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Glossary: preposing

An information structuring strategy where a grammatical element is moved earlier in the clause to highlight it. For example, instead of saying I could come on Thursday, a speaker might say On Thursday I could come, stressing the date to the hearer.

Preposing: Activity

Some things I can remember without writing them down. → I can remember some things without writing them down.

Hardbacks I wouldn’t lend to anyone. → I wouldn't lend hardbacks to anyone.

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Preposing

In this exercise you can see what happens when you move elements, particularly Direct Objects, earlier in the clause.

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Preposing and postposing

As writers and speakers there are many ways in which we can present information to readers or hearers by using different word orders and sentence patterns to highlight different aspects of meaning. This is often referred to as information structuring.

There are many ways we can highlight information. Here we will look at two important ones:

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Englicious (C) Survey of English Usage, UCL, 2012-21 | Supported by the AHRC and EPSRC. | Privacy | Cookies