See what "Rheme" is in other dictionaries. Topic rhema topic rhema topic complex rhema How to determine the topic and rhema of a sentence

When was the last time you asked yourself if your speech was logical? Are the sentences you write or speak really connected?

The problem of text coherence is perhaps the biggest problem that exists when writing an essay or expressing your thoughts orally. The issue of speech coherence is brought to the fore because it is often not realized by a person.

Types of connection between sentences

In the Russian language, there are two types of connection between sentences in the text: sequential and parallel.

The latter is most often used when describing something, for example, nature. Examples of the parallel type of connection between sentences in the text can be found in large numbers in the works of Prishvin, Paustovsky, Bianchi. In such texts, several sentences are logically connected with the first, which contains the main idea, while subsequent phrases only reveal it, illuminate it from different points of view.

We use the sequential type of connection of sentences much more often than the parallel one in everyday life. In particular, mastering this type is important when writing essays-reasonings for passing the Unified State Exam. It is important to note that if the problem of text coherence is solved, then two other problems that are relevant for the student immediately recede into the background: the problem of the volume of essays and the presence of semantic repetitions in it.

Main mistakes

The mistake is not always an insufficient number of words in the work; often teachers are faced with huge essays. Usually the problem with such material is the presence of speech errors, primarily repetitions, as well as the lack of coherence and logic of text construction: the student seems to “jump” from thought to thought, returning first to one, then to the other, repeating himself, rewriting what has already been said with new ones words.

Let's look at an example from life. Pay attention to how we walk. Each of our new steps is built on the basis of the previous one. We step, we test the ground, and if it is unsafe, we will not continue on our way.

Thus, we get a pattern of our walking: step - support or exploration of new territory - new step. Without relying on past experience, it is impossible to build anything new. This law has been proven by history; let us recall, for example, the futurists who wanted to “throw Pushkin off the ship of modernity,” but nevertheless relied on his poetry. Only after mastering the previous one can you take a new step.

Absolutely the same law works when constructing speech, written or oral. Sentences should not just stand side by side, there must be a connection between them: not only stylistic, but also logical.

What is a theme, what is a rhema?

Linguistics has its own terminology; if we turn to it, it will become obvious that the old step is called “theme”, and the new one is called “rheme”. Thus, each sentence contains the basis or support of thought - its theme, and each sentence also contains a new one - rhema. It is she who determines the content of the next step or sentence.

In a new phrase, the rheme of the previous sentence will turn into a theme, into something that has already been heard, mastered, and again a new rheme will be added, in which the thought that will be developed later will be heard. Let us immediately note that the rheme is the most important part of the sentence precisely because it contains information that is new to the reader or listener (remember that the main function of speech is communicative).

It is best if you place the rhema at the very end of the phrase: it attracts the most attention. So, look at any poem, the last words of the poetic line are the most striking, including because they rhyme. Parse the poem and you will see that these words contain rhemas.

Remember the steps again: we are always thinking about where to put our foot next. We also gradually move through the text we create. Try to learn how to ask a forecast question. By answering it, you will know exactly what the logic requires in the next sentence. If, for example, you wrote that one of the characters received a letter, it seems clear that next you will tell who the letter was from and what it contained.

Remember that every action must be conscious, this also applies to our speech. Make sure that it is smooth, connected, so that one sentence flows logically into another. Pay attention to the themes and rhes of your statements, and then you will be able to get rid of the main problem of speech.

The order of words in a sentence is the arrangement of its members in it. There is an opinion that the word order in Russian is free, i.e. that the members of the sentence are not assigned a specific place. Indeed, the predicate can appear either after the subject or before it; some types of adverbials and additions can occupy different places in a sentence and can be separated from those words with which they are connected grammatically and in meaning; even definitions that are most closely related to the words being defined can appear both before and after them. For example: This happened a long time ago. In ancient times... there lived a Kyrgyz tribe on the banks of a large and cold river. This river was called Enesai(Aitm.). In the first sentence, the subject comes after the predicate, but the adverbial clause appears not after the predicate, but after the subject. In the second sentence the circumstance in ancient times placed at the beginning of the sentence, and the predicate lived before the subject. The circumstance on the river bank is divorced from the predicate - the verb lived. The order of words in the last sentence is especially unusual, where the nominal part of the predicate Enesai comes before the connective called. There are other possible arrangements of words in these sentences: This happened a long time ago... This river was called Enesai; This happened a long time ago. This river was called Enesai. However, such permutations are not endless; they are determined and limited by the laws of construction of the Russian sentence. Consequently, if we can talk about a relatively free word order, then only in relation to some verbal complexes. Prepositions, conjunctions, particles always have a specific place in a sentence. Other words allow some freedom in placement, but the options for their location are also not unlimited. These restrictions are due to two reasons: structural connection between the components of a sentence and their semantic significance. The order of words can change due to the need to change the meaning, accentual qualities of a sentence and even change its structural characteristics, but within the limits of maintaining the general structural properties of the sentence as a syntactic unit.

So, word order acts as the “organizer” of a sentence: in order for a combination of word forms and phrases to become a sentence, they must be arranged in a certain order.

Syntactic and actual division of sentences. word order and context

A sentence as a unit of syntax has components called sentence members, which occupy certain syntactic positions. The division of a sentence from the point of view of its structural components is syntactic division, or grammatical; it involves identifying the structural core of the sentence - the subject and the predicate - and the members that distribute it. However, each sentence, implemented in speech in the form of a specific unit of message, is designed in accordance with a specific communicative task, and its grammatical structure depends on the tasks of the targeted message. The adaptation of the grammatical structure of a sentence as a result of inclusion in a particular speech situation to the tasks of communication is its actual division(term of the Czech linguist V. Mathesius [See: Mathesius V. About tak zvaném aktuálnim členĕni vĕtném // Cĕstina a obecnýjazykozpyt. Praha, 1947.]). Mathesius called the units that appear in the actual division the basis and core of the statement. - this is the starting point of the statement, often this is what is known, and core of the utterance- this is what is communicated, what the proposal is built and functions for.

There are other terms to designate two parts of a sentence, reflecting its actual division: theme and rheme, given and new, base and predicated part, etc.

Thus, a new aspect of sentence structure arises in speech, so a sentence with the same grammatical composition can receive different actual divisions. And therefore, the actual division is opposed to the grammatical one, although, of course, in some cases they may coincide.

The theme and rheme can include both main and secondary members of the sentence; their distribution between topic and rheme is regulated by the communicative task of the sentence. As a result of actual division, the sentence becomes dynamic unit of speech.

The actual division of a sentence can be differently related to its grammatical division. Let's take a declarative sentence Father will arrive tomorrow. It can be converted into an interrogative Will your father come tomorrow? However, such a “neutral” interrogative sentence cannot exist in speech, since it is unclear what answer is expected. Intonation highlighting of the word with which the content of the question is connected (carried out through logical stress) makes it possible to adapt this sentence to the needs of communication. Asking a question Will your father come tomorrow?, we use a speech situation in which the speakers know that the father will arrive, but the time of arrival is unknown. With a detailed answer, the proposal will look like this: Father will come and tomorrow(or the day after tomorrow ). From the point of view of actual division, the topic of the message in this sentence is the father will come, and the rheme (new in the message) is tomorrow, since the purpose of constructing this sentence is to indicate time, since everything else is known. From the point of view of grammatical division, the sentence is divided into other segments: father - subject; will arrive tomorrow - the composition of the predicate.

The grammatical composition of the sentence will remain unchanged during other communicative tasks that project messages with different meanings. So, if it is necessary to find out whether the father will come or not, we ask a question, emphasizing this very idea: Will your father come tomorrow? In response Father will arrive tomorrow the combination father tomorrow will be part of the topic, and the verb-predicate will come will take the position of rheme. A third version of the question (task) is also possible, the purpose of which is to find out who will come. In the answer to such a question, the starting point of the statement (topic) will be the combination will arrive tomorrow, and the name of the person (father) will make up the rheme: Father will arrive tomorrow.

Note. By asking a question, you can isolate the composition of the theme and rheme. For example, message Brother returned from the city allows three questions: Who returned from the city? Where did your brother come from? Came back(or did your brother not return from the city? Those components of the sentence that are included in the question will be included in the topic of the answer sentence; the same component of the sentence that will form the essence of the answer will take the position of rheme. Wed: Who returned from the city? - Brother returned from the city; Where did your brother come from? - Brother returned from the city; Brother returned from the city(or didn't return) ? - Brother returned from the city.

The subject of the message can be determined by the context. For example: There were squirrels in our garden. But they rarely appeared(Quiet.) The first sentence contains a message about the presence of squirrels. Therefore, in the second sentence this known thing (since they were found, they could have appeared) is placed at the beginning - But they appeared, and then something new is reported - rarely. Thus, with actual division, the sentence breaks up into parts, but they appeared and rarely; grammatically, the sentence is divided differently: They (subject) and appeared rarely(composition of the predicate). With actual division, in this case, both main members were combined into one component, and the secondary member of the sentence was separated into a special component of the actual division.

The grammatical division of a sentence into the composition of the subject and the composition of the predicate is determined by the positional structure of the sentence itself. Actual division depends on reasons external to a given sentence: on the context, speech situation. For example: We entered the room and heard a strange sound. The door creaked. The first sentence determined the topic of the next one - creaked. The rheme in this situation turned out to be the noun door, i.e. subject of grammatical division. Context determines the position of the topic at the beginning and the rheme at the end of the sentence. This order of arrangement of “actual” components is natural. However, the same idea can be conveyed in another way. Wed: We entered the room and heard a strange sound. The door creaked the door was in position. Since from the point of view of actual division this position of the rheme is unusual, it became necessary to use additional means to indicate this function. Logical stress turned out to be such a means. - this is a “special accent device”, which serves mainly to highlight the rheme in a sentence (the word that expresses the most significant thing in the message is highlighted in the rheme). In a combination of offers In the rays the old riverbed of the Oka stretches for many kilometers. His name is Prorva(Paust.) intonation is calmer, more natural, since the rheme of the second sentence - Prorvoy - takes the position corresponding to it. However, not all sentences need such emphasis (at least, they do not need to the same extent), since the sentence is not always divided into topic and rheme. A sentence, for example, can be entirely a rheme: It was a cloudy, cold autumn(Cossack.); The time we have been waiting for has come(Priv.).

The rheme is the main communicative component of a sentence, therefore a sentence without a rheme is impossible. At the same time, the topic, according to the conditions of the context, can be “omitted, for example, in an incomplete sentence, since it, as a rule, contains something already known. Wed: The officer took out a red pencil, slowly sharpened it with a safety razor blade, lit a cigarette, squinted and, looking for something on the map, put a bold cross. Then, having measured himself, he drew a straight line across the entire sea from Petrovsk to the marked place.(Paust.). In the second sentence the subject-subject is omitted.

With actual division, the usual sequence of components is considered transition from topic to rheme, since the topic is given by the previous context or speech situation, and the sentence repeats it, and then a component is placed that reports the unknown, new. Therefore, the order of words when moving from theme to rheme is direct (according to Mathesius, objective), and when moving from rheme to theme - reverse (according to Mathesius, subjective). The reverse order is also called inversion.

Thus, when considering the issue of word order, one cannot proceed from categories such as sentence members.

"The arrangement of words in speech mediated the arrangement of other units in which they are included - themes and rhes, and the composition of both units can include words of any categories.” Therefore, it is not entirely legitimate to define, for example, the placement of the subject before the predicate as direct word order, and the placement of the predicate before the subject as reverse order. And with direct word order, the grammatical predicate can take first place if the purpose of the utterance is to designate the character. This means that the order of words in a sentence cannot be considered in isolation from its actual division, and the concepts of “direct” and “reverse” word order do not mean the sequence of arrangement of the grammatical members of the sentence (subject, predicate, definition, object and circumstance), but the sequence of arrangement of the topic and rhemas and their components. The order of words in a sentence depends on its “communicative” meaning and cannot be self-determined. Word order is not an internal quality of a certain sentence structure, but a quality imposed on it from the outside: the structure and semantics of previous sentences, the communicative task, etc.

The direct dependence of word order on the actual division of the sentence is manifested in its obvious connection with the context. The word order of an individual sentence is determined not so much by its own grammatical structure as by the structure and semantics of the preceding sentences. The word order of each individual sentence included in the context is not arbitrary, but is subordinate to this context. Inversion of members of a separate sentence is very often a reflection of the laws of construction of a complex syntactic whole (see section “Complex syntactic whole”). Let's take an example: “Autumn Day in Sokolniki” is the only landscape by Levitan where a person is present, and it was painted by Nikolai Chekhov. After that, people never appeared on his canvases. They were replaced by forests and pastures, foggy floods and the poor huts of Russia, voiceless and lonely, as voiceless and lonely man was at that time(Paust.). The word order is relatively free only in the first sentence, which opens the story. As for the subsequent ones, here the order of words is entirely subordinated to the context, reflecting the sequential development of thought. Thus, the adverbial after this begins the second sentence, clearly under the influence of the semantics of the first, the subject people is also pulled closer to the first sentence due to the mention of this concept in the first sentence (cf. the word order predicate - subject after the determiner in a separate sentence). In the third sentence, their object clearly appeared before the controlling form of the verb due to the need to indicate the word forms in front. Preposition of the predicate was voiceless and alone is also connected with the text - the presence in front of single-root isolated definitions voiceless and lonely. Another example: These poems brought tears to Kiprensky. They had everything that he had loved since childhood - old gardens, cold wind, night clouds and a tender heart. Then this love for turbulent nature and the restless human heart grew stronger under the influence of time(Paust.). The first sentence is constructed relatively freely. Subject - predicate sequence, arrangement of dependent word forms ( these verses; brought tears to Kiprensky's eyes) - everything fixes the direct word order. The second sentence is constructed differently: the detachment of the dependent word form in them, the sequence predicate - subject (cf.: Everything was in them...). This word order is “imposed” by the first sentence. Further, in the third sentence, which begins with the determiner then, the expected usual order (usual in relation to a given, individual sentence) predicate - subject is violated. So the semantics of the sentence in front determined the topic of the subsequent one, and in this case the topic turned out to be the grammatical subject, which is why it is placed immediately after the determiner.

The main means of expressing actual division are the order of words and the place of stress (intonation): the sequence theme - rheme (objective, direct word order) and stress on the rheme component. However, there are additional means of expressing actual division - these are some particles that indicate either a theme or a rheme. For example, particles, then, most often highlight the theme: Abandoned estates are immediately overgrown with nettles, weeds and quinoa. Weeds are a symbolic symbol of desolation and abandonment(Sol.); Vaganov lost the desire to talk further. And it became annoying for someone(Shuksh.); He was witty and loved to elaborate his speech. And he equipped his speech with many different particles(G.). In an interrogative sentence, the particle highlights the rheme: Why buy something that is absolutely unnecessary for me?(T.). The indicator of rheme, however, is most often the particle not, used not before the predicate: By itself it is [water surface] didn't really scare me(Sol.); I woke up no longer in a dimly lit hut, but in a sunny bright hut(Sol.); Now I've been overtaken not a young man with a scraggly beard, and a thin sixty-year-old man(Sol.).

CURRENT MEMBER OF OFFER, a concept developed in the writings of the Prague Linguistic Circle in the 1930s to describe the functional components of a narrative sentence - rheme, or the part being communicated, and theme, the starting point of the message. According to the theory of actual division, in a sentence First year students are good the topic stands out first year students and rhema good, i.e. First year students are reported to be good. In some theories of the functional division of a sentence, topic and rheme are called, respectively, topic (topic) and focus (focus), or topic and comment (comment).

The problem of actual division is currently being actively developed within the framework of various theories of linguistic pragmatics. One of the theories of actual division - the theory of communicative dynamism - does not assume a binary division into theme and rheme, but a scalar one: the degree of communicative dynamism at the initial topic is minimal, and communicative dynamism increases as it moves towards the end of the sentence. The verb is assigned an average degree of communicative dynamism, i.e. it is understood as a transition between theme and rheme. This description applies only to those sentences in which the topic is followed by a rheme and the verb is located in the center.

The communicative goal of the speaker, putting his thought into the form of a declarative sentence, is to communicate something to the listener; therefore, the rheme can be considered as a constitutive communicative component of the message (i.e., the narrative sentence). The presence of a rheme in a declarative sentence distinguishes it, for example, from a question in which nothing is communicated, cf.: What time is it now? A question also has a constituent - actually interrogative - and there may be a non-constitutive (non-interrogative) communicative component. Yes, in the question Where Vadik met Marusya? the interrogative component is isolated Where and non-interrogative – Vadik met Marusya. The speaker knows that Vadik met Marusya, but does not know where it was, and asks a question about this.

The interrogative component has much in common with the rheme. However, the declarative sentence and the question are different types of speech acts with different communicative functions: the rheme, or what is communicated, is the constitutive communicative component of the message, i.e. declarative sentence, and the interrogative component is interrogative. The theory of actual division develops its conceptual apparatus primarily on the material of narrative sentences.

Other types of speech acts, in addition to the message and the question, also have constituent and may have non-constitutive components. So, in an imperative sentence Eat breakfast yourself constitutive component - eat it yourself and non-constitutive – breakfast: About breakfast it is said that it should be eaten. This sentence neither tells nor asks anything: the speaker tells the listener to eat breakfast alone. And in such a type of speech act as address ( Vasya!), there is only a constitutive component and there is no non-constitutive component in it.

There is always a constitutive component in each specific type of speech act, but there may not be a non-constitutive component. Yes, in a sentence It was freezing There is only a rhema, but no theme. Sentences without a topic are called communicatively indivisible. A sentence may have one topic, may not have any topic, or may have more than one topic. Yes, in a sentence Until 1962, many Arbat lanes ran on the site of the current New Arbat two topics: before 1962 And on the site of the current New Arbat. Each topic has or may have an intonation characteristic of the topic, and there is a pause between topics.

Rheme in Russian, English and many other languages ​​is expressed by a certain type of intonation. This is a falling accent, or falling tone. In a sentence It was freezing the fall is fixed on the stressed syllable of the word form freezing, i.e. word form freezing is the accent bearer of the rheme. The accent carrier of the rhema is also called the rhema proper. (In the examples below, the accent carrier is indicated in capital letters.)

One of the means of expressing a theme is rising intonation, and the theme also has an accent carrier. Yes, in a sentence Marusya lived in Kyiv(for example, when answering the question Which of your friends lived in Kyiv at that time??) word form Kyiv carries or may bear one of the types of rising intonation. In fluent speech, there may be no rise in tone on the topic. Thus, the theme, unlike the rheme, does not have a single means of expression. And rhema is always expressed in the same way - by falling.

The fall serves as a means of expression not only for rhema. So, if within a sentence a rise follows a fall, then this combination of accents is a means of expression for a question with a non-interrogative component placed at the beginning. In question And Vasya came? on the non-interrogative component Vasya a fall is recorded, and on the interrogative component came– a rise in tone characteristic of a Russian question without a question word. The fall is also used in the imperative sentence: Come in! Thus, a declarative sentence differs from an imperative sentence not in intonation, but only in the grammatical form of the verb (mood).

So, the combination of accents “rise-fall” and a single fall clearly indicate the speech act (illocutionary meaning, illocutionary function) of the message - provided that there are no lexical (interrogative words) or morphological (imperative mood) indicators of other types of illocutionary meanings in the sentence. And the combination of accents “fall - rise” and a single rise in Russian clearly indicate a question without a question word. Thus, the fall, if it is not followed by a rise and there are no lexical and morphological indicators of other illocutionary meanings, serves as a reliable means of identifying rheme.

The question arises. Let it be known that a certain sentence contains a word form marked by a fall in tone, and there are no indicators of illocutionary meanings other than the message. This means that the sentence has a rheme and that we have a message. Where then are the boundaries of the rheme (for the rheme can consist of more than just an accentuator)? Or, in other words, is there also a theme in this sentence, and if so, where is the border between theme and rheme? The answer to this question serves as the cornerstone of the theory of actual division, and the difficulties associated with obtaining this answer often lead critics of the theory to doubt the existence of linguistic phenomena called themes and rhes.

To find out where in a sentence the border between topic and rheme lies, you need to determine the scope of each of these communicative components. Let's consider this question from the point of view of the expression plan. Let us show that the volume of a communicative component - topic, rheme, non-interrogative component, etc. - is expressed by the choice of its accent carrier, i.e. that communicative components of different sizes may have different accents. Let's consider two sentences with the same lexical-syntactic structure, but different divisions into theme and rheme: Short SKIRTs are coming into fashion(this could be a message from a fashion show commentator) and Short skirts are in fashion. In a sentence Short SKIRTs are coming into fashion the fall is fixed on the word form skirts, and in a sentence with the same lexical-syntactic composition Short skirts are in fashion- on the word form fashion. In the first example, the subject of the message is the entire statement, i.e. We have before us an undivided sentence consisting of one rheme. In the second sentence, at least with one of its possible communicative interpretations, short skirts are reported to be in fashion. The rhema in it is a fragment come into fashion, and the topic is short skirts.

However, the choice of accent carrier does not solve the problem of drawing boundaries between theme and rheme. Firstly, the topic does not have a uniform expression; in particular, in fluent speech on the topic, no movement of tone may be recorded. Secondly, even though the rheme is always expressed by falling, with different volumes the accent carriers of the rheme may coincide. So, for components with different volumes - writes poems And poetry– one accent carrier: this is a word form poetry. Let's give an analogy from another area. It is known that the means of expressing case relations is the ending of the name. However, many words have some case endings (dative and prepositional, nominative and accusative) the same. There are also similarities in the choice of accent speakers, and there are more similarities than differences: homonymy in this area of ​​the language is very widespread. About many sentences, one can only say with certainty that they contain a rheme.

So, the rheme and its accent carrier play a formative role in a narrative sentence: the accent carrier phonetically forms the rheme, and the rheme makes the message a message.

Let us now turn to the content plan. The identification of theme and rheme in the analysis of sentences is significantly influenced by the nature of the correlation of the components of the actual division with the components of the information structure of the discourse. What is communicated (rheme) usually relates to information that has not yet been discussed in the current discourse. It is natural to communicate something that is new to the listener. And the topic usually includes what was just discussed. In discourse theory, what has already been discussed is called activated (given, old), and what is being spoken about for the first time is called non-activated (new). Activation is relative: it fades away as the current point of discourse moves away from the activated entities, unless they are reactivated.

The natural correlation of the rheme with the non-activated, and the theme with the activated or known, often leads in works on the theory of actual division and communicative structure to the substitution of the illocutionary meaning expressed by the rheme (message) with its informational correlates: non-activated and unknown. This is another controversial point in the theory of actual division.

Meanwhile, rheme is not equal to non-activated, and theme is not equal to activated, although often they correspond to the same fragments of a sentence. Rheme is the bearer of illocutionary meaning, and the category of non-activated describes the state of consciousness of the listener at a certain point in the discourse. An example of a discrepancy between the topic and the activated one is the first sentence of the recipe for making shortcrust pastry: . In this sentence, the information corresponding to the fragment in a deep bowl, is framed as a starting point - a topic. Thus, the speaker - in this case the cookbook compiler - pretends that the listener always has the deep dish at hand, although it is being spoken about for the first time. We can also give examples in which, on the contrary, the rheme is the activated: They offered me a coat and a fur coat. I bought a FUR COAT. In the second sentence of the example, the word form fur coat is included in the rheme and even serves as its accent bearer, meanwhile the fur coat was mentioned in the previous sentence. Another example: Pompey has no equal in his love for HIMSELF. Here's a snippet to myself is also included in the rhema - despite the fact that it denotes Pompey, whose name serves as the theme.

So, the theme may not coincide with the activated one, and the rheme may not coincide with the non-activated one. Therefore, replacing the categories of actual division - themes and rhes - with categories of information division of the text or categories of description of the states of consciousness of the interlocutors is illegal. The only function of a rheme is that it serves as a carrier of illocutionary meaning.

Despite the substantive difference between the actual division of a sentence and the informational one, one cannot help but admit that activation and prominence so naturally accompany the components of the actual division that they cannot but influence the distribution of quanta of information among topics and rhes when generating sentences. Activated information has little chance of being translated into a reported component, i.e. in rhema. Therefore, when analyzing the actual division of a sentence, one cannot ignore the information structure of the discourse.

Data on prominence and activation may, however, be insufficient for dividing sentences into communicative components, since the final decision about which piece of information will be put into a rheme and which into a topic is made by the speaker. And despite the fact that the context of the discourse can impose this or that choice on the speaker, the speaker still has a certain freedom in distributing quanta of information between topic and rheme and in determining the order of their occurrence - just as he is free in the choice of words and syntactic structures to express their meanings and communicative goals. Thus, the same meaning, depending on the will of the speaker, can be framed both as a theme and as a rheme: let’s compare the sentence Pour one glass of sour milk into a deep bowl, whose theme is in a deep bowl, and a couple of suggestions To prepare the dough, you should take a deep bowl. Then pour a glass of sour milk into it, in which in the first sentence in a deep bowl- this is rhema. Accordingly, when analyzing a sentence based on activation data, a complete reconstruction of the actual division with drawing the boundary between the constitutive and non-constitutive component, as well as an unambiguous answer to the question of why some quanta of information were embodied in a theme or rheme, and not vice versa, may turn out to be impossible.

So, neither the expression of the volume of the communicative component through the choice of accent carrier, nor the activation factor solves in most languages, in particular in Russian, the problem of drawing the line between theme and rheme. One of the languages ​​where this problem does not arise is Japanese: on the border of theme and rheme there is a particle wa, and if the sentence is undivided, the particle wa absent.

The theory of actual division and communicative structure usually considers not only the communicative meanings that form sentences as speech acts, but also those meanings that modify the components of speech acts. The main modifying values ​​are contrast and emphasis. They are superimposed on the meanings of the topic, rheme, components of the question and the imperative sentence, i.e. There are contrasting and emphatic themes, rhes, etc.

Contrast involves considering some isolated entity against the background of others similar to it. Contrast is expressed by increased intensity (loudness) - an intense fall or an intense rise (in the examples below, carriers of contrasting accents are marked in bold). In the example MASHA came with contrasting border Masha it is assumed that others could have come too, but they did not. The contrast is characterized by the context of the union but not:MASHA came, not Vasya. Example of a contrasting theme: Sunday the walk had to be postponed, and the walk,scheduled for Monday,turned out to be very unsuccessful. Contrasting imperative: You EAT ,don't talk. Contrastive non-interrogative component: A soup there WILL be? Many authors do not distinguish between contrast and rheme, believing that the idea of ​​choosing an element from a variety of alternatives is the essence of rheme. The question “rheme or contrast?” is also debatable. The above examples demonstrate the independence of rheme and contrast, as well as the compatibility of contrast with theme and other constitutive and non-constitutive meanings.

Emphasis involves the speaker expressing strong feelings about non-normative phenomena in life. An example of emphasis on a rhem: HUNDRED I gave it for her! Emphasis on the topic: like this huge There is no way I can eat a cutlet! Emphasis in the question: You already have SON ?! The term “emphasis” is used by some authors as a generic term for emphasis as an expression of strong feelings and contrast as the selection of one element from a number of similar ones.

Course work

"Theme-rheme system in the contrastive analysis of Russian and English languages"

Introduction

1. Main part

1.1 V. Mathesius “On the so-called actual division of a sentence”

1.3 Theme-remostic relations (using the example of Russian and English languages)

1.4 The concept of the linguist Bloch Mark Yakovlevich

2. Practical part

Literature

Introduction

In every sentence there are concepts such as topic and rheme. But they manifest themselves differently in different languages. Due to the fact that the Russian language has a free word order, our system of actual division (or thematic-rhematic) is very widely developed and flexible, while in the English language it is necessary to resort to the construction of certain constructions, which poses some difficulty for translators. In the Russian language, the system of actual division, carried out by means of intonation and word order, has a number of specific properties, just like in the English language.

It should be noted that the concept of thematic and rhematic division is very important in any language. The study of theme and rheme is an integral part in the study of the theory of grammar. These elements play a significant role when translating from one language to another or when analyzing a literary text, because if the topic and rheme in a sentence are chosen incorrectly, a misunderstanding of the meaning of the text may occur. In order to avoid such mistakes, let us first consider the thematic and rhematic division of a sentence from the points of view of different linguists. After all, there were, and still are, many opinions about what it is.

As you can see, thematic-rhematic division is a rather controversial issue, and it represents a huge problem in linguistics.

1. Main part

1 V. Mathesius “On the so-called actual division of a sentence”

The main elements of the actual division of a sentence are the starting point (or basis) of the utterance, that is, what is known in a given situation or, at least, can be easily understood and from which the speaker proceeds, and the core of the utterance, that is, what what the speaker communicates about the starting point of the utterance. The actual division of a sentence is a problem that linguistics has long paid attention to, but it has not been studied systematically, since the relationship between the actual division and the formal division of the sentence has not been clarified. Most people wrote about the actual division of a sentence (although without using this name) in the third quarter of the 19th century. Already in 1855, the French linguist Henri Weil drew attention to the importance of actual sentence division for solving the problem of word order; Linguists, grouped around the journal Zeitschrift f, worked diligently on this topic. ü r V ö lkerpsychologie". Linguists then called the starting point of a statement a psychological subject, and the core of a statement a psychological predicate. These terms were not successful, because, firstly, the starting point of a statement is not always its topic, which would seem to follow from term "psychological subject", secondly, the proximity of the terms "psychological subject" and "psychological predicate" does not in any way contribute to a clear differentiation of two, essentially different phenomena. The psychological overtones of both terms also led to the fact that this whole problem was supplanted from the field of view of official linguistics.

The starting point of an utterance is not always the topic of the utterance in a common sentence, although often both coincide. Most often this happens in a simple connected utterance, where the starting point is usually a topic that follows from the previous sentence. For example: “Once upon a time there was a king, and he had three sons. The eldest of them decided to go around the world and look for a bride.” As you can see, here the starting point of the second sentence is the topic presented in expanded form in the first sentence, and the starting point of the third sentence is the topic outlined in the second sentence. At the very beginning of the statement, when nothing is yet known, there is an existential sentence with the most general indication of time - “Once upon a time there was a king.” From the point of view of actual division, this sentence can be considered as an undivided statement, because it contains the core of the utterance with accompanying words. The indefinite circumstance “once upon a time” is completely relegated to the background, as a result of which this sentence in content is entirely equivalent to sentences that do not contain such a circumstance of time at all: “Once upon a time there was one king, and he was so smart that he even understood all the animals, what were they talking about"; “There lived a widow, she had two daughters, Darla and Lenka.” Sometimes such an introductory existential sentence is supplied with various remarks indicating the variety of relations appearing at the beginning of the utterance.

The more extensive these introductory remarks are, the sooner they can achieve independence and change into a sentence with its own melodic ending. Such a sentence sometimes expresses the speaker’s attitude towards what he is about to say.

There are cases for which the first sentence uses objective situations contained in the statement itself. Sometimes, in a sentence, in a peculiar way anticipating the yet undisclosed objective situation of the statement, circumstances of place or time are selected, which are placed at the beginning of the existential sentence as the starting point of the statement.

In abrupt everyday speech, the picture of the actual division of a sentence is much richer than in processed speech, especially in the written form of the language; the richness of such speech increases the more the closer the persons conducting the conversation come into contact in everyday life.

The topic can also be expressed in the third person form, if we are talking about a person or an object recently named in the context. In languages ​​where in a declarative sentence the personal form of the verb is always accompanied by an independently expressed subject, this is a common occurrence. Things are different in those languages ​​where the verb in the personal form in a declarative sentence requires a specially expressed subject only in special cases. In such languages ​​- Czech is one of these languages ​​- there are cases when the theme of the utterance, which should be conveyed by the personal form of the verb, is not specifically expressed at all, but is reflected only in the morphological aspect of the word, relating to the core of the utterance or as its own center , or as an accompanying proposal.

In fragmentary everyday conversation, most often the personal pronoun is absent from the starting point of the utterance if it is only a concomitant expression of another, more relevant utterance related to the given situation.

The starting point of an utterance and its core, if they are composed of several expressions, are combined differently in sentences. As a rule, it is possible to determine which part of a sentence relates to the starting point of the utterance and which to its core. In this case, the usual order is one in which the initial part of the sentence is taken as the starting point, and its end is taken as the core of the utterance. This sequence can be called the objective order, since in this case we move from the known to the unknown, which makes it easier for the listener to understand what is being said. But there is also a reverse order: the core of the statement comes first, and then the starting point follows. This is a subjective order, in which the speaker does not pay attention to the natural transition from the known to the unknown, since he is so carried away by the core of the utterance that he puts it in first place. Therefore, such a sequence gives the core of the utterance special significance. The means that satisfy the needs of expressing the objective and subjective orders in the actual division of a sentence are different in almost every language, and their study is very important. These include not only word order, but also the use of passive predication. In modern English, word order is objective.

By the terms "topic" and "message" Mathesius means what is usually called the psychological subject and the psychological predicate. The scientist says that in languages ​​with developed verbal systems, fluctuations are often observed between two different interpretations of the grammatical subject as the producer of the action expressed by the predicate verb, and as the topic of the message contained in the predicate. Compared with any of the modern Slavic languages, modern English shows a characteristic tendency towards thematic presentation of the subject. In English sentences, the topic of the message is usually expressed by the grammatical subject, and the most important part of the message is the grammatical predicate.

V. Mathesius identified the topic ("base") of the statement, which does not carry new information, because it is either related to the previous text or can be easily understood from the context. The topic (“core”) communicates something new about the topic of the utterance.

V. Mathesius wrote: “... the main elements of the actual division of a sentence are: a) the starting point (basis) of the utterance, that is, what is known in a given situation or, at least, can be easily understood and from which the speaker proceeds, and b) the core of the utterance, that is, what the speaker reports about the basis of the utterance.” (Quoted from the book: Vakhek, 1964)

V. Mathesius understood the term “actual division” as division at the moment of communication, at the moment of actual speech.

Besides him, there were other opinions regarding the actual division of the proposal. The idea of ​​dividing a sentence into two parts - theme and rheme - also existed among supporters of the logical direction (F.I. Buslaev), psychological (A.A. Petednya), formal (F.F. Fortunatov, A.A. Shakhmatov, etc. ). However, the fundamental concept of the actual division of a sentence belongs to the scientists of the Prague Linguistic School: V. Mathesius, J. Firdoss, F. Danesh and others. Prague scientists took into account the semantic side of the actual division, believing that topic + rheme communicate the known + unknown. The Prague people emphasized the speaker's special attention to the unknown.

Linguists G. Paul, O. Jespersen, A.A. Shakhmatov, on the contrary, argued that the speaker’s main attention is focused on the topic.

A number of Soviet scientists (L.V. Shcherda, V.V. Vinogradov, S.I. Bernstein, etc.) correlated actual division with subjective predicate division. They believed that the complete information of a sentence is transmitted in a complex manner, i.e. combination of theme and rheme content.

Subsequently, the study of this phenomenon revealed that theme and rheme can be recognized in a text based on their location in a sentence, because The theme usually precedes the rheme. Therefore, the zones of the beginning of the sentence (thematic zone) and the second part of the sentence (rhematic zone) were identified. Each of the zones, in addition to the main members of the sentence, also includes secondary members of the sentence, which are called distributors or expanders, because their task is to expand information about the topic or rheme.

Representatives of the psychological trend in linguistics emphasized the special role of stress (verbal, rhythmic, phrasal), intonation, and drew attention to the discrepancy between the grammatical subject and predicate and the “psychological subject and predicate” (as they called theme and rheme). Scientists emphasized the important function of the “psychological predicate,” defining it as the “goal of the message.” G. Paul also assigned a special role to the violation of the usual word order in a sentence. In his work “Principles of the History of Language” he wrote: “Every member of a sentence, no matter in what grammatical form it appears, from a psychological point of view can be either a subject, or a predicate, or a connecting member, or a part of one of these members.” (Paul G., 1960).

Scientists of the Prague Linguistic School also took into account the features of the linguistic, speech, text, and social situation to which the statement corresponds. They observed in each specific situation the order of actual division and the order of words in a sentence.

Sometimes actual division is called theme-rhematic. Let us consider the features of theme and rheme in the analysis of two languages: Russian and English.

1.2 The order of actual division of the statement

1)Direct order of actual division.

Prague scientists called normal, neutral, fixed order (or objective) if the topic and rheme are arranged in the usual sequence, with the meaning of the message increasing from topic to rheme. This word order is also called direct, progressive, non-emphatic. At the same time, the topic, i.e. “given”, “known”, “psychological subject”, “base” determines the “semantic subject” and stands at the beginning of a statement or sentence, and the rheme, i.e. “predicated part”, “new”, “core” is located after the topic and contains a “semantic predicate”.

This direct order of actual division may or may not coincide with grammatical (syntactic) division. I.I. Kovtunova draws attention to the fact that “a sentence taken outside of speech and context and having a certain grammatical division, in the context can additionally acquire existence specifically for a given context or a given speech situation.”

In this case, “a division of a different order can occur - on the topic of the statement and what is said about this topic” (Kovtunova I.I., 1969).

2)Reverse order of actual division of a statement

Reverse order of actual division V. Masthesius saw the reverse, subjective or inversion order as a way to give the presentation an “excited coloring.”

I.I. Kovtunova writes: “The change in the stylistically neutral structure of formulas is associated with the inversion (rearrangement) of the syntactic components of the sentence.” During inversion, the theme and rheme change places, but their functions are preserved: new, unknown (rheme) and the given original (theme).

The use of direct and reverse order of actual division is determined by the communicative task of the speaker: the desire to convey the message to the listener most reliably, to introduce special signals in order to highlight a new, important piece of information, to enhance the emotionality and expression of the statement; expand the functional perspective progressively or regressively.

An utterance uses a sentence as its grammatical foundation, but the essence of the utterance is not in the nomination of an event, but in the reporting of it. An utterance lives only in a specific act of communication; it is formed by the speaker or writer for transmission to a specific addressee and therefore takes into account his personal characteristics, his information needs and requests, and the entire situation of this act of communication. In its structure, first of all, there are distinguished components that prepare the addressee for the perception of the message (theme) and components) that carry the message itself (rhemes). This division, called “actual,” relates entirely to the level of the utterance; for the sentence as such it is not essential.

Intonation, which the sentence does not have, also belongs entirely to the level of utterance. A statement by its very essence is always unique and inimitable. A statement can be repeated only by creating a new statement, which in any case will differ from the repeated one in its secondary nature. On the contrary, the same sentence can be used in many statements about the same event. An utterance may not use the entire sentence, but only its fragments, since only an explication of the rheme is required for an utterance, and its thematic part can be omitted if, as the speaker believes, it is known to the addressee; from a sentence in an utterance only that part that carries the rheme can be preserved.

1.3 Theme-rhematic relations

A sentence in speech can acquire one or another actual meaning, i.e. its individual parts can be emphasized by the speaker depending on his communicative attitude. Emphasizing the most important part of a sentence is usually done using intonation or word order. The Czech scientist V. Mathesius proposed to talk about the actual division of a sentence, based on the fact that, from the point of view of the information contained in it, the sentence consists of two parts - the basis, i.e. the starting point of information, and the core, i.e. the main part of the message conveyed by the sentence. Subsequently, the terms “theme” and “rheme” became more common.

Theme and rheme, as the main opposites of the actual division of a sentence, are clearly opposed to each other. However, in a sentence several members of the sentence are correlated with each of these concepts. Therefore, they often talk about the core of the theme and the core of the rheme, which are distinguished in the complex theme and rheme. For example: By that time, after the destruction of all the other centers of education, the center of learning had shifted to the South.

In the example given, the core of the theme is the center of learning, and the core of the rheme is to the South.

Taking into account the different informative significance of the members of a sentence made it possible to put forward the theory of communicative dynamism, according to which, in addition to theme and rheme, transitional elements are also distinguished.

The theory of actual division of a sentence has also been used in the theory of text, where such aspects as the transition of the rheme of the previous sentence to the topic of the subsequent one, as well as the determination of the boundaries of text segments (microtexts) united by a common theme, are studied.

Currently, due to the interest in the functioning of linguistic structures, the communicative significance of the elements of structure and elements of the meaning of a sentence has received particularly wide recognition. At the same time, numerous attempts appeared to clarify the basic concepts of the actual division of a sentence - topic and rheme.

The topic was defined by V. Mathesius, on the one hand, as something given, initial, starting point of information, on the other, as a conceptual element of the information class, and therefore he allowed the existence of purely rhematic sentences (for example, sentences with a formal subject). Subsequently, developing the theory of actual division in its intra-sentence version, researchers came to the conclusion that each sentence consists of two parts opposed to each other - theme and rheme, and, thus, began to highlight the thematic subject in sentences with a formal subject. Comparing the rhematic sentence of V. Mathesius “Once upon a time there was a king” with the corresponding English sentence There was a king, linguists showed that in the English sentence there was the topic of the statement, and the king the rheme.

Currently, the topic of a message in a sentence is defined as what the speaker is coming from, what he knows before the start of communication. Thus, it is recognized that the topic does not correspond to either taxonomic classes of words (parts of speech) or functional-syntactic classes of words (members of a sentence). That is why, until now, no attempts have been made to study it paradigmatically, i.e., as a closed class of phenomena with certain characteristics. As a rule, the topic was singled out only as an antipode to the rheme, i.e. it included everything that was not included in the concept of the rheme of a sentence.

Individual attempts to correlate the topic with certain classes of words or members of a sentence did not lead to the desired result, because they were made on previously limited material. Thus, nominative themes, thematic infinitive constructions and some thematic prepositional phrases were identified. Considering the question of the relationship between various members of a sentence and the concepts of theme and rheme, researchers provide convincing quantitative data showing that only the subject has a predominantly thematic status, and the remaining members of the sentence can act in almost equal proportions as both theme and rheme.

The study of the rheme of a sentence in a paradigmatic sense has led scientists to the conclusion that, despite the universal nature of the thematic-rhematic division of a statement, the means of expressing this division are neither universal, nor one-order, nor one-level.

Thus, when comparing the means of expressing actual division in the Russian and English languages, it was discovered that if for the Russian language (a language with a synthetic way of expressing grammatical connections) the rheme position at the end of the sentence is most characteristic, then for English (a language in which the word order received syntactic load) the expression of rheme is carried out using certain constructions.

Comparing the ways of expressing theme and rheme in Russian and English, researchers often point out that the English language, unlike Russian, is characterized not by a direct opposition of theme and rheme, but by an alternating arrangement of thematic elements among rhematic ones. For example, in the Russian sentence “She told me about it,” the topic is “she told me about it,” and the rheme is “she told me about it.” In the corresponding English sentence "She said that to me", the topic elements she and to me are separated by the rheme said that.

Since in English the opposition of theme and rheme is not conveyed by word order, it has developed certain ways of expressing thematic and rhematic elements.

Signs of a topic are considered to be the presence of demonstrative, possessive or personal pronouns, the definite article, previous mention, and low contextual-semantic load. Signs of a rheme include the indefinite article, the presence of negation, and high contextual and semantic load.

Although the topic is the initial element of the semantic structure of a sentence, it does not always represent a given thing known from the context or situation. In the case when the topic corresponds to a new, previously unmentioned semantic element, it has the following characteristics: the presence of an indefinite article, an indefinite pronoun, or a combination with other indicators of uncertainty.

When describing ways of expressing a rheme, researchers proceed mainly from taking into account semantic features. Thus, the division of verbs into thematic and rhematic was based on the indicator of the number of semantic characteristics (sems): verbs of broad semantics that have a minimum number of semes (for example: do, make) and therefore need to be specified are classified as thematic. Verbs that are semantically more specialized (for example: come, pick) have a greater semantic load in a sentence and therefore should be classified as rhematic.

For example, in the example below, the rhematic verb in the second sentence occupies thematic position:

Life has changed. Its reflection in the minutes of the pedagogical council has also changed (Kovtunova, 1979.38).

The contrast between theme and rheme can be done through intonation division or logical emphasis on the rheme. However, informative fragmentation may not be accompanied by intonation. In the first case we can talk about a direme, in the second - about a monoreme. A monoreme is an undivided statement. The question remains controversial as to whether we are dealing here only with rheme or with an intonationally undifferentiated opposition of theme and rheme.

The identification of theme and rheme causes great difficulties in the practical analysis of the material. This is because this procedure has not yet received a formalized presentation. The only formal criterion used when dividing an utterance into communicative components is the formulation of a question.

Thus, the analysis of the types of statements in the Russian language made it possible to establish that the criterion that determines the composition of the theme and rheme and the paradigmatic properties of the statement is the type of question.

Researchers of the syntax of modern English believe that the question-and-answer method of identifying the topic and rheme of a statement is the most formalized procedure. With this approach, the topic of a statement can be identified with the content of the question to which it serves as an answer, and the rheme with that part of the information of the statement, which constitutes a direct answer to the question.

This technique of identifying theme and rheme operates at the level of speech, i.e. at the level of using language structures. At the same time, there is no correspondence between syntactic and communicative divisions. So, O.N. Siliverstova writes that in the sentence I have a book one should not say that the theme is the owner, and the rheme is the possessed, since the meaning of the model X has 4 will be a message about the presence of 4 in X and the identity of 4 to a member of a certain class (Siliverstova, 1977 ).

In general, this model includes the rhematic communicative meaning of presence, which is highlighted in relation to the potential issue that serves as the topic for a given utterance. Thus, it is proposed to introduce the meaning of the rheme as a semantic component of the meaning of the syntactic model. In other words, each syntactic model includes not only sign information about the referent (denotost), but also a way of presenting this information as basic, new, previously unknown to the listener.

This approach to determining the meaning of a sentence model arises on the basis that the model is considered not as an abstract semantic standard, but as a communicatively marked semantic structure.

The opposite point of view on the problem of delimiting theme and rheme is not associated with introducing communicative meaning into the general meaning of a sentence, but with tying it to individual members of the sentence or even to individual words.

Thus, in Russian studies, the opinion is expressed that the theme corresponds to the group “subject + predicate”, and the rheme - to the secondary members of the sentence, and the complex theme is contrasted with a multi-stage rheme, i.e. every minor the member creates the rhema on its own.

In English, it is supposed to distinguish sentences with a thematic subject (for example: Jane opened the door) and sentences with a rhematic subject (for example: There is a book on the table), sentences in which the topic corresponds to the complex “subject + predicate” or a broader complex of members offers.

According to the linguist Bloch Mark Yakovlevich (his work “Theoretical Foundations of Grammar”, 2000): “A sentence is organized in the form of a sequence of significant members” occupying their system-defined positions in it. Such “positional” members are: subject, predicate, object, circumstance, definition, introductory member, address member. The interjection occupies a special semi-significant position. All these members are hierarchically correlated in such a way that each of them plays a certain modifying or determining role. The final object of modification is the sentence as a whole, and through the sentence - a reflection of the situational event. The hierarchy of the sentence, which constitutes its nominative division, is superimposed by the actual division of the sentence, within which the topic of the message (the composition of its “starting point”) and the rheme of the message (the composition of its “informative core”) are distinguished. The rheme is revealed by rhematic (logical) stress.

He considers a paradigmatic analysis of a sentence, including consideration of the nature of its actual division: “At the first and main stage of the study, we consider communicative types of sentences within the framework of a system of two dinar oppositions (narrative sentence - incentive sentence, narrative sentence - interrogative sentence) and establish that the distinctive the features of communicative types are determined by differences in the actual division of the sentence, in particular, by the different nature of their rhematic components expressing the logical predicate of the statement. The rheme of a narrative sentence expresses information of a direct message or statement about some fact, property, relation, event. The rheme of an incentive sentence, in contrast to this , expresses the content of the action required or desired by the speaker, that is, it programs the action of the addressee of the impulse.The rheme of an interrogative sentence expresses a request for information, that is, it is open and gaping in terms of content: it programs the response rheme.

It is easy to see that of the three indicated types of rheme - narrative, incentive and interrogative - the interrogative rheme, connected by synsemancy with the rheme of the response sentence, is distinguished by its special originality. Its openness can be either categorical, uncontested (for example: Where is he?), or alternative (for example: Is he here (or not)? Is he here or there?), and depending on this, all questions should be divided into questions of substitution, pronominal (whole) and questions of choice, alternative (divisive). Alternative questions, in turn, are recognized as hidden-alternative, as in the penultimate example, and open-alternative, as in the last example. They also say that historically the theory of actual division of a sentence is associated with the logical analysis of propositions. The constituent elements of a proposition are a logical subject and a logical predicate. They, just like theme and rheme, may not be the main members of the sentence, that is, the subject and predicate. The logical categories of subject and predicate are prototypes of the linguistic categories of theme and rheme. However, if from a logical point of view, the categories of subject and predicate are significant components of certain forms of thinking, then from a linguistic point of view, the categories of theme and rheme are expressive methods for conveying information that the speaker uses.

The actual division of a sentence can be fully manifested only in a specific contact (speech situation), therefore sometimes such division of a sentence is called “contextual”. This is a striking example:

is fond of poetry.

If we approach this sentence as a neutral construction from a stylistic point of view, the theme is expressed by the subject, and the rheme by the predicate. This type of actual division is called “direct”.

On the other hand, if you put this sentence in a certain situation (a certain context), then, as a result, the order of the actual division of the sentence can be changed in the opposite direction: the subject will be a rheme, and the predicate will, accordingly, be a theme. For example:

"Isn t it surprising that Tim is so fond of poetry?" - "But you are wrong. Mary is fond of poetry, not Tim."

The actual division of a sentence, in which the rheme is expressed by the subject, is called “reverse”.

2. Practical part

sentence saying linguist remostic

As a result of my analysis of the literary work of one of the modern writers, namely the story “Merry Funeral” by Lyudmila Ulitskaya and its translation into English by Cathy Porter, I can draw conclusions in accordance with this topic: In this work, thematic relations are very widely manifested between members of a sentence. When analyzing this work, I discovered a large number of inconsistencies between the original and its translation and a number of specific features in the construction of the thematic and rhematic system, both in Russian and in English, among which the following can be highlighted:

Each language is unique in the way it is constructed and the emphasis of theme and rheme in a sentence. For the Russian language, this is, first of all, intonation; logical emphasis falls on the rhematic element of the sentence in order to emphasize the importance of new information. For example:

drifted up from the street like the smell of drains. It was hot too.

Translation: Music came from the street like a garbage dump. Besides, it was hot.

The word "heat" is a rheme in the second sentence.

Using the following example, you can trace the entire process as the author moves from known information to new information, because This is the best way for the reader to perceive a literary text:

stay together for 2 more years after that because they didn't t know how to finish it, but the best part had ended that slap.

They waited for another two years, they still couldn’t part, but with this slap in the face, all the best ended.

The Russian language is characterized by the spread of thematic elements among rhematic ones, in contrast to English. For example:

I'm sorry about you, baby. God has many mansions.

I m sorry for you, Nina, I really am. Our Lord has many mansions.

He doesn’t want to, he doesn’t want to, how many times have I told you!

He doesn't t want it, how many times do I have to tell you, he doesnt want it!

4. When translating from English into Russian, the topic may be replaced by a personal pronoun or omitted altogether. For example:

And Marya Ignatievna took up the teapot. She was the only person who could drink tea in such heat...

Maria Ignatevna busied herself in the kitchen making tea; she was the only one of them who could drink it in this heat…

The past is definitive & irreversible, but it has no power the future.

The past is final and irrevocable, but has no power over the future.

Then all these still lifes were blown away by the wind, nothing remained. Somewhere in St. Petersburg, maybe they were kept by friends of that time or by the Kazantsevs in Moscow... Lord, how they drank back then. And they collected bottles. Ordinary ones were exchanged, but foreign or antique ones, colored glass, were kept.

All those paintings had been blown away in the wind; none were left, now apart from a few in Petersburg maybe, stored by his friends there, or by the Kazantsevs in Moscow. God, how, they used to drink in those days. They had collected the bottles, taking back the ordinary, but the foreign ones & the old ones of colored glass they kept.

They approached the table, walked away, dragged plates and glasses from corner to corner, moved, stuck together in groups and moved again. The world has never seen such a motley company.

People came and went from the table carrying plates and glasses, coming together in groups and moving away again. There had never been such a mixture of people.

Such cases occur very often in this work, because are an integral part of the construction of the text.

The thematic construction is excluded from the sentence (usually in conversation) so as not to burden the sentence, and only the rheme is conveyed in the Russian version (new information is more necessary for the reader).

In a Russian sentence, the rheme usually takes the final position, but in English it is built using certain constructions. For example:

There were five women in the room.

There were five women in the bedroom.

The words "bab" and "five" are a rheme that is shared by a thematic construction. In this way, the author emphasizes the number of women in the room.

The rheme of the previous sentence can become the topic of the following sentence:

In the cheap cloth suitcase she carried… and three Antonov apples which she was forbidden to import. The apples were intended for her American husband, who for some reason wasnt there to meet her.

Translation: The checkered cloth suitcase contained... and three Antonov apples, prohibited for import. The apples were intended for her American husband, who for some reason did not meet her.

In an English sentence, the presence of an indefinite article is a sign of a rheme, but not always. For example:

An old evil flame flared up in her...

An old flame of anger flickered inside her…

There was a bearded man with glasses on the screen...

On the screen a bearded man in glasses…

8. In a sentence, the presence of negation is a sign of the presence of a rheme. For example:

She didn't seem to understand what was happening yet.

It seemed she still didn't t understand what was happening.

The following example can be reduced to the relationship: question - topic, answer - rheme:

Will there be a war there now? - asked quietly.

War? I don’t think so... Unhappy country...

Translation: - Will there be a war in Russia? - she asked him quietly.

-War? dont think so. Unhappy country.

9. In the following example, the translation of the sentence and its actual division depend on the context:

The young nation, which denies suffering, has developed entire schools - philosophical, psychological and medical - dedicated to the sole task of freeing a person from suffering at any cost. This idea was difficult for Fima’s Russian brains to grasp.

Translation: This young, suffering - denying nation had developed whole schools - philosophical, psychological & medical - dedicated to the single problem of how to save people from suffering. Fima s Russian brain had difficulty in coping with this concept.

Here the subject is not the subject, but the object. The “psychological subject” and the “psychological predicate” do not always coincide with the grammatical members of the sentence, and this fact must be taken into account when translating.

A sign of a rheme in a sentence is the presence of a high contextual-semantic load:

Psychologists and psychoanalysts built complex and very fantastic hypotheses about the nature of her strange behavior. They loved non-standard children, this was their bread.

Translation: The psychotherapists thought up far-fetched theories to explain her strange behavior; they loved unconventional children, they were there bread and butter.

The thematic construction is characterized by a less high contextual-semantic load:

There were also a lot of people in the room.

In the room (topic) there were also crowds of people.

In English, theme and rheme are strongly opposed to each other, unlike the Russian sentence. For example:

- “Marya Ignatievna! I’ve been waiting for you (topic) for the third day (rheme)!”

- "Maria Ignatevna, over two days I'll be waiting for you!"

12. In a sentence, a verb can be not only a topic, but also a rheme. For example:

The past was, of course, irrevocable. And what was there to cancel in it?

The past couldn't t be cancelled. Well, why would anyone want to cancel it anyway?

In the first sentence, the verb "to cancel" constitutes a rhematic construction, and in the second - a thematic one.

Based on the conclusions I have made, we can come to the conclusion that the methods of thematic and rhematic division in the Russian and English languages ​​are different. But still, actual division remains an important factor in the formation of language and in linguistics itself in general.

Literature

1. Blokh, Mark Yakovlevich. Theoretical foundations of grammar. M.; 2000

2.Koshevaya, Inna Georgievna. Theoretical grammar of the English language. M.; 1982

Bloch, Mark Yakovlevich. Theoretical grammar of the English language. M.; 2000

S.P. Balashova, O.I. Brodovich. Theoretical grammar of the English language. Tutorial. L.; 1983

Mathesius, Wilem. Selected works on linguistics. M.; 2003

Ivanova, Irina Petrovna. Theoretical grammar of modern English. M.; 1981

Kovtunova I.V. Modern Russian language. Word order and actual division of sentences. M.; 1976

Iofik L.L., Chakhoyan L.P., Pospelova A.G. Reader on theoretical grammar of the English language. 9th edition. L.; 1981

Iofik L.L., Zhigadlo V. Modern English. Theoretical grammar course. M.; 1956

Arnold I.V. Stylistics of modern English. L.; 1973

Zolotova G.A. On the role of semantics in the actual division of a sentence // Russian language. Questions of its history and current state. M.; 1978

Ivanova I.P., Bulgakova V.V., Pocheptsov G.G. Theoretical grammar of modern English. M.; 1981

Theory of grammar: lexical-grammatical classes and word categories. M.; 1990

A.F. Dad's. Text: its units and global categories. M.; 2002

Arutyunova N.D. The sentence and its meaning. Lexico-semantic problems. M.; 1976

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Some word combinations and phrases mean something completely different from what would result from simply adding up the words used. Why can the same sentence be understood differently if the semantic emphasis is shifted from one word to another? If a sentence is in context, then the words surrounding it usually provide clarifications that help you avoid making mistakes. But sometimes it is very difficult to draw the right conclusion. In addition, it greatly complicates the perception of information, because it requires too much effort to put pieces of sentences and phrases into place. Taking into account the problems of explanation and perception, it is important to separate the syntactic and actual division of the sentence.

If you don’t understand right away which is the main one and which is the dependent one, and what the speaker is making a statement about, based on already known facts, and what he wants to present as unique information, you won’t get either a fluent reading or a worthwhile dialogue with your interlocutor. Therefore, when presenting, it is better to coordinate your words with certain rules and established norms characteristic of the language used. Arguing in the opposite direction, the learning process will be easier if you become familiar with the principles of logical sentence formation and the most common cases of use.

Syntax and semantics

We can say that the actual division of sentences is the logical connections and accents, or rather, their explanation or detection. Misunderstandings often arise when communicating even in your native language, and when it comes to operations with a foreign language, you need to take into account cultural differences in addition to standard problems. In different languages, one or another word order traditionally prevails, and the actual division of a sentence must take into account cultural characteristics.

If we think in broad categories, all languages ​​can be divided into two groups: synthetic and analytical. In synthetic languages, many parts of speech have several word forms that reflect the individual characteristics of an object, phenomenon or action relative to what is happening. For nouns, these are, for example, the meanings of gender, person, number and case; for verbs, such indicators are tenses, inflection, mood, conjugation, perfection, etc. Each word has an ending or suffix (and sometimes even changes in the root) corresponding to the function it performs, which allows morphemes to respond sensitively to the changing climate in the sentence. Russian is a synthetic language, since its logic and syntax of phrases rely heavily on the variability of morphemes, and combinations are possible in absolutely any order.

There are also in which only one form corresponds to each word, and the meaning of a statement can only be conveyed through means of expressing the actual division of the sentence as the correct combination and order of words. If you rearrange parts of a sentence, the meaning can change dramatically because the direct connections between the elements are broken. In analytical languages, parts of speech can have word forms, but their number, as a rule, is much lower than in synthetic languages. Here there is some compromise between the immutability of words, rigidly fixed word order and flexibility, mobility, and mutual reflection.

Word - phrase - sentence - text - culture

The actual and grammatical division of a sentence implies that practically language has two sides - firstly, the semantic load, that is, the logical structure, and secondly, the actual display, that is, the syntactic structure. This applies equally to elements of different levels - to individual words, phrases, turns of phrase, sentences, the context of sentences, the text as a whole and its context. The semantic load is of primary importance - because it is obvious that, by and large, this is the only purpose of language. However, the actual display cannot exist separately, since, in turn, its only goal is to ensure the correct and unambiguous transmission of semantic load. The most famous example? “Execution cannot be pardoned.” In the English version, it may sound like this: “Execution is unacceptable then obviation” (“Execution, is unacceptable then obviation”, “Execution is unacceptable then, obviation”). To correctly understand this instruction, it is necessary to determine whether the current members are the group “execute”, “cannot be pardoned” or the group “cannot be executed”, “pardon”.

In this situation, it is impossible to draw a conclusion without syntactic indications - that is, without a comma or any other punctuation mark. This is true for the existing word order, but if the sentence looked like “execute cannot be pardoned,” the corresponding conclusion could be drawn based on their arrangement. Then “execute” would be a direct instruction, and “cannot be pardoned” would be a separate statement, because the ambiguity of the position of the word “impossible” would disappear.

Theme, rheme and units of division

Actual division of sentences involves dividing the syntactic structure into logical components. They can be either members of a sentence or blocks of words closely united in meaning. Typically, terms such as theme, rheme, and unit of division are used to describe the means of actual division of a sentence. The subject is already known information, or the background part of the message. The rhema is the part that is emphasized. It contains fundamentally important information, without which the proposal would lose its purpose. In Russian, the rheme is usually found at the end of the sentence. Although it is not certain, the rhema can actually be located anywhere. However, when a rheme is located, for example, at the very beginning of a sentence, nearby phrases usually contain either a stylistic or semantic indication of it.

The correct definition of theme and rheme helps to understand the essence of the text. Units of division are words, or phrases indivisible in meaning. Elements that add detail to the picture. Their recognition is necessary in order to perceive the text not word by word, but through logical combinations.

"Logical" subject and "logical" object

In a sentence there is always a subject group and a predicate group. The subject group explains who performs the action, or whom the predicate describes (if the predicate expresses a state). The predicate group says what the subject does, or in one way or another reveals its nature. There is also an addition that is attached to the predicate - it indicates an object or living object to which the action of the subject passes. Moreover, it is not always easy to figure out what is the subject and what is the complement. The subject in is a logical object - that is, the object on which the action is performed. And the addition takes the form of a logical agent - that is, the one who performs the action. The actual division of a sentence in English identifies three criteria by which one can make sure that there is a subject and that there is an object. Firstly, the subject always agrees with the verb in person and number. Secondly, it usually takes the position before the verb, and the object - after. Thirdly, it carries the semantic role of the subject. But if reality contradicts any of these criteria, then first of all consistency with the verb group is taken into account. In this case, the complement is called the “logical” subject, and the subject, accordingly, is called the “logical object”.

Disputes over the composition of the predicate group

Also, the actual division of a sentence gives rise to a lot of controversy over what is considered a predicate group - the verb itself, or the verb and its complements. This is complicated by the fact that sometimes there is no clear boundary between them. In modern linguistics, it is generally accepted that the predicate, depending on the grammatical scheme of the sentence, is either the verb itself (main verb), or the verb itself with auxiliary and modal verbs (modal verbs and auxiliaries), or a linking verb and the nominal part of a compound predicate , and the rest is not included in the group.

Inversions, idioms and inversions as idioms

The thought that our statement must convey is always concentrated at a certain point. The actual division of the sentence is designed to recognize that this point is a peak and attention should be focused on it. If the emphasis is placed incorrectly, misunderstandings or misunderstandings of the idea may occur. Of course, there are certain grammatical rules in the language, however, they describe only the general principles of the formation of constructions and are used for template construction. When it comes to logical placement of emphasis, we are often forced to change the structure of the statement, even if this contradicts the laws of education. And many of these syntactic deviations from the norm acquired the status of “official”. That is, they are entrenched in the language and are actively used in normative speech. Such phenomena occur when they free the author from resorting to more complex and overly cumbersome constructions, and when the end sufficiently justifies the means. As a result, speech is enriched with expressiveness and becomes more diverse.

Some idiomatic phrases could not be conveyed within the framework of the standard operation of sentence members. For example, the actual division of a sentence in English takes into account such a phenomenon as the inversion of sentence members. Depending on the expected effect, it is achieved in different ways. In a general sense, inversion means moving members to an unusual place. As a rule, the subject and predicate become participants in inversions. Their usual order is subject, then predicate, then object and adverbial. In fact, interrogative constructions are also inversions in a sense: part of the predicate is moved forward of the subject. As a rule, the nonsense part of it is transferred, which can be expressed by a modal or auxiliary verb. Inversion here serves the same purpose - to place a semantic emphasis on a specific word (group of words), to draw the reader/listener’s attention to a certain detail of the statement, to show what is different from the statement. It’s just that these transformations have existed for so long, have come into use so naturally and are so widely used that we no longer treat them as something out of the ordinary.

Rhematical selection of minor members

In addition to the usual subject-predicate inversion, any member of the sentence can be brought to the fore - a definition, circumstance or addition. Sometimes this looks quite natural and is provided for by the syntactic structure of the language, and sometimes it serves as an indicator of a change in the semantic role, and entails a rearrangement of the remaining participants in the phrase. The actual division of a sentence in the English language suggests that if the author needs to emphasize any detail, he puts it in first place, if it cannot be highlighted intonationally, or if it can be highlighted, but under certain conditions ambiguity may arise. Or if the author simply does not have enough of the effect that can be achieved through intonation highlighting. At the same time, there are often rearrangements of subject and action in the grammatical basis.

Word order

To talk about various kinds of inversions as a means of highlighting one or another part of a sentence, you need to consider the standard word order and the actual division of the sentence with a typical, template approach. Since members often consist of several words, and their meaning should be understood only as a whole, it will also be necessary to note how compound members are formed.

In the standard scenario, the subject always comes before the predicate. It can be expressed by a noun or a pronoun in the general case, a gerund, an infinitive, and the Predicate is expressed through a verb in the form of the infinitive itself; through a verb that does not carry a specific meaning in itself with the addition of a semantic verb; through an auxiliary verb and a nominal part, represented, as a rule, by a noun in the general case, a pronoun in the objective case, or an adjective. It can be a linking verb or a modal verb. The nominal part can also be equally expressed by other parts of speech and phrases.

Cumulative meaning of phrases

The theory of actual division of a sentence says that a unit of division, correctly defined, helps to reliably find out what is said in the text. In combinations, words can acquire a new, unusual, or not entirely characteristic meaning for them individually. For example, prepositions often change the content of a verb; they give it many different meanings, even opposite ones. Definitions, which can be completely different parts of speech, and even subordinate clauses, specify the meaning of the word to which they are attached. Specification, as a rule, limits the range of properties of an object or phenomenon, and distinguishes it from the mass of similar ones. In such cases, the actual division of sentences must be done carefully and carefully, because sometimes the connections are so twisted and erased by time that associating an object with any class, relying only on part of the phrase, significantly distances us from the actual essence.

A unit of division can be called a fragment of text that, without losing contextual connections, can be determined using hermeneutics - that is, which, acting as a whole, can be paraphrased or translated. Its meaning may go deeper, in particular, or be located at a more superficial level, but not deviate from its direction. For example, if we are talking about an upward movement, then it should remain an upward movement. The nature of the action, including physical and stylistic features, is preserved, but freedom in the interpretation of details remains - which, of course, is best used in order to bring the resulting version as close as possible to the original and to reveal its potential.

Finding logic in context

The difference in syntactic and logical division is as follows - from the point of view of grammar, the most important member of a sentence is the subject. In particular, the actual division of sentences in the Russian language is based on this statement. Although, from the position of some modern linguistic theories, this is the predicate. Therefore, we will take a generalized position and say that the main member is one of the components of the grammatical basis. When, from a logical point of view, absolutely any member can turn out to be the central figure.

The concept of actual division of a sentence means by the main figure that this element represents a key source of information, a word or phrase, which, in fact, prompted the author to speak (write). It is also possible to draw more extensive connections and parallels if we take the statement in context. As we know, the grammatical rules in English stipulate that a sentence must contain both a subject and a predicate. If it is not possible or necessary to use the present subject, the formal subject present in the grammatical basis as, for example, “It” or “there” is used. However, sentences are often coordinated with neighboring ones and included in the overall concept of the text. Thus, it turns out that members can be omitted, even such important ones as the subject or predicate, which are irrational for the overall picture. In this case, the actual division of sentences is possible only outside the framework of periods and exclamation marks, and the acceptor is forced to go for clarification to the surrounding vicinity - that is, to the context. Moreover, there are examples in the English language when, even in context, there is no tendency to reveal these members.

In addition to special cases of use in narratives, demonstrative sentences (Imperatives) and exclamations are routinely used for such manipulations. The actual division of a simple sentence is not always easier than in complex constructions due to the fact that members are often omitted. In exclamations, in general, only one single word can be left, often an interjection or particle. And in this case, in order to correctly interpret the statement, you need to turn to the cultural characteristics of the language.