Abstract

The idea that various subsystems of the linguistic faculty interact with and through information structure has an ever growing influence on linguistic theory formation. While this development is very promising, it also involves the risk that fundamental notions are understood in a different way in different subfields, so that congruent results may only be apparent or cross-discipline generalizations may be overlooked – dangers that are very real, as notorious examples from the past have shown. The present volume is an attempt to minimize such risks. First, one of the editors, Manfred Krifka, has contributed an article in which he proposes precise definitions for the key notions of information structure and embeds his definitions into the context of the current debate. Second, we asked colleagues from the SFB 632 and external experts on information structure for short contributions shedding light on the notions of information structure from various perspectives by offering definitions and discussing the scope and nature of the fundamentals of information structure for their subfields. These contributions complement each other, in the sense that Krifka’s proposal may be considered a frame for the other papers. However, they should not be considered the final..