Grammatical, semantic, and FSP functions of word order

Question 1

What type of languages are Czech and English?

Answer 1

Czech: Synthetic - free WO, syntactic relations expressed by inflections

English: Analytic - strict WO, syntactic relations expressed analytically - auxiliaries, prepositions

Question 2

How does Prague Linguistic Circle see a sentence?

Answer 2

A sentence is seen as a unit of information divided into two parts: Theme (topic) and Rheme (focus). There is a contextual dependence - the theme->focus progression.

Question 3

How are sentences formed according to the FSP?

Answer 3

Sentences structured according to the following rules: 1) which part should be the topic, and about which part we want to talk about/bring more information; 2) which part of the sentence we want to highlight.

Question 4

What is communicative dynamism? What are the names?

Answer 4

Firbas, Svoboda.

Different elements in sentences are carrying different levels of communicative dynamism. Theme has low CD, verbs have medium CD, and rheme has high CD.

Question 5

What are the FSP principles?

Answer 5

1. Topic-initial principle.
2. End-focus principle.
3. End-weight principle.

Question 6

How can we marked WO?

Answer 6

pre-posing, postposing, changing object position, existential sentences, extraposition (anticipatory it), locative/temporal subject.

Question 7

Thematic progression?

Answer 7

Simple linear theme, constant theme (one hypertheme), derived theme (one hyper theme+subtopics), split rheme pattern.