Rheme before theme in the noun phrase

2008 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 894-915
Author(s):  
Carlotta Viti
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
New Information ◽  
Prague School

Information structure in the noun phrase remains unexplored or limited to the study of the s-form and the of-form in English, which are interpreted from the perspective of the Prague School. Accordingly, the prenominal s-form is chosen if the possessor expresses old information; conversely, if the possessor expresses new information, the postnominal of-form is preferred. Ancient Greek, however, indicates that this is not the sole pattern attested. In our data, drawn from Herodotus, a postposed genitive refers to the topic of the immediately preceding clauses, and has no semantically compatible referent around it. Preposed genitives denote new or discontinuous participants, and are used in contrastive and emphatic contexts. In this case, the principle “rheme before theme” can be identified.

scholarly journals Locative Inversion as an Alternation Phenomenon in Setswana: The Case of Lexical Functional Grammar Theory

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Setumile Morapedi
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
Functional Grammar ◽  
Structure Approach ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Lexical Functional Grammar ◽  
New Information ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Locative Inversion

The paper has examined locative inversion constructions in Setswana, showing that the pre-posed locative phrase in these constructions is not the subject as it is viewed by other linguists in the literature. It has been argued, in this paper, that locative phrase occurs in the sentence initial position to perform the topic function which sets the scene for the focused noun phrase that alternates with it (locative phrase). The analysis has been achieved through information structure approach, showing the locative phrase that occurs in sentence initial position is a discourse phenomenon showing given information, and that the focused post-verbal noun phrase is new information that is emphasised on. Also, an appeal is made to Lexical Functional Grammar Approach to explain different ways of representing syntactic structures such as constituent structure and the functional structure.

Pragmatics for Latin

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. M. Devine ◽  
Laurence D. Stephens
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Informational Content ◽  
Compositional Process ◽  
Association With Focus ◽  
Narrow Scope ◽  
Order Language ◽  
Free Word

Latin is often described as a free word order language, but in general each word order encodes a particular information structure: in that sense, each word order has a different meaning. This book provides a descriptive analysis of Latin information structure based on detailed philological evidence and elaborates a syntax-pragmatics interface that formalizes the informational content of the various different word orders. The book covers a wide ranges of issues including broad scope focus, narrow scope focus, double focus, topicalization, tails, focus alternates, association with focus, scrambling, informational structure inside the noun phrase and hyperbaton (discontinuous constituency). Using a slightly adjusted version of the structured meanings theory, the book shows how the pragmatic meanings matching the different word orders arise naturally and spontaneously out of the compositional process as an integral part of a single semantic derivation covering denotational and informational meaning at one and the same time.

scholarly journals Discourse Intonation and Information Structure: An Empirical Study of Existential There Constructions in Non-native Spontaneous Speech

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-153
Author(s):  
Judit Nagy
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Sentence Type ◽  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
New Information ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Discourse Intonation ◽  
Problematic Area ◽  
Accented English ◽  
The Given

Abstract The management of given and new information is one of the key components of accomplishing coherence in oral discourse, which is claimed to be a problematic area for language learners (Celce-Murcia, Dörnyei, and Thurrell 1995: 14). Research on discourse intonation proposes that instead of the given/new dichotomy, givenness should be viewed as a continuum, with different types of accessibility (Baumann & Grice 2006). Moreover, Prince (1992) previously categorized information structure into Hearer-old/Hearer-new and Discourse-old/Discourse-new information. There is consensus on the fact that focus or prominence associated with new information is marked with nuclear pitch accent, and its main acoustic cue, fundamental frequency (f0) (Ward & Birner 2001: 120). Non-native intonation has been reported to display numerous differences in f0 range and patterns compared to native speech (Wennerstrom 1994; Baker 2010). This study is an attempt to address the issue of marking information structure in existential there sentences by means of f0 in non-native spontaneous speech. Data originates from task-based interactions in the Wildcat Corpus of Native- and Foreign-Accented English (Van Engen et al. 2010). This paper examines two issues: (1) information structure in relation to the notions of givenness and different types of accessibility (Baumann & Grice 2006) and to Prince’s (1992) multidimensional taxonomy and (2) the use of f0 peaks to mark the prominence of new information. Several differences were measured among native speakers regarding the use of f0, sentence type, and complexity.

Changing the Topic

Mnemosyne ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rutger J. Allan
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
The Other ◽  
Coherent System ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Flexible System ◽  
Pragmatic Function ◽  
The One ◽  
Topic Constructions

AbstractIn Ancient Greek, topics can be expressed as intra-clausal constituents but they can also precede or follow the main clause as extra-clausal constituents. Together, these various topic expressions constitute a coherent system of complementary pragmatic functions. For a comprehensive account of topic organization, therefore, a limited focus on the clause proper is insufficient. In this paper, I will argue that it is possible to distinguish five different structural positions in which topic constituents may appear in Ancient Greek. These are: (i)Theme, (ii)clause-initial, (iii)postverbal in Setting, (iv)postverbal in main clauseand (v)Tail.Each of these positions in the sentence is associated with a specific pragmatic function: Resumed Topic, Contrastive/New Topic, Given Topic or clarification of Given Topic. In linguistic theory, topic and focus are often seen as independent aspects of information structure instead of complementary functions. It is, therefore, attractive to posit two separate sets of constructional templates: on the one hand, a topic set comprising the aforementioned topic constructions and, on the other hand, a focus set containing two (narrow and broad) focus-constructions. This results in a flexible system in which the word order of each sentence is determined by a combination of a focus construction plus one or more topic constructions.

The syntax, information structure, and prosody of German ‘VP’-fronting

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-283
Author(s):  
Vera Lee-Schoenfeld ◽  
Anya Lunden
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
High Tone ◽  
New Information ◽  
Verb Phrases ◽  
Vp Fronting ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Right ◽  
Definiteness Effect

Abstract This paper explores fronted verb phrases in German, drawing attention to the difference between passive/unaccusative VPs and fronted agentive vPs. While both kinds of verb phrases have been discussed in the literature as being frontable, it has been largely overlooked that fronted vPs typically come with a certain kind of post-fronting context and a rise-fall or bridge-contour intonation, which is characteristic of I-topicalization. We observe that, unlike VPs, agentive vPs essentially need to be I-topics, with a high tone at the right edge of the fronted domain, in order to be frontable. Given the special context required for fronted vPs, the situation described by the vP does not contain new information but must already have been under discussion and is now being commented on. We present the results of two experimental studies and appeal to the thetic/categorical distinction to offer a new angle on the definiteness effect that has been associated with fronted verb phrases. We propose that a subject-containing fronted vP is associated with a thetic rather than the default categorical judgment, which means that the fronted subject and predicate form only one information-structural unit (a topic) rather than two (topic and comment). Contributing to the literature on theticity, we observe that, unlike in non-fronting thetic statements, the subject in fronted vPs cannot be a true definite. We attribute this to clashing intonation restrictions on theticity in non-fronting constructions versus theticity in just the fronted portion of a sentence.

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

Vesalius and the Reading of Galen's Teleology*

1997 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy G. Siraisi
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Major Part ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Intellectual Tradition ◽  
New Information ◽  
The World ◽  
Modern Experience ◽  
Ancient Texts

Sixteenth-century approaches to the world of nature remained resolutely bound to ancient texts. Hostility to the medieval past, new theories, new experiences, and new information were evidently abundantly present. But medieval predecessors were far more likely to be criticized for failure to understand ancient authority than for slavish dependence on it; dissatisfaction with intellectual tradition was apt to express itself in form of a call for return to the ideas of ancients who preceded the standard school authors in time; and in every branch of natural philosophy, natural history, and medicine, examination of the writings of ancient Greek authors was a major, perhaps the major, part of the task of the investigator. Innovators — some of them very bold and some very eccentric indeed — reworked, recombined, and criticized the ancients, or measured their teachings against modern experience; but they seldom ignored them.

scholarly journals Shared information structure: Evidence from cross-linguistic priming

2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 568-579 ◽  
Author(s):  
ZUZANNA FLEISCHER ◽  
MARTIN J. PICKERING ◽  
JANET F. MCLEAN
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Shared Information ◽  
Passive Sentence ◽  
Share Information ◽  
Active Sentence

This study asked whether bilinguals construct a language-independent level of information structure for the sentences that they produce. It reports an experiment in which a Polish–English bilingual and a confederate of the experimenter took turns to describe pictures to each other and to find those pictures in an array. The confederate produced a Polish active, passive, or conjoined noun phrase, or an active sentence with object–verb–subject order (OVS sentence). The participant responded in English, and tended to produce a passive sentence more often after a passive or an OVS sentence than after a conjoined noun phrase or active sentence. Passives and OVS sentences are syntactically unrelated but share information structure, in that both assign emphasis to the patient. We therefore argued that bilinguals construct a language-independent level of information structure during speech.

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