Discourse Pragmatics and the Verb

Download or read book Discourse Pragmatics and the Verb written by Suzanne Fleischman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-11-18 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1990, this collection investigates grammatical categories associated with the verb as they are used by speakers and writers in real discourses and texts. Focusing on tense, aspect, mood, and voice in French, Spanish, and Italian, each chapter underscores the importance of context in our understanding of how grammatical categories work. Above and beyond their basic ‘grammatical functions’, categories of the verb are shown to operate in such capacities as structuring information in discourse, establishing point of view in a text, and creating textual cohesion. Importantly, this volume reflects the crucial role discourse-pragmatics factors play in our interpretation of the meanings of categories of grammar.