Information Structure 1

Question 1

How does foregrounding / backgrounding information influence discourse?

Answer 1

Discoruse = sequence of utterances in a specific situation (radio interview, lecutures, texting…)

• more focused on meaning (pragmatics) than grammar
• Puts focus on certain things

Different ways of saying the same thing:

• I met Harry last night
• Harry is who I met last night

Information structure concerned with arrangement and markedness of information

Question 2

How does new / given Information change the status?

Answer 2

1. Harry ate a pizza
2. It was disgusting

Given:

• Harry (presuming we know him) and It (the pizza was mentioned in the sentence before)
• unstressed
• definite NP (the pizza)
• reduced to pronouns (it)
• Given info can be a subpart of info that was already given (z.B. Car was mentioned (new info) and then engine mentioned (given)

New:

• Pizza and disgusting
• often stressed (disgusting)
• sometimes additional explanation (PreP or relative clause: “which was disgusting”)
• Referent not yet identified -> indefinite NP (a pizza)

Info might be given without being given:

• A car passed
• The engine roared (subparts)
• The driver was drunk (associate reference)

Assumed shared knowledge - given:

• E.g. the moon or BVB

Question 3

How does topic / comment Information change the status?

Answer 3

1. Harry ate a pizza
2. The pizza was disguting

Given information as topic of sentence

• Often it is the just learned new information
• Topic of sentence at the start (syntactic function of subject)

Topicalisation:

• Not always given info as Topic
• New info can also be Topic
• E.g. As for the pizza yesterday, it was horrible

Question 4

How does focus / background Information change the status?

Answer 4

Focus carried the most important new information

• Sentence focus (What happend)
• Argument focus (What broke down)
• Predicate focus (What happend to your car)
• Constrastive focus (Which of your vehicles broke down, car or motorcycle)

Focus is difference between addressee’s presupposition and speakers assertion :

• Did Lucy eat the pizza (presupossition)
• No Harry did

-> prosody

Question 5

How does definite / indefinite Information change the status?

Answer 5

Definite:

• When speakers asummes referent can identify thing
• Through: givenness, association, uniqueness

Indefinite:

• the opposite

Referntiallity:

• dependet on discourse context
• Referential phrases: refer to one or more particlar entities (the next door neighbour)
• Non-referential phrases: don’t have a specifc referent (a strange person)

Generic:

• Refer to category of people / things
• E.g. Good chefs are hard to find
• E.g. Harry wants to marry a blonde

Specific:

• Refer to particular memeber of category
• E.g. Harry wants to marry a blonde. Her name is Mona

-> Table on Folie 24