The Syntax-Information Structure Interface: Evidence from Spanish and English (Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics)

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. Book Cover......Page 1 Half-Title......Page 2 Title......Page 5 Copyright......Page 6 Dedication......Page 7 Contents......Page 8 Preface......Page 10 Acknowledgments......Page 12 THE SYNTAX-INFORMATION STRUCTURE INTERFACE......Page 18 CHAPTER 1 Introduction......Page 20 NOTES......Page 31 2.1 Introduction......Page 32 2.2 Brief Historical Survey......Page 33 2.3 Analysis of Topic Characterizations......Page 39 2.3.1.1 Aboutness......Page 40 2.3.1.2 Discourse Referent......Page 43 2.3.1.3 Discourse-oldness......Page 44 2.3.1.4 Context Boundness......Page 48 2.3.2 Syntactic Characterizations......Page 50 2.3.2.1 Sentence-initial Position......Page 51 2.3.2.2 Subject......Page 54 2.3.2.3 Pronominal Form......Page 57 2.3.3 Some Conclusions......Page 59 NOTES......Page 61 3.1 Introduction......Page 70 3.2 Topical Phrases......Page 71 3.2.1 Null Phrases......Page 72 3.2.1.1 Subject pro......Page 74 3.2.1.2 Direct Object pro?......Page 76 3.2.1.3 Object Clitics and Topical Objects......Page 78 3.2.2.1 Full Pronouns......Page 80 3.2.2.2 Lexical Phrases......Page 82 3.2.2.3 Dislocated Phrases......Page 84 3.2.3 Internal vs. External Topical Phrases......Page 85 3.3 Topicalizing Constructions......Page 88 3.3.1 Clitic Left-dislocation vs. English Left-dislocation......Page 90 3.3.2 Spanish Strong-Pronoun Left-dislocation......Page 94 3.3.3. CLLD with no overt clitic vs. English Topicalization......Page 97 3.3.4 Right-dislocation......Page 102 3.4 Towards a Typology of Topics......Page 105 NOTES......Page 111 4.1 Introduction......Page 118 4.2 A Syntactic View......Page 120 4.2.1 Preverbal vs. Postverbal Subjects1......Page 121 4.2.2 Preverbal Subjects vs. Dislocated Phrases......Page 126 4.2.3 Focused Subjects......Page 132 4.3. A TFA View......Page 136 4.4 Towards a TFA-syntactic view......Page 138 NOTES......Page 140 5.1 Introduction......Page 142 5.2 Focus, Accent, New Information and Sentence-final Position......Page 143 5.3.1 Rochemont’s Presentational vs. Contrastive Focus6......Page 149 5.3.2 Gundel’s Psychological, Semantic and Contrastive Focus......Page 158 5.3.3 Erteschik-Shir’s Metalinguistic Focus......Page 166 5.3.4 Vallduví’s Retrieve-Add vs. Retrieve-Substitute Focus......Page 169 5.3.5 Lambrecht’s Sentence-, Predicate- and Argument-Focus......Page 175 5.3.6 Kiss’s Identificational vs. Information Focus......Page 177 5.4 The Projection of Focus......Page 179 NOTES......Page 181 6.1 Introduction1......Page 188 6.2 FP as a Topical Focus......Page 189 6.2.1 The Reconstruction Analysis......Page 191 6.2.2 The Interaction of Two Dichotomies......Page 194 6.2.3 Metalinguistic Focus......Page 196 6.3 FP as a Nontopical Focus......Page 198 6.3.1 FP and Focused Subjects......Page 200 6.3.2. FP and Language-Particular Features......Page 202 6.3.3 FP and Wh-Movement......Page 205 NOTES......Page 207 7.1 Introduction......Page 210 7.2.1 Previous Proposals......Page 211 7.2.2 Vallduví’s Link-Tail Division......Page 214 7.2.3 Two Dichotomies......Page 218 7.3 The TFA and Syntactic Structure......Page 226 7.4 Overall Conclusions......Page 230 NOTES......Page 233 References......Page 236 Index......Page 246 This study offers a detailed analysis of the precise definitions of the notions of topic and focus and related terms as well as of their combination into information structures. It recommends pursuing a feature-based typology of topics and argues against a dual nature of focus