Type-Token Relations

Within one-to-many mapping, there are two sorts of type-token relations. One is the prototypical type and the other is the independent type. If they are similized with the phonological terminology, the former is like one phoneme with several allophones while the latter is like the co-existence of several phonemes. Phonemes are types and their variants, allophones, are specific tokens. That is to say, there is only one type with several tokens in the prototypical type of one-to-many mapping, while the independent type of one-to-many mapping is merely a collection of several mutually independent types.

The first type of one-to-many mapping is illustrated below:

(101) The Prototypical Type of One-to-Many Mapping

In (101), for the grammatical function GF, it looks like mapping to three discourse functions, DF1, DF2 and DF3, but DF1 and DF 3 are merely the token variations of DF2. Thus, among all the correspondences in the one-to-many mapping, only one

● DF1 ● DF2 ● DF3 GF●

particular correspondence is called “default mapping”, i.e. the mapping between GF and DF2 in (101), since it represents the prototypical mapping relation between two representations. The mapping of grammatical subjects in Squliq Atayal belongs to this case; as will be shown in Chapter 6, grammatical subjects correspond to unmarked continuing topics in i-structure by default, and the one-to-many mapping forms a hierarchy in which the most prototypical correspondence (i.e. the default mapping) occupies the majority and the less prototypical ones occupy lower percentages gradually descending with their extent of deviance. Prototype is the core of this one-to-many mapping. From the perspective of cognitive linguistics, the prototypical type of mapping is one mapping type with token variations. Traugott & Trousdale (2013) differentiates the strong association between an instance and a more general category in a network from the weak one by using a unbroken line to represent the former and a broken line to represent the latter. The same notion can be applied to the present thesis. That is, in the prototypical type of one-to-many mapping, the default mapping relation is a much stronger association between two representations than other non-default mapping relations so the default mapping relation is indicated by the unbroken line while other non-default ones are indicated by the broken line.

The second type of one-to-many mapping is illustrated below:

(102) The Independent Type of One-to-Many Mapping

In contrast to (101), the one-to-many mapping in (102) belongs to the independent type ● DF1

● DF2 ● DF3 GF●

since the three discourse functions, DF1, DF2 and DF3, are distinct categories, without anyone of them being a token variation. Therefore, all the correspondences between GF and these three discourse functions are mutually independent. Most of the one-to-many mapping shown in Squliq Atayal belongs to this type.

In reality, the distinction between the above two types of one-to-many mapping is not always clear-cut. With the constant influence of discourse-pragmatic driving forces, the token number of non-prototypical cases may increase to the extent that the default mapping relation is weakened, being not prototypical anymore, with the emergence of two independent categories. For instance, the relative clause in a cleft construction usually conveys given information to the addressee and the clefted nominal new information, as exemplified in (103), where the event that I lost something is given information shared between the addressor and the addressee but the addressee does not know that that thing is my key.70

(103) It’s my key that I lost. (Lambrecht 1994:70)

Nevertheless, the information types expressed in naturalistic data may be reversed: the relative clause conveys new information while the clefted nominal given information (Lambrecht 1994, Prince 1978), as exemplified in (104), where George Orwell is known to the audience in a lecture while the relative clause definitely contains information new to the audience. The emergence of exceptions or non-prototypical tokens is attributed to the discourse-pragmatic driving force that the addresser makes use of the already existing form-function pair to accommodate more discourse functions.

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Collins (1991) classifies cleft constructions into three information-structural types: Type 1 contains the clefted constituent with stressd focus and the embedded clause with background; Type 2 contains the clefted constituent with background and the embedded clause with focus; Type 3 contains all-focus information in both of the clefted constituent and the embedded clause. Despite different terminology, the example in (103) belongs to the first type whereas the example in (104) belongs to the second type.

(104) It was George Orwell who said that the best books are those which tell you what you already know. (Lambrecht 1994:71)

Reversely, the constant influence of discourse-pragmatics may augment the token number of prototypical cases until the default mapping relation is established. This direction of development will be discussed in Chapter 9.

4.4 Summary

The first part of this chapter discusses how information is formalized as the representation of i-structure in LFG, particularly concerning the proposal of the definition of i-structure, the expansion of the inventory of discourse features and the proposal of i-structure constraints. It is shown that the application of the four binary partitioning discourse features, givenness (GIV), aboutness (ABT), prominence (PROM) and contrast (CONT), constitutes twelve discourse functions: 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) and completive information (CPINF). In addition, it is proposed that the representation of i-structure is restricted by the interplay of violable constraints, including the Given-First Constraint, the Aboutness-Last Constraint and the Prominence-First Constraint.

The second part of this chapter is about general mapping, which is the set of individual mappings between f-/c-structure and i-structure. It is displayed in the form of one-to-many mappings. With the labelling of the symbols of proportion on one-to-many mapping, LFG is enabled to incorporate quantitative evidence into the formal representation of i-structure and to present the proportion of each correspondence. In addition, depending upon whether the discourse functions belong to a single category

with a prototypical member or they belong to distinct categories with each of them being independent, one-to-many mapping has two types, the prototypical type and the independent type. Only the former has a default correspondence between f-/c-structure and i-structure while the latter does not.

5.

Discourse Evidence: Topicality &