FRAGMENTS

FRAGMENTS

Fragments: constructionalising non-canonical expressions in written English

Building on previous projects on the non-canonical syntax of English, this initiative develops a new research line on 'fragments', that is, on syntactically marked but communicatively effective structures of the type: Hi to Simon [& take care], Case over, Never mind, Sorry, Glad to meet you, etc. These structures have not received a homogeneous treatment or have been sufficiently described or classified in previous research; they have been relegated to categories comprising various types of non-canonical expressions grouped under labels such as fragmentary, elliptical, irregular, minor or sub-sentences. In this project, the term '(clausal/sentential) fragment' is adopted to encompass all units of discourse characteristically oral but also common in writing without a complete sentence/clause structure, with or without explicit linguistic antecedents, which express a propositional meaning equivalent to that of a complete sentence or clause, with different degrees of conventionalisation.