ABSTRACT
This paper examines the relationship between the cognitive notions of figure and ground and the discourse notions of foreground and background. It suggests that these notions, conflated in the literature on grounding, need to be sharply distinguished. It posits that the discourse surface structure notion of prominence is the counterpart of the Gestalt principle of cognitive salience. The paper explains the influence of the cognitive level of information (structure) on linguistic behaviour, namely manifestations of foreground and background in text prominence (figure) and non-prominence (ground). Illustrative examples, drawn from news discourse, show that keeping the distinctions straight has some empirical consequences.
