Microsoft Word Theoretical Course of English Grammar

Nino Kirvalidze
67
contours, constructions with introducers, syntactic patterns of contrastive complexes, construc-
tions with articles and other determiners and constructions with intensifying particles.
Linguistic means of expressing the centre of communication (i.e. the rheme). To specify 
the rheme of communication, the following devices are used in English: 
1.
The indefinite article and indefinite pronouns:
“
A man
walked into the room.”
“
Any explanation
will suit me.”
2.
The constructions “There is/there are”: 
“There was 
a sound of footsteps.
”
“There are 
some books
on the table.” 
3.
Complex sentences with emphatic “it”: 
“It was 
Laura
who had seen him.”
“It was 
at my mother’s
that I met them.” 
4.
Passive constructions in which the by-object is the communicative centre: 
“I was awaken 
by a knock
at the door.” 
“Our house was built 
by my grandfather
.” 
Unlike these sentences, other passive sentences admit of the theme-rheme division: 
“The little boy was taken to hospital.”
5.
Intensifying particles identify the rheme, adding emotional colouring to the whole ut-
terance:
“
Even Mr. Brown
had a part in the general debate.” 
“We were 
so impressed
to see him in this play.”
6.
Inversion. In English, due to the fixed word-order, the actual division of the sentence 
into the theme and the rheme mostly coincides with its syntactic division into the 
grammatical subject and predicate. Still, in other contextual conditions, mainly in em-
phatic speech, the reverse order of actual division is used, the rheme preceding the 
theme. For example: 
“
Magic words
you are speaking, Nancy.” 
“
How well
you look!” 

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Theoretical Course of English Grammar 
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