No abstract

No abstract

In this paper we would like to explore, within Vallduví's (1992Vallduví's ( , 1993 information packaging theory, how writers' assumptions about their addressees' state of knowledge can account for the choice writers make between competing syntactic structures, which we call "allostructures", to convey the same informational content. The assumed old/new informational status has then an inl uence on the grammatical choices made by the writers. In particular we investigate here, using the web as corpus, the constraints that govern writers' choice between the following non-restrictive modii ers of nouns that aim at optimizing the relevance (as dei ned by Sperber & Wilson) of the referents denoted by the nouns they modify: nominal appositives, appositive relative clauses, non-restrictive pre-modii ers.Keywords: informational status, familiarity, relevance, appositive relative clauses, nominal appositives, allostructures, information packaging, web as corpus Cet article explore la façon dont les hypothèses de l'énonciateur sur les connaissances de son / ses destinataire(s) peuvent avoir une inl uence sur ses choix entre des structures syntaxiques concurrentes (ou « allostructures ») ai n de véhiculer un contenu informationnel donné. Le statut informationnel ancien / nouveau supposé aura alors une inl uence sur les choix grammaticaux ef ectués par celui-ci. Dans le cadre de la théorie de l'information packaging telle que déve-loppée par Vallduví (1992Vallduví ( , 1993 et à partir d'une étude de corpus qui utilise l'internet comme source principale, nous étudions en particulier les contraintes qui régissent le choix entre des modii eurs non restrictifs à visée de pertinence (au sens de Sperber et Wilson), à savoir les propositions subordonnées relatives appositives, les appositions nominales, et les prémodii eurs.

No abstract

This article investigates the discourse functions of nonverbal appositives: noun phrases, prepositional phrases, and adjective phrases in apposition to a preceding nominal unit. Given the many similarities between nonverbal appositives and appositive relative clauses, the discourse functions of the latter serve as a starting point for an evaluation of the discourse functions of the former. More precisely, we compare our 600-token corpus of nonverbal appositives with Loock’s taxonomy of discourse functions for appositive relative clauses. The taxonomy is then modified to accommodate the nonverbal appositives that do not fit the taxonomy. Correlations with a series of linguistic parameters are established.