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Information Structure

Theoretical, Typological, and Experimental Perspectives

Caroline Féry editor Malte Zimmermann editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Oxford University Press

Published:29th Oct '09

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Information Structure cover

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 theoretical and experimental approaches.

a significant and welcome contribution to the current intense interest in linguistic theorising of information structure and succeeds in highlighting the value of considering different approaches for theoretical linguists, psycholinguists, and typologists alike. * Reiko Vermeulen, The Journal of Linguistics *

ISBN: 9780199570959

Dimensions: 241mm x 162mm x 29mm

Weight: 787g

430 pages