Workshop

Discourse Domains and Information Structure

(8 - 12th of August, 2005)

organized as part of
European Summer School on Logic, Language and Information, Edinburgh (http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/esslli05/" target="_blank">ESSLLI 2005)


Workshop Program (including papers/handouts)


Carla Umbach
University of Osnabrueck
Institute of Cognitive Science
Kolpingstraße 7
D-49074 Osnabrueck
Germany
Email: carla.umbach@uos.de
Klaus von Heusinger
Institute of Linguistics (ILG)
University of Stuttgart
Postfach 10 60 37
D-70049 Stuttgart
Germany
Email: vonHeusinger@ilg.uni-stuttgart.de

Workshop Description

The hierarchical structure of a discourse is best represented by different kinds of discourse domains: Anaphoric accessibility crucially depends on semantic operators that create new domains (like negation), presuppositions are projected according to properties of the discourse, and the quaestio or q(estion)u(nder)d(iscussion)-approach structures a discourse into a hierarchical tree. Information structure, on the other hand, is commonly assumed to be a flat structure: the partition into backgrounded and focused information or into topic and comment. The workshop will investigate the interaction between discourse domains and information structure.
Topics:
  • Background accessibility in hierarchical discourse domains
  • Presuppositions as anaphors in a theory of information structure
  • Presuppositions, anaphoric relations, and alternative sets
  • Focus/background structure and embedded sentences
  • Topic/comment and embedded sentences
  • Invited Speakers

    Workshop Programme Committee call for papers