Search results for "Information structure"
showing 10 items of 21 documents
Continuous and discontinuous nominal expressions in flexible (or “free”) word order languages: Patterns and correlates
2020
AbstractThis study explores continuous and discontinuous word order patterns of multi-word nominal expressions in flexible word order languages (traditionally referred to as “free word order” or “non-configurational” languages). Besides describing syntagmatic patterns, this paper seeks to identify any functional or other correlates that can be associated with different word orders. The languages under investigation are a number of Australian languages as well as Vedic Sanskrit, all of which have long been known for their syntagmatic flexibility. With respect to continuous order, evidence from several of these languages suggests that default ordering is primarily governed by functional templ…
Social interaction in management group meetings: a case study of Finnish hospital.
2016
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of management group meetings (MGMs) in hospital organization by examining the social interaction in these meetings. Design/methodology/approach – This case study approaches social interaction from a structuration point of view. Social network analysis and qualitative content analysis are applied. Findings – The findings show that MGMs are mainly forums for information sharing. Meetings are not held for problem solving or decision making, and operational coordinating is limited. Meeting interaction is very much focused on the chair, and most of the discussion takes place between the chair and one other member, not between members…
Animacy matters: ERP evidence for the multi-dimensionality of topic-worthiness in Chinese
2013
Abstract An event-related potential (ERP) study was conducted to investigate how animacy interacts with givenness during topic processing. Both animacy and givenness have been considered as within-discourse factors that contribute to an element׳s potential to form an optimal topic (i.e., topic-worthiness). ERPs were recorded while participants read question–answer pairs, of which the target sentence induced either a continuation or an alternation of a previously introduced topic (i.e., given vs. new). Depending on the context, a potential topic further differed in its animacy from the preceding one (i.e., animate vs. inanimate). The data revealed a robust givenness effect with an N400 reduc…
Prominence vs. aboutness in sequencing: a functional distinction within the left inferior frontal gyrus
2009
Prior research on the neural bases of syntactic comprehension suggests that activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus (lIFG) correlates with the processing of word order variations. However, there are inconsistencies with respect to the specific subregion within the IFG that is implicated by these findings: the pars opercularisor the pars triangularis. Here, we examined the hypothesis that the dissociation between parsopercularis and pars triangularis activation may reflect functional differences between clause-medial and clause-initial word order permutations, respectively. To this end, we directly compared clause-medial and clause-initial object-before-subject orders in German in a wi…
Information structure in language acquisition. Production and comprehension of (in)definite articles by German-speaking children.
2020
AbstractThe present study investigates the production and comprehension of indefinite and definite articles as markers of givenness by typically-developing German-speaking children, from the perspective of information structure theory. The study involves 93 typically-developing children aged four to seven years old with normal language-skills and 20 adults. The results of a story-narration task and a truth-value judgment task reveal that children have more problems with new than with given referents in production as well as comprehension suggesting a “given better than new”-pattern. These findings are explained in the context of perspective-taking capacities and cue weighting theory.
Zur Identifikation von Strukturanalogien in Datenmodellen
2005
On the one hand, data models decrease the complexity of information system development. On the other hand, data models causes additional complexity. Recently structural analogies are discussed as instruments reducing the complexity of data models. This piece of research presents a procedure to identify structural analogies in data models and demonstrates its performance by analyzing Scheer’s reference model for industrial enterprises (Y-CIM-model). The proposed procedure is based on formalizing data models within set theory and uses a quantitative similarity measure. The obtained results show both identical and very similar information structures within the Y-CIM-model. Furthermore, ways of…
Concept Maps for Comprehension and Navigation of Hypertexts
2013
Comprehension and learning with hypertexts are challenging due to the nonlinearity of such digital documents. Processing hypertexts may involve navigation and comprehension problems, leading learners to cognitive overhead. Concept maps have been added to hypertexts to reduce the cognitive requirements of navigation and comprehension. This chapter explores the literature to examine the effects of concept maps on navigation, comprehension, and learning from hypertexts. The literature review aims to elucidate how concept maps may contribute to processing hypertexts and under which conditions. In spite of the variability of concept maps used in hypertexts, some findings converge. Concept maps r…
Long Distance Case Assignment in Finnish*
2012
. Long distance case assignment remains a little studied corner of grammar. This paper documents such phenomenon in Finnish. In this language the choice of the direct object case depends on several local and remote case assigners. Remote case assigners need not occupy the same clause as the assignees: case assignment penetrates any number of non-finite clause boundaries of all types, adjunct boundaries, and even noun heads. Two hypotheses concerning the phenomenon are put forward: one, which says that the phenomenon is essentially an illusion and involves only local case assignment, and another, which says that genuine long distance case assignment is at issue. The latter hypothesis will f…
Els pronoms forts en les oracions existencials del català
2018
En aquest article defenso que la distribució restringida dels pronoms forts en les oracions existencials del català és la conseqüència, no pas de l'Efecte de Definitud, com s'ha assumit de manera habitual, sinó de la combinació de les condicions informatives que imposa l'oració existencial, que requereix que el pivot sigui contrastiu, amb la naturalesa pragmàtica del contrast en les formes pronominals, que impedeix la lectura contrastiva justament en aquesta posició. Es proposa, doncs, que els casos de pivot pronominal necessiten obtenir aquesta lectura contrastiva per mitjans alternatius, especialment mitjançant l'aportació de les partícules només i mateix. Aquesta anàlisi es pot estendre …
Encapsulació i estructura informativa en el debat parlamentari. Una anàlisi contrastiva (català – espanyol – anglès)
2016
Parliamentary debate (PD) as a specific genre of parliamentary discourse exhibits a hybrid nature: part oral and part written discourse. It is performed orally, but planned ahead and formal. From the point of view of lexical cohesion, encapsulation by means of abstract and unspecific nouns (e.g. factor reason) is an indicator of the informative density and the underlying written natureof PD.With the tools provided by Discourse Analysis and Cognitive Linguistics, this paper aims at describing and characterizing cross-linguistically lexical encapsulation’s potential to define the information struc-ture of PD. In this regard, encapsulation is analyzed in relation to the notions of topic and fo…