Project D2

2nd Phase - Typology of information structure

In the first funding period, the D2 project designed a questionnaire on the information structure, which is an elicitation tool for linguistic field research and includes various data collection methods. This questionnaire was then used by staff associated with the project to collect data in different languages. In cooperation with other projects of the SFB, annotation guidelines were developed in which the basic concepts for the data description are recorded. The primary data were prepared on the basis of these guidelines and saved in the SFB's database. The subsequent evaluation of this data resulted in a series of studies on the information structure of the individual languages ​​and on language comparison.

In the following funding period, the D2 project will continue to play its central role as a data-collecting project. It will expand and refine the existing inventory of methods and thus collect data in additional languages. However, the focus of the project will now be on evaluating the data from a typological perspective. Hypotheses for the influence of the information structure on prosody, morphology and syntax of natural languages ​​are formulated and evaluated with the help of the extended data collection. At the same time, the terminology developed in the SFB is checked and adjusted if necessary.

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1st Phase - Typology of information structure

The ultimate aim of project D2 is to deliver a typology of information structural devices and to model relationships between them. The project contributes to the elaboration of an inventory of the information structural concepts in constructing a catalogue of information structural categories displaying implicit and explicit formal differences. This goal is to be achieved by eliciting large scale data in as many language families as possible on the one hand, and by detailed studies in some carefully chosen languages on the other hand, such as Chinese, Kikuyu, Japanese, Malayalam and Hungarian, which differ from each other in important respects for the rendition of information structure.

In the first phase of the project, the instruments for empirical studies are to be refined. As a starting point, we prepared a questionnaire which has to be tested and further developed. Because of the special problems related to the elicitation of information structural data, the project also has to test methods which have been specially devised for psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic research. Through the interface between typology, fieldwork, psycholinguistics and language theory, we expect important methodological progress. D2 fulfills a contact point for different projects of the SFB because it elaborates methods for data elicitation and concentrates typological comparison. It also cooperates closely with D1, which is responsible for the database.

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Principal Investigators

  • Prof. Dr. Gisbert Fanselow (1st Phase, 2nd Phase)
  • Prof. Dr. Caroline Féry (1st Phase, 2nd Phase)
  • Prof. Dr. Manfred Krifka (1st Phase)
  • Prof. Dr. Malte Zimmermann (2nd Phase)

Advisor

  • Dr. Frank Kügler

Former Staff Members

  • Dr. Stavros Skopeteas
  • Dr. Samantha Hellmuth
  • Dr. Ines Fiedler
  • Dr. Anne Schwarz
  • Markus Greif

Activities

December 2006 Invited Talk Hellmuth, S.: Intonational Word Tone Languages - Anhaltspunkte aus dem ägyptischen Arabisch. Forschungsseminar Universität Graz.
November 2006 Invited Talk Skopeteas, S.: Eliciting information structure through production experiments. Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Dept. de traduccio i filologia. Barcelona.
October 2006 Lecture Hellmuth, S.: Plasticity revisited - the interaction of syntax and phonology in information structure contexts. Workshop - University College London, Centre for Human Communication.
September 2006 Lecture Skopeteas, S. & Verhoeven, E.: Yucatec Mayan focus constructions in speech production. Lancaster University (UK). 2nd Conference on the Syntax of the World's Languages (SWL 2).
September 2006 Lecture Skopeteas, S. & Verhoeven, E.: The discourse conditions of focus in Yucatec Maya. Bremen - Societas Linguistica Europaea, 39th Annual Meeting.
August 2006 Lecture Fiedler, I.: Focus Expressions in Foodo. Conference- Ouidah, Benin: 25. Congress of the West African Linguistic Society.
July 2006 Lecture Fiedler, I. & Schwarz, A.: Focal aspects in the Lelemi verb system. Conference - Ho, Ghana: The description and documentation of Ghana-Togo-Mountain Languages.
June 2006 Invited Talk Fiedler, I. & Schwarz, A.: Fokussierungsstrategien in Gur- und Kwasprachen. Institut für Afrikanistik, Universität Leipzig.
June 2006 Lecture Hellmuth, S. & Skopeteas, S:. Towards a typology of information structure: insights from cross-linguistic data collection. 1st International Conference of SFB 632: Information structure between linguistic theory and empirical methods. Potsdam.
June 2006 Invited Talk Hellmuth, S.: Pitch accent distribution in Egyptian Arabic - evidence & implications. Department of Computer Science, Columbia University, New York.
June 2006 Lecture Hellmuth, S.: The (absence of) prosodic reflexes of the given/new distinction in Egyptian Arabic. University of Maryland.
May 2006 Lecture Hellmuth, S.: Reconciling pitch accent distribution & the 'unity of pitch phonology' in Egyptian Arabic. 13th Manchester Phonology Meeting (oral), University of Manchester.
May 2006 Poster Hellmuth, S.: Focus-related pitch range manipulation (and peak alignment effects) in Egyptian Arabic. Dresden, Speech Prosody.
April 2006 Lecture Kügler, F.: Interaction of lexical tone and information structure in Yucatec Maya. Conference - La Rochelle, France.: Second Symposium on Tonal Aspects of Language - TAL.
February 2006 Lecture Kügler, F.: Lexical Tone and Information Structure in Yucatec Maya. Colloquium - Lund University.
February 2006 Lecture Dipper, S., Götze, M. & Skopeteas, S.: A Typological Language Archive for Researching Information Structure. Workshop - Universität Bielefeld: the 28. Jahrestagung der DGfS.
February 2006 Lecture Skopeteas, S.: Comparative production data in grammatical description. Conference - Universität Bielefeld: 28. Jahrestagung der DGfS.
February 2006 Lecture Fiedler, I.: Fokus im Foodo. Colloquium - München: Afrikanistentag 2006.
February 2006 Invited Talk Skopeteas, S.: Passive voice: a cross-linguistic production study. Colloquium - Humboldt-Universität Berlin: Strukturelle und psycholinguistische Aspekte des Passivs im Deutschen.
February 2006 Lecture Féry, C., Skopeteas, S. & Stoel, R.: Typological data on information structure. Conference - Universität Tübingen: the International Conference on Linguistic Evidence.
October 2005 Lecture Hörnig, R. & Skopeteas, S.: Information structure versus salience in spatial descriptions. Workshop - Delmenhorst: Workshop on Spatial Language and Dialogue.
October 2005 Lecture Fiedler, I.: Focus Expressions in Yom. Conference - Bayreuth: Gur Conference: Between Tone and Text.
October 2005 Lecture Schwarz, A.: Narrative and Copulative Patterns in the Focus Constructions of some Oti-Volta Languages. Conference - Bayreuth: Gur Conference : Between Tone and Text.
October 2005 Lecture Markopoulos, G. & Skopeteas, S.: Dialectal variation in Greek word order. Conference - Corigliano di Otranto: the 8th International Conference.
October 2005 Lecture Schwarz, A.: Predication Focus and ‚Affirmative Markers’ in Gur. Conference - Berlin: Focus in African Languages.
September 2005 Lecture Götze, M., Roloff, T., Skopeteas, S. & Stoel, R.: Exploring a cross-linguistic production data corpus. Conference - Batumi, Georgia: 6th International Tbilisi Symposium on Language, Logic and Computation.
September 2005 Lecture Götze, M., Roloff, T., Skopeteas, S. & Stoel, R.: Towards an infrastructure for exploring a cross-linguistic production data corpus. Conference - Batumi: the Sixth International Tbilisi Symposium on Language, Logic and Computation.
September 2005 Lecture Hörnig, R., Skopeteas, S. & Weskott, T.: Räumliche Relationen und Informationsstruktur. Institut für Linguistik, Universität Potsdam.
May 2005 Lecture Skopeteas, S.: Animacy and given patients. Radboud University Nijmegen: PIONIER workshop on Animacy.
March 2005 Invited Talk Skopeteas, S. & Verhoeven, L.: Postverbal argument orders in Yucatec Mayan. Colloquium - University of Patras.
December 2004 Lecture Fiedler, I. & Schwarz, A.: Focus or Narrative Constructions? Morphosyntactically Marked Focus Constructions in some Gur and Kwa Languages. Workshop - Amsterdam: Topic and Focus: Information Structure and Grammar in African Languages.
August 2004 Lecture Dipper, S., Götze, M. & Skopeteas, S.: Towards User-Adaptive Annotation Guidelines. Workshop - Geneva: COLING Workshop on Linguistically Interpreted Corpora LINC-2004.
January 2004 Lecture Skopeteas, S.: On the evaluation of empirical methods for the syntax/semantics interface. Workshop - University of Helsinki, Finland: The Necessity of Experimental Methods in Semantics.
August 2003 Lecture Féry, C., Kügler, F. & van de Vijver, R.: German Pitch Accents in Focus. Conference - Barcelona: the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences.