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Article published In:
Studies in Language
Vol. 47:1 (2023) ► pp.79–119

On the status of information structure markers

Evidence from North-Western Siberian languages

ORCID logo | Universität Hamburg

The paper at hand deals with morphological marking of information structural relations from the perspective of North-Western Siberian languages. Given many items (morphemes as well as particles and clitics) which have been analyzed as markers of information structure in these languages, I try to discuss whether they indeed mark information structural relations or whether this supposed marking is rather a side effect of other functions expressed. In order to develop criteria for decision marking, I rely on the concepts of sufficiency as well as necessity and sufficient as well as necessary conditions, respectively. Additionally, I argue that the latter can be arranged hierarchically with respect to their reliability for the evaluation of potential markers of information structure, being intertwined with functional and transparency coding principles.

Keywords: information structure, information status, topic marker, focus marker, Siberian languages
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical, terminological and methodological preliminaries
    • 2.1Empirical database
    • 2.2Information structure
    • 2.3Necessary and sufficient conditions
  • 3.Information structure markers in North-Western Siberian languages
    • 3.1General issues
    • 3.2Case studies
      • 3.2.1Conditional converbs and participles of BE-verbs in Altaic languages
      • 3.2.2Nganasan təti
      • 3.2.3Selective suffixes in Northern Samoyedic languages
      • 3.2.4Northern Khanty pa
      • 3.2.5Evenki (h)ələ
      • 3.2.6“Non-possessive” possessive suffixes
  • 4.A way out of the dilemma
  • 5.Conclusion and further outlook
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 11 April 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.21043.dab
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