The Meaning of Topic and Focus
The 59th Street Bridge Accent
By Daniel Büring
Series: Routledge Studies in Germanic Linguistics
List Price: $185.00
Add to Cart
- ISBN: 978-0-415-16897-7
- Binding: Hardback
- Published by: Routledge
- Publication Date: 10/09/1997
- Pages: 216
- Trim Size: 234X156
Recommend this title to a librarian using our Librarian Recommendation Form.
About the Book
This study provides an illuminating and ground-breaking account of the complex interaction of intonational phenomena, semantics and pragmatics. Based on examples from German and English, and centred on an analysis of the fall-rise intonation contour, a semantic interpretation for two different pitch accents - Focus and Topic - is developed. The cross-sentence, as well as the sentence internal semantic effects of these accents, follow from the given treatment. The account is based on Montogovian possible world semantics and Chomskian generative syntax.
