Subject-complement inversion

Sophia A. Malamud smalamud at brandeis.edu
Fri Jun 19 17:07:12 UTC 2009


The first thing that comes to mind is Betty Birner's work:

1996.  Birner, B. *The Discourse Function of Inversion in
English.*Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics. NY: Garland
Publishing.
Betty's subsequent work is also quite relevant and very good; it's listed in
her CV at http://www.engl.niu.edu/bbirner/vita.html

Best,
Sophia Malamud


On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 1:00 PM, <funknet-request at mailman.rice.edu> wrote:

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>   1. Subject-complement inversion (Thomas E. Payne)
>   2. Mirativity vs. Evidentiality? (jess tauber)
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> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:32:14 -0700
> From: "Thomas E. Payne" <tpayne at uoregon.edu>
> Subject: [FUNKNET] Subject-complement inversion
> To: "FUNKNET" <FUNKNET at mailman.rice.edu>
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> Can someone please remind me of research on the discourse functions of
> "subject-complement inversion" constructions in English? These are clauses
> like the following:
>
> Behind the counter crouched the thief.
> Up jumped the rabbit.
> Around the corner came the train.
> Under the bed scurried the cat.
> The best rider on the team is Marilyn.
> Great is thy faithfulness.
> In the kitchen is Mrs. Jones.
> On the wall hangs a portrait of Churchill.
>
> I don't mean "subject-object inversion" in utterance predicates. Neither
> existential/presentational constructions with "existential 'there'".
>
> Thanks so much for references to relevant (preferably recent) literature.
>
> Tom Payne
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:40:55 -0400 (GMT-04:00)
> From: jess tauber <phonosemantics at earthlink.net>
> Subject: [FUNKNET] Mirativity vs. Evidentiality?
> To: FUNKNET at mailman.rice.edu
> Message-ID:
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> 9529414.1245422456270.JavaMail.root at elwamui-polski.atl.sa.earthlink.net>
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> I've been reading Dixon/Aikhenvald's first volume of papers on
> evidentiality and have just learned of the existance of mirativity- so now I
> have a name I can put on the Yahgan suffix -ara with that function. However,
> it seems there is some issue over whether mirativity is properly part of the
> system of evidentiality generally.
>
> Has any consensus begun to form yet as to the relation here? Thanks.
>
> Jess Tauber
> phonosemantics at earthlink.net
>
>
> End of FUNKNET Digest, Vol 69, Issue 11
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