Chapter published in:
When Data Challenges Theory: Unexpected and paradoxical evidence in information structure
Edited by Davide Garassino and Daniel Jacob
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 273] 2022
► pp. 203–238

To be or not to be focus adverbials?

A corpus-driven study of It. anche in spontaneous spoken Italian

| Technische Universität Dresden

The goal of this study is to cast new light on one of the main defining properties of focus adverbials, namely their interaction with the focus structure of the sentence. Following the framework known as Language into Act Theory, we describe the interaction between It. anche and focal information, considered in relation to the accomplishment of a speech act. The results of a corpus-driven study of spontaneous spoken Italian allow proposing a more detailed definition of focus adverbials, which takes into account two layers of information structure: the semantico-presuppositional layer and the pragmatic-illocutionary layer. We claim that association with focus is a stable feature of focus adverbials only in relation to the first layer of information structure.

Keywords: focus adverbials, focus structure, pragmatically based units, information units, spoken Italian, corpus-driven analysis
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Focus adverbs and focus structure
    • 2.1Focus of FAs or ‘domain of association’
    • 2.2Focus of the sentence and information structure
    • 2.3FAs as focus-binders
  • 3.The information distribution of It. anche in utterances produced in spoken Italian: A corpus-driven analysis following the Language into Act Theory
    • 3.1General characterization of the Language into Act Theory (L-AcT)
      • 3.1.1Main pragmatic reference units: Utterance, information units and Commentxs
      • 3.1.2Topic-Comment according to L-AcT
    • 3.2Overview of the information distribution of It. anche in the spoken utterances of DB-IPIC
      • 3.2.1Distribution of anche in textual and dialogic IUS
      • 3.2.2Distribution of anche in textual IUs: Absolute and relative frequencies
    • 3.3The information distribution of anche in the textual IUs: A qualitative analysis
      • 3.3.1It. anche in Comment (COM)
      • 3.3.2It. anche in Topic (TOP)
      • 3.3.3It. anche in Parenthesis (PAR)
      • 3.3.4It. anche in Appendix (APC and APT)
    • 3.4Conclusions on the information distribution of It. anche in spontaneous speech
  • 4.Interaction between anche and focal information: A description based on the Language into Act theory
    • 4.1It. anche interacts with the C-focus
      • 4.1.1Defining C-focus in L-AcT
      • 4.1.2C-focus on anche’s DA and anche in Comment
      • 4.1.3C-focus on anche’s DA and anche in Appendix
      • 4.1.4C-focus on anche alone in the Comment
    • 4.2It. anche interacts with the T-focus
      • 4.2.1Defining T-focus in L-AcT
      • 4.2.2T-focus on anche’s DA and anche in Topic
      • 4.2.3T-focus on anche
    • 4.3It. anche does not interact with a focus
      • 4.3.1It. anche + DA in Parenthesis or Appendix
      • 4.3.2It. anche + DA in Topic
    • 4.4Conclusions on the interaction between It. anche and focal information as defined in L-AcT
  • 5.General concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 22 February 2022
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.273.07de
References
Andorno, Cecilia
1999 Avverbi focalizzanti in italiano. Parametri per un’analisi. Studi Italiani di Linguistica Teorica e Applicata 28(1): 43–83.Google Scholar
2000 Focalizzatori fra connessione e messa a fuoco. Il punto di vista delle varietà di apprendimento. Milano: FrancoAngeli.Google Scholar
Andorno, Cecilia & De Cesare, Anna-Maria
2017 Mapping additivity through translation: From French aussi to Italian anche and back in the Europarl-direct corpus. In Focus on Additivity. Adverbial Modifiers in Romance, Germanic and Slavic Languages, Anna-Maria De Cesare & Cecilia Maria Andorno (eds), 157–200. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Austin, John Langshaw
1962 How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chafe, Wallace
1976 Givenness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics, and point of view. In Subject and Topic, Charles N. Li (ed), 25–55. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Cresti, Emanuela
2000 Corpus di italiano parlato (Vol. 1), Firenze: Accademia della Crusca.Google Scholar
2005 Notes on lexical strategy, structural strategies and surface clause indexes in the C-Oral-Rom spoken corpora. In C-ORAL-ROM. Integrated Reference Corpora for Spoken Romance Languages, Emanuela Cresti & Massimo Moneglia (eds), 209–256. Amsterdam-Philadelphia, John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 The Definition of Focus in Language into Act Theory (LAcT). In Pragmatics and Prosody. Illocution, Modality, Attitude, Information Patterning and Speech Annotation, Heliana Mello, Alessandro Panunzi & Tommaso Raso (eds), 39–82. Firenze: Firenze University Press.Google Scholar
2018 The illocution-prosody relationship and the Information Pattern in spontaneous speech according to the Language into Act Theory (L-AcT). Linguistik Online 88(1): 33–62. DOI logo
2020 The pragmatic analysis of speech and its illocutionary classification according to the Language into Act Theory. In In Search of Basic Units of Spoken Language: A Corpus-Driven Approach, Shlomo Izre’el, Heliana Mello, Alessandro Panunzi, Tommaso Raso (eds), 181–219. Amsterdam-New York: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cresti, Emanuela & Moneglia, Massimo
(eds) 2005 C-ORAL-ROM. Integrated Reference Corpora for Spoken Romance Languages. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010 Informational patterning theory and the corpus-based description of spoken language. The compositionality issue in the topic-comment pattern. In Bootstrapping Information from Corpora in a Cross-Linguistic Perspective, Massimo Moneglia & Alessandro Panunzi (eds), 13–45. Firenze: Firenze University Press.Google Scholar
De Cesare, Anna-Maria
2004 L’avverbio anche e il rilievo informativo del testo. In La lingua nel testo, il testo nella lingua, Angela Ferrari (ed), 191–218. Torino: Istituto dell’Atlante Linguistico Italiano.Google Scholar
2008 Gli avverbi paradigmatizzanti. In L’interfaccia lingua-testo. Natura e funzioni dell’articolazione informativa dell’enunciato, Angela Ferrari, Luca Cignetti, Anna-Maria De Cesare, Letizia Lala, Magda Mandelli, Claudia Ricci & Carlo Enrico Roggia, 340–361. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso.Google Scholar
2010 On the focusing function of focusing adverbs. A discussion based on Italian data. Linguistik Online 44(4): 99–116. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 Dato-Nuovo, Struttura. Enciclopedia dell’italiano, Raffaele Simone (ed), 338–343. Roma: Treccani.Google Scholar
2015a Defining Focusing Modifiers in a cross-linguistic perspective. A discussion based on English, German, French and Italian. In Adverbs – Functional and Diachronic Aspects [Studies in Language Companion Series 170], Karin Pittner, Daniela Elsner & Fabian Barteld (eds), 47–81. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: Benjamins. DOI logo
2015b Additive focus adverbs in canonical word orders: A corpus-based study of It. anche, Fr. aussi and E. also in written news. Linguistik Online 71(2): 31–56. DOI logo
2016 Per una tipologia semantico-funzionale degli avverbiali. Uno studio basato sulla distribuzione informativa degli avverbi (in -mente) negli enunciati dell’italiano parlato. Linguistica e Filologia 36: 27–68.Google Scholar
2018 French Adverbial cleft sentences: Empirical and theoretical issues. Belgian Journal of Linguistics 32: 86–120. DOI logo
De Cesare, Anna-Maria & Borreguero Zuloaga, Margarita
2014 The contribution of the Basel Model to the description of polyfunctional discourse markers. The case of It. anche, Fr. aussi and Sp. también . In Discourse Segmentation in Romance Languages [Pragmatics and Beyond New Series 250], Salvador Pons Bordería (ed), 55–94. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ferrari, Angela, Cignetti, Luca, De Cesare, Anna-Maria, Lala, Letizia, Mandelli, Magda, Ricci, Claudia & Roggia, Enrico
2008 L’interfaccia lingua-testo. Natura e funzioni dell’articolazione informativa dell’enunciato. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso.Google Scholar
Firbas, Jan
1995 A contribution on a panel discussion on Rheme. In Thematic Development in English Texts, Mohsen Gadessy (ed), 213–222. London-New York: Pinter.Google Scholar
Frosali, Fabrizio
2008 Il lessico degli Ausili Dialogici. In Prospettive nello studio del lessico italiano. Atti del IX Congresso SILFI (Firenze, 14–17 giugno 2006), Emanuela Cresti (ed), 417–424. Firenze: Firenze University Press.Google Scholar
Garassino, Davide & Jacob, Daniel
This volume. When data challenges theory. The analysis of information structure and its paradoxes. In When Data Challenges Theory. Unexpected and Paradoxical Evidence in Information Structure, Davide Garassino & Daniel Jacob eds Amsterdam-Philadelphia John Benjamins DOI logo
König, Ekkehard
1991 The Meaning of Focus Particles: A Comparative Perspective. London-New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
La Forgia, Francesca
2006 Alcune osservazioni sui focalizzatori. Studi italiani di linguistica teorica e applicata 35(2): 359–385.Google Scholar
Lambrecht, Knud
1994 Information Structure and Sentence Form. Topic, Focus and the Mental Representations of Discourse Referents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lombardi Vallauri, Edoardo
2009a La struttura informativa. Forma e funzione negli enunciati linguistici. Roma: Carocci.Google Scholar
2009b “Appendix” or “postposed Topic”: Where does the difference lie? In Information Structure and its Interfaces, Lunella Mereu (ed), 387–411. Berlin: de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matić, Dejan
2015 Information structure in linguistics. In International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edn., James D. Wright (ed), 95–99. Oxford: Elsevier. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
This volume. Alternatives to information structure. In When Data Challenges Theory. Unexpected and Paradoxical Evidence in Information Structure, Davide Garassino & Daniel Jacob eds Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logo
Matić, Dejan & Wedgwood, Daniel
2013 The meanings of focus: The significance of an interpretation based category in cross­linguistic analysis. Journal of Linguistics 49: 127–163. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nølke, Henning
2006 La focalisation: une approche énonciative. In La Focalisation dans les langues, Hélène Wlodarczyk & André Wlodarczyk (eds), 59–80. Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Panunzi, Alessandro & Gregori, Lorenzo
2011 DB-IPIC. An XML Database for the Representation of Information Structure in Spoken Language. In Pragmatics and Prosody. Illocution, Modality, Attitude, Information Patterning and Speech Annotation, Heliana Mello, Alessandro Panunzi & Tommaso Raso (eds), 133–150. Firenze: Firenze University Press.Google Scholar
Pons Bordería, Salvador
2014 Models of discourse segmentation in Romance languages. In Discourse Segmentation in Romance Languages, Salvador Pons Bordería (ed), 1–21. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Prince, Ellen F.
1981 Toward a taxonomy of given-new information. In Radical Pragmatics, Peter Cole (ed), 223–255. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
1992 The ZPG letter: subjects, definiteness, and information-status. In Discourse Description. Diverse Linguistic Analyses of a Fund-raising Text. William C. Mann & Sandra A. Thompson (eds), 295–325. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey & Svartvik, Jan
1985 A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Reinhart, Tanya
1981 Pragmatics and linguistics. An analysis of sentence topics. Philosophica 27: 53–94.Google Scholar
Ricca, Davide
1999 Osservazioni preliminari sui focalizzatori in italiano. In Grammatica e discorso. Studi sull’acquisizione dell’italiano e del tedesco, Norbert Dittmar & Giacalone Ramat, Anna (eds), 146–164. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.Google Scholar
Riester, Arndt & Baumann, Stefan
2013 Focus triggers and focus types from a corpus perspective. Dialogue and Discourse 4(2): 215–248. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rooth, Mats
1985 Association with Focus. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Searle, John
1969 Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thörle, Britta
2020 La particule additive aussi dans les détachements à gauche en français parlé. In Pour une perspective fonctionnelle des constructions syntaxiques marquées, Anna-Maria De Cesare & Mervi Helkkula (eds), Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 121: 365–387.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Garassino, Davide & Daniel Jacob
2022.  In When Data Challenges Theory [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 273], ► pp. 2 ff. Crossref logo
Lombardi Vallauri, Edoardo
2022.  In When Data Challenges Theory [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 273], ► pp. 40 ff. Crossref logo
Masia, Viviana
2022.  In When Data Challenges Theory [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 273], ► pp. 58 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 16 january 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.