The centrality of metrical structure in signaling information structure

A probabilistic perspective

Bibliographic Data

ID2976241
AuthorsSasha Calhoun (0000-0002-6381-3215, corresponding author)
Year2010
Volume86
Issue1
Pages1-42
Publication date2010-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLanguage (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0097-8507 • E-ISSN: 1535-0665
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/lan.0.0197
OpenAlexW1988604523
LanguageEN
Citations received75
References cited89

This article introduces a new way to explain how information structure is signaled prosodically in English. I claim that METRICAL STRUCTURE plays a central role (Ladd 2008, Truckenbrodt 1995). Information structure (defined as in Steedman 1991 and Vallduví & Vilkuna 1998) places strong constraints on the PROBABIILISTIC mapping of words onto metrical prosodic structure-that is, foci usually align with nuclear accents and theme/rheme units with prosodic phrases, and themes are less metrically prominent than rhemes. It is shown that focus position, scope, and pragmatic interpretation are then derived by manipulating EXPECTED PROMINENCE within metrical structure. Broadly, the more prominent a word than expected, the more likely a contrastive reading; the less prominent, the more likely a givenness reading. Both constructed and naturally occurring examples from the Switchboard corpus are used

Centrality · Focus (optics) · Information Structure · Interpretation (philosophy) · Linguistics · Perspective (graphical) · Reading (process) · Scope (computer science) · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Mathematics · Philosophy · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

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