This chapter provides an overview of the developments in syntax in the history of English. There is a long–term typological drift, with the language moving from synthetic to analytic, with functions that were earlier expressed in the morphology increasingly coming to be expressed by free morphemes. The main word order developments are the loss of Object–Verb orders in Early Middle English, and the loss of V2/V3 word order in the fifteenth century, leading to strict SVO order in which information–structural status was mapped onto syntactic function, with subjects as the only unmarked way to express ‘given’ information and objects as the only unmarked way for ‘new’ information. A number of ‘escape hatches’ develop to compensate for the loss of options for the flow of information in the clause: word order alternations such as the dative alternation or the particle alternation in phrasal verbs, cross-linguistically rare passives, ‘stretched verb’ constructions and clefts.

Clauses may represent one of three types of information packaging. The most common is topic--comment (referent--predication) packaging, assumed in Chapters 6–9. The topic may be the most central participant (the ‘subject’; see Chapter 6), or there may be multiple participants high in topicality. A variety of strategies is used when the most topical participant is not the most central one, or is not a participant at all. Thetic packaging does not divide a clause into topic and comment. Thetic packaging is associated with certain situation types (including weather), and discourse functions such as presentation and background description. Identificational packaging divides the information into a focus and a presupposed open proposition (POP). A number of contexts are typically construed as identificational, including questions and answers and different types of contrast. Thetic and identificational strategies include distinct prosody and word order, and/or distinct morphosyntax. Most thetic strategies involve making the subject argument phrase look less like a subject, and/or making the predicate look less like a predicate. Identificational strategies include clefts and ellipsis.

Chapter 5 reports on the uses of general extenders in terms of their textual function in the verbal record of interaction and their role in turn construction. An analysis is presented of some examples as performance fillers, placeholders or filled pauses used in the articulation of utterances, as well as their potential role for some speakers as oral punctuation marks, or punctors, all features that some would view negatively. Their role in the internal structure of utterances is described in terms of brackets and clusters, specifically as right brackets, and as elements in clusters with other pragmatic markers. Different forms are shown to have a role in information structure, including foregrounding, as well as in turn management. Distinct structural patterns can be observed in some cases when forms are used to indicate turn-completion and to mark topic shift, all described and exemplified.