The paper suggests that there is no contradiction in cleft sentences focalizing information which was already introduced by the preceding context, because being already active in discourse (i.e., Given) is not the same as being linguistically encoded as a Topic, and Given information can be focalized in discourse. Clefts should be explained precisely as constructions devoted mainly to focalizing already active information. A side-effect of the analysis is to assess that the role of syntax in expressing Information Structure is a secondary one, because syntactic triggers of Information Structure only work when accompanied by prosodic triggers, whereas prosodic means can work alone.

lombardi vallauri, E. (2022). Distinguishing psychological Given/New from linguistic Topic/Focus makes things clearer. In Davide Garassino & Daniel Jacob (a cura di), When Data Challenges Theory. Unexpected and Paradoxical Evidence in Information Structure (pp. 39-55). John Benjamins [10.1075/la.273.01val].

Distinguishing psychological Given/New from linguistic Topic/Focus makes things clearer

lombardi vallauri, edoardo
2022-01-01

Abstract

The paper suggests that there is no contradiction in cleft sentences focalizing information which was already introduced by the preceding context, because being already active in discourse (i.e., Given) is not the same as being linguistically encoded as a Topic, and Given information can be focalized in discourse. Clefts should be explained precisely as constructions devoted mainly to focalizing already active information. A side-effect of the analysis is to assess that the role of syntax in expressing Information Structure is a secondary one, because syntactic triggers of Information Structure only work when accompanied by prosodic triggers, whereas prosodic means can work alone.
2022
lombardi vallauri, E. (2022). Distinguishing psychological Given/New from linguistic Topic/Focus makes things clearer. In Davide Garassino & Daniel Jacob (a cura di), When Data Challenges Theory. Unexpected and Paradoxical Evidence in Information Structure (pp. 39-55). John Benjamins [10.1075/la.273.01val].
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11590/403699
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