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1、A Study of the left-dislocation Construction in English Abstract: This paper analyzes the English left-dislocation construction in terms of its syntactic/semantic structure, information structure as well as topical structure. According to the analysis, the left-dislocation construction consists of t
2、wo components: the left detached section and the matrix clause. The left detached section is mostly a nominal phrase and it is linked with the matrix clause via coreference by means of usually a pro-form. The information contained in the left detached section can neither be too new nor too old. It i
3、s mainly the anchored brand-new information, the unused new information or the inferable information which differs greatly from the typical information structure of the canonical sentence. The left detached section acts as an independent discourse unit brings to it such textual functions as topic wh
4、ich dominates the matrix clause in the right. Key words: left-dislocation construction, syntactic/semantic structure, information s structure, topical structure 1. Introduction The first one to analyze the left dislocation as a language structure is Ross（1967）. As the example (1) shows, according to
5、 the viewpoints of creating linguistics, left dislocations is a sentence pattern through transformation. That is to say, a component part of a canonical clause was moved left from its original place to the beginning of the whole new non-canonical clause which consists of a left-dislocated element an
6、d a propositional clause or a matrix clause. (1) Your friend John, I saw him last night. Concerning with its function, many scholars thought its related to the topic. Lehman (1998) thought, “The beginning of a sentence usually serves as the topic position of the whole sentence, especially the noun p
7、hrase of left dislocation.” This opinion holds that the left dislocated element is either to introduce a new topic (Gundel1985) or just to be used to mark topics (Reinhart1981). The paper is based on the considering of the functional features of the left-dislocation in terms of all aspects, such as
8、subordinate clause, syntax and so on. 2. The features of syntactic/semantic structure As shown above, the left-dislocation in English consists of two parts: left-dislocated element and matrix clause. Typical left-dislocated element is usually taken on by noun phrase as well as other components. For
9、example (Rodman 1997:36): 2) a. As for Sarah Bernstein, many boys would like to kiss her. b. Speaking of Sarah Bernstein, many boys would like to kiss her. c. You know of Sarah Bernstein, many boys would like to kiss her. d. Giving lectures, its difficult work to do for the youngsters. e. If it is f
10、ine tomorrow, thatll be good. In the example a, b and c, there are certain modifiers before the left-dislocated elements. If we delete these modifiers, the left-dislocation constructions are also tenable. The left-dislocated element of d is a gerund phrase and that in e is a adverbial clause of cond
11、ition. But concerning with their functions, they can be considered as a noun as the latter sentence use a substitution. Similarly, the following matrix and other text sentences also have all kinds of forms. It can be declarative sentence, imperative sentence, interrogative sentence，complex sentence
12、and so on. E.g. 3) a. Mary, I like her. (declarative sentence) b. Mary, does she know that man? (interrogative sentence) c. These carrot squares, eat them up. (imperative sentence) The matrix sentences can be route-especially sentence as well as other variant sentences. 4）a. The mayor, he was arrest
13、ed inadvertently by the police. (passive sentence) b. John, it was he who ate the beans. (emphatic sentence) c. The rock, around it runs the river. (inverted sentence) As discussed above, the left-dislocation construction is not routine-especially sentence and is quite different from other variant s
14、entences. E.g. 5）a. John, Mary doesnt like that little bastard. b. The bike, I had a flat tire on the road. The example (5) shows the relation between left-dislocated element and matrix sentence is not limited to the constitutional relation between noun phrase and pronoun. 3. The features of informa
15、tion structure The information structure is comparatively divided into old information and new information. According to the study of Halliday (1994), the information known by the hearer is called “old information”, and what the speaker thinks that are strange to readers is “new information”. Howeve
16、r, Prince (1981) thought, there is no absolute dividing lines between new and old information. They are two poles of a transition area. And she divided information inferable, textually-evoked, situationally-evoked and so on. Generally thinking, the information structure of normal text sentence shows
17、 the tendency that old information precedes the new one. But its quite different with the left-dislocation constructions. Look at the information structures of the following sentences: 6) Cheese, people have strong feelings about it. ( brand new ) 7) A rich guy, he bought a Cadillac. ( brand new ) 8
18、) Gianni, when are you going to talk to him? (unused new ) From above, we can see that the “unused new information” is used properly as the left-dislocated element of left-dislocation constructions, but it is different with the “brand new” dislocated element of left-dislocation structure, and it is
19、also false of other situations. The reason is that the former can be distinguished by hearers, but the latters information can hardly be mastered by hearers. If we add a modifier to the nonspecific indefinites in (7) and (8), they can also be used as left-dislocated elements. E.g. 9) A rich guy I kn
20、ow, he bought a Cadillac. (anchored brand new) “Inferable information” refers to the information that the hearer can deduced from other known information in the text. The phrases including such information can be used as left-dislocated elements. E.g. 10) Hey, one of these eggs, it is broken. (non-c
21、ontaining inferable) 4. Left-dislocation topic and structure Reinhart (1981) thought that theres no direct relation among the subject, word order or old information of a topic or sentence. The best way to determine a topic is pragmatic aboutness test. A distinct feature of topic is that a topic is n
22、ot always limited to a sentence. Sentence is a syntactic concept rather than textual concept. That is why Prince prefer the formulation of using textual sentences in the analysis. According to Givon (1983), a topic has much continuance and strentch in may textual sentences. E.g., 11) Our monitor is
23、a lovely girl. She studies hard and ( ) is always ready to help. “Our monitor” here is put forward as a topic, which is still a object being discussed in the second and third sentences. Some researches (such as Lambrecht 1994; Prince 1998) shows that the left-dislocation construction is a topic intr
24、oducing method. The speaker put forward a topic and then further explain it. Since its always a new topic in the text, it has little relation with the foregoing paragraphs. For example, 12) Its supposed to be such a great deal. The guy, when he come over and asked me if I wanted a route, he made it
25、sound so great. Seven dollars a week for hardly any work. And then you find out the guy told you a bunch of lies. 5. Conclusion The paper comparatively systematically analyzes the English left-dislocation construction in terms of structure, information structure as well as topical structure. As far
26、as syntax is concerned, left- dislocation construction consists of left-dislocated element and matrix. Typical left-dislocation element is usually taken on by noun phrase other components are also possible. And the matrix sentence includes routine-especially sentence and variant sentence. As to the
27、semantics, the two parts of this construction mainly realize the semantic relation through coreference. From the perspective of information structure, the components which can be used as left-dislocation elements are “unused new”, “inferable”, “anchored brand new”, and so on. Besides, the topic stru
28、cture is put on the left-dislocated element without any question because this construction is comparatively independent. The topic is either of no direct relation with the foregoing paragraphs or is a independent topic of the following sections. Certainly, from all the examples above, its quite easy
29、 to find that the practical use of left-dislocation construction is defined by some certain semantic law and is depending on concrete language environment. References： Anagnostopoulou, E, H.V.Riemsdijk. Material on Left DislocationM. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Gundel, J.K.1985.Shared knowledge and topicality J.Journal of Pragmatics9:83-107 Du Bois, J.2003. The discourse basis of ergativity J. Language 63:803-855 Lambrecht, K. 1994. Information Structure and Sentence Form M. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.