Description:
First published in 1988, this book examines the aspects of pragmatic competence involving the class of preposing constructions in English. After a review of the past literature on preposing, the book presents a pragmatic theory in which two discourse functions of preposing are proposed. It then provides a functional taxonomy of the various preposing types which the theory is designed to account for. One type of preposing, Topicalization, and two of its subtypes, Proposition Affirmation and Ironic Preposing, are discussed in detail in the subsequent chapters before it concludes with a summary along with directions for future research.