Postulating the parameters underlying the Discourse Structuring Potential enables us to reformulate our observations as clear experimental hypotheses with respect to the discourse behavior of indefinite dieser (compared to the indefinite article ein). The advanced version developed in this thesis includes an additional parameter, (iii) topic continuity. Thus, I extend Chiriacescu’s (2011) notion of Discourse Structuring Potential and make it more comprehensive.
6.5.1 Three parameters
Discourse Structuring Potential is understood as the property of an expression that introduces a discourse referent to provide information about the discourse status of that referent in the subsequent discourse. The operational definition of Discourse Structuring Potential employed in this dissertation extends the one developed Chiriacescu (2011). Discourse Structuring Potential is measured by means of the following three textual characteristics which all pertain to the following discourse: referential persistence, topic shift potential and, additionally, topic continuity.
The parameters of topic shift potential and the new parameter of topic continuity may appear quite similar at first glance, however does the first quantify over the questions of likelihood: does the critical referent become topic? And, if so, at which point in the subsequent discourse? whereas, in contrast, the second parameter, builds up on the first parameter and goes one step further, in that it quantifies over frequency values. It provides answers to the question of how often a newly-shifted topic is then mentioned again as a topic in the subsequent discourse.
The third parameter does not only measure the likelihood of a topic shift, but also quantifies over frequency- or continuation-effects: it deals with the new question of how long the referents, which are shifted to topics, continue as topics in the upcoming discourse. In measuring this further parameter, the long-reigning discourse effects related to topics (in terms of frequency effects across a multitude of sentences) are captured. Those effects are not captured by parameter topic shift potential. Therefore, it appears reasonable to apply this third parameter, as it provides a clear surplus.
1. Referential persistence measures the frequency with which a referent is anaphorically re-mentioned in the subsequent discourse (overall number), i.e. it measures how long the critical referents are generally being talked about (Givón 1983; Gernsbacher and Shroyer 1989;
Chiriacescu 2011).
2. Topic shift potential measures the probability with which a non-topical referent is mentioned again as a topic for the first time in the subsequent discourse (at some point) after its introduction. It counts the
shift only and measures the likelihood of a potential shift (modeled after Givón’s topic continuity, Chiriacescu 2011).
3. Topic continuity measures the frequency with which a referent is anaphorically re-mentioned as a topic again, i.e. it measures how long the referent is being talked about in the subsequent discourse remaining its status as a topic (overall number, including the topic shifts) (Givón 1983).
Let us consider the three parameters in relation to an example, in order to see how the measurement procedure actually works. In example (296) below, there is an introductory sentence introducing a referent with indefinite dieser as dieser Fremde ‘this stranger’. Being interested in the discourse effects of the dieser-noun phrase in the subsequent discourse, we then analyze the subsequent discourse (sentence 1 – 4) with respect to the three parameters above. This is done as follows:
(296) Introductory sentence:
Gestern war ich in einer Kneipe, da hat mich einfach so dieser Fremde1
angesprochen.
‘Yesterday I was in a pub where this stranger1 started talking to me.’
Table 25:
Coding example of referential persistence, topic shift potential and topic continuity
Sentence continuations to (…) Referential
persistence
Topic shift potential
Topic continuity S1: Er1Topic sah sehr gut aus und trug eine große
Brille.
“He1Topic was very good looking and wearing big glasses.”
1 Yes 1
S2: Ich war total verblüfft, dass er1 mich einfach so ansprach.
“I was totally baffled because he1 just chatted me up.”
1 n.a –
S3: Aber er1Topic war ganz charmant und lud mich auf einen Drink ein.
“But he1Topic was really charming and bought me a drink.”
1 n.a 1
S4: Ich habe mich total in ihn1 verliebt.
“I have really fallen in love with him1.”
1 n.a –
SUM 4 overall shift in S1 2 overall
With respect to the first metric, referential persistence, each anaphoric re-mention of the dieser-referent in (296) is counted, i.e. Er in S1, er in S2, er in S3 and ihn in S4, resulting in an overall number for referential persistence of
indefinite dieser in the discourse above of 4. The second metric, topic shift potential, measures if and when the non-topical dieser referent from (296) becomes a topic in the subsequent discourse for the first time. In the table above, there is a topic shift and it happens already at S1. This is all we need to know in order to measure the topic shift potential. The third metric, topic continuity, goes one step further and measures the overall number of re-mentions of the critical referent as topics. In the example this happens twice, in S1 and S3. The value for topic continuity is always a subset of the value for referential persistence.
Being clear about the three parameters, which operationally define the version of Discourse Structuring Potential advanced in this dissertation, the next section deals with the understanding of topicality pursued in this work, as it is central with respect to the parameters topic shift potential and topic continuity, both investigating the upcoming discourse structure by checking the likelihood of (potential) topic shifts and the behavior of the shifted topics in the upcoming discourse (i.e. if they survive as topics).
6.5.2 Definition of topicality and topic-identification
Topics, in this book, are understood as sentence topics in the aboutness sense (Reinhart 1981; Jacobs 2001; Hocket 1958; Roberts 2011). I assume that “the terms topic and comment suggest the most general characteristic of predicative constrictions for their ICs” (Jacobs 2001: 645), in that the speaker announces a topic and then says something about it. Roberts (2011), arguing in the same vein explains aboutness topics stating that “a speaker in some way brings our attention to an entity that is relevant at that point in the discussion, in order to tell us something about it.” Reinhart (1981) has integrated this notion of topic into a theory of communication that makes use of the notion of common ground.
According to her new information is not just added to the common ground content in the form of unstructured propositions, but is rather associated with entities, just like information in a file card system is associated with file cards that bear a particular heading. Where (297a) and (297b) express the same proposition, they structure it differently with respect to information structure insofar as (297a) should be stored as information about Aristotle Onassis, whereas (297b) should be stored as information about Jacqueline Kennedy.
(297) a. [Aristotle Onassis] Topic [married Jacqueline Kennedy]Comment.
b. [Jacqueline Kennedy]Topic [married Aristotle Onassis]Comment.
To grasp the intuitive content of the aboutness-topic-concept consider further examples examples in (298) and (299):
(298) Maria, die ist eine begabte Sängerin
‘Maria, she is a talented singer.’
(299) Peter, den hab ich lange nicht mehr gesehen
‘Peter, I haven’t seen him in a while.’
(Endriss and Hinterwimmer 2007: 84)
The sentences above both exemplify so-called left-dislocation, where an XP in fronted position is associated with a resumptive pronoun in the specifier position of CP. I follow Frey (2004) in assuming that German left-dislocated phrases which are not understood contrastively are necessarily interpreted as topics. Accordingly, left-dislocation can be used as a topic-test. Intuitively, both sentences in (298) and (299) are felt to mainly convey information about Maria and Peter, respectively: they are both fine as answers to questions like What about Maria / Peter? or commands like Tell me something about Maria / Peter, while they are odd as answers to questions like Who is a very talented singer? or Who haven’t you seen for a long time?
According to Endriss and Hinterwimmer (2007: 84) it is “because of the prevalence of examples with proper names, definite descriptions and pronouns in the literature on topics, that many linguists subscribe to the view that familiarity is a necessary property of topics (cf. Hockett 1958; Kuno 1972; Gundel 1998)”. I will, however, follow Reinhart (1981) (see also Molnár 1993; Frey 2000, 2004;
Endriss and Hinterwimmer 2007) in assuming that familiarity is not a defining property of topics. This claim is based on the observation that not only individual denoting DPs can be sentence topics in the aboutness sense, but also unmodified wide-scope indefinite DPs, exemplified in (300):
(300) Einen Linguisten, den kennt jeder.
‘One linguist, everybody knows.’
(Hinterwimmer and Endriss 2007: 87)
So, defining topics in the aboutness sense and not restricting the concept of topic to familiarity and givennes of the respective referents, we still lack clear tests and clear characteristics of aboutness topics. In the appendix, I summarize topicality tests and characteristic properties of topics, which will facilitate the topic determination in context. Listing these features, I quote extensively from the annotation guidelines, which two independent annotators used for the annotation of the actual experiment. They are based on the Potsdam Annotation Guidelines for Information Structure (Information Structure in Cross-Linguistic Corpora:
Annotation Guidelines for Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics and Information Structure; Götze, Dipper and Skopeteas 2007). Those guidelines offer clear characteristics and tests for aboutness topics which facilitate the identification of aboutness topics and thus enable us to experimentally quantify over the two parameters of topic shift potential and topic continuity of indefinite dieser in German.