Extraposition in English and Swedish 245
the tendency, noted by Erman (1998: 130), for Swedish to be more “backward
looking” in its information structure than English, a tendency which has already
been seen in the ease in which non-subject clause elements may be fronted in
order to provide topic continuity in Swedish (Johansson 1996; Svensson 2000).
The information structure of English, on the other hand, tends to be more forward
looking, the sentence “developing an increasingly higher information value (i.e.
‘start light go heavy’)” (Erman 1998: 118). However, as the number of instances
in the present study is small, further investigation of a larger sample is needed to
draw any definite conclusions about this.
The remaining noncongruent correspondences to extraposed and nonextra-
posed clauses are constructions that do not have subject clauses. These will be
examined separately in the next two sections.
- Noncongruent correpondences to extrapositions
The noncongruent correspondences have been classified into five types depend-
ing on how their constituents correspond to the matrix predicate and subordinate
clause of extraposition.
i. Clause-external evaluations
Clause-external evaluations are clause complexes, which, like extrapositions,
express the attitudinal meaning in the matrix predicate and postpone the infor-
mational content. In the Swedish version of (21), for instance, the subject of the
matrix predicate is the generic pronoun man ‘one’ and, as in extrapositions, an
explicitly impersonal expression of attitudinal meaning. In the English version of
(22), on the other hand, the subject I refers to the personal source of the attitudinal
meaning and is, therefore, explicitly subjective.
(21) och ibland har man svårt att hinna ikapp dem. (KOB1)
‘and sometimes has one difficult to catch up them’
and it is sometimes hard to catch up with them. (KOB1T)
(22) But I’m sorry she’s dead.’ (PDJ3)
men det var tråkigt att höra att hon är död. (PDJ3T)
‘But it was sad to hear that she is dead.’