Discourse theories vs. Topic-Focus articulation applied to prosodic focus assignment in Romanian

ldquohellipit is not the argument structure that triggers the intonational phrasing, but the [discourse, subclausal n.b.] relation of backgrounding.rdquo (K. von Heusinger, 2007) Is it? If yes, how? The present paper, maintaining our attempts for applying Prague School´s Topic-Focus Articulation (TFA) algorithm on the syntax-prosody interface of Romanian, proposes two comparative lines of investigation for the intonational focus assignment: (A) The TFA algorithm is improved at clause level with hints from Gussenhoven´s SAAR (Sentence Accent Assignment Rule), then extended to inter-clause level, i.e. complex sentences. The new shape of the TFA algorithm is applied to compute the Topic-Focus values in the discursive context, while the information-structural (IS) spans of Theme(s)-Rheme(s) are detached, at clause level, as lowest-highest degrees of Communicative Dynamism (CD) vs. Systemic Order (SO). (B) The second approach we experiment for assigning intonational focus and phrasing is based on the combined and intensive use of discourse theories for computing the IS categories and structures: the Background-Kontrast entities (associated with the Prague School´s Topic-Focus) are obtained with Asher´s (1993) Segmented Discourse Representation Theory (SDRT) analysis, while Theme-Rheme structures within the finite clause are computed with Leong´s (2004) Inference-Boundary (IB) algorithm (of Hallidayan inspiration), applied for the first time to Romanian. Furthermore, this second direction is inspired from and joins the IS-discourse theory proposed by Heusinger (2007), which relies on SDRT inter-clausal evolution of discourse variables for computing the Background-Kontrast. While maintaining the classical SDRT (including rhetorical) discourse relations at the inter-clause level, Heusinger introduces a set of IS-semantics relations, and hands down at sub-clause level the rhetorical and focus particle relations with significant role in intonational-prosodic phrasing. Ex- amples of these two types of research are compared to a gold, intonationally annotated set of Romanian sentences, the proposed theoretical and procedural techniques aiming to balance the pessimistic-realistic view on prosody prediction that it is the speaker-presupposition (and hearer-accommodation) which determines the IS focal scopes, rather than the bare text.