Thetic vs. categorical
Revision as of 15:51, 11 October 2008 by Haspelmath (talk | contribs) (New page: The term pair '''thetic vs. categorical''' is used in information structure studies for topicless, all-new sentences and sentences with a topic. ===Examples=== Most sentences are cate...)
The term pair thetic vs. categorical is used in information structure studies for topicless, all-new sentences and sentences with a topic.
Examples
Most sentences are categorical, so the literature mostly discusses thetic sentences, e.g.
- (What's wrong with you?) My boyfriend left me.
- (Why aren't you playing outside?) It's raining.
Origin
The term pair was made popular in linguistics by Kuroda 1972 and Sasse 1987. Kuroda adopted it from the philosopher Brentano.
References
- Brentano
- Kuroda 1972
- Sasse, Hans-Jürgen. 1987.
Other languages
German thetisch vs. kategorisch
