Tense and narrativity : from medieval performance to modern fiction / by Suzanne Fleischman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fleischman, Suzanne, author.

Series:

Texas linguistics series.

Texas linguistics series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Discourse analysis, Narrative.

Grammar, Comparative and general--Tense.

Grammar, Comparative and general.

Discourse analysis, Literary.

Literature, Medieval--History and criticism.

Literature, Medieval.

Fiction--History and criticism.

Fiction.

Narration (Rhetoric).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (460 pages) : illustrations.

Place of Publication:

Austin, Texas : University of Texas Press, [1990]

Summary:

In this pathfinding study, Suzanne Fleischman brings together theory and methodology from various quarters to shed important new light on the linguistic structure of narrative, a primary and universal device for translating our experiences into language. Fleischman sees linguistics as laying the foundation for all narratological study, since it offers insight into how narratives are constructed in their most primary context: everyday speech. She uses a linguistic model designed for "natural" narrative to explicate the organizational structure of "artificial" narrative texts, primarily from the Middle Ages and the postmodern period, whose seemingly idiosyncratic use of tenses has long perplexed those who study them. Fleischman develops a functional theory of tense and aspect in narrative that accounts for the wide variety of functions—pragmatic as well as grammatical—that these two categories of grammar are called upon to perform in the linguistic economy of a narration.

Contents:

1. Working Definitions and Operational Preliminaries

2. A Theory of Tense-Aspect in Narrative Based on Markedness

3. "Ungrammatical" Tenses: Background of the Questior

4. Narrative Discourse: Typological Considerations

5. The Linguistic Structure of Narrative

6. Textual Functions

7. Expressive Functions

8. Metalinguistic Functions: Storytelling in the PRESENT

Conclusion.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0-292-76249-6