Information Structure

Information
Structure:
Intonation,
Morphology,
Syntax MARY ROSE F. TANQUERIDO
MA- English
TOPICS:
• New- Information Stress
• Fronting
• Left-Dislocation
• It Clefts and WH Clefts
• Passives
• Word Order
• The Relationship of Sentences to Discourse:
Pragmatics
What is
INFORMATION
STRUCTURE?
People talk for a reason. They want to
share news, connect with others, inform or
cause things to happen. Human languages
are organized in ways that reflect the
content and purpose of utterances that is,
information that is contained in the words
and structures that make up sentences.
This organization is called information
structure.
1. New- Information
Stress
There are 4 basic types of word stress that
lead to proper intonation in English:
A. Tonic Stress- it refers to the syllable in a

word which receives the most stress in an
intonation unit.
Examples:
He's WAITing
He's WAITing/ for his FRIEND
He's WAITING/ for his FRIEND at the STATION
B. Emphatic Stress- if you decide to
emphasize something, you can change
the stress from the principal noun to
another content word such as an
adjective and intensifier.
Example:
That was a difficult test. - standard
statement
That was a difficult test. - emphasize
how difficult the test was.
C. Contrastive Stress- is used to point out the
difference between one object and another.
Contrastive tends to be used with determiners
such as "this, that, these and those".
Example:
I think I prefer this color.
Do you want these or those curtain?
It is also used to bring out a given word in a
sentence which will also slightly change the
meaning.
He came to the party yesterday.
He walked to the party yesterday.
D. New- Information Stress- when asked a question, the
requested information (new information) is naturally stressed
more strongly.
Given Information New Information
-Where are you from? I came from Canada.
-What do you want to do? I want to go bowling.
-When does the class begin? The class begins at nine
o'clock.
2. Fronting
• is a type of focus strategy often used to enhance cohesion and provide emphasis.
• it involves moving an object, a verb, or an adverb to position before the subject.
Usual word order Fronting

-The rain came down. Down came the rain.
-A little shop stood on the corner. On the corner stood a little shop.
-The President of Chile was in front of me. In front of me was the President of Chile
-A large white cat sat in the middle of the bed. In the middle of the bed sat a large white cat.
2. Fronting
• The subject and verb do not normally change position when:
- the verb is transitive
- when the subject is pronoun
- when a transitive verb is followed by an adverb of manner
Example:
He'd written her address on a small piece of paper.
• On a small piece of paper he'd written his address.
They rushed into the street.
• Into the street they rushed.
An old man sat quietly in the corner.
• In the corner an old man sat quietly.
2. Fronting
• Sentences with "There is/are"
• Example;
• There's a small room next to the kitchen.
Next to the kitchen is a small store room.
3. Left- Dislocation
-Is used primarily to introduce given information that has
not been mentioned for a while.
- Though left-dislocation is syntactically similar to

fronting, there are some several differences between
the two. In particular, a fronted noun phrase does not
leave a pronoun in the sentence, whereas a left
dislocation noun phrase does.
- Unlike fronted noun , a left-dislocated noun phrase is
set off from the rest of the sentences by writing a
comma.
3. Left-Dislocation
Sentence:
I can’t stand Holly.
Holly I can’t stand. (fronting)

Holly, I can’t stand her. (left-dislocation)
3. Left-Dislocation
Example:
My aunt, she died when I was six.
The noun my aunt, could be the subject

of the clause (My aunt died when I was
six) but is left-dislocated instead and its position
within the clause is occupied by coreferential pronoun
she.
4. It Clefts and WH
Clefts
There are several syntactic devices that are
able to encode the pragmatic information
of a preferred alternative. One type of such
device used to mark information structure
is cleft constructions. There are 2 major
types of clefts: It clefts and wh- clefts
It Clefts
It-clefts- consists of pronoun it, a form of
the verb to be, the focused element, and
a relative dependent clause introduced by
that, who/which or zero.
Ex. It was the book that Mary bought. (In
this example, the focus element is “a
book”, and the dependent clause is “that
Mary bought a book”.
WH Clefts
WH-clefts- consists of a clause introduced by a wh-
word, a form of the verb to be, and the focused
element
Ex. What Mary bought was a book.( The underlined
clause is the WH- clause and a book represents the
focused element of the cleft.)
As the examples show, both cleft constructions contain
a dependent clause and an element that is focused.
They consist of the same type of element, with the
difference that the focus appears early in it-clefts and
late in wh-clefts.
5.Passives
As with other languages that have a passive
construction, the choice between an active sentence
and its passive equivalent can be exploited in English
to mark information structure.
Compare the following sentences:
1. Bureaucrats could easily store and retrieve data
about the citizentry. (active)
2. Data about the citizentry could be easily stored and
retrieved by bureaucrats. (passive)
3. Data about the citizentry could easily be stored and
retrieved. (passive)
5.Passives
Examples:
1. A new shopping mall is being built near the airport.
2. These laws, however noxious, are rarely enforced
In the first sentence, the agent is likely to be a real-estate developer;
in the second sentence, police authorities. In each case, the exact
identity of the particular agent is either known or irrelevant to the
situation represented by the sentence. In spoken language, agentless
passives are equivalent to active sentences with the indefinite and
nonreferential pronoun they, as in these examples:
- They’re building a new shopping mall near the airport.

- They issue new Christmas stamps every year.
6.Word Order
Many languages use the sequential order of noun
phrases to mark differences in information
structure.
In the sentence “The cat is chasing the dog”, the

word order indicates who is doing the chasing and
who is being chased. If we invert the two noun
phrases, the semantics of the sentence (who is
agent and who is patient) changes: The dog is
chasing the cat.
7. The Relationship of
sentences to discourse:
Pragmatics
Semantic Info Pragmatic Info
Syntax
Thank
You!

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A. Tonic Stress- it refers to the syllable in a

Usual word order Fronting

- Though left-dislocation is syntactically similar to

Holly I can’t stand. (fronting)

The noun my aunt, could be the subject

- They’re building a new shopping mall near the airport.

In the sentence “The cat is chasing the dog”, the

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