英语倒装句的语序与信息

Information status of English inversion

位移起着信息包装的作用 ,因而必须符合一定的条件。前移与后移是否恰当取决于语篇提供的信息情况。多个例句表明倒装句中有两种信息结构 :已知—未知 ,已知—已知。倒装句中的动词都不能提供新信息 ,这是由语境决定的。

Inversion serves an information-packaging function, and felicitous inversion depends on the relative discourse-familiarity of the information represented by the preposed and postposed constituents. The data indicate that there are two possibilities in information status based on relative sentence position : old-new information, old-old information. Finally, the verbs in this construction are not expected to provide new information. This is determined by the context.