Focus in Generative Grammar
| University of British Columbia, Vancouver
The topic of this book is the notion of ‘focus’ and its linguistic characterization. The main thesis is that focus has a uniform grammatical identification only as a syntactic element with – in English at least – a certain systematic phonological interpretation and – presumably universally – a range of semantic interpretations. In broad respects, the framework within this investigation is conducted is that of Chomsky & Lasnik (1977) and the subsequent Government and Binding framework. After considering defining the location of prominence in a focused phrase in terms of constituent structure, the author argues that an argument structure approach to the focus phrase/prominence relation is more promising. This is then exemplified in analyses of cleft focus and constructional focus.
[Studies in Generative Linguistic Analysis, 4] 1986. ix, 221 pp.
Publishing status: Available | Original publisher: E. Story-Scientia
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
|
Preface
|
vii
|
|
Dedication
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ix
|
|
Introduction
|
1
|
|
Chapter 1: Accent and Focus
|
5
|
|
1.1. The NSR and the NSR'
|
5
|
|
1.2. The NSR”
|
18
|
|
1.3. Prominence
|
31
|
|
Chapter 2: The Interpretation of Focus
|
37
|
|
2.1. The Presupposition Analysis
|
41
|
|
2.2. c-construable
|
46
|
|
2.3. Narrow Focus, Contrast, and Default Accent
|
67
|
|
Chapter 3: The Representation of Focus
|
79
|
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3.1. Focus and Argument Structure
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80
|
|
3.2. The Structure of Discourse
|
98
|
|
Chapter 4: Constructional Focus
|
109
|
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4.1. The Constructional Focus Principle
|
109
|
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4.2. The Constructional Focus Position
|
121
|
|
Chapter 5: Cleft Focus
|
127
|
|
5.1. The Interpretation of Clefts
|
128
|
|
5.2. The Structure of Clefts
|
135
|
|
5.3. Cleft Focus Constructions and Parametric Variation
|
154
|
|
Appendix — On Overt wh Phrases in English Cleft Clauses
|
161
|
|
Chapter 6: Summary
|
171
|
|
Footnotes
|
179
|
|
References
|
213
|
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Subjects
Linguistics
BIC Subject: CF – Linguistics
BISAC Subject: LAN009000 – LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General