The Meaning Of Topic And Focus

Author : Daniel Büring
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2012-08-21
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9781134702060

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The Meaning of Topic and Focus by Daniel Büring Pdf

This study provides an illuminating and ground-breaking account of the complex interaction of intonational phenomena, semantics and pragmatics. Based on examples from German and English, and centred on an analysis of the fall-rise intonation contour, a semantic interpretation for two different pitch accents - Focus and Topic - is developed. The cross-sentence, as well as the sentence internal semantic effects of these accents, follow from the given treatment. The account is based on Montogovian possible world semantics and Chomskian generative syntax.

Author : Chungmin Lee,Matthew Gordon
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 295 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2006-12-18
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9781402047961

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Topic and Focus by Chungmin Lee,Matthew Gordon Pdf

During the 2001 Linguistic Summer Institute at University of California, Santa Barbara, a group of linguists gathered at a workshop to discuss the expression and role of topicalization and focus from a variety of perspectives: phonetic, phonological, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic. The workshop was designed to lay the groundwork for collaborative efforts between linguists devoted to the study of meaning and linguists engaged in the quantitative study of intonation. This volume contains papers emerging from the Santa Barbara Workshop on Topic and Focus. A wide variety of methodologies and research interests related to topic and focus are represented in the papers. Some works present results of phonetic studies, either acoustic or perceptual, on the expression of topic and/or focus; others examine semantic or pragmatic features of topic and/or focus, while others are concerned with the interface between intonation and meaning. Data from several different languages are represented in the papers, including several languages with relatively little documentation particularly in the venue of topic and focus, e. g. Basque, Chickasaw, Indonesian, Polish, Taiwanese. The broad sample of languages coupled with the wide variety of research topics addressed by the papers promise to enrich our typological understanding of topic and focus phenomena and provide an impetus for further research. The following paragraphs offer brief summaries of the papers contained in this volume: Gorka Elordieta’s paper describes prosodic conditions governing focus in a dialect of Basque with pitch accents.

Author : Ad Neeleman,Reiko Vermeulen
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
Page : 316 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2012-12-06
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9781614511458

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The Syntax of Topic, Focus, and Contrast by Ad Neeleman,Reiko Vermeulen Pdf

This book addresses how core notions of information structure (topic, focus and contrast) are expressed in syntax. The authors propose that the syntactic effects of information structure come about as a result of mapping rules that are flexible enough to allow topics and foci to be expressed in a variety of positions, but strict enough to capture certain cross-linguistic generalisations about their distribution. In particular, the papers argue that only contrastive topics and contrastive foci undergo movement and that this is because such movement has the function of marking the scope of contrast. Several predications are derived from this proposal: such as that a focus cannot move across a topic – whether the latter is in situ or not. Syntactic and semantic evidence in support of this proposal is presented from a wide range of languages (including Dutch, English, Japanese, Korean and Russian) and theoretical consequences explored. The first chapter not only outlines its theoretical aims, but also provides an introduction to information structure. As a consequence, the book is accessible to advanced students as well as professional linguists.

Author : Valéria Molnár,Susanne Winkler
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
Page : 629 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2011-12-22
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9783110922011

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The Architecture of Focus by Valéria Molnár,Susanne Winkler Pdf

This collection investigates the architecture of focus in linguistic theory from different theoretical perspectives. Research on focus and information structure in the last four decades has shown that the phenomenon of focus is highly complex, the theoretical approaches manifold, and the data highly sensitive. The main emphasis has been placed on the integration of the notion of focus in generative grammar. In recent years, however, the approaches to focus and information structure underwent a radical change in perspective. The theoretical concept of focus, its related terms and phenomena became the object of research. Along with it, the research questions shifted: instead of locating focus in the architecture of grammar, linguists investigate the architecture of focus itself. The central underlying idea of this collection is to document this change in perspective with the aim of isolating essential keystones and research areas in both the theoretical and empirical domain. The book is structured accordingly. Following the introduction, there are four main sections: The general section discusses the theoretical foundations of focus within grammar. The second section hosts papers which investigate the representation of focus and topic at the syntax-pragmatics interface. The third section discusses the phonological representation of focus and its relation to meaning. The papers of the final section investigate different types of focus constructions in a variety languages. The collection of papers on the architecture of focus, its interpretation and representation mirror the establishment of the focus research field.

Author : Jorunn Hetland,Valéria Molnár
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2013-02-06
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9783110949483

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Structures of Focus and Grammatical Relations by Jorunn Hetland,Valéria Molnár Pdf

The seven articles of this volume take up crucial aspects of information structure and grammatical form. Special attention is paid to the definition of topic, focus and contrast, to the language specific devices for expressing different types of these information structural notions, and to the typological characterisation of languages as to discourse configurationality. The investigation of grammatical relations includes the interplay between syntactic functions, morphological case and thematic structure, and the study of the functional and formal complexity of passive in Germanic languages.

Author : David I. Beaver,Brady Z. Clark
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 328 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2009-01-30
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9781444301335

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Sense and Sensitivity by David I. Beaver,Brady Z. Clark Pdf

Sense and Sensitivity advances a novel research proposal in the nascent field of formal pragmatics, exploring in detail the semantics and pragmatics of focus in natural language discourse. The authors develop a new account of focus sensitivity, and show that what has hitherto been regarded as a uniform phenomenon in fact results from three different mechanisms. The book Makes a major contribution to ongoing research in the area of focus sensitivity – a field exploring interactions between sound and meaning, specifically the dependency some words have on the effects of focus, such as "she only LIKES me" (i.e. nothing deeper) compared to "she only likes ME" (i.e. nobody else) Discusses the features of the QFC theory (Quasi association, Free association, and Conventional association), a new account of focus implying a tripartite typology of focus-sensitive expressions Presents novel cross-linguistic data on focus and focus sensitivity that will be relevant across a range of linguistic sub-fields: semantics and pragmatics, syntax, and intonational phonology Concludes with a case study of exclusives (like “only”), arguing that the entire existing literature has missed crucial generalizations, and for the first time explaining the focus sensitivity of these expressions in terms of their meaning and discourse function

Author : Andreas Dufter,Daniel Jacob
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
Page : 376 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2009-06-18
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789027289520

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Focus and Background in Romance Languages by Andreas Dufter,Daniel Jacob Pdf

Focus–background structure has taken center stage in much current theorizing about sentence prosody, syntax, and semantics. However, both the inventory of focus expressions found cross-linguistically and the interpretive consequences associated with each of these continue to be insufficiently described. This volume aims at providing new observations on the availability and the use of focus markings in Romance languages. In doing so, it documents the plurality of research on focus in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and Romanian. Topics covered include constituent fronting and clefting, the position of subjects and focus particles, clitic doubling of objects, and information packaging in complex sentences. In addition, some contributions explore focus–background structure from acquisitional and diachronic angles, while others adopt a comparative perspective, studying differences between individual Romance and Germanic languages. Therefore, this volume is of interest to a broad audience within linguistics, including syntacticians, semanticists, and historical linguists.

Author : Knud Lambrecht
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 1996-11-13
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9781316582411

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Information Structure and Sentence Form by Knud Lambrecht Pdf

Why do speakers of all languages use different grammatical structures under different communicative circumstances to express the same idea? Professor Lambrecht explores the relationship between the structure of the sentence and the linguistic and extra-linguistic context in which it is used. His analysis is based on the observation that the structure of a sentence reflects a speaker's assumption about the hearer's state of knowledge and consciousness at the time of the utterance. This relationship between speaker assumptions and formal sentence structure is governed by rules and conventions of grammar, in a component called 'information structure'. Four independent but interrelated categories are analysed: presupposition and assertion, identifiability and activation, topic, and focus.

Author : Marina Cláudia Vigário,Sonia Frota,Maria João Freitas
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
Page : 305 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789027248220

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Phonetics and Phonology by Marina Cláudia Vigário,Sonia Frota,Maria João Freitas Pdf

The papers included in the volume "Phonetics and Phonology: Interactions and interrelations" are concerned with some of the multiple possible forms of interactions and interrelations in phonetics and phonology: the phonetic and/or phonological nature of speech patterns, segmental and prosodic interactions, and interactions between segments and features, both in child and in adult language, combining perception and production data, and doing so from theoretically as well as experimentally oriented perspectives. The book is unique in the universe of recent publications for its topic, wide scope and coherent thematic content. It is of interest to all researchers, teachers and students in the fields of phonetics and phonology as well as to those interested in the interplay between production and perception, the organization of grammar and language typology. In general, "Phonetics and Phonology. Interactions and interrelations" may be a useful companion to all those wishing to widen and deepen their knowledge of the sound structure of language(s).

Author : Kerstin Schwabe,Susanne Winkler
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
Page : 584 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2007
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9027233640

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On Information Structure, Meaning and Form by Kerstin Schwabe,Susanne Winkler Pdf

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.

Author : Eva Hajicová,Barbara B.H. Partee,P. Sgall
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 205 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2013-03-09
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789401590129

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Topic-Focus Articulation, Tripartite Structures, and Semantic Content by Eva Hajicová,Barbara B.H. Partee,P. Sgall Pdf

1. 1 OBJECTIVES The main objective of this joint work is to bring together some ideas that have played central roles in two disparate theoretical traditions in order to con tribute to a better understanding of the relationship between focus and the syn tactic and semantic structure of sentences. Within the Prague School tradition and the branch of its contemporary development represented by Hajicova and Sgall (HS in the sequel), topic-focus articulation has long been a central object of study, and it has long been a tenet of Prague school linguistics that topic-focus structure has systematic relevance to meaning. Within the formal semantics tradition represented by Partee (BHP in the sequel), focus has much more recently become an area of concerted investigation, but a number of the semantic phenomena to which focus is relevant have been extensively investi gated and given explicit compositional semantic-analyses. The emergence of 'tripartite structures' (see Chapter 2) in formal semantics and the partial simi larities that can be readily observed between some aspects of tripartite structures and some aspects of Praguian topic-focus articulation have led us to expect that a closer investigation of the similarities and differences in these different theoretical constructs would be a rewarding undertaking with mutual benefits for the further development of our respective theories and potential benefit for the study of semantic effects of focus in other theories as well.

Author : P. Sgall,Eva Hajicová,Jarmila Panevová
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 378 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 1986-05-31
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9027718385

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The Meaning of the Sentence in Its Semantic and Pragmatic Aspects by P. Sgall,Eva Hajicová,Jarmila Panevová Pdf

Author : Chungmin Lee,Ferenc Kiefer,Manfred Krifka
Publisher : Springer
Page : 415 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2017-01-11
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9783319101064

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Contrastiveness in Information Structure, Alternatives and Scalar Implicatures by Chungmin Lee,Ferenc Kiefer,Manfred Krifka Pdf

A group of authors containing both leading authorities and young researchers addresses a number of issues of contrastiveness, polarity items and exhaustivity, quantificational expressions and the implicatures they generate, and the interaction between semantic operators and speech acts. The 19 contributions provide insights on the interplay between semantics and pragmatics. The volume’s reach is cross-linguistic and takes an unorthodox multi-paradigm approach. Languages studied range from European languages including Hungarian and Russian to East Asian languages such as Japanese and Korean, with rich data on focus and discourse particles. This volume contributes to a major area of research in linguistics of the last decade, and provides novel, state-of-the-art views on some of the central topics in linguistic research, and will appeal to an audience of graduate and advanced undergraduate researchers in linguistics, philosophy of language and computational linguistics.

Author : Eva Haji?ová,Petr Sgall,Jiri Hana
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2002-01-01
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789027254443

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Prague Linguistic Circle Papers by Eva Haji?ová,Petr Sgall,Jiri Hana Pdf

The fourth volume of the revived series of “Travaux du Cercle linguistique de Prague” brings three contributions (by J. Vachek, O. Le?ka and V. Skalicka) connected with the classical period of the Prague School, as well as papers delivered at the conference “Function, Form, and Meaning: Bridges and Interfaces”, held in Prague in 1998. Some of the contributions concern issues of grammar of different languages including a syntactic annotation of a large Czech text corpus, a comparison of Hebrew conditionals with English, a characterization of the typology of the Indo-European verb. A further part focuses on topic-focus articulation (information sentence structure, functional sentence perspective), with a concept of 'perspective' introduced as close to but distinct from 'topic' and with three different viewpoints on the semantics of information structure. Two broader essays on the nature of language are then presented, while the last section analyzes the structure of free verse. The volume represents a contribution to the continuing fruitful interaction between the work of the Prague School and the more and less closely related approaches of linguists in other countries.

Author : Klaus von Heusinger,Claudia Maienborn,Paul Portner
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
Page : 1079 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2011-12-23
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9783110255072

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Semantics. Volume 2 by Klaus von Heusinger,Claudia Maienborn,Paul Portner Pdf

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