Dislocation, preposing and postposing
This section covers three strategies for moving elements within the clause that do not require other types of grammatical changes. Using dislocation involves leaving a pronoun in place of the shifted element, while preposing and postposing do not involve anything other than word order changes. All three strategies are used to highlight particular elements in the clause for pragmatic reasons.
Contents1. Dislocation 2. Preposing 3. Postposing Related pages |
Dislocation
Dislocation involves an external noun phrase at the left or right hand end of the clause. Prosody or punctuation indicate that the noun phrase is not part of the clause proper. The purpose of the external noun phrase is to provide information about the identity of a pronoun that has been inserted into the clause in place of the full noun phrase.
Basic clause |
Dislocated clause |
|---|---|
Spring blossoms smell wonderful. |
Spring blossoms, they smell wonderful. |
I weeded the garden. |
The garden, I weeded it. |
The above examples show left dislocation, where a phrase from the clause is moved to the start of the sentence and established as the topic.
It is also possible to move a phrase to the end of the clause, right dislocation. Once again, a pronoun is used in place of the phrase within the clause. In final position the phrase is presented as new information, as part of the comment.
Basic clause |
Dislocated clause |
|---|---|
Spring blossoms smell wonderful. |
They smell wonderful, spring blossoms. |
I weeded the garden. |
I weeded it, the garden. |
Preposing
Preposing moves something from the comment to make it the topic. As the following examples show, many types of constituents can be moved in this way.
Basic clause |
Preposing |
|---|---|
Jude said Sarah could take them. |
Sarah, Jude said, could take them. [Subject in complement clause] |
I love beans. |
Beans, I love. [Object] |
I had swimming lessons as a child. |
As a child I had swimming lessons. [Adjunct] |
The doctor is very understanding. |
Very understanding the doctor is. [Predicative complement] |
Postposing
Postposing moves heavy elements to the end of the clause.
Sarah gave the most wonderful gift to Jude. [basic clause]
Sarah gave to Jude the most wonderful gift. [postposed object]
Someone who says they've known you for years called me up. can be reformulated as:
Someone called me up who says they've known you for years. [postposed relative clause from subject noun phrase]