Chapter XXV

FUNCTIONAL SENTENCE PERSPECTIVE

In studying the structure of a sentence, we are faced with a problem which has been receiving ever greater attention in linguistic investigations of recent years. This is the problem of dividing a sen-tenсe into two sections, one of them containing that which is the starting point of the statement, and the other the new information for whose sake the sentence has been uttered or written. This has been termed "functional perspective". We will illustrate it by a pimple example. Let us take this sentence from a contemporary novel: I made the trip out here for curiosity, just to see where you were intending to go. (M. MITCHELL) Here the words I made the trip out here are the starting point, and the rest of the sentence (for... go) contains the new information. It cannot be said that every sentence must necessarily consist of two such sections. Some sentences (especially one-member sentences) cannot be divided up in this way, and doubts are also possible about some other types. However, most sentences do consist of these two sections and the relation between the syntactic structure of the sentence and its division into those two sections presents a linguistic problem deserving our attention.

Before we go on to study the problem it will be well to establish the terms which we will use to denote the sections of a sentence from this viewpoint.

There have been several pairs of terms proposed for this purpose, such as "psychological subject" and "psychological predicate", "lexical subject" and "lexical predicate", "semantic subject" and "semantic predicate", and others. Some of these are distinctly unacceptable, as they either suggest a wrong view of the phenomena in question, or are incompatible with our general principles for analysing language phenomena.

Thus, the terms "psychological subject" and "psychological predicate", proposed by the German scholar H. Paul, ¹ obviously will not do, as they introduce a notion of individual psychology, which lies beyond the sphere of linguistic investigation: the question we are discussing is not, what individual interpretation an individual reader or hearer may give to a sentence but what is objectively expressed in it, independently of a hearer's personal views or tastes.

The terms "lexical subject" and "lexical predicate", proposed by Prof. A. Smirnitsky,² will not do either, because they appear to take the whole problem out of the sphere of syntactic study and to include it into that of lexicology, which, however, has nothing to

¹ See H. Paul, Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte, 5. Aufl., 1937, S. 124.

² See А. И. Смирницкий, Синтаксис английского языка, стр. 110.

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do with it. We are not going to analyse the lexical meanings of individual words, which are treated in lexicology, but the function of a word or word group within a sentence expressing a certain thought; their function, that is, in expressing either what is already assumed or what is new in the sentence uttered.

We would rather avoid all terms built on the principle of combining the already existing terms "subject" and "predicate" with some limiting epithets, and use a pair of terms which have not yet been used to express any other kind of notion.

The pair of terms best suited for this purpose would seem to be "theme" and "rheme", which came into use lately, particularly in the works of several Czech linguists, who have specially studied the problem, notably with reference to the English language, both from the modern and from the historic viewpoint. Among the Czech scholars who have widely used these terms we should first of all mention Jan Firbas, who has developed a theory of his own on the historical development of the English language in this sphere.¹

The terms "theme" and "rheme" are both derived from Greek, and are parallel to each other. The term "theme" comes from the Greek root the- 'to set', or 'establish', and means 'that which is set or established'. The term "rheme" is derived from the root rhe -'to say', or 'tell', and means 'that which is said or told' (about that which was set or established beforehand). These terms are also convenient because adjectives are easily derived from them: "thematic" and "rhematic", respectively.

What, then, are the grammatical means in Modern English which can be used to characterise a word or word group as thematic, or as rhematic? We should note in passing, however, that it will hardly be possible to completely isolate the grammatical from the lexical means, and we shall have to discuss some phenomena which belong to lexicology rather than grammar, pointing out in each case that we are doing so.

The means of expressing a thematic or a rhematic quality of a word or phrase in a sentence to a great extent depend on the grammatical structure of the given language and must differ considerably, according to that structure.

Thus, in a language with a widely developed morphological system and free word order, word Order can be extensively used to show the difference between theme and rheme. For instance, word order plays an important part from this viewpoint in Russian. Without going into particulars, we may merely point out the difference between two such sentences as Старик вошел and Вошел

¹ See J. Firbas, Some Thoughts on the Function of Word-Order in Old English and Modern English. Sbornik prací filosofické fakulty brnenské university, 1959,

The Rheme 193

старик. In each case the word (or the part of the sentence) which comes last corresponds to the rheme, and the rest of the sentence to the theme. It is quite clear that no such variation would be possible in a corresponding English sentence. For instance we could not, in the sentence The old man came in, change the order of words so as to make the words the old man (the subject of the sentence) correspond to the rheme instead of to the theme. Such a word order would be impossible and we cannot make the words old man express the rheme without introducing further changes into the structure of the sentence.

In Modern English there are several ways of showing that a word or phrase corresponds either to the rheme or to the theme. We will consider the rheme first.

A method characteristically analytical and finding its parallel in French is the construction it is... that (also it is... who and it is... which) with the word or phrase representing the rheme enclosed between the words it is and the word that (who, which). Here are some examples of the construction: For it is the emotion that matters. (HUXLEY) Emotion is in this way shown to represent the rheme of the sentence. But it was sister Janet's house that he considered his home. (LINKLATER) Sister Janet's house represents the rheme.

In the following sentence the adverbial modifier of place, here, is thus made the rheme, and the sentence is further complicated by the addition of a concessive though- clause. It was here, though the place was shadeless and one breathed hot, dry perfume instead of air — it was here that Mr Scogan elected to sit. (HUXLEY) Without this special method of pointing out the rheme, it would be hardly possible to show that the emphasis should lie on the word here. In the variant Mr Scogan liked to sit here, though the place was shadeless and one breathed hot, dry perfume instead of air the emphasis would rather lie on the word liked: he liked it, though it was shadeless, etc.

Could it be, he mused, that the reliable witness he had prayed for when kneeling before the crippled saint, the mirror able to retain what it reflected like the one with the dark, gilded eagle spread above it before him now, were at fault in so far as they recorded all the facts when it was, after all, possibly something at another level that more crucially mattered?___(BUECHNER) The phrase emphasised by means of the it is... that construction is, of course, something at another level. The peculiarity of this example is that two parentheses, after all and possibly, come in within the frame of it is... that.

In the following example a phrase consisting of no less than eleven words is made into the rheme by means of the it is... that construction. It was his use of the highly colloquial or simply the

7 Б. A. Ильиш

194 Functional Sentence Perspective

ungrammatical expression that fascinated her in particular, for in neither case, clearly, did he speak in such a manner out of ignorance of the more elegant expression but, rather, by some design. (BUECHNER)As the that is far away from the is, it seems essential that nothing should intervene between them to confuse the construction, and, more especially, no other that should appear there.

The question of the grammatical characteristic of such sentences will be dealt with in Chapter XXXV (p. 276) and Chapter XXXVII (p. 302).

Another means of pointing out the rheme in a sentence is a particle (only, even, etc.) accompanying the word or phrase in question. Indeed a particle of this kind seems an almost infallible sign of the word or phrase being representative of the rheme, as in the sentence: Only the children, of whom there were not many, appeared aware and truly to belong to their surroundings, for the over-excited games they played, dashing in and out among the legs of their elders, trying to run up the escalator that moved only down, and the like, were after all special games that could be played nowhere but in the station by people who remembered that it was in the station they were. (BUECHNER) The particle only, belonging as it does to the subject of the sentence, the children, singles it out and shows it to represent the rheme of the sentence.

It goes without saying that every particle has its own lexical meaning, and, besides pointing out the rheme, also expresses a particular shade of meaning in the sentence. Thus, the sentences Only he came and Even he came are certainly not synonymous, though in both cases the subject he is shown to represent the rheme by a particle referring to it.

'Another means of indicating the rheme of a sentence may sometimes be the indefinite article. Whether this is a grammatical or lexical means is open to discussion. The answer will depend on the general view we take of the articles, a problem we have been considering in Chapter IV. Treating the article here in connection with functional sentence perspective is justified, as it does play a certain part in establishing the relations between the grammatical structure of a sentence and its functional perspective.

Owing to its basic meaning of "indefiniteness" the indefinite article will of course tend to signalise the new element in the sentence, that which represents the rheme. By opposition, the definite article will, in general, tend to point out that which is already known, that is, the theme. We will make our point clear by taking an example with the indefinite article, and putting the definite article in its place to see what consequence that change will produce in the functional sentence perspective.

Let us take this sentence: Suddenly the door opened and a little birdlike elderly woman in a neat grey skirt and coat seemed almost

The Indefinite Article and the Rheme 195

to hop into the room. (A. WILSON) The indefinite article before little birdlike elderly woman shows that this phrase is the centre of the sentence: we are told that when the door opened the person who appeared was a little birdlike elderly woman. This meaning is further strengthened by the second indefinite article, the one before neat grey skirt and coat. Since the woman herself is represented as a new element in the situation, obviously the same must be true of her clothes.

Now let us replace the first indefinite article by the definite. The text then will be Suddenly the door opened and the little bird-like elderly woman in a neat grey skirt and coat seemed almost to hop into the room. This would mean that the woman had been familiar in advance, and the news communicated in the sentence would be, that she almost hopped into the room. The indefinite article before neat grey skirt and coat would show that the information about her clothes is new, i. e. that she had not always been wearing that particular skirt and coat. This would still be a new bit of information but it would not be the centre of the sentence, because the predicate group seemed almost to hop into the room would still be more prominent than the group in a neat grey skirt and coat. Finally, if we replace the second indefinite article by the definite, too, we get the text Suddenly the door opened and the little birdlike elderly woman in the neat grey skirt and coat seemed almost to hop into the room. This would imply that both the elderly little woman with her birdlike look and her grey skirt and coat had been familiar before: she must have been wearing that skirt and coat always, or at least often enough for the people in the story and the reader to remember it. In this way the whole group the little birdlike elderly woman in the neat grey skirt and coat would be completely separated from the rheme-part of the sentence.

This experiment, which might of course be repeated with a number of other sentences, should be sufficient to show the relation between the indefinite article and the rheme, that is, functional sentence perspective.

There are also some means of showing that a word or phrase represents the theme in a sentence. Sometimes, as we have just seen, this may be achieved by using the definite article. Indeed the contrast between the two articles can be used for that purpose.

But there are other means of pointing out the theme as well. One of them, which includes both grammatical and lexical elements, is a loose parenthesis introduced by the prepositional phrase as for (or as to), while in the main body of the sentence there is bound to be a personal pronoun representing the noun which is the centre of the parenthetical as-for -phrase. This personal pronoun may perform different syntactical functions in the sentence but more often than not it will be the subject. A typical example of this sort of

196 Functional Sentence Perspective

construction is the following sentence: As for the others, great numbers of them moved past slowly or rapidly, singly or in groups, carrying bags and parcels, asking for directions, perusing timetables, searching for something familiar like the face of a friend or the name of a particular town cranked up in red and gold... (BUECHNER) After the theme of the sentence has been stated in the prepositional phrase as for the others, the subject of the sentence, great numbers of them, specifies the theme (pointing out the quantitative aspect of the others) and the rest of the sentence, long as it is, represents the rheme, telling, in some detail, whatever the others were busy doing at the time.

Sometimes a word or phrase may be placed in the same position, without as for: The manuscript so wonderfully found, so wonderfully accomplishing the morning's prediction, how was it to be accounted for? (J. AUSTEN) Here the first half of the sentence, from the beginning and up to the word prediction, represents the theme of the sentence, while the rest of it represents its rheme. The pronoun it of course replaces the long phrase representing the theme.

Here are a few more examples of the word or phrase representing the theme placed at the beginning of the sentence as a loose part of it, no matter what their syntactical function would have been if they had stood at their proper place within the sentence. That laughter — how well he knew il! (HUXLEY) There are two possible ways of interpreting the grammatical structure of this sentence. First let us take it as a simple sentence, which seems on the whole preferable. Then the phrase that laughter must be said to represent the theme of the sentence: it announces what the sentence is going to be about. In the body of the sentence itself it is replaced by the pronoun it, which of course is the object. Another possible view is that the sentence is an asyndetic composite one. In that case the phrase that laughter is a one-member exclamatory clause, and the rest of the sentence is another clause.

A somewhat similar case is the following, from the same author: His weaknesses, his absurdities — no one knew them better than he did. Just as in the preceding example, it seems preferable to view the sentence as a simple one, with the words his weaknesses, his absurdities representing the theme.

There are two more points to make concerning functional sentence perspective:

(1) The theme need not necessarily be something known in advance. In many sentences it is, in fact, something already familiar, as in some of our examples, especially with the definite article. However, that need not always be the case. There are sentences in which the theme, too, is something mentioned for the first time and yet it is not the centre of the predication. It is something about which a statement is to be made. The theme is here the starting

The Theme 197

point of the sentence, not its conclusion. This will be found to be the case, for example, in the following sentence: Jennie leaned forward and touched him on the knee (A. WILSON) which is the opening sentence of a short story. Nothing in this sentence can be already familiar, as nothing has preceded and the reader does not know either who Jennie is or who "he" is. What are we, then, to say about the theme and the rheme in this sentence? Apparently, there are two ways of dealing with this question. Either we will say that Jennie represents the theme and the rest of the sentence, leaned forward and touched him on the knee its rheme. Or else we will say that there is no theme at all here, that the whole of the sentence represents the rheme, or perhaps that the whole division into theme and rheme cannot be applied here. Though both views are plausible the first seems preferable. We will prefer to say that Jennie represents the theme, and emphasise that the theme in this case is not something already familiar but the starting point of the sentence.

The same may be said of most sentences opening a text. Let us for instance consider the opening sentence of E. M. Forster's "A Passage to India": Except for the Malabar Caves — and they are twenty miles off — the city of Chandrapore presents nothing extraordinary. Leaving aside the prepositional phrase except for the Malabar Caves and the parenthetical clause and they are twenty miles off, the main body of the sentence may be taken either as containing a theme: the city of Chandrapore, and a rheme — presents nothing extraordinary, or it might be taken as a unit not admitting of a division into theme and rheme. The first view seems preferable, as it was in the preceding example. Similar observations might of course be made when analysing actual everyday speech.

(2) Many questions concerning functional sentence perspective have not been solved yet and further investigation is required. It is by no means certain that every sentence can be divided into two clear-cut parts representing the theme and the rheme respectively. In many cases there are probably intermediate elements, not belonging unequivocally to this or that part, though perhaps tending rather one way or another. J. Firbas in his analysis of English functional sentence perspective has very subtly pointed out these intermediate elements and described their function from this viewpoint. ¹

The problem of functional sentence perspective, which appears to be one of the essential problems of modern linguistic study, requires further careful investigation before a complete theory of all phenomena belonging to this sphere can be worked out. The main principles and starting points have, however, been clarified to a degree sufficient to make such future studies fruitful and promising.

¹ See J. Firbas, ibid.

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