Information Structure and Reference Tracking in Complex Sentences
Edited by Rik van Gijn, Jeremy Hammond, Dejan Matić, Saskia van Putten and Ana Vilacy Galucio
[Typological Studies in Language, 105] 2014. vi, 409 pp.
Dejan Matić
List of John Benjamins publications for which Dejan Matić plays a role.
Title
Subjects Semantics | Syntax | Theoretical linguistics | Typology
2022 Alternatives to information structure When Data Challenges Theory: Unexpected and paradoxical evidence in information structure, Garassino, Davide and Daniel Jacob (eds.), pp. 91–112 | Chapter
The paper questions the assumption that information structure is a necessary component of communication. It is shown that there is no language-independent evidence that communication is based on regular alternation of presupposed and focused information, and that sentences necessarily convey… read more
2018 From polarity focus to salient polarity: From things to processes The Grammatical Realization of Polarity Contrast: Theoretical, empirical, and typological approaches, Dimroth, Christine and Stefan Sudhoff (eds.), pp. 9–54 | Chapter
The paper provides arguments against the denotational approach to polarity focus (also known as Verum), which treats it as a distinct denotation contributed by the dedicated grammatical structures. It shows that the purported category of polarity focus is routinely defined on the basis of faulty… read more
2016 Ėven converbs and the syntax of switch-reference Switch Reference 2.0, Gijn, Rik van and Jeremy Hammond (eds.), pp. 335–376 | Article
This paper provides a description of the switch-reference system based on converbs in the North Tungusic language Ėven. It is argued that Ėven converbal clauses are adjunct clauses and that their properties are derived from the ways in which adjunct subordinate clauses are structured and… read more
2014 Questions and syntactic islands in Tundra Yukaghir Information Structure and Reference Tracking in Complex Sentences, Gijn, Rik van, Jeremy Hammond, Dejan Matić, Saskia van Putten and Ana Vilacy Galucio (eds.), pp. 127–162 | Article
No island effects are observable in Tundra Yukaghir questions, which are possible in virtually all syntactic environments. It is argued that this feature of Tundra Yukaghir relates to its capability of explicitly marking focus domains. If a question word occurs in a syntactic island, the whole… read more
2014 Information structure and reference tracking in complex sentences: An overview Information Structure and Reference Tracking in Complex Sentences, Gijn, Rik van, Jeremy Hammond, Dejan Matić, Saskia van Putten and Ana Vilacy Galucio (eds.), pp. 1–42 | Article
This volume is dedicated to exploring the crossroads where complex sentences and information management – more specifically information structure (IS) and reference tracking (RT) – come together. Complex sentences are a highly relevant but understudied domain for studying notions of IS and RT. On… read more
2013 Non-canonical SAY in Siberia: Areal and genealogical patterns Studies in Language 37:2, pp. 356–412 | Article
The use of generic verbs of speech in functions not related to their primary meaning, such as to introduce complements or adjuncts, is cross-linguistically widespread; it is also characteristic of some languages of Siberia. However, the distribution of non-canonical functions of generic verbs of… read more
2003 Topic, focus, and discourse structure: Ancient Greek Word Order Studies in Language 27:3, pp. 573–633 | Article
It is commonly assumed that word order in free word order languages is determined by a simple topic – focus dichotomy. Analysis of data from Ancient Greek, a language with an extreme word order flexibility, reveals that matters are more complex: the parameters of discourse structure and semantics… read more