http://psych.colorado.edu/~kimlab/Gibson.1998.pdf

Formal methods in the study of language

Linguistic complexity: locality of syntactic dependencies

http://web.stanford.edu/~clark/1980s/Clark,%20H.H.%20_%20Schaefer,%20E.F.%20_Contributing%20to%20discourse_%201989.pdf

Contributing to discourse

Preface. 0: Preliminaries. 0.1. Theories of Meaning. 0.2. Logic. 0.3. Logic and Semantics. 0.4. Syntax. 1: DRT and Predicate Logic. 1.1. Simple Sentences. 1.2. Models. 1.3. Negation. 1.4. Verification, Truth and Accessibility. 1.5. From DRT to Predicate Logic. 2: Quantification and Connectives. 2.1. Conditionals. 2.2. Universal Quantification. 2.3. Disjunction. 2.4. Conjunction. 3: Loose Ends. 3.1. Reflexives. 3.2. Possessive Noun Phrases. 3.3. Proper Names. 3.4. Definite Descriptions. 3.5. Stipulated Identity and Asserted Identity. 3.6. Identity and Predication. 3.7. Scope Amibiguity. 4: The Plural. 4.1. Introduction. 4.2. DRS-Construction for Plurals I. 4.3. Model Theory. 4.4. DRS-Construction for Plurals II. 5: Tense and Aspect. 5.1. The Semantics and Logic of Temporal Reference. 5.2. DRS-Construction for Tensed Sentences. 5.3. Aspect. 5.4. Temporal Perspective. 5.5. Temporal Adverbials. 5.6. Model Theory. 5.7. Syntactic Rules. Bibliography. Table of Construction Rules. Index of Symbols, Features and Feature Values. Index of Names. Index of Subjects.

From Discourse to Logic : Introduction to Modeltheoretic Semantics of Natural Language Formal Logic and Discourse Representation Theory

feature specification of identificational focus is shown to be subject to parametric variation: the focus operators of various languages are specified for the positive value of either or both of the features [+exhaustive] and [+contrastive].* I will put forth two major claims in this article: first, that IDENTIFICATIONAL FOCUS (sometimes also called contrastive focus) has to be consistently distinguished from a mere INFORMATION FOCUS (or presentational focus), as it has syntactic and semantic properties that a mere information focus does not share. Second, I will show that the identificational focus itself is not uniform across languages; it is associated with different subsets of a set of semantic features. Identificational focus and information focus are often mingled in language description, which leads to contradictory statements on focus. I identify the syntactic and semantic properties of identificational focus on the basis of Hungarian and English material, and argue that English, like Hungarian, is a language with visible identificational focus movement. The identificational focus is realized as a cleft constituent. I then discuss a special type of identificational focus: the only-phrase, and finally I compare the feature content of the identificational focus of Hungarian and English with the feature contents of its Italian, Rumanian, Catalan, Greek, Arabic, and Finnish counterparts. 1. A NEGLECTED DISTINCTION. The claim that two different types of focus can be distinguished-one expressing a quantification-like operation, and another merely conveying nonpresupposed information-has been present in the linguistic literature for a long time (see, for example, Halliday 1967 and Rochemont 1986), although the interpretations attributed to the two focus notions (variously called CONTRASTIVE FOCUS versus PRESENTATIONAL FOCUS, NARROW FOCUS versus WIDE FOCUS, or in this article, IDENTIFICATIONAL FOCUS versus INFORMATION FOCUS) have not always been exactly the same.

Identificational focus versus information focus

This article takes stock of the basic notions of Information Structure (IS). It first provides a general characterization of IS—following Chafe (1976)—within a communicative model of Common Ground (CG), which distinguishes between CG content and CG management. IS is concerned with those features of language that affect the local CG. Second, this paper defines and discusses the notions of Focus (as indicating alternatives) and its various uses, Givenness (as indicating that a denotation is already present in the CG), and Topic (as specifying what a statement is about). It also proposes a new notion, Delimitation, which comprises contrastive topics and frame setters, and indicates that the current conversational move does not entirely satisfy the local communicative needs. It also points out that rhetorical structuring partly belongs to IS.

/pdf/basic-notions-of-information-structure-4f9bsgamht.pdf

Basic notions of information structure

Communication using symbols (such as words) structured with grammar

Formal methods in the study of language

Citations

Linguistic complexity: locality of syntactic dependencies

Contributing to discourse

From Discourse to Logic : Introduction to Modeltheoretic Semantics of Natural Language Formal Logic and Discourse Representation Theory

Identificational focus versus information focus

Basic notions of information structure

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