Information Structure: Theoretical, Typological, and Experimental Perspectives

In this book leading scholars provide state-of-the-art overviews of approaches to the formal expression of information structure in natural language and its interaction with general principles of human cognition and communication. They present critical accounts of current understanding of how aspects of grammar, such as prosody, syntax, morphology, semantics, and pragmatics, interact in the packing and unpacking of information in communication. They also look at the psycholinguistics behind the production and perception of information-structural categories. The book reflects the advances in recent research on all central aspects of the subject, including concepts of focus versus background, topic versus comment, and given versus new, and the kinds of inferences required to make sense of different combinations of words, syntax, intonation, and context. The chapters include typological and diachronic perspectives on information structure. Taken as a whole the book demonstrates the productive value of combining.

Malte Zimmermann and Caroline Fi??ry are Professors of Linguistics at the University of Potsdam. Professor Zimmermann's research interests are in quantification and focus. His published work includes articles in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory and Natural Language Semantics. Professor Fi??ry has published extensively in all aspects of phonology and phonological theory, including the role of prosody and intonation in information structure. She is the co-editor of Gradience in Grammar (OUP 2006).