Topic and Focus

8/6/2019 Topic and Focus

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Pragmatics: Topic and Focus

October 3, 2007

11-721 Grammars and Lexicons

Based on slides by Alicia Tribble



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A Joke based on topic and focus

� Gundel and Fretheim, page 175, citing Chao (1968)

± A. We are now passing the oldest winery in theregion.

± B. Why?

� What we are passing now is the oldest winery in theregion.

� What we are doing now is passing the oldest winery inthe region.

� Does this joke work in Chinese?



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Outline for Today

� Topic and focus in English

� Differences between word order in English andRussian and Hungarian

� Differences between English and Chinese topic-comment sentences



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Pragmatic Roles

³The flow of given and new information´When we hear the sentence

Who saw Bill?,

we understand that someone saw Bill. This fact becomesgiven information, a shared assumption between thespeaker and hearer.

The question asks for a piece of new information, Who?

Who saw Bill?

new old/given



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How to express new information inEnglish

� A. Who saw Bill? perceiver: who/John (new)

� B. John saw Bill/him. perceived: Bill/him (old) ± Stress on ³John´

� A. Who did John see? perceiver: John/he (old)

� B. John/he saw Bill. perceived: who/Bill (new) ± Stress on ³Bill´

� Intonation encodes new information.



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How to mess up the encoding of newinformation (Comrie, page 56)


� B. John saw Bill/him. perceived: Bill/him (old) ± Stress on ³John´

� A. Who saw Bill? perceiver: who/John (new)� B. #John saw Bill/him. perceived: Bill/him (old)

± Stress on ³Bill/him´


� B. John/he saw Bill. perceived: who/Bill (new) ± Stress on ³Bill´


� B. #John/he saw Bill. perceived: who/Bill (new)

± Stress on ³John´



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Focus Using Cleft Constructions(Kroeger)

� English can express new information with a cleftsentence: I t's x that ...

� The cleft sentence may take on a reading of

contrastive focus. ± Contrastive focus implies that the focused

item is being chosen from a delimited set

It's John that saw Bill (,not Joe).It was Mary that John gave the flowers to (, not Susan).

It is the Secretary who will visit us (, not the President).



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Why is it called a cleft?

� ³Cleft´ is the past participle of ³cleave´, to cut.

T o cleave off a subject:

John saw Bill.

1. cut here

2. add ³it¶s´ and ³who/that´

It¶s John that saw Bill.



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Why is it called a cleft?

To cleave off a non-subject.

John saw Bill.

1. cut here

2. move the piece you cut off

3. add ³it¶s´ and ³who/that´

It¶s Bill that John saw.



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Meaning of clefts

� Note that these mean the same thing in the sense thatthe noun phrases have the same semantic roles:

± John saw Bill.

± It¶s John who saw Bill. (subject is cleft) ± It¶s Bill who John saw. (object is cleft)

� Perceiver: John

� Perceived: Bill

� The cleft word order is not encoding semantic roles or grammatical relations. It is encoding new information.



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How to express new information inEnglish


� B. It¶s John that/who saw Bill/him.

± ³John´ is clefted. perceived: Bill/him (old)


� B. It¶s Bill that/who saw John. perceived: who/Bill (new)

± ³Bill´ is clefted.

� Clefting encodes new information.



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How to mess up the encoding of newinformation (Comrie, page 56)


� B. It¶s John who saw Bill/him.

perceived: Bill/him (old)


� B. #It¶s Bill who John saw. perceived: Bill/him (old)


� B. It¶s Bill who John saw. perceived: who/Bill (new)


� B. #It¶s John who saw Bill. perceived: who/Bill (new)



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Focus Using Pseudo-clefts

� Pseudo-clefts also mark contrastive focus: what

x-does is y

What John gave to Mary was a bunch of flowers.

What I like for breakfast is cold pizza and coke.

� Q: Where is the presupposition (old information)in each of these sentences?



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Pseudo-cleft

� What did John give to Mary?

� What John gave to Mary was a bunch of flowers.

� #(The person) who John gave flowers to wasMary.



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Topic-Comment

� These constructions separate ³what thesentence is about´ (topic ) from a statement thatshould be interpreted in that domain (comment ).

� Used when the speaker wants to emphasize thiscontrast.

Topic and focus are mutually exclusive; they are encodeddifferently. A topic can be new, but it still functions asbackground knowledge for interpretation of thecomment. (Kroeger)



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Extracted Topic

� A construction used to express contrastive topic

� Topic is fronted, leaving a gap in the comment:

This ice cream I like [ ]. Your sister I can¶t stand [ ].

� Implies that the topic is chosen from a set

(Your mother is all right, but) your sister I can¶t stand [ ].



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Syntax of Extracted Topics

In this construction, the topic phrase issyntactically linked to the comment by taking thegrammatical relation of the gap.

This ice cream I like [OBJ].OBJ

Your sister I can¶t stand [OBJ].OBJ



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Topic Using Left-Dislocation

� Used to change topics

� Topic provides antecedent for a pronoun in thecomment (resumptive pronoun):

My friend John, a snake bit him on the hand and helost three fingers.

This man I know, his wife won $1 million.



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External Topic

� Signals a return to a previously mentioned topic

� Bears little or no syntactic link to the comment,only a semantic link: As for x ...

± As for John, a python swallowed his dog.

± As for me, I¶ll be sailing the Caribbean.

± As for Manila, the traffic is unbelievable.



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Topic and ³givenness´

� A topic cannot be indefinite. It has to besomething the hearer is familiar with.

� The window, it¶s still open.

� *A window, it¶s still open.



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Layers of Structure

� Building Blocks / Coding Mechanisms:

Case marking

Word order (and phrase structure)

Agreement (e.g., verb agrees with subject)

Intonation

� Information Content / Functions of NPs

Grammatical relations (SUBJ, OBJ, OBL)

Semantic or Thematic Roles ( Agent , Patient , T heme)

Pragmatic Roles (T opic and Focus)

Languages use building blocks in different ways to

encode content



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Cross-Linguistic Variation

Case Marking

Agreement

Basic Word Order

Marked Word Order

Grammatical Relations

Semantic Roles

Pragmatic RolesEnglish

English

Italian

Russian

Hungarian



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Focus in Russian(Comrie, p78)

� English word order codes grammatical relations.Russian word order seems free by comparison:

Tanja ubila Mau. µTanja killed Masha.¶

Tanja Mau ubila. µTanja killed Masha.¶

Mau ubila Tanja. µTanja killed Masha.¶



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Focus in Russian(Comrie, p78)

� Although GR¶s are the same for all, PragmaticRoles are different.

Tanja ubila Mau. µTanja killed Masha.¶

Tanja Mau ubila. µTanja killed Masha.¶

Mau ubila Tanja. µTanja killed Masha.¶

� Russian basic word order places topic at thebeginning of the sentence and focus at the end.



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Hungarian

� The new information immediately precedes the verb. Since question wordsare asking for new information, they also immediately precede the verb.(Comrie, page 57)

a. Ki látta Zoli-t?who saw ZoliWho saw Zoli?

b. Zoli-t ki látta?Zoli who sawWho saw Zoli?

c. Vili látta Zoli-t.Vili saw ZoliVili saw Zoli

d. Zoli-t Vili látta.Zoli Vili sawVili saw Zoli.

Perceiver: Vili/who (new)

Perceived: Zoli (old)



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Hungarian

a. Ki-t látta Zoli?who saw ZoliWho did Zoli see?

b. Zoli ki-t látta?

Zoli who sawWho did Zoli see?

c. Zoli Vili-t látta.Zoli Vili saw

Zoli saw Vili.d. Vili-t látta. ZoliVili saw ZoliZoli saw Vili

Perceiver: Zoli (old)

Perceived: Vili/who (new)



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Case Marking

Agreement

Basic Word Order

Marked Word Order


Semantic Roles


English

Italian

Russian

Hungarian



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Case Marking

Agreement

Basic Word Order

Marked Word Order


Semantic Roles


English

Italian

Russian

Hungarian

Russian



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Topic in Mandarin

� Coded using word order: topic is fronted

� Topic can serve as antecedent for a resumptivepronoun

� Topic Establishes domain for the comment

� Topic is incompatible with question words (i.e.focus)

These are features of Topic shared among manylanguages, including English



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Multiple Topics(Kroeger, p143)

� Allowed in Mandarin but not in most other languages

a L xinsheng zuótin w kànjiàn le.

Li Mr. yesterday I see PERF

µMr. Li, yesterday I saw (him).¶

b zhè-jiàn shì L xinsheng w gàosu guo.

this-CLASS matter Li Mr. I inform PAST

µThis matter, Mr. Li, I have told (him) about.¶



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Topicalized Objects

� Direct objects can be topicalized by fronting them,leaving a gap in the comment:

a Zhè-bn xioshu Zhngsn kàn wán le.This novel Zhangsan read finish PERF

µThis novel Zhangsan has finished reading.¶

b Júzi w bu ch le.

orange I not eat PERF

µOranges I don¶t eat.¶ or: µThe orange I will not eat.¶



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Topic-Controlled Coreference(Li, p26)

� Evidence that Mandarin is Topic-Prominent, notSubject-Prominent.

aN

à ke shù yèzi dà, suyi w bu xhun [ ].that tree leaves big so I not like

µThat tree, the leaves are big, so I don¶t like (it).¶

b Nà kuài tián dàozi zhngde hn dà, suyithat piece land rice grow very big so

hn zhíqián.very valuable

µThat piece of land, rice grows very big, so (it ± the land) is very

valuable.¶



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Difference between Chinese andEnglish

* Nei chang huo xiaofangdui

that class fire fire brigade

laide zao, suoyi hen lei.

came early so very tired

That fire, the fire brigade came early, so very tired



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Note: clefts can be used for oldinformation too

� Gundel and Fretheim, page 186

± The federal government is dealing with AIDSas if the virus was a problem that didn¶t travel

along interstate highways and was none of itsbusiness. It¶s this lethal national intertia in

the face of the most devastating epidemic

of the late 20th century that finally prompted

one congressman to strike out on his own.(Minneapolis Star and Tribune, cited inHedberg 1990)



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Note: Topicalization construction usedfor information focus (new information)


± Which of these clothes should we give to theSalvation Army?

± That COAT you¶re wearing, I think we cangive away.



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Topicalized specific indefinite

� Gundel and Fretheim, page 181, citing Prince(1985):

± An old preacher down there, they augured

under the grave where his wife was buried.� The indefinite is not familiar to the hearer.

Reinhart (1981) argues that topics only have tobe referential, not familiar.



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Topic (opposite of comment) is not thesame as backward-looking center


� Tomlin (1995), wa can mark noun phrases thatare referentially new, and therefore not the

backward-looking center (continuing topic of conversation).



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Topic and Focus: telling the

differenceWH-questions bear focus, not topic. The answersbear focus, as well.

³Who did Bill see?´

³It¶s Mary that Bill saw.´ contrastive focus

³Who did Bill see?´³Mary Bill saw.´ contrastive topic

Documents

Topic and Focus