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In:Focus Realization in Romance and Beyond
Edited by Marco García García and Melanie Uth
[Studies in Language Companion Series 201] 2018
► pp. 99–128

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Chapter 4
Acceptability and frequency in Spanish focus marking

 | University of Graz
Published online: 28 November 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.201.04hei
Abstract
In this paper, we analyze the status and relevance of three syntactic positions for focus marking in Spanish: sentence-initial, sentence-internal, and sentence-final position (as we will only consider constituents with an unmarked linear position that is postverbal and non-final, initial position is the result of fronting and final position is the result of p-movement). Although all three positions are options for both information and contrastive focus, we will show that the positions do not have the same status. Based on frequency and acceptability data from several experimental studies, we will argue that final and internal position are the preferred positions for information focus and that internal position is the preferred position for contrastive focus. Concerning the relation between frequency and acceptability, we will demonstrate that the two sources of data generally show a matching pattern: Options that are more acceptable are also more frequent (and vice versa). Nevertheless, acceptability does not imply frequency, as contrastive focus in initial position is an option that is acceptable but very rare in frequency data. Hence, acceptability is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for usage.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Two types of focus and three syntactic positions
    • 2.1Two types of focus
    • 2.2Initial position
      • 2.2.1Contrastive focus and initial position
      • 2.2.2Information focus and initial position
    • 2.3Final position
      • 2.3.1Information focus and final position
      • 2.3.2Contrastive focus and final position
    • 2.4Internal position
      • 2.4.1Information focus and internal position
      • 2.4.2Contrastive focus and internal position
    • 2.5Interim conclusion
  • 3.Data
    • 3.1Data sources
    • 3.2Positions for contrastive focus
      • 3.2.1Frequency
      • 3.2.2Acceptability
      • 3.2.3Frequency and acceptability
    • 3.3Positions for information focus
      • 3.3.1Frequency
      • 3.3.2Acceptability
      • 3.3.3Frequency and acceptability
    • 3.4Discussion
  • 4.Summary and conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
References (44)
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2025. Focus in bilingual Spanish. Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics 11:4 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Garassino, Davide & Daniel Jacob
2022. When data challenges theory. In When Data Challenges Theory [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 273], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Heidinger, Steffen
2022. Corpus Data and the Position of Information Focus in Spanish. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 15:1 ► pp. 67 ff. DOI logo
Larrivée, Pierre
2022. The curious case of the rare focus movement in French. In When Data Challenges Theory [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 273], ► pp. 183 ff. DOI logo
Uth, Melanie
2018. Focus realization at the prosody-syntax interface. In Focus realization in Romance and Beyond [Studies in Language Companion Series, 201], ► pp. 71 ff. DOI logo
Uth, Melanie & Marco García García
2018. Introduction. In Focus realization in Romance and Beyond [Studies in Language Companion Series, 201], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

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