Discourse Functions & Features

After the introduction to the definition of i-structure in LFG, it is necessary to

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The terminology in King (1997), naming the symbols of information-structural notions as “discourse functions”, is followed in the present thesis. Another terminology is “pragmatic functions” in Andrews (2007). In fact, discourse and pragmatics are closely related with each other. The former is chosen just for convenience.

establish the basic units of i-structure, discourse functions and features. As presented earlier in the literature review part of Chapter 2, LFG linguists adopt the feature-based approach to differentiate discourse functions, such as Choi’s (1997, 1999, 2001) two discourse partitioning features [±New] and [±Prom] for topic, tail, contrastive focus and completive focus. These two discourse features cannot meet the need of the present thesis; therefore, in order to cover the phenomena in Squliq Atayal, the inventory of discourse features is expanded by adding another two features, aboutness and contrast, and by converting newness into givenness. The expanded inventory of discourse features is presented below:

(84) Discourse Features

 Givenness (GIV): whether information is presumably possessed by the audience (+) or not (−) in current information flow;

 Aboutness (ABT): whether information is important (+) or unimportant (−) in subsequent information flow;

 Prominence (PROM): whether information is salient (+) or nonprominent (−);  Contrast (CONT): whether the salience of information is to highlight its

referent against others in a set of the same proposition (+) or not (−).

Aboutness (ABT) indicates whether the information conveyed by an entity is important in information flow and relevant to the communicative goal.64 This discourse feature is independent from givenness, as manifested in Tomlin and Rhodes’s (1992) discovery that in a sentence of Ojibwa thematic information (i.e. the knowledge which the addresser assumes to be relevant to the goal of the communicative event) tends to be placed in a position different from shared information (i.e. the knowledge which the addresser assumes to share with the addressee). However, both importance and relevance are abstract notions and how to judge them is rather subjective. The present

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Reinhart’s (1981) and Strawson’s (1964) definition of topics also made use of the term aboutness from the perspective of semantics, in which sentence topic determines the truth value of a sentence. In line with Van Dijk’s (1977) distinction between sentence topic and discourse topic, Reinhart’s (1981) differentiated the aboutness of sentence topic and that of discourse topic. The aboutness in the present thesis refers to the latter.

thesis applies Givón’s measurement of topic persistence to implement the analysis of “aboutness”. In accordance with this measurement, the word subsequent is added to the definition.

The other discourse feature added here, contrast (CONT), marks whether an entity in a context set conveys information which stands out against other set members. As mentioned in Chapter 2, its existence has been recognized by linguists and discovered in many languages. It is claimed in the present thesis that contrast is a discourse feature subordinate to prominence because contrastive information always goes with prominent morphosyntactic structures or prosodic structures cross-linguistically (Givón 1990).

As for the conversion of newness into givenness, it is due to the language-particular fact that Squliq Atayal is more sensitive to givenness than newness, the details of which will be demonstrated later. In fact, newness “allows further breakdown into whether the information is discourse-new or addressee-new (Los, López-Couso & Meurman-Solin 2012).” Likewise, the broad sense of givenness can be further divided into two categories: (the narrow sense of) givenness (GIV) and oldness, the former of which stands for the information known or presumed to be in possession of an audience whereas the latter of which stands for the information already mentioned in previous discourse, opposite to discourse-newness, as proposed in Erteschik-Shir (2007) and Ward, Birner & Huddleston (2002).65 It is always the case that the information mentioned earlier in discourse is presumed to be in possession of an audience. That is, oldness is always subsumed by givenness. Therefore, this categorization is not adopted in the present thesis.

With the interplay of the above four partitioning discourse features, twelve discourse functions are identified and defined, as shown in Table 4-1: contrastive topic

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The distinction between givenness and oldness is manifested in the discourse-pragmatic difference between the topic marker wa in Japanese and the topic marker nun in Korean. They have been viewed as the equivalent of one another, but the former refers to given information while the latter encodes old information (Lee & Shimojo 2016).

(CSTOP), switch topic (SWTOP), contrastive theme (CSTHM), scene-setting topic (SSTOP), continuing topic (CTTOP), background information (BKINF), contrastive focus (CSFOC), introductory focus (ITFOC), interrogative focus (QFOC), highlighted rheme (HLRHM), presentational focus (PSFOC) and completive information (CPINF). Gray columns mark the inapplicability of contrast under [− PROM].

Table 4-1 Discourse Functions Proposed in the Present Thesis

[GIV] [ABT] [PROM] [CONT]

Contrastive Topic (CSTOP) + + + + Switch Topic (SWTOP) + + + − Contrastive Theme (CSTHM) + − + + Scene-setting Topic (SSTOP) + − + − Continuing Topic (CTTOP) + + − Background Information (BKINF) + − − Contrastive Focus (CSFOC) − + + + Introductory Focus (ITFOC) − + + − Interrogative Focus (QFOC) − − + + Highlighted Rheme (HLRHM) − − + − Presentational Focus (PSFOC) − + − Completive Information (CPINF) − − −

Although some of them look similar to the terms used in some previous linguistic studies, their definitions may not be the same. For instance, highlighted rheme in the present thesis, which represents non-contrastive new information unimportant to the subsequent discourse, is definitely unrelated with “rheme” in Systematic Functional Grammar (SFG), which represents the part of clause excluding the departure point of discourse.

In Table 4-1, Choi’s (1997, 1999, 2001) topic is divided into contrastive topic (CSTOP), switch topic (SWTOP), contrastive theme (CSTHM) and scene-setting topic (SSTOP). Both CSTOP and SWTOP convey given, significant and prominent information but their difference lies in contrast. CSTOP highlights the uniqueness of the referent but usually excludes other referents while SWTOP introduces something not present in the current information flow so as to shift the addressee’s attention, as exemplified in (85) and (86) respectively.

(85) B: Tell me about your brother John and Bill. (Erteschik-Shir 2007:48) A: JOHN is the smart one.

(86) Once upon a time there was a king with two sons. The older son expected to take over the kingship…As for the younger, he concentrated on studying philosophy at the University. (s. m. Andrews 2007:149)

The reply in (85) puts a stress on John, the information of which is shared between the addresser and the addressee through the dialogue, to express its prominence coming from the contrast between John and Bill. Under the same proposition be the smart one, John is the guy fitting into it while Bill is not. The example in (86) also contains two members. The description of the older son comes first, and then it shifts the discourse line from the older son to the younger son, another given information, by employing the marked syntactic structure left-dislocation. Unlike (85), there is no contrast between the

older son and the younger one since these two expressions are not placed in the same proposition to make a contrast: taking over the kingship and studying philosophy at the University are two different propositions and they cannot be compared. Of course, the two sons can be compared and contrasted on the basis of their attitude, personality, appearances, and so forth, but if the younger is analyzed as “contrastive” information, it will over-broaden the definition of contrast since it is always likely for any two entities in a piece of discourse to be compared and contrasted in some aspects.

As for CSTHM and SSTOP, they both convey unimportant prominent given information. They differ in that the former is contrastive while the latter is not. As exemplified in (87), the preposition phrase in these years is highlighted to contrast with other period of time, but this given information is not repeated anymore in subsequent discourse. Thus, it corresponds to CSTHM in i-structure. Scene-setting topic (SSTOP), also called stage topic, provides tempo-spatial setting for an event, such as the temporal adverbial over the time in (86). Erteschik-Shir (2007) proposed that every clause had its own SSTOP even though it might not be overt, as illustrated in (89) which is a thetic-judgment sentence having no event participants as topics but a covert SSTOP referring to the here-and-now context where this sentence is addressed.

(87) It is in these years that he learned most of the fundamental knowledge of linguistics. After graduating from NTHU, he started his practical training at a high school.

(88) Over the time, the population of these ancient cultures grew several times bigger than it had been before.

(89) It’s snowing. (Erteschik-Shir 2007:17)

The nonprominent given information in Choi (1997, 1999, 2001), i.e. tail, is divided into continuing topic (CTTOP) and background information (BKINF), with a

distinction existing in aboutness: CTTOP is significant to information flow while BKINF is not. This difference is illustrated in (90), in which the pronoun she is a piece of important given information along which the story line extends whereas the pronoun it

is a piece of unimportant given information not repeated in subsequent discourse anymore.

(90) …Emma dashed into her study. There was a pen on the desk. She couldn’t wait to write a letter to her husband with it. All her sorrows and joys immediately became appealing words on her letter. Then, she came up with an idea…

Likewise, the existence of aboutness and contrast splits contrastive focus in Choi’s works into four categories: prominent new information is composed of contrastive focus (CSFOC), introductory focus (ITFOC), interrogative focus (QFOC) and highlighted rheme (HLRHM). They are exemplified below:

(91) I went through the whole family—mom, dad, my three brothers, two sisters, the lot—you’d have thought someone would offer to help, but heck, they all refused…It was my great aunt who finally stepped in and…(s. m. Givón 1990:705)

(92) The volume of engine sound became louder and louder. Motorcycle police, a whole battalion (or whatever unit they come in) neared--took over the road--there must have been twenty of them. Behind them there appeared police vans and police buses, one, two, four, six, eight of each. And then, at last, behind these, the American military vehicles began to appear. (Birner & Ward 1998:107)

(93) What is the code opening the door to the genesis of the universe? This puzzle has been fascinating scientists for thousands of years…

(94) After they had travelled on for weeks and weeks past more bays and headlands and rivers and villages than Shasta could remember, there came a moonlit night when they started their journey at evening, having slept during the day. They

had left the downs behind them and were crossing a wide plain with a forest about half a mile away on their left. (Birner & Ward 1998:107)

As shown in (91), the CSFOC conveyed by my great aunt is not only contrastive in that the abovementioned referents did not step in to help with the addresser’s trouble but also significant in that it changes the direction of story line from miserable refusals to a more positive event discussed later. In contrast, the noun phrase police vans and police buses introduced by the there-sentence in (92) is not contrastive but still important to the subsequent discourse, so it corresponds to ITFOC in i-structure. The interrogative word what in (93), a QFOC, has no referent at all, only indicating an information gap between the addresser and the addressee. Usually an identical information gap is not repeated in subsequent discourse unless the addressee avoids giving a reply. The example in (94) makes use of a there-sentence to pinpoint a moonlit night but this new information does not recur in the subsequent discourse, only functioning as the general background for a series of events and scenes. Prominent new information without importance to subsequent discourse is HLRHM in i-structure.

In addition, presentational focus (PSFOC) is differentiated from completive information (CPINF). They were lumped together in Choi’s works. Although they are both new information highlighted neither phonologically nor morphosyntactically, the referent of the former steps onto the stage of information flow and tends to reoccur later, like a man in (95) whereas that of the latter is merely an accessory of information flow, like a kitchen in (96).

(95) A man goes in the pub. There’s a bear sitting in the corner. He goes up to the, he goes up to the bartender. He says, why is there a bear sitting over there?

(Biber et al. 1999:943)

(96) A: What is Bill eating? (Dalrymple & Nikolaeva 2011:65) B: He is eating pizza in the kitchen.

Discourse features are primitives of i-structure, formalized as attributes with binary partitioning values, either positive value (+) or negative one (−), but not both at the same time. Discourse functions are always complexes of more than one discourse feature. The advantage of the feature-based approach lies in their independence and superposability. It helps formalize the fact that all information in information flow may not be best analyzed in a single stream but as in parallel and mutually interactive streams, as exemplified below in (97).

(97) Q: What did John write?

A: John wrote a poem

[GIV] + + −

[presupposition] [focus] (focus-presupposition articulation)

[ABT] + − −

[topic] [comment] (topic-comment articulation)

In the above question-answer pair, the subject-verb part of the answer John wrote has been mentioned in the question so it conveys given information, but the object a poem

conveys new information not mentioned in the question. Therefore, from the viewpoint of givenness, the sentence in the answer can be divided into two parts, presupposition (the former, marked in red) and focus (the latter, marked in green). However, with regard to aboutness, the whole question-answer pair is mainly about the entity John, which is important in this interaction. Thus, there is another way to partition the same sentence into two parts, topic (the former, marked in blue) and comment (the latter, marked in orange). The focus-presupposition articulation and the topic-comment articulation are superposed on the same sentence. In the Prague School, this sentence

can be viewed to consist of three parts, i.e. theme-transition-rhyme (Firbas 1974). The feature-based approach successfully achieves the same tripartition without stipulating this tripartition as the only universal organization of information structure. Similarly, if both grammatical subject and object convey given and significant information, functioning as topics—usually subject as the primary topic and object as the secondary one, as discussed in Dalrymple & Nikolaeva (2011)—, then the traditional topic-comment bipartition will face the same challenge that it is uncertain which part the topical object belongs to. Most of the time the values of these attributes (discourse functions/features) are determined by the discourse-pragmatic contexts where the piece of information conveying them exists unless they are specified as lexical properties or as mapping constraints in other representations. In addition, as pointed out by Choi (2001:92), “[o]ne of the advantages of this feature-based information structure is that it can crossrefer to more than one distinct information type.” This advantage will be manifested in the mapping theory proposed in Chapter 8.

It is possible to propose more features, such as expectedness and exhaustiveness, in order to constitute more discourse functions.66 Because of their inapplicability to Squliq Atayal, they are not elaborated in the present thesis despite their significance to other languages. Basically, the present thesis only focuses on givenness, aboutness, prominence and contrast.

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Jin (Chinese language) has different grammaticalized topic markers for expected topics and switch topics (Guo 2008). The topicality of expected topics is predictable from the immediately preceding discourse, while that of switch topics is not since the entity a switch topic introduces is not referred to recently even though it has been introduced before (Andrews 2007). Interestingly, DeLancey (1997, 2001) advanced “mirative” as a grammatical category independent from evidential, which marks the non-expected and surprising information conveyed by a proposition as a whole. The existence of mirative seems to provide another empirical evidence for the discourse feature EXP. Nevertheless, mirative marking is always related with other grammatical/pragmatic properties, so it is still controversial whether mirative can be viewed as an independent grammatical category (Cf. Aikhenvald 2012, Hengeveld & Olbertz 2012, Hill 2012, Lazard 1999). Perhaps the real discourse features carried by mirative marking vary from language to language, and EXP is merely one of them. In languages like English and Hungarian, it is possible that contrast is divided into two features, exhaustiveness and exclusiveness (É . Kiss 2002, Horn 1981, secondhand cited from Lambrecht (1994)). To my interpretation, exhaustiveness and exclusiveness equal contrastiveness and restrictiveness respectively in Erteschik-Shir (2007). These two features are not adopted here partly because they have no bearing on Squliq Atayal, and partly because it is still controversial whether this distinction really matters.