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In:When Data Challenges Theory: Unexpected and paradoxical evidence in information structure
Edited by Davide Garassino and Daniel Jacob
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 273] 2022
► pp. 147–182

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Is focus a root phenomenon?

 | KU Leuven
Published online: 22 February 2022
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https://doi.org/10.1075/la.273.05lah
Abstract
This article argues that some types of syntactically marked focus are root (main clause) phenomena in French. We show that c’est (‘it is’) clefts, which explicitly mark narrow new information focus, are root phenomena, in contrast with il y a (‘there is’) clefts marking broad new information focus and contrastive focus c’est-clefts. Nominal inversion in French behaves in the opposite way and is argued to be an ‘inverse root phenomenon’. These observations are explained by Krifka’s (2017) notion of a ‘judge’, its relation to epistemic modality and the distinction between assertive embedded clauses (in which root phenomena occur) and non-assertive embedded clauses (in which root phenomena do not occur).
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Assertion and epistemic modality
    • 2.2The concept of a judge
    • 2.3Topics as root phenomena
      • 2.3.1Different types of topics
      • 2.3.2Predictions for focus
    • 2.4Focus as a root phenomenon: Previous research and the goal of this paper
  • 3.The distribution of three information-structural types of c’est-clefts in French
    • 3.1Three information-structural types of clefts
    • 3.2Distribution of c’est-clefts in adverbial clauses
    • 3.3Discussion: Contrastive focus and the concept of a judge
  • 4.The distribution of il y a ‘there is’ clefts in embedded clauses
    • 4.1Introduction
    • 4.2Information-structural types of il y a-clefts
    • 4.3All-focus il y a-clefts inside embedded clauses: New data
    • 4.4Broad vs narrow new information focus and the concept of a judge
  • 5.Verb-subject word order in French: An inverse root phenomenon
    • 5.1Introduction
    • 5.2The distribution of VS in embedded clauses
    • 5.3VS and the concept of a judge
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
References (109)
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Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Masia, Viviana
2022. Remarks on information structure marking asymmetries. In When Data Challenges Theory [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 273], ► pp. 57 ff. DOI logo
Vallauri, Edoardo Lombardi
2022. Distinguishing psychological Given/New from linguistic Topic/Focus makes things clearer. In When Data Challenges Theory [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 273], ► pp. 39 ff. DOI logo

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