Information flow

For other meanings of this term, see Information flow (disambiguation).

In discourse-based grammatical theory, information flow is any tracking of referential information by speakers. Information may be new, just introduced into the conversation; given, already active in the speakers' consciousness; or old, no longer active. The various types of activation, and how these are defined, are model-dependent.

Information flow affects grammatical structures such as

• word order (topic, focus, and afterthought constructions).
• active, passive, or middle voice.
• choice of deixis, such as articles; "medial" deictics such as Spanish ese and Japanese sore are generally determined by the familiarity of a referent rather than by physical distance.
• overtness of information, such as whether an argument of a verb is indicated by a lexical noun phrase, a pronoun, or not mentioned at all.