I. Information Packaging

1.1. Given information comes before new

Sentences rarely occur in isolation and to get the full picture we really need to go beyond the sentence to something we call communicative structure. This involves the ways in which we distribute our bits of information in a text, in order to provide the right sport of cues to help our audience to follow and interpret a piece of discourse appropriately. Our discourses are really much like stories. Any shifts in focus , change of players, beginnings and endings of scenes all need to be signaled. The ways in which we do these things are called discourse strategies. Potentially they involve all linguistic levels; for example, syntax (e.g. word order, special constructions), morphology (e.g. specific markers), lexicon (e.g. expressions like as for, well) and phonology (e.g. intonation, pausing).

At first sight our language is full of redundancy in its grammar. We’ve already come across a number of different constructions that seem to convey the same information. Pairs of sentences like Steve loves Ann and Ann is loved by Steve and Steve gave Ann a note and Steve gave a note to Ann don’t contrast in propositional meaning – but their stylistic effects are very different.

In the following we will look at three basic principles for organizing or packaging information in a sentence and some of the grammatical strategies available for varying the information structure according to these principles.

In writing and also in speaking, there are two basic kinds of information: GIVEN vs NEW. New information is what drives the discourse forward, it’s where we expect our audience to pay special attention. In English, as in other languages, the unmarked organizational principle is to put the given information first and the new information at the end. That is: what is important for us goes at the end. This rule often goes in contradiction with the rigid word order in the English language. The discourse organization is subject to a number of constraints which are sometimes in conflict. For example, there are several ways in which information can be put at the front in order to signal its importance. This is a phenomenon we refer to as front focus, and there are a number of grammatical strategies available to achieve this. The situation is made more complicated by the fact that the information the speaker wants to put in focus is often the new one. This means that speakers may use a number of strategies to manoeuvre the new information into the initial position. Consider the following sentence:

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

It’s a classic story tale opening and the author used it for the reason that the beginning of the sentence for old and unsurprising material or given information. It’s the end of the sentence where you put things that are novel and unexpected. Here we are being introduced to the hobbit for the first time. Then the tale continues:

This hobbit was a very well-to-do hobbit, and his name was Baggins.

(The newest and the most salient information is the hobbit’s name.)

One very effective trick is to deliberately delay mention of the juicy bits to the very last moment, as a way of further heightening our expectations:

By some curious chance one morning long ago in the quiet of the world, when there was less noise and more green, and the hobbits were still numerous and prosperous, and Bilbo was standing at his door after breakfast, smoking an enormous long wooden pipe that reached nearly down to his wooly knees (neatly brushed) – Gandalf came by. Gandalf!

Here the author has stacked up the adverbial expressions and given the new information extra prominence.

The wandering wizard gave Old Took a pair of magic diamond studs. - The wandering wizard gave a pair of magic diamond studs to Old Took.

It’s a matter of choice, and the author used the first to get the message across because Old Took is established information, he was introduced much earlier in the book.

New information is typically much longer than old – it comes with a lot more detail. For example,

The wandering wizard gave Old Took a pair of magic diamond studs that fastened themselves and never came undone till ordered.

With given information we simply don’t need to include the same sort of detail again. One way we can give it less than full mention is via proforms. These are little words, for example pronouns, which occur in the place of longer already known constituents:

Deep down here by the dark water lived old Gollum, a small slimy creature. I don’t know where he came from, nor who or what he was. He was a Gollum – as dark as darkness, except for two big round pale eyes in his thin face. He had a little boat, and he rowed about quite quietly on the lake.

Another way of giving old information less than full mention is by totally omitting it. This phenomenon is called ellipsis. It just means we are leaving out that part of a sentence that is totally reconstructable from previous utterances or that can simply be inferred from the context. Like proforms, ellipsis leads to economy of expression and is mostly used in everyday speech (dialogues), sports commentary tolerate higher than usual occurrences of ellipsis and even certain written varieties too, like the language used in recipes:

Heat the vegetable oil and when {-} hot, add {-} onions. Fry {-} until {-} golden and crisp. Remove {-} with a slotted spoon and drain {-} on paper towels. Then set {-} aside.

Clearly, length and complexity of the material are closely tied in with the informational aspects of sentence meaning. Syntactically complex or “heavy” structures typically appear late in a sentence. This is known as principle of end-weight. Constituents are usually “heavy” when they have more new information, so this arrangement coincides with the tendency for new information to follow given.

Beneath him, under all his limbs and his huge coiled tail, and about him on all sides stretching away across the unseen floors, lay countless piles of precious things, gold wrought and unwrought, gems and jewels, and silver red-stained in the ruddy light… And there in rows stood great jars and vessels filled with a wealth that could not be guessed. (Try to transform the sentences and see that the new version is not nearly as effective)

It is not surprising that the guards were drinking and laughing by a fire in their huts, and didn’t hear the noise of the unpacking of the dwarves or the footsteps of the four scouts. (Try to transform the sentences and see that the new version is clumsy)