Orden De Constituyentes Determinado Por La Estructura Comunicativa De La Cláusula:El Totonaco De Tuxtla

Abstract

In the grammar of Tuxtla Totonac (TTu), constituent order is not used to codify syntactic relations like Subject or Object. Our analysis shows that the order of constituents in the clause in TTu is rigidly governed by the thematic relations in the communicative structure of sentences. For all configurations of S, V, O, Rheme (the portion of the clause corresponding to what the speaker wants their interlocutor to know) always precedes Theme (the portion of the clause that expresses what the clause is about). The analysis also shows that in the construction of discourse, each of the four nominal positions of the TTu sentence template serves a different communicative purpose. The results show that it is methodologically fruitful to separate the study of information structure at the level of the clause (Rheme/Theme) from the structuring of information at the level of discourse (Topic).