The claim (see Erteschik-Shir 1979, 1998; Erteschik-Shir & Lappin, 1979; Cattell, 1984; Takami 1989; Deane 1991; Kluender, 1992, 1998; Kluender & Kutas, M, 1993; Kuno & Takami, 1993; Van Valin 1995, 1998, 2005; Van Valin & LaPolla, 1997; Goldberg, 2006) is that the constituents above are islands because they lie outside the potential focus domain of the sentence. To understand this claim, a brief introduction to the notion of information structure is required (Mathesius, 1928; Halliday, 1967; Jackendoff, 1972; Gundell, Hedberg & Zacharski, 1993; Lambrecht, 1994, 2000). Most utterances have a topic (or theme) about which some new information (the focus, comment or rheme) is asserted. In a basic declarative sentence, the topic is usually the subject. Bill bought a book. The potential focus domain is the predicate phrase, and, under the default interpretation, is the actual focus as well (Bill bought a book, rather than, say, ran a marathon). However, provided that a cue such as vocal stress is used to overrule this default interpretation, the actual focus can actually be anywhere within the potential focus domain: Bill bought a book (He didn’t steal or borrow one) Bill bought a book (He didn’t buy the particular book we had in mind, or two books) Bill bought a book (He didn’t buy a newspaper) This much is uncontroversial. Also uncontroversial is the claim that children will have to learn about information structure in order to formulate even the most basic utterances. For example, most utterances require a noun phrase of some kind, and, for each, speakers must decide whether
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