Sabina Halupka-Rešetar: Rečenični fokus u engleskom i srpskom jeziku

Abstract

While information structure and discourse functions have been at the center of attention of functional and cognitive linguists since the earliest days of these approaches, these domains had to fight their way into more formal schools of grammar, especially generative syntactic frameworks. Recent publications show that they have fully succeeded, as very strong arguments have been provided for the views that the relevant notions do figure as syntactic features, and moreover that such features enter the syntactic generation already at the zero level- the Numeration (see especially Aboh 2010). Even approaches that dispense with information structure in narrow syntax still treat it syntactically at its interface with phonology and/or semantics (see, e.g., Neeleman et al. 2009). The book under review takes on the challenging task of presenting two intersecting oppositions: an empirical one be- tween the structural effects of information structure in what is traditionally labeled a configurational versus a non-/discourse-configurational language and one that is rather methodological, between a functionalist discourse-centered theoretical paradigm and one that is formal and syntax-centered. More precisely, it investigates the syntax of focus in English and Serbian from the perspectives of the functional Prague school and of the generative Minimalist Program. These oppositions are assessed in parallel, each of them receiving its own descriptive and theoretical treatment, and contrastive and comparative per- perspectives are only taken sporadically, where they are particularly feasible for the discussion of the respective issues. Finally, a hybrid model is presented, analyzing the relevant data with a combined inventory of methodological tools and architectural views of grammar.