Syntactic iconicity
Feeling the meaning through the
form
English information structure
Subject + Verb + Object/Complement/Adverbial
Theme
Focus
old info
process new info
Subject + Verb + Complement
She
was
ready
English information structure
Subject + Verb + Object/Complement/Adverbial
Subject + Verb + Complement
She
was
ready
Finally, after a long morning, and endless visits to the
bathroom, she was ready.
Typical information expectations
•
•
•
•
Subjects will be relatively short;
Initial adverbials will be relatively few in number and short;
The verb will be arrived at fairly quickly;
The focal point (the final obligatory clause element) will be
longer than the earlier elements, and will bring in the new
information;
• Optional clause elements of any length will occur late in the
clause, preferably after the focus, and certainly after the verb;
• Deviations from this norm will have meaning.
Long subject – delayed verb
The front room, our crimson chamber,
With our white-painted bookshelves, our patient books,
The rickety walnut desk I paid six pounds for,
The horse-hair Victorian chair I got for five shillings,
Waited only for us.
•
Robbing Myself Ted Hughes from Birthday Letters
Long subject – delayed verb
The front room, our crimson chamber,
With our white-painted bookshelves, our patient books,
The rickety walnut desk I paid six pounds for,
The horse-hair Victorian chair I got for five shillings,
Waited only for us.
•
Robbing Myself Ted Hughes from Birthday Letters
Long subject – delayed verb
The front room, our crimson chamber,
With our white-painted bookshelves, our patient books,
The rickety walnut desk I paid six pounds for,
The horse-hair Victorian chair I got for five shillings,
Waited only for us.
•
Robbing Myself Ted Hughes from Birthday Letters
Long subject – symbolism of size
Each slice falling forward into the crumbs
to be spread with butter’s counterfeit
is as thick as three of hers
• Doorsteps Pamela Gillilan from Sixty Women Poets
Long subject – symbolism of size
Each slice falling forward into the crumbs
to be spread with butter’s counterfeit (SUBJECT)
is as thick as three of hers
• Doorsteps Pamela Gillilan from Sixty Women Poets
Long subject – symbolism of size
Each slice falling forward into the crumbs
to be spread with butter’s counterfeit
is as thick as three of hers (COMPLEMENT)
Each slice falling forward into the crumbs
to be spread with butter’s counterfeit
68 letters
as thick as three of hers
20 letters
Long subject – symbolism of waiting
Giant whispering and coughing from vast
Sunday-full and organ-frowned-on spaces
Precede a sudden scuttle on the drum,
'The Queen', and huge resettling. Then begins
A snivel on the violins:
•
Broadcast Philip Larkin from Whitsun Weddings
Long subject – symbolism of waiting
Giant whispering and coughing from vast
Sunday-full and organ-frowned-on spaces
Precede a sudden scuttle on the drum,
'The Queen', and huge resettling. Then begins
A snivel on the violins:
•
Broadcast Philip Larkin from Whitsun Weddings
Long subject – symbolism of waiting
Giant whispering and coughing from vast
Sunday-full and organ-frowned-on spaces
Precede a sudden scuttle on the drum,
'The Queen', and huge resettling. Then begins
A snivel on the violins:
•
Broadcast Philip Larkin from Whitsun Weddings
Long subject – symbolism of waiting
Giant whispering and coughing from vast
Sunday-full and organ-frowned-on spaces
Precede a sudden scuttle on the drum,
'The Queen', and huge resettling. Then begins
A snivel on the violins:
•
Broadcast Philip Larkin from Whitsun Weddings
Long initial adverbial string
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through
sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Dulce et Decorum Est Wilfred Owen
Long initial adverbial string
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through
sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Dulce et Decorum Est Wilfred Owen
And long final adverbial string too
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through
sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Dulce et Decorum Est Wilfred Owen
Long subject and optional adverbial
Finely rimmed with crust the soft
halfmoon half-slices came to the tea table
herringboned across a doylied plate.
• Doorsteps Pamela Gillilan from Sixty Women Poets
Long subject and optional adverbial
Finely rimmed with crust the soft
halfmoon half-slices came to the tea table
herringboned across a doylied plate.
• Doorsteps Pamela Gillilan from Sixty Women Poets
Long subject and optional adverbial
Finely rimmed with crust the soft
halfmoon half-slices came to the tea table
herringboned across a doylied plate.
• Doorsteps Pamela Gillilan from Sixty Women Poets
Long subject and optional adverbial
Finely rimmed with crust the soft
halfmoon half-slices came to the tea table
herringboned across a doylied plate.
• Doorsteps Pamela Gillilan from Sixty Women Poets
Long optional adverbials
You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone.
He'd put you off an hour to give him time
to clear away her things and look alone
as though his still raw love were such a crime.
• Long Distance Tony Harrison from Selected Poems
Long optional adverbials
You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone.
He'd put you off an hour to give him time
to clear away her things and look alone
as though his still raw love were such a crime.
• Long Distance Tony Harrison from Selected Poems
Minor Sentences – no verb
Small plump hands
before age shirred and speckled them.
Always white,/ Coburg shape.
• Doorsteps Pamela Gillilan from Sixty Women Poets
Minor Sentences – no verb
One of your gloves unnoticed on the floor
Beside those new, slightly-outmoded shoes.
Here it goes quickly dark.
• Broadcast
Philip Larkin from Whitsun Weddings
The Unprofessionals
When the worst thing happens,
That uproots the future,
That you must live for every hour of your
future,
They come,
Unorganized, inarticulate, unprofessional;
The Unprofessionals
When the worst thing happens,
That uproots the future,
That you must live for every hour of your
future,
They come,
Unorganized, inarticulate, unprofessional;
Up on the Moors with Keeper
Three girls under the sun’s rare brilliance
out on the moors, hitching their skirts
over bog-myrtle and bilberry.
Up on the Moors with Keeper
High summer, a scent of absent rain,
away from the dark house, father and duty.