Given and New Information

The given-new principle states that speakers and writers tend to place known (given) information before unknown (new) information within a clause. This ordering principle, also called information structure, drives word order choices, determines where stress falls in speech, and motivates the use of passive voice, cleft sentences, and other syntactic constructions.

The Principle

• Given information: what the listener/reader already knows from the context, previous discourse, or shared knowledge
• New information: what the speaker/writer is adding, the communicative point of the utterance

English, as an SVO language, tends to package information so that given precedes new:

The bridge [given] was designed by Gustave Eiffel [new].

This is more natural than Gustave Eiffel designed the bridge when the bridge has already been established as the topic.

Related Principles

End-focus

The most important or new information naturally gravitates to the end of the clause, where it receives the greatest communicative weight. This is the principle of end-focus.

End-weight

Longer, more complex constituents tend to be placed at the end of the clause. Since new information often requires fuller expression than given information, end-weight and end-focus typically work together.

• She gave the keys to the woman standing by the door. (heavy element last)
• Compare: She gave the woman standing by the door the keys. (awkward because the heavy element comes before the light one)

Syntactic Consequences

The given-new principle motivates several structural choices in English:

Construction	How it serves given-new	Example
Passive voice	Promotes known patient to subject/given position	The suspect was arrested. (suspect = given)
Cleft Sentence	Isolates new information for focus	It was the cost that concerned us.
Existential there	Introduces new entities	There's a problem with the data.
Extraposition	Moves heavy new subjects to the end	It is important that we act now.
Fronting	Moves given information to initial position	This theory we have already discussed.

Interaction with Intonation

In spoken English, tonic stress (the main pitch movement in an intonation unit) falls on the new information, typically the last content word. When speakers want to override the default and focus earlier elements, they shift the tonic stress:

• She bought a RED car. (default: car type is new)
• SHE bought a red car. (contrastive: who bought it is new)

Teaching Implications

Understanding given-new structure helps learners:

• Write more cohesive paragraphs by maintaining topic continuity through Thematic Structure
• Choose between active and passive voice based on information flow rather than arbitrary rules
• Use cleft and existential constructions purposefully
• Recognise why certain word orders sound "natural" and others feel awkward, even when both are grammatically correct

This principle connects directly to Coherence because a text feels coherent partly when its information structure meets the reader's expectations about where given and new information will appear.