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The information structure of Danish grammar constructions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2009

Patrizia Paggio
Patrizia Paggio*
Affiliation:
Københavns Universitet, Center for Sprogteknologi, Njalsgade 140–142, bygning 25, 2300 Københavns [email protected]
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Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of how information structure can be accounted for in a formal grammar of Danish. Three information structure features – topic, focus and background – are discussed, and it is shown how they are instantiated in a number of different grammatical constructions from a corpus of spoken Danish. Prosodic, syntactic and information structure constraints characterising the various constructions are represented as typed feature structures following Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG), and the constructions themselves are ordered in a type hierarchy. The proposed approach modifies and extends earlier HPSG-based accounts by integrating information structure as a dimension of phrasal and clausal grammar constructions.

Keywords

Danish grammarfocusinformation structuretopic
Type
Research Article
Information
Nordic Journal of Linguistics , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , June 2009 , pp. 137 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © Nordic Association of Linguistics 2009

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