in the Bundestag, the lower house. By contrast, they and
the Social Democrats, who both slumped in last
December’s general election, do not together have a
majority there now. As for possible Christian Democratic
rivals to Mr Kohl, there is only one: Wolfgang Schäuble,
the interior minister and a former head of the
chancellery. He is in a wheelchair after being shot last
year. Mr Kohl helps keep Mr Schäuble's stock high by
referring to him as a future chancellor, but by "future"
he does not mean "soon".
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• The ’as for’-construction (AFC) in (1) can be distinguished from the use
of ’as for’ as a comparative, as for example in (2).
(1)
I know that Kim and Sandy passed the exam. As for JOHN,
I don’t think he passed.
(2)
Problems of authenticity are not so great for modern art
as for other periods.
• The AFC has commonly been considered to be only a marker of
contrastiveness (e.g. Chafe 1976, 1994). Furthermore, the AFC has been
used as a test for contrastiveness.
• However, a closer look at "real" data reveals that this generalization is
at least incomplete and that the AFC is more adequately be classified as
a marker of discourse structure (where discourse is defined as
"language above the sentence or above the clause"; for a discussion, see
Schiffrin 1994:23).
• The mismatch between the commonly assumed contrastive function of
the AFC and the actually observed function stems from the neglect of
contexts in most of the literature on the AFC.
• (1) and shows that the AFC is in principle compatible with a contrastive
reading, if it correlates with the right stress assignment.
• However, the majority of the "real data", such as the representative
example (3), suggest that the primary function of the AFC (i.e. noncomparative ’as for’) is to mark Discourse Subtopic (DST) Shifts.
(3)
*
In 1982 they could desert Mr Schmidt for Mr Kohl because
they and the Christian Democrats together had a majority
This presentation is based on work for a class with Elizabeth Traugott and related to other
research together with David Oshima, which will be presented at the Information Structure
in context workshop at the IMS, Stuttgart, November 15-16. My special thanks go to
Elizabeth Traugott for encouraging me to work on this issue. I also want to thank her,
Daniel Büring and David Oshima for stimulating discussions on different aspects of
discourse structure related to my work on 'as for'. Remaining mistakes ...
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• What do I mean by Discourse Subtopic (DST)? Whereas Chafe (2001),
talks about Discourse topics as being the "topic of [a] paragraph"
(Chafe 2001:674, referring to Brown and Yule 1983:71), the
preliminary result of a corpus study (including data from the BNC,
Brown and Wall Street Journal Corpus) show that the AFC introduces a
topic whose typical textual unit is even smaller than a paragraph.
• A DST is usually maintained for 1-3 sentences and is the immediate
thing that is talked about. However, it is not to be confused with the
Information Structure-topic (henceforth IS-topic) as defined in
Lambrecht (1994:chapter 4), which is ’what the sentence is about’.
• This can be shown by the following example. In (4), ’the Zuwaya’ are
the IS-topic (according to most definitions of IS-topics; e.g. Vallduvi
1992, 1993, Lambrecht 1994, Sgall 2001). However, the new DST
introduced by the AFC does not refer to the referent of ’the Zuwaya’ but
to the object of the sentence ’no judges’:
(4)
But that was generally the practice of settled people:
Zuwaya were scattered over a vast territory, and
although they owned land they were not permanently
resident on it. Most shrines were the property of people
who could visit them easily, and who might find it
expedient to assemble there to show their strength if
they had land disputes with their neighbours. As for
justice and peace, the Zuwaya had no judges.
• To sum up, the DST is the smallest discourse topic unit just above the
sentence level but still below the paragraph level. A more formal
approach to the DST and its properties is provided in Jaeger & Oshima
(to appear).
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• Consider example (3) mentioned above. The preceding context in (3)
suggests that the overall discourse topic (cf. Chafe 2001) is ’political
parties in Germany’.
• The DST introduced by the AFC is evoked by the phrase ’possible
Christian Democratic rivals to Mr Kohl’ and identified with ’only one’,
which in turn is identified with ’Wolfgang Schäuble’.
• Whereas before the AFC in (3) the DST is one of the parties, ’they’, the
new DST is ’Wolfgang Schäuble’.
• In other words, the new DST ’Wolfgang Schäuble’ is introduced by the
AFC.
• Both (3) and (5) show that the newly introduced DST continues to be
what the immediately following discourse is about.
• The AFC does not mark contrastiveness (at least not unless we refine
the notion of contrast).
• The AFC is a discourse marker (i.e. the AFC is not an information
structure topic as defined in e.g. Lambrecht 1994:chapter 4). It
introduces a new Discourse Subtopic (DST), and is in that sense
additive rather than contrastive (cf. Schwenter 1998).
• Also, the AFC can be classified as a topic change marker (cf. Fraser
1988:27-28) primarily for written texts.
• Like other discourse marker, the AFC’s frequency depends crucially on
the mode and genre/style.
(5)
As for toilet facilities, I have an earth closet so the
lack of water does not affect that side of things.
Trouble is, the closet does get full and I have no means
of cleaning it out. It’s such an unpleasant job and I
just cannot cope with it. In the old days people used to
put ashes on top, but I prefer to use a utensil and I
take it out on to the pasture.
• In that sense, the AFC is cataphoric. Although not mentioned by Fraser,
the AFC can be grouped with other topic change markers (cf. Fraser
1988:27-28).
• Also, the AFC is discourse bracketing (cf. Schiffrin 1987).
' 'LVWULEXWLRQ
• While the AFC is quite common in written language, it is almost
non-existent in spoken language (9.3 times less frequent).
• This is not in line with the example of ’as for’-uses in the literature,
which are most often presented as question-answer pairs (in dialogues).
• I have provided three diagrams depicturing the distribution of the AFS
across modes, age, and certain genres at the end of this handout. For
comparison I have also listed the frequency of the very infrequent word
’postprandial’.
) 6HOHFWHG5HIHUHQFHV
CHAFE, WALLACE, L.
- (2001): The Analysis of Discourse Flow; in Schiffrin, D. / Tannen, D. & H.E.
Hamilton (eds.): The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, pp. 673-687;
Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers.
- (1976): Givenness, Contrastiveness, Definiteness, subjects, Topics, and Point
of View; in Li, Ch. N. (ed.): Subject and Topic, pp. 27-55; New York:
Academic Press.
CINQUE, GUGLIELMO
- (1977): The Movement Nature of Left Dislocation; Linguistic Inquiry, 8, 2, pp.
397-412.
FRASER, BRUCE
(1988): Types of English discourse markers; in: Acta Linguistica Hungarica
38, pp. 19-33.
LAMBRECHT, KNUD
- (1994): Information structure and sentence form. Topic, Focus, and the mental
representations of discourse referents; Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
SCHIFFRIN, DEBORAH
- (1994): Approaches to discourse; Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers.
- (1987): Discourse Markers; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
VALLDUVI, ENRIC
- (1993): Information Packaging: A Survey; MS. Centre for Cognitive Science
and Human Communication Research Centre , University of Edinborough.
- (1992): The Informational Component; New York, Garland.
Instances per million words
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
5
10
0
60+
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
45.91
Instances per million words
25.21
’as for’ (written)
’postprandial’
(written)
1.18
Distribution of DST-’as for’ in the BNC
2.71
Word
’as for’ (spoken)
36.03
35-44
31.05
Age
25-34
15-24
18.61
0
’postprandial’
(spoken)
0-14
16.93
Distribution of’as for’ according to age in written texts
39.82
45-59
38.59
total
50
Distribution of ’as for’ according to written genres
(6)
The reason for the upgrade, claims BCO, is to manage the data centres better. They are
accessed by 3,000 UK users and 6,000 international users including Barclays Network
Services. The new machines will run E-mail, time management and office software. As for
its Alpha plans, BCO hinted that the new kit could be upgraded to Alpha technology in a
year’s time but it will not commit to any definite Alpha policy. As for its liaison with
IBM, Barclays claims it only has nine RS/6000s, which have been used for evaluation as
part of its open systems strategy.
total
(7)
Applied
science
33.61
As for the letters of confirmation and negotiating the arrangements of the loan, Feigen
states that in her sworn depositions Hildenbrand admitted that she had forged the museum
director’s agreement regarding the loan, the letterhead having been taken off a business
card and the signature of the director having been forged. As for the letters to the
museum itself and the director, Feigen says that they were apparently intercepted and
sent on to Hildenbrand: ‘When we contacted the museum to ask why payment had not been
forthcoming, they had never heard of us". As of late March, Feigen succeeded in freezing
the assets of Hildenbrand and Lanzone until 1 May, but he had not yet taken any legal
action in Japan.
Commerce
and finance
26.74
(8)
World affairs Social science
28.25
45
Imaginative
28.84
Now she’ll be convinced I fancy him, Ace thought. Ice-queen Defries. I’ll bet she goes
for Cybermen. How can she think I’d even consider a nanoceph like Daak? I’ll bet he’s as
useful in bed as a leaky hot-water bottle. All those muscles are an obvious attempt to
compensate. And as for that chainsword Still, he’s handy with it. What a mess. She had
reached the place where the Dalek Killer had entered one of the six squat buildings that
made up the central complex. The hoverspeeder, its motors still idling, was attempting to
wedge itself into the hole in the wall which Daak must have made with the vehicle’s front
thrusters.
Genre
29.65
(9)
Leisure
39.72
Mig Romerez did not even recognise a football when I showed him one but his exotic
appearance should be enough to impress those bumpkins in ‘The Tip" crowd. His pizza
slices certainly rekindle memories of the good old days in football they taste like
Dubbin. As for Wayne Pollock and Clive Smott, they are totally unknown quantities. In
actual fact, I cannot even remember signing them! I must have bloody done so, because
they both produced contracts and five or six witnesses who swore that, although I was
completely paralytic, I signed them on last Monday night at the Duck and Forceps.
Natural and
pure sciences
40.43
40
41.23
Belief and
thought
34.66
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Arts
46.16
* 6RPHPRUH([DPSOHV
Instances per million words