Semantics

98 BASIC SEMANTICS
Nominals can be linked to information structure, as Gundel et al (1993)
show in their Givenness Hierarchy for English Nominals as follows:
in focus > activated > familiar >
unlikely
indefinable >
referential > type indefinable
{it} {that {that N} {the N} {indefinite {a N}
this {this N}
this N}
Givenness Hierarchy (Gundel et al. 1993) (Adapted).
This hierarchy identifies different information states of a referent,
moving left to right from most given to most new. In the second line are
examples of English nominals typically used for it. The following example,
from Saeed, shows how the indefinite article signals the most to the right
end of the Givenness Hierarchy:
A dog next door kept me awake
This dog next door kept me awake
The dog next door kept me awake
That dog next door kept me awake
This dog/that/this kept me awake
It kept me awake
4.7. FOCUS AND TOPIC
Another way of marking information structure in English is using
intonation. By doing this the assignment of primary stress to some parts
of the sentence makes them more prominent (capital letters are used to
signal primary stress)
a. Mario embezzled the money.
b. given information: Someone embezzled the money.
c. new information: it was Mario.
The English intonation system allows the speaker to divide the sentence
in two parts: a prominent part and the rest. This prominent part is called
focus and it is used to mark new information.