Elinor Ochs Keenan

Bio: Elinor Ochs Keenan is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Foregrounding & Dislocation (syntax). The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 72 citations.

Foregrounding Referents: A Reconsideration of Left Dislocation in Discourse

Abstract: Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1976), pp. 240-257

The Informational Component

Abstract: The Informational Component Enric Vallduv Supervisor: Ellen F. Prince Even though the relevance of non-truth-conditional notions like `topic' and `focus' in sentence structure and interpretation has long been recognized, there is little agreement on the exact nature of these notions and their role in a model of linguistic competence. Following the information-packaging approach (Chafe 1976, Prince 1986), this study argues that these notions are primitive elements in the informational component of language. This component, informatics, is responsible for the articulation of sentences qua information, where information is de ned as that part of propositional content which constitutes a contribution of knowledge to the hearer's knowledge-store. Informational primitives combine into four possible distinct information-packaging instructions, which direct hearers to retrieve the information of a sentence and enter it into their knowledge-store in a speci c way. After a discussion of previous approaches to the informational articulation of the sentence, a hierarchical articulation is proposed: sentences are divided into the focus, which is the only information of the sentence, and the ground, which speci es how that information ts in the hearer's knowledge-store. The ground is further divided into the link, which denotes an address in the hearer's knowledge-store under which s/he is instructed to enter the information, and the tail, which provides further directions on how the information must be entered under a given address. Empirical support for this representation of information packaging comes especially from the surface encoding of instructions in Catalan, which is then contrasted with that of English. Using a multistratal syntactic theory, it is then proposed that information packaging is structurally and purely represented at the abstract level of IS, which acts as an interface with informatics. Finally, in order to further argue for informatics as an autonomous linguistic component, some proposals that attempt to include informational notions under logical semantics are reviewed and countered. This study is an e ort to gain insight into one subdomain of pragmatics by integrating it into the larger process of language understanding. This is done by giving otherwise elusive informational notions a speci c role in the component responsible for the entry of information into the hearer's knowledge-store. v

First Language Attrition, Use and Maintenance: The case of German Jews in anglophone countries

Abstract: 1. Abbreviations 2. Preface 3. Introduction 4. 1. Language contact, language change, and language attrition 5. 2. The situation of German Jews: A historical overview 6. 3. The study 7. 4. Morphology: NP-inflection 8. 5. Morphology II: VP inflection 9. 6. Syntax 10. 7. Predictor variables 11. Conclusion 12. Notes 13. References 14. Appendixes 15. Index

Topic and focus in Mayan

Abstract: Most Mayan languages are 'basically' predicate-initial, but various phrases occur before the predicate when they are focussed or topicalized. This paper assumes the framework of Chomsky 1986 and presents a phrase-structural analysis of topic and focus for three Mayan languages (Tzotzil, Jakaltek, Tz'utujil). Three distinct entities are distinguished: the focus and two types of topic, termed here 'internal' and 'external'. Each is argued to occupy a distinct structural position. At the heart of the analysis is an account of intonational phrasing and the distribution of several intonational phrase clitics in Tzotzil and Jakaltek. An algorithm is proposed for deriving intonational phrase structure from surface structure. Syntactic evidence further supports the phrase-structural differences established on prosodic grounds.

The one to one principle of interlanguage construction

Abstract: Studies of pidginization have often characterized the minimal nonnative linguistic systems that result from the process of pidginization in negative terms, as the absence of morphosyntactic features of the native target language. Such negative definitions (1) fail to explain what pidgins are like and how they get that way and (2) fail to provide a means for describing and explaining continual linguistic development of nonnative interlanguage systems beyond the minimal skeletal systems characteristic of the earliest stage of interlanguage development. This paper suggests that one important principle of interlanguage construction can account for both minimal "pidginized" interlanguage systems and more developed interlanguage systems. The One to One Principle of interlanguage construction specifies that an interlanguage system should be constructed in such a way that an intended underlying meaning is expressed with one clear invariant surface form or construction. Evidence for this principle is drawn from recent second language acquisition research on Dutch, English, French, German, Spanish, and Swedish as second languages.

Interactional Linguistics: Studying Language in Social Interaction

Abstract: The first textbook dedicated to interactional linguistics, focusing on linguistic analyses of conversational phenomena, this introduction provides an overview of the theory and methodology of interactional linguistics. Reviewing recent findings on linguistic practices used in turn construction and turn taking, repair, action formation, ascription, and sequence and topic organization, the book examines the way that linguistic units of varying size - sentences, clauses, phrases, clause combinations, and particles - are mobilized for the implementation of specific actions in talk-in-interaction. A final chapter discusses the implications of an interactional perspective for our understanding of language as well as its variation, diversity, and universality. Supplementary online chapters explore additional topics such as the linguistic organization of preference, stance, footing, and storytelling, as well as the use of prosody and phonetics, and further practices with language. Featuring summary boxes and transcripts from recordings of everyday conversation, this is an essential resource for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate courses on language in social interaction.