Testing predictions of the Givenness Hierarchy framework: A crosslinguistic investigation

Jeanette K. Gundel; Mamadou Bassene; Bryan Gordon; Linda Humnick; Amel Khalfaoui

doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2009.09.010

Testing predictions of the Givenness Hierarchy framework: A crosslinguistic investigation

Jeanette K. Gundel, Mamadou Bassene, Bryan Gordon, Linda Humnick, Amel Khalfaoui

Linguistics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

21 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper reports on a study that tests predictions of the Givenness Hierarchy theory by extending it to four languages not yet studied in this respect - Eegimaa, Kumyk, Ojibwe, and Tunisian Arabic. Three hypotheses are tested: I. If a language encodes the distinction between two adjacent statuses on the hierarchy, it will also encode distinctions between higher statuses; II. All languages encode distinctions between the two highest statuses, 'in focus' and 'activated'; III. Languages will not have forms that encode the set difference between two statuses. Results of the study provide support for all three hypotheses.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	1770-1785
Number of pages	16
Journal	Journal of Pragmatics
Volume	42
Issue number	7
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2009.09.010
State	Published - Jul 2010

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
* Corresponding author at: Linguistics, 204 Nolte Center, 315 Pillsbury Dr., University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA. Tel.: +1 612 624 7564. E-mail address: gunde003@umn.edu (J.K. Gundel). 1 This research was supported by grants awarded to Jeanette Gundel by the US National Science Foundation (BCS 0519890) and the University of Minnesota Graduate School. We also gratefully acknowledge support from the University of Minnesota Center for Cognitive Sciences.

Keywords

Cognitive status
Demonstratives
Givenness Hierarchy
Implicature
Reference

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abstract = "This paper reports on a study that tests predictions of the Givenness Hierarchy theory by extending it to four languages not yet studied in this respect - Eegimaa, Kumyk, Ojibwe, and Tunisian Arabic. Three hypotheses are tested: I. If a language encodes the distinction between two adjacent statuses on the hierarchy, it will also encode distinctions between higher statuses; II. All languages encode distinctions between the two highest statuses, 'in focus' and 'activated'; III. Languages will not have forms that encode the set difference between two statuses. Results of the study provide support for all three hypotheses.",

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Testing predictions of the Givenness Hierarchy framework: A crosslinguistic investigation

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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