Resumo

VILLEGAS SANTANA, César Augusto. Relationship between subjet position in Venezuelan spanish and grammatical structure, verb class and thematic progression: an approach from venezeualn press. Letras [online]. 2006, vol.48, n.73, pp.349-363. ISSN 0459-1283.

The aim of this research was to determine the relationship between the grammatical structure, verb class and thematic system and the subject position in Venezuelan Spanish. Several specific objectives and a set of questions were formulated. The theoretical framework lies upon research on formal principles of sentence-constituent order and on pragmatic aspects. With regards to research methodology, 30 opinion articles were selected at random. Each text was analyzed in terms of grammatical and communicative categories that constituted our variables. It was made evident that, among other aspects, (a) not only does the subject fulfills the function of theme or rheme within discourse dynamics, but also its placement depends on pragmatic and textual reasons, grammatical aspects have less influence; (b) there exist specialized linguistic structures for the expression of rhematic contents; (c) some types of verbs seem to favor the post-positioning of the subject, though the pragmatic reason continue to predominate; and (d) both thematic and information systems are a single textual function, so the position of the subject depends on its role in the communicative dynamism and not on simple aspect of formal position.

Palavras-chave : pragmatics; grammar; discourse; theme; rheme.