Information Structure and Sentence Form: Topic, Focus, and the Mental Representations of Discourse Referents
Why do languages have so many different ways of expressing the same idea? Lambrecht addresses this question through an investigation of the "information structure" of sentences. His analysis is based on the observation that the structure of a sentence reflects a speaker's assumptions about the hearer's state of knowledge and consciousness at the time of the utterance. Four independent but interrelated categories are analyzed: presupposition and assertion, identifiability and activation, topic, and focus.
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Information Structure and Sentence Form: Topic, Focus, and the Mental Representations of Discourse Referents
Why do languages have so many different ways of expressing the same idea? Lambrecht addresses this question through an investigation of the "information structure" of sentences. His analysis is based on the observation that the structure of a sentence reflects a speaker's assumptions about the hearer's state of knowledge and consciousness at the time of the utterance. Four independent but interrelated categories are analyzed: presupposition and assertion, identifiability and activation, topic, and focus.
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Information Structure and Sentence Form: Topic, Focus, and the Mental Representations of Discourse Referents

Information Structure and Sentence Form: Topic, Focus, and the Mental Representations of Discourse Referents

by Knud Lambrecht
Information Structure and Sentence Form: Topic, Focus, and the Mental Representations of Discourse Referents

Information Structure and Sentence Form: Topic, Focus, and the Mental Representations of Discourse Referents

by Knud Lambrecht

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Overview

Why do languages have so many different ways of expressing the same idea? Lambrecht addresses this question through an investigation of the "information structure" of sentences. His analysis is based on the observation that the structure of a sentence reflects a speaker's assumptions about the hearer's state of knowledge and consciousness at the time of the utterance. Four independent but interrelated categories are analyzed: presupposition and assertion, identifiability and activation, topic, and focus.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780521587044
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication date: 11/13/1996
Series: Cambridge Studies in Linguistics , #71
Edition description: New Edition
Pages: 408
Product dimensions: 6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 1.06(d)

Table of Contents

Preface; 1. Introduction; 2. Information; 3. The mental representations of discourse referents; 4. Pragmatic relations: topic; 5. Pragmatic relations: focus; 6. Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.
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