Dynamics of information structure in language contact

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This project investigates the dynamics in the linguistic expression of information structure in the repertoires of heritage language speakers. Its research questions directly emerge from pertinent findings from the first phase of the Research Unit “Emerging Grammars” (RUEG1). The project will investigate three areas relevant for information structure: (i) introduction of new referents, (ii) topic constructions, and (iii) focus and prosody. We will investigate these phenomena in selected subcorpora of the RUEG corpus, which comprises mono- and bilingual speakers of German, English, Russian, Greek and Turkish. The intricate interplay of (morpho)syntax and intonation for the expression of information structure has been shown to be open to new developments in the language contact contexts in which we collected data in RUEG1. In this project, we will make information structure the central focus of our research, investigating the interplay of information structure with syntax and intonation in a comparative perspective, and relating our research questions to the new Joint Ventures of the Research Unit.