"The articles compiled in this volume offer new insights into the wealth of prosodic and syntactic phenomena involved in the encoding of information structure categories. They present data from languages which are rarely, if ever, taken into account in the most prominent approaches in information structure theory, and which belong to the Afroasiatic, Amerindian, Australian, Caucasian, and Niger-Congo language stocks. In addition to the significant descriptive value of these pioneering contributions, several studies also draw attention to previously undescribed or typologically rare phenomena. By adapting a variety of methods to under-described and endangered languages, ranging from experimental to naturalistic corpus studies, this volume also aims to serve as an invitation for further research in this direction"--.

• Information Structure in Lesser-described Languages
• Editorial page
• Title page
• LCC data
• Table of contents
• Chapter 1. Investigating information structure in lesser-known and endangered languages: An introduction
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. How can information structure be analysed based on corpora of spoken language?
  • 3. Prosodic encoding of information structure categories
  • 4. Syntactic encoding of information structure categories
  • 5. Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
• Part I. Prosody and information structure: Methods and analyses
• Chapter 2. Prosodic separation of postverbal material in Georgian: A corpus study on syntax-phonology interface
  • 1. Assumptions about empirical data
  • 2. Georgian prosody and syntax
  • 3. External validity of experimental findings
  • 4. Corpus study: Method
    • 4.1 Corpus
    • 4.2 Data selection
    • 4.3 Annotation and analysis
  • 5. Corpus results
    • 5.1 Effects of word order
    • 5.2 Effects of information structure
    • 5.3 Effects of random factors
    • 5.4 Statistical modelling
  • 6. Variability of scripted and spontaneous data
  • 7. Discussion
  • 8. Conclusions
  • Abbreviations
  • References
• Chapter 3. Prosodic and morphological focus marking in Ixcatec (Otomanguean)
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Focus cross-linguistically
  • 3. Some background on Ixcatec
  • 4. The expression of focus through prosodic and morphological means
    • 4.1 Predictions
    • 4.2 Methodology
    • 4.3 Results
    • 4.4 Discussion
  • 5. Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Abbreviations
  • References
  • Appendix
• Chapter 4. On being first
  • 1. Introduction
    • 1.1 Unit of reference
    • 1.2 Instrumental analysis
    • 1.3 Boundary markers
  • 2. Intonation units and PENTA
    • 2.1 Reviewing ius
    • 2.2 Theoretical model
  • 3. Ngarinyman and information structure categories
    • 3.1 Ngarinyman
    • 3.2 Information structure categories
    • 3.3 Examples of IS categories in Ngarinyman
  • 4. Methodology and analyses
    • 4.1 Datasets and methodology
    • 4.2 Step 1: Analysis by measurements
    • 4.3 Step 2: From measurements to resynthesis: PENTAtrainer2
  • 5. Discussion
  • 6. Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Abbreviations
  • References
• Chapter 5. Factors behind variation in marking information structure: Contributions from Central Pomo
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Central Pomo
  • 3. Givenness and basic prosodic packaging
  • 4. Topic constructions
    • 4.1 No mention: Continuing given topics
    • 4.2 Unstressed pronouns: Given referents
    • 4.3 Antitopics: Continuing topics
    • 4.4 Topicalization: Shift to accessible topic
    • 4.5 Separate clause or sentence: Brand new topic
    • 4.6 Topic spotlight clitic =ya
    • 4.7 Prosodically prominent, initial constituents: Contrastive topics
    • 4.8 Contrastive enclitic =na
    • 4.9 Passive: Elimination of non-topical agents
  • 5. Focus constructions
    • 5.1 Broad (all new) focus
    • 5.2 In-situ narrow focus
    • 5.3 Initial-position focus
    • 5.4 Initial position contrastive focus
    • 5.5 Clefts
    • 5.6 Exhaustive focus
    • 5.7 Additive focus
  • 6. Strategies for marking information structure
    • 6.1 Activation state
    • 6.2 Topic
    • 6.3 Focus
    • 6.4 Prosody, syntax, and morphology
  • References
• Chapter 6. Macrosyntactic corpus annotation: The case of Zaar
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Zaar and the Zaar corpus
  • 3. Oral corpora and macrosyntax
    • 3.1 Dysfluencies
    • 3.2 Afterthoughts
    • 3.3 Syntactic relations over turn-taking
    • 3.4 Parallel constructions
  • 4. Macrosyntactic corpus annotation
    • 4.1 Illocutionary Units and basic Illocutionary Components
    • 4.2 IlU introducers
    • 4.3 Associated Illocutionary Units
    • 4.4 Piling
    • 4.5 Non-alignment of Illocutionary Components and Governing
  • 5. Left-dislocation and marked identifying clauses in Zaar
    • 5.1 Topics
    • 5.2 Marked identifying clauses in Zaar
    • 5.3 The prosody of topic and identifying clauses in Zaar
    • 5.4 Syntactic representation
  • 6. Macrosyntax and Information Structure annotation in Elan
  • 7. Typology of pre- and post-nuclei
    • 7.1 Aligned peripheries
    • 7.2 Non-aligned peripheries
  • 8. Conclusion
  • Abbreviations and special symbols
    • General abbreviations
    • Abbreviations in morphosyntactic glossing
    • Function tags in UD representation
  • References
• Part II. Syntax and information structure: Corpus-driven studies
• Chapter 7. Focus marking and differential argument marking: The emergence of bidirectional case marking in Wan
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. The marking of focused transitive subject
  • 3. Bidirectional case marking
  • 4. Relating focus marking to bidirectional case marking
  • 5. Avoidance of prominence violations: Beyond bidirectional marking
  • 6. Conclusion
  • Abbreviations
  • References
• Chapter 8. A topic-marking cleft?: Analyzing clause-initial pronouns in Movima
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Basic clauses and the pronominal construction
    • 2.1 Argument encoding in basic clauses
    • 2.2 The pronominal construction
  • 3. The syntax of the pronominal construction
    • 3.1 The free pronoun as a predicate: Evidence from embedding
    • 3.2 The verb as a subordinate predicate
    • 3.3 Summary: The pronominal construction as a cleft
  • 4. Discourse functions of the pronominal construction
    • 4.1 Marking a contrast
    • 4.2 Marking a new sentence topic
    • 4.3 A note on intonation
  • 5. Discussion
  • Abbreviations and special symbols
  • References
• Chapter 9. Subjects and focus in clefts: The case of Tilapa Otomi
  • 1. A brief introduction to clefts
  • 2. Basics of Tilapa Otomi grammar
  • 3. The copular construction and the clefts of Tilapa Otomi
  • 4. Discussion about the syntactic status of the FP in clefts
  • 5. Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Abbreviations
  • References
• Chapter 10. The influence of the state distinction on word order and information structure in Kabyle and Siwi (Berber)
  • Introduction
  • 1. Kabyle and Siwi
  • 2. Grammatical relations
    • 2.1 Coding means
    • 2.2 Possible constructions
    • 2.3 Conclusion on grammatical relations
  • 3. Information structure
    • 3.1 Same constructions, same functions: Noun outside the prosodic boundary
    • 3.2 Same constructions, same functions, noun inside the prosodic group containing the verb: Function of V(O)
    • 3.3 Different form-function mappings
    • 3.4 Summary
  • 4. Implications and conclusions
  • Abbreviations
  • References
• Chapter 11. Information structure in the Neo-Aramaic dialect of Telkepe
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Concepts in information structure
  • 3. Indexing of topical objects on the verb
  • 4. Flagging of topical objects
  • 5. Word order and intonation in relation to information structure
    • 5.1 Expression of topics
    • 5.2 Expression of focus
    • 5.3 Sentence-focus structures
  • 6. Summary and conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Abbreviations
  • References
• Chapter 12. Information structure in a spoken corpus of Cameroon Pidgin English
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Background
    • 2.1 CPE
    • 2.2 A spoken corpus of Cameroon Pidgin English
    • 2.3 Information structure
  • 3. Methodology
    • 3.1 Elicitation
    • 3.2 Extraction of tokens from the corpus
    • 3.3 Coding
  • 4. Findings
    • 4.1 Marked topic/focus pronouns
    • 4.2 Copula/focus marker na
  • 5. Discussion
    • 5.1 RQ1: Distribution of marked topic/focus pronouns
    • 5.2 RQ2: Repeat pronoun construction
    • 5.3 RQ3: Distribution of na copula/focus marker
    • 5.4 RQ4: Preference for focus fronting over clefting?
    • 5.5 RQ5: Predicate focus construction
    • 5.6 Advantages and limitations of the corpus method
  • 6. Conclusions
  • Abbreviations and transcription
  • References
• Part III. Views from better described languages: Theories and methods
• Chapter 13. The illocutionary basis of information structure: The Language into Act Theory (L-AcT)
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. The Reference unit for speech
    • 2.1 The prosodic identification of speech reference units
    • 2.2 The perceptual relevance of terminal prosodic breaks
    • 2.3 The utterance identification across languages
  • 3. The language into act theory
    • 3.1 The pragmatic foundation of Information Pattern
    • 3.2 The comment unit and the relation prosody / illocutionary force
  • 4. The information pattern
    • 4.1 The topic
    • 4.2 The other textual units
    • 4.3 Dialogic units
  • 5. L-AcT in practice
  • 6. Conclusions
  • References
  • Web sites
• Chapter 14. Annotation guidelines for Questions under Discussion and information structure
  • 1. Introduction
    • 1.1 Information structure
    • 1.2 Discourse structure and Questions under Discussion (QUDs)
    • 1.3 Universality of information-structural notions
    • 1.4 Corpus resources and a prospect for the study of lesser-described languages
  • 2. Preliminaries for the reconstruction of QUDs (and the creation of discourse trees)
    • 2.1 Understanding the text
    • 2.2 Preparing the text
  • 3. Formulating questions under discussion
  • 4. Adding information-structural markup
  • 5. QUDs and information structure in parallel structures
    • 5.1 Parallel structures with a single variable
    • 5.2 Parallel structures with two variables: Contrastive topic + focus
    • 5.3 Embedded focus
  • 6. Non-at-issue material
  • 7. Conditionals
  • 8. Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
  • Appendix 1
  • Appendix 2. Summary of instructions
  • Appendix 3
• Language index
• Notion index