Constructions with shell nouns in English: Their dual role in information packaging

Abstract

The focus in this paper is on structural and functional properties of a marginal type of focus formulas in English, known as «N-be-that-constructions» (Schmid 2001), cf. The problem is that he is jealous. They are referred to here as focus formulas with shell nouns (FFSNs). The role of the nouns in these templates is to create conceptual shells (Schmid 1997) into which the propositional content is encapsulated, with both the parts being co-referentially linked. The BNC data have revealed two manifestations of FFSNs in discourse: they occurred either as fixed utterance-initial templates (The thing is that killing got to be a habit.), or as looser configurations, co-occurring with various discourse signposts (DSs), as in Mm. well I mean there's the the other thing is you see... My view, inspired by Schmid (2001) and outlined in Válková and Tárnyiková (2015), is that the FFSNs can have a dual role in discourse, operating either as focalizers or as discourse signposts participating in a number of pragmatic strategies associated with facework. The aim is to argue for the validity of this claim and give evidence of and reasoning for the focality loss cases.