Inversion in Modern English: Form and function (Studies in Discourse and Grammar)

Dorgeloh, Heidrun

ISBN 10: 1556193726 / ISBN 13: 9781556193729

Published by John Benjamins Publishing Compan, 1997

About this Item

Brand New! Sealed in publisher's shrinkwrap. Never opened! No signs of wear.

Seller Inventory # mon0002965849

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Inversion in Modern English: Form and function (Studies in Discourse and Grammar)
• Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Compan
• Publication Date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1556193726
• ISBN 13: 9781556193729
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Fine

About this title

Synopsis

The book offers a comprehensive study of the different forms of subject-verb and subject-auxiliary-inversion in Modern English declarative sentences. It treats inversion as a speaker-based decision for reordering within a fairly rigid word order system and identifies the meaning of the construction in terms of point of view and speaker subjectivity. This semantic claim is tested against the occurrence, as well as the absence, of the different forms of inversion in natural discourse.
The analysis of the pragmatics and discourse function of inversion is based on the LOB and the Brown corpus and takes into account various textual relations: British and American English, written mode, style, text type, genre. The results suggest a strong affinity with the greater or lesser subjectivity of a text: the construction is a marker of interpersonal meaning. Provided the context is one of relative unexpectedness, it additionally becomes a discourse marker, which points to the limited value of quantitative corpus data in functional syntax.