Part of
When Data Challenges Theory: Unexpected and paradoxical evidence in information structureEdited by Davide Garassino and Daniel Jacob
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 273] 2022
► pp. 39–56
Edited by Davide Garassino and Daniel Jacob
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 273] 2022
► pp. 39–56
Distinguishing psychological Given/New from linguistic Topic/Focus makes things clearer
The paper suggests that there is no contradiction in
cleft sentences focalizing information which was already introduced
by the preceding context, because being already active in discourse
(i.e., Given) is not the same as being linguistically encoded as a
Topic, and Given information can be focalized in discourse. Clefts
should be explained precisely as constructions devoted mainly to
focalizing already active information. A side-effect of the analysis
is to assess that the role of syntax in expressing Information
Structure is a secondary one, because syntactic triggers of
Information Structure only work when accompanied by prosodic
triggers, whereas prosodic means can work alone.
Keywords: information structure, cleft sentences, topic and focus, given and new, syntax and prosody
Article outline
- 1.Two concepts of topic, and some useful definitions
- 2.Non-prototypical clefts?
- 3.Is syntax the real thing?
- 4.Information structure is independent on semantic content
-
Acknowledgments -
Notes -
References
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