Information Structure and Pragmatics

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Information Structure and Pragmatics

• Finegan, 5th Edition

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Exercise 8.1, Item a

• Passage
• (1) I met Ellen three or four years ago when I
  was a guest on her show.

• Answer
• The pronoun I , which refers to the writer, is
  given information.
• I has not previously been mentioned in
• the text, but 1st and 2nd person pronouns
• represent given information because, in
• an article written by K. Najimy, context
• makes the referent of I clearit is K.N.,
• the writer.

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Exercise 8.1, Item b

• Passage
• (2) She was funny, smart, and charming, and I
  was moved by her vulnerability and what she was
  going through in regards to her sexuality.

• Answer
• The pronoun She is given information.
• She refers to Ellen, mentioned in the preceding
  sentence.

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Exercise 8.1, item c

• Passage
• (3) We would sit in the trailer and talk about
  what was happening to her personally and
  politically.

• Answer
• The pronoun We is given information.
• The pronoun We refers to Ellen and Kathy, both
  mentioned in the previous sentence.

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Exercise 8.1, Item d

• Passage
• (4) It was interesting to me because I know lots
  of gay people, and I know lots of famous people,
  but I had never known anyone who was famous and
  gay and struggling with what to do about it.

• Answer
• The pronoun It is given information.
• It refers to what was happening to her
  personally in the previous sentence.

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Exercise 8.1, Item e

• Answer
• Topic noun phrases
• Sentence 2She
• Sentence 3We
• Sentence 4It

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Exercise 8.1, Item f

• Answer
• Inference about topics in paragraph
• Topics are personal pronouns
• representing given information.

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Exercise 8.1, Item g

• Answer
• Personal pronouns generally represent
• given information.

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Exercise 8.1, Item h

• Passage
• (1) I met Ellen three or four years ago when I
  was a guest on her show.

• Answerthere are two answers,
• depending on focus
• Focus 1
• in passage as written by Najimy
• (i.e., passage only, without the
• title and author)
• Ellen is new information because
• in passage, it is the first time it is
• mentioned
• continued on next slide

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Exercise 8.1, Item h (continued)

• Passage
• (1) I met Ellen three or four years ago when I
  was a guest on her show.

• Answer
• Focus 2
• in context of newspaper (passage title, author)
• Ellen is given
  information.
• Ellen is preceded by headline that mentions
  Ellen
• (Ellens Heart Issue A Friends
  Rerpot)
• Also there is the mention of Ellen DeGeneres in
  the intro to exercise.
• continued on
  next slide

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Exercise 8.1, Item h (continued)

• Passage
• (1) I met Ellen three or four years ago when I
  was a guest on her show.

• Answer
• Definiteness (i.e., assume that addressee can
  identify its referent)
• Ellen is definite since proper names are
  generally definite (common nouns can be either).

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Exercise 8.1, Item i

• Passage
• (1) I met Ellen three or four years ago when I
  was a guest on her show.

• Answer
• The noun phrase her show refers to Ellens show
  and is definite.

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Exercise 8.1, Item j

• AnswerList of all indefinite noun phrases

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Exercise 8.1, Item k

• Passage
• (3) We would sit in the trailer and talk about
  what was happening to her personally and
  politically.

• Answer
• Definiteness is used to signal
• that a referent is given information OR
• that a referent is contextually implicit
• Writer assumes that reader has ready access to
  its referent in their background knowledge of
  television production practicesactors often have
  trailers available for them to rest and dress in.

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Exercise 8.2, Item a

• Referential Noun Phrasesrefer to specific entity

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Exercise 8.2, Item a (continued)

• Non-referential Noun Phrasesdo not refer to a
  particular entity

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Exercise 8.2, Item b

• Sentences 1-2
• Contrastive Noun Phraseone noun phrase
• in opposition to another noun phrase
• Bowl Alliance (Sentence 2)
  vs.
• the Rose Bowl
  (Sentence 1)
• Contrastive MarkerInstead (Sentence 2)

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Exercise 8.2, Item c

• Passage
• (3) The alliancehas a seven year deal with ABC
  sports.
• (4) This agreement assures each conference
  champion and Notre Dame a berth in one of four

• Answer a seven year deal
• this agreement
• indefinite because new info
• (not previously mentioned)
• definite in order to signal that it is given
  information, having been mentioned earlier in
  Line 3

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Exercise 8.2, Item d

• Referential and Definite

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Exercise 8.2, Item d

• Referential and Indefinite

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Exercise 8.2, Item d

• Non-referential and Definite

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Exercise 8.2, Item d

• Non-referential and Indefinite

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Exercise 8.3

• Passage
• (1) As for the Santa Clara Fire Department

• Answer
• suggests a topic change
• As for usually signals a return to something
  mentioned earlier but here nothing was mentioned
  earlier since it is the first sentence in the
  paragraph.

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Exercise 8.3

• Passage
• (1) As for the Santa Clara Fire Department

• Answer
• As far phrase puts focus on the SCFD but focus
  should be on the evacuation and not the SCFD.

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Exercise 8.3

• Passage
• (2) NJ had discovered a furnace in the basement
  of a building at the corner of CCD and 5th Ave.,
  and the furnace was leaking oil.
• (5) What someone had averted was any danger of
  the explosion or fire, and, as far a leaky
  furnace, it was sealed.

• Answerarticle usage
• 1st mention? appropriately indefinite
• 2nd mention? appropriately definite
• 3rd mention? inappropriately indefinite since
  mentioned previously in Line 2, need definite
  the

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Exercise 8.3

• Passage
• (2) NJ had discovered a furnace in the basement
  of a building at the corner of CCD and 5th Ave.,
  and the furnace was leaking oil.

• Answerpropositional content
• Odd to present info in sentence as two
  propositions(1) that a furnace was discovered in
  the basement of a building and (2) then that the
  furnace was leaking oil
• Better to say something like In the basement of
  one of the buildings, someone had discovered a
  furnace from which oil was leaking.

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Exercise 8.3

• Passage
• (2) NJ had discovered a furnace in the basement
  of a building at the corner of CCD and 5th Ave.,
  and the furnace was leaking oil.
• .

• AnswerNancy Jenkins (NJ)
• Expect to have given information mentioned as a
  transition between Sentence 1 and 2 but here
  Sentence 2 starts with new informationNJ
• Moreover, the importance of NJ is not
  indicatedwho is she? An apartment resident?
  The building owner?

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Exercise 8.3

• Passage
• (3) What the fire fighters did was to spray
  chemical foam over the oil for several hours.

• Answers
• WH-cleft structure is inappropriate because info
  in WH-clause should contain given information but
  here contains new information.
• There was no mention previously of the fire
  fighters doing anything.
• Here there is new information in both parts of
  the sentence.

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Exercise 8.3

• Passage
• (4) It was by 8am last Sunday that the situation
  was under control

• Answers
• The It-cleft should highlight new information
  between BE and THAT (see green portion).
• Given information should follow the THAT (see red
  portion) but here have new information. There is
  no earlier mention of situation being out of
  control or had been brought under control, a
  mention that could have left in question the time
  at which control was established.

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Exercise 8.3

• Passage
• (4) It was by 8am last Sunday that the situation
  was under control

• Answers
• It seems odd to mention last Sunday since
  already mentioned in Sentence 1.

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Exercise 8.3

• Passage
• (5) What someone had averted was any danger of
  the explosion or the fire, and

• Answer
• WH-cleft structure is inappropriate because info
  in WH-clause should contain given information but
  here contains new information.
• WH-cleft suggests that someones having averted
  something is given info, which it is not. There
  was no prior reference to it.

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Exercise 8.3

• Passage
• (6) What the residents of the two apartment
  buildings at the corner of CCD and 5th Ave. were
  given in the CC HS gym was temporary shelter.

• Answer
• WH-cleft structure is inappropriate because info
  in WH-clause should contain given information but
  here it contains new information.
• The WH-cleft here would be appropriate only if
  it were given info that the residents of the 2
  apartment buildings were provided something in
  the CCHS gym, but previous mention of those
  elements is lacking.

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Exercise 8.3

• Passage
• (6) What the residents of the two apartment
  buildings at the corner of CCD and 5th Ave. were
  given in the CC HS gym was temporary shelter.

• Answer
• Information about the location of the
  buildingsat the corner CCD and 5th Aveappears
  in sentences (1), (2), (6), and (7). Such
  repetition is not needed, especially for given
  information.

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Exercise 8.3

• Passage
• (7) Possession of their apartments was regained
  by the residents of the two apartment buildings
  at the corner of CCD and 5th Ave. at 5pm last
  Sunday.

• Answer
• Information before passive possession of their
  apartments --should be given but here it is new,
  so passive not appropriate.
• Better to say They regained possession of their
  apartments at 5pm.

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Exercise 8.5

• Example
• A What does he want?
• B A bottle of champagne and caviar he wants!

• Answer
• Fronting can mark
• givenness (page 271)
• contrastiveness (see page 272)
• In B, a bottle of champagne and caviar
  represents new information and adds
  emphasis/shock/surprise (note the exclamation
  mark at the end of the sentences!)

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Exercise 8.5

• Example
• A What does he want?
• B A bottle of champagne and caviar he wants!

• Answer
• In addition to providing emphasis, fronting in
  Yiddish also indicates an speaker evaluation of
  the answer. The evaluation seems to be negative.

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Exercise 8.5

• Example
• A Hows your daughter?
• B So many worries she causes me to have!

• Answer
• In addition to providing emphasis and evaluation,
  , fronting in Yiddish movement can change the
  focus. Here the focus shifts from the daughter
  to the speaker.

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Exercise 8.5

• Item d
• Good Fronting
• A.1 Who is Deborah
• going to marry?
• B.2 A scoundrel
• Deborah is going
• to marry.

• Item e
• Bad Fronting
• A.2 Who is going
• to marry Deborah?
• B.2 Deborah a scoundrel
• is going to marry.

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Exercise 8.5

• Item d
• Example
• A Who is Deborah going to marry?
• B A scoundrel Deborah is going to marry.

• Declarative Equivalent
• Deborah is going to
• marry who (a scoundrel)
• Here a scoundrel is the object of marry and
  answers the question of who.

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Exercise 8.5

• Item e
• Example
• A Who is going to marry Deborah?
• B Deborah a scoundrel is going to marry.

• Declarative Equivalent
• Who (a scoundrel) is going to
• marry Deborah.
• Here a scoundrel is the subject of marry.
  Only objects can be fronted if we substitute a
  scoundrel for who, it would already be at the
  front of the sentence, so no fronting needed.
• A scoundrel is going to marry D.
• The objectDeborah--cannot be fronted before the
  subject (a scoundrel) because it is not the
  answer to the WH-question. Fronted objects must
  be
• the referent of the WH-word (i.e., who).

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Exercise 8.7
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Exercise 8.7

• Use of the passive gives the arguments more
  weight, since they give the impression that what
  is being said is general truth.

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SUMMARY

• Information structure highlighting and
  de-emphasizing information in a text
• Information structure the relative significance
  of different elements in a clause, principally
  noun phrases (i.e., the relationship of sentences
  to their discourse environment)

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SUMMARY

• Information structure highlighting and
  de-emphasizing information in a text
• RELATIONAL CATEGORIES
• given/new information
• topic/comment
• contrast
• NON-RELATIONAL CATEGORIES
• definite/indefinite
• referential/non-referential
• generic/specific

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SUMMARY

• HOW TO MARK CERTAIN ELEMENTS OF A SENTENCE
• stress
• fronting/left-dislocation
• It-clefts/WH-clefts
• passives

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Homework

• Exercise 8.6, page 274
• Try It Yourself, page 258
• Please mark your answers on the answer sheet for
  this exercise that will be provided.