Discourse structure and information packaging in cross-linguistic perspective

â

Text SnSn+2Sn+1 S’n n ...S’’

S’n+1 n+1 ...S’’

S’n+2 n+2 ...S’’

Discourse Structure and Information P ack aging in Cross-Linguistic P erspective

S V E TLANA P ETR O V A A NNE S CHW ARZ

(c)P rojectB4+B1 (AnneSchwar z),May 2006

Asher,Nicolas&Lascarides,Alex.2003.. Hinterhölzl,Roland,SvetlanaPetrova&MichaelSolf.2005.DiskurspragmatischeFaktorenfürTopikalitätund VerbstellunginderalthochdeutschenTatianübersetzung(9.Jh.) 143–182. Hopper,PaulJ.1979.AspectandForegroundinginDiscourse.InTalmyGivón(ed), N Li,CharlesN.,andSandraA.Thompson.1976.SubjectandTopic:ANewTypologyofLanguage.InLi,Charles N.(ed.),uF Mann,WilliamC.&Thompson,SandraA.1988.RhetoricalStructureTheory:Towardafunctionaltheoryoftext organization.In8,243-281.

LogicsofConversationCambridgeUniversityPress. SyntaxandSemantics ewYork:AcademicPress,213-241.

Sbjectandtopic,NewYork/Sanrancisco/London:AcademicPress,457-489. TEXT.Aninterdisciplinaryjournalforthestudyofdiscourse

Fiedler,Ines&AnneSchwarz.toappear.FocusorNarrativeConstruction?InAboh,E.,K.Hartmann&M. Zimmermann(eds.),,B In:Ishihara,S.,M.SchmitzandA.Schwarz (eds.):, FocusStrategies:EvidencefromAfricanLanguageserlin:deGruyter.InterdisciplinaryStudiesonInformationStructure3 UP HUSFB632InformationStructure

V erb Placement in Early Germanic (B4) Morphosyntactic V ariation in Gur (B1)

Recentresearchpointsoutthatsome languagesoftheGurgroup(Buli,Konni, Dagbani,andothers)usemorphosyntactic means(verbmorphologyincludingtone, connectivesetc.)toexpressadiscourse baseddifferencebetweenclauseswithor withoutatopicalsubject: Inthecanonicalsentenceconstruction (a),thesubjectrepresentsthesentence topicaboutwhichacommentismade withinthesameclause.Anydiscourse- baseddeviationfromthiscanonicalcate- goricalconfigurationoccursinmor- phosyntacticallymarkedconstructionsin whichthepredicateiseitherhypotactically (b)orparatactically(c)encoded.

a.SV(O) categoricalutterancewithtopic+comment b.SV(O) theticutterancewithouttopic c.O#SV topic+clausalcomment Thehypotacticpredicateintroducesmajordiscourse referentstoprovidefortheupcoming events.Thesametheticconstructionoccursinother backgroundingcontexts,butalsowithsubjectand sentencefocus. Theparatacticpredicateencodesimportantevents makingupthemajorstorylineinthe.The constituentbeforetheclauseboundaryratherthanthe subjectoftheclauseservesastopic,whichmightbe unexpected,neworcontrastivewithrespecttothestate ofaffairs.

canonicalpredicate: hypotacticpredicate(incorporation): paratacticpredicate(coordination): background foreground

! ! a.Canonicalpredicate b.Hypotacticpredicate c.Paratacticpredicate

a.Canonicalpredicate b.Hypotacticpredicate c.Paratacticpredicate

nIÛd#a#wa@je$nta$. nIÛd#a# da#a#n, a$le$ wa$ po#o#ba# ba$nu$. wa$.

U$sU@a@—mIÛN. h$gU@ wU$ø"Û a$Na@N U$ ba@llIÝ ba$ta$. Öka$.

d"Ýg ka# le# bo$ro# te$d"Ýg

ya$a$Öwa@ be@Öne$ ma@n sa$a$rIÝ

Themancookedsoup. Therewasamanwithfivewives. ...theyoungestchildbroughtthetomatoeshome andshe[themother]cookedthem.

Shehasarabbit. Therewasawomanwithherthreechildren. Mothertoldmetosweeptheroom, andIsweptit.

man.DEFcookFMsoup manpastCNJbe:LOCwith3sgwomenfive CNJ3sgcook

3sghave-FMrabbit womanonewith3sgchildrenthreebe:LOC-NA 1sg:Hsweep-3sg

MotivationProposal DistributionofV/1-patternsinEarlyGermanic

Resultsofearlierstudies(Hinterhölzletal.2005)pointthat entersthe borderlinebetweeninan utteranceandthus Thisphenomenonisbest shownonthecomplementarydistributionofV/1vs.V/2in sentencesofthepresentationalvs.categoricalkind.A problemapparentlyariseswith-sentencescontaining referents:

verbplacementindicatesrhetorical relationsinEarlyGermanic V2indicatesand ;hereVfin separatesatopicfromthe comment/new-informationfocus V1indicates/the endofachainofcontinuation; notopic-commentstructure applies

theinflectedverbinEarlyGermanic oldandnewinformation marksthebeginningofthedomain ofnew-informationfocus. V/1 discourse-given ! ! !

! ! ! ! ! ! !

text-initialsentencesandepisodeonsets= (1)Lat.actumautemIndiebusillis’ OHGthôgitânInthentagon(T35,7) [It]happenedinthosedays verbgroups: -motionverbs=changeintheofthenarrative setting (2)Lat.&ecceangelusdomini OHGtharagotesengil(T35,32) ThereappearedGod’sangel -perceptionverbsininchoativemeaning=changeinthe (3)Lat.homosemoni OHGthermanthemouuorte(T90,24) Themanbelieved(=startedtobelieve)tothisstatement -verbsofsaying= (4)Lat.&respondensangelus OHGthotherengil(T28,26) Thentheangelresponded specialcases -highlightingofimportantevents:V/1forcesall-focusinterpretation (5)OSa.Thantharengigamalodmann,/b.thatfroud gomo[…]c.Thatsosaligman/[…]d. ,/thatseaerbiuuardegannimoustun(Hel72–86) Then,therewasanold-agedman,thiswasawiseman[…]This wassuchablessedman[…]Buttheyhadgreatsorrow,for theyhadnochild -chainsofnarrativesequences(‚periods‘) (6)ONÞávarfjorðrinnfullrafveiðiskap,okþeireigifyrir veiðumatfáheyannaokaltkvikféþeiraumvetrinn. (Landnámabók5) Therewasthefjordfulloffish,andbecauseofthefishingthey didn‘tcaretogethay,andalltheircattlediedinthewinter isachievedonlyifutterance makesainthecontext themeaningof ,i.e.onthelinkingtogetherthe contentsofthesinglediscourseunits unitsindiscoursearelinkedtogethertobuildupahierarchical structureofdiscourseorganization(Mann&Thompson1988, Asher&Lascarides2003) :protopypicalrelationof events()display events()displayaof indiscourse protopypicalrelationof events()formain discourse events() provideson :connectsunitsonthe andbothelaborateon

newtextsequence Fest uuard localorientation quam temporal orientation credidit giloubta changeofpersonnel antlingota uuasuuas uuas gáðu dó

discoursecoherenceeach contributiontosomeotherutterance discoursedependsonitsrhetorical structurerhetoricalrelations coordination nodependencyrelation temporalrelation succession continuesthenarrativesequence subordination hierarchicalrelation temporallyoverlap moredetail samelevelof dependency

Uuasimthohan sorogonhugi

! ! Thenotionofdiscoursecoherenceanddiscoursehierarchy inRSTandSDRT PrototypicaldiscourserelationsinSDRT

! ! ! Narration Elaboration: Continuation

á,â á,â â á,â á,â âá âãá

subordination continuation coordination á á á

â â âã

Interactionwithgrammar:aspect Thetheticconstruction(b)allowsthe speakertopresentmajor(animate)dis- coursereferentsirrespectiveofany remarkableeventinthestoryline (individual-levelpredicates)andshows specialimperfectivefeatures.

cf.secondary“imperfective”aspectual paradigmbyverbsuffixinKonni cf.additionalcontinuous“aspect”by preverbal-w Withtheextra-clausalconstruction(c) transitionalrelationsbetweenreferents andevents(stage-levelpredicates)are denoted.Therelationfadesassoonas theplotofthestorydevelopsfurtherand isconstrainedtotheperfectiveaspect.

! !-NA NithinOti-Voltalanguage group

BU LI

KO NN I

Empiricalevidence a.Canonicalpredicate -verbtoneparadigm -postverbalfocusmarkerá â ã

b.Hypotacticpredicate LE -NA N- c.Paracticpredicate TE DI KA

-verbtoneparadigm -Buli:conjunction -Konni:verbsuffix -Dagbani:preverbal -verbtoneparadigm -Buli:conjunction -Konni:pronominalform (postnominal) -Dagbani:conjunction

Linguistic R elevance of Discourse Organization