Toward a typology of focus and focus constructions

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3987489
AutoresHans Bernhard Drubig (autor correspondente)
Ano2003
Volume41
Fascículo1
Páginas1-50
Data de publicação2003-01-06
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoLinguistics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0024-3949 • E-ISSN: 1613-396X
EditoraWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/ling.2003.003
OpenAlexW2001141574
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas39
Referências citadas13

takes preliminary steps towards a typology of focus and focus constructions. Focus is taken to be a syntactic feature assigned freely to word level categories at Numeration licensed either by integration into a wider domain (presentational focus) of by overt/covert movement to a functional projection headed by a polarity formative (contrastive/exhaustive focus). Crosslinguistic variation in the target position of focus movement (sentence-peripheral vs. verb-adjacent) support the stipulation of two polarity projections, one in COMP and one in INFL, with different effects on interpretation. The evidence of the WH/focus relationship, on the other hand, suggests that question and answer instantiate a distinct type of focus-background partition (completive focus) independent from and orthogonal to primary information structure. Analyzing clefts as another type of completive focus constructions solves a serious problem confronting the movement analysis of narrow focus: in a number of languages showing striking parallels between focus and relative constructions (Schachter 1973) sentence-peripheral foci bind resumptive pronouns without WCO or island effect. This paper investigates a cleft

Focus (optics) · Linguistic typology · Linguistics · Sociology · Typology · Anthropology · Lexicography and Language Studies · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Philosophy · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation