Phil Resnik's dissertation ("A Class-Based Approach to Lexical Relationships ", https://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/10010143379/) uses information theory to investigate why some direct objects are optional (e.g., "I ate [food]") while others are not (e.g., *"I brought [food]").
I extended his information theory to look at how Grice's Maxims would play in to modification of these direct objects ("The Semantics of Optionality", https://pqdtopen.proquest.com/doc/1658214586.html?FMT=ABS). In terms of Grice's Maxims + information theory, does modifying a required direct object ("marking it", as noted in a comment below) informationaly/entropically different from modifying an optional direct object? (This is further clouded by the concept of syntactic optionality being separable from semantic optionality.
I extended his information theory to look at how Grice's Maxims would play in to modification of these direct objects ("The Semantics of Optionality", https://pqdtopen.proquest.com/doc/1658214586.html?FMT=ABS). In terms of Grice's Maxims + information theory, does modifying a required direct object ("marking it", as noted in a comment below) informationaly/entropically different from modifying an optional direct object? (This is further clouded by the concept of syntactic optionality being separable from semantic optionality.