EBOOK Information Structure:Theoretical, Typological, and Experimental Perspectives

In this book leading scholars provide state-of-the-art overviews of approaches to        the formal expression of information structure in natural language and its        interaction with general principles of human cognition and communication. They        present critical accounts of current understanding of how aspects of grammar, such        as prosody, syntax, morphology, semantics, and pragmatics, interact in the packing        and unpacking of information in communication. They also look at        thepsycholinguistics behind the production and perception of information-structural        categories. The book reflects the advances in recent research on all central aspects        of the subject, including concepts of focus versus background, topic versus comment,        and given versus new, and the kinds of inferences required to makesense of different        combinations of words, syntax, intonation, and context. The chapters include        typological and diachronic perspectives on information structure. Taken as a whole        the book demonstrates the productive value of combiningtheoretical and experimental        approaches.