Prezentační versus kvalifikační škála: interpretace hraničních případů v FSP analýze narativního textu
Presentation versus Quality Scale: Interpretation of Borderline Cases in FSP Analysis of Narrative Texts

Summary/Abstract: In the framework of Firbasian theory of functional sentence perspective (FSP), one of the cornerstones of analysis is represented by the distinction of the sentences that implement the Presentation or Quality Scales respectively. The present paper discusses corpus-based borderline cases in which it is difficult to unequivocally identify their functional perspective. The study makes use of both the English original narrative texts (fiction and biblical) and their Czech translation counterparts; such a contrastive approach is adopted to throw light on the dubious cases. In the discussion, the role of individual communicative units as well as the phenomenon of semantic affinity observed between the context-independent subject and the transitional verb is explored against the background of the four FSP factors, viz. context, linear modification, dynamic (and static) semantics, and intonation. The key question is the capacity of verbs to express existence/appearance on the scene with explicitness or sufficient implicitness, which is triggered by the S-V semantic affinity and certain syntactic qualities.

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