@book{OPUS4-1329, title = {Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; Working papers of the SFB 632. - Vol. 8}, editor = {Ishihara, Shinichiro and Jannedy, Stefanie and Schwarz, Anne}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, isbn = {978-3-939469-72-8}, issn = {1866-4725}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-14359}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {230}, year = {2007}, abstract = {The 8th volume of the working paper series Interdisciplinary Studies on Information Structure (ISIS) of the SFB 632 contains a collection of eight papers contributed by guest authors and SFB-members. The first paper on "Biased Questions" is an invited contribution by Nicholas Asher (CNRS, Laboratoire IRIT) \& Brian Reese (University of Texas at Austin). Surveying English tag questions, negative polar questions, and what they term "focus" questions, they investigate the effects of prosody on discourse function and discourse structure and analyze the interaction between prosody and discourse in SDRT (Segmented Discourse Representation Theory). Stefan Hinterwimmer (A2) explores the interpretation of singular definites and universally quantified DPs in adverbially quantified English sentences. He suggests that the availability of a co-varying interpretation is more constrained in the case of universally quantified DPs than in the case of singular definites, because different from universally quantified DPs, co-varying definites are inherently focus-marked. The existence of striking similarities between topic/comment structure and bimanual coordination is pointed out and investigated by Manfred Krifka (A2). Showing how principles of bimanual coordination influence the expression of topic/comment structure beyond spoken language, he suggests that bimanual coordination might have been a preadaptation of the development of Information Structure in human communication. Among the different ways of expressing focus in Foodo, an underdescribed African Guang language of the Kwa family, the marked focus constructions are the central topic of the paper by Ines Fiedler (B1 \& D2). Exploring the morphosyntactic facilities that Foodo has for focalization, she suggests that the two focus markers N and n have developed out of a homophone conjunction. Focus marking in another scarcely documented African tone language, the Gur language Konkomba, is treated by Anne Schwarz (B1 \& D2). Comparing the two alleged focus markers l{\´e} and l{\´a} of the language, she argues that l{\´e} is better interpreted as a syntactic device rather than as a focus marker and shows that this analysis is corroborated by parallels in related languages. The reflexes of Information Structure in four different European languages (French, German, Greek and Hungarian) are compared and validated by Sam Hellmuth \& Stavros Skopeteas (D2). The production data was collected with selected materials of the Questionnaire on Information Structure (QUIS) developed at the SFB. The results not only allow for an evaluation of the current elicitation paradigms, but also help to identify potentially fruitful venues of future research. Frank K{\"u}gler, Stavros Skopeteas (D2) \& Elisabeth Verhoeven (University of Bremen) give an account of the encoding of Information Structure in Yucatec Maya, a Mayan tone language spoken on the Yucatecan peninsula in Mexico. The results of a production experiment lead them to the conclusion that focus is mainly expressed by syntax in this language. Stefanie Jannedy (D3) undertakes an instrumental investigation on the expressions and interpretation of focus in Vietnamese, a language of the Mon-Khmer family contrasting six lexical tones. The data strongly suggests that focus in Vietnamese is exclusively marked by prosody (intonational emphasis expressed via duration, f0 and amplitude) and that different focus conditions can reliably be recovered. This volume offers insights into current work conducted at the SFB 632, comprising empirical and theoretical aspects of Information Structure in a multitude of languages. Several of the papers mine field work data collected during the first phase of the SFB and explore the expression of Information Structure in tone and non-tone languages from various regions of the world.}, language = {en} } @incollection{Kiss2007, author = {Kiss, Katalin {\´E}.}, title = {Topic and focus}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-19639}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2007}, abstract = {The paper explicates the notions of topic, contrastive topic, and focus as used in the analysis of Hungarian. Based on distributional criteria, topic and focus are claimed to represent distinct structural positions in the left periphery of the Hungarian sentence, associated with logical rather than discourse functions. The topic is interpreted as the logical subject of predication. The focus is analyzed as a derived main predicate, specifying the referential content of the set denoted by the backgrounded post-focus section of the sentence. The exhaustivity associated with the focus and the existential presupposition associated with the background are shown to be properties following from their specificational predication relation.}, language = {en} } @article{Tomioka2007, author = {Tomioka, Satoshi}, title = {Information Structure as information-based partition}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-19657}, year = {2007}, abstract = {While the Information Structure (IS) is most naturally interpreted as 'structure of information', some may argue that it is structure of something else, and others may object to the use of the word 'structure'. This paper focuses on the question of whether the informational component can have structural properties such that it can be called 'structure'. The preliminary conclusion is that, although there are some vague indications of structurehood in it, it is perhaps better understood to be a representation that encodes a finite set of information-based partitions, rather than structure.}, language = {en} } @article{Abusch2007, author = {Abusch, Dorit}, title = {Focus presuppositions}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-19663}, year = {2007}, abstract = {This paper reviews notions related to focus and presupposition and addresses the hypothesis that focus triggers an existential presupposition. Presupposition projection behavior in certain examples appears to favor a presuppositional analysis of focus. It is argued that these examples are open to a different analysis using givenness theory. Overall, the analysis favors a weak semantics for focus not including an existential presupposition.}, language = {en} } @incollection{Selkirk2007, author = {Selkirk, Elisabeth}, title = {Contrastive focus, givenness and the unmarked status of "Discourse-New"}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-19670}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2007}, abstract = {New evidence is provided for a grammatical principle that singles out contrastive focus (Rooth 1996; Truckenbrodt 1995) and distinguishes it from discourse-new "informational" focus. Since the prosody of discourse-given constituents may also be distinguished from discourse-new, a three-way distinction in representation is motivated. It is assumed that an F-feature marks just contrastive focus (Jackendoff 1972, Rooth 1992), and that a G-feature marks discoursegiven constituents (F{\´e}ry and Samek-Lodovici 2006), while discoursenew is unmarked. A crucial argument for G-marking comes from second occurrence focus (SOF) prosody, which arguably derives from a syntactic representation where SOF is both F-marked and G-marked. This analysis relies on a new G-Marking Condition specifying that a contrastive focus may be G-marked only if the focus semantic value of its scope is discourse-given, i.e. only if the contrast itself is given.}, language = {en} } @article{Zimmermann2007, author = {Zimmermann, Malte}, title = {Contrastive focus}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-19688}, year = {2007}, abstract = {The article puts forward a discourse-pragmatic approach to the notoriously evasive phenomena of contrastivity and emphasis. It is argued that occurrences of focus that are treated in terms of 'contrastive focus', 'kontrast' (Vallduv{\´i} \& Vilkuna 1998) or 'identificational focus' ({\´E}. Kiss 1998) in the literature should not be analyzed in familiar semantic terms like introduction of alternatives or exhaustivity. Rather, an adequate analysis must take into account discourse-pragmatic notions like hearer expectation or discourse expectability of the focused content in a given discourse situation. The less expected a given content is judged to be for the hearer, relative to the Common Ground, the more likely a speaker is to mark this content by means of special grammatical devices, giving rise to emphasis.}, language = {en} } @incollection{Jannedy2007, author = {Jannedy, Stefanie}, title = {Prosodic focus in Vietnamese}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-19478}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2007}, abstract = {This paper reports on pilot work on the expression of Information Structure in Vietnamese and argues that Focus in Vietnamese is exclusively expressed prosodically: there are no specific focus markers, and the language uses phonology to express intonational emphasis in similar ways to languages like English or German. The exploratory data indicates that (i) focus is prosodically expressed while word order remains constant, (ii) listeners show good recoverability of the intended focus structure, and (iii) that there is a trading relationship between several phonetic parameters (duration, f0, amplitude) involved to signal prosodic (acoustic) emphasis.}, language = {en} } @article{Schwarz2007, author = {Schwarz, Anne}, title = {The particles l{\´e} and l{\´a} in the grammar of Konkomba}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-19449}, year = {2007}, abstract = {The paper investigates focus marking devices in the scarcely documented North-Ghanaian Gur language Konkomba. The two particles l{\´e} and l{\´a} occur under specific focus conditions and are therefore regarded as focus markers in the sparse literature. Comparing the distribution and obligatoriness of both alleged focus markers however, I show that one of the particles, l{\´e}, is better analyzed as a connective particle, i.e. as a syntactic rather than as a genuine pragmatic marker, and that comparable syntactic focus marking strategies for sentence-initial constituents are also known from related languages.}, language = {en} } @article{Fiedler2007, author = {Fiedler, Ines}, title = {Focus expressions in Foodo}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-19428}, year = {2007}, abstract = {This paper aims at presenting different ways of expressing focus in Foodo, a Guang language. We can differentiate between marked and unmarked focus strategies. The marked focus expressions are first syntactically characterized: the focused constituent is in sentence-initial position and is second always marked obligatorily by a focus marker, which is nɩ for non-subjects and N for subjects. Complementary to these structures, Foodo knows an elliptic form consisting of the focused constituent and a predication marker gɛ́. It will be shown that the two focus markers can be analyzed as having developed out of the homophone conjunction nɩ and that the constraints on the use of the focus markers can be best explained by this fact.}, language = {en} } @book{OPUS4-1195, title = {Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; Working papers of the SFB 632 - Vol. 5}, editor = {Ishihara, Shinichiro and Schmitz, Michaela and Schwarz, Anne}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, issn = {1866-4725}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-13047}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {221}, year = {2006}, abstract = {In this paper we compare the behaviour of adverbs of frequency (de Swart 1993) like usually with the behaviour of adverbs of quantity like for the most part in sentences that contain plural definites. We show that sentences containing the former type of Q-adverb evidence that Quantificational Variability Effects (Berman 1991) come about as an indirect effect of quantification over situations: in order for quantificational variability readings to arise, these sentences have to obey two newly observed constraints that clearly set them apart from sentences containing corresponding quantificational DPs, and that can plausibly be explained under the assumption that quantification over (the atomic parts of) complex situations is involved. Concerning sentences with the latter type of Q-adverb, on the other hand, such evidence is lacking: with respect to the constraints just mentioned, they behave like sentences that contain corresponding quantificational DPs. We take this as evidence that Q-adverbs like for the most part do not quantify over the atomic parts of sum eventualities in the cases under discussion (as claimed by Nakanishi and Romero (2004)), but rather over the atomic parts of the respective sum individuals.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{PflegerAlexandersson2006, author = {Pfleger, Norbert and Alexandersson, Jan}, title = {Towards resolving referring expressions by implicitly activated referents in practical dialogue systems}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-10187}, year = {2006}, abstract = {We present an extension to a comprehensive context model that has been successfully employed in a number of practical conversational dialogue systems. The model supports the task of multimodal fusion as well as that of reference resolution in a uniform manner. Our extension consists of integrating implicitly mentioned concepts into the context model and we show how they serve as candidates for reference resolution.}, language = {en} } @article{Kuegler2003, author = {K{\"u}gler, Frank}, title = {Do we know the answer?}, series = {Linguistics in Potsdam}, journal = {Linguistics in Potsdam}, number = {21}, issn = {1616-7392}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-32424}, pages = {9 -- 29}, year = {2003}, abstract = {Content: 1. Introduction 2. The corpus 2.1 Subjects 2.2 Recordings 2.3 Data processing 2.4 Materials 3. Intonation in Upper Saxon German yes-no-questions 4. Intonational variation and information structure 5. Conclusions and discussion}, language = {en} } @article{JannedyMendozaDenton2005, author = {Jannedy, Stefanie and Mendoza-Denton, Norma}, title = {Structuring information through gesture and intonation}, series = {Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632}, journal = {Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632}, number = {3}, issn = {1866-4725}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-8774}, pages = {199 -- 244}, year = {2005}, abstract = {Face-to-face communication is multimodal. In unscripted spoken discourse we can observe the interaction of several "semiotic layers", modalities of information such as syntax, discourse structure, gesture, and intonation. We explore the role of gesture and intonation in structuring and aligning information in spoken discourse through a study of the co-occurrence of pitch accents and gestural apices. Metaphorical spatialization through gesture also plays a role in conveying the contextual relationships between the speaker, the government and other external forces in a naturally-occurring political speech setting.}, language = {en} } @article{Kasimir2005, author = {Kasimir, Elke}, title = {Question-answer test and givenness}, series = {Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632}, journal = {Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632}, number = {3}, issn = {1866-4725}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-8698}, pages = {1 -- 52}, year = {2005}, abstract = {In order to investigate the empirical properties of focus, it is necessary to diagnose focus (or: "what is focused") in particular linguistic examples. It is often taken for granted that the application of one single diagnostic tool, the so-called question-answer test, which roughly says that whatever a question asks for is focused in the answer, is a fool-proof test for focus. This paper investigates one example class where such uncritical belief in the question-answer test has led to the assumption of rather complex focus projection rules: in these examples, pitch accent placement has been claimed to depend on certain parts of the focused constituents being given or not. It is demonstrated that such focus projection rules are unnecessarily complex and in turn require the assumption of unnecessarily complicated meaning rules, not to speak of the difficulties to give a precise semantic/pragmatic definition of the allegedly involved givenness property. For the sake of the argument, an alternative analysis is put forward which relies solely on alternative sets following Mats Rooth's work, and avoids any recourse to givenness. As it turns out, this alternative analysis is not only simpler but also makes in a critical case the better predictions.}, language = {en} } @article{TeichFankhauser2005, author = {Teich, Elke and Fankhauser, Peter}, title = {Exploring lexical patterns in text}, series = {Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632}, journal = {Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632}, number = {2}, issn = {1866-4725}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-8685}, pages = {129 -- 145}, year = {2005}, abstract = {We present a system for the linguistic exploration and analysis of lexical cohesion in English texts. Using an electronic thesaurus-like resource, Princeton WordNet, and the Brown Corpus of English, we have implemented a process of annotating text with lexical chains and a graphical user interface for inspection of the annotated text. We describe the system and report on some sample linguistic analyses carried out using the combined thesaurus-corpus resource.}, language = {en} } @article{Weskott2005, author = {Weskott, Thomas}, title = {Stop bashing givenness!}, series = {Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632}, journal = {Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632}, number = {3}, issn = {1866-4725}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-8718}, pages = {53 -- 62}, year = {2005}, abstract = {Elke Kasimir's paper (in this volume) argues against employing the notion of Givenness in the explanation of accent assignment. I will claim that the arguments against Givenness put forward by Kasimir are inconclusive because they beg the question of the role of Givenness. It is concluded that, more generally, arguments against Givenness as a diagnostic for information structural partitions should not be accepted offhand, since the notion of Givenness of discourse referents is (a) theoretically simple, (b) readily observable and quantifiable, and (c) bears cognitive significance.}, language = {en} } @article{Fanselow2004, author = {Fanselow, Gisbert}, title = {Cyclic phonology-syntax-interaction}, series = {Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632}, journal = {Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632}, number = {1}, issn = {1866-4725}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-8264}, pages = {1 -- 42}, year = {2004}, abstract = {This paper investigates the nature of the attraction of XPs to clauseinitial position in German (and other languages). It argues that there are two different types of preposing. First, an XP can move when it is attracted by an EPP-like feature of Comp. Comp can, however, also attract elements that bear the formal marker of some semantic or pragmatic (information theoretic) function. This second type of movement is driven by the attraction of a formal property of the moved element. It has often been misanalysed as "operator" movement in the past. Japanese wh-questions always exhibit focus intonation (FI). Furthermore, the domain of FI exhibits a correspondence to the wh-scope. I propose that this phonology-semantics correspondence is a result of the cyclic computation of FI, which is explained under the notion of Multiple Spell-Out in the recent Minimalist framework. The proposed analysis makes two predictions: (1) embedding of an FI into another is possible; (2) (overt) movement of a wh-phrase to a phase edge position causes a mismatch between FI and wh-scope. Both predictions are tested experimentally, and shown to be borne out.}, language = {en} } @article{Ishihara2004, author = {Ishihara, Shinichiro}, title = {Prosody by phase}, series = {Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632}, journal = {Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632}, number = {1}, issn = {1866-4725}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-8391}, pages = {77 -- 119}, year = {2004}, abstract = {Japanese wh-questions always exhibit focus intonation (FI). Furthermore, the domain of FI exhibits a correspondence to the wh-scope. I propose that this phonology-semantics correspondence is a result of the cyclic computation of FI, which is explained under the notion of Multiple Spell-Out in the recent Minimalist framework. The proposed analysis makes two predictions: (1) embedding of an FI into another is possible; (2) (overt) movement of a wh-phrase to a phase edge position causes a mismatch between FI and wh-scope. Both predictions are tested experimentally, and shown to be borne out.}, language = {en} } @article{FeryHerbst2004, author = {F{\´e}ry, Caroline and Herbst, Laura}, title = {German sentence accent revisited}, series = {Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632}, journal = {Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632}, number = {1}, editor = {Ishihara, Shinichiro and Schmitz, Michaela and Schwarz, Anne}, issn = {1614-4708}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-8273}, pages = {43 -- 75}, year = {2004}, abstract = {Results of a production experiment on the placement of sentence accent in German are reported. The hypothesis that German fulfills some of the most widely accepted rules of accent assignment— predicting focus domain integration—was only partly confirmed. Adjacency between argument and verb induces a single accent on the argument, as recognized in the literature, but interruption of this sequence by a modifier often induces remodeling of the accent pattern with a single accent on the modifier. The verb is rarely stressed. All models based on linear alignment or adjacency between elements belonging to a single accent domain fail to account for this result. A cyclic analysis of prosodic domain formation is proposed in an optimality-theoretic framework that can explain the accent pattern. Japanese wh-questions always exhibit focus intonation (FI). Furthermore, the domain of FI exhibits a correspondence to the wh-scope. I propose that this phonology-semantics correspondence is a result of the cyclic computation of FI, which is explained under the notion of Multiple Spell-Out in the recent Minimalist framework. The proposed analysis makes two predictions: (1) embedding of an FI into another is possible; (2) (overt) movement of a wh-phrase to a phase edge position causes a mismatch between FI and wh-scope. Both predictions are tested experimentally, and shown to be borne out.}, language = {en} } @article{SennemavandeVijverCarrolletal.2005, author = {Sennema, Anke and van de Vijver, Ruben and Carroll, Susanne E. and Zimmer-Stahl, Anne}, title = {Focus accent, word length and position as cues to L1 and L2 word recognition}, series = {Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632}, journal = {Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632}, number = {3}, issn = {1866-4725}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-8769}, pages = {183 -- 198}, year = {2005}, abstract = {The present study examines native and nonnative perceptual processing of semantic information conveyed by prosodic prominence. Five groups of German learners of English each listened to one of 5 experimental conditions. Three conditions differed in place of focus accent in the sentence and two conditions were with spliced stimuli. The experiment condition was presented first in the learners' L1 (German) and then in a similar set in the L2 (English). The effect of the accent condition and of the length and position of the target in the sentence was evaluated in a probe recognition task. In both the L1 and L2 tasks there was no significant effect in any of the five focus conditions. Target position and target word length had an effect in the L1 task. Word length did not affect accuracy rates in the L2 task. For probe recognition in the L2, word length and the position of the target interacted with the focus condition.}, language = {en} }