The Syntax of Topic, Focus, and Contrast

This book addresses how core notions of information structure (topic, focus and contrast) are expressed in syntax.The authorspropose that the syntactic effects of information structure come about as a result of mapping rules flexible enough to allow topics and foci to be expressed in a variety of positions, but strict enough to capture certain cross-linguistic generalisations about their distribution. Syntactic and semantic evidence from a range of languages are discussed.