Focus of attention in discourse 123using (18b) the primary purpose of the speaker is not to present the refer-
ents but to establish the event”; see also on this point Hannay 1991: 146).
In fact, (4b) involves not just inversion, but also so-called there-
insertion,^9 a specifically ‘existential’ construction. In this connection, Bir-
ner and Ward (1998: 102–106) argue that there is a discourse-pragmatic
constraint affecting the postverbal NP in this construction, to the effect that
its referent must not be ‘hearer-old’ (i.e. assumed to be already famil-
iar/known to the hearer); no such constraint is claimed to regulate the
canonical word-order variant, as seen in (4a), however. This restriction
may be seen to stem from what Hannay (1985a: 101) argues is the raison
d'être of presentative constructions of this kind, namely to “assert the exis-
tence of an entity or state of affairs in the discourse world”. Siewierska
(1991: 161–162) distinguishes between the two construction types also
within an FG framework in suggesting that sentences of type (4a) serve to
report a bare event, while existential ones, as in (4b), function to introduce
or present and highlight a specific entity (or alternatively, a State of Affairs
as a whole). Huffman (1993) presents the three construction types as a
three-way decreasing scale of FOCUS marking: subject-verb order confer-
ring a high level of attention focus on the referent of the subject term, that
of verb-subject a lower or mid level, and the there + subject + extension (in
Hannay's 1985a analysis), the lowest level of the three.
(5b) is a naturally-occurring example, contrasted with (5a), which is
adapted from it. The immediate left-hand and right-hand co-text of (5b) is
given under (6a) and (6b), respectively. Moreover, the immediate macro-
topic of the segment in which (6a), (5b) and (6b) occur is ‘the city of Anti-
bes’.
(5) a. ...the Picasso museum in the old Grimaldi château is of greater interest.
b. ...of greater interest is the Picasso museum in the old Grimaldi châ-
teau.(Extract from The Holiday Which? Guide to France by A.Ruck
1982: 112)
(6) a. ...In the old town [of Antibes] the cathedral, like so many others, has
an ill-lit Bréa; (4b).
b. ...(6a) + (5b) The rest of Antibes is a modern and bustling resort...
In comparing (5a) and (5b) as occurring in the left- and right-hand contexts
specified in (6a) and (6b), respectively, it would seem that for the subject-
predicate ordering as in (5a) to be fully coherent and natural in this context,
the adversative connective but would be expected preceding it. The force
of this connective is in fact implicit in the original predicate-subject order-