Cover not available
Part of
Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2018: Selected papers from 'Going Romance' 32, Utrecht
Edited by Sergio Baauw, Frank Drijkoningen and Luisa Meroni
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 357] 2021
► pp. 49–70

Chapter 3
Focus fronting vs. wh-movement

Evidence from Sardinian

| University of Helsinki

It is commonly held that focus fronting exhibits similar properties to wh-movement. The syntactic parallelism between the two types of movement has been supported by the semantic analyses of wh-questions that assume that when wh-words function as interrogative operators, they are inherently focal. The main goal of this paper is to challenge this highly attractive picture of the relationship between wh-words, focus, and movement, and to claim that wh-phrases are not inherently focal. The results of a prosodic production experiment on the distribution of the nuclear pitch accent in Sardinian wh-questions, together with the syntactic properties related to the asymmetry between direct and indirect wh-questions, form the empirical basis of this study.

Keywords: focus fronting, wh-question, nuclear pitch accent, Sardinian, production experiment
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.FF vs. wh-movement in Sardinian
  • 3.The distribution of the ‘nuclear pitch accent’ in wh-questions
    • 3.1The prosodic patterns of wh-questions
    • 3.2The NPA in Sardinian wh-questions
  • 4.Sardinian wh-questions: The prosodic experiment
    • 4.1The experimental material and procedure
    • 4.2Results
  • 5.The asymmetry between direct and indirect wh-questions
  • 6.Analysis: Interrogative wh-words are not inherently focal
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 17 December 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.357.03cru
References (47)
Aboh, Enoch O. & Roland Pfau
2010 What’s a wh-word got to do with it? In Paola Benincà & Nicola Munaro (eds.), Mapping the left periphery. The cartography of syntactic structures, Volume 5, 91–124. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Alexopoulou, Theodora & Mary Baltazani
2012 Focus in Greek wh-questions. In Ivona Kučerová & Ad Neeleman (eds.), Information structure: Contrasts and positions, 206–246. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Artstein, Ron
2002 Parts of words: Compositional semantics for prosodic constituents. Ph.D. Dissertation: Rutgers University.Google Scholar
Beck, Sigrid
2006 Intervention effects follow from focus interpretation. Natural Language Semantics 14. 1–56. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Beckman, Mary E., Julia Hirschberg & Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel
2005 The original ToBI system and the evolution of the ToBI framework. In Sun- Ah Jun (ed.), Prosodic typology: The phonology of intonation and phrasing, 9–54. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bianchi, Valentina, Giuliano Bocci & Silvio Cruschina
2017 Two types of subject inversion in Italian wh-questions. Revue Roumaine de Linguistique 62(3). 233–252.Google Scholar
Bocci, Giuliano & Silvio Cruschina
2018 Postverbal subjects and nuclear pitch accent in Italian wh-questions. In Roberto Petrosino, Pietro Cerrone & Harry van der Hulst (eds.), From sounds to structures. Beyond the veil of Maya, 467–494. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bocci, Giuliano & Lucia Pozzan
2014 Questions (and experimental answers) about Italian subjects. Subject positions in main and indirect question in L1 and attrition. In Carla Contemori & Lena Dal Pozzo (eds.), Inquiries into linguistic theory and language acquisition. Papers offered to Adriana Belletti, 28–44. Siena: CISCL Press.Google Scholar
Bocci, Giuliano, Luigi Rizzi & Mamoru Saito
2018 On the incompatibility of wh and focus. Gengo Kenkyui – Journal of the Linguistic Society of Japan 154. 29–51.Google Scholar
Bocci, Giuliano, Valentina Bianchi & Silvio Cruschina
2021 Focus in wh-questions: Evidence from Italian. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 39. 405–455. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bocci, Giuliano, Silvio Cruschina & Luigi Rizzi
2021. On some special properties of why in syntax and prosody. In Gabriela Soare ed. Why is ‘why’ unique? Its syntactic and semantic properties 293 316 Berlin De Gruyter
Brody, Michael
1995 Focus and checking theory. In Istvan Kenesei (ed.), Approaches to Hungarian 5: Levels and structures, 29–43. Szeged: JATEPress.Google Scholar
Büring, Daniel
2003 On D-trees, beans, and B-accents. Linguistics and Philosophy 26. 511–545. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cable, Seth
2010 The grammar of Q: Q-particles, wh-movement, and pied-piping. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam
1976 Conditions on rules of grammar. Linguistic Analysis 2. 303–352.Google Scholar
Eckardt, Regine
2007 Inherent focus on wh-phrases. Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 11. 209–228.Google Scholar
Frota, Sónia, Marisa Cruz, Flaviane Svartman, Gisela Collischonn, Aline Fonseca, Carolina Serra, Pedro Oliveira & Marina Vigário
2015 Intonational variation in Portuguese: European and Brazilian varieties. In Sónia Frota & Pilar Prieto (eds.), Intonational variation in Romance, 235–283. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane & Jacqueline Guéron
1999 English grammar: A generative perspective. Malden: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hualde, José Ignacio & Pilar Prieto
2015 Intonational variation in Spanish: European and American varieties. In Sónia Frota & Pilar Prieto (eds.), Intonational variation in Romance, 350–391. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jones, Michael A.
1993 Sardinian syntax. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
2013 Fronting, focus and illocutionary force in Sardinian. Lingua 134. 75–101. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Krifka, Manfred
2001 For a structured account of questions and answers. In Caroline Féry & Wolfgang Sternefeld (eds.), Audiatur vox sapientiae. A festschrift for Arnim von Stechow, 287–319. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008 Basic notions of information structure. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 55. 243–276. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 Questions. In Klaus von Heusinger, Claudia Maienborn & Paul Portner (eds.), Semantics. An international handbook of natural language meaning, Volume 2, 1742–1758. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
. Manuscript. Focus and contrastive topics in question and answer acts. Humboldt-Universität Berlin & Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS) Berlin 2017.Google Scholar
Ladd, D. Robert
1996 Intonational phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Second edn. in 2008).Google Scholar
Marotta, Giovanna
2001 I toni accentuali nelle interrogative aperte (wh-) dell’italiano di Lucca. In Camilla Bettoni, Antonio Zampolli & Daniela Zorzi (eds.), Atti del II congresso di studi dell’Associazione Italiana di linguistica applicata, 175–194. Perugia: Guerra Edizioni.Google Scholar
Muntendam, Antje & Francisco Torreira
2016 Focus and prosody in Spanish and Quechua: Insights from an interactive task. In Meghan E. Armstrong, Nicholas Hendriksen & Maria del Mar Vanrell (eds.), Intonational grammar in Ibero-Romance: Approaches across linguistic subfields, 69–90. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Prieto, Pilar, Joan Borràs-Comes, Teresa Cabré, Verònica Crespo-Sendra, Ignasi Mascaró, Paolo Roseano, Rafèu Sichel-Bazin & Maria del Mar Vanrell
2015 Intonational phonology of Catalan and its dialectal varieties. In Sónia Frota & Pilar Prieto (eds.), Intonational variation in Romance, 9–62. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reich, Ingo
2002 Question/answer congruence and the semantics of wh-phrases. Theoretical Linguistics 28. 73–94. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reis, Marga
1991 Echo-w-Sätze und Echo-w-Fragen. In Marga Reis & Inger Rosengren (eds.), Fragesätze und Fragen. Referate Anlässlich der 12. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft, Saarbrücken 1990, 49–76. Tübingen: Niemeyer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2012 On the analysis of echo questions. Tampa Papers in Linguistics 3. 1–24.Google Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi
1997 The fine structure of the left periphery. In Liliane Haegeman (ed.), Elements of grammar: Handbook of generative Syntax, 281–337. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2001 On the position “Int(errogative)” in the left periphery of the clause. In Guglielmo Cinque & Giampaolo Salvi (eds.), Current studies in Italian syntax. Essays offered to Lorenzo Renzi, 287–296. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Roberts, Craige
1996 Information structure in discourse: Towards an integrated formal theory of pragmatics. In Jae-Hak Yoon & Andreas Kathol (eds.), Ohio State University Working Papers in Linguistics 49. Papers in Semantics, 91–136. Columbus: The Ohio State University.Google Scholar
2012 Information structure: Towards an integrated formal theory of pragmatics. Semantics and Pragmatics 5. 1–69. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rooth, Mats
1992 A theory of focus interpretation. Natural Language Semantics 1. 75–116. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sichel-Bazin, Rafèu, Carolin Buthke & Trudel Meisenburg
2012 The prosody of Occitan-French bilinguals. In Kurt Braunmüller & Christoph Gabriel (eds.), Multilingual individuals and multilingual societies, 349–364. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sobin, Nicholas
1990 On the syntax of English echo questions. Lingua 81. 141–167. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010 Echo questions and the Minimalist Program. Linguistic Inquiry 41. 131–148. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Truckenbrodt, Hubert
1995 Phonological phrases: Their relation to syntax, focus, and Prominence. Ph.D. Dissertation: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Vanrell, Maria del Mar & Olga Fernández-Soriano
2013 Variation at the interfaces in Ibero-Romance. Catalan and Spanish prosody and word order. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 12. 253–282. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2018 Language variation at the prosody-syntax interface. Focus in European Spanish. In Marco García García & Melanie Uth (eds.), Focus realization in Romance and beyond, 33–70. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vanrell, Maria del Mar, Francesc Ballone, Carlo Schirru & Pilar Prieto
2015 Sardinian intonational phonology: Logudorese and Campidanese varieties. In Sónia Frota & Pilar Prieto (eds.), Intonational variation in Romance, 317–349. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zubizarreta, María-Luisa
1998 Prosody, focus, and word order. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
2016 Nuclear stress and information structure. In Caroline Féry & Shinichiro Ishihara (eds.), The Oxford handbook of information structure, 165–184. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Zubizarreta, María-Luisa & Jean-Roger Vergnaud
2005 Phrasal stress, focus, and syntax. In Martin Everaert & Henk van Riemsdijk (eds.), The syntax companion, 522–556. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar