| Summary: | The present study attempts to outline the influence of the principle of end-focus in a Biblical narrative by means of the theory of functional sentence perspective (FSP). It focuses on different types of interaction between two word order principles: the linearity principle of FSP, which places the communicatively most important element (rheme) at the end (end-focus), and the principle of grammatical word order, which in English requires SVOAdv(s) ordering of clause elements. Following a previous research in the field carried out on contemporary fiction, the textual material is analysed from the viewpoint of the following groups: (1) a group with clauses that adhere to both principles, (2) a group displaying violation of grammatical word order, and (3) a group displaying violation of the principle of end-focus. The fourth group is constituted by the so called transformed structures (in opposition to basic structures in the first three groups), i.e. clauses which with special devices to align the clause elements in agreement with both principles (such as the passive construction). This group is treated both separately, and in relation to the other three. As the study is intended to be diachronically comparative, the analysis is done on three versions of the same text: the Old Testament book of Esther in the...
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