A Double Perspective of Mathesius’s Study of the Subject-Verb Relation

By making a thorough study and comparison of the parts concerning verb and subject in Mathesius’s linguistic characterology, this paper argues that his approach to subject-verb relation takes two different perspectives. Based on detailed analysis, the present study argues that Mathesuis’s interpretation of the subject-verb relation not only takes the perspective of the verb while focusing on the sentence’s argument structure but also takes the one of the subject and emphasizes the utterance’s information structure. This reflects not only the difference between the sentence potential and the utterance actualized but also reflects one of Mathesius’s basic thoughts of functional linguistics, that is, taking the speaker’s standpoint in language analysis.

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