Petrova, Svetlana

Schwarz, Anne

English

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âTextSn Sn+2 Sn+1S’nn...S’’S’n+1n+1...S’’S’n+2n+2...S’’Discourse Structure and Information Packagingin Cross-Linguistic PerspectiveSVETLANA PETROVAANNE SCHWARZwww2.hu-berlin.de/gur_und_kwa_fokus www.linguistik.hu-berlin.de/sprachgeschichte/forschung/informationsstruktur(c)ProjectB4+B1(AnneSchwarz),May2006Asher,Nicolas&Lascarides,Alex.2003. .Hinterhölzl, Roland, Svetlana Petrova & Michael Solf. 2005. Diskurspragmatische Faktoren fürTopikalität undVerbstellung in der althochdeutschen Tatianübersetzung (9. Jh.)143–182.Hopper, Paul J. 1979. Aspect and Foregrounding in Discourse. In Talmy Givón (ed) ,NLi,CharlesN.,andSandraA.Thompson.1976.SubjectandTopic:ANewTypologyofLanguage.InLi,CharlesN.(ed.), u FMann,WilliamC.&Thompson,SandraA.1988.RhetoricalStructureTheory:Towardafunctionaltheoryoftextorganization.In 8,243-281.LogicsofConversation CambridgeUniversityPress.Syntax and SemanticsewYork:AcademicPress,213-241.S bjectandtopic,NewYork/San rancisco/London:AcademicPress,457-489.TEXT.AninterdisciplinaryjournalforthestudyofdiscourseFiedler, Ines & Anne Schwarz. to appear. Focus or Narrative Construction? In Aboh, E., K. Hartmann & M.Zimmermann(eds.), ,BIn: Ishihara, S., M. Schmitz and A. Schwarz(eds.): ,FocusStrategies:EvidencefromAfricanLanguages erlin:deGruyter.InterdisciplinaryStudiesonInformationStructure3UPHU SFB 632 Information StructureVerb Placement in Early Germanic (B4) Morphosyntactic Variation in Gur (B1)StateofaffairsTopicinsentenceanddiscourse[+topicalsubject]:[-topicalsubject]:Recent research points out that somelanguages of the Gur group (Buli, Konni,Dagbani,andothers)usemorphosyntacticmeans (verb morphology including tone,connectives etc.) to express a discoursebased difference between clauses with orwithoutatopicalsubject:In the canonical sentence construction(a), the subject represents the sentencetopic about which a comment is madewithin the same clause. Any discourse-based deviation from this canonical cate-gorical configuration occurs in mor-phosyntactically marked constructions inwhich the predicate is either hypotactically(b)orparatactically(c)encoded.a. SV(O)categorical utterance with topic + commentb. SV(O)thetic utterance without topicc. O#SVtopic+clausalcommentThe hypotactic predicate introduces major discoursereferents to provide for the upcomingevents. The same thetic construction occurs in otherbackgrounding contexts, but also with subject andsentencefocus.The paratactic predicate encodes important eventsmaking up the major story line in the . Theconstituent before the clause boundary rather than thesubject of the clause serves as topic, which might beunexpected, new or contrastive with respect to the stateofaffairs.canonical predicate:hypotactic predicate (incorporation):paratacticpredicate(coordination):backgroundforegrounda.Canonicalpredicateb. Hypotactic predicatec. Paratactic predicatea. Canonical predicateb. Hypotactic predicatec. Paratactic predicate	  		  	  !" "#  $!	!# The man cooked soup.There was a man with five wives.... the youngest child brought the tomatoes homeand she [the mother] cooked them.She has a rabbit.There was a woman with her three children.Mother told me to sweep the room,and I swept it.man.DEF cook FM soupman past CNJ be:LOC with 3sg women fiveCNJ 3sg cook3sg have-FM rabbitwoman one with 3sg children three be:LOC-NA1sg:H sweep-3sgMotivation ProposalDistributionofV/1-patterns inEarly GermanicResults of earlier studies (Hinterhölzl et al. 2005) point thatenters theborderline between in anutterance and thusThis phenomenon is bestshown on the complementary distribution of V/1 vs. V/2 insentences of the presentational vs. categorical kind. Aproblem apparently arises with -sentences containingreferents:verb placement indicates rhetoricalrelationsinEarlyGermanicV2 indicates and; here Vfinseparates a topic from thecomment/new-information focusV1 indicates / theend of a chain of continuation;no topic-comment structureappliesthe inflected verb in Early Germanicold and new informationmarks the beginning of the domainof new-information focus.V/1discourse-giventext-initialsentencesandepisodeonsets=(1) Lat. actum autem In diebus illis’OHG thô gitân In then tagon (T 35, 7)[It] happened in those daysverb groups:- motion verbs = change in the of the narrativesetting(2) Lat. & ecce angelus dominiOHG thara gotes engil (T 35, 32)There appeared God’s angel- perception verbs in inchoative meaning = change in the(3) Lat. homo semoniOHG ther man themo uuorte (T 90, 24)The man believed (=started to believe) to this statement- verbs of saying =(4) Lat. & respondens angelusOHG tho ther engil (T 28, 26)Then the angel respondedspecial cases- highlighting of important events: V/1 forces all-focus interpretation(5)OS a. Than thar en gigamalod mann,/ b. that froudgomo […] c. That so salig man/ […] d.,/ that sea erbiuuard egan ni moustun (Hel 72–86)Then, there was an old-aged man, this was a wise man […] Thiswas such a blessed man […] But they had great sorrow, forthey had no child- chains of narrative sequences (‚periods‘)(6)ON Þá var fjorðrinn fullr af veiðiskap, ok þeir eigi fyrirveiðum at fá heyanna ok alt kvikfé þeira um vetrinn.(Landnámabók 5)There was the fjord full of fish, and because of the fishing theydidn‘t care to get hay, and all their cattle died in the winteris achieved only if utterancemakes a in the contextthe meaning of, i.e. on the linking together thecontents of the single discourse unitsunits in discourse are linked together to build up a hierarchicalstructure of discourse organization (Mann & Thompson 1988,Asher & Lascarides 2003): protopypical relation ofevents ( ) displayevents ( ) display a ofin discourseprotopypical relation ofevents ( ) form a indiscourseevents ( )provides on: connects units on theand both elaborate onnew textsequenceF estuuardlocal orientationquamtemporalorientationcrediditgiloubtachange of personnelantlingotauuas uuasuuasgáðudódiscourse coherence eachcontribution to some other utterancediscourse depends on its rhetoricalstructure rhetorical relationscoordinationno dependency relationtemporal relationsuccessioncontinues the narrative sequencesubordinationhierarchical relationtemporally overlapmore detailsame level ofdependencyUuas im thoh ansorogon hugiThe notion of discourse coherence and discourse hierarchyin RST and SDRTPrototypical discourse relations in SDRTNarrationElaboration:Continuationá,âá,ââá,âá,ââ áâã ásubordinationcontinuationcoordinationáááâââ ãInteractionwithgrammar:aspectThe thetic construction (b) allows thespeaker to present major (animate) dis-course referents irrespective of anyremarkable event in the story line(individual-level predicates) and showsspecialimperfectivefeatures.cf. secondary “imperfective” aspectualparadigmbyverbsuffix inKonnicf. additional continuous “aspect” bypreverbal - wWith the extra-clausal construction (c)transitional relations between referentsand events (stage-level predicates) aredenoted. The relation fades as soon asthe plot of the story develops further andisconstrainedtotheperfectiveaspect.-NAN ithin Oti-Volta languagegroupBULIKONNIEmpiricalevidencea.Canonical predicate- verb tone paradigm- postverbal focus markeráâãb.HypotacticpredicateLE-NAN-c. Paractic predicateTEDIKA- verb tone paradigm- Buli: conjunction- Konni: verb suffix- Dagbani: preverbal- verb tone paradigm- Buli: conjunction- Konni: pronominal form(postnominal )- Dagbani: conjunctionLinguistic Relevance ofDiscourse OrganizationPart of the investigation in projects B1 and B4 isconcerned with the interaction betweenInformation Structure and Discourse Semanticsfor the explanation of different phenomena ingenetically non-related languages. Weobserved that similar principles of discourseorganization can be traced as relevant forstructuralvariationinearlyGermaniclanguagesas well as in West African languages of the Gurgroup. In early Germanic, distinctions betweensentences on purely discourse-relatedconsiderations are responsible for theplacement of the inflected verb while in somelanguages of the Gur group, this is reflected inverb morphology as well as in the selection ofconnectivesincontext.

Discourse structure and information packaging in cross-linguistic perspective

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