Information Structure, Discourse Structure and Grammatical Structure

2012 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Discourse Structure ◽  
Grammatical Structure

Information structure without topic and focus

2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 386-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pavel Ozerov
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Content Management ◽  
Discourse Structure ◽  
Grammatical Structure ◽  
Differential Object Marking ◽  
Information Packaging ◽  
Context Dependent ◽  
Object Marking

Differential Object Marking (DOM) in Burmese is usually analysed as directly related to the expression of information structure. Yet, this corpus-based study of DOM and the associated prosody finds that DOM is not based on information structure alone, but is also additionally motivated by discourse structure and content management. The suggested analysis proposes that DOM in Burmese provides a grammatical structure of information packaging: a system of separating information into units (packages) and establishing relations between them. Different configurations of packaging are employed to create an array of context-dependent interpretive effects related to information structure, discourse structure, and other factors. Hence, it is argued that information structure is not directly expressed in the language. Instead, it stems from an interpretation of the interplay between information packaging and various pragmatic-semantic factors, and is but one of the possible effects created by packaging.

Information Structure, Discourse Structure, and Noun Phrase Position in Kiowa

2012 ◽  
Vol 78 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-126
Author(s):  
Daniel Harbour ◽  
Laurel J. Watkins ◽  
David Adger
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Discourse Structure

Topic, focus, and discourse structure

2003 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 573-633 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dejan Matić
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Discourse Structure ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
Information Packaging ◽  
One To One ◽  
Free Word ◽  
Free Variation

It is commonly assumed that word order in free word order languages is determined by a simple topic – focus dichotomy. Analysis of data from Ancient Greek, a language with an extreme word order flexibility, reveals that matters are more complex: the parameters of discourse structure and semantics interact with information packaging and are thus indirectly also responsible for word order variation. Furthermore, Ancient Greek displays a number of synonymous word order patterns, which points to the co-existence of pragmatic determinedness and free variation in this language. The strict one-to-one correspondence between word order and information structure, assumed for the languages labelled discourse configurational, thus turns out to be only one of the possible relationships between form and pragmatic content.

Question-based Models of Information Structure

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leah Velleman ◽  
David Beaver
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Discourse Structure ◽  
Alternative Semantics ◽  
Presupposition Projection ◽  
Semantics Of Questions ◽  
Semantics And Pragmatics

We present approaches to the semantics and pragmatics of information structure which centre on Questions Under Discussion (QUDs). Questions, explicit or implicit, are seen as structuring discourse, and information structural marking is seen as reflecting that underlying discourse structure. Our presentation of the model is largely cast in terms of extensions of Roberts’s (2012b) analysis, which is itself related to Rooth’s (1985/1992) Alternative Semantics and Hamblin’s (1973) approach to the semantics of questions. We present the model in terms of a range of constraints that relate information structure to discourse structure, notably constraints on the ‘Relevance’ of utterances, on the ‘Congruence’ of answers to questions, and on the ‘Availability’ of discourse antecedents. We discuss the application of the approach to the interpretation of focus and some cases of contrastive topics, to discourse structure, to the interpretation of focus sensitive operators, and to certain cases of presupposition projection.

scholarly journals Discourse Structure and Discourse Interpretation

1997 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 492
Author(s):  
Livia Polanyi
Keyword(s):  
Annual Meeting ◽  
Discourse Structure ◽  
Grammatical Structure ◽  
General Session ◽  
Discourse Interpretation

Proceedings of the Twenty-Third Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session and Parasession on Pragmatics and Grammatical Structure (1997)

scholarly journals Communicative-Semantic Peculiarities of Tautological Constructions in the Present Indefinite Tense

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (1 (13)) ◽  
pp. 84-92
Author(s):  
Astghik Chubaryan ◽  
Artur Mesropyan
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Discourse Structure ◽  
Grammatical Structure ◽  
Communicative Intention ◽  
Oral Speech

Tautological constructions are widely used in written and oral speech and are expressed in different tenses. Tautologies used in the Present Indefinite tense have their semantic and communicative peculiarities. They outnumber those used in other tenses and are applied to convey different communicative and semantic purport. These meanings largely depend on textual and cultural context, number of the noun, definite and indefinite articles, other interlinguistic and extralinguistic factors. These tautologies may be divided into several groups: those of Tolerance, Obligation, and Tautologies that see through superficial differences. The paper reveals how far the grammatical structure is determined by discourse structure and the speaker’s/writer’s communicative intention.

scholarly journals Проблемы изучения севернорусского слова дак: достижения и недостаткищ(Advantages and Shortcomings of Different Perspectives in Describing Northern Russian dak)

2002 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 29
Author(s):  
Margje Post
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Discourse Structure ◽  
Speech Research ◽  
The Way

The word dak is one of several highly frequent particles, used in most Northern Russian and some Siberian dialects. It can occur sentence ini- tially, sentence internally and sentence finally to connect two parts of the discourse, such as words, sentences, and presuppositions.This article describes the advantages and shortcomings of six dif- ferent perspectives which have been used to describe this unspecified, multifunctional word: descriptions in traditional grammatical terms, in syntactic terminology used for spontaneus speech, research on its role in information structure, its use in discourse, the role of prosody, and finally comparisons with parallel words in neighbouring and other languages. I conclude that a combination of approaches is required for a better understanding of the way dak functions. Studies in prosody combined with research on dak's role in information structure appear to be most fruitful, and modern theories of discourse structure, which are almost completely ignored at present, could be helpful. Much research remains to be done, especially to clarify the restrictions on the use of the word dak and the way it functions in less obvious contexts.

Information Structure in Bantu

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura J. Downing ◽  
Larry M. Hyman
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Morphological Properties ◽  
Grammatical Structure ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Considerable Research

For some 40 years, the role that information structure (IS) plays in the grammatical structure of the ca. 500 Bantu languages has been the topic of considerable research. In this chapter we review the role of prosody, morphology and syntax in expressing IS in Bantu languages. We show that prosodic prominence does not play an important role; rather syntax and morphology are more important. For example, syntactic constructions like clefts and and immediately after the verb position correlate with focus, while dislocations correlate with topic. Among the morphological properties relevant to IS are the “inherently focused” TAM features (progressive, imperative, negative etc.) and the “conjoint-disjoint” distinction on verbs, as well as well as the presence vs. absence of the Bantu augment on nominals. Finally, we consider a range of tonal effects which at least indirectly correlate with IS (tonal domains, metatony, tone cases).

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