Resumen de The position of TFA (information structure) in a dependency based description of language
Information structure of the sentence (its topic-focus articulation, TFA in the sequel), though disguised under different terms and slightly different interpretations, belongs nowadays among the most frequently discussed issues of the sentence structure and its semantic and communicative function (Section 2). Based on our long-term study of these issues influenced heavily by the Prague School approach to functional linguistics and, first of all, by Petr Sgall's pioneering insights into the semantic relevance of TFA, we present an answer to three basic questions: (1) on which layer of linguistic description the basic features of TFA are to be represented (Section 3), (2) which basic oppositions are to be captured (Section 4), and (3) which formal description of language structure is best suited for such a representation (Section 5). In passing, we compare our standpoints to those embodied in other models, paying a special attention to Igor Mel'cuk's Meaning Text Theory. In the concluding section (Section 6), we briefly sketch how a carefully-designed linguistically-based annotation of a corpus may serve as a testbed for a linguistic theory.
