Complex Topic-Comment Structures in HPSG

Based on Krifka (1992) and de Kuthy (2000), this paper develo ps an architecture for complex topic-comment structures in HPSG and applies it to predicate fronting in English with the goal of capturing the insights of Ward (1988) on this construction. We argue that predicate fronti ng is a distributed constructional form consisting of an auxiliary occurring i a predicate preposing phrase. The use of predicate preposing is a function of a c mbination of simultaneous constraints on its theme structure, its backg round-focus distribution, and its presuppositional structure. It is shown tha t ese constraints can be made explicit within the HPSG architecture developed here. 1 Non-canonical Syntactic Constructions Höhle (1982) has argued that non-canonical syntactic cons tructions in German typically have fewer information structural options compa red to canonical sentence patterns. The same has been argued for English. Ward (1988) c oncludes that the preposing constructions in (1)-(2) require the (meaning of the) preposed constituent to be a backward looking center. Similarly, Birner (1996) sh ows that inversion constructions like (3) are felicitous only if the preposed c onstituent is at least as discourse-familiar as the postposed NP: (1) One of these rugs Chambers delivered TO HARRY DEXTER WHITE. (2) (It was necessary to pass the exam and) passI DID. (3) On the deskwasA BIG LAMP . There is a generalization that cuts across these English con structions and others: 1 in their prototypical use 1. the italicized constituent is the leftmost constituent o f i s predicate-argument complex, and 2. it is followed by another constituent of the same predicat e-argument complex which is prosodically more prominent than it; 3. each sentence is more “about” the meaning of the italicize d constituent than the meaning of the constituent in small caps (backgrounded, contrastive topic). I would like to thank Dorothee Beermann, Betty Birner, Regin Eckardt, Lars Hellan, Kordula de Kuthy, Detmar Meurers, Ivan Sag, Manfred Sailer, Gautam Sen gupta, the members of the CoGETI research network and the audience at HPSG 2007 for discussio ns and comments at various stages during the development of the theory presented in this artic le. The responsibility for all errors remains with me. The generalization extends to German as well. Previous work on information structure in HPSG (e.g. Valldu vi (1992)) has not derived this generalization. The work reported here is part of a larger research project which aims at developing a theoretical architectur e hat makes it possible to state this generalization in HPSG while also accounting for the properties specific to each non-canonical sentence pattern. The present articl e w ll only deal with a small portion of this subject matter, namely predicate prep osing. 2 Case Study: Predicate Preposing Ward (1988) provides the following attested examples of pre dicate topicalization sentences: 2 (4) As members of the Gray Panthers committee, WE WENT TO CANA DA TO LEARN, andlearn we did. [Philadelphia Inquirer,6/16/85] (5) THE KING HAS INSTRUCTED ME TO BE BRIEF, and since I am His Majesty’s loyal subject, brief I will be. [A Man for All Seasons, Messenger] He arrives at the following conclusion concerning the felit ous use of this sentence form: Ward’s Generalization Ward (1988) Predicate preposing is associated with the function of prop osition affirmation. Proposition affirmation serves to affirm a proposition expli citly evoked in the discourse. The contrast in (6) serves to illustrate this analysis. (6c) cannot felicitously follow (6a), since the proposition affirmed by (6c), namely that I have enough money is not explicitly introduced into the discourse by (6a). That ther e is nothing wrong with this sequence of meanings in principle is shown by (6b) which can felicitously follow (6a). The difference is that unlike predicate prepos ing the emphatic dosupport construction (the verum focusof Höhle (1992)) does not require the proposition it affirms to have been explicitly evoked in the previous discourse: (6) a. I want to buy a car. b. And I DO have enough money. c. # Andhave enough money I DO. As predicted by Ward’s assumptions, if (6c) is put into a disc ourse context where the affirmed proposition has been introduced explicity, its use becomes felicitous: (7) They said I WOULDN’T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO BUY A CAR, but have enough money I DO. Most of the examples in this article that relate to predicate preposing are taken from Ward (1988), by far the most careful and sophisticated study of the constr uction. 3 Towards an Architecture for Information Structure in HPSG The theory of the relationship between syntax, semantics, a nd information structure developed below is based on the assumption that there are dep en ncies and interrelations between meanings and context that can only be expr ssed by a semantic representation language that makes reference to objects of specific semantic types, in particular properties (or their extensions). Moreover, it should be possible to impose discourse-anaphoric requirements on semantic piec es of constructions (and likely also rhetorical relations). A natural choice for thi s purpose is Discourse Representation Theory (Kamp and Reyle (1993)), in particul ar Lambda-DRT, because the latter is typed. Another important question that arises concerns the degree of articulation of the information structure. Krifka (1992) and Jacobs (2001) dra w a four-way distinction between topic-comment and background-focus. de Kuthy (2000), in essence following Vallduvi (1992), distinguishes between backgro und and focus and adds a (contrastive) topic in the sense of Büring (1997). For the purposes of this paper, the three-way distinction appears to be sufficient and I will consequently adopt it. Borrowing from the Prague School, Halliday (1967) develops the conceptstheme which for him is the starting point of an utterance, its leftm ost constituent. A related concept is proposed in Jacobs (2001): semantic subjecthood is one dimension in Jacobs’ multidimensional conception of topichood. According to Jacobs, the semantic subject of a clause is the highest term that spec ifies a variable in the meaning of the clause’s main predicate. As a consequence of t h syntax-semantics interface, a sentence-initial constituent will frequentl y (but not always) contribute the semantic subject to the clause’s logical form. I will adopt Jacobs’ idea of theme 3 as a configurational notion in logical form and even generalize it to the case where a predicate itself is top cal in the sense under discussion. Overall, then, the architecture that is developed in this pa per, consists on the one hand of the information structural triad background-focus-(contrastive) topic and on the other hand of the notion of theme. I believe that these two dimensions of information structure have different functions in the syst em of choices that a natural language grammar represents. This is stated in the followin g hypothesis. Hypothesis Syntactic non-canonicality is strongly associated with th e c oice of theme. On the other hand, prosody is more concerned with the information s tructural triad of background-focus-(contrastive)topic. Of course, elements which appear in syntactically non-cano nical positions may also be prosodically prominent, so that the two concepts wil l often interact. Crucial I prefer Halliday’s namethemeto Jacobs’ own name semantic subject for Jacobs’ concept. evidence for the relevance of the notion themecomes from inversion constructions. Birner (1996) has shown that this sentence type serves an inf ormation packaging function in the sense of Chafe (1976). The following data sho w, however, that this function is independent of the triad background-focus -topic and needs to be characterized in some other fashion. In (8), the initial PP i s in the background, given the context question: (8) a. Witness, when you walked into the office, what was on the desk? b. [bg On the desk was] [ foc a KNIFE]. It is also possible for the inverted PP to be a contrastive top ic: (9) a. Witness, you told us that was on the shelf, but what was o n the desk? b. [top On theDESK] [ bg was] [foc a KNIFE]. And, finally, inversion sentences can be all-focus, as is sho wn by (10): (10) a. Witness, when you walked into the office, what did you s ee? b. [foc On the desk was a KNIFE]. Discourses like the last one thus show that the preverbal and the postverbal constituents of inversion sentences can be in focus at the same time . Yet, even those sentences are felt to be more about the meaning of the initial PP than the meaning of the final NP. I would like to argue that what underlies this int u tion is that inversion sentences are characterized by the following combination o f information structural constraints: (11) 1. The preverbal constituent of an inversion is the them e (in Jacobs’ sense). 2. The postveral constituent of an inversion is part of the fo cus. Furthermore, I postulate the following preference princip les (which could be seen in terms of harmonic alignment in Optimality Theory): (12) 1. Preferably, themes are unfocused. 2. Preferably, themes are discourse-familiar. This combination of assumptions derives the observation in Bir er (1996) that the initial constituent in inversions prefers to be discour se-familiar over being discourse-new by a ratio of about 10:1. Assuming that inform ation foci typically are discourse-new, this is compatible with Birner’s finding that the ratio for the postverbal NP in inversions is practically the reverse. We anticipate that it will be useful to have a notion of relati ve aboutness that is more general than that of a theme, e.g. in order to capture the typical informationstructural differences between the two objects in the doubl e o ject construction of English discussed in detail by Bresnan in recent years (e.g. Bresnan et al. (2007)) and the effects typically associated with sc