Furthermore the boundaries may overlap with one information unit has to be set as a constituent in its own right At the same time, its relationship to the grammatical constituents is by no means random, and instances of overlapping boundaries are clearly "marked", so the two constituent structures, the grammatical and the informational, are closely interconnected The information unit is what its name implies: a unit of informati already known or pred ictable and what is new or unpredictable sion between what is Information, in this technical grammatical sense, is the tension between what is In the idealized form each information unit consists of a given element accompanied by a New element But there are two cond itions of departure from this principle. One is that discourse has to start somewhere, so there can be discourse- initiating units consisting of a New element only. The other is that by its nature the given is like to be"phonic"-referring to something already present in the verbal or non-verbal context; and one way of achieving phoricity is through ellipsis, a grammatical form in which certain features are not realized in the structure The way this structure is real ized is essentially"natural"(non-arbitrary ) in two (i The New is marked by prominence (i)The Given typically precedes the New 10.5 Meaning of given and new Given means what is treated by the speaker as recoverable whereas New means what is not recoverable to the listener. There are a number of elements in language that are inherently "given"in sense that they are not interpretable except by reference to some previous mention some feature of the situation: anaphoric elements and deictic elements 10. 6 Given New and Theme t rheme There is a close semantic relationship between information structure and thematic structure Other things being equal, a speaker will choose the Theme from within what is Given and locate the focus the climax of the new somewhere within the rheme But although they are related, Given New and Theme rheme are not the same The Theme is what I, the speaker, chooses to take as my point of departure. The Given is what you, the listener, already know about or have accessible to you eme rheme is speaker-oriented, while Given New is But both are speaker-selected. It is the speaker who assigns both structures mapping one onto the other to give a composite texture to the discourse and thereby relate it to its environment At any point of the discourse process, there will have been build up a rich verbal and non-verbal env ironment for whatever is to follow; the speaker 's choices are made against the background of what has been said and what has happened before4 Furthermore the boundaries may overlap, with one information unit has to be set up as a constituent in its own right. At the same time, its relationship to the grammatical constituents is by no means random, and instances of overlapping boundaries are clearly “marked”; so the two constituent structures, the grammatical and the informational, are closely interconnected. The information unit is what its name implies: a unit of information. Information, in this technical grammatical sense, is the tension between what is already known or predictable and what is new or unpredictable. In the idealized form each information unit consists of a Given element accompanied by a New element. But there are two conditions of departure from this principle. One is that discourse has to start somewhere, so there can be discourse-initiating units consisting of a New element only. The other is that by its nature the Given is like to be “phoric” – referring to something already present in the verbal or non-verbal context; and one way of achieving phoricity is through ellipsis, a grammatical form in which certain features are not realized in the structure. The way this structure is realized is essentially “natural” (non-arbitrary), in two respects: (i) The New is marked by prominence. (ii) The Given typically precedes the New. 10.5 Meaning of Given and New Given means what is treated by the speaker as recoverable whereas New means what is not recoverable to the listener. There are a number of elements in language that are inherently “given” in the sense that they are not interpretable except by reference to some previous mention or some feature of the situation: anaphoric elements and deictic elements. 10.6 Given + New and Theme + Rheme There is a close semantic relationship between information structure and thematic structure. Other things being equal, a speaker will choose the Theme from within what is Given and locate the focus, the climax of the New, somewhere within the Rheme. But although they are related, Given + New and Theme + Rheme are not the same thing. The Theme is what I, the speaker, chooses to take as my point of departure. The Given is what you, the listener, already know about or have accessible to you. Thus, Theme + Rheme is speaker-oriented, while Given + New is listener-oriented. But both are speaker-selected. It is the speaker who assigns both structures, mapping one onto the other to give a composite texture to the discourse and thereby relate it to its environment. At any point of the discourse process, there will have been build up a rich verbal and non-verbal environment for whatever is to follow; the speaker’s choices are made against the background of what has been said and what has happened before