Raised and in-situ preverbal foci

A unified prosodic account

Bibliographic Data

ID10139744
AuthorsLena Borise (0000-0002-6356-7472, Department of Linguistics and Basque Studies, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU); Université Paris Cité, CNRS, Laboratoire de linguistique formelle, corresponding author), Andreas Pregla (0009-0002-1503-7730, Universität Potsdam, SFB 12873), Balázs Surányi (0000-0003-2818-9872, HUN-REN Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics & Pázmány Péter Catholic University)
Year2025
Volume62
Issue1
Pages1-34
Publication date2025-04-28
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Linguistics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-2267 • E-ISSN: 1469-7742
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0022226725000118
OpenAlexW4405131968
LanguageEN
References cited70

It has been shown in the literature that the preference or requirement for immediately preverbal focus placement, found in a number of languages (especially verb-/head-final ones), can result from different syntactic configurations. In some languages (e.g., in Hungarian), immediately preverbal foci are raised to a dedicated projection, accompanied by verb movement). In others (e.g., in Turkish), preverbal foci remain in situ, with any material intervening between the focus and the verb undergoing displacement), to allow for the focus–verb adjacency. We offer a unified account of the two types of preverbal foci, raised and in situ ones, based on their prosodic requirements. Specifically, we show that both types of foci require alignment with an edge of a prosodic constituent but differ in the directionality of alignment (right or left). Our analysis rests on bringing together two independent existing proposals, Focus-as-Alignment and flexible Intonational Phrase ( ɩ )-mapping. We show that this approach makes correct predictions for a number of unrelated Eurasian languages and discuss some further implications of this approach

In situ · Linguistics · Physics · Prosody · Communication · Philosophy · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Psychology · Spanish Linguistics and Language Studies · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

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