Introduction
When data challenges theory
The analysis of information structure and its paradoxes
This article provides a comprehensive survey on current research
on information structure so as to clarify some ‘paradoxical’ effects
stemming from the tension between data and theory. Paradoxes are here
defined as unexpected data in light of certain assumptions held in
mainstream literature. More specifically, we explore two possible sources of
paradoxes: certain features of the experimental design and, above all,
inadequate discourse models. Mainly considering dislocation and cleft
sentences in French and Italian we suggest that some apparent paradoxes
(such as non-focalizing clefts or dislocation expressing focus-related
functions) can be conceived of as the effect of general pragmatic mechanisms
and rhetorical strategies exploited by speakers. We also claim that these
effects can be better understood through explicit models of discourse.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Information structure and discourse organization
- 2.1Common ground
- 2.2Information structure and (implicit) questions
- 2.3Alternatives and types of focus
- 3.The ‘building blocks’ of information structure
- 4.The realization of information structure and its ‘natural
paradoxes’
- 4.1Information structure and prosody
- 4.2The IS-prosody-syntax triangle
- 4.3‘Non-canonical’ syntax: Left dislocation and cleft sentences in French and
Italian
- 4.3.1Left dislocation
- 4.3.2Cleft sentences
- 5.Conclusion and overview of the volume
- 5.1As a way of conclusion
- 5.2Contributions to this volume
-
Acknowledgments
-
Notes
-
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