Krifka’s basic notions on information structure

In the present section, Krifka’s (2008) observations on information structure are summarized by emphasising the points that are of use for the subsequent analyses. Hence, the present summary concentrates on generally applicable notions and definitions.¹⁴⁸

Krifka (2008) assumes that information structure corresponds to the arrangement or packaging of information in compliance with the respective common ground at the point in time when the information is transmitted. Various notions are addressed in this context as, for instance, the distinction between common ground content and management. However, for the present purposes, the examination is limited to the explanation of what Krifka (2008) understands by focus, topics and frame-setting, to the subtypes he identifies and to the links he discerns between the different terms.

With respect to focus, Krifka (2008) derives his idea of focus from alternative notions that are used to describe its effect. He does not consider focus to be a means of highlighting, of representing the most important constituent of the clause, or of reflecting newness. Rather, he takes these ideas to situate his understanding of focus, namely the indication of present alternatives that are relevant for the interpretation of linguistic expressions. According to this conception of focus, the marking of focus or its specific exploitation are language specific and,

148 For the extensive discussion and delimitation of the different notions within different frameworks, please refer to Krifka (2008).

hence, may vary crosslinguistically. Thus, Krifka’s (2008: 248) understanding is stated as follows:

(80) A property F of an expression α is a Focus property iff F signals (a) that alternatives of (parts of) the expression α or

(b) alternatives of the denotation of (parts of) α are relevant for the interpretation of α.

Accordingly, the alternatives may be alternatives of form (a) or of meaning (b). It holds for both that the set of alternatives can be limited or unrestricted. The interest is exclusively directed on denotation focus here, since it can only be borne by a meaningful unit. Hence, constituents of different sizes can be put into focus, ranging from whole clauses to morphemes, creating the notion of broad and narrow focus. However, this latter differentiation is not relevant to this endeavour. Instead, here are the different uses of focus that Krifka (2008) exemplifies. As he stresses it, the different subtypes of focus vary in the way in which the presence of alternatives is conceived. The basic variant corresponds to what is elsewhere also called presentational or information focus, which also allows to accommodate the meaning of covert questions, i.e. it highlights the alternative of an answer to a question that was not overtly expressed before.

Krifka (2008) notes that focus is furthermore used to correct or to confirm information, to highlight parallels, to delimit the utterance to the constituent in focus, or to compare between the denotation of the focus constituent and the denotation of its alternatives. He distinguishes the following specific uses of focus (Krifka 2008: 257-259):

− verum focus;

− complex focus as a combination of foci;

− multiple focus: where in one and the same sentence various alternatives are introduced and exploited in different ways;

− exhaustive focus as the only or the logically strongest alternative that leads to a true proposition;

− scalar or emphatic focus: where the denotation focus corresponds either to the least or to the greatest element of a set of somehow ordered alternatives;

− contrastive focus on condition that a proposition with which the current utterance can be contrasted is present in the common ground or can be accommodated.

With respect to the forthcoming analysis, it is retained that the presence of alternatives is the most prominent feature of what Krifka (2008) understands by focus. As we can be seen immediately hereinafter, this conception of focus allows to account for intersections of focus with other basic notions of information structure.

With regard to topics, Krifka (2008) refers to Reinhart’s (1981) conception of topic as a means to facilitate the information storage. Accordingly, his definition of topic states that “[t]he topic constituent identifies the entity or the set of entities under which the information expressed in the comment constituent should be stored in the c[ommon] g[round] content” (Krifka 2008: 265). Topic-hood is hence represented as being the head entry of a file-card in a file-card system and directly linked to the observed trend to maintain the topic from one sentence to another. After discussing the possibility of multiple topics and the characteristics of thetic sentences and of quantifiers as topics, Krifka (2008) turns to the peculiarities of contrastive topics. According to him, contrastive topics represent a combination of topic-hood and focus, since they indicate alternative topics. The same influence of focus is observed with frame setters whose function Krifka (2008) defines as setting the frame in which the following expression should be interpreted. He takes frame setters as a means to systematically restrict the context, thus to exclude alternative frames that might have been considered otherwise. Hence, Krifka (2008) assumes explicit frame setters to always be focussed, i.e. to indicate present alternatives.

In cases where there is no alternative frame, there is no need of an explicit frame setter, either.

In order to assemble the observation that focus can intersect with topics and frame setters likewise, Krifka (2008: 270) introduces the term ‘delimitator’.

(81) A delimitator α in an expression [ … α … βFocus … ] always comes with a focus within α that generates alternatives α’. It indicates that the current informational needs of the CG are not wholly satisfied by [ … α … βFocus … ], but would be satisfied by additional expressions of the general form [ … α’ … β’Focus … ].

Contrastive topics and frame setters as delimitators in the sense of (81) thus represent the information-structural split of a complex issue into alternative sub-issues. For instance, contrastive topics are often used as a strategy of incremental answering.

In the following analysis of fronted constituents in the presented data, their information-structural value is reconsidered with respect to Krifka’s conception of focus and of its intersection with frame setters and topic constituents, and by following Fischer’s (2010) approach detailed above. This work attempts to verify whether the fronted items in the data display a consistent informational role. If so, the upcoming findings are used as starting point for the subsequent syntactic analysis.