Focus, Topic, and Contrast

Abstract

The distinction between new and old information is very important in communication between interlocutors. Linguistic expressions are treated as new or old in terms of their referents’ cognitive status for the interlocutors. They are considered old if their referents are already within the discourse domain of the interlocutors at the time of utterance and new otherwise. This chapter examines the Korean information structure including focus, topic, and contrast, with a special reference to morphological markers such as ka or nun. Focus amounts to relationally new information, and topic belongs to relationally old information. Focus can be represented by a morphological marker such as ka; by syntactic position, for example preverbal position; or by phonological prominence, for example high pitch accent. Topic is represented by the morphological marker nun most prominently, but can also be indicated by syntactic constructions such as topic-cleft sentences or topic-establishment clauses.

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