Fronting
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Defining fronting |
Fronting at sentence level means moving a part of a clause to the front of the sentence before the usual subject–verb structure.
- It is not the same as simply changing the subject of the verb.
- The effect is to emphasise the fronted item. This is a form of marking and for more, you should consult the guide to markedness linked in the list of related guides at the end.
Other terms are regularly used to describe what is here treated as fronting:
- Topicalisation implies that the fronted item
has been made into the topic of the sentence which will then be
followed by a comment. Many languages, including most Chinese
ones are adept at fronting the topic of the sentence. For example:
That restaurant, it's awful.
In English, that would usually be rendered as:
That restaurant? It's awful.
but a number of other languages will do this without any hint of a question. - Thematic identification is another way to
describe fronting. In systemic functional grammar, a sentence
can be broken into two parts. For example, in:
Mary and John went to the cinema and ate popcorn by the kilo
The theme is Mary and John and there are two rhemes: went to the cinema and and ate popcorn by the kilo
One of the rhemes is then often subsequently promoted to the role of the next theme as in, for example:
So much popcorn (the new theme) made them feel ill (the new rheme)
or
The cinema (new theme) was almost empty (new rheme) so they had no trouble getting in (new rheme 2)
Then a rheme can become the theme of the next sentence and so on.
However, the speaker or writer can choose a different theme from the same event depending on what is perceived as the most important element. We could have, therefore:
The amount of popcorn John and Mary ate when they went to the cinema made them feel ill
and in that, the theme is now focused on the popcorn and not on the people or the act of going to the cinema.
The theme of the next sentence is likely to be quite different, too, as it will follow on from feeling ill and might be:
Consequently, they went straight home and went to bed
In this analysis, the function of fronting is to state what the speaker / writer understands by the theme of the sentence. That's really just another way of saying that it shows what the speaker / writer wants to emphasise.
For more on theme and rheme structures, see the guide linked in the list of related guides at the end.
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The concept of markedness |
This is the first concept to get clear.
Do these mean the same?
- I saw him in the garden only last week.
- Only last week I saw him in the garden.
Sentence 1 is unmarked
because the normal word ordering in English is
Subject + Verb +
Object +
Complement Adverbials (in this case,
I + saw
+ him + in
the garden + only last week).
Sentence 2 has non-canonical word ordering and is,
therefore, marked. Placing
the time adverbial in the initial position serves to emphasise the
element.
We can, of course shift other elements to the front of the sentence and
thus break the canonical SVOC word ordering in English to produce
various effects on our listener / reader, as we shall see.
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Analysis: how fronting happens |
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Task 1: Identify the fronted elements
in these examples and then click on the
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Never have I seen such a beautiful tree. |
Never have I seen such
a beautiful tree.
There are a number of other adverbials which require an inversion of the subject and object when they are fronted. Generally, these have some kind of negative or exclusive sense. They include, e.g., Not only, Rarely, Seldom, Hardly ... than, No sooner ... than, Scarcely ... when, Only then, At no time, Neither, Under no circumstances etc. See the notes below on inversion. |
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Yesterday, he went to London. |
Yesterday, he went to
London.
Fronting the time adverbial emphasises its importance. All time adverbials can be fronted for emphasis and they are separated off, in writing, by a comma. |
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That factory is where I used to work. |
That factory is where
I used to work.
This is quite an unusual example of an adverb relative clause used to establish a marked element and less likely to appear in formal written language. Many languages do this more comfortably than English and it's a source of much error such as: *That factory, it is where I worked |
|
There is one thing you should always remember. |
There is one thing you
should always remember.
The existential, or empty, there is very commonly fronted. See also the guide to cleft sentences, linked below, for more on this. |
| So badly did he play that I was embarrassed. So brilliant was the sun that I could hardly focus. Such experience did he have that few argued with him. |
So badly did he play
that I was embarrassed.
So brilliant was the sun that I could hardly focus. Such experience did he have that few argued with him. These adverbials generally require the inversion structure. |
| Only under exceptional circumstances can you open this door. |
Only under exceptional
circumstances can you open this door.
This, too, is an example of a negative adverbial requiring inversion. Here, the adverbial is a longer phrase rather than a single word, as we saw above, but the rules are the same. |
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Having told the truth, he had to live with the consequences. |
Having told the truth,
he had to live with the consequences.
The non-finite verb phrase having told, plus the object, the truth is fronted for effect. |
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Unnoticed, he slipped into the room. |
Unnoticed, he slipped
into the room.
This is an example of a participle adjective being fronted (probably in written English) for effect. Most -ed participle adjectives can be treated in a similar way. |
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Crossing the road, I noticed the bus. |
Crossing the road, I
noticed the bus.
The effect here is twofold: a) the use of the non-finite crossing suggests simultaneous events and b) the fronting means that the conjunction (when, as or while) can be omitted. |
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A short walk I can handle. |
A short walk I can
handle.
This is a slightly unusual example of fronting the object which would only occur in spoken or informal written English. If you transform the sentence into its 'normal' spoken form, the object or its adjective must be stressed to retain the effect. |
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In the garden sat a huge toad. |
In the garden sat a
huge toad.
Here the adverbial is a prepositional phrase, but, as we saw above, fronting adverbials is common practice. When we front prepositional phrases, we often, not always, invert the positions of the verb and its subject: On the other side stood his house is more natural than: On the other sire his house stood although both are possible. We never reverse the ordering when the subject is a pronoun so we cannot have: *At the meeting spoke he persuasively |
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Winter I can put up with but spring I like the most. |
Winter I can put up with
but spring I like the most.
Many languages front the object more comfortably than does English. Would you correct a learner who produced this? |
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That woman
sitting in the corner with a book, she's my friend's mother. |
That woman sitting in the corner with a book,
she's my friend's mother.
When we have a long noun phrase such as this, there is a distinct tendency to front it and then use a pro-form (she, in this case) to refer to the noun phrase. The usual format is for the noun phrase to be the complement of a copular verb, rather than an object per se. |
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Task 2:
Some of these examples are
in black.
What's different about them apart from that? |
Only the sentences in black do not require you to change the structure of the sentence when you remove the fronting.
Notes on inversion:
- The generally accepted term is 'inversion' but that can be
misleading. The example:
Only under exceptional circumstances can you open this door.
is a true inversion of verb and subject but that's because it uses the modal can. In other examples, using either present or past simple forms, English requires a question formation with the do operator, not simply the inversion of subject and verb as in, e.g.:
Rarely does she argue very much
Only yesterday did I get the work finished - True inversion of subject and verb, with no do-operator, occurs when we front
prepositional phrases. See the guide to place adjuncts for
more linked in the list of related guides at the end.
This is the example above regarding the toad. It would be wrong to produce:
*In the garden did sit a huge toad
although the inversion is not always needed so we can have:
In the garden a huge toad sat - English only requires this structure with some phrase adverbials (incomplete list above of some negative ones) although it can optionally be done with others. They are usually negative or limiting in meaning.
- Prepositional phrases of place often result in an inversion of
word ordering so, for example:
Out of the room ran the lady
vs.
Out of the room the lady ran
and
Up the hill walked the four of us
Into the room came Mary
and so on.
Prepositional phrases of time do not usually lead to the same types of ordering although they are regularly fronted so we have:
At 6 John arrived
rather than
*At 6 arrived John
but it is possible to use the inversion in very formal language and produce, e.g.:
At the stroke of noon arrived the guests - The form is witness to English's origins. German, for example, requires the inversion with all fronted adverbials, e.g., Gestern habe ich ihn gesehen (I saw him yesterday [literally: Yesterday have I him seen]). German is not alone and this is, of course, a source of difficulty for many learners.
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Task 3: |
Because the fronted item has to be distinguished in some way; here by
the use of the demonstrative that. Other distinguishing words,
usually determiners of one kind or another, are
possible – this, those, three, whichever etc.
There is a reason for this. The marked (fronted) item is usually
concerns given rather than new information and in the examples above,
that means that the film has already ben a topic of the exchange.
Compare:
I want to see a film
with
I want to see that film.
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Download this worksheet, fill it in and then click here.
Clearly your examples will be different and, if you have
in the second column where the word 'Rare' appears, that's OK.
They are rare and there's a case to be made not to teach them.
| Item |
 |
Example |
| Prepositional phrases (place) | Yes | In the garden … On the other side … |
| Prepositional phrases (time) | Yes | In the evening, ..., During the break, ... |
| Finite verbs | Rare | Hope, that is all I can do. |
| Present participles | Yes | Opening the box, he … |
| Past participles | Yes | Opened, the box revealed its secrets. |
| Infinitives as disjuncts | Yes | To be honest, I don’t care. |
| Infinitives as conjuncts | Yes | To summarise, ... |
| Adverbs | Yes | Unfortunately, … |
| Adjectives | Rare | Pretty, that’s what I'd call it. |
| Conjunctions | Yes | So I could be sure, … |
| Direct object | Yes | My cigarettes are what he smoked |
| Indirect objects | Rare | Me is who he gave the book to |
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4 other forms of fronting |
Fronting in many languages is not confined to moving parts of the
sentence or clause from their usual position.
There are a number of syntactical structures in English which allow
speakers / writers to select that which is most important to them and
front it. Here are four popular ones:
- Conditional sentences
- Learners are sometimes, unforgivably, told that there is no
difference in meaning between:
She can come on condition that you pay for her lunch
and
On condition that you pay for her lunch, she can come
That is obviously not true. The speaker / writer has clearly chosen one ordering over another to suggest what she/he wants to emphasise.
This is the case with all conditional conjunctions, such as if, unless, supposing, providing that etc., of course. - Passive structures
- There is a clear difference in meaning among these:
John broke the window
The window was broken
The window was broken by John
The window got broken
To suggest otherwise and tell learners that they all mean much the same thing is misleading and error inducing. - Subordination
- A central characteristic of subordinators is that they can move
with their clauses so we can have, for example:
So that he could see over the wall, he stood on a chair
He stood on a chair so that he could see over the wall
Because my train was late, I missed the meeting
I missed the meeting because my train was late
In these cases, although the central meaning is unchanged, the speaker's perception of what is important is clear. - Coordination
- Unlike subordinators, coordinators proper are fixed in position
between the clauses or other items they connect. The items
can, however, often be reversed so we can have:
They cooked curry and rice for lunch
They cooked rice and curry for lunch
Users of English will usually put the most important of two items at the front.
She did her homework and spent some time gardening
She spent some time gardening and did her homework - The chronological ordering when connecting clauses with and is
often implied.
You can come with me in the car or (you can) catch the bus home
You can catch the bus home or (you can) come with me in the car
There is a tendency for users of English to put their preferred option first when connecting clauses with or.
With both coordination and subordination, there are times
when reversing the clauses makes nonsense or provides an unusual
connection:
She cooked dinner and came home
vs.
She came home and
cooked dinner
and
I rained so I took a coat
vs.
I didn't take a coat so it rained
and
The glass broke and he cut himself
vs.
He cut himself and the
glass broke
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Teaching in this area |
The first thing to note is that other languages do things very differently.
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Subject-dominant languages |
Most
European languages are known as 'subject dominant' languages because the
subject of the sentence is normally placed at the beginning. As we
have seen above, however, all these languages, including English, can
topicalise or front items for effect.
In subject dominant languages, such as English, fronting is generally
reserved for emphasising particular items in a clause or sentence and it
is signalled by a deviation from the canonical (i.e., normal) word
ordering in the language.
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Topic-dominant or topic-comment languages |
Other languages, notably, but not confined to, East Asian ones
including, for example, Japanese, Lolo–Burmese, Korean, Tagalog, the
Chinese languages (and, incidentally, Turkish and a variety of sign
languages) are sometimes known as Topic-Comment languages because they
routinely drop the subject altogether when it is obvious or remove it to
the clause following the topic. This does not mean that the topic
is being emphasised unduly as it would in subject-dominant languages.
Fronting is the normal, unmarked, way of producing sentences and is not
particularly marked for prominence. We get, therefore, for example:
As for restaurants, my favourite one is just here
To her next week frequently I'll talk
Mary I have already seen today
all of which would be unusual if not plain wrong in English.
This is a source of two forms of error:
- Syntactical errors such as
*That factory that is where I worked when I was a student - Receptive errors in which the speaker's emphasis on, for
example, the fronted prepositional phrase adverbial in
In his new Rolls Royce he came to my house
is simply not recognised.
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Speaker attitude |
Speakers and writers choose structures for a reason. Fronting
is no exception and is not a random phenomenon.
Any presentation, therefore, needs to include some awareness raising of
the speakers attitude to the utterance in terms of what they see as
the most important information to convey. Fairly simple tasks such
as this can help:
| What's the most important information in these sentences? | |
| Sentence | Important information |
| John went home early yesterday | |
| Yesterday, John went home early | |
| I like to eat at the restaurant on the corner | |
| The restaurant on the corner is where I like to eat | |
| You must never speak like that to her again | |
| Never must you speak to her like that again | |
| If you do that, it'll break | |
| It'll break if you do that | |
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Level and structural complexity |
As we saw above, many instances of fronting require quite complicated changes in the following syntax. Some don't and the fronting of attitude adverbials such as unfortunately or adverbs of manner such as carefully, along with adjuncts such as honestly, frankly, possibly etc. is a good choice to introduce the concept at lower levels because it is structurally simple.
Above A2, the approach needs to be a bit more challenging. One way to start is to take an exercise like the one above and include some specific noticing of both meaning and structure. Like this:
| What's the most important information in these sentences? | What changes to the grammar do you see? | |
| Sentence | Important information | Grammar changes |
| John went home early yesterday | ||
| Yesterday, John went home early | ||
| I like to eat at the restaurant on the corner | ||
| The restaurant on the corner is where I like to eat | ||
| You must never speak like that to her again | ||
| Never must you speak to her like that again | ||
| If you do that, it'll break | ||
| It'll break if you do that | ||
| He resigned and that's understandable | ||
| It's understandable that he resigned | ||
| The lights went out | ||
| Out went the lights | ||
| John broke the window | ||
| The window was broken | ||
| Just around the corner a pub appeared | ||
| A pub appeared just around the corner | ||
However and whenever the idea of fronting is introduced, a key issue is to ensure that learners are aware of the communicative effects of the strategy. This is especially important, naturally, for learners whose first languages are topic-dominant or topic-comment based for they will have the most difficulty understanding the shifts in meaning that fronting produces.
There is a very brief matching exercise on some of the above.
| Related guides | |
| the word order map | for links to other guides in this area |
| cleft sentences | explaining how we get from, e.g., She liked the hotel to What she liked was the hotel |
| markedness | for a guide to how items may be distinguished in English (including but not limited to fronting) |
| circumstances | analysing prepositional and adverbial phrases somewhat differently |
| coordination | which all consider the ordering of clauses |
| subordination | |
| conjunctions | |
| existential it and there | for an analysis of what are sometimes called 'dummy' subjects |
| place adjuncts | for more on what happens when these are fronted |
| negation | for more on negative adverbial fronting and the structures they demand |
| theme and rheme | for a more detailed guide to how fronting elements in clauses raises their status to theme |
| postponement and extrapositioning | which explains how items can be moved to the end of a clause or sentence for effect |