Deconstructing Information Structure

The paper argues that a core part of what is traditionally referred to as ‘information structure’ can be deconstructed into genuine morphosyntactic features that are visible to syntactic operations, contribute to discourse-related expressive meanings, and just happen to be spelled out prosodically in Standard American and British English. We motivate two features, [FoC] and [G], and we track the fate of those features at and beyond the syntax-semantics and the syntax-phonology interfaces. [FoC] and [G] are responsible for two distinct obligatory strategies for establishing discourse coherence. A [G]-marked constituent signals a matchwith a discourse referent, whereas a [FoC]-marked constituent invokes alternatives and thereby signals a contrast. In Standard American and British English [FoC] aims for highest prominence in the intonational phrase, whereas [G] resists phrase-level prominence. There is no grammatical marking of newness: The apparent prosodic effects of newness are the result of default prosody