MA Applied Linguistics
Mohammad Al Towaim
Information Structure in English
Contents
Introduction
1
Section 1: Rewrite the given text considering the information structure
2
1.2 Rewrite the given text and made comments
2
Section 2: Communicative Principle affecting the structuring of Information
3
2.1 Given-New Information (Principle of End-Focus)
3
2.1.1 Given Information
3
2.1.2 New Information
3
2.2 Principle of End-Weight
4
2.3 Principle of Clausal-Initial
5
Section 3: Some of the grammatical Devices For Reordering Information
6
3.1 Thematic Reordering
6
3.2 Postponement
6
3.2.1 Postponing parts of the sentence elements
7
3.2.2 Postponing the emphatic Reflexive Pronoun
7
3.3 Subject-Complement Switching
7
3.3.1 Subject-Verb Inversion
7
3.3.2 Subject-Operator Inversion
8
3.4 Passivization
9
3.4.1 Passivization without an agent
9
3.4.2 Passivization focusing on the other elements
10
3.4.3 Passivization with an agent
10
3.5 Cleft-Sentence
10
3..6 Pseudo-Cleft Sentence
11
3.6.2 The differences between Cleft-Sentences and Pseudo-Cleft Sentence
12
3.6.3 Major communicative Functions of Pseudo-Cleft Sentence
13
3.7 Extrapostion
13
3.8 Existential
14
Conclusion
15
References
16
Appendix
17
Introduction
In the light of communicative considerations, information structure plays a significant
role within English grammar and discourse. Rather than hesitating when we face
various choices among different styles, knowledge of information structure allows us
to arrange our messages in an appropriate way. I have chosen this topic for these
reasons and in order to be able to apply such features to my native language, Arabic,
whose grammar studies do not appear to refer to them.
This essay will consider the information structure of English by starting with the
given text and mentioning some communicative changes which I will make. In
Section 2, the communicative principles affecting a choice of different information
styles will be considered, before Section 3 examines the grammatical devices
available in English with suitable examples, either from the given text, or from other
sources. Finally, the conclusion will summarise the essay and pose some questions
relating to my postgraduate study.
This essay focuses on written rather than spoken language, for two reasons. Firstly,
the availability of time in a conversation, according to Greenbaum (1991), is generally
very limited, and I think, as a result, that the opportunity to take account of
information structure is likely to be quite narrow. Secondly, in spontaneous
utterances, speakers may emphasise or highlight certain elements using various
devices such as tone, stress and intonation, which are, in my opinion, not related
directly to the chosen topic.
Section 1: Rewrite the given text 1 to improve the information structure
Sentences
1
Comments
See Appendix, p17
1
1
There is a man in the bar of the Phoenicia
By using Existential ‘There’, the
hotel who gave me some incorrect
theme (a man) containing new
information.
information was moved out of
subject position, since the subject
is new.
2
He was a fattish pinkish man in bulging
To respect the principle of End-
blue short.
Focus, the information is reordered.
3
What he was looking for was a decent
Here, Pseudo-Cleft is used to
place to stay, so he informed me.
focus on the new information as
complement of verb to be ‘was’
4
He had investigated the Channel Islands,
The long clause is moved to end
Bermuda, Jamaica and Geneva, and none
position by Fronted Topic.
had proved satisfactory.
5
6
It is Malta where he was now, among
A Cleft-Sentence is used here to
Malts.
emphasis ‘Malta’
I always picked the wrong man at the bar
To respect the principle of EndFocus, the information is reordered.
7
I had done it again.
The adverb again was moved to
the end position to respect EndFocus principle.
8
His fat eyes were now focused on me
no need for any unusual structure
Section 2: The Key Communicative Principles affecting Information
Structures.
According to Leech and Svartvik (1975), the majority of foreign students learning
English are interested in making use of language communicatively. Therefore, it is
2
important to consider the communicative principles affecting the order of information
within and between clauses. Such principles relate to meaning, situation and use. The
most significant principles in English are:
2.1 The Given-New principle (Principle of End-Focus)
The information in a message can be divided into given and new information:
2.1.1 Given information
‘Given’ information is what the speaker/writer supposes the hearer to know about.
Such information is considered as given, either in the light of the situation or because
it has been mentioned before.
2.1.2 New information
New information, on the other hand, is the part of the message which is assumed to be
new for the hearer/reader. Thus, it should receive the main focus among all parts of
the message, called ‘end-focus’.
The main aim of this principle is to order the message to emphasise the new
information by putting it at the end of the sentence or clause.
Consider the example below, which is adapted from the given text:
Given information
New information
He was
a fattish pinkish man in bulging blue shorts.
In this sentence, the pronoun ‘he’ refers to someone who is already known, so it is
placed at the beginning of the sentence, while the rest of the sentence is new
information, since it carries more details regarding the man.
It is important to say that although the elements occurring at the end of a sentence
typically deserve the end-focus, there are some elements in language which are
inherently given, even though they might occur in final position. Halliday (1991)
gives examples of anaphoric elements (those that refer to things mentioned before)
and deictic elements (those that are interpreted by reference to the ‘here-&-now’ of
the discourse.
3
2.2 The principle of End-Weight
It is normal in English to put long and complex constituents at the end of a clause,
because this makes them easier to understand.
Consider the following examples:
(a) That he did not understand what I said at the lecture is very strange!
(b) It is very strange that he did not understand what I said at the lecture.
It is clear, for communicative purposes, that (b) is more appropriate than (a), since the
former has a long, complex phrase in subject position, and that may make it difficult
to interpret.
The principle of end-weight, as (Greenbaum 1991) mentions, usually has a strong
relationship with the principle of end-focus, in which the most significant information
is likely to occur at the end of the clause. However, the two principles can conflict, as
can be seen in the examples below:
(a) My father owns the largest betting-shop in London.
(b) The largest betting-shop in London belongs to my father.
Leech and Svartvik (1975) note that in (a), the long object phrase comes after the
short subject ‘my father’, to respect the principle of end-weight. In contrast, this
principle is broken by putting the long phrase in (b) in the theme position; but it could
be said that the writer did so to apply the principle of end-focus to ‘my father’.
2.3 The principle of Clause-Initial Topic/Topic Preservation
As we have just seen, the two principles of end-focus and end-weight give importance
to the final position of the sentence or clause. Nevertheless, the first position is also
important for communication, due to the fact that the first element is the ‘point of
departure’ for what the speaker/writer wants to say. We call this element the ‘theme’
(Downing and Locke 2000).
4
Usually, but not always, theme corresponds with ‘topic’, which indicates what the
text, or part of the text, is about. Downing and Locke (2000) claim that there are three
types of topic, which may be illustrated by the phrase below:
…buying a caravan…
The ‘superordinate topic’ is the topic of the whole text, whereas the ‘basic-level topic’
is a participant in the phrase (in this case, the buyer, the seller, the caravan or the
money). A ‘subordinate topic’ is part of the basic-level topic, such as some part of the
caravan.
Such principles may influence the selection of one structure over another, in which
the topic tends to be expressed as the first element in the sentence/clause (Collins and
Hollo 2000).
Section 3: Some Grammatical Devices for Reordering Information
The previous section set out some of the principles affecting the choice of information
structure in English. Now, the logical question is: how can we apply those principles?
Some answers are offered below.
5
3.1 Thematic Reordering
According to Leech and Svartvik (1975), English allows elements other than the
subject to be chosen as topic. This process involves moving that element to the front
of the sentence. So, as we have seen above, a less important idea is shifted, and the
principle of end-focus can be applied.
In English, such a shift, called ‘topic fronting’, has three different effects:

An ‘emphatic topic’. This kind of fronted topic is common in informal
conversation. In such cases, a speaker tends to front a complement (e.g.
‘Joe’, ‘his name is’). It seems that the speaker says the most significant
thing first, thus giving it double emphasis.

A ‘contrastive topic’. Here, we can contrast two things mentioned in
the previous clause (e.g. ‘Rich, I may be!’ in answer to ‘You’re rich, so
you must be happy.’) This type of fronted topic is not very common,
and is used in rhetorical style.

‘Given topic’. Consider this example: ‘Most of these problems a
computer could solve easily’. Here, the object is moved to the initial
position as a fronted topic to give more focus to the subject. However,
the topic still receives partial emphasis, since it is the starting-point of
the sentence (Leech and Svartvik 1975).
3.2 Postponement
There are many types of postponement, two of which are:
3.2.1 Postponing Part of the Sentence
If we have a long noun phrase, we can postpone a part of the sentence to avoid
awkwardness, by splitting, for instance, an adjective from its postmodifiers (Leech
and Svartvik 1975). Consider the following examples:
(a) How ready to make peace with their enemies are they?
(b) How ready are they to make peace with their enemies?
3.2.2 Postponing the Emphatic Reflexive Pronoun
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If a reflexive pronoun occurs as part of the subject, it is likely to be postponed in the
light of the end-focus principle:
John himself told me. → John told me himself.
(= ‘It was John, and no one else, who told me’.)
3.3 Subject-Complement Switching
In English, fronting is not applied to the topic element only; the verb phrase, or part of
it, can occur before the subject. This kind of fronting is called ‘inversion’ or ‘subjectcomplement switching’.
There are two types of such processes: ‘subject-verb inversion’ and ‘subject-operator
inversion’, which can be explained as follows:
3.3.1 Subject-Verb Inversion
According to Leech (1975), subject-verb inversion is usually identified by two main
features:

The verb phrase consists of a single verb word.

This verb is an intransitive verb of position (be, stand, lie, etc) or a
verb of motion (come, go, fall, etc).
The example below illustrates these features:
Subject
Verb
The rain
came down
in torrents
This sentence is changed by subject-verb inversion to:
Down came the rain in torrents.
3.3.2 Subject-Operator Inversion
This kind of subject-complement switching applies in questions. Moreover,
Greenbaum and Quick (1990:410) point out some common circumstances when the
operator precedes the subject:
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
When a negative element is fronted for emphasis:
Not a car did he own.
Under no circumstances must the door be left unlocked.

In comparative clauses, when the subject is not a personal pronoun:
Oil costs less than would atomic energy.

In subordinate clauses of condition and concession, especially in
formal usage:
Even had she left a will, it is unlikely that the college would
have benefited.
Moreover, the principle of end-focus by subject-operator inversion can be applied to
‘so’, with the meaning of ‘degree’ or ‘amount’ (Leech and Svartvik 1975):
So absurd did he look that every one stared at him. (= ‘He looked so absurd that…’)
3.4 Passivization
Consider the examples below:
(a) The teacher gave the lecture.
(b) The lecture was given by the teacher.
If we analyse the active clause (a) and the passive clause (b) deeply, it can be said,
according to Collins and Hollo (2000), that the passive form can be derived by:

Converting the object of the active (the lecture) into the subject if the
passive;

Making the subject of the active (the teacher) into the axis of the byphrase;

Making the VP passive, by adding auxiliary be to VP before the main
verb and converting the main verb into the Ven form.
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The usage of the passive form is one of the grammatical devices available in English,
and plays a significant role in applying communicative principles such as end-focus
and end-weight.
Passivization can be divided into three types:
3.4.1 Passivization without an agent
For communicative considerations, particularly the principle of end-focus, a passive
form is preferred when we aim to omit the agent. Greenbaum and Quick (1990:45)
point out some reasons for such usage in detail:

We do not know the identity of the agent of the action.

We want to avoid identifying the agent because they do not assign or
accept responsibility.

We feel that there is no reason for mentioning the agent, because
identification is unimportant or obvious from the context.

In scientific and technical writing, writers often use the passive to
avoid the constant repetition of the subject I or we, and to put the
emphasis on the process and procedure. This use of the passive helps to
give the writing the objective tone that such writers wish to convey.
3.4.2 Passivization focusing on the other elements
According to Downing and Locke (1992), a significant proportion of passive clauses
in English have an adjunct, a complement or a prepositional object in end-position, as
in these examples:
He was taken to jail.
Nothing has been heard of him for months.
The letters had been sent unstamped.
Membership is limited to the over-65s.
The retiring chairman was presented with a gold watch.
In these passive examples, it could be said that the end-focus would have applied if
the verb had been active. Instead, the passive form was used to respect the principle of
‘clausal-initial topic'. Then, the preferred theme may be affected and given
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information (‘he’, ‘The letters’), a nuclear negative (‘nothing’) a nominalization
(‘membership’) or recipient (‘the retiring chairman’) would be chisen.
4.4.3 Passivization with an agent
The two types above show cases where the agent is omitted. On the other hand,
English sometimes prefers the ‘by-agent’ passive (Leech and Svartvik 1975; Downing
and Locke 1992), for one or more of three main reasons:

To consider the agent as new information.

To respect the principle of end-weight.

To retain the same subject throughout the sentence.
3.5 Cleft Sentences
Although their grammatical structure seems to be difficult, cleft sentences are easy to
interpret, because they place a clear emphasis on the person or thing that is being
referred to.
In order to make an utterance more easily understood, cleft sentences consist of two
parts: 1) the ‘empty’ subject pronoun ‘it’ followed by the verb to be and its
complement; then 2) a relative clause. This is illustrated in the example below:
empty theme + verb to be + complement
relative clause
It was Mark
that won the car
Cleft sentences are used to draw special attention to the new information involved,
usually in the first part. However, the relative clause in the second part carries some of
the emphasis, since it is the antecedent element (Collins and Hollo 2000).
We can refer to some notes on usage which are made by Downing and Locke (1992):

Who or that, but not which, are fronted in the second part; and that is
more common than who, even after proper names.

Relative adverbs (where, how and when but not why) can be placed at
the beginning of the second part.
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
The cleft sentence receives a special significance in the written
language, because it helps the reader to identify more easily the
position of the focused element, without the need for other devices
such as underlining or capitals.
3.6 Pseudo-Cleft Sentences
Another device which can be used to re-order the information in the English clause is
the Pseudo-Cleft Sentences.
Identified
Identifier
What he clearly hates
are lies
This sentence is typical, according to Collins and Hollo (2000), following the SVC
pattern, and has a nominal relative clause as subject or complement. In this form, we
can distinguish between two parts, ‘identifier’ and ‘identified’. The identifier usually
receives the focus of information, even if the order is reversed, as in the following
sentence (Downing and Locke 1992):
Identifier
identified
Lies
are what he clearly
hates
3.6.1 Differences between Cleft Sentences and Pseudo-Cleft Sentences
Greenbaum (1991), Greenbaum and Quick (1990) and Downing and Locke (1992)
indicate three main differences between these two grammatical devices:

The emphasized parts are different. In a cleft sentence, the first part is
more important than the second, while it is the second part of a pseudocleft which has the stronger focus.

Unlike the cleft sentence, the pseudo-cleft sentence can emphasise a
prediction, action or event, in sentences like:
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What he’s done is spoil the whole thing.
What he did was rent a car.
What we should all do is hurry off home.

The pseudo-cleft sentence is more limited than the cleft-sentence, in
that it is always constructed with a what-clause, whereas the latter is
more flexible in the use of relative adverbs.
However, the two types are similar from another point of view, since the
highlighted element must be appropriate to the situational context.
3.6.2 Communicative functions of the Pseudo-Cleft Sentence
This device has three functions in discourse, mentioned by Downing and Locke
(1992:250):

It can introduce a new topic:
What we shall consider today is the Second World War.

It can recall an earlier part of the discourse:
We arrived home to find the place flooded; what had happened was
that a pipe had burst.

It can provide contrast with a previous statement or question:
- Do you mean that we should go now?
- No, what I meant was that we should finish quickly.
3.7 Extraposition
When we have a long subject clause, we can apply the principles of end-focus and
end-weight by extraposition, which can be achieved by moving the long subject
clause to the end of the sentence and replacing it by ‘it’.
Such movement takes various forms (Collins and Hollo 2000; Downing and Locke
1992):

Finite Subject Extraposition: (Finite that-clause).
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That he escaped without injury is amazing → It is amazing that he
escaped without injury.

Finite Subject Extraposition: (Finite WH-clause):
How much that child eats is unbelievable → It is unbelievable how
much that child eat.

Non-Finite Subject Extraposition:
To think of a convincing excuse is difficult → It is difficult to think of a
convincing excuse.

Object Extraposition:
I find that he drives without a license amazing → I find it amazing that
he drives without a license.
This is usually obligatory with finite and non-finite clauses.
3.8 Existential there
English has an alternative way to structure information communicatively, by use of
the unstressed dummy pronoun there followed by a verb, usually be, and a nominal
group. Consider the first sentence in the given text:
There is a man in the bar of the Phoenicia hotel who gave me some incorrect
information.
The sentence above without existential there would be gauche, since ‘man’ seems to
be new information. In this regard, the subject moved by there is usually indefinite.
Thus, as Downing and Locke (1992) point out, there typically has a function in which
the indefinite subject is shifted to a later position, in the light of either the end-focus
or the end-weight principle.
This device can express events, happenings and states of affairs. In such cases, the
noun is a nominalization of a process (Downing and Locke 1992):
13
There was a sudden feeling of panic.
Moreover, according to Collins and Hollo (2000) and Downing and Locke (1992),
existential sentences permit few verbs to follow presentative there; examples include
remain, appear, follow, seem, arise, rise and emerge.
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Conclusion
Some aspects of information structure in English have been considered, in terms of
both the principles controlling a selection of utterance styles and of the
communicative devices applying to such choices.
As I said above, this topic is significant for me as a teacher of Arabic to foreign
students, given the lack of this kind of study in Arabic. Thus the question arises of
whether such analyses are applicable to any language, and if so, how they can be
applied to Arabic. I hope to find some answers in future research.
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References
Collins, P & Hollo, C (2000) English Grammar: An Introduction. Basingstoke:
Palgrave.
Downing, A & Locke, P (1992) A University Course in English Grammar. London:
Prentice Hall International.
Ferguson, G. (2005) Handout: ‘Lecture on Information Structures’. University of
Sheffield.
Greenbaum, S & Quick, R (1990) A Student's Grammar of The English Language.
Harlow: Addison Wesley Longman.
Greenbaum, S (1991) An Introduction to English Grammar. Essex: Longman Group
Limited.
Halliday, M A K (1985) An Introduction to Functional Grammar. Bury St Edmunds:
St Edmundsbury Press Ltd.
Leech, G & Svartvik, J. (1975) A Communicative Grammar of English. London :
Longman
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Appendix
The given text:
(2) The man in the bar of Phoenicia hotel gave me some incorrect information. (2)
A fattish pinkish man in bulging blue short he was.
(4) A decent place to stay was what he was looking for, so he informed me. (4)
The Channel island, Bermuda, Jamaica and Geneva had already been
investigated by him and none had proved satisfactory. (5) In Malta he was
now, among Malts.
(6) The wrong man at the bar was what I always picked and (7) again I had done
it. (8) It was his fat eyes that were now focused on me.
The text after rewrite:
There is a man in the bar of the Phoenicia hotel who gave me some incorrect
information. He was a fattish pinkish man in bulging blue short. What he was
looking for was a decent place to stay, so he informed me. He had investigated the
Channel Islands, Bermuda, Jamaica and Geneva, and none had proved
satisfactory. It is Malta where he was now, among Malts. I always picked the
wrong man at the bar, and I had done it again. His fat eyes were now focused on
me
17