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Resumo

This paper examines some verb–subject constructions which were found in a number of articles in English published in Albanian newspapers and magazines. These inverse‐order constructions are in contrast with the fixed subject–verb word order of English. Based on (the preverbal) sentence‐initial element, three main groups of verb–subject constructions have been identified in the English texts of the Albanian periodicals: the ones preceded by (a) a topicalized adverbial, prepositional object, or subject complement, (b) the introductory it, and (c) the dummy subject there. The data show that these verb–subject constructions are used to render the discourse function of focus, i.e. new information in discourse. The presence of these constructions in Albanian English provides support for the complementary hypothesis on languages in contact, which highlights the competing influences of both the substrate (L1) and the superstrate (L2) languages. It is suggested that the frequent use of verb–subject word order of Albanian to render focus and the saliency of it and there constructions in English may have contributed to the emergence of these types of construction in Albanian English.

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