rhematic Subject What follows is a summarising account of the Presentation Scale sentences (hereafter abbreviated Pr–sentences), i.e., the theoretical framework of the present paper. he prototypical Pr–Scale includes three basic dynamic semantic functions. Going in the interpretative arrangement from left to right (from the least to the most dynamic element), the irst position is taken by the thematic Setting of the action (Set), usually temporal and spatial items of when and where the action takes place. Second, the existence or appearance on the scene is typically conveyed by a verb by means of the Presentation of Phenomenon (Pr). Finally, the major, most dynamic element, Phenomenon to be Presented (Ph) is literally ushered onto the scene (cf. Chamonikolasová and Adam 2005): (1) A police car (Ph) drew up (Pr) beside them (Set). (C191a) (2) hree men (Ph) entered (Pr) the room (Set). (C223c) Before a thorough discussion on the phenomenon of semantic ainity between the verb and the subject in the Pr–sentences is presented, it is necessary to outline the basic syntactic semantic subtypes of the Pr–sentences. In the present corpus (as well as in other corpora under the author’s examination), four principal syntactic patterns were identiied and labelled as Subtypes 1–4 (see examples 3–6 below). Incidentally, though carried out independently, the classiication acquired is virtually in harmony with what Dušková ofers in her study on diferentiation of the syntactic forms of the Presentation Scale (cf. Dušková 1998). Also Svoboda tackled the area of syntactic semantic types of sentences implementing the Pr–Scale within his functional treatment of parallel sentences both in Czech and English (Svoboda 2005). Nevertheless, he does not classify their syntactic make–up in a systematic way, focusing instead on the word order issues emerging in the comparative background, such as the question of (emotional) markedness of certain types of Pr–sentences (Svoboda 2005, 224–5). he following four examples will shed light on the four syntactic semantic subtypes of Pr–sentences detected in the corpus; the examples are followed by tables showing the indings obtained in the course of the corpus analysis (for details on individual subtypes see e.g., Adam 2011): (3) here are (Pr) streaks of soot (Ph) on the engine cowlings (Set). (C9b) (4) A slow cruel smile (Ph) came (Pr) over the Witch’s face (Set). (N99b) (5) And next to Aslan (Set) stood (Pr) two leopards of whom one carried his crown and the other his standard (Ph). (N125) (6) he walls of his room (Set) bore (Pr) plentiful evidence of his marksmanship in the form of silently snarling stufed animals (Ph). (C23b) Subtype 3 – Fronted adverbial & S–V inversion (5) Subtype 4 – Locative h–subject (6) Total 40 9 488 8.2 1.8 100.0 Table 1. Subtypes of Pr–sentences in the Corpus. LANGUAGE 11 2. he presentation scale: subtype 2 As has been suggested above, only Subtype 2 of the Pr–sentences will actually be discussed in the scope of this paper, as in it examples of semantic ainity of the verb with the subject may be traced. As a rule, Subtype 2, viz. the rhematic subject in preverbal position, represents the second most recurring subtype of the Pr–Scale sentence pattern (Adam 2011). It is usually referred to as the prototypical, canonical type connected with the Presentation Scale (Dušková 1988, 62, 531–2). In it, the initial sentence element is typically represented by a context–independent subject, which is only then followed (in concord with the requirements of English word order principles) by the verb, which expresses existence or appearance on the scene (cf. Dušková 1999, 248–50). he sentence may also begin with a scene–setting temporal or spatial thematic adverbial. As for FSP articulation, the word order of such conigurations actually violates the end–focus principle observed in English. Nevertheless, sentences with a rhematic subject in preverbal position are considered unmarked by native speakers of English (exceptions may be observed in connection to prosodic re–evaluating intensiication; cf. Firbas 1992, 154–6). For instance in Czech, in contrast, end–focus principle is most respected, and a rhematic subject is untypical, if not highly exceptional, and can be justiied only under special prosodic or other emphatic conditions (cf. Dušková 1999, 281). It follows that the verb operating in Pr–Scale sentences (Pr–verb) presents something new on the scene. It is important to recall that in relation to its presentation role, Firbas claims that it does so “if it expresses the existence or appearance on the scene with explicitness or suicient implicitness” (Firbas 1995; cf. Adam 2011). In the present corpus (and also in other corpora under our investigation), two types of verbs classiied in this respect have been detected. Most Pr–verbs clearly express the existence or appearance on the scene in an explicit way. Prototypically, these are verbs such as come, arrive, step in, come down, be born, enter, appear, occur, turn up, rear up etc. (Adam 2010, 2011). he Pr–verbs falling into this are, in their nature, dynamic, mostly intransitive, and carry the meaning of appearance, both as a result of a dynamic process or seen in the process of motion proper. Such verbs actually relect precisely the deinition of Firbasian appearance on the scene with explicitness. However, research has convincingly shown that other types of verbs are also capable of expressing existence or appearance on the scene even though they do not convey the meaning of appearance in a straightforward manner; in other words, they do so with suicient implicitness (Firbas 1992, 1995; Adam 2009, 2010). A relatively large group in the corpus is made up of Pr–verbs that express existence or appearance on the scene in a rather implicit way; all diferent sorts of verbs, such as overshadow, send, strike, await, buzz, wake (the silence), chirp, shine, seize, shine, pour, feed, blow or preach, were identiied in the research corpus (cf. Adam 2010). Seemingly, the verbs come from diferent semantic groups of verbs and do not have much in common. 3. S–V semantic ainity he point is that research has shown that one of the most signiicant features of such Pr–verbs occurring in the prototypical Pr–sentences may be described as a certain degree of semantic ainity between the Pr–verb itself and the clause subject (cf. Firbas 1992, 60). To be more speciic, the corpus indings seem to reveal a signiicant semantic feature of what may be considered to express existence or appearance on the scene in an implicit way: the semantic ainity observed between the verb and the subject. In a number of previous papers (see esp. Adam 2010 and 2011), several sentences with a certain sort of semantic ainity were detected. he present paper, however, attempts 12 Martin Adam S–V Semantic Ainity in Presentation Sentences with Preverbal Rhematic Subject a more delicate typology of such sentences and a possible revelation of some of the underlying (syntactic and/or semantic) principles. To embark on the discussion, compare the following three sentences (from now on, the rhematic subjects will be presented in bold whereas the Pr–verb will be underlined for the sake of transparency): (7) A bee buzzed across their path. (N120e) (8) At that moment a strange noise woke the silence. (N128) (9) he sun shone. (C20) In examples (7)–(9), the action is so semantically inherent to the subjects (subject–related) that it is the subject that takes over the communicative prominence at the expense of the power of the verbal content (cf. Adam 2011). he static semantics of the verb then – even if expressing a speciic type of action – is reduced to that of presentation. he semantic content of the verbal element of the agents employed is so natural that the full verb serves to denote a form of existence or appearance on the scene. In other words, the verb that operates in semantic ainity with its subject semantically supports the character of the subject. One may readily say that buzzing is an inbred activity for bees and thus in (7) the highest degree of communicative dynamism is deinitely carried by the subject. Similarly, it is most natural for a strange noise to wake silence (8), or for the sun to shine (9). As has been mentioned above, the dynamic semantic role of the verb used is reduced to that of presentation and the communicative lead is taken by the respective subjects/agents. A crucial role when interpreting the sentences as to the dynamic semantic function implemented is undoubtedly played by the immediately relevant verbal and situational context (Firbas 1992, 59–61; Adam 2009). In his discussion on such cases, Svoboda also takes it for granted that “context will decide whether the Pr–scale or the Q–scale is employed” (for details along with examples see Svoboda 2005, 225). he presentational interpretation of Pr–sentences with subject–verb ainity (which may be legitimately questioned at irst sight) can be – apart from the major role of the context – additionally corroborated by two facts. First, it is the placement of the nuclear stress on the rhematic subject in English (the intonation centre is noted by capital letters): (10) And the moon came out. (N92c) Second, the rhematic character of the subjects under examination can be supported by the corresponding Czech (or other functionally analogous) equivalent translation of the clauses in which the rhematic subject – according to the principle of end–focus – invariably occupies the inal position in the sentence – cf. (10a) and (11a). (11) Czech (Lewis 1950) A měsíc. And Moon ‘And the Moon came out.’ Commenting on various possibilities which favour the presentational interpretation, Dušková (2008, 72–3) maintains that the Pr–verbs manifesting such an ainity may be – with identical efect – functionally replaced by verbs that express existence/appearance on the scene in a purely explicit manner. hus, sentence (12) below could be analogously expressed by means of an explicit Pr–verb accompanied by a locative adverbial construction in the object position (12a), not to mention an existential construction proper (12b). Cf.: LANGUAGE 13 (12) A bee buzzed across their path. (N120e) (12a) A bee appeared / perched on their path. (12b) here was a bee on their path. he point is that a parallel transformation is naturally unheard of in the sentences implementing the Q–Scale; in them, something new is said about the Bearer of Quality and the predication does not express existence/appearance on the scene any more. It follows that the verb(s) used cannot be replaced by a Pr–verb without changing the FSP of the sentence. Cf. the two examples of sentences that implement the Q–Scale below; whereas example (12c) introduces a basic distributional ield in which the most dynamic element is the verb itself (buzzed), in example (12d) the verb buzzed is transitional and the high point of the message (i.e., the rheme) is represented by the adverbial of manner (Speciication). he unit the bee is then, of course in both the sentences, a thematic element (Bearer of Quality). (12c) On the windowsill (h), the bee (h) buzzed (Rh) [and lew away]. (12d) Suddenly (h) the bee (h) buzzed (Tr) in a scary way (Rh). Semantically, the Pr–verbs that manifest semantic ainity with their subjects are almost prototypically recruited from a relatively limited semantic category of verbs that are generally related, to a certain extent, to sensory (acoustic, visual etc.) perception. Below is a tentative (because partly overlapping in places) classiication of these categories, examples adduced. Although due to space limitation the examples of Pr–sentences are decontextualized, all of them congruently implement the Pr–Scale: 3.1 Natural/supernatural phenomena unafected by people, such as weather (13) A light breeze sprang up. (N119d) (14) And the moon came out. (N92c) (15) A cloud swirls round Philip Swallow’s plane. (C53c) Let us at least briely comment on one particular aspect of example (14) cited above, in which the subject is the moon. Closely related to its syntactic make–up is the question of deiniteness of the subjects in Pr–sentences. Contrary to the “prototypical” use of the indeinite article in Pr–sentences, subjects in these two examples make use of the deinite article, apparently not used in the anaphoric way. his, nevertheless, does not violate the concept of context–independence of the subjects but obviously denotes the uniqueness of the phenomenon (the Sun, the Moon and the like). 3.2 Fauna (and lora) (16) A bee buzzed across their path. (N120e) (17) Close beside the path they were following, a bird suddenly chirped from the branch of a tree. (N74d) (18) In the wood behind them a bird gave a chuckling sound. (N148b) he examples adduced above clearly fall into the semantic category of animal acoustic manifestation, which can be readily connected with their typical, most natural manner of being; their prototypical existence. 14 Martin Adam S–V Semantic Ainity in Presentation Sentences with Preverbal Rhematic Subject 3.3 Facial expressions, bodily feelings Another relatively frequent type of sentences with context–independent subjects that display a semantic ainity with the verb is represented by the area of the human body, such as facial expressions, or bodily feelings. Due to its corresponding semantics, example (18) is listed here even if the verb come expresses the existence/appearance on the scene rather explicitly and the semantic ainity is not a necessary condition for the verb to be capable of denoting presentation: (19) A searing pain bored into his hand. (C84) (20) A ghost of a smile hovered on Mrs Swallow’s lips. (C86c) (21) A slow cruel smile came over the Witch’s face. (N99b) Likewise, Firbas ofers several examples of Pr–sentences in which there is “a context–independent subject presenting a phenomenon appearing on a human body, the element(s) expressing the body or some part of it performing the role of a setting” (Firbas 1992, 61). In his examples below, “appearance on the scene is metaphorically expressed by a verb–object combination” (Firbas 1992, 61 quoting Svobodová 1966), claiming that in such sentences the object expresses a phenomenon that is “illed, permeated or covered by another phenomenon. he latter appears within the space provided by the former. he latter is the phenomenon to be presented; the former serves as the setting (scene) for the presentation” (ibid.). Actually, all three verbs used represent items with untypically large valency; force is in fact trivalent (force its way through Aunt Ann’s lips). Firbas argues that via such semantic ainity “the verb prepares the way for the phenomenon to be presented” (ibid); notation and underlining mine: (22) hrough Aunt Ann’s compressed lips a tender smile forced its way. Generally, it could be said that the coniguration with a transitive verb and a direct object prototypically occurs in sentences in which predication is construed as a igurative expression. It should be noted that examples of Pr–sentences in which appearance is expressed metaphorically will be dealt with separately in the present treatise in Section F below. 3.4 Inherent qualities/actions of inanimate objects (23) Two cups steamed on the bedside table. (C230) (24) A bomb exploded in the men’s john on the fourth loor. (C121b) (25) …and to his right the oil reineries of St Gabriel fumed into the limpid air. (C56c) (26) Another joint was circulating. (C96b) By far the most frequent semantic area of Pr–sentences displaying a degree of semantic ainity between the verb and the subject may be characterised as inbred, inherent qualities of inanimate objects. It seems that this ainity subtype (i.e., inherent qualities/actions of inanimate object) lies at the core of the S– semantic ainity. As has been stated several times above such qualities are so typical of the context–ndependent entities that the lexical semantics of the verb is actually reduced to that of presentation; the remaining semantic load is – thanks to the high degree of communicative dynamism carried by the subject as well as the semantic ainity – backgrounded and functionally suppressed. In other words, in example (23), for instance, steaming is so inherent for cups of tea that the sentence can be functionally rephrased in the following way (analogously, the ainitive pairs such as bomb – explode or reineries – fume clearly follow the same syntactic–semantic pattern): LANGUAGE 15 (23a) here were two cups (steaming) on the bedside table. Sometimes, the pairs are realised as S– (nuns – sing a hymn, solitary security man – lift a lazy transitive hand in salute); the necessary verbal context is given in square brackets: (27) [Returning to the living–room to fetch a cigar, he found O’Shea asleep and Bernadette looking sullenly bored.] On the screen a lot of nuns, photographed from behind, were singing a hymn. [‘Seen your aunt yet?’ he inquired. Bernadette shook her head.] (C91a) (28) [he buzz of a helicopter told him he was now in the militarized zone, though you wouldn’t otherwise have guessed that there was any trouble at the University on this side of the campus, he thought, as he steered the car through the broad entrance on the West perimeter, past lawns and shrubberies where the spume of rotating water sprinklers rainbowed in the sun and] and a solitary security man in his shelter lifted a lazy hand in salute. (C181d) In examples (27) and (28), we may observe a strong tendency to actually express an intransitive action in the deep structure (in this interpretation sing a hymn can be understood as intransitive sing, and lift a lazy hand in salute could be decoded as intransitive salute). he power of S– semantic ainity observed along with the immediately relevant context in which the sentences appear only tentatively makes us arrive at the conclusion that we are most probably dealing with sentences which are perspectived in accordance with the Presentation Scale. 3.5 Sensory efects/perception (acoustic, visual, olfactory etc.) (29) A dark spidery shadow lashed across the gardens on the hillside. (C171b) (30) A National Guard helicopter clattered over the Euphoric State campus yesterday, spraying tear gas over some 700 students. (C162) It should be admitted that some of the semantic categories (Sections 3.1–3.6) naturally overlap, such as in the case of the ainitive pair bird – chirp, which may be listed both in Section 3.2 (Fauna) and in Section 3.5 here, as we are dealing with an acoustic efect. Another illustration may be seen in the pair pain – bore, which can be logically related both to Section 3.3 (Bodily feelings) and to Section 3.6 (Figurative expressions). It is believed, nevertheless, that even such a rough and to a certain extent simplifying categorisation relects the principal semantic areas that display a tendency towards S– ainity in Pr–sentences. After all, the lexical semantics of the English Pr– verbs is not black and white or one sided, but, on the contrary, rather multifaceted, and so overlaps are only natural. 3.6 Figurative expressions (metaphor or personiication) (31) here a beautiful sight met their eyes. (N120e) (32) A spotlight threw a pool of violet light on to the stage. (C112) (33) At that moment a strange noise woke the silence. (N128) (34) On Sunday a huge procession of Garden supporters coiled its way through the streets of Plotinus. (C160) As mentioned, a relatively high number of Pr–sentences base their predication on a igurative expression, namely a metaphor or personiication. Such a igurative content appears to have 16 Martin Adam S–V Semantic Ainity in Presentation Sentences with Preverbal Rhematic Subject something to do with the deep ‘intransitive understanding’ of S–V transitive structures: meet sb.’s eyes (31), throw a pool of light (32), wake the silence (33), or coil sb.’s way (34). In other words, apart from the S–V semantic ainity, it is the metaphorical character of the semantic load that turns a commonplace V–O syntactic combination into a structure that is capable of expressing existence/ appearance on the scene in an implicit way. Without the igurative sense, the constructions would implement the Quality Scale; the direct objects would perform the DSFs of Speciications and the subject in such sentences would of course be context–dependent. Compare the presentational examples (32) and (33) from the list above with their functional counterparts clearly implementing the Quality Scale extracted from another FSP corpus – examples (32a) and (33a) below. he framed areas suggest what has been called the ‘primary semantic link’: (32) A spotlight threw a pool of violet light on to the stage. (C112) (32a) [here was a spear in his hand] and so he threw it at David. (1Samuel 18:10–11) (33) At that moment a strange noise woke the silence. (N128) (33a) [he disciples went] and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!” (M8:25) At this point in the discussion, a more general and summarising remark concerning the purely syntactic make–up of Pr–sentences is in order, namely a commentary on transitivity. It has been noted above that the Pr–verbs typically tend to originate in the intransitive (though they can sometimes act as transitive) group of the English verb; such sentences usually follow the SV or SVA sentence types patterns (see also Quirk et al. 1985, 1169–70). Research has indicated that Pr–verbs appear to tend towards relatively simple syntactic structures, whereas a more complex modiication of the verb (i.e., a multiple valency) usually speaks in favour of quality verbs (Q– verbs). However, especially in the area of S–V semantic ainity, the Pr–verbs are recruited also among transitive verbs (ordinarily patterned as SVO or SVOA). Some of the examples above obviously fall into the semantic category of Pr–verbs expressing existence or appearance on the scene with suicient implicitness in a metaphorical way and following the SVOA pattern in the present corpus. To sum up, the transitive character of the verb seems to go hand in hand with the metaphorical nature of the phrase. hough the observations above seem to be in accord with the general linguistic tendencies, the conjectures concerning the role of transitivity in the framework of syntactic semantic characteristics of Pr–verbs inevitably remain a subject of further research. 4. Conclusion Research has convincingly proved that it is the static semantic load of the verb that as a matter of fact vitally determines the sentence functional perspective; it can be argued that the English (Pr–) verb acquires its dynamics in the immediately relevant context, the base being its static semantic equipment. he present paper discussed the prototypical type of sentences implementing the Presentation Scale (i.e., that containing a rhematic subject in preverbal position) within iction narrative discourse with special regard to the semantic ainity operating between the subject and the predicate. In such distributional ields the Pr–verbs seem to semantically support the character of their subjects, preparing “the way for the phenomenon to be presented” (Firbas 1992, 61). On the basis of an array of corpus examples, a number of semantic categories of semantic ainity were identiied and, in addition, some special syntactic aspects of such sentences were examined, such as the tendency towards intransitivity (even in the case of transitive verbs) as seen from the perspective of the deep structure. Most often this happens in sentences with metaphorical semantic load or in passive constructions. LANGUAGE 17 he text material explored has indicated that it is such ainity that typically makes it possible for a verb to serve as the Pr–verb in the Pr–Scale; in other words, it seems to constitute the common denominator of the verbs that can express existence/appearance on the scene in an implicit manner. As has been shown, the verb’s presentational capacity is practically ‘dormant’ even in conigurations, which in their surface syntactic structure use a transitive verb or in syntactically complex phrases (cf. e.g., metaphorical structures such as On Sunday a huge procession of Garden supporters coiled its way through the streets of Plotinus.). Such a potential capacity of the transitional verb can be awakened, i.e., activated, if the verb displays the semantic ainity with the subject and other criteria permit (e.g., the passive, metaphorical nature, underlying or surface transitivity) and, most importantly, if the interplay of FSP factors permits (apart from semantics and the ‘contradictory’ linear modiication, it is the immediately relevant context, of course). Otherwise the capability of a transitive verb to present a new phenomenon on the scene appears to be substantially limited if not impossible. To conclude, it should be highlighted again that semantic ainity of the English Pr–verb with the subject seems to stand at the root of the question concerning the (semantic and syntactic) criteria that make it possible for the verb to act as a Pr–verb in the sentence. In this respect, such semantic ainity proved to be a truly formative force operating in the constitution of the Presentation Scale sentences. Bibliography Adam, M. 2009. Functional Macroield Perspective (A Religious Discourse Analysis Based on FSP). Brno: Masaryk University. - - -. 2010. A Functional Characterology of the English Transitional Pr–Verbs: Presentation or Appearance on the Scene Revisited. Ostrava Journal of English Philology 2, no. 2: 7–20. - - -. 2011. Towards a Syntactic–Semantic Typology of Presentation Scale Sentences in Fiction Narratives. Brno Studies in English 37, no. 2: 5–19. Chamonikolasová, J., and M. Adam. 2005. he Presentation Scale in the heory of Functional Sentence Perspective. In Patterns (A Festschrift for Libuše Dušková), ed. J. Čermák, 59–69. Prague: Charles University. Dušková, L. 1988. Mluvnice současné angličtiny na pozadí češtiny [Grammar of Present–day English on the Background of Czech]. Prague: Karolinum. - - -. 1998. Syntactic Forms of the Presentation and their Diferentiation. Linguistica Pragensia 8, no. 1: 36–43. - - -. 1999. Studies in the English language. Part II. Prague: Karolinum. - - -. 2005. From the Heritage of Vilém Mathesius and Jan Firbas: Syntax in the Service of FSP. In heory and Practice in English Studies 3: Proceedings from 8th Brno Conference of English, American and Canadian Studies, ed. J. Chovanec, 7–23. Brno: Masaryk University. - - -. 2008. Vztahy mezi sémantikou a aktuálním členěním z pohledu anglistických členů Pražského lingvistického kroužku [he Relations between Semantics and Functional Sentence Perspective as Seen by Anglicist Members of the Prague Linguistic Circle]. Slovo a slovesnost 69, no. 1–2: 67–77. Firbas, J. 1964. On Deining the heme in Functional Sentence Analysis. Travaux Linguistiques de Prague 1: 267–80. - - -. 1986. On the Dynamics of Written Communication in the Light of the heory of Functional Sentence Perspective. In Studying Writing: Linguistic Approaches, ed. C.R. Cooper and S. Greenbaum, 40–71. Beverly Hills: Sage. 18 Martin Adam S–V Semantic Ainity in Presentation Sentences with Preverbal Rhematic Subject - - -. 1992. Functional Sentence Perspective in Written and Spoken Communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. - - -. 1995. On the hematic and the Rhematic Layers of a Text. In Organization in Discourse: Proceedings from the Turku Conference, Anglicana Turkuensia 14, ed. B. Warwik, S.–K. Tauskanen and R. Hiltunen, 59–72. Turku: University of Turku. Lewis, C.S. 1950. he Chronicles of Narnia. he Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. London: Harper Collins. Lodge, D. 1979. Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses. London: Penguin Books. Mathesius, V. 1975. A Functional Analysis of Present Day English on a General Linguistic Basis. Prague: Academia. Quirk, R., S. Greenbaum, G.N. Leech, and J. Svartvik. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman. Svoboda, A. 2005. Firbasian semantic scales and comparative studies. In Patterns (A Festschrift for Libuše Dušková), ed. J. Čermák, 217–29. Prague: Charles University. - - -. 2006. Firbasovy sémantické škály a komunikační strategie [Firbasian semantic scales and communicative strategy]. In Pocta Evě Mrhačové, ed. J. Hubáček, 215–27. Ostrava: Ostrava University. Svobodová, J. 1966. Some notes on sentences containing the non–thematic subject. M.A. diss., Masaryk University. LANGUAGE 19 20 DOI: 10.4312/elope.10.2.21-32 Paul Brocklebank Department of Liberal Arts Tokyo University of Technology Johnson and the Eighteenth–Century Periodical Essay: A Corpus–Based Approach Summary he style of Samuel Johnson’s essays for the periodicals he Rambler, he Adventurer and he Idler is quite diferent from that of earlier eighteenth–century essayists such as Joseph Addison and Jonathan Swift. However, despite advances in recent years in corpus–based stylistic approaches to texts, a comparison of these three authors using current corpus–analytic techniques has yet to be attempted. his paper reports on the irst stages of such a project. Johnson’s essays are compared with Addison and Swift’s essays using WordSmith Tools 5, and an analysis of keywords, semantic groupings of keywords, and key collocations of keywords in Johnson’s essays are identiied. It is argued that a keyword analysis brings to the fore grammatical aspects of Johnsonian sentence patterns and provides empirical support for what have hitherto been only intuitively–based statements regarding his style. Also, further patterns in the data will be identiied through a phraseological analysis of the essays focusing on the most common four–word clusters (4–grams) that Johnson uses. Key words: corpus stylistics, corpus linguistics, keywords, 4–grams, eighteenth century periodical essays, Samuel Johnson Johnson in periodični eseji 18. stoletja: korpusni pristop Povzetek Slog v esejih Samuela Johnsona, ki so izhajali v časopisih he Rambler, he Adventurer in he Idler se precej razlikuje od sloga pisanja drugih esejistov zgodnjega 18. stoletja, kot sta na primer Joseph Addison in Jonathan Swift. V zadnjem času je sicer prišlo do napredka v stilističnih raziskavah besedil s pomočjo korpusnega pristopa, vendar bo besedila omenjenih treh avtorjev še potrebno primerjati s pomočjo korpusno–analitičnih tehnik. Članek predstavlja prve faze tega projekta. Johnsonove eseje primerjamo z eseji Addisona in Swifta s pomočjo orodja WordSmith Tools 5 in prepoznavamo ključne besede, semantične skupine ključnih besed ter ključne kolokacije ključnih besed v Johnsonovih esejih. Trdimo, da analiza ključnih besed potisne v ospredje slovnične vidike Johsnonovih stavčnih vzorcev in tako zagotovi tudi empirično podporo za sedanje intuitivne trditve o Johnsonovem slogu pisanja. Druge vzorce bomo pridobili s pomočjo frazeološke analize esejev, ki se bo omejila na štiri–besedne sklope (4–gram), ki so značilni za Johnsona. Ključne besede: korpusna stilistika, korpusno jezikoslovje, ključne besede, 4–gram, periodični eseji iz 18. stoletja, Samuel Johnson UDK 811.111’367.5:81’38’42 – 116.3 LANGUAGE 21 Johnson and the eighteenth–Century Periodical essay: A Corpus–Based Approach 1. Introduction A recent trend in corpus stylistics has been to apply corpus–based approaches such as keyword analysis (see Scott 2002) and cluster analysis (as in Mahlberg 2007, 2009) to ictional texts, mainly novels. his paper reports on an attempt to extend the use of these techniques to the eighteenth– century periodical essay, focusing on an examination of Samuel Johnson’s essays in he Rambler, he Adventurer and he Idler, as compared with essays written by Jonathan Swift and Joseph Addison in the earlier years of the same century. Johnson’s distinctive style has often been acknowledged, not only by scholars interested in the stylistics of eighteenth–century prose (see, for example, Wimsatt 1941, 1948, and McIntosh 1998), but also by his contemporaries. Indeed, Wimsatt (1941, 133) goes as far as to say, ‘he Rambler style made a splash. Johnson is himself an event in the history of English prose. His style was recognized by contemporaries as “something extraordinary, a prodigy or monstrosity, a huge phenomenon.” ’ However, while certain idiosyncrasies of this prose style were identiied by Wimsatt (1941), such as (syntactic and semantic) parallelism, antithesis and philosophic diction (meaning the use of scientiic terminology derived from Greek and Latin sources), there has not yet been an attempt to employ more recent techniques from corpus linguistics to Johnson’s periodical essays. his paper amounts to a irst step towards doing this. Using Mike Scott’s WordSmith Tools software (Scott 2007) I attempt to use keyword and cluster techniques in order to reveal what makes Johnson’s prose style distinctive vis–a–vis the earlier stylistic models of Swift and Addison. 2. he data his study focuses on the periodical essays that Johnson contributed to three publications from 1750 to 1760 – he Rambler (1750–52), contributions to which make up the bulk of the essays, he Adventurer (1752–54) and he Idler (1758–60). he text of he Rambler came from the Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia (http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/etext/index.html). To enable analysis, the HTML pages for these essays were downloaded and converted into text format. Text iles of he Adventurer and he Idler essays came straight from Project Gutenberg (http:// www.gutenberg.org/). For all the essays I carried out some pre–editing of the text by removing the Latin and Greek mottos at the beginning of each contribution and deleted any lengthy quotation, whether poetry or prose, and whether in Latin, Greek, English or any other language. he data with which Johnson’s periodical output is compared comprises those essays by Addison and Swift that are readily available in electronic format at Project Gutenberg. hese were all of Addison’s contributions to he Spectator, and those periodical essays by Swift that were published in he Tatler, he Examiner, he Spectator and he Intelligencer. he Addison and Swift essays were pre–edited in the same way as the Johnson essays. he composition of the three text iles/corpora is summarized in Table 1: 22 Paul Brocklebank Johnson and the Eighteenth–Century Periodical Essay: A Corpus–Based Approach Johnson 323 (he Rambler: 203, he Adventurer: 29, he Idler: 91) Addison 255 – all from he Spectator Swift 54 (he Tatler: 17, he Examiner: 33, he Spectator: 1, he Intelligencer: 3) Table 1. Composition of the three writers’ text iles. 2.1 Keywords and their key collocates his corpus–based analysis of Johnson’s essays involves an examination of lexical diferences between these essays and those of Addison and Swift. his section will look at the most statistically– signiicant keywords and the main collocates that they pattern with, Section 2.2 narrows the focus to key content words, and Section 2.3 deals with key four–word clusters (also known as four–word strings or ‘4–grams’). he notion of keyword is now a familiar one in corpus linguistics. A keyword is a word that appears in a particular corpus a statistically signiicant number of times more often than in another (usually larger) ‘reference corpus.’ Keywords, therefore, are lexical items that are prominent or foregrounded in [Text A] when contrasted with their use (or non–use) in [Text B]. he semantic content of keywords is seen as a good indicator of the foregrounded content of a text, relecting what the text is ‘about’. For examples of research in corpus stylistics where this idea of ‘keyness’ plays an important role, see Scott (2002), Rayson (2008), Culpeper (2009), and Fischer–Starcke (2009). If we look at the number of tokens in each text ile (see Table 2) one can observe that the Johnson corpus at 434,344 tokens is slightly larger than the combined size of the Addison and Swift reference corpus at 412,572 tokens. In addition, the Addison section of this reference corpus is over three and a half times larger than the section containing Swift’s essays. Table 2. Number of tokens in each section of the text iles. his lack of balance is potentially problematic. Merely combining the Swift and Addison text iles and comparing this single corpus with Johnson’s essays risks producing misleading results, as the comparison would lack balance and be heavily weighted towards Addison. herefore, to give a more equitable comparison, when calculating the Johnsonian keywords I decided to run each comparison separately before merging the two sets of results. LANGUAGE 23 Two lists of keywords were generated, one for Johnson versus Addison, the other for Johnson versus Swift. To do this I used the WordSmith Tools KeyWords program, which takes two wordlists and carries out a proportional statistical comparison by applying a log–likelihood test of signiicance to the frequency scores of each word in the lists. Application of this statistical test results in a ‘keyness score’ being obtained for each keyword, and the KeyWords program outputs an ordered list of keywords. Positive keywords are those words which appear in Text A proportionally more often than in Text B, whereas negative keywords are those which appear proportionally less often. For this study, probability was set to p < 0.00001 and the minimum number of hits for inclusion in the list of keywords was 3. With these settings 525 positive keywords were generated for Johnson versus Addison and 124 positive keywords for Johnson versus Swift. hese two lists were then reduced to a single ‘key keyword list’ of 92 ‘key keywords’ by selecting only those words that were common to both lists. Finally, a combined ranking list of ‘key keywords’ was compiled by taking the keyness scores for each word and then calculating the average score. Below are the top ten ‘key keywords’ for Johnson’s essays: Key keywords BY WITHOUT CAN AND OR HAPPINESS ALWAYS LIFE EVERY NO Frequency in J 5,291 1,382 1,279 16,002 3,732 420 755 988 1,564 1,558 Table 3. Key keywords in Johnson’s periodical essays. Most of these most prominent keywords are functional (two prepositions BY and WITHOUT, a modal CAN, two conjunctions AND and OR, and two determiners NO and EVERY), and the only content words are HAPPINESS, ALWAYS and LIFE. he predominance of function words is somewhat surprising as it is often assumed that the main purpose of a keyword analysis is to identify the ‘aboutness’ of a text, and that therefore items such as content words and proper nouns will rise to the top of the list. In this case it is possible that the results relect basic diferences in sentence structure between Johnson and the earlier essayists. For example, it is likely that the presence of the two conjunctions points to a greater use of coordinate structures in the former, whether at the sentence or phrase level. Since Wimsatt (1941) it has been acknowledged that one signature of Johnson’s style is the large amount of parallelism in the essays, where in many instances a conjunction operates as a ‘hinge’ between parallel elements (see below for further evidence of this parallelism in the data that WordSmith brings to our attention). 24 Paul Brocklebank Johnson and the Eighteenth–Century Periodical Essay: A Corpus–Based Approach