The syntax-discourse interface: A comparative study of Catalan and Spanish

句法-话语界面：加泰罗尼亚语和西班牙语的比较研究

• 批准号: 2630622
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Manchester
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2630622
• 关键词: syntax; discourse; interface; comparative; study

Information Structure (IS) is the pragmatic notion by which information is packaged in propositions. It instructsthe hearer on how to interpret linguistic information by structuring it into 'focus', i.e. the part of the propositionwhich cannot be taken for granted at the time of utterance (Lambrecht 1994: 207); and 'background', that which ispragmatically presupposed or established. There is a lack of consensus between theories of Information Structure(Erteschik-Shir, 2007) and crosslinguistic variation of the syntax-discourse interface is still a poorly understoodarea.In English, prosodic prominence is usually the linguistic mechanism by which pragmatic focus is assigned. InCatalan and Spanish, however, word order can also affect IS by determining or constraining the informationpartition. An example is marked VS word order constructions such as in (1):1. (a) Spa. Se me ha estropeado el coche.RFL me have broken the car(b) Cat. Se m' ha espatllat el cotxe.RFL me have broken the car'My car has broken'The proposed PhD research aims to investigate how word order in Catalan and Spanish express IS. Despite the twobeing closely cognate and typologically very similar languages, Catalan is more restrictive and allows for fewer word order configurations and IS interpretations than Spanish (Leonetti 2017). The proposed study therefore aimsto answer the following research questions:a) How does IS map onto word order in Catalan and Spanish?b) What is the exact role of subject inversion in IS in Catalan and Spanish?c) Do the differences in the syntax-discourse interface of these languages depend on broader properties of thelanguages (e.g., phonological or morphological properties)?d) How can we formally interpret and analyse this crosslinguistic variation?The objective of the study is to address these questions with theoretical and empirical arguments.

信息结构是将信息包装在命题中的语用概念。它通过将语言信息分为焦点和背景来指导听话人如何理解语言信息。焦点是在话语发出时不能被认为是理所当然的命题部分（Lambrecht 1994：207），背景是在语用上被预设或确立的。信息结构理论（Erteschik-Shir，2007）之间缺乏共识，句法-语篇界面的跨语言变异仍然是一个很难理解的领域。在英语中，韵律突出通常是语用焦点分配的语言机制。然而，在加泰罗尼亚语和西班牙语中，词序也可以通过决定或限制信息划分来影响IS。一个例子是标记为VS的语序结构，如（1）：1。(a)Spa. Se me ha estropeado el coche.RFL me have broken the car（B）Cat. Se m' ha espatllat el cotxe.RFL me have broken the car“我的车坏了”拟议中的博士研究旨在调查加泰罗尼亚语和西班牙语表达的语序。尽管这两种语言密切同源，类型非常相似，但加泰罗尼亚语的限制性更强，允许的语序配置和IS解释比西班牙语少（Leonetti 2017）。因此，拟议中的研究aimstto回答以下研究问题：a）如何映射到加泰罗尼亚语和西班牙语的词序？B）加泰罗尼亚语和西班牙语中主语倒装在IS中的确切作用是什么？c）这些语言的语法-话语界面的差异是否取决于语言更广泛的属性（例如，语音或形态学特性）？d）我们如何正式解释和分析这种跨语言的变异？本研究的目的是解决这些问题的理论和实证论据。