Thursday 20 June 2013

Clause Complex With Ellipsed Subject


Canterbury Cathedral
was
founded
in AD597
and
Ø
is
the Mother Church of the Anglican Communion
1
+2
Theme
Rheme

Rheme
Goal
Process
Location

Token
Process
Value
Subject
Finite
Predicator
Adjunct

Subject
Finite
Complement


Reasoning:  Ellipsis marks elements as textually non-prominent, whereas Theme marks elements as textually prominent.  Therefore, ellipsed elements do not function as Theme.

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 563):
Ellipsis marks the textual status of continuous information within a certain grammatical structure.  At the same time, the non-ellipsed elements of that structure are given the status of being contrastive in the environment of continuous information.  Ellipsis thus assigns differential prominence to the elements of a structure: if they are non-prominent (continuous), they are ellipsed; if they are prominent (contrastive), they are present.  The absence of elements through ellipsis is an iconic realisation of lack of prominence.