THE THEME OF DISCOURSE -Pragmatic Subject-

This essay discusses a subject that has often been treated under the title of the subject of sentence. After examining the ideas of N. Chomsky, Charles J. Fillmore and M. A. K. Halliday on the subject, it explicates necessity to distinguish the 'subject' into three kinds or levels: syntactic, semantic and pragmatic subject. The syntactic subject turns out to be the one on the surface structure of a sentence, the semantic one on the deep structure or the semantic representation of Case Grammar, and the pragmatic the theme or topic of an utterance. The last is the most important to comprehend the idea of subject or theme. To find out a linguistic basis of theme, two concepts are noted: 'nesting' pointed out by Weinreich and 'Predication' by Praha school of linguists. On the basis of these two concepts, supported by Strawson's opinion on a subject- predicate sentence and my own observation, theme or pragmatic subject is defined as part of utterance or discourse which refers to an object of 'double judgement' with presupposition of its existence and includes the speaker's point of interest about it. Then the following topics are discussed: the syntactical structure of theme, the elements and structure of discourse and the unity of discourse