* ABSTRACT: This paper examines the marked constructions of Focus assignment in oral language by comparing Portuguese and English in order to establish a typological pattern of functional behavior.

* ABSTRACT: This paper examines the marked constructions of Focus assignment in oral language by comparing Portuguese and English in order to establish a typological pattern of functional behavior. The analysis is based forward Dik's FG (1997) and forward RRG framework (Van Valin & Lapolla, 1997) In the light of the RRG universals both Portuguese and English have, in succession one hand, flexible focus construction since the focus constituent falls in succession any clause constituent without any restriction and, forward the other hand, both languages have rigid syntax in virtue of a relatively fixed word order--SVO; thus, the syntax penurys not to ...