Part of
Experimental Linguistics: Integration of theories and applicationsEdited by Gary D. Prideaux, Bruce L. Derwing and Will Baker
[Studies in the Sciences of Language Series 3] 1980
► pp. 215–230
In the present experimental study, subjects were asked for direct judgements of the importance of words in a set of twenty sentences which varied systematically according to voice, dative position, and location of contrastive stress. These three sentence properties were considered to have possible focus roles. The results indicated that front-shifting, as occurs in passivization or dative movement, is a focus device, as is contrastive stress.