Expressivity and Information Structure

Abstract This chapter explores the similarities, differences, and interactions between the domain of expressivity and a variety of discourse meanings commonly summarized as the domain of information structure. The connections between expressivity and information structure are discussed based on a distinction between “expressivity—broad sense (B-expressivity)” and “expressivity—narrow sense (N-expressivity)”. N-expressivity covers a range of use-conditional phenomena that also convey emotive meanings. By contrast, B-expressivity includes N-expressivity plus use-conditional meanings in general (i.e., without any emotive interpretation). Given this distinction, the chapter argues for the following claim: while B-expressivity, in the domain of information structure, is always conveyed via phonology in European languages, only N-expressivity additionally triggers marked word order. N-expressivity in fact motivates many of the marked fronting constructions that are commonly accounted for in information structural terms, not only mirative focus, but also prima facie emotionally unsuspicious cases like corrective focus.