92 ROBERT D. VAN VALIN, JR.
lack PrPs, pragmatic functions are assigned to arguments which have
already been assigned syntactic functions, or in case of a language like
Acehnese, directly to macroroles and other elements. The contrast between
the linking scheme in a language like Dyirbal, which has PrPs, and one like
Warlpiri, which does not, is captured in Figure 23.5.4.1.2 Italian
Italian is normally thought to be more like English than Russian with
respect to word order, but in fact focus structure considerations can have a
profound effect on the order of elements in an Italian utterance. This was
shown in the contrast between the (S)V predicate focus construction in
(lib) and the VS sentence focus construction in (12b) (cf. Figure 14); they
are repeated in (79).
(79) a. (La mia macchina) si è ROTTA. (=llb)
b. Mi si è rotta la MACCHINA. (=12b)
"My car broke down."
Since prenuclear core-internal elements are necessarily topical in Italian
and core-internal focal elements must be postnuclear, the assignment of the
pragmatic function topic or focus to an argument crucially determines its
position in a clause, if it is to appear overtly. Italian has PrPs, like English,
and as in English an argument must be both pivot and topic in order to be
a PrP. This means that if a PrP is to appear postverbally, it cannot be in a
core-internal position, and this is the case; if a PrP occurs in a postposed