Clause chaining in Toposa: A pragmatic approach

• Authors: Helga Schröder
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This paper explores the pragmatic routines that occur in clause 2 chaining. It demonstrates that the tense-aspect dependency markers in Toposa texts not only combine chained clauses with an initial clause, but also guide the audience to understand information in texts as foregrounded. The understanding of which information is foregrounded is achieved through pragmatic routines that cut the comprehension process short because of frequently encountered inferential processes occurring in repeatedly accessed contextual environments. The pragmatic routines are explained as part of the relevance-theoretic comprehension heuristic. It will also be shown how these routines apply to narratives, and procedural texts.

Keywords

EN

clause chaining; procedural-conceptual meaning; pragmatic routines; foreground/background information; Toposa

• Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
• Journal: Lodz Papers in Pragmatics
• Year: 2013
• Volume: 9
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 25-44

Dates

published

2013-06-01

online

2013-06-01

Contributors

author

Helga Schröder

• University of Nairobi

Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/lpp-2013-0003