Abstract:

In the following pages, I wish to present some preliminary reflections and some relevant documentation, upon attempting to understand the grammatical phenomenology of cohesion or linkage. This, I believe, is of the most fascinating, perhaps the most fascinating topic of syntax, for here is something close to the very quintessence of textuality — hence, of grammaticality itself, bearing in mind Louis Hjelmslev’s opening words in his Prolegomena: “The object of interest for linguistic science are texts” (not “languages” or “a language” — which is only a seeming paradox). My corpus for the following observations is triple: some of Kate Roberts’s short stories, and two novels (I am engaged in work on a comprehensive syntax of the corpus of K.R.’s fiction, on the basis of her editions and MSS, for which a pilot work, incorporating three monographic studies, appeared in 1998. The present paper may be seen as a cluster of preliminary work-notes to a chapter on juncture and textuality within this projected work. A second source is John Emyr’s collection of short stories, Mynydd Gwaith a storiau eraill (Denbych, 1984). A third source are some numbers of the defunct weekly magazine Y Faner.