Given information is information that is assumed by the speaker to be known to, assumed by, or inferable by the addressee at the time of the speaker's utterance, because it is:

• common knowledge
• part of the extralinguistic context
• previously established in the discourse

Given information often is:

• placed early in a sentence
• spoken with a low amount of stress

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library. Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003.

Glossary Hierarchy