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27 - Register, Genre, and Style in the Romance Languages

from Part Six - Language, Society, and the Individual

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2022

By
Christopher Pountain  and
Rodica Zafiu
Edited by
Adam Ledgeway  and
Martin Maiden
Adam Ledgeway
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Martin Maiden
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
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Summary

The information-structural categories of focus and topic are examined with respect to the constructions in which they can feature, including fronting, dislocation, subject inversion, and presentational sentences. The role and effects of illocutionary force distinctions (e.g., declarative, interrogative, exclamative) and different predication types (thetic vs non-thetic predications) are also taken into consideration. Despite the many similarities, (micro)variation in this area proves quite considerable. In relation to Romance comparative data, this chapter shows that this variation can be accounted for by pragmatic-discourse factors and structural licensing principles that are indeed related to information structure.

Keywords

diaphasic variationdiscourse traditionstandardizationlinguistic changewritten languagespoken languagelinguistic purismliterary style
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Romance Linguistics , pp. 817 - 844
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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References

Selected References

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