@inproceedings{Titov2013, author = {Titov, Elena}, title = {Scrambling and interfaces}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-66073}, year = {2013}, abstract = {This paper proposes a novel analysis of the Russian OVS construction and argues that the parametric variation in the availability of OVS cross-linguistically depends on the type of relative interpretative argument prominence that a language encodes via syntactic structure. When thematic and information-structural prominence relations do not coincide, only one of them can be structurally/linearly represented. The relation that is not structurally/linearly encoded must be made visible at the PF interface either via prosody or morphology.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{Stavropoulou2013, author = {Stavropoulou, Pepi}, title = {On the status of contrast : evidence from the prosodic domain}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-66066}, year = {2013}, abstract = {Recent models of Information Structure (IS) identify a low level contrast feature that functions within the topic and focus of the utterance. This study investigates the exact nature of this feature based on empirical evidence from a controlled read speech experiment on the prosodic realization of different levels of contrast in Modern Greek. Results indicate that only correction is truly contrastive, and that it is similarly realized in both topic and focus, suggesting that contrast is an independent IS dimension. Non default focus position is further identified as a parameter that triggers a prosodically marked rendition, similar to correction.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{KarvovskayaKimmelmanRoehretal.2013, author = {Karvovskaya, Lena and Kimmelman, Vadim and R{\"o}hr, Christine Tanja and Stavropoulou, Pepi and Titov, Elena and van Putten, Saskia}, title = {Information structure : empirical perspectives on theory}, editor = {Balbach, Maria and Benz, Lena and Genzel, Susanne and Grubic, Mira and Renans, Agata and Schalowski, S{\"o}ren and Stegenwallner, Maja and Zeldes, Amir}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-64804}, year = {2013}, abstract = {The papers collected in this volume were presented at a Graduate/Postgraduate Student Conference with the title Information Structure: Empirical Perspectives on Theory held on December 2 and 3, 2011 at Potsdam-Griebnitzsee. The main goal of the conference was to connect young researchers working on information structure (IS) related topics and to discuss various IS categories such as givenness, focus, topic, and contrast. The aim of the conference was to find at least partial answers to the following questions: What IS categories are necessary? Are they gradient/continuous? How can one deal with optionality or redundancy? How are IS categories encoded grammatically? How do different empirical methods contribute to distinguishing between the influence of different IS categories on language comprehension and production? To answer these questions, a range of languages (Avatime, Chinese, German, Ishkashimi, Modern Greek, Old Saxon, Russian, Russian Sign Language and Sign Language of the Netherlands) and a range of phenomena from phonology, semantics, and syntax were investigated. The presented theories and data were based on different kinds of linguistic evidence: syntactic and semantic fieldwork, corpus studies, and phonological experiments. The six papers presented in this volume discuss a variety of IS categories, such as emphasis and contrast (Stavropoulous, Titov), association with focus and topics (van Putten, Karvovskaya), and givenness and backgrounding (Kimmelmann, R{\"o}hr).}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{Kimmelmann2013, author = {Kimmelmann, Vadim}, title = {Doubling in RSL and NGT : a pragmatic account0F*}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-66102}, year = {2013}, abstract = {In this paper, doubling in Russian Sign Language and Sign Language of the Netherlands is discussed. In both sign languages different constituents (including verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and whole clauses) can be doubled. It is shown that doubling in both languages has common functions and exhibits a similar structure, despite some differences. On this basis, a unified pragmatic explanation for many doubling phenomena on both the discourse and the clause-internal levels is provided, namely that the main function of doubling both in RSL and NGT is foregrounding of the doubled information.}, language = {en} }