Abstract
The studies regarding information structure and its distribution in sentences are traced back to works of Prague School linguists such as Mathesius in 1920s. Recently, the issue of information structure has been dealt with by functionalists. In Role and Reference Grammar (RRG), information structure constitutes one of the main components of syntax. In this theory, information structure is mainly based on the Lambrechtiyan information structure which regards the formal structure of sentences as highly related to the discourse-pragmatic functions. Information structure investigates the way information is structured in clauses and sentences. This paper aims at dealing with information structure in interrogative sentences according to RRG. At first a brief introduction to works on information structure and RRG is presented. Then the theory is applied briefly to Persian language declaratives and dominantly to interrogatives.
Highlights
Persian, a verb-final Indo-Iranian language, is said to have some flexibility in the ordering of constituents within a sentence, it does not have a complete free word order and some constructions are more acceptable than others
This paper aims at dealing with information structure in interrogative sentences according to Reference Grammar (RRG)
Prague school linguists call the principles underlying the flexibility in word order the “functional sentence perspective (FSP)” (Mathesius, 1983)
Summary
A verb-final Indo-Iranian language, is said to have some flexibility in the ordering of constituents within a sentence, it does not have a complete free word order and some constructions are more acceptable than others. As Rezai (2003a) states Lambrecht’s information structure theory provides an alternative to Functional Sentence Perspective (FSP) In his theory of information structure, Lambrecht (1994) identifies TOPIC and FOCUS as the two primary information statuses. He divides a proposition into pragmatic presupposition and pragmatic assertion. Rheme and focus are overlapping but not mutually inclusive concepts Both rheme and focus are associated with the sentence final position in unmarked utterances. Lambrecht (1994) suggests that the formal structure of sentences is related to the communicative situations in which sentences are used He states that “this relationship is governed by principles and rules of grammar, in a component called information structure” (as cited in Rezai 2003a). In order to find focus in sentences, at first basic Lambrechtian paradigms are utilized
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