Givenness

In linguistics, givenness is a phenomenon in which a speaker assumes that contextual information of a topic of discourse is already known to the listener. The speaker thus considers it unnecessary to supply further contextual information through an expression's linguistic properties, its syntactic form or position, or its patterns of stress and intonation. Givenness involves contextual information in a discourse that is given, or assumed to be known, by the addressee in the moment of utterance. Therefore, a given expression must be known from prior discourse.

Givenness is marked by the absence of emphasis or detailed explanations. For example, when informing a close friend of having taken a long-considered action, an English speaker might simply say, "I did it!" The givenness of the action which "it" refers to results from previously discussing the action. In that utterance, the stress would not fall on "it," but on "did." This example may be contrasted when the nature of the action is new information, such as "I did a cartwheel!" In this case, the object of did— the noun cartwheel— will receive the emphasis.

Definitions

In literature, Prince (1981) distinguishes between three different kinds of Givenness:

1. Givenness: The speaker assumes the hearer can predict or could have predicted a particular linguistic item will or would occur in a particular position within a sentence.

2. Givenness: The speaker assumes the hearer has or could appropriately have some particular thing/entity/... in his/her CONSCIOUSNESS at the time of hearing the utterance.

3. Givenness: The speaker assumes the hearer "knows," assumes, or can infer in a particular thing (but is not necessarily thinking about it).

Definition by Krifka (2008):

A feature X of an expression αあるふぁ is a Givenness feature if X indicates whether the denotation of αあるふぁ is present in the CG [(Common Ground)] (see below) or not, and/or indicates the degree to which it is present in the immediate CG [(Common Ground)].

Definition by Kratzer and Selkirk (2018):

An expression αあるふぁ is Given in a context C if there is a discourse referent (individual, property, proposition) in C that entails [[αあるふぁ]] O, C.

Entailment

Entailment describes the relation between expression αあるふぁ and expression βべーた when one of the following conditions applies:

Co-reference is one of the two semantic relations that express Givenness. Formally, references αあるふぁ and βべーた both refer to the same entity (the referent): αあるふぁ,βべーた ∈ D_e, αあるふぁ = βべーた. A pronoun (αあるふぁ) usually identifies a noun phrase that has been mentioned (βべーた) in a prior context and (αあるふぁ). Examples of:

1. On my way home, a dog barked at me. I was really frightened by [the fierce German shepherd]_Given.
2. Did you see Dr. Cramer to get your root canal? - Don't remind me. I'd like to strangle [the butcher]_Given.
3. My neighbor is a funny character. Still, I really like [John]_Given.

Alternatively, for non-referential αあるふぁ and βべーた (e.g. predicates, quantifiers), αあるふぁ is given if the meaning of αあるふぁ and βべーた are extensionally identical or αあるふぁ is a hypernym of βべーた. Formally, αあるふぁ,βべーた ∈ D_t, and αあるふぁ=0 or βべーた=1.

Extensional Identity occurs when an expression αあるふぁ is identical with a prior mentioned expression βべーた, which makes αあるふぁ given.

1. They brought some beer (βべーた), but they didn't drink [the beer]_Given (αあるふぁ) because it was warm.

A hypernym αあるふぁ of another item βべーた is when the meaning of αあるふぁ includes βべーた as a subcategory, making item αあるふぁ given:

X: I brought carrots (βべーた) to the picnic.

Y: But I don't like [vegetables]_Given (αあるふぁ).

However, if instead βべーた includes αあるふぁ, there is hyponymy, and the hyponym (αあるふぁ) is considered to be not given:

X: I put some vegetables (βべーた) in the soup.

Y: Oh I hate carrots (αあるふぁ). I hope you didn't put any inside.

Propositional Identity occurs when the proposition (αあるふぁ) is given because it is identical with the proposition (βべーた) and proposition (βべーた) is true.

a. Did you hear that Otto went to Russia (βべーた)?

b. I can't believe that [he went to Russia]_Given (αあるふぁ).

Asymmetric Entailment occurs when the proposition (αあるふぁ) is given because the proposition (αあるふぁ) is always true when the proposition (βべーた) is true.

a. Did you hear that Otto went to Russia?

b. I can't believe [that he left]_Given(αあるふぁ).

Expressing givenness

Givenness can be expressed by anaphoric expressions, deletion, or word order.

Anaphoric expressions

Anaphoric expressions indicate the status of their denotations. Anaphoric expressions include personal pronouns, clitics and person inflections, demonstratives, and definite articles as well as indefinite articles that indicate a non-given referent.

a. The crowd approached the gate. The guards were AFRAID of [the women]_Given.

b. The children were up late. I'm reluctant to WAKE [the boys]_Given.

c. John ate garlic bread. Then [he]_Given kissed Mary.

Decantation

Decantation is a form of prosodic reduction.

a. Ten years after John inherited an old farm, he SOLD [the shed]Given

Here the shed is decanted because it is referring to the prior mentioned farm. Decantation is conditioned by Common Ground Management and can be seen as presuppositional because it expresses a presupposition of a situationally salient antecedent of a particular sort.

Decantation can also occur in indefinite noun phrases:

a. If John paints a hot dog, Sam will eat [a hot dog]_Given.

Decantation can occur on a focused constituent that is given at the same time, where it does not bear the pitch accent but functions as a focus with only :

a. X: Everyone already knew that Mary only eats VEGETABLES.

Y: If even PAUL knew that Mary only eats [vegetables]_Given, then he should have suggested a different RESTAURANT.

Deletion

Deletion is an extreme form of reduction.

a. Bill went to Greenland, and Mary did _ too.

In this example, one can find the deletion of the VP went to Greenland.

Word Order

In the double object construction, given constituents precede new constituents:

a. Bill showed the boy a girl.

*Bill showed a boy the girl.

*Bill showed the girl a boy.

Common Ground

Common Ground (CG) in linguistics refers to shared knowledge between at least two participants in discourse. It is a set of propositions and entities that are known to both speakers, and is updated during the discourse. Common Ground can further be divided into

• Common Ground Management (CG Management) that is concerned with the immediate and temporary needs and communicative goals of discourse partners.
• Common Ground Content (CG Content) that records and updates the shared knowledge and belief of discourse partners.

Exceptions

Two individuals who spend a lot of time together or have many shared experiences can more easily latch onto each other's givenness in their discourse. However, when that phenomenon is relied upon in future or ongoing conversations, deficits in information can begin to develop, and as a result, it becomes difficult to assess givenness in the context of new conversations.