Informativity in Translation

The fact that we not only find that different structural means used to realize information structure across languages, but also within a single language in an interactive fashion, gives rise to several questions concerning the description of information structure and its realization. A complete answer would not necessarily constitute a theory of the relation between information structure and its possible realization. The issue is not just to be able to describe that information structure is realized by tune or word order, for example. If information structure is to be a universal aspect of sentential meaning, then a theory should be able to explain why a language may avail itself of particular structural indications of informativity, and when it would do so - from a cross-linguistic perspective.