Cover not available

In:The Interpersonal Level in Functional Discourse Grammar
Edited by Monielly Serafim, Matthias Mittendorfer and Kees Hengeveld
[Studies in Language Companion Series 241] 2027
► pp. 373–404

On contrast and contrastiveness in structural parallelism

ORCiD logo with link | University of Vienna
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
This paper presents an analysis of Contrast and contrastiveness in parallel structures. Although fulfilling all (semantic) criteria for Contrast, it is shown that structural parallelism is not an inherently contrastive construction. Instead, the paper argues that only in those cases where a contrastive discourse relation between the discourse segments is present is a contrastive analysis warranted. Moreover, the data suggests that prosodic Contrast-marking in English is gradient, i.e. sensitive to the degree of contrastiveness. The results are subsequently modelled in Functional Discourse Grammar. Introducing an additional rhetorical function Contrast, the paper shows that the morphosyntactic and prosodic reflexes of Contrast naturally follow from the pragmatic organisation of structural parallelism.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Contrast and contrastiveness: An overview
    • 2.1Alternativeness
    • 2.2Discourse relations
    • 2.3Contrastive prosody: The case of the H*∼L+H* distinction
  • 3.Methodology and data
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Simple parallelism
      • 4.1.1Discourse relations
      • 4.1.2Prosodic features
    • 4.2Complex parallelism
      • 4.2.1Discourse relations
      • 4.2.2Prosodic features
    • 4.3Repp’s (2016) hypothesis revisited
  • 5.Pragmatics and prosody in FDG
    • 5.1Contrast: Rhetorical and pragmatic functions
    • 5.2Prosody: Pitch accents, edge tones, and operators
  • 6.Contrast(-iveness): An FDG analysis
    • 6.1Aim and scope
    • 6.2Discourse relations
    • 6.3Information-structural considerations
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
References (53)
References
Arvaniti, Amalia, Stella Gryllia, Cong Zhang, and Katherine Marcoux. 2022. “Disentangling Emphasis from Pragmatic Contrastivity in the English H*~L+H* Contrast.” In Speech Prosody 2022, 837–841. ISCA. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Asher, Nicholas, and Alex Lascarides. 2003. Logics of Conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Beckman, Mary E., Julia Hirschberg, and Stefanie Schattuck-Hufnagel. 2006. “The Original ToBI System and the Evolution of the ToBI Framework.” In Prosodic Typology: The Phonology of Intonation and Phrasing, edited by Sun-Ah Jun, 9–54. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Birner, Betty J., and Gregory L. Ward. 1998. Information Status and Noncanonical Word Order in English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bolinger, Dwight L. 1961. “Contrastive Accent and Contrastive Stress.” Language 37 (1): 83–96. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brunetti, Lisa. 2024. “Contrast in a QUD-based Information-structure Model.” In On the Role of Contrast in Information Structure, edited by Jorina Brysbaert, and Karen Lahousse, 191–224. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brunetti, Lisa, Kordula De Kuthy, and Arndt Riester. 2021. “The Information-structural Status of Adjuncts: A Question-under-Discussion-based Approach.” Discours 28. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Büring, Daniel. 2003. “On D-trees, Beans, and B-accents.” Linguistics and Philosophy 26 (5): 511–545. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chafe, Wallace L. 1976. “Givenness, Contrastiveness, Definiteness, Subjects, Topics, and Point of View.” In Subject and Topic, edited by Charles N. Li, 25–55. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dik, Simon C. 1997. The Theory of Functional Grammar. Part 1. The Structure of the Clause. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Féry, Caroline. 2008. “Information Structural Notions and the Fallacy of Invariant Correlates.” Acta Linguistica Hungarica 55 (3–4): 361–379. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gundel, Jeanette K. 1999. “On Different Kinds of Focus.” In Focus: Linguistic, Cognitive, and Computational Perspectives, edited by Peter Bosch, and Rob van der Sandt, 293–305. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gundel, Jeanette K., and Thorsten Fretheim. 2004. “Topic and Focus.” In The Handbook of Pragmatics, edited by Laurence Horn, and Gergory Ward, 175–196. Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael A. K. 1967. “Notes on Transitivity and Theme in English: Part 2.” Journal of Linguistics 3 (2): 199–244. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hedberg, Nancy. 2006. “Topic-Focus Controversies.” In The Architecture of Focus, edited by Valeria Molnár, and Susanne Winkler, 373–397. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hedberg, Nancy, and Juan M. Sosa. 2007. “The Prosody of Topic and Focus in Spontaneous English Dialogue.” In Topic and Focus: Cross-linguistic Perspectives on Meaning and Intonation, edited by Chungmin Lee, Matthew Gordon, and Daniel Büring, 101–120. Dordrecht: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hengeveld, Kees and Evelien Keizer. 2025. “General Principles of Linearization in Functional Discourse Grammar.” In Linearization in Functional Discourse Grammar, edited by Elnora ten Wolde, Riccardo Giomi, and Kees Hengeveld, 43–83. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hengeveld, Kees, Evelien Keizer, and Riccardo Giomi. In prep. The Oxford Reference Guide to Functional Discourse Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hengeveld, Kees, and J. Lachlan Mackenzie. 2008. Functional Discourse Grammar: A Typologically-based Theory of Language Structure. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hirst, Daniel, and Albert Di Cristo. 1998. “A Survey of Intonation Systems.” In Intonation Systems: A Survey of Twenty Languages, edited by Daniel Hirst, and Albert Di Cristo, 1–44. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Höhle, Tilman N. 1992. “Über Verum-Fokus im Deutschen. [On verum focus in German].” In Informationsstruktur und Grammatik [Information Structure and Grammar], edited by Joachim Jacobs, 112–141. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray. 1972. Semantic Interpretation in Generative Grammar. Cambridge, MA:MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Keizer, Evelien. 2015. A Functional Discourse Grammar for English. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Keizer, Evelien, Kees Hengeveld, and Riccardo Giomi. This volume. “The Interpersonal Level in Functional Discourse Grammar.” In The Interpersonal Level in Functional Discourse Grammar, edited by Monielly Serafim, Matthias Mittendorfer and Kees Hengeveld, ###–###. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Kenesei, István. 2006. “Focus as Identification.” In The Architecture of Focus, edited by Valeria Molnár, and Susanne Winkler, 137–168. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Klumm, Matthias. 2021. “Meaning-to-form Mismatches in Functional Discourse Grammar and Systemic Functional Grammar: A Case Study of the English Discourse Connective however.” In Interfaces in Functional Discourse Grammar: Theory and Application, edited by Lucia Contreras-García, and Daniel García Velasco, 399–432. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kojadinović, Zlatan. 2022. “Variation in the Prosody of Illocutionary Adverbs.” Open Linguistics 8 (1): 593–617. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krifka, Manfred. 2008. “Basic Notions of Information Structure.” Acta Linguistica Hungarica 55 (3–4): 243–276. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ladd, Robert D. 2008. Intonational Phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ladd, Robert D. and Rachel Morton. 1997. “The Perception of Intonational Emphasis: Continuous or Categorical?” Journal of Phonetics 25 (3): 313–342. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, Robin. 1971. “If’s, And’s, and But’s about Conjunction.” In Studies in Linguistic Semantics, edited by Charles J. Fillmore, and Terence Langendoen, 115–149. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lambrecht, Knud. 1994. Information Structure and Sentence Form: Topic, Focus, and the Mental Representations of Discourse Referents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mackenzie, J. Lachlan. 2014. “The Contextual Component in a Dialogic FDG.” Pragmatics 24 (2): 249–273.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mann, William C., and Sandra A. Thompson. 1988. “Rhetorical Structure Theory: Toward a Functional Theory of Text Organization.” Text 8 (3): 243–281. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mittendorfer, Matthias. 2025a. “A Functional Approach to the Prosody of Information Packaging.” PhD diss. University of Vienna.
. 2025b. “Discourse Functions, Placement and Prosody: An FDG Analysis of Left and Right Dislocation in British English.” In Linearization in Functional Discourse Grammar, edited by Elnora ten Wolde, Riccardo Giomi, and Kees Hengeveld, 193–223. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Molnár, Valéria. 2002. “Contrast — from a Contrastive Perspective.” In Information Structure in a Crosslinguistic Perspective, edited by Hilde Hasselgård, 147–161. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2006. “On Different Kinds of Contrast.” In The Architecture of Focus, edited by Valeria Molnár, and Susanne Winkler, 197–233. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Neeleman, Ad, and Reiko Vermeulen. 2013. “The Syntactic Expression of Information Structure.” In The Syntax of Topic, Focus, and Contrast, edited by Ad Neeleman, and Reiko Vermeulen, 1–38. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Orrico, Riccardo, Stella Gryllia, Jiseung Kim, and Amalia Arvaniti. 2025. “Individual Variability and the H* ~ L + H* Contrast in English.” Language and Cognition 17: 1–25. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pierrehumbert, Janet B. 1980. “The Phonology and Phonetics of English Intonation.” PhD Diss. MIT.
Pierrehumbert, Janet B., and Julia Hirschberg. 1990. “The Meaning of Intonational Contours in the Interpretation of Discourse.” In Intentions in Communication, edited by Philip R. Cohen, Jerry Morgan, and Martha E. Pollack, 365–378. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Repp, Sophie. 2010. “Defining ‘Contrast’ as an Information-structural Notion in Grammar.” Lingua 120 (6): 1333–1345. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016. “Contrast: Dissecting an Elusive Information-structural Notion and its Role in Grammar.” In The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure, edited by Caroline Féry, and Shinichiro Ishihara, 270–289. Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Riester, Arndt, Lisa Brunetti, and Kordula De Kuthy. 2018. “Annotation Guidelines for Questions under Discussion and Information Structure.” In Information Structure in Lesser- described Languages, edited by Evangelia Adamou, Katharina Haude, and Martine Vanhove, 103–444. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rochemont, Michael S. 1986. Focus in Generative Grammar. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rooth, Mats E. 1985. “Association with Focus.” PhD diss. University of Massachusetts Amherst.
1992. “A Theory of Focus Interpretation.” Natural Language Semantics 1 (1): 75–116. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stede, Manfred, and Maite Taboada. 2017. “Annotation Guidelines for Rhetorical Structure.” Accessed March 3, 2023. [URL]
Steedman, Mark. 2000. “Information Structure and the Syntax-Phonology Interface.” Linguistic Inquiry 31 (4): 649–689. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Umbach, C. 2004. “On the Notion of Contrast in Information Structure and Discourse Structure.” Journal of Semantics 21 (2): 155–175. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vallduví, Enric, and Elisabet Engdahl. 1996. “The Linguistic Realization of Information Packaging.” Linguistics 34 (3): 459–519. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold-dark jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold-light jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold prag Twitter_Logo_Blue