Why-questions and focus in Italian
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20344117 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Francesco Beltrame (0000-0003-4557-6671, University School for Advanced Studies IUSS Pavia , Pavia , Italy, corresponding author), Cristiano Chesi (0000-0003-1935-1348, University School for Advanced Studies IUSS Pavia , Pavia , Italy) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 687-726 |
| Publication date | 2021-12-20 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Linguistic Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0167-6318 • E-ISSN: 1613-3676 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1515/tlr-2021-2079 |
| OpenAlex | W3216078561 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 33 |
In this study we argue that the appropriateness of an answer to a why -question, potentially bearing on multiple contrast classes, is mainly influenced by the focalized argument, which identifies the relevant reference set. The focalization structure, however, interacts in a non-trivial way with the thematic structure and its accessibility, suggesting a general (independent) prominence of the direct object (DO) over the indirect one (IO). In correlation to that, we also observed that DO appears more resistant to extraction compared to IO, while it seems felicitous in a post-IO focalized low position (light NP-shifting). These contrasts are obtained by running five distinct experiments in Italian targeting various dislocation configurations: Four forced choice tasks manipulating leftward dislocation (i) clefting versus (ii) fronting versus (iii) clitic left dislocation and (iv) postverbal reordering (canonical DO IO order vs. IO DO) in ditransitive predicates. Then (v) an acceptability judgment study was administered to assess the difficulty in figuring out a licensing context coherent with the argument ordering, provided in the why-question. To minimize the interacting factors, all sentences included null subjects and a context was provided for each experimental item in the forced choice tasks, introducing the relevant contrast classes
Agreement · Clitic · Cognitive psychology · Dislocation · Focalization · Linguistics · Physics · Pure mathematics · Syntax · Computer Science · History · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Mathematics · Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism · Philosophy · Psychology · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation · Artificial Intelligence
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| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |