The Thread of Discourse (Janua Linguarum. Series Minor, 207)

THE TOREAD OF DISCOURSE systems like those of Bacairí of Brazil and Longuda of Nigeria, in which the topic of a paragraph is assigned pronouns from a special set regardless of what other things have just been mentioned. The initial insight into the relationship between tense-aspect systems and discourse came from Ruth McLeod's work on Xavante of Brazil. She found that what appeared morphologically to be a single aspect system broke apart into two upon observing where verbs bearing each of the aspects occurred in discourse. John and Bonnie Newman investigated aspect sequences in Longuda, and Lynell Marchese found tense to be a high level discourse feature with recursive organization in Godié of Ivory Coast. Preface 1 Why discourse study? 1.Why linguists should not study discourse 2.Why linguists should study discourse 3.The use of discourse studies 2 Discourse so far 1.Rhetoric 2.Criticism 3.Exegesis 4.Linguistics 5.Empirical studies 6.The approach of this book 3 Events and participants in discourse 1.Events 2.Participants 4 Non–events in discourse 1.Setting 2.Background 3.Evaluations 4.Collateral 5 The speaker and hearer in discourse 6 Kinds of information in discourse 1. A work sheet 2.Span analysis 3.Use of surface constructions 7 Constituency in discourse 1.Partitioning principles 2.Levels of organization 8 Semantic role structure 1.Content, cohesion, and staging 2.Role relationships 3.Orientation roles 4.Process roles 5.The agentive complex 6.Orientation-process counterparts 9 Semantic derivation 10 Other relationships among predicates 1.Associative relationships 2.Areas of meaning 11 The arguments of propositions 1.Constraints involving roles 2.Pseudo–predicates and consolidation 3.The complexity of arguments 4.Constraints not related to roles 12 Referential indices 13.The grammar of semantic productions 1.Formation 2.Transformation 3.Special mappings 14 Rhetorical structure 1.Paratactic predicates 2.Hypotactic predicates 3.Neutral predicates 15 Modality 1.Tense 2.Aspect 3.Mood 16 Discourse semantics and the surface hierarchy 1.Standard configurations 2.Alternatives to constituency grammars 17 Linear organization 18 Participant orientation 1.Permutations 2.Sequences of permutations 3.Permutation States 19 Cohesion 1.Information blocks 2.Information centers 3.Overlays 4.Information rate 20 Reference 1.The field of reference 2.Cohesive structure and reference 3.Viewpoint 21 Staging 1.Theme and modality 2.Theme and cohesive structure 3.Voice 4.Staging at various levels 22 Topicalization 1.Devices 2.Thematic partitioning 3.Tagging and reprise 4.Compound topicalization 23 Variability 24 Postsemantic shaping 1.Redundancy transformations 2.Semantic neutralization 3.Proposition consolidation 4.Performative saturation 5.Level formation Appendix. Thematic linkage in Nambiquara narrative Bibliography Index

The Introduction, which gives information about the life and work of Procopius and also about previous editions and studies of the text, is followed by Chapter 1 which contains an analytical codicological and palaeological description of codex Ath, which was written in the late 13th century and is thus the earliest extant ms of Procopius' Wars. Section 2 examines the position of the codex in the stemma codicum, proposed by the latest editor of the text, Jacob Haury, Procopius Caesariensis Opera Omnia (Teubner: Leipzig, 1905-12, revised by G.Wirth, 1963). A collation of the text with the principal manuscripts (K and L) of the two families, z and y, shows that Ath belongs to the y family. A further collation of Ath with all other extant manuscripts of this family of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, illustrates the importance of Ath in the tradition of the text, despite its minor phonetic, grammatical, syntactical and linguistic errors. Section 3 gives a description and updated information of all manuscripts of family y, which were briefly described by previous editors, and some of them were not examined at all, before their relation is examined and the stemma codicum is revised on the basis of a series of propositions. It is concluded that Ath has been the exemplar for some of the later manuscripts, either directly or through intermediaries. The study concludes with a more theoretical chapter, Section 4, which places the production of Ath and other manuscripts, containing Procopius' works and other early Byzantine historiographical texts, in the general context of the intellectual milieu of the Palaeologan period.