Cover not available

In:When Data Challenges Theory: Unexpected and paradoxical evidence in information structure
Edited by Davide Garassino and Daniel Jacob
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 273] 2022
► pp. 91–112

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Alternatives to information structure

 | University of Münster
Published online: 22 February 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.273.03mat
Abstract
The paper questions the assumption that information structure is a necessary component of communication. It is shown that there is no language-independent evidence that communication is based on regular alternation of presupposed and focused information, and that sentences necessarily convey information about topics. The argumentation to this effect is circular and based on contextual determinism and reification of interpretative effects. If we dispose of these fallacies, the need to posit a separate information-structural level of meaning disappears. This opens up a competely new research paradigm in discourse organisation which takes into account the practically infinite variability of natural languages, psycholinguistic evidence, social and information-transmitting nature of communication, and many other factors.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Basic tenets of information structure
  • 3.Brief critical assessment
  • 4.Alternatives to information structure
  • 5.Summary
  • Abbreviations
  • Notes
  • References
References (54)
References
Abbott, Barbara. 2000. Presuppositions as nonassertions. Journal of Pragmatics 32: 1419–1437. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Adamou, Evangelia, Haude, Katharina & Vanhove, Martine (eds). 2018. Information Structure in Lesser-Described Languages: Studies in Prosody and Syntax. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bickel, Balthasar. 2007. Typology in the 21st century: major current developments. Linguistic Typology 11: 239–251. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, Ina & Schumacher, Petra. 2016. Towards a neurobiology of information structure. In The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure, Caroline Féry & Shinichiro Ishihara (eds), 581–598. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cowles, Heidi Wind. 2012. The Psychology of Information Structure. In The Expression of Information Structure, Manfred Krifka & Renate Musan (eds), 287–317. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dąbrowska, Ewa. 2010. Naive vs. expert intuitions: An empirical study of acceptability judgments. The Linguistic Review 27: 1–23. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Delin, Judy & Oberlander, Jon. 1995. Syntactic constraints on discourse structure: the case of it-clefts. Linguistics 33: 465–500. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dickins, James. 2020. Thematic Structure and Para-Syntax: Arabic as a Case Study. Abingdon: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dimroth, Christine, Andorno, Cecilia, Benazzo, Sandra & Verhagen, Josje. 2010. Given claims about new topics. How Romance and Germanic speakers link changed and maintained information in narrative discourse. Journal of Pragmatics 42: 3328–3344. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
El Zarka, Dina & Schuppler, Barbara. 2018. On the interplay of pragmatic and formal factors in the prosodic realization of themes in Egyptian Arabic. Grazer Linguistische Studien 90: 33–106.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Erteschik-Shir, Nomi. 2007. Information Structure: The Syntax-Discourse Interface. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Féry, Caroline & Ishihara, Shinichiro. 2016. The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Féry, Caroline & Samek-Lodovici, Vieri. 2006. Focus projection and prosodic prominence in nested foci. Language 82: 131–150. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garassino, Davide. 2016. Using cleft sentences in Italian and English. A multifactorial analysis. In Current Issues in Italian, Romance, and Germanic Non-Canonical Word Orders, Anna-Maria De Cesare & Davide Garassino (eds), 181–204. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hanks, Peter. 2015. Propositional Content. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hartmann, Katharina & Zimmermann, Malte. 2012. Focus Marking in Bura: Semantic Uniformity Matches Syntactic Heterogeneity. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 30: 1061–1108. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hatcher, Ann Granville. 1956. Theme and Underlying Question. Two Studies of Spanish Word Order. New York: Linguistic Circle of New York.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hedberg, Nancy. 2006. Topic-Focus Controversies. In The Architecture of Focus, Valéria Molnár & Susanne Winkler (eds), 373–397. Berlin-New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heller, Benedikt, Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt & Grafmiller, Jason. 2017. Stability and fluidity in syntactic variation world-wide: the genitive alternation across varieties of English. Journal of English Linguistics 45: 3–27. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heusinger, Klaus von. 1999. Intonation and Information Structure. Habilitationsschrift, University of Konstanz. [URL] (06 January 2020).
Jakobson, Roman. 1960. Linguistics and Poetics. In Style in Language, Thomas Sebeok (ed), 350–377. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jaspers, Danny & Seuren, Pieter A. M. 2016. The Square of opposition in Catholic hands: A chapter in the history of 20th-Century logic. Logique & Analyse 233: 1–35.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kaiser, Elsi. 2016. Information structure and language comprehension: Insights from psycholinguistics. In The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure, Caroline Féry & Shinichiro Ishihara (eds), 523–540. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kim, Ilkyu. 2015. Is Korean -(n)un a topic marker? On the nature of -(n)un and its relation to information structure. Lingua 154: 87–109. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016. Can Korean -(n)un mark (contrastive) focus? Linguistic Sciences 56: 105–117. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krifka, Manfred & Musan, Renate. 2012. The Expression of Information Structure. Berlin-New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kruijff-Korbayová, Ivana & Steedman, Mark. 2003. Discourse and information structure. Journal of Logic, Language and Information 12: 249–259. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lee, Chungmin, Kiefer, Ferenc & Krifka, Manfred (eds). 2017. Contrastiveness in Information Structure, Alternatives and Scalar Implicatures [Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 91]. Cham: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Matić, Dejan. 2009. On the variability of focus meanings. In Current Issues in Unity and Diversity of Languages. Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Linguists, Seoul 2008, 10. Seoul: Linguistic Society of Korea.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. Deriving information structure from field data. In Methodological Issues in the Study of Information Structure, Dina El Zarka & Steffen Heidinger (eds), 25–42. Graz: Universität Graz.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. Information structure in linguistics. In International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edn., James D. Wright (ed), 95–99. Oxford: Elsevier. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Matić, Dejan & Nikolaeva, Irina. 2018. From polarity focus to salient polarity: From things to processes. In The Grammatical Realization of Polarity Contrast. Theoretical, Empirical, and Typological Approaches, Christine Dimroth & Stefan Sudhoff (eds), 9–53. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Matić, Dejan & Wedgwood, Daniel. 2013. The meaning of focus: The significance of an interpretation-based category in cross-linguistic analysis. Journal of Linguistics 49: 127–163. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mercier, Hugo & Sperber, Dan. 2017. The Enigma of Reason. A New Theory of Human Understanding. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Molnár, Valéria, Egerland, Verner & Winkler, Susanne. 2019. The Architecture of Topic. Berlin-New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018. Tracing the sources of Information Structure: Towards the study of interactional management of information. Journal of Pragmatics 138: 77–97. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Potts, Christopher. 2007. The expressive dimension. Theoretical Linguistics 33: 165–197. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Reinhart, Tanya. 1982. Pragmatics and linguistics: an analysis of sentence topics. Philosophica 27: 53–94.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Riester, Arndt, Brunetti, Lisa & De Kuthy, Kordula. 2018. Annotation guidelines for Questions under Discussion and information structure. In Information Structure in Lesser-Described Languages: Studies in Syntax and Prosody, Evangelia Adamou, Katharina Haude & Martine Vanhove (eds), 403–443. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Riesberg, Sonja, Shiohara, Asako & Utsumi, Atsuko. 2018. Perspectives on Information Structure in Austronesian Languages. Berlin: Language Science Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schindler, Samuel, Drożdżowicz, Anna & Brøcker, Karen (eds). 2020. Linguistic Intuitions: Evidence and Method. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schwabe, Kerstin & Winkler, Susanne (eds). 2007. On Information Structure, Meaning and Form: Generalizations across Languages. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Seuren, Pieter A. M. 1998. Western Linguistics: An Historical Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2014. The cognitive ontogenesis of predicate logic. Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 55: 499–532. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sprouse, Jon, Schütze, Carson T. & Almeida, Diogo. 2013. A comparison of informal and formal acceptability judgments using a random sample from Linguistic Inquiry 2001–2010. Lingua 134: 219–248. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stalnaker, Robert. 1974. Pragmatic Presuppositions. In Semantics and Philosophy, Milton Munitz & Peter Under (eds), 197–213. New York: New York University Press,Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2002. Common Ground. Linguistics and Philosophy 25: 701–721. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van der Wal, Jenneke. 2016. Diagnosing focus. Studies in Language 40: 259–301. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wagner, Michael. 2016. Information structure and production planning. In The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure, Caroline Féry & Shinichiro Ishihara (eds), 541–561. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wedgwood, Daniel. 2005. Shifting the Focus. From Static Structures to Dynamic Interpretation. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zimmermann, Malte & Onea, Edgar. 2011. Focus Marking and Focus Interpretation. Lingua 121: 1651–1670. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (5)

Cited by five other publications

Loss, Daniel, Nattanun Chanchaochai, N. J. Enfield & Pittayawat Pittayaporn
2024. Information structure and changes in Moklen word-form. Asia-Pacific Language Variation 10:2 ► pp. 140 ff. DOI logo
Ozerov, Pavel
2023. From sentential syntax to syntax of interaction. Journal of Speech Sciences 12 ► pp. e023001 ff. DOI logo
Ozerov, Pavel
2024. Left Dislocation in Spoken Hebrew, it is neither topicalizing nor a construction. Linguistics DOI logo
De Cesare, Anna-Maria
2022. To be or not to be focus adverbials?. In When Data Challenges Theory [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 273], ► pp. 203 ff. DOI logo
Garassino, Davide & Daniel Jacob
2022. When data challenges theory. In When Data Challenges Theory [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 273], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 23 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue