Information Structure and its Interfaces

Information Structure and its Interfaces
Author: Lunella Mereu
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 441
Release: 2009-02-26
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110213974

The volume presents recent results in the field of Information Structure based on research on Italian and Italian dialects, and on further studies on several typologically different languages. The central idea is that Information Structure is not an exclusive matter of syntax but an interface issue which involves the interplay of at least the phonological, morpho-syntactic and semantic-pragmatic levels of analysis. In addition, the volume is based on the study of actual language use and it adopts a cross-linguistic point of view.

Information Structure Within Interfaces

Information Structure Within Interfaces
Author: Asli Gürer
Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2022-01-31
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9781501526718

This book is an in-depth study of information structure within semantic, syntactic and prosodic domains. The semantic classification of focus and topic phrases provides implications for compositionality and positional restrictions. Drawing on experi

Information Structure Within Interfaces

Information Structure Within Interfaces
Author: Asli Gürer
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2020-01-20
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1501505580

The realization of information structural units has been intriguing as information packaging has reflections in the semantic, pragmatic, syntactic and prosodic domains. This book extends the investigation by bringing data from all these domains and presenting an analysis for the model of grammar.Based on three-way classification for information packaging, semantic investigation presents insights on compositionality and positional restrictions for topic, focus and discourse anaphoric phrases. The prosodic experimental studies reveal how focus shapes prosody and how diverse languages encode such information packaging. Drawing on the findings of experimental studies reflecting the interaction of information structure with quantifier scope, negation and aspectual markers,clause internal functional projections and scope domains are proposed in the syntactic analysis. The analysis offers new perspectives for movement operations, functional categories, phases which are central themes for the Minimalist Program.Building on the investigation of information structure within semantic, prosodic, syntactic perspectives, the book will appeal to researchers working on either of these domains or their interfaces.

On Information Structure, Meaning and Form

On Information Structure, Meaning and Form
Author: Kerstin Schwabe
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 584
Release: 2007
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9789027233646

This collection of articles offers a new and compelling perspective on the interface connecting syntax, phonology, semantics and pragmatics. At the core of this volume is the hypothesis that information structure represents the common interface of these grammatical components. Information structure is investigated here from different theoretical viewpoints yielding typologically relevant information and structural generalizations. In the volume's introductory chapter, the editors identify two central approaches to information structure: the formal and the interpretive view. The remainder of the book is organized accordingly. The first part examines information structure and grammar, concentrating on generalizations across languages. The second part investigates information structure and pragmatics, concentrating on clause structure and context. Through concrete analyses of topic, focus, and related phenomena across different languages, the contributors add new and convincing evidence to the research on information structure.

The Syntax-Information Structure Interface

The Syntax-Information Structure Interface
Author: Eugenia Casielles-Suárez
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2004-08-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 113587669X

In the last decade, the notions of topic and focus have come to play an increasingly relevant role in theoretical linguistics. Although these notions are often taken for granted, they are still poorly understood. This study offers a detailed analysis of the precise definitions of these and related terms (theme, topic, background, given information, focus, contrast, etc.) as well as of their combination into information structures such as the topic-focus and background-focus articulations. It recommends pursuing a feature-based typology of topics and argues against a dual nature of focus (i.e. presentational vs. contrastive). Central questions addressed are the analysis of subjects in Spanish and English (DP vs NP and null vs. preverbal vs. postverbal) and the nature of constructions such as topicalization, left-dislocation, and focus preposing. Further, it is proposed that in Spanish information structure can be read off the syntax: while an overt DP in the preverbal specifier subject position is interpreted as the topic in a topic-focus articulation, one or more left-or right-dislocated phrases are interpreted as part of the background in background-focus/focus-background structures.

The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Interfaces

The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Interfaces
Author: Gillian Ramchand
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 686
Release: 2007-02-22
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0199247455

'The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Interfaces' explores how the core components of the language faculty interact. This book shows how these interactions are reflected in linguistic and cognitive theory, considers what they reveal, and looks at their reflections in expression and communication.

Information Structure Within Interfaces

Information Structure Within Interfaces
Author: Asli Gürer
Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2020-01-20
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9781501515002

This book is an in-depth study of information structure within semantic, syntactic and prosodic domains. The semantic classification of focus and topic phrases provides implications for compositionality and positional restrictions. Drawing on experimental studies with novel data, prosodic and syntactic analyses offer new perspectives for the Minimalist Program specifically for movement operations, functional categories and phase theory.

Language Change at the Interfaces

Language Change at the Interfaces
Author: Nicholas Catasso
Publisher:
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2022-06-15
Genre:
ISBN: 9789027210975

This volume offers an up-to-date survey of linguistic phenomena at the interfaces between syntax and prosody, information structure and discourse - with a special focus on Germanic and Romance - and their role in language change. The contributions, set within the generative framework, discuss original data and provide new insights into the diachronic development of long-burning issues such as negation, word order, quantifiers, null subjects, aspectuality, the structure of the left periphery, and extraposition. The first part of the volume explores interface phenomena at the intrasentential level, in which only clause-internal factors seem to play a significant role in determining diachronic change. The second part examines developments at the intersentential level involving a rearrangement of categories between at least two clausal domains. The book will be of interest for scholars and students interested in generative accounts of language change phenomena at the interfaces, as well as for theoretical linguists in general.

The Syntax-Information Structure Interface

The Syntax-Information Structure Interface
Author: Eugenia Casielles-Suárez
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2004-08
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 1135876703

Central questions addressed are the analysis of subjects in Spanish and English (DP vs. NP and null vs. preverbal vs. postverbal) and the nature of constructions such as topicalization, left-dislocation, and focus preposing.

Interfaces and Interface Conditions

Interfaces and Interface Conditions
Author: Andreas Späth
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 405
Release: 2012-02-14
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110926008

The volume contains articles that focus on the interface between linguistic and conceptual knowledge. The issues addressed in the volume include the preconditions of every level of the language system that are required for the transformation of linguistic information into conceptual representations. In accordance with Chomsky’s Minimalist language model, the language system is embedded into the performative systems where language is a part of the cognitive competence of human beings, i.e. system of articulation and perception (A/P) and the conceptual-intentional system (C/I). During the formation of linguistic structures, every performative system obtains well-formed representations as its input information. The articles of the volume show how interface conditions determine the linguistic representations on each level of the linguistic system. Interface conditions result in requirements for the ordering of linguistic elements. The syntactic transformation achieves a point, where the linguistic structure formation branches to two distinct representational levels. Both levels deliver instructions for the systems of performance A/P and C/I. Linearization takes place on the syntactic surface of a sentence. The linearization of linguistic elements is manifest at the derivational point of Spell-out and also on the level of the phonological form (PF). This means that on the one hand, linearization is relevant to the phonetic aspect of linguistic expressions, and on the other hand, the interpretation of linguistic utterances is based on hierarchical structures. On the level of Logical Form (LF) all operations apply which don’t have any influence on the linear order in overt syntax. In addition they affect the generation of hierarchical structures. The structure obtained on LF is the representational format of the semantic form of a sentence.