Reason Clauses Introduced by the Central Conjunctions Because, Since, As and For

The central subject of the present work is an analysis of reason
clauses introduced by the central causal conjunctions because, since, as
and for. Reason clauses are studied from different aspects. First, the
syntactic function and semantic role of the reason clauses are studied,
then the position of reason clauses and their functions in the functional
sentence perspective (i.e. FSP).
As regards the syntactic functions of reason clauses, we will attempt
to classify the reason clauses according to their syntactic function and to
determine the differences between adjunct and disjunct reason clauses.
As far as the semantic roles are concerned, all reason clauses will be
classified according to their semantic role. Finally, the relation between
the position of a reason clause and its function in the functional
sentence perspective of the respective sentence in connection with
another FSP factor: context dependence/independence is studied. It is
examined whether there is correspondence between the position of the
reason clause and the basic distribution of the degrees of communicative
dynamism over the complex sentence (i.e. the order theme - transition -
rheme). To be able to do this it is necessary to determine whether the
reason clause belongs to the thematic part or whether it belongs to the
rhematic part of the sentence, thus belonging to the focus of the
sentence.
The theoretical part presents the concepts of reason clauses based on
representative British and Czech grammars and various British, Czech
and German studies. The concept of the FSP is based primarily on Jan
Firbas' monograph Functional Sentence Perspective in Written and
Spoken Communication ( 1992). The analysis discusses the concepts
presented in the theoretical part on the basis of 200 examples of reason
clauses from contemporary British literature: two novels and two
samples of academic prose. The length of each text used for excerption
was determined by the number of reason clauses occurring in it, the
limit being fifty.
The theoretical results of the analysis will hopefully contribute to the
description of reason clauses from the point of view of their syntactic
function and semantic roles and their function in FSP, which could be
used for practical purposes in teaching and translation.