"A ruler came and knelt before him": Hendiadys as a Means of Presentation on the Scene
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| Year of publication | 2012 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | Seen from the point of view of the Firbasian theory of FSP, in addition to the existential there-construction, it is the “prototypical” configuration of the rhematic subject in preverbal position that seems to convey existence/appearance on the scene most frequently in English (A cruel smile hovered over her face.). The present corpus-based paper proposes to throw light on the structure and the function of the Pr-sentences containing the so-called hendiadys (A ruler came and knelt before him.) Such constructions, in which “a single conceptual idea is realised by two distinct constituents” (Hopper 2002: 146 qtd. in Tárnyiková 2007: 107) actually operate within the area of pseudo-coordination (Quirk et al. 1985: 978-979). The aim of the analysis will be to discuss the potential capacity of such configurations to present a context-independent subject on the scene, i.e. to express appearance/existence with explicitness or sufficient implicitness. |