Givenness and discourse anaphors

This chapter argues that Catalan Clitic Right Dislocation and English deaccenting package different types of information (contra Vallduví 1992, Vallduví & Engdahl 1996), only the former being a true discourse anaphor. This chapter further hypothesizes the following generalization: A language in which stress is displaced to express givenness is a language in which stress assignment is sensitive to syntax, while in a language in which stress assignment is a purely linear phenomenon stress cannot shift. A model of the syntax-phonology interface is sketched in which this generalization follows from the location of stress in the grammatical architecture.

• Affiliations: 1: University of Illinois at Chicago