Rhema and contrast in the information structure of sentence

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to outline and to establish a conceptual distinction in Albanian between two interpretative notions often conflated behind the single term focus, the concept of rhematicity and the concept of kontrast. This distinction is empirically supported with data from the syntactic realization of rhematicity and kontrast in this language. These data are futher supported with data from other typologically different and similar languages. In sum, it is shown here that both rhematicity and kontrast are present in the structure of Albanian and, as such, this evidence adds to the discussion of the problems that plague the focus literature for languages of the world.