Contrasts and Positions in Information Structure

This volume brings together exciting research on the relationship between syntax and information structure, developing an interface-based approach.

Ivona Ku?erová (Edited by), Ad Neeleman (Edited by)

9781107001985, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 26 July 2012

354 pages, 25 b/w illus. 3 tables
23.5 x 15.6 x 2.4 cm, 0.66 kg

Information structure, or the way the information in a sentence is 'divided' into categories such as topic, focus, comment, background, and old versus new information, is one of the most widely debated topics in linguistics. This volume incorporates exciting work on the relationship between syntax and information structure. The contributors are united in rejecting accounts that assume designated syntactic positions associated with specific information-structural interpretations, and aim instead to derive information-structural conditions on word order and other phenomena from the way syntax and syntax-external systems interact. Beyond this shared aim, the authors of the various chapters advocate a number of approaches, based on different types of data (syntactic, semantic, phonological/phonetic) from a range of languages. The book is aimed at specialists in syntax and/or information structure, as well as students and linguists in related fields keen to familiarise themselves with current issues in this fascinating area of research.

1. Introduction Ivona Ku?erová and Ad Neeleman
Part I. The Architecture of Grammar and the Primitives of Information Structure: 2. Predicate integration: phrase structure or argument structure? Daniel Büring
3. Wh-intonation and information structure in South Kyeongsang Korean and Tokyo Japanese Hyun Kyung Hwang
4. Grammatical marking of givenness Ivona Ku?erová
5. Interface configurations: identificational focus and the flexibility of syntax Balázs Surányi
6. Focus and givenness: a unified approach Michael Wagner
7. The locality of focusing and the coherence of anaphors Edwin Williams
Part II. Exploring the Interfaces: Case Studies: 8. NP ellipsis without focus movement/projections: the role of classifiers Artemis Alexiadou and Kirsten Gengel
9. Focus in Greek wh-questions Theodora Alexopoulou and Mary Baltazani
10. Against FocusP: arguments from Zulu Lisa Lai-Shen Cheng and Laura J. Downing
11. Scrambling as formal movement Gisbert Fanselow
12. Left peripheral arguments and discourse interface strategies in Yucatec Maya Stavros Skopeteas and Elisabeth Verhoeven
References.

Subject Areas: Grammar, syntax & morphology [CFK], Semantics, discourse analysis, etc [CFG]