Information structure as parallel tree building

Authors

  • Jon Stevens University of Pennsylvania

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21248/hpsg.2011.21

Abstract

This paper presents a Synchronous Tree Adjoining Grammar (STAG) account of Information Structure, whereby Givenness-marking requires a link between nodes on a syntactic tree and LF nodes whose interpretation is supplied by a contextually determined set of Given semantic objects. By hypothesis, the interpretation of linked nodes bypasses a default interpretation principle that requires pragmatic reasoning to disambiguate elements and enrich semantic material. Thus, interpreting Given elements requires less cognitive effort than Focused elements. This, combined with some established insights from Game-theoretic pragmatics, yields empirical advantages over more traditional semantic/pragmatic analyses of equal simplicity.

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Published

2011-11-16

How to Cite

Stevens, Jon. 2011. Information structure as parallel tree building. Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar 369–386. (doi:10.21248/hpsg.2011.21) (https://proceedings.hpsg.xyz/article/view/768) (Accessed March 28, 2024.)