Лекции по теоретической грамматике английского языка для студентов

 
2. Actual Division of the Sentence 
The actual division of the sentence, called also the "functional sentence 
perspective", exposes the informative perspective of the sentence showing what 
immediate semantic contribution the sentence parts make to the total information 
conveyed by the sentence. The sentence can be divided into two sections – theme 
and rheme.
The theme is the part of the proposition that is being talked about 
(
predicated
)
. The theme expresses the starting point of communication; it means 
that it denotes an object or a phenomenon about which something is reported. Once 
stated, the theme is therefore "old news", i.e. the things already mentioned and 
understood.
The predicate that gives information on the topic is called rheme. 
The 
rheme expresses the basic informative part of the communication, 
emphasizing its contextually relevant centre.
Between the theme and the rheme 
are positioned intermediary, transitional parts of the actual division of various 
degrees of informative value (these parts are sometimes called "
transition
"). 

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The theme of the actual division of the sentence may or may not coincide 
with the subject of the sentence. The rheme of the actual division, in its turn, may 
or may not coincide with the predicate of the sentence — either with the whole 
predicate group or its part, such as the predicative, the object, the adverbial. 
The theme need not necessarily be something known in advance. In many 
sentences it is, in fact, something already familiar, as in some of our examples, 
especially with the definite article. However, that need not always be the case. 
There are sentences in which the theme, too, is something mentioned for the first 
time and yet it is not the centre of the predication. It is something about which a 
statement is to be made. The theme is here the starting point of the sentence, not its 
conclusion.