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Informational articulations in
Functional Discourse Grammar
Kees Hengeveld
ACLC -University of Amsterdam
Introduction
Functional Discourse Grammar accounts for
categories of information structure through
the assignment of pragmatic functions to
referential and predicational units
These pragmatic functions are organized along
three parameters: Topic-Comment, FocusBackground, and Contrast-Overlap
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Introduction
Functions chosen along each of these
parameters may be combined
These combinations allow for a systematic
definition of informational articulations, which
characterize the overall information structure
of a Discourse Act
The variation in the ways language express
these informational articulations can be
described systematically on the basis of the
parameters that define them
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Contents
1. Functional Discourse Grammar
2. Pragmatic functions
3. Informational articulations
4. The typology of informational articulations
5. Conclusion
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Functional Discourse Grammar
Features
1. Top-down rather than bottom up grammar
2. Discourse rather than sentence grammar
3. Grammatical component connected to
conceptual, contextual and output
components
4. Four levels of representation: pragmatic,
semantic, morphosyntactic, and
phonological
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1. Top-down
• Assumption: a model of grammar is more
effective the more its organization resembles
language processing in the individual
• Language production is a top down process,
starting with intentions, working down to the
articulation of the actual linguistic expression
• The grammatical production model reflects
this process and is organized in a top-down
fashion
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2. Discourse grammar
•
•
Many grammatical phenomena can only be
interpreted in terms of units larger than
individual sentences: narrative
constructions, discourse particles,
anaphorical chains, tail-head linkage, etc.
Many utterances are non-sentential:
holophrases, exclamations, vocatives, etc.
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2. Discourse grammar
... turus jafa
cahi
... then
carry.on.the.back basket 3.NH=there
Jafa
turus ena=ge
saloi
paka
ine.
then 3.NH=there ascend
Ine
una
ena=ge
go.upwards
oka
koi ...
go.upwards 3.SG.M pick banana
'...then Jafa carried the saloi and went upwards. Went
upwards he picked the bananas ...‘
Tidore (van Staden 2000: 275)
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2. Discourse grammar
Non-sentential utterances:
• Holophrases:
(What are you eating?) A donut.
• Exclamations:
Congratulations!
• Vocatives
Oh John!
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2. Discourse grammar
• The basic unit of discourse is not the
sentence but the discourse act
• Discourse acts combine into moves, which in
turn may enter into larger discourse
structures
• Discourse acts may be manifested in
language as sentences, but also as sentence
fragments, phrases or words
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3. Conceptual, contextual and output
components
• Conceptual component is the driving force
behind the grammatical component
• Contextual component is the discourse
domain on the basis of which new utterances
are produced in the grammatical component
• Output component generates acoustic,
signed, or orthographic expressions on the
basis of information provided by the
grammatical component
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4. Levels of representation
Interpersonal level
1. A. Get out of here!
B. Don’t talk to me like that !
Representational level
2. A. There are lots of traffic lights in this town.
B. I didn’t notice that.
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4. Levels of representation
Morphosyntactic level
3. A. I had chuletas de cordero last night.
B. Is that how you say ‘lamb chops’ in
Spanish?
Phonological level
4. A. I had /tʃuletɑs#de#kordero/ last night.
B. Shouldn’t that be /tʃuletɑs#de#θordero/ ?
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4. Levels of representation
Interpersonal level: pragmatics.
Representational level: semantics.
Morphosyntactic level: morphosyntax.
Phonological level: phonology.
All levels are purely linguistic in nature: they
describe language in terms of its functions,
but only in so far as these functions are
encoded in the grammar of a language.
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Conceptual Component
G
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Frames,
Lexemes,
Operators
Templates,
Grammatical
elements
Prosodic
Contours,
Sounds
Formulation
Pragmatics, Semantics
Encoding
Morphosyntax, Phonology
Articulation
Expression Level
C
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Conceptual Component
G
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Frames,
Lexemes,
Operators
Templates,
Grammatical
elements
Prosodic
Contours,
Sounds
Formulation
Pragmatics, Semantics
Encoding
Morphosyntax, Phonology
Articulation
Expression Level
C
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C
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Levels and Layers
• Interpersonal
(A1: [(FI: ILL (FI)) (P1)S (P2)A (C1: [(T1) (R1)] (C1))] (A1))
• Representational
(p1: (ep1: [(e1: [(f1) (x1)] (e1))] (ep1)) (p1))
• Morphosyntactic
(Le1: [(Cl1: [(Xw1) (Xp1: [Xw2 (Xp2)] (Xp1))] (Cl1))] (Le1))
• Phonological
(U1: [(IP1: [(PP1: [(PW1)] (PP1))] (IP1))n] (U1))
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Levels and primitives
I like these bananas.
(id RI)
(prox m xi: [(fi: /bə’nɑ:nə/N (fi)) (xi)Φ])
(Npi: [(Gwi: this-pl (Gwi)) (Nwi: /bə’nɑ:nə/-pl (Nwi))] (Npi))
(ppi: [(pwi: /ði:z/ (pwi)) (pwj: /bə’nɑ:nəz/ (pwj))] (ppi))
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Pragmatic functions
Pragmatic functions
Three dimensions:
Topic vs Comment
Focus vs Background
Contrast vs Overlap
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Pragmatic functions
Marked members:
Topic vs Comment
Focus vs Background
Contrast vs Overlap
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Pragmatic functions: Topic
Gol-a-ro
mæhin
ab
flower-PL-TOP
Mahin
water
'Mahin watered the flowers.'
dad.
gave
Persian, Mahootian 1997: 122
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Pragmatic functions: Focus
Ndu-nde takhim-gende?
sago-FOC buy-3PL.PRS.FINAL
'They buy sago.'
Wambon, de Vries 1985: 172
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Pragmatic functions: Contrast
Ao po:-lә
te
tam ja:h-si-u
li-zya.
this place-in CONTR wheat put-DETR-NML be-CNT
'In this place (as opposed to others) wheat has
been sown.'
Kham, Watters 2002: 183
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Pragmatic functions
Domain: Communicated Content at the
Interpersonal Level
(A1: [(FI: ILL (FI)) (P1)S (P2)A (C1: [(T1)FOC (R1)TOP ] (C1))] (A1))
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Pragmatic functions
May attach to referential and ascriptive subacts:
(C1: [(T1) (R1)TOP] (C1))
(C1: [(T1)TOP (R1)] (C1))
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Pragmatic functions: Topic
Llov-er
no lluev-e.
rain-INF
NEG rain-PRS.3.SG.IND
‘It doesn’t rain here.’
“Rain it doesn’t rain.”
Spanish
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Pragmatic functions
May attach to referential and ascriptive subacts:
(C1: [(T1) (R1)FOC] (C1))
(C1: [(T1)FOC (R1)] (C1))
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Pragmatic functions: Focus
Se vini
Jan mèt vini.
FOC come Jan may come
‘Jan may come.’
Haitian Creole, Glaude fc.
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Pragmatic functions
May attach to referential and ascriptive subacts:
(C1: [(T1) (R1)CONTR] (C1))
(C1: [(T1)CONTR (R1)] (C1))
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Pragmatic functions: Contrast
Ma-nɪ-́υ
kabiyɛ kɪ ́ nɪ-́υ,
1.SG-understand-IMPF Kabiye KI understand-INF
ma-a yɔɔd-υ
kυ
1SG-NEG speak-IMPF it
‘I only understand Kabiye. I don’t speak it.’
Kabiye, Collins & Essizewa 2007: 191
Functional Discourse Grammar
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Pragmatic functions
Combining pragmatic functions
Focus/Contrast
Topic/Contrast
Focus/Topic
Focus/Topic/Contrast
etc
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Pragmatic functions
Combining pragmatic functions
Presentatives:
(C1: [(R1)FOC/TOP] (C1))
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Pragmatic functions: Focus/Topic
Hiza=hayza’ ila koSa’en ka SaiSiyat.
there=EX
PFV PAUS
NOM Saisiyat
‘Once there were Saisiyats.’
Saisiyat (Hsieh & Huang 2006: 100):
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Informational articulations
Informational articulations
Presentatives show that a Discourse Act may
consist of just a Topic and not have a
Comment
The opposite is also true, in that a Discourse
Act may consist of just a Comment and not
have a Topic, as in the case of Thetics
This means that there is ‘transitivity’ involved in
informational articulations
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Informational articulations
Smit (2010) therefore proposes to introduce
Topic and Comment layers within
Communicated Contents:
(C1: [(Top1) (Cm1)])
(C1: [(Top1)])
(C1: [ (Cm1)])
‘Transitive frame’
‘Intransitive frame’
‘Intransitive frame’
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Informational articulations
The Topic and Comment layers themselves
contain Referential and or Ascriptive Subacts,
e.g.:
(C1: [(Top1: [(R1)]) (Cm1: [(T1) (R2)])])
‘The butcher sells veal chops.’
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Informational articulations
A focus operator can be added to the Topic
layer, the Comment layer, a Referential
Subact or an Ascriptive Subact.
(C1: [(Top1: [(R1)]) (Cm1: [(T1) (R2)])])
‘The butcher sells veal chops.’
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Informational articulations
Focus assignment to a Referential Subact or an
Ascriptive Subact leads to identificational
focus, e.g.
(C1: [(Top1: [(R1)]) (Cm1: [(T1) (Foc R2)])])
(What does the butcher sell?)
‘The butcher sells veal chops.’
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Informational articulations
Focus assignment to the Topic or the Comment
layer, combined with the transitive
ofrintransitive nature of the frame, leads to
four possible combinations:
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Informational articulations
Focal Topic
One-place Topic-central
Thetic
Two-place Topic-central
Categorical
Focal Comment
Comment-central
Thetic
Comment-central
Categorical
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Informational articulations
Focal Topic
One-place Focal Topic
No Comment
Two-place Focal Topic
Comment
Focal Comment
No Topic
Focal Comment
Topic
Focal Comment
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Informational articulations
Topic-central Thetic (presentative)
(C1: [(Foc Top1)])
Comment-central Thetic (thetic)
(C1: [(Foc Cm1)])
Topic-central Categorical
(C1: [(Foc Top1) (Cm1)])
Comment-central Categorical (Categorical)
(C1: [(Top1) (Foc Cm1)])
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Topic-central Thetic
(C1: [(Foc Top1)])
Introduction of new topic
There is beer without alcohol
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Comment-central Thetic
(C1: [(Foc Cm1)])
All new discourse act
(What happened?)
A train arrived.
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Comment-central categorical
(C1: [(Top1) (Foc Cm1)])
Focal comment about a given topic
(What did he do?)
He put his house on fire.
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Topic-central categorical
(C1: [(Foc Top1) (Cm1)])
Introduction of new topic and ensuing comment
within the same discourse act
(no previous mention of ‘fire’)
... and the fire it burned
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Topic-central categorical
Often avoided and realized in two discourse
acts
As for the fire, it burned
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The typology of informational
articulations
Typology
Based on the various parameters involved,
informational articulation can be (dis)similar in
various respects
The expectation is that when they are similar,
they may share the same expression
strategy, but when they are dissimilar, they
may not
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Typology
This leads to interesting results, presented in
Smit (2010)
He classifies 82 coding strategies from 15
languages. 34 of these coding strategies
express more then 1 informational articulation
These cases distribute as follows:
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One-place strategy
3
Focal Topic
One-place Focal Topic
No Comment
Two-place Focal Topic
Comment
Focal Comment
No Topic
Focal Comment
Topic
Focal Comment
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Two-place strategy
7
Focal Topic
One-place Focal Topic
No Comment
Two-place Focal Topic
Comment
Focal Comment
No Topic
Focal Comment
Topic
Focal Comment
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Topic strategy
4
Focal Topic
One-place Focal Topic
No Comment
Two-place Focal Topic
Comment
Focal Comment
No Topic
Focal Comment
Topic
Focal Comment
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Comment strategy
4
Focal Topic
One-place Focal Topic
No Comment
Two-place Focal Topic
Comment
Focal Comment
No Topic
Focal Comment
Topic
Focal Comment
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Focal Topic strategy
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Focal Topic
One-place Focal Topic
No Comment
Two-place Focal Topic
Comment
Focal Comment
No Topic
Focal Comment
Topic
Focal Comment
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Focal Comment strategy
6
Focal Topic
One-place Focal Topic
No Comment
Two-place Focal Topic
Comment
Focal Comment
No Topic
Focal Comment
Topic
Focal Comment
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??? strategy
0
Focal Topic
One-place Focal Topic
No Comment
Two-place Focal Topic
Comment
Focal Comment
No Topic
Focal Comment
Topic
Focal Comment
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??? strategy
0
Focal Topic
One-place Focal Topic
No Comment
Two-place Focal Topic
Comment
Focal Comment
No Topic
Focal Comment
Topic
Focal Comment
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??? strategy
0
Focal Topic
One-place Focal Topic
No Comment
Two-place Focal Topic
Comment
Focal Comment
No Topic
Focal Comment
Topic
Focal Comment
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??? strategy
4?
Focal Topic
One-place Focal Topic
No Comment
Two-place Focal Topic
Comment
Focal Comment
No Topic
Focal Comment
Topic
Focal Comment
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Conclusions
Conclusions
FDG offers the tools to systematically define a
number of informational articulations by
combining three parameters of information
structuring
These informational articulations allows for
typological generalizations concerning the
extent to which the same coding strategy may
be used for the expression of combinations of
articulations
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This presentation can be downloaded from
www.keeshengeveld.nl