theme vs rheme (also focus vs background/ presupposition)
1 Structure of utterances according to communicative criteria which can be tested by comparing question-answer pairs: Who sang the song? Caroline (sang the song). The information formulated in the question (sang the song) is the theme of the answer and is usually omitted in the answer; the information sought in the question is the rheme of the answer (Caroline). Previous mention is only one of many ways of thematizing linguistic material. The theme can also be understood from the context without previous mention. There are also utterances, especially at the beginning of a discourse, which contain only rhematic material. In contrast, an utterance without a rheme is uninformative and violates maxims of conversation.
The terms theme and rheme have been defined according to various criteria: The theme is often understood as ‘known,’ ‘given,’ ‘previously mentioned,’ or ‘presupposed’ information present in the context, while the rheme is defined as the negation of these characteristics. Although each of these criteria is relevant to a certain extent, they nevertheless do not suffice for a proper definition. For one thing, the terms used in the definition are themselves imprecise and need clarification. Another problem is that there are numerous counter examples: in the question-answer pair Who did you see? Your mother, the mother is known to both of the speakers, but is nevertheless the rheme of the answer. Reis (1977) has demonstrated that theme-rheme cannot be equated with presupposition-assertion. Furthermore, the unclear concept given/new information cannot be clarified with the feature [+previously mentioned], e.g. Numerous journalists managed to get into the courtroom. The judge pointed out to the journalists that… In spite of the previous mention in the first utterance, journalists is a part of the rheme in the second utterance, because this NP is embedded in another predication in the second utterance, and a themerheme analysis can only be made when consideration is given to the syntactic and semantic relations of an utterance. The problem posed by relational expressions (especially verbs) has led to the controversial assumption that theme-rheme structure should not be seen as binary but rather as scalar with degrees of commu-nicative dynamism (see Firbas 1964): the theme has the smallest and the rheme the highest degree of communicative dynamism, because the rheme promotes the communicative process the most. The verb is usually in the transitional zone between these two poles.
Formally, word order and stress (Hammond 1988) indicate which elements are functioning as the theme or the rheme of an utterance. In many languages either the left or the right periphery of a sentence is the preferred place for the rheme, such as in topicalization, left vs right dislocation, and cleft sentences, in English. The nuclear (i.e. main) sentence stress is placed within the rheme (as a universal law, see Gundel 1988; Harlig and Bardovi-Harlig 1988).
More recently, research on theme vs rheme has focused on universal laws for marking theme vs rheme (see the contributions in Hammond 1988), on how theme-rheme can be applied to other sentence types such as interrogatives and imperatives (see von Stechow, 1980), as well as on the relationship between theme-rheme and focusing particles.
2 Structure of utterance with regard to sentence topic (what is being talked about) and comment (what is being said about it) (topic vs comment).
The usages in 1 and 2 are often not sufficiently distinguished from each other in the research, resulting in numerous cases of terminological confusion which are further enhanced by the various definitional criteria. Thus for ‘theme’ we find the terms ‘topic,’ ‘background,’ ‘presupposition,’ and for ‘rheme,’ ‘comment,’ ‘focus,’ ‘predication’ (in various combinations).
References
Abraham, W., and S.de Meij (eds) 1986. Topic, focus, and configurationality. Amsterdam.
Chafe, W. 1976. Givenness, contrastiveness, definite-ness, subjects. topics and point of view. In C.N.Li (ed.), Subject and topic. New York. 25–56.
Dahl, Ö. (ed.) 1974. Topic and comment, contextual boundness and focus. Hamburg.
Daneš, F. 1974. Functional sentence perspective and the organization of the text. In F.Daneš and J. Firbas (eds). Papers on functional sentence perspective. The Hague. 106–28.
Daneš, F. and J.Firbas (eds) 1974. Papers on functional sentence perspective. The Hague.
Firbas, J. 1964. On defining the theme in functional sentence analysis. TLP 1.267–80.
Foley, W.A. and R.D.van Valin. 1985. Information packaging in the clause. In T.Shopen (ed.). Language typology and syntactic description. Cambridge. Vol. 1.282–364.
Givón, T. 1988. The pragmatics of word order: predictability, importance and attention. In M. Hammond et al. (eds), Studies in syntactic typology. Amsterdam. 243–84.
Gundel, J.K. 1977. The role of topic and comment in linguistic theory. Bloomington, IN.
——1988. Universals of topic-comment structure. In M.Hammond et al. (eds), Studies in syntactic typology. Amsterdam. 209–42.
Hammond, M. et al. 1988. Studies in syntactic typology. Amsterdam.
Harlig, J. and K.Bardovi-Harlig. 1988. Accentuation typology, word order and theme-rheme structure. In M.Hammond et al. (eds), Studies in syntactic typology. Amsterdam. 125–46.
Kuno, S. 1972. Functional sentence perspective. LingI 3.269–320.
Primus, B. 1993. Word order and information structure. In J.Jacobs et al. (eds), Syntax: an inter-national handbook of contemporary research. Berlin. 880–96.
Reis, M. 1977. Präsuppositionen und Syntax. Tübin-gen.
Rochemont, M.S. 1986. Focus in generative grammar. Amsterdam.
Sgall, P. et al. 1973. Topic, focus and generative semantics. Kronberg.
Von Stechow, A. 1980. Notes on topic and focus of interrogatives and indicatives. Constance.
Ward, G. 1988. The semantics and pragmatics of preposing. New York.
Weigand, E. 1979. Zum Zusammenhang von Thema/ Rhema und Subjekt/Prädikat. ZGL 7.167–89.
Bibliography
Tyl, Z. 1970. A tentative bibliography of studies in functional sentence perspective (1900–1970). Prague.
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