The Syntax-Information Structure Interface

by Casielles-Suarez; Eugenia

• ISBN13: 9780415970952
• ISBN10: 0415970954
• Edition: Bilingual
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-12-04
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

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 isinterpreted 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.

Table of Contents

PREFACE	xi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS	xiii
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION	3	(12)
CHAPTER 2: TOPICS	15	(38)
2.1 Introduction	15	(1)
2.2 Brief Historical Survey	16	(6)
2.3 Analysis of Topic Characterizations	22	(31)
CHAPTER 3: TOPICAL PHRASES AND TOPICALIZING CONSTRUCTIONS	53	(48)
3.1 Introduction	53	(1)
3.2 Topical Phrases	54	(17)
3.3 Topicalizing Constructions	71	(18)
3.4 Towards a Typology of Topics	89	(12)
CHAPTER 4: BARE NOMINALS	101	(26)
4.1 Introduction	101	(2)
4.2 A Syntactic View	103	(16)
4.3 A TFA View	119	(2)
4.4 Towards a TFA-syntactic View	121	(6)
CHAPTER 5: FOCUS	127	(44)
5.1 Introduction	127	(1)
5.2 Focus, Accent, New Information and Sentence-final Position	128	(6)
5.3 Types of Focus	134	(29)
5.4 The Projection of Focus	163	(1)
5.5 Some Conclusions	164	(7)
CHAPTER 6: FOCUS PREPOSING	171	(22)
6.1 Introduction	171	(1)
6.2 FP as a Topical Focus	172	(9)
6.3 FP as a Nontopical Focus	181	(12)
CHAPTER 7: INFORMATION STRUCTURE AND SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE	193	(26)
7.1 Introduction	193	(1)
7.2 The Topic-Focus Articulation	194	(15)
7.3 The TFA and Syntactic Structure	209	(3)
7.4 Overall Conclusions	212	(7)
REFERENCES	219	(10)
INDEX	229