Pragmatic implications of head and dependent marking

Abstract

Head marking and dependent marking are considered to be major parameters of syntactic diversity, and are traditionally related to the geographical distribution of languages. Some areas such as Standard Average European favor dependent marking, while head marking is preferred in the New World. However, head and dependent marking may also occur in the same language, either in different domains of grammar or -more interestingly -in competing constructions that are used to convey the same propositional content. In Italian, for example, the choice of head or dependent marking is strongly conditioned by pragmatic factors. Head marking mainly expresses topical information, while the focus is usually conveyed by dependent marking. Moreover, head marking is preferably used in the spoken informal language, while dependent marking prevails in the written formal register. This indicates that structurally different language types may be similar in the organization of pragmatic information.