TY - CHAP A1 - Karvovskaya, Lena A1 - Kimmelman, Vadim A1 - Röhr, Christine Tanja A1 - Stavropoulou, Pepi A1 - Titov, Elena A1 - van Putten, Saskia ED - Balbach, Maria ED - Benz, Lena ED - Genzel, Susanne ED - Grubic, Mira ED - Renans, Agata ED - Schalowski, Sören ED - Stegenwallner, Maja ED - Zeldes, Amir T1 - Information structure : empirical perspectives on theory N2 - 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, Röhr). T3 - Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632 - 17 KW - Fokus KW - Topik KW - Informationsstruktur KW - Fokussensitivität KW - Givenness KW - Backgrounding KW - Focus KW - Topic KW - Information Structure KW - Focus-sensitivity KW - Givenness KW - Backgrounding Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-64804 ER - TY - THES A1 - Grubic, Mira T1 - Focus and alternative sensitivity in Ngamo (West-Chadic) T1 - Fokus und Alternativensensitivität in Ngamo (Westtschadisch) N2 - The main research question of this thesis concerns the relation between focus interpretation, focus realization, and association with focus in the West Chadic language Ngamo. Concerning the relation between focus realization and interpretation, this thesis contributes to the question, cross-linguistically, what factors influence a marked realization of the focus/background distinction. There is background-marking rather than focus-marking in Ngamo, and the background marker is related to the definite determiner in the language. Using original fieldwork data as a basis, a formal semantic analysis of the background marker as a definite determiner of situations is proposed. Concerning the relation between focus and association with focus, the thesis adds to the growing body of crosslinguistic evidence that not all so-called focus-sensitive operators always associate with focus. The thesis shows that while the exclusive particle yak('i) (= "only") in Ngamo conventionally associates with focus, the particles har('i) (= "even, as far as, until, already"), and ke('e) (= "also, and") do not. The thesis provides an analysis of these phenomena in a situation semantic framework. N2 - Diese Arbeit untersucht die Verbindung zwischen Fokusinterpretation, Fokusrealisierung und Assoziation mit Fokus in der westtschadischen Sprache Ngamo. Was den Zusammenhang zwischen Fokusinterpretation und -realisierung angeht, leistet diese Arbeit einen Beitrag zu der Frage, welche Faktoren in verschiedenen Sprachen für markierte Realisierung von Fokus zuständig sind. Ngamo ist in diesem Zusammenhang besonders interessant, da es Hintergrundierung statt Fokus markiert (Schuh, 2005). Was den Zusammenhang zwischen Fokus und Assoziation mit Fokus angeht, liefert die Arbeit weitere Evidenz dafür, dass sogenannte fokussensitive Partikeln nicht in allen Sprachen obligatorisch mit Fokus assoziieren müssen. Sie zeigt dass obwohl die Partikel yak'i ("nur") in Ngamo konventionell mit Fokus assoziiert, die Partikeln har('i) (= "sogar, bis, schon") und ke('e) (= "auch, und") dies nicht tun. Die Arbeit analysiert diese Phänomene mit Hilfe eines situationssemantischen Ansatzes. KW - focus KW - focus-sensitivity KW - formal semantics KW - African languages KW - definiteness KW - situation semantics KW - Fokus KW - Fokussensitivität KW - formale Semantik KW - Situationssemantik KW - afrikanische Sprachen Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-81666 ER -