UCL LINGUISTICS |
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Contrast, Givenness, and Yet Another Theory of Focus in EnglishDaniel Büring (UCLA)buring@humnet.ucla.edu
A theory of focus that aims to predict which accent patterns are felicitous in a given utterance context needs to answer at least the following questions: i) what are the felicity conditions on focus marking (in given focus domain)? ii) what are the conditions on creating focus domains and focus marking in the first place? And iii) what is the relation between focus marking and prosody. I present a new theory which gives, roughly, the following answers: i) Focus marking is interpreted via alternative semantics along the lines of Rooth, but using a stronger notion of contrast. ii) Focus marking, as well as the creation of focus domains is regulated by a small set of principles that conspire to maximize anaphoric relations. And iii) focus marking is mapped onto prosody through a constraint Focus Prominence, which interacts in limit ways with the default syntax-to-prosody mapping. iii) is entirely based on earlier work by Truckenbrodt, Selkirk, and others, as explicted in my own earlier work (and hence not discussed in detail in this talk). Ii), though essential, is a question rarely addressed in the literature, but I will relate my proposal to one of the few that do, Schwarzschild 1999, modifying the proposal there. I) presents a departure from standard theories such as Rooth 1992 and Schwarzschild 1999, which is motivated by data discussed in Wagner 2006 and Kehler 2005. I follow Wagner's argument that the Rooth/Schwarzschild semantics of focus, which is effectively based on weak paradigmatic contrast, is insufficient. Unlike Wagner, however, I do not conclude that F-marking has to be replaced by G-marking. My main aim is to show where and why exactly one needs to depart from the Rooth/Schwarzschild approach, and how to do so while still answering question ii). I try to abstract away from what I think are orthogonal points, such as the question whether to mark F(ocus) or G(ivenness) in the grammar. A subordinate aim, though, is to present at least some suggestive arguments, based on Kehler's data, for choosing to mark F, rather than G.
Kehler, Andrew (2005). "Coherence-Driven Constraints on the Placement of Accent." In Proceedings of the 15th Conference on Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT-15) .
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