My thesis is entitled Types of relations within Simple Sentences.

Clause as message and it is

concerned with the basic relations at the level of the Simple Sentences and the functional analysis
of the clause according to its thematic structure. The aim of this paper is to shed light of certain
theoretical aspects and to provide straightforward examples and analyses of specific texts.

In Systemic Functional Grammar, the major unit of grammatical analysis is the clause. The
clause has a special place in expressing meaning because it is at this level that people can start
talking about how things exist, how things happen and how people feel in the world around them.
It is at the level of the clause that humans usually use language to interact with others. In other
words, instead of uttering sounds or single words, it is the clause that allows us to construct
complex ideas.
An extremely important aspect of functional grammar is the way information is structured in
communication. If we are explaining something to another person, whether in speech or writing,
we instinctively try to organize what we say in a way that will make it easier for the hearer or
reader to understand.

This thesis is divided in three main chapters preceded by an introduction and followed by
conclusions and a bibliography. While the first two chapters focus on theoretical aspects, the third
one provides an analysis, based on what was previously presented.

The first chapter entitled The Structure and Functions within Simple Sentences starts from
the idea that the structure of a language is immensely complex and that every structure seems to
be connected to another one. It examines the internal structure of some short, simple sentences
and what these sentences manage to illustrate is that English exploit a very small number of basic
sentence-making structures and that the social context in which a sentence is uttered will affect its
form and its interpretation. The two basic elements of any sentence, Subject and Predicate, are
defined in this chapter, taking into consideration their semantic roles and their discourse
functions.

Chapter 2, entitled Clause as Message, starts from the assumption that in all languages the
clause has the character of a message. When people use language to express meaning, they do so
in specific situations, and the form of the language that they use in discourse is influenced by the
complex aspects of those situations. From this point of view, grammar becomes a study of how
meanings are built up through the choice of words and other grammatical resources such as
singular or plural, negative or positive, and other linguistic forms such as tone and emphasis.
 Apart from the general organization of ideas, the chapter examines the two parallel and
interrelated systems of analysis that concern the structure of the clause with regard to organizing
the message.

The first one is called Information Structure and involves constituents which are labelled Given
and New. The information unit is what its name implies – a unit of information. All clauses have
information structure and we make use of this both in spoken as well as in written language. In
order to communicate effectively, the speaker must bring to the hearer’s attention some element
of shared or mutual knowledge. This shared information is generally placed at the beginning of a
clause and is labelled Given information. Most clauses also include information that is the focus
of the speaker’s message, information that is considered New. In theory, the form of each
information unit consists of a Given element accompanied by a New element. Normally the
emphasis is on the final element of the clause. However, different contexts might require a
different intonation, but the most common form is the one where the Given information precedes
the New information.

The second system of analysis is called Thematic Structure and involves constituents that are
labelled Theme and Rheme. While the information structure is realized through intonation choices
and Given/New structures, the system of Theme is accomplished by separating the clause into
just two main constituents: Theme (the first part of a clause) and Rheme. The definition of Theme,
as given by Halliday, is that the Theme is “the element which serves as the point of departure of
the message”. Considering the fact that people normally depart from places which they are
familiar with, the Theme generally contains familiar, Given information, namely information
which has already been mentioned in the text or might be familiar from the context. In English,
the identification of Theme is based on word order, and Theme is the element which comes first
in the clause.
However, claiming that the Theme is what comes first in the clause is quiet ambiguous. It is
important to identify how many of the clause’s constituents belong to the Theme and how many
are part of the Rheme. For a better understanding of the concepts, different types of Themes were
presented and analyzed. Apart from this, the issue of mood was taken into consideration, since
the element which is normally chosen as Theme depends on the choice of mood.

After presenting the theoretical elements, the last chapter provides a more detailed analysis of
two extracts from Alice Munro’s short stories Family Furnishings and The Bear Came Over the
Mountain. The interpretation of the two texts follows the theoretical aspects of the thematic
structure presented in the previous chapter. The extracts are first presented and then analyzed
from the functional point of view.

The main reason for choosing this topic is due to its strong connection with the real world, for
the way people are able to organize what they say in order to make it easier for the hearer or
reader to understand their message.
Most of us are aware of the way in which we structure large chunks of information, especially
in speaking, and even if it looks like we rarely even think about what we are going to say, when
we study language, we can say that we do subconsciously impose a structure on our speech as
part of the act of communication.