TY  - JOUR
A1  - Krifka, Manfred
T1  - Basic notions of information structure
N2  - This article takes stock of the basic notions of Information Structure (IS). It first provides a general characterization of IS — following Chafe (1976) — within a communicative model of Common Ground(CG), which distinguishes between CG content and CG management. IS is concerned with those features of language that concern the local CG. Second, this paper defines and discusses the notions of Focus (as indicating alternatives) and its various uses, Givenness (as indicating that a denotation is already present in the CG), and Topic (as specifying what a statement is about). It also proposes a new notion, Delimitation, which comprises contrastive topics and frame setters, and indicates that the current conversational move does not entirely satisfy the local communicative needs. It also points out that rhetorical structuring partly belongs to IS.
KW  - Information Structure
KW  - Focus
KW  - Topic
KW  - Givenness
KW  - Contrast
Y1  - 2008
UR  - https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/1771
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-19603
SN  - 978-3-939469-88-9
SN  - 1614-4708
SN  - 1866-4725
SP  - 13
EP  - 55
PB  - Universitätsverlag Potsdam
CY  - Potsdam
ER  -