When focus goes wild: An empirical study of two syntactic positions for information focus
Abstract
My goal in the present paper is to carry out an analysis of the syntactic and discourse properties of Information Focus (IF) in Southern Peninsular Spanish (SPS) and Standard Spanish (SS) varieties. Generally, it has been argued that IF tends to occur last in a sentence since new information is placed in final position, following the End-Focus Principle as well as the Nuclear Stress Principle (Zubizarreta 1998). Focus fronting has been hence reserved for those cases in which a clear contrast between two alternatives is established, namely Contrastive Focus (CF) and Mirative Focus (MF) (cf. Cruschina 2012). The starting hypothesis here is that IF can appear as a fronted element in a sentence and that SPS speakers show a higher degree of acceptability and grammaticality towards such constructions, as opposed to SS speakers. This points toward a certain degree of microparametric variation in Spanish syntax (an understudied area), which will be tested by means of a grammaticality judgement task run among both SPS and SS speakers.
Keywords:
Southern Peninsular Spanish, Standard Spanish, information focus, mirative focus, contrastive focus, focus frontingReferences
Alexiadou, A., and E. Anagnostopoulou. 1998. Parametrizing AGR: Word order, V-movement and EPP checking. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 16: 491-539.
Alvar, M. 2004. Estudios sobre las hablas meridionales. Granada: Universidad de Granada.
Âmbar, M. 1999. Aspects of the syntax of focus in Portuguese. In G. Rebuschi, and L. Tuller (eds.), The grammar of focus, 23-53. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Barbosa, P. 1995. Null subjects. PhD. diss., Cambridge, MA, MIT.
Barbosa, P. 2001. On inversion in wh-questions in Romance. In A. Hulk, and J-Y Pollock (eds.), Romance inversion, 2-59. New York: Oxford University Press.
Beaver, D., and B. Clark. 2008. Sense and sensitivity: How focus determines meaning. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Belletti, A. 2004. Aspects of the low IP area. In L. Rizzi, (ed.), The structure of CP and IP – The cartography of syntactic structures, Vol. 2, 16-51. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Bianchi, V. 2012. On ‘mirative’ focus fronting. Presentation given at The 1st GLUE Workshop in Univ. Rome La Sapienza, April 20, 2012.
Bianchi, V., and G. Bocci. 2012. Should I stay or should I go? Optional focus movement in Italian. In C. Piñon, (ed.), Empirical issues in syntax and semantics 9, 1-18. http://www.cssp.cnrs.fr/eiss9/eiss9.pdf
Bianchi, V., G. Bocci, and S. Cruschina. 2014. Focus fronting, unexpectedness, and the evaluative dimension, ms. http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/002166
Bianchi, V., G. Bocci, and S. Cruschina. in press, Focus fronting and its implicatures. In E. Aboh, A. Hulk, J. Schaeffer, and P. Sleeman, (eds.), Romance languages and linguistic theory 2013: Selected papers from Going Romance, Amsterdam 2013, 1-20. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Biberauer, T., A. Holmberg, I. Roberts, and M. Sheehan. 2010. Parametric variation: Null subjects in minimalist theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bosque, I. 1980. Sobre la negación. Madrid: Cátedra.
Burzio, L. 1986. Italian syntax. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company.
Castillo, J.C, J. E. Drury, and K. K. Grohmann. 2009. Merge over Move and the Extended Projection Principle: MOM and the EPP revisited. IBERIA: An International Journal of Theoretical Linguistics 1: 53-114.
Cinque, G. 1990. Types of A’-dependencies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Cruschina, S. 2012. Discourse-related features and functional projections. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Donati, C., and M. Nespor. 2003. From focus to syntax. Lingua 113: 1119-1142.
Frascarelli, M. 2007. Subjects, topics and the interpretation of referential pro: an interface approach to the linking of (null) pronouns. Natural Language and Linguistics 25: 691-734.
Frascarelli, M., and Á. L. Jiménez-Fernández. 2013. Contrast at the interfaces. Presentation at the Cambridge Comparative Syntax, in Cambridge, May 5, 2013.
Frascarelli, M., and F. Ramaglia. 2013. ‘Phasing’ contrast at the interfaces: A feature-compositional approach to topics. In V. Camacho-Taboada, Á. L Jiménez-Fernández, J. Martín-González, and M. Reyes-Tejedor, (eds.), Information structure and agreement, 55-82. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Gallego, Á. 2007. Phase theory and parametric variation. Ph.D. diss., Barcelona, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
Gussenhoven, C. 2007. Types of focus in English. In C. Lee, M. Gordon, and D. Büring (eds.), Topic and focus: Crosslinguistic perspectives on meaning and intonation, 83-100. Dordrecht: Springer.
Gutiérrez-Bravo, R. 2008. La identificación de los tópicos y los focos. Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica 56: 362-401.
Hernanz, M.L. 2011. Sobre la periferia de los infinitivos. In V. Escandell Vidal, and M. Leonetti, (eds.), 60 problemas de gramática, 248-255. Madrid: Akal.
Jiménez-Fernández, Á. L. 2015. Towards a typology of focus: Subject position and microvariation at the discourse-syntax interface. Ampersand 2: 49-60.
Jiménez-Fernández, Á. L., and S. İşsever. 2012. Deriving A/A’-effects in topic fronting: Intervention of focus and binding. In J. Błaszczak, B. Rozwadowska, and W. Witkowski, (eds.), Current issues in generative linguistics: Syntax, semantics and phonology, 8-25. Wroclaw, Center for General and Comparative Linguistics.
Kiss, K. É. 1998. Identificational focus versus information focus. Language 74: 245-273.
Kratzer, A. 2004. Interpreting focus: Presupposed or expressive meanings? A comment on Geurts and van der Sandt. Theoretical Linguistics 30: 123-136.
Krifka, M. 2006. Association with focus phrases. In V. Molnár, and S. Winkler (eds.), The architecture of focus, 105-136. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Leonetti, M., and V. Escandell. 2009. Fronting and verum-focus in Spanish. In A. Dufter, and D. Jacob (eds.), Focus and background in romance languages, 155-204. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
López, L. 2009. A derivational syntax for information structure. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Molnár, V. 2006. On different kinds of contrast. In V. Molnár, and S. Winkler (eds.), The architecture of focus, 197-234. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Nespor, M., and M.T. Guasti. 2002. Focus-stress alignment and its consequences for acquisition. Lingue e linguaggio 1: 79-106.
Ortega-Santos, I. 2006. On postverbal subjects, PF and the Copy Theory: The Spanish case. In N. Sagarra, and A.J. Toribio, (eds.), Selected proceedings of the 9th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, 56-66. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
Ortega-Santos, I. 2013. Corrective focus at the right edge in Spanish. Lingua 131: 112-135.
Ortega-Santos, I. Forthcoming. Focus-related operations at the right edge in Spanish: Subjects and ellipsis. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Piera, C. 1987. Sobre la estructura de las cláusulas de infinitivo. In V. Demonte, and M. Fernández Lagunilla (eds.), Sintaxis de las lenguas románicas, 148-166. Madrid: Arquero.
Quer, J. 2002. Edging quantifiers. On QP-fronting in Western Romance. In C. Beyssade, R. Bok-Bennema, F. Drijkoningen, and P. Monachesi (eds.), Romance languages and linguistic theory 2000 [Current issues in linguistics 232], 253-270. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
RAE-ASALE. 2009/2011. Nueva gramática de la lengua española. Madrid: Espasa.
Remberger, E. 2014. A comparative look at focus fronting in Romance. In A. Dufter, and Á.S. Octavio de Toledo (eds.), Left sentence peripheries in Spanish: Diachronic, variationist and comparative perspectives, 383-418. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Rizzi, L. 1997. The fine structure of the left periphery. In L. Haegeman (ed.), Elements of grammar, 281-337. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Roberts, I. 2012. On the nature of syntactic parameters: a programme for research. In C. Galves, S. Cyrino, R. Lopes, F. Sandalo, and J. Avelar (eds.), Parameter theory and linguistic change, 319-334. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Rooth, M. 1992. A theory of focus interpretation. Natural Language Semantics 1(1): 75-116.
Sprouse, J., and D. Almeida. 2011. The role of experimental syntax in an integrated cognitive science of language. In C. Boeckx, and K. Grohmann (eds.), The handbook of biolinguistics, 181-202. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Uriagereka, J. 1988. On government. Ph.D. diss., Storrs, University of Connecticutt.
Vanrell, M. M., and O. Fernández Soriano. 2013. Variation at the interfaces in Ibero-Romance. Catalan and Spanish prosody and word order. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 12: 253-282.
Zubizarreta, M.L. 1998. Word order, prosody and focus. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Zubizarreta, M.L. 1999. Las funciones informativas: Tema y foco. In I. Bosque, and V. Demonte (eds.), Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española, 4215-4244. Madrid: Espasa Calpe.
