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Habilitation zugänglich unter
URN: urn:nbn:de:bsz:93-opus-13964
URL: http://elib.uni-stuttgart.de/opus/volltexte/2003/1396/
Intonation and Information Structure
NN
Heusinger, Klaus von
Originalveröffentlichung:
(1999) Habilitation Universität Konstanz, 1999
pdf-Format:
Dokument 1.pdf (628 KB)
SWD-Schlagwörter:
Intonation <Linguistik> , Informationsstruktur , Thema-Rhema-Gliederung
Freie Schlagwörter (Englisch):
intonation , information structure , argument
Institut:
Institut für Linguistik
Fakultät:
Philosophisch-historische Fakultät
DDC-Sachgruppe:
Sprache, Linguistik
Dokumentart:
Habilitation
Hauptberichter:
NN
Sprache:
Englisch
Tag der mündlichen Prüfung:
01.01.1970
Erstellungsjahr:
1999
Publikationsdatum:
14.05.2003
Kurzfassung auf Englisch:
The concepts intonation and information structure refer to two components of
grammar that are commonly assumed to be autonomous and independent of the
canonical parts phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. Both structures are
closely related to each other: Intonational patterns express informational structuring,
and a great part of the information structure is linguistically conveyed by intonation.
Intonational patterns are not understood as a single structure, but as a complex of
different intonational systems, such as the intonational contour, prominence, and
phrasing, each of which expresses particular functions. For example, the contour
indicates the speech act of the utterance, phrasing marks informational units, and the
prominence pattern reflects in some way the focus of the utterance, which is often
referred to as the highlighted unit. Thus, several functions of intonational features are
related to information structure, which motivates the division of the sentence into units,
organizes the internal structure of these units, and accounts for the relation of the units
to each other and to other parts of the discourse. However, the theories on
informational structure are as numerous as they are vague in their basic assumptions
and their formulations.
In this study, I challenge the view that intonation and information structure are
autonomous grammatical levels. I argue that information structure is a proper part of
semantics in the same way as intonation is beginning to be integrated into phonology.
Information structure can be described by the means of the recently developed
discourse semantics, i.e. Discourse Representation Theory. Like intonation, information
structure is not conceived as one single component, but as a complex of different
relations between discourse representation structures. For example, it will be argued
that the representation of the non-focused part of an utterance, i.e., the background,
serves different functions: it is mapped onto the already established discourse representation,
before the utterance is evaluated; it further forms the restriction for operators
and quantifiers. The view of information structure as a conglomerate of discourse
relations operating on a representational level allows a more precise analysis of
intonational features in terms of semantic functions. These functions are essential not
only for the embedding of utterances into the discourse, but also for the representation
of smaller phrases, and for the interpretation of semantic operators. It will be shown
that, ultimately, there is no theoretical reason for an independent level of information
structure, even though one might use this term informally to describe certain semantic
properties and operations.
Kurzfassung auf Englisch:
NN