- Henk Zeevat, Afdeling Taal- en Letterkunde, Universiteit van Amsterdam/z.Zt. Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für Kognitive Studien, Universität Potsdam, zum Thema Topics and Topic Management. Ort: Komplex Golm, Haus 24, R.033/034. Zeit: Montag, 29. April '02, 17 Uhr s.t.
Abstract
The talk will introduce a simple Hamblin-like notion of questions and
thew way such questions can be addressed and answered. I will then try
to show how this can be used as a notion of sentence topic. I will
then try to show how this notion can be fruitfully applied to the
analysis of polarity questions, contrastivity, and additivity. The
various marking devices (particles, conjunctions, intonation) can be
thought of as together constituting a method of building and managing
the local topics and offers an interesting basis for the analysis of
the phenomena in question.
The analysis offers the possibility of accounting for additive
particles without assuming that they associate with contrastive topics
and to derive their presupposition trigger-like behaviour from
their role in topic-management.