. Deriving the Diversity of Contrastive Topic Realizations 2 - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

. Noah Constant University of Massachusetts, Amherst constant@linguist.umass.edu MIT March 20, 2013 . Deriving the Diversity of Contrastive Topic Realizations

2 Appendix What S-side material is accessible to the phonology? How are prosody and meaning related? architecture of grammar? Are there common structural mechanisms underlying these expressions? shape and pronunciation of sentences. Overview Big Picture Reflexes Topic Abstraction Büring ’03 What is CT? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • Cross-linguistically, information structure has wide range of effects on • How should we understand this variation? • Big Questions: ◦ How is the structure of discourse represented in mind and in grammar? ◦ What kinds of discourse-sensitive meanings do languages express? ◦ Can the reflexes of information structure tell us something about the

. . . . Appendix — Ernest Blum, American Scholar 77(4) for those who would master the reading of languages. wet in a language. But the second consequence of Zipf’s law is troubling language. [...] This is, of course, a welcome situation for getting one’s feet (1) Only a few words account for the overwhelming bulk of words used in a Overview Today Reflexes Topic Abstraction Büring ’03 What is CT? 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • Looking at contrastive topic (CT) constructions • We find CT marked by word order, intonation, and/or particles • Goal : A unified theory of CT that ... ◦ captures its meaning ◦ can derive all these realizations

. . . . Reflexes of intonation contours in another Methodology Appendix Overview 4 Topic Abstraction Büring ’03 What is CT? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • Typologically driven: ◦ Analysis of one language informs analysis of another ◦ e.g. discourse particles in one language can inform possible analyses • Cross-subfield, with emphasis on interfaces: ◦ Semantic account informs phonological account and vice versa

. . . . Overview 4. Reflexes of CT structure 3. Topic Abstraction theory of CT 2. Büring’s theory of CT 1. What is contrastive topic? Roadmap Appendix Reflexes Topic Abstraction Büring ’03 What is CT? 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . Overview What is CT? Büring ’03 Topic Abstraction Reflexes Appendix What is Contrastive Topic? 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . Overview question(s) about different topic(s) ] Exh . L-L% H* L+H* L-H% B: [ Persephone What did they bring? (2) A: What about Persephone and Antonio? Contrastive Topic and Exhaustive Focus Appendix Reflexes Topic Abstraction Büring ’03 What is CT? 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ] CT ... brought [ the gazpacho • Exhaustive Focus (Exh) answers a question • Contrastive Topic (CT) is what current question is about, implies other

. . . . L+H* L-H% CT+Exh (3) A: What about the gazpacho and the salad? Who brought those ? B: [ Persephone H* L- Exh+CT L-L% (4) A: What about Persephone and Antonio? Did they bring anything? B: [ Persephone L+H* L-H% ... Lone CT Overview ] Exh . H* Appendix What is CT? Büring ’03 Topic Abstraction Reflexes 8 CT+Exh, Exh+CT and Lone CT (2) A: What about Persephone and Antonio? What did they bring? B: [ Persephone L+H* L-H% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ] CT ... brought [ the gazpacho ] Exh brought [ the gazpacho ] CT ... ] CT brought something

. . . . Topic Abstraction Lone CT Appendix Overview Reflexes Büring ’03 What is CT? 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • Can “Lone CT” be covered under a general theory of CT? • Yes? (Jackendoff 1972, Büring 2003, Constant in prep.) • No? (Wagner 2012, Constant 2012a) • Treat these examples separately as “Rise-Fall-Rise” • Answer for today: Yes

. . . . (Jackendoff 1972) (Frascarelli and Hinterhölzl 2007) (Sturgeon 2006) (Gyuris 2002) (Constant 2009) (Lee 2003) (Tonhauser 2012) (Constant 2011) (Lee 2003) (Tomioka 2010b) Overview (Büring 1997) 10 Topic Abstraction CT Realizations What is CT? Appendix Reflexes Büring ’03 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • Prosody ◦ English ◦ German • Discourse Particle ◦ Japanese ◦ Korean ◦ Mandarin ◦ Paraguayan Guaraní ◦ Russian ◦ Dholuo • Word Order ◦ Hungarian ◦ Czech ◦ Italian

. . . . eaten (Wagner 2012) #Exh+CT Fred Fred hat has die the bohnen beans gegessen. b. Overview CT+Exh Die the / bohnen beans hat has Fred \ Fred gegessen. eaten (6) (And the beans ? Who ate those ?) 11 eaten CT+Exh Topic Abstraction Reflexes Appendix German Bridge Contour gegessen. What is CT? (5) (And Fred ? What did he eat?) (Wagner 2012) / Fred Fred hat has die the bohnen \ beans Büring ’03 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • Rise on CT (L* H) • Fall on Exh (H* L) • High plateau in between ‘[Fred] CT ate [the beans] Exh .’ a. # ‘[The beans] CT , [Fred] Exh ate.’

. . . . CT Overview late cái only.then huí-jiā. return-home Bàba dad ne , gāncuì hěn simply jiù just bù not huí-lái. return-come ‘Every day mom doesn’t come home until late. (Shao 1989: 174) very wǎn night Māma What is CT? Büring ’03 Topic Abstraction Reflexes Appendix Mandarin CT - ne 12 mom měi-tiān wǎnshàng every-day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • Positions of CT - ne ◦ Directly following topicalized CT phrases ◦ Sentence-final when CT remains in situ (Constant 2011) (7) 妈妈 每天 晚上 很 晚 才 回家。 爸爸 呢， 干脆 就 不 回来。 [Dad] CT NE , [doesn’t even come back at all] Exh .’

. . . . self’s AUX .1 SG . CL ztratil, lost ale but svou učebnici notebook. ACC textbook. ACC ještě still mám. have ‘[My notebook] CT , I [lost] Exh , but [my textbook] CT , I [still have] Exh .’ Overview jsem sešit Reflexes What is CT? Büring ’03 self’s Topic Abstraction Appendix Czech CT Position (Sturgeon 2006) (8) Svůj 13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • CT moves to fixed position in left periphery • Below aboutness topic, above focus • Optionally resumed by a pronoun • CT or resumptive usually receives rising intonation

. . . . Overview What is CT? Büring ’03 Topic Abstraction Reflexes Appendix Büring 2003 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . CT- and F- Marks L- L% H* [·] F ] F . H* L-L% L+H* L-H% (9) [ Fred Overview 15 Appendix Reflexes Topic Abstraction Büring ’03 What is CT? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • [·] CT and [·] F marks in the syntax ] CT ... ate [ the beans • Realization → [·] CT → L+H* L- H%

. . . . Overview Never had it. You like goat? No, yuck! You like beets? Yes! Warm rainy days? No! Cold rainy days? Do you like rainy days? What foods do you like? Sure! Wanna go for coffee? What do you like? “The Big Question” (10) discourse Discourse Trees Appendix Reflexes Topic Abstraction Büring ’03 What is CT? 16 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • Roberts’ (1996) question under discussion (QUD) stack model of • “Strategy”: a set of sub-questions addressing a common larger question

. . . . 1. Replace F-marked phrases with variables Mary ate pasta. What did Mary eat? Fred ate beans. What did Fred eat? Who ate what? (12) c. What did x eat? 4. We’re answering one question from this strategy, but others are salient Overview 2. Replace CT-marked phrases with variables CT Meaning Reflexes What is CT? Büring ’03 Topic Abstraction 17 Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • CT Congruence (informal): → a question → a set of questions 3. Discourse contains strategy of ≥ 2 questions from this set (11) a. [ Fred ] CT ate [ the beans ] F . → What did Fred eat? b. [ Fred ] CT ate x . → { What did Ann eat? What did Bob eat? ... }

. . . . nàme Déguó Overview pà fear shòu receive guātiánzhīxián, suspicion then Qù biéde other guójiā country xíng-bù-xíng okay-not-okay ne ? CT ‘If going to Germany would arouse suspicion, go Germany 18 (Sturgeon 2006) What is CT? Büring ’03 Topic Abstraction Reflexes Appendix (Kamali and Büring 2011) Semantic Problems (1/2) (Constant 2012b) (Tomioka 2010a) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • Predicts no CT in questions • But CT is attested in questions in ... ◦ Czech ◦ Japanese ◦ Mandarin ◦ Turkish (13) 去 德国 怕 受 瓜田之嫌， 那么 别的 国家 行不行 呢？ would [ other countries] CT be okay NE ?’