Lemma | subject |
---|---|
Categoria grammaticale | N |
Lingua | inglese |
Sigla | Martinet (1962) |
Titolo | A Functional View of Language |
Sinonimi | |
Rinvii | nominal and pronominal moneme (inglese) |
Traduzioni | |
Citazioni | A grammatical subject, as such, is an item whose presence does not result from a choice: the speaker, does not choose to use a subject or not, because, by definition, as it were, a subject, is what must be added to a predicate to make a statement in those languages where we have a right to speak of a subject. Therefore, since the introduction of the subject function is never a matter of choice, we may say it is deprived of meaning. A formal consequence of this is the tendency to eliminate any mark of the subject function, so that a zero 'signifiant' should correspond to a zero 'signifié'. A subject is different from a complement only because it is constitutive of the minimal utterance. Therefore, whenever we speak of a subject we are referring to a linguistic situation in which subject and predicate are both equally indispensable, since our criterion is indispensable, and the problem arises of how we can tell what is the one and what is the other. If our terminology makes any sense, the subject should be the one which should somehow stand closer to the marginal and optional elements of the utterance: in many languages, English among them, subject function can be ascribed to such monemes (nominals) as are found elsewhere to assume the functions of complements; in some, such as Malagasy, monemes with subject function must be marked as previously known or mentioned, which shows them to be informationally marginal. The possibility that some languages do not clear distinguish between two successive statements and the succession subject/ predicate cannot be ruled out. The subject, defined as what necessarily accompanies the predicate, is one function of certain classes of monemes which, in the wake of tradition, we could call nominal and pronominal monemes. |