Global Journal of Human Social Science, G: Linguistics and Education, Volume 22 Issue 9

a) Theme and Mood The choice of Theme in Myanmar clause depends on Mood choice. MOOD, the primary interpersonal system of the clause, provides interactants with the resources for giving or demanding a commodity such as information and goods-&-services – in other words, with the resources for enacting speech functions (speech acts) through the grammar of the clause: statements (giving information), questions (demanding information), offers (giving goods-&- services), and commands (demanding goods-&-services). This study focuses on major clauses of Myanmar. Minor clauses like /kaunnbye/ “ok”, /hokekèt/ “yes” have no Mood choice and thematic structure, and so they are left out of account in this study. A major clause in Myanmar can be either indicative or imperative. Indicative has two options: declarative and interrogative. Exclamative is a subtype of declarative. The following will present thematic structures in each Mood type of Myanmar from the perspective of a textual metafunction. 2 http://sealang.net/burmese/corpus.htm Construction of the THEME System of Myanmar © 2022 Global Journals Volume XXII Issue IX Version I 52 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2022 G ကောင်းပြီ ဟုတ်ေဲ့ view. Rattanapitak (2009) presents a system network of textual resources in Burmese religious tales from a Systemic Functional approach. Since Rattanapitak ’ s (2009) study is limited to expository discourse , it does not offer a satisfactory explanation of the textual metafunction of the Myanmar language. Based on Jacobs ’ (1999) concepts of informational autonomy, Ozerov (2014) investigates the grammatical means used for expressing information structure in standard colloquial Burmese by analyzing its morphosyntactic and prosodic devices. Ozerov ’ s (2014) study is beyond the scope of Systemic Functional Linguistics. It reveals a grammatical system of informational PACKAGING in Burmese. Therefore, further research on constructing a new model of the THEME system of Myanmar, which can realize the textual meaning of Myanmar clauses, is necessary for Systemic Functional Linguistics. To meet this need, this study aims to develop the THEME system of Myanmar based on the network presented by Halliday (1985, 1994; Halliday and Matthiessen 2004, 2014). It is of great significance that findings are based on the thematic analysis of different genres of Myanmar text. In this study, the elaborations of unmarked Themes in different clauses and special thematic structures of Myanmar are supported with data f rom authentic materials, such as literature, news articles, and databases such as SEAlang Library Burmese corpus 2 . The thematic compositions of simple and multiple Themes in Myanmar are also presented in this study. The results of this study will form part of a more extensive study of the Systemic Functional Grammar of Myanmar.This study will also make a significant contribution to a contrastive analysis of THEME systems between Myanmar and foreign languages. III. C onstruction of the THEME S ystem of M yanmar The THEME system is a grammatical resource for the organization of the clause as a message. It realizes the textual mode of meaning concerning the creation of text relevantly to the preceding text and context, which is intrinsic to language. The clause in any language has the character of a message, or quantum of information in the flow of discourse; therefore, every language has some form of organization contributing to the flow of discourse (Halliday and Matthiessen 2014: 88). Like other world languages, Myanmar clause is also organized as a message by having a special thematic status assigned to one part of it. This element is enunciated as the theme, and then it combines with the remainder to constitute a message. In spoken and written Myanmar, textual prominence (i.e., the thematic status) is given to an item by putting it first in the clause. The Theme is the first element functioning as the point of departure of the message, which locates and orients the clause within its context. In contrast, the remainder of the message (i.e., the part in which the Theme is developed) is known as the Rheme (Halliday and Matthiessen 2014: 89). Following Halliday ’ s (1985, 1994, 2004, 2014) Theme-Rheme structure, this study explores thematic choices in different clause types in Myanmar, including simple clauses, clause complexes, and reported clauses. It also explores enhanced Themes or special thematic structures of Myanmar, such as thematic equatives and preposed attributes. i. Theme in indicative clauses The Theme in Myanmar declarative functions as Subject, Complement, and Adjunct. The Theme functioning as a Subject or Complement is generally realized by a nominal group, nominal group complex, and clause. The Theme functioning as an Adjunct is typically realized by a prepositional phrase or an adverbial group. See Examples (1)-(3).