Information Structure: Theoretical, Typological, and Experimental Perspectives
Malte Zimmermann and Caroline Féry
Abstract
This book brings together leading figures to present an overview of different approaches to the formal expression of information structure in language and how it works in human communication. Information structure concerns the ways in which aspects of grammar including semantics, pragmatics, syntax, morphology, prosody, and intonation interact in the communication and reception of information. It is also concerned with the neurolinguistics of the production and cognition of meaning. This book reflects recent research in all central aspects of the subject. It examines the concepts of focus vers ... More
This book brings together leading figures to present an overview of different approaches to the formal expression of information structure in language and how it works in human communication. Information structure concerns the ways in which aspects of grammar including semantics, pragmatics, syntax, morphology, prosody, and intonation interact in the communication and reception of information. It is also concerned with the neurolinguistics of the production and cognition of meaning. This book reflects recent research in all central aspects of the subject. It examines the concepts of focus versus background, topic versus comment, and given versus new, and the kinds of inferences required to make sense of different combinations of words, syntax, intonation, and context. The chapters combine theoretical and experimental approaches and include examination of variations of information structure across different languages and within the same language over time.
Keywords:
cognition,
grammatical encoding,
information‐structure,
linguistic competence,
multi‐modularity
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2009 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199570959 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: February 2010 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199570959.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Malte Zimmermann, editor
University of Potsdam
Caroline Féry, editor
University of Potsdam
Author Webpage
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