Information structure, construction grammar, and interrogative constructions: evidence from russian in an open research field

ABSTRACT

This paper analyzes information structure in interrogative constructions, from a constructionist perspective. Thus, it evaluates Construction Grammar approach to the phenomenon, provides a brief typology of polar interrogative constructions in natural languages and, using data extracted from Russian National Corpus (ruscorpora.ru) offers a preliminary analysis of pragmatic configuration of polar interrogative constructions with li particle in Russian suggesting more specific patterns of form and meaning which reveal the division of the construction in at least two types: a marked type for argument focus, in which the focused element encodes an argument of the interrogative sentence, and an unmarked type, which seems to adapt to the focus structure of the construction it combines with.

Keywords:
Construction Grammar; Information Structure; Interrogative constructions; Russian