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Information structure, (inter)subjectivity and objectification1 
JENNEKE VAN DER WAL 
University of Cambridge 
 
  
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This paper discusses how information structure can be seen as a subjective and 
intersubjective concept in Breban’s (2010) and Verhagen’s (2005) definitions, though 
less so in Traugott’s (2010) use of the terms. More difficult is the question of whether 
markers of information structure can be characterised as (inter)subjective; this is more 
easily determined for morphological markers than for prosody or word order. For 
unambiguous markers of information structure, I suggest that their emergence (e.g. 
copula > focus marker) is typically accompanied by (inter)subjectification, whereas 
their further development (e.g. topic marker > subject marker) displays objectification. 
The paper not only shows that grammatical items can undergo an increase as well as a 
decrease in (inter)subjectivity –thus denying strict unidirectionality, but also confirms 
that these processes are independent of grammaticalisation. 
 
1. INTRODUCTION 
In communication we want to convey a message to an addressee. To that end, speakers 
structure the information that they want to transfer to the addressee, and adjust the 
packaging of the information to the current state of mind of the addressee. This 
arranging of information within a sentence2 is called ‘information structure’ (IS)- in a 
very general definition (cf. Lambrecht 1994, Krifka 2007). Human languages differ in 
the linguistic means they employ to express this information structure, varying from 
word order flexibility to prosodic boundaries to morphological particles. These markers 
of information structure in a sentence can indicate which information the speaker 
presumes the addressee to know, which information is new to the hearer, and also which 
information should be contrasted with alternatives. Intuitively speaking, then, the way 
of presenting information can reflect what the speaker wants to contrast, which one 
  
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might think of as subjective, and it takes into account the mental state of the addressee 
with respect to what is new or given information, which can be seen as intersubjective. 
 This is in a nutshell the line of thought that formed the inspiration for the current 
paper. The validity of this reasoning can be questioned in the face of current varying 
definitions and discussions of subjectivity and intersubjectivity, and therefore it will be 
examined by addressing the following three research questions: 
1. Is information structure an (inter)subjective concept? 
2. Are linguistic means used to express information structure (inter)subjective? 
3. If so, can the development of linguistic elements expressing IS be characterised 
as (inter)subjectification? 
The data on which I draw to illustrate the discussion are mostly from African languages, 
not only because those are the languages I am most familiar with as a researcher, but 
also because there exist many interesting phenomena involving information structure in 
African languages, and, most importantly, these have been described in some detail. 
 I start with the first question, viewing information structure from three 
definitions of (inter)subjectivity (Section 2). After discussing the distinctions and fuzzy 
boundaries between semantics and pragmatics in the area of subjectivity (Section 3), I 
continue by examining morphological markers of information structure with respect to 
(inter)subjectivity, concluding that their developments are initially characterised by 
subjectification and later objectification (Section 4). The last section (Section 5) 
discusses the (inter)subjectivity of non-morphological markers of information structure, 
indicating the problematic issues that arise in the relation between information structure, 
(inter)subjectivity and the linguistic means of word order and prosody. Section 6 
concludes. 
  
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 The paper thus sheds a new light on different definitions of (inter)subjectivity by 
looking from the perspective of information structure; it pinpoints difficulties in the 
relation between information structure and (inter)subjectivity; and it shows how a 
diachronic view of information structure illustrates that both (inter)subjectification and 
objectification are involved in (secondary) grammaticalisation. 
2. INFORMATION STRUCTURE AS AN (INTER)SUBJECTIVE CONCEPT 
In order to ascertain whether information structure is an (inter)subjective notion, we 
should first define the terms ‘information structure’ and ‘(inter)subjectivity’. Both 
concepts have been described in various ways, but there is an essential difference: the 
question whether information structure is (inter)subjective receives different answers 
depending on the definition of (inter)subjectivity, but the relation is independent of 
existing definitions of information structure. In this section I explain the notions used in 
information structure and three views on (inter)subjectivity, namely those proposed by 
Traugott (2010), by Breban (2010) and by Verhagen (2005), finding different relations 
with information structure for the three definitions. I do not discuss the views of Nuyts 
(2001) and Langacker (1990), as they do not seem particularly relevant in this debate, 
being linked to evidentiality or the implicit/explicit presence of the conceptualiser 
respectively.3,4 
2.1 Information structure 
Information structure is not primarily concerned with the propositional content of the 
message itself, but rather with how that message is communicated. It is ‘common 
ground management’ rather than ‘common ground content’, the common ground being 
the information that is shared between the speaker and the hearer (Chafe 1976, Krifka 
  
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2007). It concerns the packaging or presentation of information to facilitate the 
addressee’s processing of this information. In order to successfully communicate the 
information, speakers accommodates their speech to (their hypothesis about) the 
temporary state of the addressee’s mind (Chafe 1976). This involves the presentation of 
information as known or as new to the conversation: if a piece of information is already 
active in the hearer’s mind, it is highly accessible and can easily be referred to by the 
speaker, whereas new information needs to be presented and activated in the hearer’s 
mind. Information structure also involves the highlighting of information that the 
speaker wants to come back to, or wants to contrast to implicit or explicit other 
information.5 
 The current state of mind of the addressee is in part dependent on the previous 
discourse. For instance, if a referent (i.e. a real-world entity that a linguistic expression 
refers to) was mentioned in the previous sentence, it is activated and can hence be 
referred to as known information. It is important to see that information structure is 
concerned with the organisation of a sentence within the discourse, not with the 
organisation of discourse itself. (Lambrecht 1994: 7). Within the sentence, two divisions 
can be made: between topic and comment, and, within the comment, between focus and 
background. The topic of a sentence is usually defined as ‘what the sentence is about’ 
(Strawson 1964). This aboutness can be the frame for the rest of the proposition (Chafe 
1976), or the referent to which the information in the comment should be applied 
(Reinhart 1981). Speakers use the topic to help the hearer process the information, 
firstly in choosing a (pragmatic) topic that is more accessible for the hearer, and 
secondly in linguistically encoding/marking which referent is the topic of the sentence. 
As an example, consider the English sentence ‘Maud made PANcakes’,6 in which Maud 
  
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is the topic on which we comment that she made pancakes. Maud is identifiable for the 
hearer, so the sentence is not ‘The pancakes, MAUD made them’, where the pancakes 
would be a topic. Being presented as a topic, ‘Maud’ is unstressed (compare ‘MAUD 
made pancakes’). This illustrates the idea that both these messages provide the hearer 
with not only the propositional content (of Maud being involved in a pancake-making 
event), but also clues on how to process and store that information. 
 With respect to focus, for the current paper the following definition by Dik 
(1997: 326) is most relevant: ‘The focal information in a linguistic expression is that 
information which is relatively the most important or salient in the given 
communicative setting, and considered by S(peaker) to be most essential for 
A(ddressee) to integrate into his pragmatic information’. This is often the new 
information in the sentence, typically the answer to a wh-question: ‘Who made 
pancakes?’ ‘MAUD made pancakes’ (cf. Roberts 1996, Beaver and Clark 2008). This 
definition of focus is wider than for example the semantic definitions of focus by Krifka 
(2006, 2007) and Rooth (1985, 1992, 1996), who define focus as triggering alternatives, 
but the two definitions are not incompatible. 
 A third notion in information structure, which can be combined with both topic 
and focus, is that of ‘contrast’ (Vallduví and Vilkuna 1998, Molnár 2002, Neeleman and 
Vermeulen 2012 among others, cf. also discussion in Repp 2010). A contrasted element 
carries the additional meaning that there is a referent other than the one indicated by the 
topic or focus expression for which another proposition is true, and/or for which the 
current proposition is not true. To illustrate, in a sentence like ‘Theresa ate watermelon 
and Adam ate ice cream’, Theresa and Adam are contrastive topics by being part of 
different propositions (eating watermelon and eating ice cream). In a sentence like 
  
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‘Theresa ate watermelon, not ice cream’ the watermelon is contrastively focused, 
because the proposition of Theresa eating something is true for the watermelon and not 
for the ice cream. 
 By linguistically marking focus or contrast in the sentence, for example by stress 
or a different word order, the speaker can indicate which information the hearer should 
consider most important, and/or which part possibly contrasts with earlier 
representations the hearer may be entertaining. It is important to distinguish between the 
abstract notions of information structure, topic, focus and contrast on the one hand and 
the linguistic means of expressing these notions on the other hand. Although different 
languages will have different linguistic means to express information structure, ‘the 
need to encode IS is a language universal’ (Foley 1994: 1678). Assuming that topic, 
focus and contrast are universal notions (cf. Molnár 2002, Neeleman et al. 2009, 
Zimmermann & Onea 2011, but see the careful warning in Matić & Wedgwood 2012), 
we can study not only the language-specific ways in which information structure is 
expressed (see further section 3), but also the notion of information structure in a more 
abstract sense. In the next sections I examine this general concept of information 
structure with respect to its (inter)subjective properties. 
 
2.2 (Inter)subjectivity à la Traugott 2010 
In her 2010 article, Traugott very clearly states how she defines subjectivity and 
intersubjectivity and the related diachronic notions subjectification and 
intersubjectification. Compared to earlier definitions (see 2.3), the definition that she 
proposes is more restricted. Her starting point is Lyons (1982): 
  
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The term subjectivity refers to the way in which natural languages, in their 
structure and their normal manner of operation, provide for the locutionary 
agent’s expression of himself and his own attitudes and beliefs. (Lyons 1982: 102)  
Traugott (2010) discusses subjectivity as involving instances where aspects of meaning 
are grounded in the speaker’s knowledge and beliefs, and focuses particularly on the 
social or attitudinal side of subjectivity, that is, the attitudes and beliefs, rather than for 
example the text-organising function of the speaker that may also be reflected in an 
utterance.7 Importantly, this also holds for her definition of intersubjectivity, which is 
concerned with the speaker’s ‘awareness of the addressee’s attitudes and beliefs, most 
especially their “face” or “self-image”’ (Traugott 2003, in Traugott 2010: 33). 
Examples of intersubjectivity include the use of mitigating particles with imperatives 
(so as to ‘save’ the addressee’s face) (Aikhenvald 2010: 98) and the wellknown 
Japanese addressee honorifics (Traugott 2010). 
 Is information structure subjective in this definition? It is not, in the sense that 
the packaging of information is not dependent on the speaker having a certain opinion 
or belief. For example, whether some referent is (presented as) given or new has no 
bearing on whether the speaker has a negative attitude. The notions of topic and focus 
are therefore not subjective.  On the other hand, the marking of a referent as contrasting 
with possible alternatives can be seen as subjective, because this contrast is rooted 
solely in the mind of the speaker: as with the focus particle ‘only’ (cf. Brinton 1998), 
linguistic means to encode contrast can express the exclusion of alternatives (‘only X, 
not Y’). Traugott (2010: 33) furthermore mentions the focus particle ‘even’ as an 
example, because the scalar ordering and identification of a referent at the least likely 
end of the scale are only present in the mind of the speaker.  
  
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 With respect to intersubjectivity, since the self-image of the addressee is such a 
basic factor in Traugott’s (2010) definition, it does not allow for a characterisation of 
information structure as intersubjective. Although the speaker takes into account the 
hearer in structuring the information, this does not concern the hearer as a social human 
being with beliefs and opinions and a self-image, but rather as an information-
processing receiver. The structuring of the information in the message does not depend 
on how offensive or respectful a speaker thinks the message may be taken to be by the 
addressee and, in that sense, information structure is not intersubjective.  
2.3 (Inter)subjectivity à la Breban 2010 
Breban (2010) points out that Traugott in earlier work (1982, 1995) included a textual 
aspect within the notion of (inter)subjectivity, and Breban argues that (inter)subjectivity 
should not be restricted to the attitudinal or social domain as in Traugott (2010). 
Instead, the speaker should not only be seen as a person with attitudes (Traugott) or as a 
conceptualiser (Langacker), but also as a creator of text and organiser of the discourse. 
The language/text shows ‘signs of the presence of the speaker’, both as a social being 
and as discourse organiser (Breban 2010: 115). Traugott (1995: 39) mentions that 
subjectified elements have ‘a metalinguistic function of creating text and signalling 
information flow’, and in her 1982 article she explains that the textual component has to 
do with the resources available for creating a cohesive discourse, including 
‘topicalizers’ (1982: 248). This, of course, is precisely what is understood by 
information structure. If subjectivity is taken to be defined not only by the attitudinal 
component, but also by the textual –that is, the view that the speaker plays an active role 
in organising and structuring sentences– information structure is certainly subjective. 
  
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 In the same way, Breban proposes that intersubjectivity should be defined as 
‘meanings that are “hearer or addressee centred”, in the sense of pertaining to the 
hearer’s attitudes and beliefs, i.e., the social relation between speaker and hearer, as 
well as in the sense of being concerned with the hearer as “decoding/interpreting text”’ 
(Breban 2010: 114). Information structure, being defined as structuring the information 
so as to meet the hearer’s needs in ‘decoding’, is always centred on the hearer and hence 
by this definition intersubjective. 
2.4 Intersubjectivity à la Verhagen 2005 
Verhagen (2005) presents a cognitive view of intersubjectivity, and does not discuss it 
as a pair with or in opposition to subjectivity. Verhagen takes as a starting point the idea 
that language is not just used to describe the outside world, but also to manage the 
relations between people and between their thoughts. Communication is concerned with 
‘connecting, differentiating, and “tailoring” the contents of points of view with respect 
to each other (rather than organizing a connection to the world)’ (2005: 4). Two human 
beings will most likely experience and conceptualise the world around them differently, 
even if there is a joint attention to the object of conceptualisation, and thus they will 
have different mental spaces. Language can both manage and reflect the relation 
between the two mental spaces of these two conceptualisers. Intersubjectivity, then, 
pertains to how language is used with the purpose of coordinating the mental spaces of 
two conceptualising subjects (indicated by the bold arrow in Figure 1). Some utterances 
or speech acts are almost completely objective (counting, naming), because they pertain 
to the object of conceptualisation, and some are almost completely intersubjective 
(commanding, greeting), because they only concern the relation between the subjects of 
conceptualisation (usually the speaker and hearer). 
  
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Figure 1 Verhagen’s construal configuration 
 
Adjusting the packaging of a message to the hearer’s mental state, that is, information 
structuring, can clearly be seen as a prototypical example of intersubjectivity in 
Verhagen’s definition. The purpose of structuring the information in a sentence is 
precisely to manage the relation between the speaker’s mental space and the hearer’s 
(distinct) mental space: speakers can imagine a second mental space of other 
conceptualisers  –the ‘evoked mental space’– that is distinct from their own and 
anticipate or act on the differences between the two. I illustrate this with examples for 
the notions of topic and contrast.  
 With respect to topic, imagine that a speaker already knows that he wants to add 
information with respect to a certain referent, say, they want to add the information of 
‘eating pancakes’ to the referent ‘Jim’. They can picture this referent being active in the 
mind, i.e. the mental space, of the hearer, for example, because Jim has been under 
discussion in the conversation. This evoked mental space, i.e. the hypothesis about the 
mental 
space 1 
mental 
space 2 
subject of conceptualisation 
object of conceptualisation 
  
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mental space of the hearer, influences the way in which the speaker will ‘tailor’ the 
message, choosing and marking the active referent as the topic of the sentence, therefore 
saying ‘Jim ate pancakes’ rather than ‘JIM ate pancakes’.  
 If, on the other hand, the referent that the speaker wants to comment on is not 
present as the current topic in the evoked mental space, the speaker takes this into 
account, and marks it as a shifted or new topic, instead of simply coding the ‘inactive’ 
referent as a familiar topic. By guiding the hearer’s cognitive processes in this way, the 
speaker coordinates the relation between the two mental spaces and the flow of 
information between them. 
 A similar reasoning can be supposed for contrast. By marking some referent as 
contrasted, the speaker tries to establish a certain way of processing in the mental space 
of the hearer. By presenting a sentence like ‘they ate PANCAKES’, not only does the 
speaker convey information about a certain referent, e.g. about people involved in a 
pancake-eating event, but they also instruct the hearer to form a set of relevant 
alternatives for this focal contrasted item ‘pancakes’, e.g. bread, broccoli, bananas etc. 
This set of alternatives may also already be present in the evoked mental space, for 
example in the context of an alternative question (‘did they eat bananas or pancakes?’) 
or when the speaker wants to correct the hearer. As an example of corrective focus, 
consider the situation in which the speaker thinks/knows that the hearer has the referent 
‘bananas’ in mind (i.e., the hearer thinks ‘they ate bananas’), which should be corrected 
to ‘pancakes’. The speaker takes this state of mind of the addressee into account and not 
only provides information on the object of conceptualisation (pancakes instead of 
bananas), but also present it in such a way that it is clear how the hearer should process 
the information, namely as the asserted referent (pancakes) replacing the previous 
  
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referent (bananas). which manages the intersubjective relation (cf. Zimmermann 2008 
on hearer expectation and the status of contrast).  
 This is what information structure does. As mentioned above, the relation with 
the object of conceptualisation is of no concern in information structure: the 
propositional content of the message is not affected by the way in which it is packaged.8 
Information structure thus relates in a very natural way to Verhagen’s intersubjective 
aspect of conceptualisation and communication. 
2.5 Conclusion 
In summary, and in answer to question 1, only the notion of contrast can be taken to be 
subjective in Traugott’s (2010) definition, whereas information structure as a whole is 
subjective in Breban’s (2010) definition. Information structure is not intersubjective for 
Traugott (2010), but it is typically intersubjective for Breban (2010) and Verhagen 
(2005). So far, subjectivity and intersubjectivity have been discussed separately. In the 
remainder of the paper I write ‘(inter)subjectivity’ and ‘(inter)subjective’ when 
intending both notions.9 
 Having answered question 1 on the relation between information structure and 
(inter)subjectivity, I want to emphasise that the abstract notion of information structure 
needs to be distinguished from the linguistic means of expressing information structure, 
such as stress, particles or word order variation. These means are the subject of the 
second research question: if the more abstract notion of information structure can be 
seen as (inter)subjective, can the linguistic means that mark and express information 
structure also be (inter)subjective? In other words: do markers of information structure 
function on the (inter)subjective level? Lyons’ (1982) definition of subjectivity 
explicitly refers to the structure and ‘manner of operation’ in which languages reflect 
  
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speakers’ expression of themselves. The most straightforward answer is, then, that if a 
linguistic means encodes an (inter)subjective notion, it functions (inter)subjectively.  
 However, it is not quite so simple to see whether a given means encodes 
information structure, for example, whether a particle encodes topic or focus. Before 
examining the morphological means of encoding information structure to assess their 
(inter)subjectivity (section 4), it is necessary to first discuss the distinction between the 
use of an expression in an (inter)subjective way, e.g. only implying a topic or focus 
reading (pragmatics) and (inter)subjectivity being inherent in an expression, e.g. 
encoding a topic or focus reading (semantics). The next section discusses this 
pragmatic-semantic divide. 
3. PRAGMATICS AND SEMANTICS 
If we want to study the (inter)subjective functions of IS-marking linguistic means, we 
must first know what counts as ‘having an (inter)subjective function’. A certain 
linguistic means is only (inter)subjective if the (inter)subjectivity is inherent in its 
meaning, not if it is merely implied. This is an important distinction made by De Smet 
and Verstraete (2006), who call one ‘semantic subjectivity’ and the other ‘pragmatic 
subjectivity’. They show that it is important to establish whether or not the 
intersubjective function is inherent in the linguistic means that is said to express it. In 
our case we find morphemes or constructions that contribute to the sentence having a 
certain information structure. The fact that the speaker chooses a certain morpheme or 
construction to package the message can be seen as subjective, and it is also 
intersubjective in adjusting the packaging to the hearer’s needs. In this way, the markers 
of information structure are –at least– pragmatically (inter)subjective. However, only 
when a certain linguistic means encodes the organisation of discourse and information, 
  
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that is, when it has this structuring as an inherent (part of) its meaning, does it fall under 
semantic (inter)subjectivity.10 
 The distinction can be illustrated with an example of topic markers. In the Kwa 
languages, topics are indicated by occupying a position in the left periphery of the 
sentence and a following topic marker. In (1) the topic mí ‘me’ is sentence-initial and 
followed by the morpheme έ. This morpheme has no function other than to mark the 
referent of the preceding element (mí) as the topic of the sentence. As such, it identifies 
for the hearer the topic relation between referent and sentence and can be said to fall 
under semantic (inter)subjectivity. 
 
Ga (Dakubu 2005 in Ameka 2010: 143) 
(1) mí !έ, shiká ni e-hã́ !mí 
 1SG TOP money FOC 3SG-give 1SG 
 ‘as for me, they gave me money’ 
 
More difficult are cases where the historical origin is transparent, as in (2) and the 
French variants in (3). The fact that these are fixed expressions which are limited in 
their distribution (Prévost 2008), suggests that marking a (contrastive) topic is an 
inherent part of their meaning, and that they are dedicated constructions to mark 
information structure, hence a case of semantic subjectivity. On the other hand, an ad-
hoc periphrastic ‘topic marker’ as in (4) is a case of pragmatic subjectivity. Although 
continuing or introducing a topic in this way does structure the information, the 
‘subjectivity [is] not conventionalised as a form-function pair’ (Davidse et al. 2010). 
 
  
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(2) As regards X, … 
 
(3) En ce qui concerne X, … / Quant à X, … 
 
(4) Now that she mentions X, … 
 
To further complicates matters, the grey area between pragmatic and semantic 
subjectivity is indeterminate due to the fact that pragmatic uses may over time be 
strengthened and become semanticised (Traugott 1988). The pragmatic subjective use 
of an expression can become conventionalised and hence ‘get stuck’ as an inherent 
semantic part of the meaning (see also Ariel 2008 on the entrenchment of frequent 
discourse patterns). When a marker changes in its degree of (inter)subjectivity, we 
speak of (inter)subjectification and objectification, as discussed in subsections 4.2 and 
4.3. 
In conclusion, although the distinction between encoding (semantic) and use 
(pragmatic) is not always obvious and clear-cut, it is important to be aware of it, and it 
is useful in the analysis of (inter)subjectivity and its diachronic development, as we 
shall see below. 
4. MORPHOLOGICAL TOPIC AND FOCUS MARKERS 
It is not only the more abstract notion of information structure that can be characterised 
as (inter)subjective (depending on the definition, see section 2); specific morphological 
topic and focus markers too can be shown to encode information structure and thereby 
function (inter)subjectively. We thus answer question 2 (‘are linguistic means used to 
express information structure (inter)subjective?’) in the affirmative. This section first 
  
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discusses the (inter)subjective properties in the development of morphological topic and 
focus markers (4.1) and their (inter)subjectification (4.2). It then describes further 
grammaticalisation processes, which are argued to evolve in the opposite direction of 
desubjectification, or objectification (4.3). It is beyond the scope and aim of this paper 
to prove for each marker that it is semantically specified for information structural and 
hence (inter)subjective meaning, but I have chosen examples where from the existing 
analyses it is relatively clear that the marker concerned is specialised for an information 
structural function. I refer to instances of this inherently specified morphology as 
‘dedicated’ topic/contrast/focus markers. 
4.1 Subjectivity of topic, contrast, and focus markers 
As mentioned in the previous section, dedicated topic markers can be said to have an 
inherently (inter)subjective aspect. Considering the various definitions of 
(inter)subjectivity, the question is whether a marker such as έ in Ga, or lá in Ewe (5) is 
subjective and/or intersubjective under all three definitions. 
 
Ewe (Ameka 2010: 143) 
(5) émegbé lá, mía-ƒo nu le e-ŋú-a 
 afterwards TOP 1PL-strike mouth LOC 3SG-side-Q 
 ‘afterwards, shall we talk about it?’ 
 
Dedicated topic markers clearly function at the intersubjective level between 
conceptualisers (speaker and hearer) in Verhagen’s definition. In Breban’s definition 
they are both subjective and intersubjective, as they are a mark of the speaker’s 
organisation of the discourse with the aim of aiding the hearer. However, it is doubtful 
  
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how topic markers fit Traugott’s definition. A topic marker is not intersubjective, as it 
does not take into account the hearer as a person with a self-image. Nevertheless, as the 
expressed topic-comment division only exists in the speaker’s mind (at least before 
uttering it), it may be seen as subjective in Traugott’s definition. 
 A dedicated morphological marker of contrast can in the same way be seen as 
(inter)subjective. It is subjective in the sense that the contrasted alternative may not 
always be explicitly mentioned and hence present only in the mind of the speaker 
(Traugott), and also in structuring the text (Breban). This is illustrated for the 
contrastive marker -kka in Gawwada which marks a topic shift in (6).  
 
Gawwada (Tosco 2010: 332) 
(6) ye-okaay-ú-ppa karm-o-kka saʕa-k-o kat-a 
 NEG.3-come-PERF.NEG.3-LINK lion-M-CONTR heart-SING-M down-OUT  
 ʔí-ʔʔassap-aɗ-i 
 SPEC-think-MID-PFV.3.M 
 ‘(the Monkey only) did not come; therefore, the Lion thought in his heart…’ 
 
The contrast markers are again not intersubjective under Traugott’s definition, since 
contrast does not concern the hearer’s ‘self’. Conversely, they are intersubjective in 
Breban’s and Verhagen’s definitions, because they manipulate the hearer’s construction 
of the information, taking into account the fact that the hearer may have a different 
referent in mind. This alternative referent is either to be changed as the topic, or is to be 
replaced by a corrective focus as in (7) and (8). In order to understand the contrastive 
focal reading in example (7), Tosco (2010) provides the following description of the 
  
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context: ‘the Elephant, informed by the other animals that the Frog is planning to kill 
him the next time he will approach the river, tells he is going to take a nap, and that 
tomorrow only –not today- he will go to the river’ (Tosco 2010: 336-337, italics in 
original). 
 
Gawwada (Tosco 2010: 337) 
(7) qayná-kka ʔan-ʔašši-n-a ʕanɗ-e ʕuk-á 
 tomorrow-CONTR 1SBJ-go-FUT-IPFV.1SG water-PL drink-CONS.1S 
 ‘TOMORROW I’ll go and drink water’ 
 
The combined markers -kka and the specificity affix -í function as the contrastive focus 
marker -kkí, as in (8). I conclude that this contrast marker, whether combined with topic 
or focus, is inherently subjective, and under Verhagen and Breban’s definitions also 
intersubjective. 
 
(8) ʔano so-ʔakk-o ʕant-í-kka-ma 
 1SG.IDP magic-SING-M be-IPFV.NEG.1SG-CONTR-DIFF 
 
 ʔato-kk-i soʔ-akk-o 
 2SG.IDP-CONTR-SPEC magic-SING-M 
 ‘I am not a sorcerer; YOU are!’ 
 
  
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The same applies to dedicated morphological markers of focus, exemplified in (9). In 
Nupe, there is a separate marker á which precedes the verb phrase and indicates 
predicate focus. 
 
Nupe (George 1971: 95, via Heine & Reh 1983: 18) 
(9) a. mí lo-tũ 
  1SG did-work 
  'I worked.' 
 
 b. mî á etũ lo. 
  1SG PF work did 
  'I WORKED.'  
  
Taking focus to be the highlighted or most salient piece of information, focus is a 
subjective concept in all three definitions, as the saliency is grounded in the speaker’s 
subjective construal of the information.11 Like topic and contrast markers, focus 
markers are not intersubjective in Traugott’s definitions, as they do not concern the face 
or beliefs of the addressee. However, for Verhagen and Breban they are clearly 
intersubjective: focus markers do not refer to the object of conceptualisation but help 
the addressee in identifying the referent (sometimes as exclusive from a set) and 
manipulate the addressee’s mental space (i.e., their conceptualisation of the referent as 
highlighted or exclusive). 
Focus can also be expressed by less transparent morphology, for example when 
it is interwoven with conjugations. Such is the case in Wolof, where verbal inflection 
  
21 
21 
depends on which element is in focus. In addition to the affirmative conjugations, 
Wolof has three ‘emphatic’ conjugations, indicating focus on the subject, the 
complement, or the verb respectively (10).  
 
Wolof (Robert 2000: 234) 
(10) a. Peer lekk na 
  Pierre eat PERF.3SG 
  ‘Pierre has eaten’ neutral 
 
 b. Peer moo ko lekk 
  Pierre E.S.3SG OM eat 
  ‘It’s Pierre who has eaten it’ subject focus 
 
 c. Mburu laa lekk 
  bread E.C.1SG eat 
  ‘It’s bread that I’ve eaten’ complement focus 
 
 d. Peer dafa ko lekk 
  Pierre E.V.3SG OM eat 
  ‘Pierre has eaten it’  verb focus 
 
In this case, it is not the presence of a particular separate morpheme that brings about 
the focused reading. It is rather the use of a certain emphatic conjugation instead of a 
neutral one that indicates the speaker’s view of what the most important or contrastive 
  
22 
22 
information is in the sentence. The conjugations (possibly in combination with sentence 
position) are the linguistic means used to encode this view in the language and manage 
the hearer’s processing of the information. The emphatic conjugations can thus be said 
to function (inter)subjectively. 
 In summary, if the distribution of a certain morphological marker can only or 
best be captured in terms of information structure, for instance, there is an unambiguous 
relation between its presence and a focus interpretation and the marker hence encodes 
focus, then this morphology marks the speaker’s effort to structure the information, 
which under any of our three definitions counts as subjective. The markers are not 
intersubjective in Traugott’s (2010) definition, as their information-structural meaning 
does not concern the hearer’s beliefs or self-image, but in Verhagen’s (2005) or 
Breban’s (2010) definitions these markers of topic, contrast or focus are inherently 
intersubjective, because they concern manipulation of the mental space of the addressee 
(Verhagen) or show that the speaker takes into account the hearer as an information-
processing interlocutor (Breban). 
4.2 Subjectification towards topic and focus markers 
Having answered the second question in concluding that morphological markers of 
information structure function at the (inter)subjective level, the third question is whether 
their diachronic development can be characterised as (inter)subjectification. In this 
subsection and the next it becomes clear that the development towards functioning as a 
dedicated topic, contrast or focus marker can be characterised as (inter)subjectification, 
but their further development involves a decrease in (inter)subjectivity. 
 If a speaker wants to structure the information in a certain way, the only means 
available is the language as it is at that moment in time. Hence, in addition to the usage 
  
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23 
of pre-existing IS markers, it may be expected that less (inter)subjective elements are 
pressed into service for more (inter)subjective functions such as the marking of a topic. 
This is indeed attested for topic, constrast and focus, as illustrated in turn below. 
 Topic markers can originate, for example, in pronouns or definite articles. Heine 
& Reh (1984) claim that the original definite marker lá in Ewe, as in (11a), was 
reanalysed and specialised to a topic marker lá illustrated in (11b) (see Ameka 1991: 
148 for an alternative analysis). 
 
Ewe (Heine & Reh 1984: 65) 
(11) a. nyɔ́nu lá kpɔ́ e 
  woman DEF see 3SG 
  ‘the woman saw her’ 
 b. nyɔ́nu lá é kpɔ́ e 
  woman TOP 3SG see 3SG 
  ‘as for the woman, he saw her’ 
 
The definiteness marker simply indicates definite reference, and the function of a 
pronoun is to fill a syntactic argument position. In these original functions, these 
markers do not structure the information. As a topic marker, however, they do reflect 
the point of view of the speaker, or the state of mind of the addressee, thus functioning 
(inter)subjectively, as argued in section 4.1. Therefore, we can conclude that the 
development from pronoun or definite marker to dedicated topic marker involves 
(inter)subjectification. 
  
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24 
 The same applies for markers of contrast, such as the contrastive marker -nun in 
Korean (12), which originates from a copula according to Lee (2003).12  
 
Korean (Lee 2003) 
(12) Jeonja jepum-un Samsung jeonja-ka choiko-i-ya 
 electronic products-CONTR Samsung Electronics-NOM best-be-DEC 
 ‘As for electronic products, Samsung Electronics is the best.’ 
 
The copula originally fulfils a purely syntactic function as establishing predication, 
whereas contrastive marker functions (inter)subjectively, as argued in section 4.1. 
Hence, the development from copula to contrast marker is another example of 
(inter)subjectification. 
 The origin of the previously mentioned contrastive marker -kka in Gawwada is 
to be found in its use as an additive marker ‘too, also’, Tosco (2010: 330) argues: ‘Some 
degree of contrast is evident in (13) (‘but there is…’): the “additive” meaning of -kka, 
which is the most evident to speakers, is probably the starting point of a 
grammaticalization process leading eventually to the (textually far more common) use 
of -kka as a full marker of contrast’. 
 
Gawwada (Tosco 2010: 330) 
(13) minn-aɗɗ-ete ʔol-h-o h-o ʔa-yiʔ-n-i 
 house-PLUR-ASSOC.PL thing-SING-M M-M GEN-eat-FUT-PERF.3.M  
 hoq~q-aš-e-ma 
 full~INT-CAUS-VN-DIFF 
  
25 
25 
 
 ʔol-okk-o h-o kor-o poɠ~ɠ-a-kka ʔí-ʕʕak-a-pa 
thing-SING-M M-M people-M kill~SEM-IPFV.3M-CONTR SPEC-be_there-
IPFV.3M-LINK 
‘in the houses there are plenty of things one can eat;  
there is also something which kills people’ 
 
This development in Gawwada is perhaps a less clear instance of (inter)subjectification, 
because there is already an (inter)subjective aspect to the original additive meaning, 
which indicates that there is information in addition to what the hearer had in mind up 
to that point in the conversation. 
 Morphological markers for focus can also arise from less (inter)subjective 
elements. A common source for focus markers is a cleft construction.13 In the 
development from a biclausal cleft to a monoclausal construction with a focus marker, 
one element is reanalysed as the focus marker (Givón 1979; Heine & Reh 1983, 1984; 
Harris & Campbell 1995). The resulting focus marker is in many cases derived from the 
copula, as for example in Kikuyu (see (22) below; Bergvall 1987, Schwarz 2007). In the 
process from cleft to focus marker, the focus reading which is first associated with the 
whole cleft construction is eventually reanalysed as pertaining to the presence of one 
element, which becomes the focus marker. This process is known as hypoanalysis 
(Croft 2000). As an example of hypoanalysis, consider the ongoing process from a cleft 
to a focus construction in Lingala and surrounding languages (Van der Wal & 
Maniacky, to appear). The word moto ‘person’ (14) first functioned as the head noun of 
a relative clause in a biclausal cleft, as in ‘it was the neighbour, the person who ate the 
  
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26 
fish’. It was then reanalysed as the focus marker, as in (15), which is a monoclausal 
focus construction and no longer a biclausal cleft. This hypoanalysis is schematically 
represented in (16). 
 
Lingala 
(14) Namóní moto mɔ̌kɔ́ 
 1SG.see.PRF ASG.person one 
 ‘I have seen one person / I have seen someone.’ 
 
(15) Nyáu moto azalí kolía mbísi 
 9.cat FOC ASG.be.PRF 15.eat 9.fish 
 ‘It’s the cat that is eating the fish.’ 
 
(16) [copula NP+human] [moto V-relative] > [[(copula) NP moto] V] 
 (it) is NP  person who.V 
 
The element from which a focus marker develops thus fulfils a purely syntactic function 
in the original cleft construction, very often as a copula, or, in the case of moto, as the 
head noun of the relative clause in a cleft. At this initial stage, the whole construction 
can be said to express a subjective function (the encoding of focus), but the copula and 
head noun in this original construction still only have their syntactic function as 
predicator or head of the independent relative DP. In the grammaticalisation process 
towards reanalysis as a focus marker, the element is increasingly associated with its new 
  
27 
27 
function as a focus marker, and hence the development from copula or head noun to 
focus marker can be characterised as (inter)subjectification. 
 Finally, the predicate focus marker á in Nupe is suggested to derive from an 
auxiliary verb lá/á ‘take’ which had a nominalised verbal complement (thus also 
explaining the deviant OV order in the presence of the predicate focus marker á). Heine 
& Reh (1983) suggest that, historically, Nupe required clauses to be transitive. Thus, the 
periphrastic construction with the auxiliary was a way for intransitive predicates to 
comply with this restriction. In its use with intransitive predicates –a purely syntactic 
function- it ‘served to lay emphasis on the verbal action, and it came to be interpreted as 
a marker of assertion/new information. When its use was extended from intransitive to 
transitive verbs it assumed the role of a focus marker’ (Heine & Reh 1983: 21). This 
scenario illustrates once again the semantic change of an initially objective piece of 
morphology which subjectivises as it develops its function as a dedicated focus marker. 
 We have seen that the morphological markers of topic, contrast and focus 
develop from lexical and grammatical sources. They are said to more often develop 
from the latter, because the grammatical means to mark information structure are ‘more 
subtle from the beginning. They are seldom recruited from among lexical items’ 
(Lehmann 2008: 211). It was argued that the development to topic, contrast and focus 
markers is an instance of (inter)subjectification, thereby answering question 3. 
However, this is only a partial answer, as these markers are known to develop further. 
Although this further development results in (more?) grammatical functions too, it does 
not involve further subjectification. This is shown in the next section. 
  
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28 
4.3 Objectification from topic and focus markers 
Lehmann (2008) shows that markers of information structure are themselves part of 
grammar and as such they also undergo (secondary) grammaticalisation. In this process 
they develop into markers of purely syntactic functions and hence, in the 
grammaticalisation from topic and focus markers, I argue that the meaning is 
decreasingly subjective and intersubjective. This process of objectification or 
desubjectification is defined by Kranich (2010: 102,103) as ‘the loss of subjective 
meanings and the acquisition of more objective meanings’, that is, ‘meanings become 
less based in the speaker’s belief state/attitude towards the situation, and more based on 
objectively verifiable properties of the situation’. It is important to note that the term 
objectification does not imply a change to completely objective meaning, but it 
indicates the reverse movement on an imaginary scale of subjectivity, just as the terms 
subjectification and intersubjectification do not indicate that something becomes fully 
‘subjective’ or ‘intersubjective’, but rather ‘more subjective’ or ‘more intersubjective’. 
As such, the term is used to indicate the process of desubjectification as well as de-
intersubjectification, under any of the given definitions. 
 Kranich (2010) claims that objectification tends to characterise secondary 
grammaticalisation, rather than primary. The distinction between primary and secondary 
grammaticalisation was first made by Kuryłowicz (1975[1965]) and is described as 
follows: primary grammaticalisation (Traugott 2002) involves the development from a 
lexical to a grammatical item, whereas secondary grammaticalisation (Givón 1991) 
takes an already grammatical item as its source. Since markers of information structure 
are grammatical (not lexical), the changes to be described in this section are instances of 
secondary grammaticalisation. Indeed, we will see that these cooccur with 
  
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objectification (although this is not the whole story). For the purposes of examining the 
relation between information structure and (inter)subjectivity, the process of 
objectification is argued for and illustrated below with examples of the 
grammaticalisation of topic, contrast and focus markers into purely syntactic functions. 
 As for the further development of topic markers, Li and Thompson (1976) refer 
to the grammaticalisation from topic to subject. In the same book, Givón (1976) argues 
furthermore that pronouns that first refer to topics can be reanalysed as markers of 
subject agreement, formulated as in (17). 
 
(17) topic-shift structure  neutral/reanalysed 
 The man, he came > The man he-came 
 TOP PRO  SUBJ AGR 
 (Givón 1976:155) 
 
This is what Givón suggests has happened in many of the Bantu languages, where we 
find a prefix for subject agreement on the verb. In (18), the subject and topic ńkongu 
‘tree’ is coreferenced on the verb by the prefix gu-, and it can be interpreted either as a 
mere subject (which is familiar and therefore can still be said to pragmatically have a 
topic relation in this sentence), or alternatively as a frame or shift topic, as indicated by 
the two translations. This is similar to the use of a pronoun to indicate the topic in 
spoken French, as with il in (19).14 
 
Matengo (Yoneda 2011: 756 and personal communication) 
  
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30 
(18) Ńkongu gu-hábwǐ:ke 
 3.tree 3SM-fall.PERF 
 ‘the tree has fallen down’ 
 ‘as for the tree, it has fallen down’ 
 
French  
(19) Obélix il mange de sangliers 
 Obelix he/TOP eats CL wild.boars 
 ‘Obelix eats wild boars’ 
 
The use of such a (resumptive) pronoun can become more obligatory in the 
grammaticalisation from topic marker to subject marker. As Givon (1976: 151) 
explains: ‘when a language reanalyzes the topic constituent as the normal subject [..] of 
the neutral, non-topicalized sentence pattern, it perforce also has reanalyzed [..] topic 
agreement as subject agreement.’ This is presumably what happened in the Bantu 
languages, such as Matengo, where the subject prefix was originally an (independent or 
clitic) pronoun referring to the dislocated topic –a state we can still imagine for 
sentences like (18)– and it has now become an obligatory agreement prefix (cf. 
Morimoto 2006, 2009 for this process in other Bantu languages). Its status as an 
agreement marker is clearly visible in inversion constructions, where the subject occurs 
postverbally and is not the topic, but the subject marker on the verb still needs to agree 
with this (logical) subject. This is illustrated in (20), where the topic is ílasí ‘potatoes’, 
but the subject marker on the verb ju- agrees in noun class 1 with the postverbal subject 
Kinûnda.  
  
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31 
 
Matengo (Yoneda 2011: 756)15 
(20) Ílasí ju-a-hémála Kinû:nda. 
 8.potatoes 1SM-PAST-buy 1.Kinunda 
 (Talking about potatoes)‘(These) potatoes, Mr. Kinunda bought (them).’ 
 
The same analysis as grammatical agreement markers has been proposed for colloquial 
‘advanced French’, where the pronoun has become obligatory and even occurs with 
non-referential (and hence non-topical) noun phrases, as in (21). 
 
Français avancé (Zribi-Hertz 1994: 462) 
(21) Personne il m’ aime 
 nobody 3SG 1SG love 
 ‘Nobody loves me.’ 
 
Although word order and intonation also play a role in the original marking of the topic, 
e.g. being sentence-initial and followed by a pause are common for left-dislocations, the 
presence of the pronoun in the initial dislocation constructions (‘Noëlle, she is very 
kind’) is very much related to the marking as topicalisation, and hence is one of the 
indicators of the topic relation. This is even more so if the pronoun has been reanalysed 
as a dedicated topic marker. At the other end of the grammaticalisation chain from topic 
marker to subject marker, the original pronoun/topic marker only has a syntactic 
function as an agreement marker. It has, then, become an obligatory marker of a 
syntactic relation and can no longer be used to explicitly mark a topic. If something is 
  
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obligatory, it cannot easily be used to express an attitude or to explicitly structure the 
discourse, because ‘in order to enrich a form with subjective meaning, the speaker must 
be free to choose whether or not to use it’ (Kranich 2010: 102). Because using the 
subject marker is at this grammaticalised stage simply a matter of complying with the 
rules of grammar, it is no longer one of the means to package the information for the 
hearer, and thus this development forms an example of objectification. 
 Topic markers are also known as a source for case markers. Tosco (1994) argues 
that the nominative marker in Highland East Cushitic languages developed/is 
developing from a previous topic marker. One indication of this origin is the fact that in 
some languages the nominative can only be used for definite nouns (which is a typical 
topical property). König (2008) also mentions the marker ma in the Khoisan language 
!Xun, which is obligatory on subjects in some contexts and hence may (come to) 
express nominative case. Case marking indicates syntactic argument relations, so when 
the topic marker grammaticalises to take on a new function of (obligatorily) marking 
case relations, it is no longer connected to (inter)subjective properties like topicality. 
Hence, these developments also illustrate the cooccurrence of secondary 
grammaticalisation, obligatorification and objectification. 
 With respect to the Gawwada marker of contrast -kka, Tosco (2010: 339) notes 
that further grammaticalisation of the marker has occurred in the neighbouring language 
Ts’amakko, where ‘all the negative verbal forms in main clauses are obligatorily 
followed by -kka, which has apparently lost any residual pragmatic value [i.e. 
information structural meaning, JW] (Savà 2005: 162)’. In Ts’amakko then, we find the 
same combination of secondary grammaticalisation, obligatorification and 
objectification. 
  
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 Another example is the development from focus marker to perfective marker. 
This development is described by Güldemann (2003) for several eastern Bantu 
languages. I will first present the data and then argue how this, too, involves 
objectification. Many Bantu languages have a marker ni-/ne- as identificational copula 
and as focus marker (which developed from the copula in a cleft), as illustrated in 
(22a,b).  
 
Kikuyu (Schwarz 2007: 141, 140, adjusted) 
(22) a. Abdul ne morutani 
  Abdul COP teacher 
  ‘Abdul is a teacher’ 
 
 b. Ne mae abdul a-ra-nuy-irε 
  COP/FOC 6.water Abdul SM-T-drink-PERF 
  ‘Abdul drank WATER’ 
 
This marker ni- can in some languages also be used as a proclitic on the verb, resulting 
in predication focus or a progressive reading, as in (22c) and (23). 
 
(22) c. Abdul ne-a-ra-nuy-irε mae 
  Abdul FOC-SM-T-drink-PERF 6.water 
  ‘Abdul drank water’ (‘focus on entire sentence’) 
 
Kîîtharaka (Abels & Muriungi 2008: 690) 
  
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34 
(23)  Maria n-a-gûr-ire î-buku 
 1.Maria FOC-1SM-buy-PERF 5-book 
 ‘Maria bought a book.’ 
 
In Kikuyu and Kîîtharaka the ongoing grammaticalisation of ni- is clearly visible, 
because the verb occurs with ni- in many more environments than just predicate focus. 
Abels & Muriungi (2008) analyse n(i)- in Kîîtharaka as a focus marker, but remark that 
‘sentences with the focus marker adjacent to the verb […] allow a wide range of 
interpretations: they are felicitous, for example, in all-new contexts, as answers to VP 
questions, but infelicitous as answers to narrow object questions’ (Abels & Muriungi 
2008: 690). 
 This preverbal focus marker -ni- can develop into a progressive marker, as 
argued for Haya by Güldemann (2003). The same copular function as in Kikuyu can be 
observed in Haya (24a), and -ni- is also used in clefts or as term focus marker (24b). 
However, as a preverbal clitic, ni- no longer functions as a predicate focus marker, but 
now distinguishes a progressive from a non-progressive reading (25).16 
 
Haya (Hyman & Watters 1984: 260, 261; Bennett 1977: 182, quoted in Güldemann 
2003) 
(24) a. ni Káto 
  COP Kato 
  ‘It’s Kato.’ 
 
  
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35 
 b. ni ḿbwá ky’ éy’ ómusháíj’ a-hail’ éŋkoni 
  COP/FOC 9.dog which 9.REL 1.man 1.PAST-give stick 
  ‘which dog did the man give a stick to?’ 
 
(25) a. ba-mu-kóma 
  2SM-1OM-tie 
  ‘They tie him up.’ 
 
 b. ni-ba-mu-kóma 
  PROG-2SM-1OM-tie 
  ‘They are tying him up.’ 
 
As argued above, the development from copula to focus marker involves an increase in 
(inter)subjectivity, but the development from focus marker to progressive marker a 
decrease in (inter)subjectivity. This is because describing an action as progressive is 
certainly less dependent on the view of the speaker than identifying a referent (term 
focus) or an action (predication focus) as the most salient information, and is therefore 
less subjective in both Traugott’s (2010) and Breban’s (2010) definitions. It could also 
be argued that ‘progressive’ is more concerned with the conceptualisation of an event in 
the outside world, than with the manipulation of the speaker-hearer relationship, which 
is less intersubjective in Verhagen’s (2005) definition of intersubjectivity. The later 
development of the preverbal marker ni- can thus be analysed as a case of 
objectification. 
  
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36 
 Heine (1986) presents another interesting example of the complete process of 
increase and decrease in subjectivity along the path of grammaticalisation, which is 
outlined only briefly here. Heine analyses the history of the synchronic object marker or 
case marker ˈa in the Khoe languages (Khoisan) in terms of the grammaticalisation 
chain in (26) (from König 2008: 278). Just as in the case of the development copula > 
focus marker > progressive marker discussed above, the first part of this chain arguably 
involves subjectification, whereas the second part shows objectification. 
 
(26) copula > focus marker > object marker 
 
Summing up so far, I have shown that dedicated morphological topic, contrast and focus 
markers carry an (inter)subjective function, and that the acquisition of their topical, 
constrastive or focal meaning can be characterised as (inter)subjectification. Hence, the 
first part of the grammaticalisation process, leading from lexical or grammatical 
elements to topic and focus markers, is accompanied by an increase in 
(inter)subjectivity, i.e. (inter)subjectification. However, the second part of the 
grammaticalisation process, from topic, contrast or focus marker to syntactic markers of 
agreement or case, shows a decrease in (inter)subjectivity, which we call objectification. 
 This conclusion can be linked to Kranich’s (2010) hypothesis that 
subjectification is predominant in primary grammaticalisation –from lexical item to 
grammatical element– and that objectification is favoured in secondary 
grammaticalisation – ‘from a grammatical to a more grammatical status’ (Kuryłowicz 
1975 [1965]: 52). Although in the processes described above we find an increase 
followed by a decrease in (inter)subjectivity, the first grammaticalisation process, which 
  
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37 
has the IS marker as the end result, does not fall under the definition of ‘primary 
grammaticalisation’ as the development from a lexical to a grammatical item. Linguistic 
forms such as a copula or a pronoun cannot straightforwardly be called lexical items, 
and therefore the changes occurring in their use would be instances of secondary 
grammaticalisation, where the source item is already grammatical.17  
 Two issues ermerge from this observation. First, we conclude that secondary 
grammaticalisation can involve (inter)subjectification as well as objectification 
(although obviously not at the same time), a conclusion in line with Norde’s (2012: 59) 
findings on the relation between (de)subjectification and secondary grammaticalisation. 
Second, if secondary grammaticalisation is the evolution from ‘less grammatical to 
more grammatical’, we may wonder in what way topic and focus are more grammatical 
than, for example, a copula, and subsequently, in what way ‘subject’ or ‘progressive’ is 
more grammatical than topic and focus. This of course depends on the definition of 
‘grammar’ and ‘grammatical’, which is an issue that is far beyond the scope of this 
paper.  
 
5. OTHER MARKERS OF INFORMATION STRUCTURE 
The previous section discussed morphemes used to mark information structure, 
specifically topic, contrast and focus relations and how these morphemes can undergo 
an increase or a decrease in (inter)subjectivity. However, we know that morphological 
markers are not the only indicators of information structure. Since information structure 
is like a web between syntax, morphology, phonology and prosody, it can be expressed 
by a wide range of linguistic means, which are frequently combined. Now the question 
arises how strategies other than morphological markers relate to (inter)subjectivity. As 
  
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38 
mentioned above, the most straightforward answer is that if a linguistic means encodes 
an (inter)subjective notion, it functions (inter)subjectively. It is difficult to show, 
though, whether any of the non-morphological means to express information structure 
have that function as an inherent part of their meaning. In this section I discuss in turn 
three other linguistic means to mark information structure: the cleft construction, word 
order, and prosody.18 As we will see, there are no clear answers, but I intend to indicate 
a way to think about these issues and to identify the difficulties. 
5.1 Cleft construction 
Clefts and pseudoclefts are wellknown constructions to express focus, consisting of a 
predicative noun and a relative clause. The result, as illustrated in (27), is a periphrastic 
construction where the focus interpretation derives from the combination of the relative 
clause (‘what the children broke’) and the predicative NP (‘is the stick’) that identifies 
the referent of the NP as the exclusive referent for which the predicate holds. The focus 
is expressed by the whole construction, and hence the whole construction carries an 
(inter)subjective meaning. 
 
Lubukusu (Diercks 2011: 708) 
(27) Lw-á-bá       lú-u-saala  ní-lwó    bá-bá-ana bá-a-lu-funa. 
11SM-PST-be 11-11-stick COMP-11  2-2-child  2SM-PST-7OM-break  
‘It was the stick that the children broke.’ 
 
The emergence of such a transparent periphrastic cleft construction has two important 
characteristics: it is newly created by combining a relative and a predicative clause, and 
it is created precisely in order to express focus.19 This implies that there was never a 
  
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process of (inter)subjectification, but that it was (inter)subjective from the beginning. 
More interestingly for our current discussion, further evolution of cleft constructions 
shows objectification. Lehmann (2008) suggests that a construction starts to express a 
certain information structure, which over time can only become more neutral and ‘wear 
out’. Indeed, there are many examples of clefts and pseudoclefts that come to express a 
broader array of information structural functions than exclusive focus, which eventually 
become pragmatically neutral morphological markers or word orders. 
 The objectification of clefts happens in two ways. First, putting a referent in 
focus is a means to emphasise, and emphasis tends to wear out quickly (Dahl 2001). 
The more an emphatic term is used, the less powerful it will feel. Hence, with extensive 
use, cleft constructions cease to convey the strong focus they originally did (‘it is really 
X and nobody else’).20 As an example, Lehmann (2008: 221) describes the development 
of the Latin ‘maximally emphatic’ cleft sentence (28), which, through the historic 
development from Latin to Modern Romance languages, has in French become the 
‘neutral’ way to form an interrogative (29). 
 
Latin (Lehmann 2008: 221) 
(28) Quis est qui nesciat […] 
 who COP who ignores 
 ‘Who does not know […]?’ (Cic. de orat.2, 45, 4) 
 
French 
(29) Qu’est-ce qu’il veut? 
 ‘What does he want?’ 
  
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40 
 
Second, the relative clause in the original cleft contains presupposed material, forming 
the background for the identification of the focus. Lambrecht (1994) explains that 
speakers can exploit this when aiming for pragmatic accommodation: the hearer is 
required to accommodate the information as though it were presupposed, as is the case 
in the first phrase of a lecture in (30).  
 
(30) It was George Orwell who said that the best books are those which tell you what 
you already know (Lambrecht 1994: 71) 
 
As this accommodation becomes conventionalised over time, the syntactic construction 
can more easily be used for non-presupposed information as well. Patten (2010: 237) 
agrees with Lambrecht and suggests a ‘gradual progression in the it-cleft construction 
from expressing only given information in the relative clause, to expressing shared but 
non-salient information, to the inclusion of information that is factual’. See Koops & 
Hilpert (2009) for a similar development in English pseudoclefts. 
 These developments from a cleft construction start with a highly subjective 
exclusive focus interpretation of the referent in the copular clause, and lose this strong 
focus in grammaticalisation, illustrating a process of objectification. 
5.2 Word order 
Word order can also be used as the main or an additional means to mark the status of 
information. In the framework of generative syntax, the cartographic approach proposes 
specific topic and focus projections and hence dedicated structural positions in the 
syntactic structure of a sentence (most influentially Rizzi 1997). In a more cognitive 
  
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41 
view, it has been proposed that iconic word order devices are used, resulting in 
universal tendencies such as an initial position for focus (Givón 2001), or a Given-
Before-New-Principle (Gundel 1988). Both approaches suggest that a certain position 
can become specialised for a particular kind of information, eventually being restricted 
to that type of information-structural function and effectively encoding it.  
 For instance, the preverbal domain can be restricted to topical elements, which is 
the case in many southern and eastern Bantu languages (see, among others, Zerbian 
2006, Van der Wal 2009, Yoneda 2011). This can be taken to mean that the preverbal 
position indicates the topical status of the referents occuring there, in other words that it 
is an inherent property of that position to indicate topic. In the same way, the Immediate 
After Verb position is used only for focused referents in some languages (Watters 1979; 
Buell 2009; Van der Wal 2009, 2011; Yoneda 2011), so this IAV position can be said to 
encode focus. That these positions are inherently bound to the functions of topic and 
focus is evident in the fact that it is not merely inappropriate but actually ungrammatical 
to have a referent with a divergent information structure. For example, a focused 
element is ungrammatical in preverbal position, as illustrated by the NP modified by 
focus particle ‘only’ in (31) and the inherently focal wh-element in (32a), or the 
consistent focus interpretation of the element in IAV position (32b,c). 
 
Makhuwa 
(31) Ekanétá y-oóríipa (*paáhi) yoo-mór-éla vathí. 
 9.pen 9-black only 9.PERF.DJ-fall-APPL 16-down 
 int. ‘Only the black pen fell down’ 
 
  
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Aghem (Watters 1979: 144) 
(32) a. * Ndúghɔ́ mɔ̀ ñ!ŋ́ (nô)? 
     who P2 run FOC 
 
 b. À mɔ̀ ñ!ŋ́ ndúghɔ́? 
  EXPL P2 run who 
  ‘Who ran?’ 
 
 c. À mɔ̀ ñ!ŋ́ énáʔ 
  EXPL P2 run Inah 
  ‘Inah ran’ (as an answer to b) 
 
There are, however, various difficulties in the analysis of a certain position as a marker 
of information structure. First, in many cases where word order plays a role in topic or 
focus marking, prosody and/or morphology are also present. For example, the Italian 
preverbal focus position goes together with a pitch-accent (Frascarelli 1999), and the 
IAV focus effect in Makhuwa is only present when preceded by the so-called conjoint 
verb form, which functions as a morphologically marked pair with a disjoint verb form 
(Van der Wal 2009, 2011). This difficulty of various linguistic means cooccurring to 
express a certain information structure also surfaces with morphological markers (as in 
section 3), but it is more feasible to prove how a morphological marker encodes topic or 
focus than a (relative) sentence position, or word order in general.  
A second difficulty, which relates to this first point, is the question of the 
systematic one-to-one correlation between position and information structure. In order 
  
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to convincingly claim that a position encodes an interpretation, (ideally) we need to 
show that the relation always exists. That is, the structure-meaning correspondence 
should be there for all tenses, for declarative and subjunctive sentences, in both main 
and dependent clauses. It remains to be seen whether such a system exists among the 
world’s languages. Alternatively, one could take a more local view and say that in this 
particular sentence this (IAV, initial, …) position is the sole indicator of focus and 
therefore functions (inter)subjectively.  
Third, the link between sentence position and information-structural 
interpretation may be indirect, meaning that there is another linguistic mechanism that 
triggers a certain interpretation of an element. For instance, in Hungarian an NP in the 
position immediately before the verb has a focused reading, which has inspired analyses 
of this position as a dedicated focus position (Brody 1995, Kenesei 2006). Conversely, 
É. Kiss (2006) and Wedgwood (2007, 2009) have argued that the focused interpretation 
is not inherent in the position before the verb, but instead this position hosts predication, 
and the focused interpretation is due to the identification resulting from the predicative 
process being applied to a referential noun phrase. In other words, although there seems 
to be a direct form-function relation, the association between the preverbal position and 
the focus interpretation can also be analysed by reference to predication. If the 
predication analysis holds, this makes the relation between position and focus 
interpretation an indirect one, and hence the focus cannot be said to be an inherent 
property of the preverbal position.21  
 Fourth, what do we mean when we say that ‘a certain position’ encodes focus or 
topic? In the cartographic approach, this is linked to a certain hierarchical projection, 
but the descriptive data only show us a linear order, and this may in fact be of more 
  
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impact than the structural position. Buell (2011) provides an example of a case where 
structural and linear position vary, and the linear position seems to determine what 
counts as ‘immediately after the verb’. He shows that, in Zulu, wh-words (which are 
inherently focused) must appear in IAV position. Most focused phrases appear inside 
the VP and are in IAV position because other non-focal elements are dislocated. 
However, Buell shows that ngani ‘why’ is in a structurally higher position, but must 
still appear linearly directly after the verb. Hence it seems that the subjective focused 
interpretation is linked to the linear position following the verb. Defining the structural 
or the relative linear position has consequences for syntactic theory and for the relation 
between a position and an interpretation. 
 If these difficulties could somehow be resolved, a position can perform an 
(inter)subjective function if putting an element in a certain position is the main or only 
indicator/marker of topic or focus. If each element in that position receives the same 
specific interpretation, and if this interpretation is not due to other markers or a more 
basic linguistic operation (see Matić and Wedgwood 2012), then we have to say that 
(topic/focus) interpretation has been reanalysed as being inherent in that position.22  
 If furthermore the position first encoded a syntactic function like ‘object’ or a 
semantic function like ‘patient’ and was reanalysed to encode ‘focus’ (cf. Czypionka 
2007),23 this would surely count as subjectification, since syntactic functions are 
objective (there is nothing about the argument structure of the verb that expresses the 
speaker’s beliefs) and focus is subjective, as argued in section 1. The other way around, 
a position could first be used only for topics and develop to simply mark the syntactic 
role of subject (cf. Vennemann 1974 on an initial topic position in Germanic), which 
would be a case of objectification: marking the topic of the sentence is subjective, 
  
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whereas marking the subject is an objective, purely syntactic function. Therefore, a 
position in the sentence could in theory be (inter)subjective, but because word order is 
often complex and multifunctional, the question remains whether this is practically 
possible.  
This issue in turn leads to a more profound discussion. I have so far used the 
terms ‘positions’ and ‘word order’ interchangeably. A position can always be 
determined or described relative to the other elements in a sentence, and the 
interpretation therefore depends on the whole word order of the sentence. If it is the 
whole (changed) word order, then, that expresses or carries the information structure 
(rather than ‘a position’), how could one word order be more subjective than another? 
Every sentence has a certain information structure and is in that sense (inter)subjective, 
because the concept of information structure is inherently interpersonal and 
(inter)subjective (depending on the definition, see section 2).24 This means that to not 
mark an element as topic or focus also results in information structuring and can hence 
be just as informative and (inter)subjective. In contrast with modality, for example, 
there is no equivalent of modal vs. non-modal sentences, that is, there are no sentences 
without information structure (or word order, for that matter). 
 This comparison brings to light an essential feature of grammaticalisation 
studies: the necessity of a paradigm. According to Heltoft (1996), most paradigms are 
‘expression-based’, with a morphological paradigm of expressions in the same 
syntagmatic context as the prototype. In addition to that, he claims, we need ‘content-
based’ paradigms, where substitution is not in a stable syntagmatic context, but with 
respect to a stable content. Instead of studying the development of one form in relation 
to others, we should also study (changes in) the various forms with which one function 
  
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can be expressed. This allows us to examine not just morphemes or clauses, but the 
meaning of word order. To continue the discussion on word order and information 
structure, if we say that word order expresses a certain information structure, it is 
actually the paradigmatic opposition between word orders that indicates the different 
information structures. If we can independently define a neutral information structure 
(following Heltoft’s suggestion), this then allows us to see which word order is treated 
as neutral. And only in the presence of a neutral, basic or canonical word order in the 
paradigm can we also speak of a more subjective word order. 
 What counts as a ‘basic word order’ is an unresolved question (see e.g. Brody 
1984, Mithun 1987, Dryer 2007). Leaving aside strict definitions based on frequency or 
typological considerations, I start from the intuitive view that in most acts of 
communication one cannot merely talk about familiar old things (since there would be 
no point in talking) and in the same way one cannot only mention new information 
(since the hearer would certainly get lost). This means that a canonical sentence has 
some known referent (the topic) about which new information is contributed (the 
comment); which is essentially the same as Lambrecht’s (1994) predicate focus.25 If this 
is the default information structure, and there is a word order associated with it, this 
order can be said to be the least (inter)subjective one, because neither the speaker nor 
the hearer has to put in any effort into formulating or interpreting it, as they can rely on 
a default. Any deviation from this canonical word order tells the hearer that the speaker 
has put some effort in the structuring, which may be seen as (inter)subjective traces of 
the speaker. Hence, only if we assume and define a paradigm which includes a certain 
‘neutral’ order that is not (inter)subjective is it logically possible that word order can 
have a truly (inter)subjective function. 
  
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 Having discussed word order as an alternative means to express information 
structure, we now turn to yet another means: prosody. 
5.3 Prosody 
It is beyond doubt that prosody can be the main indicator of a certain information 
structure, as is the case, for example, in the familiar English sentences with stress on the 
subject to indicate subject focus: ‘DAVID got his PhD’. A particularly clear example is 
the marking of contrastive topics, as illustrated in Büring’s (1997, 2003) work on 
English and German. English contrastive topics are always marked with a fall-rise 
pattern (indicated by \/ in (33)), and German sentences with contrastive (or 
implicational) topics are recognisable by a so-called hat pattern, illustrated in (34): a 
rising pitch (/) on the subject meine Frau and a falling pitch (\) on the negation keine 
(Féry 2007). The English example in (33) contrasts the female pop stars with the male 
ones, and in the German example (34) the speaker contrasts ‘my wife’ with someone 
else’s wife.   
 
(Büring 2003: 524) 
(33) A:  What did the pop stars wear?  
 B: The \/FEmale pop stars wore \CAFtans.  
 B’:  #The female pop stars wore \CAFtans. 
 
German (Féry 2007: 75, referring to Büring 1997) 
(34) MEINE/ Frau hat KEINE\ fremden Männer geküsst.  
‘My wife hasn’t kissed strangers.’ 
 
  
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Even though these sentences do not explicitly indicate the existence or relevance of 
other referents, the sentences certainly have the strong implication that the male pop 
stars did not wear caftans (for (33)), and that someone else’s wife did kiss strangers 
(34). These implications are not present in the neutral prosody counterparts of these 
sentences. Hence, the contrastive interpretation is attributable to the prosodic pattern. 
As the suggested contrast is purely based in the speaker’s mind, it is subjective, and in 
influencing the mental space of the addressee it is also intersubjective. Combining these 
observations leads to the conclusion that the prosodic pattern fulfils an (inter)subjective 
function (again, depending on the definition). 
 However, as in the case of word order, there are difficulties in the relation 
between prosody, information structure and subjectivity. A first question is whether a 
certain prosodic marking can be related unambiguously to a certain interpretation, and if 
so, how this can be shown. For example, is a fall-rise pattern unique for the 
interpretation of an element as contrastive topic? If it is not, then it would have to either 
be analysed as a case of homomorphy (taking a prosodic mark to be a morpheme, i.e. a 
minimal form-meaning mapping, cf. Wakefield 2010), or it may be a case of pragmatic 
subjectivity: as Féry (2008: 162) argues, ‘all features accompanying focus or topics also 
have roles which have nothing to do with information structure’.  
As an illustration of the pragmatic (inter)subjective use of prosody, consider 
Chichewa. Kanerva (1990) shows that focus in Chichewa is indicated by changes in the 
phonological phrasing, because a focused noun must always be followed by a right p-
phrase boundary (see Féry 2013 for a recent overview and proposal on the mapping of 
focus and prosodic phrases). Under wide focus, all elements are phrased in one 
  
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phonological phrase, as in (35a). When the focus is narrower, the phonological phrasing 
breaks up, inserting a right boundary after the focused element, as in (35b,c). 
 
Chichewa (Kanerva 1990: 98) 
(35) a.  What did he do? 
   (A-na-mény-á nyumbá ndí mwáála)  
    1SBJ-RECPAST-hit 9.house with 3.rock  
    ‘He hit the house with a rock.’  
 
 b.  What did he hit with the rock?  
   (A-na-mény-á nyuúmbaF) (ndí mwáála)  
 
 c.  What did he do to the house with the rock? 
     (A-na-méeny-aF) (nyuúmba) (ndí mwáála)  
 
Although there seems to be a direct relation between p-phrasing and focus, it is not 
bidirectional: focus must be followed by a right boundary, but it is certainly not the case 
that a right p-phrase boundary indicates focus. So, on the one hand, the way in which a 
speaker chooses to divide the sentence into p-phrases influences the information 
structure of the sentence, which can be seen as (inter)subjective. On the other hand, the 
division of the sentence into phonological phrases is only partly determined by focus or 
emphasis, but is also determined (and perhaps primarily) by syntax, e.g. if p-phrases 
map onto syntactic phrases.26 This suggests that p-phrasing is not inherently specified to 
  
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indicate information structure, but that this would be a case of subjective use of 
linguistic means, that is, pragmatic subjectivity. 
 The second issue is more theoretically profound: is prosody an independent 
module interfacing directly with IS, or is it the pronounceable result of the syntactic and 
semantic input? If we take prosody to be derived from or mapped onto a syntactic 
derivation (Cheng & Downing 2009, 2012 for Bantu; cf. Selkirk 1986, 2008; 
Truckenbrodt 1999; Seidl 2001), the relation between information structure and prosody 
is an indirect one: the information structure influences the syntactic structure of a 
sentence, which in turn combines with the prosody. This implies that any relation 
between prosody and information structure is mediated by the syntax, and hence that 
there could not be a direct form-meaning correspondence, i.e. no encoding of 
information structure by prosody (cf. Hyman 1999: 173). 
 Finally, prosody runs into the same issue as word order: the absence of a certain 
prosodic contour does not mean the absence of prosody, but just a different prosody, 
which is still associated with a certain IS. Again, it is in the paradigmatic variation that 
a certain prosody can be meaningful, and hence, as in the case of word order, there must 
be a neutral information structure and default prosody used with that meaning in order 
for a deviant prosody to be (inter)subjective.  
5.4 Summary 
We established in section 4 that morphological markers of information structure can 
provide a way to express the speaker’s views and manage the relation with the 
addressee, and that they can be the result of (inter)subjectification and be subject to 
objectification, i.e. they can over time increase and decrease in (inter)subjectivity. This 
section has examined three further linguistic means often used to express information 
  
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structure: the cleft construction, word order, and prosody. While it was possible to 
determine that a cleft construction starts out as an (inter)subjective construction, it 
turned out to be much more difficult to provide clear answers on the relation 
with(inter)subjectivity for the other two ways of marking information structure. This is 
due to their different nature: whereas morphological marking is either present or absent, 
word order and prosody are always present, only in different forms. Therefore, a 
paradigmatic opposition with a neutral variant is required, and it is very hard to 
establish a one-to-one relation between linguistic marking and information structure, 
and hence to argue for an inherently (inter)subjective function. 
6. CONCLUSION 
The goal of this paper was to explore the relation between information structure and 
(inter)subjectivity, and in diachrony also (inter)subjectification. The discussion has 
centered around three questions: 
1. Is information structure an (inter)subjective concept? 
2. Are linguistic means used to express information structure (inter)subjective? 
3. If so, can the development of linguistic elements expressing IS be characterised 
as (inter)subjectification? 
Section 2 answered the first question partly affirmatively, arguing that the abstract 
notion of information structure is subjective in Traugott’s (1995) and Breban’s (2010) 
definitions, and in part also under Traugott’s (2010) definition. In the latter definition, 
information structure is not intersubjective, but I claim it is necessarily intersubjective 
under Breban’s (2010) and Verhagen’s (2005) definitions of intersubjectivity. 
 Addressing question 2, I suggested that when a morphological marker can be 
shown to encode an information structural function like topic, contrast or focus, that is, 
  
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the marking of this function is inherent in the morpheme, then this marker fulfils an 
(inter)subjective function, depending on the definition of subjectivity and 
intersubjectivity.  
 In answer to question 3, it was shown that these markers often derive from 
linguistic (usually grammatical rather than lexical) elements that are less 
(inter)subjective. If topic and focus markers are (inter)subjective, as per the answer to 
question 2, this entails that the formation of topic, contrast and focus markers involves 
(inter)subjectification. In further developments from a topic or focus marker to a marker 
with a purely syntactic function (such as argument indexing), the opposite process of 
objectification takes place. This also happens in further grammaticalisation of cleft 
constructions. The marking of information structure by word order and prosody was 
shown to give rise to further intricacies, because word order and prosody are not simply 
present or absent like morphology. 
This exposition raises questions on the dependence of (inter)subjectification and 
grammaticalisation. Kranich (2010) and Norde (2012) show that (inter)subjectification 
and objectification cooccur with both grammaticalisation and degrammaticalistion, and 
should thus be seen as an independent process. This independence is confirmed in the 
current paper. With respect to ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ grammaticalisation, the data 
examined in this paper modify Kranich’s (2010) claim that secondary 
grammaticalization tends to lead to objectification, as both (inter)subjectification and 
objectification have been shown to occur in the development of markers of information 
structure. The development towards a marker of information structure, as well as its 
further development from such a marker to other functions tend to start from a 
grammatical rather than lexical source (Lehmann 2008); therefore, both of these 
  
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developments fall under secondary grammaticalisation. Hence, we conclude that in the 
area of information structure, secondary grammaticalisation does not conform to 
Kranich’s hypothesis, as both objectification and (inter)subjectification are found. 
Furthermore, the definition of ‘grammar’ and of ‘more grammatical’ becomes 
relevant in this debate as well. In the development of topic and focus markers, we find 
the same processes as those associated with grammaticalisation (e.g., Heine, Claudi & 
Hünnemeyer 1991, Lehmann 1995, Hopper & Traugott 2003). Nevertheless, the 
resulting linguistic item does not belong to a traditional grammatical category (which 
raises questions about the interface between information structure and the grammar). At 
the same time, it cannot properly be subsumed under ‘pragmaticalisation’ either, as this 
is concerned with the development of pragmatic markers, which ‘organize, structure, 
and contextualize discourse with respect to discourse-pragmatic concerns and not with 
respect to sentence-grammatical concerns’ (Günthner & Mutz 2004: 98). Information 
structure is indeed concerned with the discourse, but only as far as it affects the 
relationships within the sentence, not between sentences or utterances or parts of 
discourse.27 I leave this bigger issue for further research. 
As Lehmann (2008) argues, information structure is involved in 
grammaticalisation, and grammaticalisation happens to information structure. This 
paper shows that there is also reason to view information structure as (inter)subjective, 
and that the development of markers of information structure can be accompanied by 
(inter)subjectification as well as objectification. 
 
Abbreviations 
ASG animate singular 
  
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ASSOC associative 
CJ conjoint verb form 
CL clitic 
CONS consecutive 
COP copula 
DEC declarative 
DIFF diffusive 
e.c. emphase complement (complement focus) 
e.s. emphase sujet (subject focus) 
e.v. emphase verbe (verb focus) 
EXPL expletive 
FOC focus 
GEN generic 
IDP independent 
IPFV imperfective 
LINK linker 
M masculine 
NEG negation 
NOM nominative 
OM object marker 
OUT centrifugal 
P2 past 
PASS passive 
PAST past 
  
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PERF perfective 
PL plural 
PLUR plurative 
PRES present 
PRO pronominal / pronoun 
PROG progressive 
RECPAST recent past 
REL relative 
SEM semelfactive 
SG singular 
SING singulative 
SM subject marker 
SPEC specific 
T tense 
TOP topic 
VN verbal noun 
 
  
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Author’s address: Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages 
 University of Cambridge 
 Sidgwick Avenue 
 Cambridge, CB3 9DA, UK 
 jennekevanderwal@gmail.com 
                                                
1 This paper is part of the research project Grammaticalization and (Inter)subjectification (GRAMIS), 
funded by the Belgian Science Policy (http://webh01.ua.ac.be/gramis/). I wish to thank three anonymous 
reviewers, and Kristin Davidse, David Willis, Tine Breban, Freek van de Velde, Arie Verhagen, and 
specifically Heiko Narrog and Steve Nicolle for discussion and input for this paper, although the views 
expressed here do not necessarily match theirs, and any errors remain my own. 
2 Traditionally, the sentence is taken as the relevant unit for information structure, but, as a reviewer 
points out, the utterance or clause may be a more appropriate unit of analysis. This does not bear on the 
specific points discussed in the current paper. 
3 See Norde (2012) for a comparison of Langacker’s and Traugott’s definitions of subjectivity with 
respect to grammaticalisation and desubjectification. 
  
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4 I also do not take into account an unrelated notion of intersubjectivity as used in discourse analysis, 
which refers to interlocutors establishing and confirming their common ground and ‘reaching similar 
interpretations’ (Taylor and Cameron 1987). 
5 See for more details and varying definitions of information structural notions, among many others, 
Halliday (1967), Vallduví (1992), Lambrecht (1994), Krifka (2007), Krifka and Musan (2012). 
6 Capitals indicate stress. 
7 See also Visconti’s (2013) more narrow definition of subjectivity and subjectification as (increasing) 
encoding of speaker attitude (epistemic, intentional or emotional) towards the proposition, explicitly 
excluding the textual component. 
8 The truth-conditional values may vary, however, for exclusive and exhaustive focus. 
9 Another reason is that from a certain point of view intersubjectivity is also subjective, since it is not the 
direct representation of the hearer’s mind that is involved, but rather the speakers assumptions about the 
hearer’s state of mind. 
10 De Smet and Verstraete (2006) do not use the term ‘intersubjective’. Instead, they differentiate between 
ideational and interpersonal semantic subjectivity. 
11 Even in a more formal definition of focus as triggering relevant alternatives (Rooth 1985, 1992, 1996), 
possibly excluding (some of) the alternatives, focalisation is subjective as well, because the associated 
alternatives and the very fact that alternatives should be evoked and excluded are often only present in the 
mind of the speaker. 
12 Note that Korean -nun has been analysed as a topic marker (e.g., Lee 2003), but according to Kim 
(2012) and Vermeulen (2012) is better analysed as a marker of contrast. A similar debate continues on the 
Japanese marker -wa, which Radetzky (2002) argues to have developed from a locative marker first to a 
contrastive marker (involving subjectification, p. 41), and later taking on the additional function of topic 
marker (which can be seen as intersubjectification). 
13 Heine and Reh (1983: 37) remark that ‘there is no doubt that clefting is the most important source of 
term focus’. 
14 There is a lively discussion on the status of this pronoun and whether or not it can be analysed as an 
agreement marker (see the overview in Culbertson 2010). 
  
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15 This is crucially not a right-dislocated subject: the conjoint verb form, the prosody and the non-topical 
interpretation show that the subject is in-situ in the verb phrase (cf. van der Wal 2012). 
16 Note that this illustrates synchronic variation for one element (the result of a divergence process): the 
original copula exists next to the focus marker, and the focus marker exists alongside the progressive 
marker. 
17 See Brinton & Traugott (2005), Detges & Waltereit (2002) and Norde (2009) for discussion on (the 
existence and characteristics of) these types of grammaticalisation. 
18 Under ‘constructions’, the passive could also be studied. I leave it out here, because its effects on and 
relation with information structure are still a topic of debate. 
19 It is of course necessary to have the ingredients of a cleft available in the language (nominal predication 
and a certain type of relative clauses) in order to ‘make a cleft’. On these ingredients in the history of 
English clefts and pseudoclefts, see Traugott & Trousdale (2013: 136-147) and Patten (2012). Thanks to 
an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out. 
20 This has been termed the ‘awesome effect’ by Spike Gildea: because the word ‘awesome' is used in an 
increasing number of contexts in (American) English, it has lost its original strongly emphatic value. 
21 This point is made more in general for strategies associated with information structure (morphological 
means included) by Matić and Wedgwood (2012). The discussions in this paper indeed hinge on whether 
the markers that are associated with topic/contrast/focus indeed encode that particular information 
structural function, or are grammatical means that are simply used with a certain information structuring 
effect. 
22 If discourse-configurational languages are taken to have reanalysed certain positions as denoting 
information structure, this would suggest that word order in those languages fulfils a subjective function 
by definition. 
23 See also the variation and grammaticalisation of OV and VO word order in Benue-Congo in 
Güldemann (2007). 
24 We could even say that all language use is speaker-related and subjective (Traugott & Dasher 2002) 
since every utterance, every use of human language, is produced by a thinking and organising language 
user, a speaker (cf. Langacker 1990). Similarly, interhuman communication by means of language is 
always hearer-oriented and as such intersubjective. But there is a difference between ‘using language’ and 
  
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explicitly expressing your own view (for subjective) and between ‘communicating’ and explicitly 
attending to the addressee (for intersubjective), which may be visible in the language use and can derive 
different linguistic forms. We can observe differences between, on the one hand, language use that 
follows the general rules of the grammar and basic communicative starting points and, on the other hand, 
utterances that explicitly mark the way in which the given information should be interpreted, although 
there is a large grey area in between. 
25 This can also be seen as taking a certain context as ‘canonical’, with a certain word order (say, SVO) 
being most appropriate in that context. Thus, for information structure it seems that Heltoft’s (1996) 
content-based paradigm could still be defined by context, though crucially not the structural/syntactic 
context but a pragmatic context. 
26 Although this has for a long time been an example of prosodic encoding of focus, Downing et al. 
(2004) show that the story cannot be that simple in Chichewa, and Downing & Pompino-Marschall 
(2013) suggest a critical reanalysis making use of the difference between focus and emphasis. 
27 Note, however, that topic shift markers have been analysed as pragmatic markers (Fraser 1999).