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Part of
Empirical Studies of the Construction of Discourse
Edited by Óscar Loureda, Inés Recio Fernández, Laura Nadal and Adriana Cruz
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 305] 2019
► pp. 195–228

Chapter 7
Processing patterns of focusing in Spanish

| Heidelberg University
| Heidelberg University
Different kinds of focusing relations that encode different assumptions are expected to exhibit different kinds of processing patterns (Loureda et al. 2015; Lowder and Gordon 2015; Nadal et al. 2016). In this paper, we present findings of an eye tracking study that takes under consideration two different types of focusing relations in pragmatic scales in Spanish (Rooth 1985; König 1991; Rooth 1992; Kenesei 2006; Portolés 2007, 2009): (a1) unmarked identificational foci that have primarily identificational value, (a2) unmarked restrictive foci that present a conceptual restriction, and (b) contrastive foci, marked by the focus operator incluso (‘even’) that due to its procedural meaning restricts the inferential processes in communication (Karttunen and Peters 1979; Blakemore 1987, 1992; Portolés 2007). According to the findings, this paper claims that (1) utterances with unmarked and marked focus do not present different global processing efforts (utterances with marked focus have more encoded information but the focus operator generates a control and acceleration effect), (2) utterances with unmarked and marked foci present different intern processing patterns: unmarked (conceptual) and marked (procedural) patterns and (3) that different processing patterns lead to different inferential processes.
Keywords: focusing patterns, unmarked focus, marked focus, procedural meaning, focus operator, incluso, experimental pragmatics
Article outline
  • 1.Different kinds of focusing
  • 2.Experimental design
    • 2.1Independent variables, areas of interest and hypotheses
    • 2.2Dependent variables
    • 2.3Participants, apparatus and procedure
    • 2.4Stimuli
    • 2.5Statistical treatment
  • 3.Results and discussion
    • 3.1Global comparison
    • 3.2Comparison of focusing areas
    • 3.3The comprehension of the contrastive implicatures of unmarked and marked focus structures
  • 4.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 6 August 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.305.07cru
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