Information Structure in Lesser-Described Languages : Studies in Prosody and Syntax.

Intro -- Information Structure in Lesser-described Languages -- Editorial page -- Title page -- LCC data -- Table of contents -- Chapter 1. Investigating information structure in lesser-known and endangered languages: An introduction -- 1. Introduction -- 2. How can information structure be analysed based on corpora of spoken language? -- 3. Prosodic encoding of information structure categories -- 4. Syntactic encoding of information structure categories -- 5. Concluding remarks -- Acknowledgements -- References -- Part I. Prosody and information structure: Methods and analyses -- Chapter 2. Prosodic separation of postverbal material in Georgian: A corpus study on syntax-phonology interface -- 1. Assumptions about empirical data -- 2. Georgian prosody and syntax -- 3. External validity of experimental findings -- 4. Corpus study: Method -- 4.1 Corpus -- 4.2 Data selection -- 4.3 Annotation and analysis -- 5. Corpus results -- 5.1 Effects of word order -- 5.2 Effects of information structure -- 5.3 Effects of random factors -- 5.4 Statistical modelling -- 6. Variability of scripted and spontaneous data -- 7. Discussion -- 8. Conclusions -- Abbreviations -- References -- Chapter 3. Prosodic and morphological focus marking in Ixcatec (Otomanguean) -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Focus cross-linguistically -- 3. Some background on Ixcatec -- 4. The expression of focus through prosodic and morphological means -- 4.1 Predictions -- 4.2 Methodology -- 4.3 Results -- 4.4 Discussion -- 5. Conclusions -- Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations -- References -- Appendix -- Chapter 4. On being first -- 1. Introduction -- 1.1 Unit of reference -- 1.2 Instrumental analysis -- 1.3 Boundary markers -- 2. Intonation units and PENTA -- 2.1 Reviewing ius -- 2.2 Theoretical model -- 3. Ngarinyman and information structure categories -- 3.1 Ngarinyman.

3.2 Information structure categories -- 3.3 Examples of IS categories in Ngarinyman -- 4. Methodology and analyses -- 4.1 Datasets and methodology -- 4.2 Step 1: Analysis by measurements -- 4.3 Step 2: From measurements to resynthesis: PENTAtrainer2 -- 5. Discussion -- 6. Conclusion -- Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations -- References -- Chapter 5. Factors behind variation in marking information structure: Contributions from Central Pomo -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Central Pomo -- 3. Givenness and basic prosodic packaging -- 4. Topic constructions -- 4.1 No mention: Continuing given topics -- 4.2 Unstressed pronouns: Given referents -- 4.3 Antitopics: Continuing topics -- 4.4 Topicalization: Shift to accessible topic -- 4.5 Separate clause or sentence: Brand new topic -- 4.6 Topic spotlight clitic =ya -- 4.7 Prosodically prominent, initial constituents: Contrastive topics -- 4.8 Contrastive enclitic =na -- 4.9 Passive: Elimination of non-topical agents -- 5. Focus constructions -- 5.1 Broad (all new) focus -- 5.2 In-situ narrow focus -- 5.3 Initial-position focus -- 5.4 Initial position contrastive focus -- 5.5 Clefts -- 5.6 Exhaustive focus -- 5.7 Additive focus -- 6. Strategies for marking information structure -- 6.1 Activation state -- 6.2 Topic -- 6.3 Focus -- 6.4 Prosody, syntax, and morphology -- References -- Chapter 6. Macrosyntactic corpus annotation: The case of Zaar -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Zaar and the Zaar corpus -- 3. Oral corpora and macrosyntax -- 3.1 Dysfluencies -- 3.2 Afterthoughts -- 3.3 Syntactic relations over turn-taking -- 3.4 Parallel constructions -- 4. Macrosyntactic corpus annotation -- 4.1 Illocutionary Units and basic Illocutionary Components -- 4.2 IlU introducers -- 4.3 Associated Illocutionary Units -- 4.4 Piling -- 4.5 Non-alignment of Illocutionary Components and Governing.

5. Left-dislocation and marked identifying clauses in Zaar -- 5.1 Topics -- 5.2 Marked identifying clauses in Zaar -- 5.3 The prosody of topic and identifying clauses in Zaar -- 5.4 Syntactic representation -- 6. Macrosyntax and Information Structure annotation in Elan -- 7. Typology of pre- and post-nuclei -- 7.1 Aligned peripheries -- 7.2 Non-aligned peripheries -- 8. Conclusion -- Abbreviations and special symbols -- General abbreviations -- Abbreviations in morphosyntactic glossing -- Function tags in UD representation -- References -- Part II. Syntax and information structure: Corpus-driven studies -- Chapter 7. Focus marking and differential argument marking: The emergence of bidirectional case marking in Wan -- 1. Introduction -- 2. The marking of focused transitive subject -- 3. Bidirectional case marking -- 4. Relating focus marking to bidirectional case marking -- 5. Avoidance of prominence violations: Beyond bidirectional marking -- 6. Conclusion -- Abbreviations -- References -- Chapter 8. A topic-marking cleft?: Analyzing clause-initial pronouns in Movima -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Basic clauses and the pronominal construction -- 2.1 Argument encoding in basic clauses -- 2.2 The pronominal construction -- 3. The syntax of the pronominal construction -- 3.1 The free pronoun as a predicate: Evidence from embedding -- 3.2 The verb as a subordinate predicate -- 3.3 Summary: The pronominal construction as a cleft -- 4. Discourse functions of the pronominal construction -- 4.1 Marking a contrast -- 4.2 Marking a new sentence topic -- 4.3 A note on intonation -- 5. Discussion -- Abbreviations and special symbols -- References -- Chapter 9. Subjects and focus in clefts: The case of Tilapa Otomi -- 1. A brief introduction to clefts -- 2. Basics of Tilapa Otomi grammar -- 3. The copular construction and the clefts of Tilapa Otomi.

4. Discussion about the syntactic status of the FP in clefts -- 5. Concluding remarks -- Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations -- References -- Chapter 10. The influence of the state distinction on word order and information structure in Kabyle and Siwi (Berber) -- Introduction -- 1. Kabyle and Siwi -- 2. Grammatical relations -- 2.1 Coding means -- 2.2 Possible constructions -- 2.3 Conclusion on grammatical relations -- 3. Information structure -- 3.1 Same constructions, same functions: Noun outside the prosodic boundary -- 3.2 Same constructions, same functions, noun inside the prosodic group containing the verb: Function of V(O) -- 3.3 Different form-function mappings -- 3.4 Summary -- 4. Implications and conclusions -- Abbreviations -- References -- Chapter 11. Information structure in the Neo-Aramaic dialect of Telkepe -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Concepts in information structure -- 3. Indexing of topical objects on the verb -- 4. Flagging of topical objects -- 5. Word order and intonation in relation to information structure -- 5.1 Expression of topics -- 5.2 Expression of focus -- 5.3 Sentence-focus structures -- 6. Summary and conclusions -- Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations -- References -- Chapter 12. Information structure in a spoken corpus of Cameroon Pidgin English -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Background -- 2.1 CPE -- 2.2 A spoken corpus of Cameroon Pidgin English -- 2.3 Information structure -- 3. Methodology -- 3.1 Elicitation -- 3.2 Extraction of tokens from the corpus -- 3.3 Coding -- 4. Findings -- 4.1 Marked topic/focus pronouns -- 4.2 Copula/focus marker na -- 5. Discussion -- 5.1 RQ1: Distribution of marked topic/focus pronouns -- 5.2 RQ2: Repeat pronoun construction -- 5.3 RQ3: Distribution of na copula/focus marker -- 5.4 RQ4: Preference for focus fronting over clefting? -- 5.5 RQ5: Predicate focus construction.

5.6 Advantages and limitations of the corpus method -- 6. Conclusions -- Abbreviations and transcription -- References -- Part III. Views from better described languages: Theories and methods -- Chapter 13. The illocutionary basis of information structure: The Language into Act Theory (L-AcT) -- 1. Introduction -- 2. The Reference unit for speech -- 2.1 The prosodic identification of speech reference units -- 2.2 The perceptual relevance of terminal prosodic breaks -- 2.3 The utterance identification across languages -- 3. The language into act theory -- 3.1 The pragmatic foundation of Information Pattern -- 3.2 The comment unit and the relation prosody / illocutionary force -- 4. The information pattern -- 4.1 The topic -- 4.2 The other textual units -- 4.3 Dialogic units -- 5. L-AcT in practice -- 6. Conclusions -- References -- Web sites -- Chapter 14. Annotation guidelines for Questions under Discussion and information structure -- 1. Introduction -- 1.1 Information structure -- 1.2 Discourse structure and Questions under Discussion (QUDs) -- 1.3 Universality of information-structural notions -- 1.4 Corpus resources and a prospect for the study of lesser-described languages -- 2. Preliminaries for the reconstruction of QUDs (and the creation of discourse trees) -- 2.1 Understanding the text -- 2.2 Preparing the text -- 3. Formulating questions under discussion -- 4. Adding information-structural markup -- 5. QUDs and information structure in parallel structures -- 5.1 Parallel structures with a single variable -- 5.2 Parallel structures with two variables: Contrastive topic + focus -- 5.3 Embedded focus -- 6. Non-at-issue material -- 7. Conditionals -- 8. Conclusions -- Acknowledgements -- References -- Appendix 1 -- Appendix 2. Summary of instructions -- Appendix 3 -- Language index -- Notion index.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.