Towards a typology of focus and focus constructions

《Towards a typology of focus and focus constructions》由会员上传分享，免费在线阅读，更多相关内容在学术论文-天天文库。

1、TOWARDSATYPOLOGYOFFOCUSANDFOCUSCONSTRUCTIONSHansBernhardDrubigUniversityofTübingenApril2000Mailingaddress:SeminarfürEnglischePhilologieWilhelmstr.5072074Tübingen,GermanyE-mail:hans-bernhard.drubig@uni-tuebingen.deFax:+49-7071-2975760AbstractDepartingfromtheassumptionthatfocusisnon-unifor

2、m(Kiss1998)thispapertakespreliminarystepstowardsatypologyoffocusandfocusconstructions.FocusistakentobeasyntacticfeatureassignedfreelytowordlevelcategoriesatNumerationlicensedeitherbyintegrationintoawiderdomain(presentationalfocus)ofbyovert/covertmovementtoafunctionalprojectionheadedbyapo

3、larityformative(contrastive/exhaustivefocus).Crosslinguisticvariationinthetargetpositionoffocusmovement(sentence-peripheralvs.verb-adjacent)supportthestipulationoftwopolarityprojections,oneinCOMPandoneinINFL,withdifferenteffectsoninterpretation.TheevidenceoftheWH/focusrelationship,ontheo

4、therhand,suggeststhatquestionandanswerinstantiateadistincttypeoffocus-backgroundpartition(completivefocus)independentfromandorthogonaltoprimaryinformationstructure.Analyzingcleftsasanothertypeofcompletivefocusconstructionssolvesaseriousproblemconfrontingthemovementanalysisofnarrowfocus:i

5、nanumberoflanguagesshowingstrikingparallelsbetweenfocusandrelativeconstructions(Schachter1973)sentence-peripheralfocibindresumptivepronounswithoutWCOorislandeffect.Thispaperinvestigatesacleftanalysisforthistypeoffocusconstructionsanddiscussesitstypologicalimplications.0.IntroductionInthe

6、followingdiscussionIproposeatypologyoffocusandfocusconstructionswhichattemptstoaccountforasubstantialpartoftheknowncrosslinguisticvariationinthisdomain.Thetypologicalapproachunderlyingthisproposalwasdevelopedinthecourseofacomparativeinvestigationintofocusandinformation2structure,inwhichI

7、triedtotaketheratherscantytypologicallyrelevantliteratureintoaccount,aswellasnumerousstudiesonfocusinawiderangeofindividual1languages.ThetheoreticalbackgroundofmydiscussionisaparticularaccountoffocuswhichIcannotdefendorjustifyinsufficientdetailhere,butwhichhasbeen2present