Optimizing Structure in Context: Scrambling and Information Structure (Dissertations in Linguistics) - Softcover

Choi, Hye-Won

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1575861569 ISBN 13: 9781575861562

Publisher: The Center for the Study of Language and Information Publications, 1999

Synopsis

This book examines the scrambling phenomena in German and Korean from the perspective that different ordering possibilities are motivated and constrained by interactions among syntactic, semantic, and discourse principles. Using Optimality Theory, Optimizing Structure in Context demonstrates how these principles from different modules of grammar interact and thus resolve conflicts among themselves to yield the most optimal output, that is, a sentence with a particular word order, in a given semantic and discoursal context. This way, it explains various meaning-related effects associated with scrambling such as definiteness effect and focus effect. While developing constraints in the discourse domain, it also proposes a new model of information structure based on basic discourse features. By expanding the core idea of constraint interaction in Optimality Theory to interactions 'between' modules of grammar as well as 'between', this book provides a model of interface theory.

About this title

Book Description

This book examines the scrambling phenomena in German and Korean from the perspective that different ordering possibilities are motivated and constrained by interactions among syntactic, semantic, and discourse principles.

Edition details

• Publisher: The Center for the Study of Language and Information Publications
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1575861569
• ISBN 13: 9781575861562
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 232