This book addresses how core notions of information structure (topic, focus and contrast) are expressed in syntax. The authors propose that the syntactic effects of information structure come about as a result of mapping rules flexible enough to allow topics and foci to be expressed in a variety of positions, but strict enough to capture certain cross-linguistic generalisations about their distribution. Syntactic and semantic evidence from a range of languages are discussed.

Ad Neeleman, University College London, London, UK; Reiko Vermeulen, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.