The lexico-structural/semantic progression in discourse topic construction: evidence from commento articles

In this article, Seuren’s notion of mod-proposition is taken as point of departure to address the question of discourse topic. Seuren distinguishes between the classic notion of proposition (flat-propositions) and modulated propositions (mod-propositions), and assigns to the latter a topic-comment m...

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Main Author: Pilar Alonso
Format: Article
Language:deu
Published: Ediciones Complutense 2013-04-01
Series:Círculo de Lingüística Aplicada a la Comunicación
Subjects:
Online Access:https://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/CLAC/article/view/41820
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author Pilar Alonso
author_facet Pilar Alonso
author_sort Pilar Alonso
collection DOAJ
description In this article, Seuren’s notion of mod-proposition is taken as point of departure to address the question of discourse topic. Seuren distinguishes between the classic notion of proposition (flat-propositions) and modulated propositions (mod-propositions), and assigns to the latter a topic-comment modulated structure which becomes essential to decide on the information structure of discourse, especially in terms of incrementation. Drawing from this propositional modulated status, different theoretical approaches to the notion of topic at sentence level are reviewed and special attention is paid to the syntactic functions identified by these theoreticians as predominantly topical. Then the empirical analysis of a small corpus of comment articles in English is used to classify the linguistic strategies employed in the construction of a global discourse topic; this procedure makes it possible to focus on those topics which gradually acquire global projection by re-use, in opposition to those pieces of information which are topical only at the local level. Based on this evidence, our research shows the linguistic mechanisms which allow for re-used topical information to gradually acquire subject status as discourse progresses and proposes thinking in terms of intermediate information structures as subsumers of local information and builders of global topics.
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spelling doaj.art-4b034ace73e14299afc547330f19005b2022-12-22T02:25:34ZdeuEdiciones ComplutenseCírculo de Lingüística Aplicada a la Comunicación1576-47372013-04-0144The lexico-structural/semantic progression in discourse topic construction: evidence from commento articlesPilar Alonso0Universidad de SalamancaIn this article, Seuren’s notion of mod-proposition is taken as point of departure to address the question of discourse topic. Seuren distinguishes between the classic notion of proposition (flat-propositions) and modulated propositions (mod-propositions), and assigns to the latter a topic-comment modulated structure which becomes essential to decide on the information structure of discourse, especially in terms of incrementation. Drawing from this propositional modulated status, different theoretical approaches to the notion of topic at sentence level are reviewed and special attention is paid to the syntactic functions identified by these theoreticians as predominantly topical. Then the empirical analysis of a small corpus of comment articles in English is used to classify the linguistic strategies employed in the construction of a global discourse topic; this procedure makes it possible to focus on those topics which gradually acquire global projection by re-use, in opposition to those pieces of information which are topical only at the local level. Based on this evidence, our research shows the linguistic mechanisms which allow for re-used topical information to gradually acquire subject status as discourse progresses and proposes thinking in terms of intermediate information structures as subsumers of local information and builders of global topics.https://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/CLAC/article/view/41820Discourse topicglobal topiclocal topiccomment article
spellingShingle Pilar Alonso
The lexico-structural/semantic progression in discourse topic construction: evidence from commento articles
Círculo de Lingüística Aplicada a la Comunicación
Discourse topic
global topic
local topic
comment article
title The lexico-structural/semantic progression in discourse topic construction: evidence from commento articles
title_full The lexico-structural/semantic progression in discourse topic construction: evidence from commento articles
title_fullStr The lexico-structural/semantic progression in discourse topic construction: evidence from commento articles
title_full_unstemmed The lexico-structural/semantic progression in discourse topic construction: evidence from commento articles
title_short The lexico-structural/semantic progression in discourse topic construction: evidence from commento articles
title_sort lexico structural semantic progression in discourse topic construction evidence from commento articles
topic Discourse topic
global topic
local topic
comment article
url https://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/CLAC/article/view/41820
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