The Role of Information Structure in Argument Dislocation(Based on data from Southern Kurdish)

Information structure (IS) investigates the relationship between linguistic forms and mental referents of different utterances. Information structure, on one hand, is concerned with formal aspects of language and, on the other hand, it deals with functional aspects of language. This rather abstract approach, however, has received less attention comparing with tangible aspects of grammar such as morphology and syntax. Furthermore, those dealing with information structure were not consistent in terms of methodology and terminology that they employed. Accordingly, Prague School scholars employed “Functional Sentence Perspective” to refer to information structure. In the same vein, Halliday (2004) called it “Thematic Structure”; Chafe (1976) employed “Information Packaging”; and Vallduvi (1994) referred to this component of grammar as “Informatics”. Another issue to be dealt with in this study is “argument dislocation”. It is intended to investigate the effect of information structure on argument dislocation in Southern Kurdish. A dislocated structure is composed of two parts: detached part and propositional part. In propositional part, there is a pronoun which is co-referent with the dislocated noun phrase. Information structure may be among the key reasons why noun phrases are dislocated and appear as detached NPs in the left and right of sentences. In other words, for any NP, being topical or focal may alter the argument structure of any given clause. Lambrecht (1994: 188) used the term “topic” to refer to the dislocated NPs in the left side of the clause. He also referred to detached NPs in the right side of the clause as “anti- topic”.  

As stated above, the present study is intended to gauge the role of information structure (IS) in the formation of dislocated sentences in southern Kurdish (Kalhori) in Iran. Accordingly, the topical and focal arguments were identified and the possibility of dislocation of these arguments was, also, assessed. Information structure is among the main factors which can affect the syntax of sentences. The present study is theoretically based on the framework presented by Lambrecht (1994, 2001). Methodologically, it is a descriptive- analytic study in which linguistic intuition, observation, targeted interviews and consulting with authentic library sources were employed tools to collect the data. Moreover, the researchers of this study are both native speakers of southern Kurdish (Kalhori) which was an advantage in their judgments and decisions. In some cases, to ensure to make a right decision, a given structure was presented to many native speakers. The data were gathered from southern Kurdish (Kalhori dialect) spoken by people in the city of Eivan in the west of Iran. Kalhori Kurdish is mainly spoken in some parts of Ilam and Kermanshah Provinces in cities such as Kermanshah, Eivan, Gilan-e-Gharb, and Eslam Abad Gharb.

Information structure or information distribution across different sentences may result in syntactic variations and formation of various linguistic forms. All language components including, morphology, syntax, prosody and lexicon can be affected by information distribution. In the present study, an attempt was made to shed light on the role of information structure in the formation of so-called dislocated structures based on data from southern Kurdish in the west of Iran. The results indicated the topical subjects and objects (as the main arguments) are appropriate candidates to undergo left/ right dislocation, while their empty place (in argument structure of the clause) is filled with resumptive pronouns (pro and object enclitics). In contrast, focal arguments (left/right) dislocation would result in an infelicitous discourse. In other words, the detached NP in so-called dislocated structures must have degrees of identifiability to be placed at the beginning of the sentence as a possible topic. Overall, based on the results, two syntactic patterns are possible in southern Kurdish. First, in the presence of focal arguments, an inflexible sequence of (S O V) will be the only syntactic pattern in southern Kurdish. Second, if the arguments are topical, then a more flexible word order and a lot of syntactic dislocations are more probable. The Separation of Role and Reference Principle (SRRP) was proposed by Lambrecht (1994: 184) to refer to so-called dislocated structures. This principle is rooted in a pragmatic rule which states that if you introduce a new referent in a clause, do not talk about it in the same clause (lambrecht, 1994: 185). For our interlocutor, it is easier to process a clause whose new referent is located outside of the clause as a detached NP, because identifying the topic (detached NP) and interpretation of the related proposition take place independently. On the other hand, in terms of articulation, producing such a structure in which a new and non-identifiable topic is introduced independently from its related clause would be easier for the speaker.

In dislocated structures, detached NPs are “reference- based” due to their semantic content, while the resumtive pronouns which fill the empty position of detached NPs in the argument structure of the clause are “function-based” (Lambrecht, 1994: 187). Unlike left dislocation (LD) which places topical elements in the beginning of the clause (pre-posing), right dislocation (RD) or anti-topic post-poses the topical elements at the end of the clause. Like LD, this process enables the language users to follow “the Separation of Role and Reference Principle” (SRRP) in the appropriate communicative situations. The obtained results based on southern Kurdish proved that the detached NP in RD (unlike RD) would not be new topic or is not indicative of topic discontinuity. The findings of this study proved, also, that the detached NP in LD and RD would be different in terms of their relative identifiability. It was found that the detached NP in RD is more identifiable comparing with the detached NP in LD, while LD is mainly used to introduce possible topics which have not been established as topic in that given context.