Discourse functions, placement and prosody: An FDG analysis of left- and right-dislocation in British English

This paper presents an analysis of the discourse features, linearisation and prosody of left and right dislocated elements in spoken British English. Using data from the British component of the International Corpus of English, the relevance of the notion of Topic in the analysis of dislocation is rejected. The paper argues instead for the recognition of the dual relation of the dislocated item to the discourse ontext (discourse-orientation) and the host clause (host-orientation). Moreover, it is shown that the placement and prosody of extra-clausal constituents is sensitive to the principle of task urgency. These facts are then analysed in the framework of Functional Discourse Grammar. It is argued that for left dislocations and Afterthoughts, the communicative urgency is reflected in their status as Subsidiary Discourse Acts at the IL with the two rhetorical functions prelude and extension and their subsequent placement in pre- and post-sentential position, respectively. Finally, right dislocations are assumed to only possess Subact status at the IL. Since they are communicatively less urgent, they receive the Background function, which accounts for their placement in post-clausal position and their prosodic deaccentuation.