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

信息结构（Information Structure， IS）是一种语用概念，信息通过它被包装在命题中。它指导听者如何通过将语言信息组织成“焦点”来解释语言信息，即在说话时不能被视为理所当然的那部分命题（Lambrecht 1994: 207）；还有“背景”，是实际预设或确立的东西。信息结构理论之间缺乏共识（Erteschik-Shir, 2007），语法-话语界面的跨语言变化仍然是一个知之甚少的领域。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，语序也可以通过决定或限制信息划分来影响信息系统。在(1):1的语序结构中标记了一个例子。(一)温泉。我看到了我的梦想。我把车弄坏了。她说：“我看到了一幅画。”“我的车坏了”这个拟议中的博士研究旨在调查加泰罗尼亚语和西班牙语中的语序如何表达IS。尽管这两种语言关系密切，类型学上也非常相似，但加泰罗尼亚语的限制更大，与西班牙语相比，它允许的词序配置和is解释更少（Leonetti 2017）。因此，拟议的研究旨在回答以下研究问题：a) IS如何映射到加泰罗尼亚语和西班牙语的词序？b)主语倒装在加泰罗尼亚语和西班牙语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的更广泛的属性（例如，语音或形态属性）？d)我们如何正式解释和分析这种跨语言差异？本研究的目的是用理论和实证论证来解决这些问题。

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.