Message

Divided into chunks of

In spoken language not represented by

any one type of grammatical unit certain correlations
Signalled prosodically by means of the
intonation system of the laguage

A series of stressed and unstressed

syllables, and always contains:

Represented
in speech by

Tonic syllable, single out

by tonic prominence,
represents the highest point of the
focus of information

Used to avoid
repeating information
that is recoverable:

Ellipsis and
substitution.

Contains

Tone Units prosodic units

signals the distribution of
information into Given and
New

Textual ellipsis - when two consecutive clauses have elements

in common - by one speaker or by two speakers - the words in common
omitted in the second clause - the remaining part often ends with an
auxiliary or a pronoun.
Catenative verbs which take to-infinitive clauses obligatoriliy retain the
to.
Wh- complement clauses and questions can be ellipted, leaving the wh-

New element (associated with the tonic of the

tone unit) and, optionally, a Given element

An obligatory

Information Units
Contain

(associated with the rest of the tone unit).

Grammatical units which may correspond to tone groups:

Adjunct, especially when initial - In the late nineteen thirties, better still,
unfortunatelly.

A main clause with an embedded clause - I though we were leaving.

Coordinated predicated with the same Subject - He's seen the pictures
and likes them.

Possibly NG Subjects - all the lonely people

Unmarked focus falls on the last non-anaphoric

lexical item of the information
unit.

Marked focus

- its
function is to contrast one item
with another or to add emotive
colouring to the utterance.

Principle of end-focus - the unmarked

Situational ellipsis - In
conversation and writing that
imitates speech - Unstressed
pronouns and other functional items
are frequently ellipted Can't hear a
word - subject I ellipted
Situational ellipsis - the organising
factor in "block language" newspapers headlines, telegrams and
other announcements.
To let. For hire. For sale. Vacancies.
Bed and Breakfast. No parking. The concept of ellipsis is strictly not
applicable.

Focus can coincide with marked Theme

Substitution - While ellipsis leaves a structural slot empty,

substitution replaces it by a "filler" word - The exacts words
ellipted are not recoverable.
A common substitute is do so - not acceptable when the verb is not
agentive (know, like) - in such cases, ellipsis used.
So - substitute (say, hope, think, expect, be afraid, suppose and
believe.
Not - negative substitute - hope, be afraid, suppose.
So - alternative to an auxiliary + too - positively
Neither - alternative with auxiliary + either - negatively
In nominal ellipsis - replace the head element by pronouns such as
these, any, each, all, both, either, neither, none; possessives such as
John's; numeratives such as the first, the next three.
Nominal substitution makes use of one/ones, this, that and the
pronouns (an) other.

distribution starts with the Given and progresses

towards the New.
Pete's just COMPLAINED about it

Event utterances - short and typically

intransitive - Provide an exception to the
principle of end-focus in that a NG Subject
receives the tonic stress.
My NOSE is bleeding! - The LIGHT's gone out!
Extremely common in conversation. They often
occur "out of the blue" - unrelated to what was
previously said, as surprisals or interruptions of
an ongoing discourse topic.