Лирический текст и коммуникативная структура предложения: стихотворение О.Э. Мандельштама «Сестры – тяжесть и нежность, одинаковы ваши приметы»

The paper demonstrates that, along with its standard function of linking the relevant utterance to the context, information structure (whose main parameters are assumed to be the theme-rheme division, given-new division, and direct VS inverted word order contrasts) may also fulfil a more intricate role within lyrical texts. The function of information structure may be extended to mark the inner discourse hierarchization of a poem, i.e. its division into the backgrounded part, where some experience open to the lyrical hero is presented, and the foregrounded, ‘wisdom’ part, where the discovery of some important, mostly general truth is made. This is shown with reference to a famous poem by O. Mandelstam. The final conclusion is that in general the true functions of information structure stretch far beyond what is claimed in standard, ‘non-poetically-oriented’ literature on information structure.