In linguistics, givenness is the degree to which a speaker assumes certain contextual information of a topic of discourse is already known to the listener.
The speaker thus considers it unnecessary to provide further contextual information through an expression's linguistic properties (e.g. its syntactic form or position, or its patterns of stress and intonation).
[2] Givenness is marked by the absence of emphasis or detailed explanations.
For example, when informing a close friend of having taken a long-considered action, one might simply say "I did it!"
This example may be contrasted when the nature of the action is new information, such as "I did a cartwheel!"
[4] Anaphoric expressions include personal pronouns, clitics and person inflections, demonstratives, and definite articles as well as indefinite articles that indicate a non-given referent.
Decantation can occur on a focused constituent that is given at the same time, where it does not bear the pitch accent but functions as a focus with only :[1] a. X: Everyone already knew that Mary only eats VEGETABLES.
Y: If even PAUL knew that Mary only eats [vegetables]Given, then he should have suggested a different RESTAURANT.
[4] Common Ground (CG) in linguistics is the shared knowledge between participants in discourse.
It is a set of propositions and entities that are known to both speakers, and is updated during the discourse.
[1] Common Ground can further be divided into Two individuals who spend a lot of time together or have many shared experiences can more easily latch onto each other's givenness in their discourse.
However, when that phenomenon is relied upon in future or ongoing conversations, deficits in information can begin to develop, and as a result, it becomes difficult to assess givenness in the context of new conversations.