Architecture of Topic

Valéria Molnár, Verner Egerland, Susanne Winkler, Valéria Molnár, Verner Egerland, Susanne Winkler

• Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781501504389
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Filología
• Subtopic: Sintaxis en lingüística

This volume contains innovative papers that target the linguistic status of topic at the interface between grammar and discourse. The purpose of the volume is to discuss the universal properties of topics and, at the same time, to document the range of discourse-semantic and grammatical variation within this phenomenon in European languages.

The volume is structured accordingly: (i) theoretical foundations of topicality in grammar and discourse; (ii) discourse-semantic correlates of topicality; (iii) variation in the grammatical (external and internal) encoding of topicality; (iv) topics from the diachronic perspective. The articles take different perspectives, including contrastive studies of modern languages, studies on diachronic development, and typological generalizations. They also take into consideration various types of empirical data – introspective data, semi-spontaneously produced data, experimental data and language corpora.

The articles in this volume show that the concept of topic is necessary for the description and explanation of a number of discourse-semantic phenomena. They present a state of the art account of the architecture of topic while making recent research on the phenomenon accessible to a wider readership.

Part I: Semantic and Discourse-pragmatic Correlates of Topicality

Topics and Givenness

Michael Rochemont

University of British Columbia

Abstract

In this article I explore the relationship between topics, givenness and deaccenting, and specifically, the hypothesis that deaccenting is directly a function of topichood. I argue that, where relevant, topics depend on one form of givenness (familiarity) and deaccenting on another (salience). Familiarity yields the requirement that topics are referential. Salience yields the requirement that deaccenting is dependent on coreference to or entailment by a discourse antecedent (Schwarzschild’s GIVENness). I argue for a novel theory of GIVENness calculation, which yields an account not only of non-focused deaccented expressions but also of the specific deaccenting of Second Occurrence Focus expressions.

Keywords: deaccenting, definiteness, familiarity, F-marked, focus, given, givenness, G-marked, prosody, salience, second occurrence focus (SOF), topic,

1 Introduction

It is not uncommon in studies of topic to claim that a topic must be given, or old information. Since deaccenting is also generally dependent on givenness, it might seem reasonable to propose that deaccenting is a function of topichood (e.g., Erteschik-Shir 1997; Lambrecht 1994). But there are several types of givenness, with different properties and functions. It must be asked then whether the reduction of deaccenting to topichood is indeed legitimate, that is, whether both notions depend on the same form of givenness. It is not at all clear to me that they do, at least not in any general way. As we will see, a topical constituent may be given in the sense that it is functionally dependent (through Common Ground Content) on the discourse topic of the surrounding discourse, without being given in the sense required for deaccenting. While a refined analysis of topics might propose a sub-type of topic with a givenness requirement that matches that for deaccenting, this would not change the force of my argument here, that topichood generally does not suffice to license deaccenting.

I proceed by distinguishing two forms of givenness, familiarity and salience. I argue that deaccenting is conditioned by salience (Rochemont 2016), whereas topics are generally familiar (Gundel 2003). Building from a proposal by Selkirk (2008), I then propose a formulation of salience-based givenness that is capable of characterizing the deaccenting of not only given non-focused expressions but also Second Occurrence Focus (SOF).

2 Two Types of Givenness

Following Prince (1981) and most recently Rochemont (2016), I distinguish for present purposes two types of givenness: salience-based (Prince’s givenness_S) and familiarity-based (Prince’s givenness_K). Both are evident in the following modified example modeled from Chafe (1976). (I will use small caps to mark pitch accents and underscoring to mark deaccenting. Sentences in braces provide context for target sentences.)

(1)

{John and Mary recently went to the beach.}

1. They brought some _PICNIC supplies, but they didn’t drink the _BEER because it was _WARM.
2. They brought some _BEER, but they didn’t _DRINK the beer because it was _WARM.

Speakers of most varieties of English (known exceptions include Hawaiian English (Vanderslice and Pierson 1967), Caribbean English (Gumperz 1982), Singapore English (Deterding 1994; Low 2006) and Malaysian English (Gut and Pillai 2014) systematically distinguish the pronunciation of the italicised sentences in (1a,b). These two sentences, though segmentally i...