Workshop 10 Information Structure and the Referential Status of Linguistic Expressions as part of the 23th annual meeting of the Deutschen Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft in Leipzig from 28.2. to 2.3.2001. [ Deutsche Version ]
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Contents

Word98 files: [ Abstracts (doc) ]

[ Organizers ] [ Description ]

[ Invited Speakers ] [ Workshop papers ]

[ Images ]

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Organizers

Klaus von Heusinger Fachbereich Sprachwissenschaft Universität Konstanz Fach D 185 78457 Konstanz Germany tel: ++49 - 7531 - 88-3028 fax: ++49 - 7531 - 88 -2741 klaus.heusinger@uni-konstanz.de

Kerstin Schwabe Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft Berlin Jägerstraße 10/11 10117 Berlin Germany tel: ++49 - 30 - 20192410 fax: ++49 - 30 - 20192312 schwabe@zas.gwz-berlin.de

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Description

Information structure has been of great interest for some time. In recent theories, information structure is investigated with respect to its relation to intonation, its role in the interpretation of focus particles, or its impact on establishing ellipsis. However, there are very few approaches that focus on the effect of information structure on the referential status of linguistic expressions.

The Workshop intends to discuss the relation between information structure and the referential properties of two prominent linguistic units: indefinite NPs and clauses. On the one hand, we intend to discuss the interpretation of indefinite NPs with respect to the information structure, on the other hand, we want to investigate the connection between information structure and sentence mood.

Specific areas of inquiry include, but are not limited to the following:

1. What is the impact of linguistic context on the interpretation of indefinite NPs?
2. How are indefinites interpreted in contrastive focus, presentational focus or background as well as in topic or comment?
3. To what extend does the interpretation of an indefinite depend on the sentence mood of the sentence it is embedded in? (Cf. 'Have you seen a dog? *Yes, I've fed it. vs. Peter has seen a dog. He has fed it.)
4. How does information structure syntactically and semantically interact with sentence mood?
5. Are there any pieces of evidence for the assumption that information structure may determine the referential status of a sentence?
6. How do discourse relations determine the sentence types and thus the referential status of the respective sentence?

The objective of the workshop is to integrate syntactic investigations on the field of sentence mood with semantic approaches towards the interpretation of indefinite NPs in the light of information structure and hopes thus to gain synergetically new insights.

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Invited Speakers

Asher, Nicolas	Anchoring uses of Definites and Coordination [ Abstract ]
Borschev, Vladimir & Partee, Barbara	Negated Existential Sentences and Information Structure in Russian [ Abstract ]
Kamp, Hans	Anchored Representations and Indefinite NPs [ Abstract ]
Lenerz, Jürgen	Referenz und Scrambling [ Abstract ]
Portner, Paul	Topicality and the Interpretation of Indefinites [ Abstract ]
Steube, Anita	Artikel und Informationsstruktur [ Abstract ]

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Workshop papers

Büring, Daniel What do indefinites do that definites definitely don't [ Abstract ]

Breul, Carsten Focus Structure and the referential status of indefinite quantificational expressions [ Abstract ]

Brun, Diana Information Structure and the Status of NP in Russian [ Abstract ]

Quiben Moreno, Norberto & Jimenez Perez, Isabel Information Structure and Logical Form: Backgrounded Bare Plural Noun Phrases in Spanish [ Abstract ]

Reich, Ingo Frage/Antwort-Kongruenz und die Semantik von w-Phrasen [ Abstract ]

Asher, Nicolas Deictically and anaphorically anchoerde presuppositions of definites [ Abstract ]

Portner, Paul Topicality and (non-)specificity in Mandarin [ Abstract ]

Kamp, Hans Anchored Representations and indefinite NPs [ Abstract ]

Steube, Anita Artikel und Informationsstruktur [ Abstract ]

Lohnstein, Horst Satzstruktur und Referenz [ Abstract ]

Stark, Elisabeth Spezifizität und Informationsstruktur - lexikalische Differenzierungen im Bereich der Indefinitheit (im Altitalienischen) [ Abstract ]

Umbach, Carla Zum Zusammenhang von Informationsstruktur und Referenz von Nominalphrase [ Abstract ]

d'Avis, Franz Über die Interpretation gewisser w-Phrasen in exklamativen Kontexten [ Abstract ]

Fabricius-Hansen, Cathrine Modale Subordination und Informationsstruktur aus Übersetzungsperspektive [ Abstract ]

Gaertner, Hans-Martin On the force of V2 declaratives [ Abstract ]

Hegarty, Michael &Gundel, Jeannette & Borthen, Kaja Information Structure and the Accessibility of Clausally Introduced Referents [ Abstract ]

Borschev, Vladimir & Partee, Barbara Negated Existential Sentences and Information Structure in Russian [ Abstract ]

Lenerz, Jürgen Referenz und scrambling [ Abstract ]

Reserve list

Name	Title
Endriss, Cornelia & Haida, Andreas	Wide Scope Interpretation and Specificity [ Abstract ]
Frey, Werner	Indefinite und ihre Plazierung im Mittelfeld [ Abstract ]
van Hoof, Hanneke	About the Referential Status of Split DPs [ Abstract ]
Lechene-Chardon, Emmanuelle	Intonational Status of Subjunctive Interrogative Clauses in Modern French [ Abstract ]
Pafel, Jürgen	Satztyp und kommunikative Intention [ Abstract ]

Word98 files: [ Abstracts (doc) ]

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Workshop Sentence Type and Specificity

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