Re: THEORY: Information Structure; Topic/Comment, Focus/Background, Given/New.

        --- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Chris Bates <chris.maths_student@N...> wrote:
>> Likewise, if the sentence is "...X...Y...Z..."; it may be that
>> "...X..." is the most Given information; "...Z..." is the Newest
>> information; and "...Y..." is transitional between them.
>
> There's a language called Lisu spoken somewhere in South Eastern Asia
> which allows you to use its topic marker with more than one argument.
> If you want you can designate every single argument except the verb
> as the topic (forcing the verb to be the focus) or you can mark the
> entire clause except one argument as the topic (although to do that
> you need some kind of cleft construction).
[snip]
  This next information comes from
"Information Perspective, Profile, and Patterns in Quechua" by David J. Weber of Huanuco,
Peru, which is Chapter Eight
 in Part One: "Evidentiality in North and South America" in the 1986 book
"Evidentiality: the Linguistic Coding of Epistemology", edited by Wallace Chafe
and Johanna Nichols, which is Volume XX
  in the series "Advances in Discourse Processes".
  On ppages 137-155, he looks mainly at the dialects of Marias, Matihuaca, and Llacon.
  He makes three major points.

 1.-mi/shi/chi ('-DIR/IND/CNJ')('direct/indirect/conjecture') give a
perspective on the information in the sentence. By "perspective" he means:
  * How the speaker came by the information (firsthand/secondhand, i.e., evidential)
  * The speaker's attitude to the information (fact/fiction/conjecture, i.e., validational)
  * What the listener is expected to do with the information (believe/doubt/act on it).

 2. The relative order of the markers -qa ('TOPIC'), -mi/shi/chi, and the verb,
define a pattern which he calls an information profile, which he says roughly
characterizes the sentence's progression from topic to comment or given to new
or background to focus.

  3. Deviating from the normal pattern is a rhetorical device.

  ----------

  As for point 2;
 he says in Conclusion 4 on pages 153 and 154 that "in 'ordinary' sentences,
the 'thematic' material [topic, given, background] is to the left [he means,
before] the evidential [-mi/-shi/-chi] suffix, and the 'rhematic' material
follows the last pre-verbal ["TOPIC" marker] "-qa".

  -----

 That means, there can be a gap between the Theme and the Rheme; or, the Theme
and the Rheme can overlap.

  If I had a sentence like

  A-qa B-qa C-mi D-qa V E-qa F-qa

  A B is the Theme, while V E F is the Rheme.

  C D is in a gap between the Theme and the Rheme.


  If I had a sentence like;

  A-qa B-qa V C-qa D-qa E-mi F-qa

  A B V C D is the Theme, while V C D E F is the Rheme.

  They overlape in V C D.


  ----------

  In one dialect the pattern is;

  from zero up to any number of arguments all marked by -qa
  optionally followed by zero to one argument marked by one of -mi or -shi or -chi
  followed by a verb
  followed by zero to two objects and subjects both marked by  -qa

  --

  In another dialect the pattern is;

  from zero to one arguments marked by one of -mi or -shi or -chi
  optionally followed by from zero up to any number of arguments all marked by -qa
    followed by a verb
  followed by zero to two objects and subjects both marked by  -qa

  --

  A third dialect frequently has the following two patterns;

  An argument, optionally marked by -qa, and then also marked by one of -mi or -shi or -chi
  followed by an argument marked by  -qa
  followed by a verb.

    An argument marked by one of -mi or -shi or -chi
    followed by from zero up to two arguments marked by  -qa
    followed by a verb.

  --

  There are three main deviations from these patterns.

  Ah, heck, I'm about to get timed out.

 Oh, well, the deviations are probably less germane to the thread's title
anyway; they are for rhetorical effect.

  Tom H.C. in MI










		
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