Contrasts and Positions in Information Structure

Contrasts and Positions in Information Structure PDF Author: Ivona Kučerová
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139536230
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Information structure, or the way the information in a sentence is 'divided' into categories such as topic, focus, comment, background, and old versus new information, is one of the most widely debated topics in linguistics. This volume incorporates exciting work on the relationship between syntax and information structure. The contributors are united in rejecting accounts that assume designated syntactic positions associated with specific information-structural interpretations, and aim instead to derive information-structural conditions on word order and other phenomena from the way syntax and syntax-external systems interact. Beyond this shared aim, the authors of the various chapters advocate a number of approaches, based on different types of data (syntactic, semantic, phonological/phonetic) from a range of languages. The book is aimed at specialists in syntax and/or information structure, as well as students and linguists in related fields keen to familiarise themselves with current issues in this fascinating area of research.

Contrasts and Positions in Information Structure

Contrasts and Positions in Information Structure PDF Author: Ivona Kučerová
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139536230
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book

Book Description
Information structure, or the way the information in a sentence is 'divided' into categories such as topic, focus, comment, background, and old versus new information, is one of the most widely debated topics in linguistics. This volume incorporates exciting work on the relationship between syntax and information structure. The contributors are united in rejecting accounts that assume designated syntactic positions associated with specific information-structural interpretations, and aim instead to derive information-structural conditions on word order and other phenomena from the way syntax and syntax-external systems interact. Beyond this shared aim, the authors of the various chapters advocate a number of approaches, based on different types of data (syntactic, semantic, phonological/phonetic) from a range of languages. The book is aimed at specialists in syntax and/or information structure, as well as students and linguists in related fields keen to familiarise themselves with current issues in this fascinating area of research.

The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure

The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure PDF Author: Caroline Féry
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191005401
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 800

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Book Description
This book provides linguists with a clear, critical, and comprehensive overview of theoretical and experimental work on information structure. Leading researchers survey the main theories of information structure in syntax, phonology, and semantics as well as perspectives from psycholinguistics and other relevant fields. Following the editors' introduction the book is divided into four parts. The first, on theories of and theoretical perspectives on information structure, includes chapters on focus, topic, and givenness. Part 2 covers a range of current issues in the field, including quantification, dislocation, and intonation, while Part 3 is concerned with experimental approaches to information structure, including language processing and acquisition. The final part contains a series of linguistic case studies drawn from a wide variety of the world's language families. This volume will be the standard guide to current work in information structure and a major point of departure for future research.

Objects and Information Structure

Objects and Information Structure PDF Author: Mary Dalrymple
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521199859
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
A cross-linguistic study of how objects are affected by information structure.

The Syntax of Topic, Focus, and Contrast

The Syntax of Topic, Focus, and Contrast PDF Author: Ad Neeleman
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 1614511454
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
This book addresses how core notions of information structure (topic, focus and contrast) are expressed in syntax. The authors propose that the syntactic effects of information structure come about as a result of mapping rules that are flexible enough to allow topics and foci to be expressed in a variety of positions, but strict enough to capture certain cross-linguistic generalisations about their distribution. In particular, the papers argue that only contrastive topics and contrastive foci undergo movement and that this is because such movement has the function of marking the scope of contrast. Several predications are derived from this proposal: such as that a focus cannot move across a topic – whether the latter is in situ or not. Syntactic and semantic evidence in support of this proposal is presented from a wide range of languages (including Dutch, English, Japanese, Korean and Russian) and theoretical consequences explored. The first chapter not only outlines its theoretical aims, but also provides an introduction to information structure. As a consequence, the book is accessible to advanced students as well as professional linguists.

Perspectives on Language Structure and Language Change

Perspectives on Language Structure and Language Change PDF Author: Lars Heltoft
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027262632
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 431

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Book Description
This volume centers on three important theoretical concepts for the study of language change and the ways in which language structure emerges and turns into new structure: reanalysis, actualization, and indexicality. Reanalysis is a part of ongoing everyday language use, a process through which language is reproduced and changed. Actualization refers to the processes through which a reanalyzed structure spreads throughout single communities and society. Indexicality covers the way in which parts of a linguistic system can point to other parts of the system, both syntagmatically and paradigmatically. The inclusion of indexicality leads to fine-grained analysis in morphology, word order, and constructional syntax.

The Role of Alternatives in Language

The Role of Alternatives in Language PDF Author: Sophie Repp
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
ISBN: 2889668401
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description


Pronouns, Presuppositions, and Hierarchies

Pronouns, Presuppositions, and Hierarchies PDF Author: Andrew Carnie
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135082340
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 410

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Book Description
Eloise Jelinek was a leading authority on syntactic and semantic theory, information structure, and several Native American languages (including Lummi, Yaqui, and Navajo). She was one of the very first generative linguists who brought the theoretical implications of the properties of typologically unusual and understudied languages to the forefront of mainstream generative thinking. Jelinek originated the Pronominal Argument Hypothesis – the idea that many languages restrict realization of their arguments to pronouns. In other work, Jelinek investigated a broad range of morphological, syntactic and semantic phenomena in understudied and endangered languages. Besides the theoretical value of that work, it was instrumental in providing sophisticated semantic and syntactic documentation for such languages, where description is typically limited to the basic morphophonology and morphosyntax, as well as texts, that form the core of most descriptive work. Thirteen of her most important papers, together with a fourteenth essay previously unpublished, are here collected, each preceded by a short introduction that provides context for the work and evidence of its subsequent influence.

Meaning Through Language Contrast

Meaning Through Language Contrast PDF Author: Katarzyna M. Jaszczolt
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 902729674X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
These volumes contain selected papers from the Second International Conference on Contrastive Semantics and Pragmatics that was held at Newnham College, University of Cambridge, in September 2000. They include papers on negation, temporality, modality, evidentiality, eventualities, grammar and conceptualization, grammaticalization, metaphor, cross-cultural pragmatics and speech acts and the semantics-pragmatics boundary. There are contributions by, amongst many others, Les Bruce, Ilinca Crainiceanu, Thorstein Fretheim, Saeko Fukushima, Ronald Geluykens, Javier Gutiérrez-Rexach, Klaus von Heusinger, K. M. Jaszczolt, Susumu Kubo, Akiko Kurosawa, Eva Lavric, Didier Maillat, Márta Maleczki, Steve Nicolle, Sergei Tatevosov, L. M. Tovena, Jacqueline Visconti and Krista Vogelberg.

The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure

The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure PDF Author: Caroline Féry
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199642672
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 993

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Book Description
"Researchers survey the main theories of information structure in syntax, phonology, and semantics as well as perspectives from psycholinguistics and other relevant fields"--Del editor.

The Syntax-Information Structure Interface

The Syntax-Information Structure Interface PDF Author: Eugenia Casielles-Suárez
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135876703
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Central questions addressed are the analysis of subjects in Spanish and English (DP vs. NP and null vs. preverbal vs. postverbal) and the nature of constructions such as topicalization, left-dislocation, and focus preposing.