218 María de los Ángeles Gómez-González
(2) a. ⏐ there were \three of us in the \car ⏐ \all °rather \nervous ⏐ (LIBMSE-
CAPT04: 018)
b. in the car (there) were three of us, all rather nervous.
c. three of us were in the car, all rather nervous.
d. three of us were all rather nervous, in the car.
In what follows it will be argued that, even though truth-conditionally
equivalent or describing precisely the same objective situation, different
discourse expressions like those in (1) and (2) above correspond to differ-
ent conceptual organizations that imply different directions of mental
scanning, i.e. different paths of mental access, in the conceptualizers’
minds (both S and A) when constructing a full conception of a given SoA.^6
In other words, different discourse expressions establish different view-
points (or vantage points) and determine different perspectives (global or
local) on the experience being constructed. For one thing, discourse in-
volves a succession of attentional frames, each of which represents the
scene being ‘viewed’ and acted on by S and A at a given instant, and it is
this viewing process as perspectivized by S and A that determines the
‘camera angle’ or ‘camera movement’ of discourse, structuring it into sepa-
rate attentional units or episodes (see also note 3). One particular framing
may be unmarked, or prototypical, in contrast with an array of compara-
tively marked alternatives, but all may be familiar and conventionally
sanctioned in specific situations.^7
A major dimension of mental accessing is the degree of discourse
prominence accorded to various elements within a conceptualization, most
importantly topical, focal and thematic prominence. We will here not go
into the nitty-gritty of the categories of Topic, Focus, Theme – and other
related concepts – as a detailed analysis has been given elsewhere (Gómez-
González 2001). Rather, in the following subsections we shall offer a
sketchy presentation of these notions – for the most part coinciding with
FG accounts, although in some occasions departing from or complement-
ing them, especially in the case of Theme – so as to demonstrate how these
different kinds of prominence affect the Focus of attention of discourse in
keeping with the newly posited IDCG.
2.1. Topic
Dik’s view (1997: 312) will be endorsed that topicality concerns the status
of those entities ‘about’ which information is to be provided or requested in
the discourse. However, an expansion of the FG notion of Discourse Topic
(D-Topic) is suggested here which will entail a relationship rather than an