06 Theme vs.subject.ppt

Chapter 6
主题与主语
Chinese vs. English
只要用功读书,就能提高成绩。(隐含主语)
If one studies hard enough, one will …
国庆节七天我们第一天全家人北京路购物。(多主语)
On the first day of the seven-day National Day holiday, our whole family …
游泳非常消耗体力。(主语非名词)
Swimming is quite exhausting.
It is quite exhausting to swim.
刮风了,下雨了。(零位主语)
It is windy and rainy.
Chinese vs. English
Chinese: Topic-prominent language (话题占突显地位的语言)
English: Subject-prominent language(主语占突显地位的语言)
-- C. N. Li & S. A. Thompson in 1970s
English: Theme-Rheme主位:述位(Mathesius)
Theme is the primary element of a sentence; it is the subject being talked about and is known.
Rheme is the core element of a sentence; it is something the speaker wants to say about the theme, or something related to the theme.
Modern English sentences
83% -- 97% SVO (Jesperson)
Theme = Psychological Subject
Theme ≈ Subject
Features of the Subject in English
1. There must always be a subject;
2. The subject is the theme of the sentence that the verb structure describes;
3. The subject has grammatical control;
4. The subject must be a noun or a noun structure.
Chinese: ment话题:评说(Sapir)
Topic is the theme of a sentence.
Comment is narration about the theme.
Features of the Subject in Chinese
1. The subject is not essential;
2. The subject has no grammatical control over the whole sentence;
3. There can be more than one subject;
4. The subject can be a noun, verb, adjective or any such structures.
Difficulties with Chinese Subjects (SVO?):
1)宾踞句首
2)主谓谓语句
3)宾踞动前
4)主状不分
∴可以没有主语,也可以有多个主语,除名词以外,可以由动词,形容词,副词,介词短语,主谓结构担当主语。
Subject-prominent vs. Topic-prominent
A subject-prominent language (eg. English) is a language in which the grammatical units of subject and predicate (SV) are basic to the structure of sentences and in which sentences usually have subject-predicate structure.
A topic-prominent language (eg. Chinese) is one in which the information units of topic ment are basic to the structure of sentence.