Role In Information Structure Research Articles

Differential argument marking and the multifunctional case marker -ha in Wutun: Between the argument structure and information structure

This paper discusses the various functions of the multifunctional case marker -ha in Wutun, a mixed Sinitic language with Northwest Mandarin lexicon and Amdo Tibetan syntax spoken in Tongren County, eastern part of Qinghai Province, Amdo Sprachbund. I will show that the use of -ha is connected to Differential Argument Marking and it is motivated partly by semantic factors and partly by information structure. The case marker -ha often occurs on the Recipient, Patient or Causee argument in clauses with two animate arguments and it can therefore be used to disambiguate arguments. Its use is also connected to affectedness, which can be operationalized in terms of definiteness and saliency. Patient arguments are more likely to be marked with -ha if they are totally affected (e.g. The dog ate the dumplings) than only partially affected (e.g. The dog ate some dumplings). However, the use of -ha cannot be explained solely on the basis of semantic factors and it is often connected to information structure, such as expressing contrastiveness, activating previously mentioned topic or differentiating between topical and focal parts of the sentence. In summary, -ha is used with highly affected non-Agent arguments that often play a special role in information structure.

Northern Mansi possessive suffixes in non-possessive function

Research on possessive suffixes in Ob-Ugric languages, as in most Uralic languages, has primarily viewed them in the light of their terminological denomination – i.e., as markers of possessive relations, traditionally referred to as their prototypic use. Whenever this onomasiology-based approach fails, the usage of possessive suffixes is considered non-prototypical; a secondary or determinative function of possessive suffixes is cited. In my paper, I will claim that the original function of possessive suffixes in Ob-Ugric languages is not to denote a possessive relation and, in consequence, there is no concept of non-prototypical use. Instead, possessive suffixes denote a relation between two entities, whose default interpretation is a possessive one. I will claim that both, the prototypic and the non-prototypic use is an outcome of the very same property of possessive suffixes, which is to establish reference. In consequence, possessive suffixes play an important role in information structure.

Emphatic Italics in English Translations: Stylistic Failure or Motivated Stylistic Resources?

This article argues that emphatic italics, a typographic feature regularly ignored by linguists and associated with poor style, have an important stylistic function in English, often working in implicit association with prosodic patterns in spoken language to signal marked information focus, thus fulfilling an important role in information structure and adding a conversational and involved tone to written texts. Emphatic italics are more common in English than in other languages because tonic prominence is the preferred means of marking information focus in English, while other languages use purely linguistic devices, such as word order. Thus arises the question of what happens in English translations from and into other languages. The study presented here looks at results obtained from a bidirectional English-Portuguese corpus (COMPARA) which suggest that italics may be less common in English translations from Portuguese than in non-translated English texts. This trend could potentially be explained by the use of common features of translated language, in particular explicitation and conservatism (also known as normalization). However, a closer look at the work of particular translators shows that the avoidance or use of italics is not a consistent feature of translations and may be a characteristic feature of the stylistic profile of certain translators.

Проблемы изучения севернорусского слова <i>дак</i>: достижения и недостаткищ<br>(Advantages and Shortcomings of Different Perspectives in Describing Northern Russian dak)

The word dak is one of several highly frequent particles, used in most Northern Russian and some Siberian dialects. It can occur sentence ini- tially, sentence internally and sentence finally to connect two parts of the discourse, such as words, sentences, and presuppositions.This article describes the advantages and shortcomings of six dif- ferent perspectives which have been used to describe this unspecified, multifunctional word: descriptions in traditional grammatical terms, in syntactic terminology used for spontaneus speech, research on its role in information structure, its use in discourse, the role of prosody, and finally comparisons with parallel words in neighbouring and other languages. I conclude that a combination of approaches is required for a better understanding of the way dak functions. Studies in prosody combined with research on dak's role in information structure appear to be most fruitful, and modern theories of discourse structure, which are almost completely ignored at present, could be helpful. Much research remains to be done, especially to clarify the restrictions on the use of the word dak and the way it functions in less obvious contexts.