Actual Division of the Sentence (J. Mathesius): General Notion

Taken together the notional parts of the sentence referring to the basic elements of the reflected situation form the nominative meaning of the sentence. The division of the sentence into notional parts can be called the nominative division (grammatical division/syntactic division).

Alongside of the nominative division of the sentence, the idea of the actual division of the sentence has been put forward in theoretical linguistics. The purpose of the actual division of the sentence (the functional sentence perspective) is to reveal the correlative significance of the sentence parts from the point of view of their actual informative role in an utterance, i.e. from the point of view of the semantic contribution they make to the total information conveyed by the sentence in the context of connected speech. Thus the actual division of the sentence exposes its informative perspective.

The main components of the actual division of the sentence are the theme and the rheme.

The theme expresses the starting point of the communication, it denotes an object or a phenomenon about which something is reported.

The rheme expresses the basic informative part of the communication, its contextually relevant centre.

Between the theme and the rheme are positioned transitional parts of the actual division of various degrees of informative value (these parts are sometimes called transition).

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 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):

Thus, in the following sentences of various emotional character the theme is expressed by the subject, while the rheme is expressed by the predicate:

I. The theme is expressed by the subject

Max bounded forward. (the rheme coincides with the whole predicate group)

Again Charlie is being too clever! (the adverbial introducer again is a transitional element, the rheme is expressed by the rest of the predicate group, the main part of the rheme/the peak of informative perspective is rendered by the intensified predicative too clever).

Her advice can't be of any help to us. (the addressee object to us is transitional, the informative peak is expressed by the predicative of any help)

In the following sentences the correlation between the nominative and actual divisions is the reverse:

II. The theme is expressed by the predicate or its part, the rheme is rendered by the subject:

Through the open window came the purr of an approaching motor car.

Who is coming late but John!

There is a difference of opinion between the parties.

The actual division of the sentence finds its full expression only in a concrete context of speech (the contextual division of the sentence):

Mary is fond of poetry (if we approach it as a stylistically neutral construction devoid of any specific connotations, the theme is expressed by the subject, and the rheme, by the predicate) – direct actual division (the rheme is expressed by the predicate)

Isn't it surprising that Tim is so fond of poetry? – But you are wrong. Mary is fond of poetry. (the subject is the rheme, the predicate is the exposer of the theme) – inverted actual division (the rheme is expressed by the subject).