Information Structure
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Information Structure
OXFORD SURVEYS IN SYNTAX AND MORPHOLOGY general editor: Robert D. Van Valin, Jr., State University of New York, Buffalo advisory editors: Guglielmo Cinque, University of Venice; Daniel Everett, Illinois State University; Adele Goldberg, Princeton University; Kees Hengeveld, University of Amsterdam; Caroline Heycock, University of Edinburgh; David Pesetsky, MIT; Ian Roberts, University of Cambridge; Masayoshi Shibatani, Rice University; Andrew Spencer, University of Essex; Tom Wasow, Stanford University published 1. Grammatical Relations Patrick Farrell 2. Morphosyntactic Change Olga Fischer 3. Information Structure: The Syntax–Discourse Interface Nomi Erteschik-Shir In Preparation The Acquisition of Syntax and Morphology Shanley Allen and Heike Behrens The Processing of Syntax and Morphology Ina Bornkessel and Matthias Schlesewesky Phrase Structure Andrew Carnie Morphology and the Lexicon Daniel Everett The Phonology–Morphology Interface Sharon Inkelas The Syntax–Semantics Interface Jean-Pierre Koenig Syntactic Categories Gisa Rauh Computational Approaches to Syntax and Morphology Brian Roark and Richard Sproat Language Universals and Universal Grammar Anna Siewierska Argument Structure: The Syntax–Lexicon Interface Stephen Weschler
Information Structure The Syntax–Discourse Interface
N O MI E RT E S C HIK - S HIR
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Nomi Erteschik-Shir The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd., www.biddles.co.uk ISBN –––– (Hbk.) –––– (Pbk.)
Contents Acknowledgements . Introduction . Architectures and Information Structure Inventory .. Inventory: topics ... Danish topicalization ... Catalan: Links and Tails ... Topics and truth values ... Stage topics ... Permanently available topics ... Topic tests ... Multiple topics ... Topic drop ... Scope and topic properties
viii
.. Inventory: foci ... Semantic definitions ... Marking foci by stress ... Deriving foci from stress ... Deriving stress from syntax ... Deriving syntax from IS ... Deriving focus pragmatically ... Summing up focus properties
.. Putting it all together: f(ocus)-structure ... Topic–focus interactions ... Notation ... Contrastive and restrictive topics and foci ... Indefinite topics ... Some answers
.. IS architecture ... Stylistic components ... S-structure ... IS at PF ... Functional features
vi
contents ... Lexical features ... Multiply-dimensional architectures .. Functionalism ... Functionalism vs. formalism ... Functionalist methodology
. Configurations .. Configurational languages
.. The left periphery ... Cartography ... An even finer structure of the left periphery
.. The importance of information structure ... Distinguishing topicalization from left dislocation in English ... Focus preposing and Yiddish movement in English ... When the left-peripheral element does not have information-structural impact ... Fronting non-topics ... Focusing the subject: existentials ... Clefts: syntactic mapping of information structure ... Other strategies for marking subjects as non-topics ... Left-peripheral prospects
.. Scrambling ... Scrambling in Russian .... Syntactic topic and focus features and Russian word order ... Scrambling in Japanese ... Dutch scrambling ... Scrambling in Persian
.. Scandinavian object shift
.. Concluding remarks on word order
. Information Structure Constraints .. Identification ... Argument identification, a constraint on topicalization ... Identification of IS functions
contents
vii
.. IS constraints on syntax ... I(dentificational)- dependencies ... Canonical f-structures ... The constraint on I-dependencies ... Wh-topics ... Topic-islands ... That-t effects
.. Superiority ... Superiority in other languages .... Superiority in Hebrew .... Superiority in German .... Superiority in Danish
.. IS constraints on complex NP ... Extraposition from NP ... Extraction from NP
.. Processing .. Architectural consequences
. Aspectual Focus .. The theory of atoms ... Aspectual focus
.. Meaning components and extraction ... Manner-of-speaking verbs ... Picture NPs ... Datives
.. Missing objects ... Missing objects in “Activities” ... Object omission in habituals
.. Contextual binding of lexical constituents
. The Division of Labor between Syntax and IS
References Index of terms Language Index Index of authors
Acknowledgements I would first like to thank Robert Van Valin both for giving me the opportunity to write this book and for his constructive comments encouraging me to broaden the book’s perspective. I am also grateful to John Davey at OUP for his encouragement while the book was in the making. The book has also benefited greatly from discussions with my colleagues and graduate students: Rachel Eitan, Anita Mittwoch, Tova Rapoport, Sofie Raviv, Liron Shokty, and especially Lisa Rochman and Natalia Strahov who also combed through the manuscript in its entirety. I used the draft of this book as a text for a graduate course in Linguistic Methodology at Ben-Gurion University in the fall semester of –. I am happy to express my gratitude to the students of this course for their helpful comments, questions, and requests for clarification. Finally, I thank my family and friends for allowing me to put so much on hold for so long. Support for this research was provided in part by grant No. / from the Israel Science Foundation. NE-S
General Preface Oxford Surveys in Syntax and Morphology provides overviews of the major approaches to subjects and questions at the centre of linguistic research in morphology and syntax. The volumes are accessible, critical, and up-to-date. Individually and collectively they aim to reveal the field’s intellectual history and theoretical diversity. Each book published in the series will characteristically contain: () a brief historical overview of relevant research in the subject; () a critical presentation of approaches from relevant (but usually seen as competing) theoretical perspectives to the phenomena and issues at hand, including an objective evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of each approach to the central problems and issues; () a balanced account of the current issues, problems, and opportunities relating to the topic, showing the degree of consensus or otherwise in each case. The volumes will thus provide researchers and graduate students concerned with syntax, morphology, and related aspects of semantics with a vital source of information and reference. Nomi Erteschik-Shir’s Information Structure: The Syntax-Discourse Interface explores the interplay of discourse-pragmatics and morphosyntax. Beginning with the Prague School Professor Erteschik-Shir reviews work on the nature of this interaction within different frameworks up to the present, and considers its wider implications for the architectures of linguistic theory. Robert D. Van Valin, Jr General Editor Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
In memory of my mother, Trudi Erteschik, –
1 Introduction The possibility of optional divergence from basic word order is a universal property of natural language. While some approaches have tried to account for this in purely syntactic terms, others have provided purely pragmatic explanations, and yet others hold mixed views, which allow for semantic or pragmatic triggers to syntactic operations. There is a general consensus that the linear order of constituents is, at least to some extent, determined by notions having to do with what is contextually known and what is not. The definition of these notions, and their syntactic implementation, has been the topic of much research since they were first introduced by the Prague School in the late s. Another point of consensus is that intonation and morpho-lexical elements interact with word order to determine the information structure (IS) of the sentence, a term originally introduced by Halliday to account for the distinctions of focus, presupposition, and propositional attitude toward entities in the discourse conveyed by phrasal intonation. This consensus extends to the status of question–answer pairs with respect to information structure. In (), the constituent that “answers” a wh-question is the focus (in upper case) and a constituent already introduced in the question is the topic of the answer (in italics): () a b
Q: A: Q: A:
What did John do? He WASHED THE DISHES. What did John wash? He washed THE DISHES.
Not all question–answer pairs are as easily analyzed as shown in (): () a b
Q: A: Q: A:
Who washed the dishes? JOHN washed them. What happened to the dishes? JOHN WASHED them.
introduction c
Q: What happened? A: JOHN WASHED THE DISHES.
In (a) the predicate is presupposed. In some approaches the object (the dishes) is analyzed as the topic, in others the whole predicate is viewed as a unit. (b) illustrates a case in which the focus is not a syntactic constituent and the all-focus sentence (c) has no apparent topic. It is therefore not obvious whether there is a mapping from syntax to information structure, and if there is, how to account for the fact that topics and foci cannot always be mapped onto constituents. Examples such as those in () provoke a variety of different accounts with different basic information structure concepts. The Prague School (Functional Sentence Perspective, e.g., Firbas ; ) employs the gradient notion, Communicative Dynamism (CD), to account for information structure. The Prague School argued that Communicative Dynamism (CD) determines the linear arrangement of syntactic constituents within sentences. The degree of CD of a sentence element is the extent to which it pushes the communication forward and the elements with least CD (those that are contextually known) precede those that have more CD (those that convey new, unknown information). A special status is assigned to the element with the least CD, the theme or topic. The remnant, the rheme, can be viewed as predicated of the topic. In more recent work in the Prague School (e.g., Sgall, Hajičová, and Panevová ), an analysis in terms of Topic Focus Articulation (TFA) is adopted in which the Topic is generally contextually bound and the Focus is not. (For a full historical review see Newmeyer .) Although there is general agreement that the basic information structure units not only play a role in determining word order but also interact with a variety of other grammatical phenomena, such as interpretation, intonation, morphology, and other syntactic phenomena, not everyone agrees on the status of these same units with respect to determining the coherence of texts, beyond the cohesion of the question–answer pairs in () and (). Linguists working within the Prague School framework were not only concerned with defining the contextual notions that determine word order within the sentence, they also showed that these same notions play a role in determining the coherence of sequences of sentences. According to Daneš there are three types of thematic progression. () Keeping the theme constant, () deriving the theme from the previous rheme, and () deriving the theme from a “hypertheme”. The first type of thematic progression, which I refer to as topic chaining, is illustrated in ().
introduction
() John likes to read. He is intelligent and industrious and will go far. In the second sentence in the sequence, the pronoun he stands for John, the topic of the first sentence. The topic is thus maintained from the first sentence to the second. A new topic can be derived from a focus of the previous sentence. This is the second type of thematic progression (which I refer to as focus chaining) illustrated in (). ()
a b
There’s a girl in the class who the teacher likes. She answered all the questions the teacher asked. Fortunately someone knew enough French to help us. He even lent us his map.
In (a), the indefinite, a girl, is focused in the first sentence and provides a topic for the second. Similarly, in (b), in which the object French provides the topic, someone is focused and enables the coreferent pronoun in the following sentence to play the role of topic. Daneš’s third type of thematic progression involves derived topics. These topics are derived from a “hypertheme” introduced in the previous sentence. A hypertheme involves a discoursally restricted set of elements. These can be listed in the previous discourse as in (a) or they can be introduced by a term which defines such a set as in (b). ()
a
b
I’ll tell you about my friends, John, Paul, and Mary. John is an old friend from school, Paul, I met at college, and Mary is a colleague at work. Speaker A: Tell me about your family. Speaker B: My mother is a teacher, my father works in an office, and my sister is a student.
In (a), a list of three “friends” is introduced. Each individual within this set provides a possible topic for the next sentences. In (b) each topic in speaker B’s sentences belongs to the set of family members. Neither one needs previous mention on its own, because speakers are aware that families are made up of parents, siblings, etc. Therefore, these family “parts” are potential future topics. (See also Erteschik-Shir .) Different terms have been used for IS since Halliday, each with its accompanying approach: Chafe coined the term “packaging” to refer to a speaker’s use of a particular syntactic form to serve a particular pragmatic function, or, in his words, to accommodate “states of the addressee’s mind.” Prince : puts it more succinctly: “speakers seem to form their utterances so as to structure the information they are attempting to convey, usually or perhaps always in accordance with
introduction
their beliefs about the hearer: what s/he is thought to know, what s/he is expected to be thinking about.” Vallduví uses the term information packaging. Other terms are topic-focus-structure, or focus structure as in Erteschik-Shir . Within modern linguistic theories, the place of information structure in grammar is far from settled. Within the Principles and Parameters theories (GB/MP), information structure is generally relegated to the peripheries, making it hard to express its central role with respect to syntax, semantics, and intonation in a systematic way. These issues will be discussed in detail in Chapter . The architectures of multi-layered theories are better suited to incorporate information structure due to their parallel correspondence architecture, where phonological, syntactic, semantic, and (some) pragmatic representations are computed in parallel. These theories include LFG (e.g., Vallduví and Engdahl ), which uses both typed feature structures (including information structure features) and trees, with a mapping relation between the two modes of representation; HPSG (e.g., Pollard and Sag ; Sag and Ginzburg ), which uses feature structure sharing; and CCG (Steedman ; b) which also analyzes linguistic objects in terms of partial information structures which mutually constrain possible collocations of phonological structure, syntactic structure, semantic content, and contextual factors in actual linguistic situations. Within these formalisms, the status of information structure is therefore equal to that of the other components of grammar. Steedman b, for example, argues that the Surface Syntax acts as a transparent interface between the spoken form of the language, including prosodic structure and intonational phrasing, and a compositional semantics, including logical form and information structure. Steedman’s constituents do not correspond to traditional syntactic constituents. Yet he argues that it is the interpretations of these constituents that “are related to distinctions of Information Structure and discourse focus among the topics the speaker has in mind and the comments that the speaker has to contribute” (). Role and Reference Grammar (Van Valin b; b; Van Valin and LaPolla ) employs an architecture in which grammatical structures are stored as constructional templates, each with a specific set of morphosyntactic, semantic, and pragmatic properties (Van Valin and LaPolla : ) naturally allowing for a linking between the three. A good illustration of how this works is the selection of a “privileged
introduction
syntactic argument (pragmatic pivot),” a construction-specific notion which differs across languages. The distinction between subject-prominent and topic-prominent languages is argued to be due to their choice of pivot: topic-prominent languages select the topic as the privileged argument; subject-prominent languages select the argument with the most prominent thematic role. RRG thus predicts these word order distinctions across language types. Functional theories focus on information structure and what it contributes to grammar. Examples are Functional Syntax (Kuno ; Kuno and Takami ) and Functional Grammar (Dik a). Kuno has, over the years, argued for the need for a large number of functional constraints in syntax, showing that proposed syntactic constraints cannot account for all of the relevant data. He has not, however, proposed a general theory of the interface between his functional theory and syntax. Dik’s Functional Grammar does offer a well-formulated functional theory. His syntax is, however, very limited, consisting only of a series of “placement” rules. Chapter examines the basic information structure notions, topic and focus and their properties, from a variety of theoretical perspectives. Following the establishment of the basic information structure terminology, various approaches to the architecture of information structure are critically discussed. Once the theories of information structure have been outlined, we proceed in Chapter to look in detail at a number of syntactic phenomena that have been analyzed in terms of information structure within the various frameworks described above. These are grouped into types of phenomena: We first examine syntactic configurations that have been associated with particular information structures, starting with configurational languages that allocate particular syntactic positions to topics and foci. Here we address the relation between syntactic representations of topic and focus in these languages and the corresponding pragmatic interpretations of these structures. We continue to examine languages that do not employ such strategies in general, but have a number of configurations which have been associated with a particular assignment of either topic, focus, or both. These consist of frontings of various kinds, cleft constructions, and existentials. After first concentrating on the left periphery, the chapter continues to examine scrambling in the sentence as a whole. Chapter deals with information structure-motivated syntactic constraints including constraints on extraction.
introduction
Chapter examines the lexicon–information structure interface. Here the notion of “aspectual” focus is introduced within the theory of atoms, a theory of lexical decomposition. Aspectual focus is shown to interact with extraction facts, completeness facts, missing objects, and an account is also offered for the special intonation assigned to eventive sentences. The book concludes with a brief examination of the division of labor between syntax and information structure and in particular whether information structure belongs in the grammar or not. These issues are discussed from the perspective of general cognition and also through the insights gained from language acquisition research. In view of the massive amount of literature on information structure within the various approaches, the book does not attempt full coverage of these sources, nor does it aim to cover all the topics that have received IS-theoretical analyses. Instead, the book is meant to introduce the reader to IS methodology with an emphasis on both descriptive and theoretical rigor.
2 Architectures and Information Structure Inventory One of the connections between information structure and syntax that is best known is the propensity for languages to order given, old, or topical information before new or focused information, and linguists from a variety of linguistic schools have attempted accounts of this phenomenon.1 Although the phenomenon is well established, it has not been a simple task to account for it. One reason is the fact that this is only a tendency: New information can, under certain circumstances, precede old information, and the cross-linguistic circumstances in which this occurs are rather evasive. Another reason this phenomenon is hard to explain is that linguists find it hard to agree on the concepts involved in the generalization: What exactly is a topic, and what exactly is a focus? Sections and are dedicated to these two concepts and it is concluded that topic and focus are the only information structure primitives needed to account for all information structure phenomena. Section demonstrates that topic and focus interact and the theory of f(ocus)-structure which is based on this interaction is introduced. Next, various conceptions of how information structure fits into the architecture of grammar are examined (section ). The chapter concludes with a section on information structure methodology (section ). 2.1 Inventory: topics 2.1.1 Danish topicalization Topicalization is a case of dislocation to the left periphery as shown in the Danish examples in (): () a
Hun hilste på Ole. Ham havde hun ikke mødt før… She greeted Ole. Him had she not met before
1 In addition to the Prague School linguists mentioned in Chapter , see among others Kuno , Prince a, and Birner and Ward and references cited in these works.
architectures and information structure b
Hun hilste på Ole. Hun She greeted Ole. She
havde ikke mødt ham før… had not met him before
In Danish, topicalization is motivated by the need to overtly mark a topic. Topics must also be “old,” i.e., they must appear in the preceding context, and in this sense topics are identified by the context. That is why moving the topic is optional as shown in (b).2 The examples in () show that pronouns, definites, specific indefinites, generics, and contrastive elements qualify as topics but that non-specific, non-contrastive indefinites do not. () a
b
c
d
e
f
Hende mødte jeg i går. her met I yesterday “I met her yesterday.” Pigen mødte jeg i går. the girl met I yesterday “I met the girl yesterday.” Blomster ser man om foråret. flowers sees one in the spring “One sees flowers in the spring.” Pigen mødte jeg i går, drengen mødte jeg først i dag. the girl met I yesterday, the boy met I only today “I met the girl yesterday, I met the boy only today.” En pige som jeg mødte i går gav jeg en god bog. a girl that I met yesterday gave I a good book. “I gave a good book to a girl that I met yesterday.” *En pige mødte jeg i går. a girl met I yesterday “I met a girl yesterday.”
If Danish topicalization provides a good diagnostic of topichood, then all DPs, except for non-specific indefinites, qualify as topics. One of the properties of such indefinites is that they cannot occur in a discourse in which they have been mentioned before: () A girl appeared on TV. *a girl/the girl/she was talented. The sequence of sentences in () with the indefinite cannot be interpreted with the two indefinites referring to the same girl. In order for such an 2 Languages may differ in this respect. In English topicalization is rarely employed. In Hungarian, topicalization is strongly preferred.
architectures and information structure
interpretation to be possible, a definite or a pronoun must occur on second mention. It follows that an indefinite must be “new,” that is, not mentioned in the preceding discourse. Definites and pronouns are necessarily “given” or “old.” This property is therefore a good candidate for the definition of a topic. What about generics, contrast, and specific indefinites, the other DP types that qualify for topichood? Are they old or new? Generics need not be old (as do pronouns and definites), but topicalized generics must be. (c) cannot be uttered out of context and must be preceded by some reference to “flowers” in the preceding context. Contrast presents a slightly more complicated picture. Even (non-specific) indefinites can be topicalized if they are contrasted, as shown in (). () Et museum besøgte jeg allerede i går, A museum visited I already yesterday, en kirke ser jeg først i morgen. a church see I only tomorrow. “I visited a museum already yesterday, I will see a church only tomorrow.” Yet contrast cannot occur out of the blue; it requires a discoursally available contrast set. () can, for example, be uttered in a context in which the speaker (a tourist, say) is asked whether she or he has already been to a museum and a church. What is old in this case is not a particular museum or church, but rather the set including both elements. Specific indefinites are harder to classify as old. They do not require any mention in the preceding discourse. Even so, according to the Danish topicalization diagnostic, they belong to the same class as the others. What makes the indefinite specific in (e) is the modifying relative clause. It is this modification which licenses topicalization, since without it, topicalization is illicit (f). In order to see how this works compare (e) to (). ()
Jeg mødte en pige i går. Hende gav jeg en god bog. I met a girl yesterday. Her gave I a good book. “I met a girl yesterday. I gave her a good book.”
If the content of the relative clause were uttered as a separate preceding sentence, then the girl would in fact be old by the time the main clause was uttered. I claim that this is how the relative clause functions: it introduces the girl as the one I met yesterday, and thereby makes her old with respect to the main clause. A more formal account of this idea can be found in Erteschik-Shir and below in section ..
architectures and information structure
I conclude that, in this extended sense, all the elements that topicalize in Danish are in fact old or given. It is only because Danish topicalization was used as a diagnostic of topichood that we reached the conclusion that specific indefinites should be classified with the other topicalized elements as being old. Another diagnostic might have led to a different classification. The next section discusses a different view of what topichood might be. 2.1.2 Catalan: Links and Tails Vallduví : – distinguishes two kinds of old information, Links, which are left detached (or topicalized) in Catalan, and Tails, which are detached to the right. He lists the following examples of left detachment.3 ()
a [written on an aerogram; first line on the extra space overleaf] no hi1 comptava t1. Amb-aquest-tros-de-paperet1 ja with-this-little-piece-of-paper anymore no obl s-impf-count-on “This-little piece-of-paper I wasn’t counting on anymore.” b Quant al Joan i la Isidora no t’ho sé dir, as-for the J. and the I. no iobj.obj s-know to-say veiem t1 ben poc. doncs el Joan1 el1 since the J. obj p-see quite little “As for Joan and Isidora I can’t say, since Joan we see very little of.” c
[after mentioning something nasty that the hearer had done to the speaker a long time ago] al fons del cor. Això1 ho1 tinc clavat t1 this obj have pstppl-stick at.the depth of.the heart Lit.: “This I have it stuck deep in my heart.” “This I won’t forget how it hurt.”
Catalan topicalization has in common with Danish topicalization that the topicalized element must be old, yet, according to Vallduví, there is a difference. In Catalan only elements that are not the topic of the previous sentence are topicalized. Such “new” topics are called switch topics, or shifted topics.4 Vallduví calls these fronted elements 3 Note that a characteristic of Catalan topicalization is that it leaves a coreferent clitic pronoun in the sentence. The Links are underlined, the Tails are in capitals. Obl=oblique, Obj = object, iobj = indirect object, pstppl = past participle. 4 There are also two kinds of topics in Mayan languages according to Aissen : CPexternal topics which must be shifted topics and CP-internal topics which can be continued topics; but the correlation isn’t strict.
architectures and information structure
“Links” and views them as “address pointers” in a file system in which new information is listed under the address specified by the Link. Since a Link is a command to “go to” an existing “address,” Links only appear when there is a change of address. This is why continued topics are not fronted. In the examples in (), the fronted (underlined) elements are all new topics in this sense. The Link in (a) is made contextually available, the ones in (b) and (c) are mentioned in the previous sentences, yet do not function as topics there. It follows that topic chaining (as introduced in Chapter ) will not allow for a topicalized Link, whereas focus chaining will, since in the latter case the focus of the preceding sentence becomes the new topic of the following one. Finally, topics derived from hyperthemes are also new topics as illustrated in () from Villalba . ()
A: On va posar les where past- put the “Where did (s)he put the things?”
coses? things
B: Em sembla que els llibres, els To-me seems that the books them-masc va posar al despatx. past- put in-the study “It seems to me that (s)he put the books in the study.” In this example, the antecedent for the Link is “the things” in A’s question. In order for the question–answer sequence to be acceptable, it must be contextually understood that “the books” belong to the set of things in the question. Introducing this set in the question conjures up all its elements, each of which is then considered to be given and can potentially provide a Link in the following sentence.5 A Link can in this way be both new and given at the same time. What is newly introduced is the particular member of the set in question; what is given is the set that includes it. In view of the fact that the conditions on Danish and Catalan topicalization differ somewhat a question arises: Does the same notion of topic play a role in both languages (and in languages in general), or does each language have a different array of IS functions? This is the topic of this section. Let us therefore compare the two cases more carefully. In Danish topicalization is possible in all the cases in which left-detached Links appear in Catalan, yet continued topics can also be fronted. This is shown in (). 5 The relation between such a set and its members has been referred to as a poset (partially ordered set) relation by Hirschberg ; Ward ; Ward and Hirschberg ; Ward and Prince . See Chapter , section . for further discussion.
()
architectures and information structure A: Hans kan jeg Hans can I “I like Hans a lot.”
godt good
B: (i) Ham kan jeg him can I “I like him too.” (ii) Jeg kan også I can also “I like him too.”
lide. like også also lide like
lide. like ham. him
In the context of speaker A’s sentence, the fronted pronoun in B’s response in (i) is a continued topic. True, B could also have responded to A with (ii), yet it would be a less natural response.6 Even so, Germanic languages, including Danish, tend to topicalize shift topics (see Chapter , section .) more than continued ones, on a par with Catalan, yet Germanic topicalization is not as rigidly constrained.7 The point of this comparison is to show that a linguist studying Danish rather than Catalan may reach quite different conclusions as to what a topic is by generalizing over the elements that topicalize in each language. Clearly, the optimal answer to the question posed above is that the definition of topics should be universal. So far, we can say that topics must be old or given, in the extended sense of these notions as discussed here. Yet some way has to be found to distinguish shift topics from continued topics in order to capture the distinctions between topicalization in Danish and Catalan. In Catalan given elements, which do not qualify as Links, are postposed. Vallduví refers to such postposed elements as Tails.8 According to Vallduví, both Links and Tails belong to the presupposition or the ground of the sentence, but Tails must have an antecedent in the preceding In both (i) and (ii) both arguments are pronominal continued topics. In (i) both arguments are also in canonical topic position: the topicalized position and the subject position. These positions and the topics which go in them are discussed in Chapter , section . 7 One other difference between topicalization in the two languages is that in Danish pronouns topicalize as seen in (a). This is not possible in Catalan. Pronouns are old par excellence, yet they require an antecedent in the discourse, and although this antecedent need not be a topic in the preceding sentence, they still do not prepose in Catalan unless they are contrastive, in which case the contrast set functions as a hypertheme. 8 There is a certain overlap between what can be fronted and what can be postposed in Catalan, as far as I can tell. Links exclude continued topics, Tails can be both continued topics and elements which have been mentioned previously as foci (focus chaining). The latter also qualify as Links. 6
architectures and information structure
sentence as shown in () from Villalba which should be compared to () above to see the difference between Links and Tails. ()
A: On va posar les coses? where past- put the things “Where did (s)he put the things?” B: #Em sembla que els va posar al to-me seems that them-masc past- put in-the 9 despatx, els llibres. study the books “It seems to me that (s)he put the books in the study.”
Replacing “the things” by “the books” provides an antecedent for the rightdislocated phrase and the sentence becomes good: () A: On va posar els llibres? where past- put the books “Where did (s)he put the books?” B: Em sembla que els va posar al to-me seems that them-masc past- put in-the despatx, els llibres. study the books “It seems to me that (s)he put the books in the study.” These data provide further evidence for the need to distinguish the two kinds of given information, the Link and the Tail, yet it would be advantageous if both topic types could be derived from the same primitives. The next section provides another potential property of topics that should be taken into account in this endeavor. 2.1.3 Topics and truth values
According to Strawson : –, the topic has three central properties: (a) The topic is what a statement is about. (b) The topic is used to invoke “knowledge in the possession of an audience.” (c) “The statement is assessed as putative information about its topic.” The first two properties are already familiar. Vallduví’s Link is what the statement is about since it is the address where new information is entered. The new information is therefore “about” the referent of its 9
# signals a grammatical sentence which is infelicitous in the specified context.
architectures and information structure
Link. Concerning the second property, this is what we have referred to as given or old. Strawson specifies more precisely that it is the audience or the hearer for whom the information is old. We have, up to now, taken it for granted that it is the hearer for whom the information must be given. After all, communication is about imparting information to the hearer and the speaker must be sensitive to what information is already available to the hearer and what is not. Strawson’s innovation is in the third property. He uses this property together with the other two to explain why truth value gaps come about. He argues that if the topic is what a statement is about and therefore the statement is assessed with respect to the topic, the topic must have reference. If, however, the topic has no reference, the sentence cannot be evaluated as either true or false, since in such a case “a statement which, by hypothesis, is about something is really about nothing.” The following examples from Strawson illustrate this point: () The King of France is bald. () The exhibition was visited by the King of France. In the context of the question in “What is the King of France like?” () has no truth value since the sentence cannot be verified. It cannot be about a non-existent king. In (), however, “the exhibition” is the topic. This sentence will therefore be assessed as false if the King of France is not among the visitors at the exhibition. It follows from the properties Strawson assigns to topics that the topic is chosen in accordance with the context. If () is uttered in the context of the question: “What bald notables are there?”, then () will be assessed as false, since in that context the set of bald notables is the topic and just as the King of France would be missing from the visitors at the exhibition, he will also be missing from the set of bald notables. The context-dependent choice of topic thus determines the assignment of truth values. This view of topichood has been formalized in Reinhart who draws on the notion of a context set à la Stalnaker (): “The context set of a given discourse at a given point is the set of propositions which we accept to be true at this point” (Reinhart : ). Each new assertion, if not rejected as false, adds a new proposition to the presuppositions in the context set. Reinhart suggests that the context set has internal organization; in particular, propositions in the context set are classified by their topics. Sentence topics thus determine under which entry a particular proposition is assessed. Take for example:
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() A: Tell me about John. A′: Tell me about Mary. B: John invited Mary to dance. This sentence can be understood to be “about” John or “about” Mary since it can naturally follow the requests made both by speaker A and by speaker A′. According to Reinhart, B’s sentence, in the context of A, will be assessed as putative information about John and will be entered under the referential entry for John. However, in the context of A′ the same sentence will be evaluated as information about Mary. Although the truth value of B’s sentence will be the same in both contexts in this case, the way the sentence is evaluated is different.10 Reinhart does not adopt Strawson’s second property of topics, namely that topics must be in the possession of the hearer, that is they must be old or given. There are two reasons for this: the first one is that topics are sometimes indefinite, and indefinites are new. An example was given above in (e) and an initial explanation of why specific indefinites do not contradict the definition of topics as old was given in section . and will be discussed further in section . below. The second problem with the idea that topics are old, according to Reinhart : , is that this requires that topichood be defined directly on referents, “or that the topic role of an expression can be identified by checking properties of its referents.” This, she shows, cannot be the case in view of the fact that the same referent may function both as the topic and as the focus in one sentence (Reinhart’s () ): () A: Who did Felix praise? B: Felix praised HIMSELF. Reinhart argues that if Felix is the topic in B’s response, then so is the anaphoric reflexive since the referent of these two NPs is the same. But the reflexive answers the wh-question and therefore must be interpreted as a focus. It follows that the reflexive is both a topic and a focus, a plain contradiction, according to Reinhart. In Chapter , section ., this contradiction is resolved. It is therefore possible to maintain Strawson’s characterization of topics including all three properties. It follows from the definition of topics as the pivot for truth value assessment, that all sentences must have a topic, since all sentences must be assigned a truth value. This is the main reason why Vallduví , whose Others who view topics as the subject of predication are Chafe and Li and Thompson . 10
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definition of Link is otherwise very similar to Reinhart’s Topic, rejects the idea that Links are the locus of truth value assessment. Vallduví’s system is derived from the overt markings of Catalan syntax. Adopting the definition of topics as the locus for truth value assignment would destroy the one-toone relationship between Catalan word order and information structure in view of the existence of Linkless sentences. In Reinhart’s model, these would be evaluated according to the continued topic, i.e., the element which appears as the Tail in Catalan. More problematic are all focus sentences which in Catalan have neither a Link nor a Tail. These will be discussed in the next section. 2.1.4 Stage topics
The status of topics with respect to syntactic constituency comes up in particular in the context of thetic, or all-focus, sentences as in () (repeated from Chapter ). ()
Q: What happened? A: John washed the dishes!
Such sentences seemingly have no topic.11 Yet if we adopt the Strawsonian definition of topics, according to which topics are the pivots for assessment, then it is crucial that every sentence have one. Gundel in fact argues that such sentences do have a topic, namely “the particular situation (time and place) about which it is asserted.” Similarly, in ErteschikShir , thetic sentences are viewed as having implicit “stage” topics indicating the spatio-temporal parameters of the sentence (here-and-now of the discourse). These are contextually defined. In (), for example, the question refers to an event in the (immediate) past (due to the tense used) and at the current location. The answer should therefore be evaluated with respect to this spatio-temporal location. The sentence in the answer could 11 For discussions of the distinction between thetic or all-focus sentences which do not have an overt topic and categorical sentences which do see among others: Basilico ; ; van Finkel ; Kuroda ; Ladusaw ; Lambrecht ; Rosengren ; Sasse . Lambrecht adds a third type of IS: In addition to thetic sentences which have sentence focus and categorical sentences which have predicate focus, there are also sentences with argument focus:
(i) Q: I heard your motorcycle broke down? A: My car broke down. In this context the subject is contrastive, hence viewed as a focus by Lambrecht. Yet as seen here, topics can also be contrastive. Therefore the IS of such sentences can in fact be viewed as categorical with a contrastive subject topic.
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in principle also be evaluated with respect to either the subject “John” or the object “the dishes,” but such evaluation would contradict the context specified by the question the sentence is supposed to answer. The following two examples, however, can only be evaluated with respect to a stage topic: () It’s snowing. () There’s a cat outside the door. How do you know whether () is true or false? You look outside to see. Your “outside” is the “here-and-now” of the discourse. () is similar. The current time and location again functions as the implicit topic with respect to which the sentence is evaluated. “Outside the door” modifies this location, so that the sentence will be true only if there is a cat outside the door. Compare () to () in which this PP is topicalized. () Outside the door, there’s a cat. Here the fronted PP is an overt topic which specifies the location with respect to which the sentence is to be evaluated. This overt stage topic is insufficient for purposes of evaluation. It is completed by the current spatio-temporal parameters, which tell us where the door is located and at which time the sentence is supposed to be true. The assessment of () and () therefore proceeds in an identical fashion, even though the stage topic of the former is implicit and the stage topic of the latter is overt.12 2.1.5 Permanently available topics An important property of implicit stage topics is that they are always available since a conversation always takes place at a specific time and in a specific place. These parameters therefore function as a potential topic at the beginning of a conversation, which is why a sentence such as () can be uttered out of the blue. Such out-of-the-blue sentences, with implicit stage topics, are not the only sentence type that can occur as conversation openers. It is also always possible for the speaker and hearer to provide 12 Reinhart, in fact, speculates in a footnote that this may indeed be the case. For the inspiration for this idea see Kratzer . Overt locative topics can behave like subjects in terms of agreement. Bresnan and Kanerva , for example, show that this is the case in Bantu languages. This is evidence that locative topics should be classified with non-locative topics. The fact that temporal and locative adverbials topicalize in the same way as do arguments also supports the existence of stage topics. See also Ladusaw ; Junghanns and Zybatow ; De Cat ; É. Kiss , among others.
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the topics of the first sentence as illustrated in the common conversation opener in (). ()
Q: How are you? A: I am fine.
In addition to this inventory of permanently available topics (stage topics, speaker and hearer), a number of permanent and temporary fixtures of our world are also available as topics with no need for previous mention. This type includes “the president,” “the moon,” “the train,” and whatever other world fixtures the speaker and hearer happen to have in common.13 Examples are given in (): ()
a It’s dark. The moon has disappeared. b I have to go. The train is leaving any minute.
There are also topics which are temporarily available without previous mention. These are referents that exist or appear on the current scene and may be introduced deictically. “That chair is ugly,” for example, can be uttered out of the blue with “that chair” as its topic, if there’s a particular chair on the scene of the conversation which the speaker is pointing at. What these permanently or temporarily available topics have in common is that they can function as topics without being mentioned previously. Therefore, they are not old. How does this gel with our generalization that topics must be old? Here’s where the distinction between old and given comes in. Old means that the referent has been mentioned in the conversation; given, however, means that the hearer has the referent in mind or, in Strawson’s words, “knowledge in the possession of an audience.” We should therefore amend the generalization and conclude that topics must be given. We conclude that the knowledge the hearer must have in order to accept a referent as a topic can come to him/her in various ways. In the case of “old” topics, the referent must have been mentioned in the immediate discourse, or else it can be derived from a previously mentioned topic as in the case of hyperthemes (see () above). In such cases the topic is a member of a set defined by the previously mentioned hypertheme. A topic can also be derived from a previously mentioned referent through world knowledge. An example is given in (): ()
John heard a beautiful concert. The composer directed it. 13
See Schaeffer to appear and the references therein for this notion.
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Once “a concert” is introduced, its composer and other concert “parts” come along with it due to world knowledge. Such “parts” of a previously mentioned referent are therefore treated as given and become possible topics of the following sentence. Another example where accommodation is required stems from Roberts : : () John was murdered yesterday. The knife lay nearby. According to Roberts, once we accommodate that John was killed by stabbing, “the common ground will entail the existence of a knife as the murder weapon, licensing a weakly familiar discourse referent to satisfy the familiarity of the knife.” Since any murder weapon can be accommodated, it seems the process of accommodation is more general and follows from the use of the verb “murder” which implies that a murder weapon was employed. This is how the hypertheme “murder weapon” is derived and since the knife is a member of the set of murder weapons, its potential topichood is licensed. It follows that deriving hyperthemes and their subparts is not always equally straightforward. Yet in all cases the derivation links to available lexical or situational information. 2.1.6 Topic tests The discussion of topics started with the underlying assumption that Danish left-dislocated elements are topics. We concluded that topics must be given. We then extended our discussion to Catalan, and discovered that there, the elements on the left periphery are a subset of the Danish ones since they exclude continued topics. Other languages may have identified yet another set of elements with only partial overlap with those identified in either of these two languages. In order to decide which elements should be defined as topics, we must devise an independent way to identify them. Tests for topichood are available but they obviously depend on the definition of topics adhered to. Here we adopt the Strawson–Reinhart approach. Topics are therefore what the sentence is about; they are given; and the truth value of the sentence is established with respect to them. (The first two characterizations of topics are relatively uncontroversial. The latter is more so.) The first property of topics renders the following two versions of the “aboutness” test (from Reinhart ; see also () above): () A: Tell me about John. B: He’s very nice.
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() As for John, he’s very nice. Speaker A’s request in () constrains B’s response to being about John. The reference to John (“he”) in the response is therefore the topic of the response. The same goes for (). The second property of topics is that they must be given. Previous mention is therefore an indication of topichood. There are two problems with this test. One is that a sentence may include more than one previously mentioned element. Do we conclude that the sentence has more than one topic? Or is one of these elements “the” topic? In the next section we argue that sentences may have more than one topic, yet they may not all have the same status. Another problem with identifying topics by previous mention is the fact that some topics are “given” (in the extended sense) without previous mention. Examples are implicit stage topics, specific indefinite topics discussed in sections . and ., respectively, and the permanently and temporarily available topics discussed in the previous section. We can conclude that previous mention identifies topics, but that not all topics require previous mention. The third property of topics, i.e., that truth values are calculated with respect to them, can be used in two ways. The first is somewhat intuitive, and we have already seen it at work in (): A DP without reference (“the King of France”) led to a truth value gap when it was a topic, and triggered a false truth value when it was not. In view of the fact that () necessarily leads to a truth value gap and () never does, it follows that the subject of the predicate “be bald” must be a topic, and that the by-phrase of the passive excludes a topic interpretation. In both cases, the subject is identified as the topic of these sentences. Subjects are indeed the unmarked topics, yet certainly not the only position for topics as we have already seen in the cases of topicalization in Danish and Catalan ( () and () respectively), as well as the examples with implicit stage topics in () and (). In these examples, due to the expletive subjects, the only way to assess the truth value was to interpret the sentences as predicated of a stage topic. The test can also be extended to identify potential topics in examples in which several elements can function as topics. Such an example is () repeated in (). ()
Q: What happened?/Why do you look so pleased? A: John washed the dishes!
The question in this example forces a reading in which the sentence must be predicated of the current spatio-temporal parameter. Other contexts in which the sentence may be uttered are, however, also possible as shown in () and ():
architectures and information structure ()
Q: What happened to the dishes? A: John washed them.
()
Q: Why does John look so pleased with himself? A: He washed the dishes.
The question in () not only refers to “the dishes,” but also asks what happened to them. Therefore this element is not only given in the answer, but also what the answer is about. In () “John” is the only given element in the answer, hence the topic. This simple sentence therefore has at least three potential topics depending on context. In () and () (examples of focus chaining and topic chaining, respectively) the topics are pronouns. Repeating the full DP would be redundant. Non-anaphoric, weak pronouns, according to Erteschik-Shir , are always topics since they, like topics, must be given. Moreover, if pronouns are considered to be topics, then the fact that they must have a contextual coreferent antecedent can be derived. In section ., below, I demonstrate how this follows. The second way we can use this property of topics is to identify those DP types that can be potential topics. It is well known that individuallevel (I-level) predicates cannot be predicated of a stage topic.14 The only possible topic of an intransitive I-level predicate is therefore the subject. It follows that any DP that can fill this position can function as a topic. () tests a variety of indefinite DP types for topichood in this manner. () shows that definite DPs always qualify as topics, as expected. ()
a b c d e
#A Frenchman is intelligent. Dogs are intelligent. A student I know is intelligent. A DOG is intelligent, a CAT is not. Two/some of the students are intelligent.
()
a The Frenchman is intelligent b He is intelligent. c John is intelligent.
The examples in () show that the interpretation of indefinites in topic position is restricted. (a) shows that a singular indefinite is odd in this position. Simple indefinites are new and cannot qualify as topics. The subject in (b) can only be interpreted generically, and not as a See Kratzer for the distinction between individual-level and stage-level predicates and Erteschik-Shir and the references cited therein for more details on the points made here. 14
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simple plural indefinite. Generics can be topics because they name species and names of species may be given. Whereas plural indefinites can get a generic interpretation with ease, this is not the case for singular indefinites. That is why (a) is odd, but (b) is not. (c–e) illustrate that specific indefinites, contrastive indefinites, and partitive indefinites all qualify as topics according to this test. The reason this is so will be given in section . below. 2.1.7 Multiple topics Another controversial issue concerning the basic inventory of IS-theoretical concepts has to do with whether a sentence can have more than one topic and focus. That topic-focus assignment is recursive has been argued among others by Krifka , Lambrecht : –, and Erteschik-Shir .15 One simple argument for this is that if indeed pronouns are topics, as suggested above and argued below in section ., and there can be more than one pronoun in a sentence, then there must also (potentially) be more than one topic per sentence. Take, for example, the following interchange: ()
Q: Did you see Peter yesterday? A: Yes, I saw him at school.
In the answer in () there are two pronouns, hence two topics by this reasoning. Topics, however, are not only given, but also define what the sentence is about and provide an address for truth value assessment if we accept the Strawson–Reinhart view of topics. We must therefore decide whether the sentence is about both of the referents of the pronouns or just one, and if one, which one. The same goes for assessment. These issues are not simple to decide. In fact, there is no evidence (in this context) that the sentence is about the subject rather than the object or vice versa yet the truth value won’t necessarily come out the same. If we replace “Peter” with “the King of France,” then the answer will come out false if we evaluate with respect to the subject, and we will get a truth value gap, if we evaluate with respect to the object. In other words, if both topics “count” for evaluation, the sentence will be ambiguous. In order to avoid such ambiguity in the case of multiple topics, one topic must be designated as the “main” topic. This topic, the “main” topic, is 15 Nikolaeva argues that secondary topics in Ostyak are marked by triggering agreement. These topics are similar in function to Vallduví’s Tails. Ostyak and Catalan can therefore be viewed as marking more than one topic syntactically.
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then what the sentence is about and is the locus for assessment. The distinction between main and subordinate topics (and foci, see below) will be discussed in somewhat more detail below in section . 2.1.8 Topic drop An interesting property of topics in some languages is that they can be left out altogether. This is often referred to as “topic drop”. Huang distinguishes subject drop (PRO drop or null subjects) from topic drop as follows: subject drop is dependent on the availability of rich inflectional agreement morphology; topic drop does not exhibit such a dependency. Instead, topics are recoverable from the discourse. Topic drop is illustrated in the Chinese examples in () from Huang : (e stands for the omitted topic pronoun. The translation of e as he/him is only one possibility: the pronominal reference is derived from the context): () a
b
c
d
e lai-le. come-LE “[He] came.” Lisi hen xihuan e. Lisi very like “Lisi likes [him] very much.” Zhangsan shuo [e bu renshi Lisi]. Zhangsan say not know Lisi “Zhangsan said that [he] did not know Lisi.” Zhangsan shuo [Lisi bu renshi e]. Zhangsan say Lisi not know “Zhangsan said that Lisi did not know [him].”
Whereas the English pronouns in the translation of (d) are ambiguous between a reading in which they refer to the matrix subject or to a discoursally available referent, the Chinese examples are unambiguous and the null pronoun must refer to a discourse referent outside the sentence. This shows that the empty category must indeed be a topic.16
16 (c) is ambiguous in Chinese as it is in English. This is because, as Huang argues, Chinese, in addition to allowing topic drop, also allows control of PRO subjects in tensed sentences (on a par with subject control in infinitives in languages such as English). Since PRO can only occur in subject position, the empty category in (d), in which the dropped category is an object, can only get its reference from the context. Huang uses examples of topicalization in Chinese to argue that the empty categories are a result of topicalization followed by deletion of the topicalized element.
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German, another well-known topic-drop language, exhibits the following subject–object asymmetry: whereas st, nd, and rd person subjects can be dropped, only rd person objects can be dropped. Schulz also suggests that dropped topics must be recoverable. She derives that, “in order not to induce a breakdown in communication, a necessary prerequisite for such recoverability seems to be that the dropped constituent be a continued topic.” She explains the subject–object asymmetry by arguing that rd person objects are easier to recover than st and nd person objects in view of the fact that rd person is the unmarked case for continued topic objects.17 What is of interest to us here is the claim that topic drop involves continued topics. A similar claim can be found in Wexler : , who claims that dropped subjects have to be very strong topics. “Very strong” should probably be taken to mean continued topics. In the case of languages such as German in which topicalization is common, it may be the case that the two strategies to mark topics (fronting and omission) target two different topic types: Shift topics are topicalized, whereas continued topics are omitted. If this is the case, then German makes the same distinction as does Catalan, but uses different strategies: Catalan postposes the continued topic, German omits it. According to Huang , English is a “hot” language in the sense of Marshall McLuhan’s () “hot–cool” division of the media. “Hot” media require little audience participation. The fact that English pronouns cannot be omitted means that English sentences provide the hearer with all she or he needs to understand the sentence. Chinese, according to Huang, is a “cool” language since it allows topic drop and therefore requires the hearer to invoke the context, world knowledge, and such in order to understand the sentence. The premiss underlying Huang’s categorization of these language types is that accessing context (and making inferences from world knowledge) is not automatic and therefore requires something of the hearer. This is the same premiss upon which theories that exclude IS from the grammar are based. If, however, context is automatically accessed (and I believe it is), English might be the cool language, in that its lack of IS marking requires more of the hearer than does Chinese in which topics are marked by their absence. Even hotter than Chinese is a language which signals new topics by fronting and old ones by omission, as may be the case for German.18 Schulz’s analysis in terms of optimality theoretical harmonic alignment, although elegant, will not concern us here. 18 Chinese also employs topicalization as well as topic drop. I do not know whether Chinese and other topic-drop languages also distinguish the two topics types by these two strategies. 17
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2.1.9 Scope and topic properties19 One of the important results of the definition of a topic as the pivot for truth value assignment is that the scopal relations in the sentence depend on topic assignment: The topic will have wider scope than other elements in the sentence because the predicate of the sentence is evaluated with respect to the topic.20 Since the topic is contextually determined, the scopal relations will also depend on context. Scopal ambiguity is therefore eliminated once a sentence is contextualized. Consider the sentence in (). ()
Two girls arrested three boys.
Outside of context () has at least three different choices of topic: Either the subject takes wide scope, or the object takes wide scope, or else the sentence has a stage topic and receives an unscoped interpretation.21 The subject takes wide scope if it is interpreted as the topic of the sentence. In view of the fact that the subject is weakly quantified, it can only be interpreted as a topic under a partitive interpretation (i.e., two of the girls under discussion).22 This is possible in a context in which a set which includes the two girls in question is given in the discourse. An example would be a context in which a set of girls is given an assignment to arrest as many boys as they can. In this case the set of girls would function in the same way as the hypertheme discussed in section . above in that the two girls would have to be selected from this larger set in order
The literature on topics and related notions is vast and will not be reviewed here. The following is a selection of (additional) important contributions to the understanding of various aspects of the notion: Basilico ; Beaver ; Büring ; Chafe ; Givón ; Gundel ; ; Halliday ; Kidwai ; Lambrecht ; Li and Thompson ; Molnár ; Paul ; Polinsky ; Prince a; Sasse ; Schwarzschild ; Taverniers ; Ward and Prince . 20 Van Valin and LaPolla : propose a principle to the effect that “topical quantified NPs have scope over focal quantified NPs.” This principle does not, however, follow from the definition of a topic as it does here. Van Valin and LaPolla cite Sgall, Hajičová, and Panevová : who make a similar observation. One of the principles determining quantifier scope in Kuno is that a topicalized quantifier has scope over a non-topicalized one. This principle also follows from the definition of topics here as long as the topicalized element is indeed interpreted as a topic. Kuno’s other principles determining quantifier scope, e.g., that discourse-linking (section . below) contributes to wide scope, may not be required with the broad definition of topics employed here. 21 See Erteschik-Shir : chapter for a more complete analysis of scope as it follows from topic assignment. 22 This interpretation requires stress on the numeral. Stress on topics occurs when a focus is embedded within them. It is also this fact that explains how the partitive interpretation is derived as shown below in section .. 19
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to qualify as a topic of the sentence. The truth value of () would be assessed in such a context by examining the two girls as to whether they in fact arrested three boys or not. There are two different ways in which this assessment could be accomplished. One way would be to view the two girls as a group (the collective reading); then if a group of two girls (together) arrested three boys, the sentence would be true. Another way to assess the sentence with the subject as topic would be to view the two girls as separate entities (the distributive reading). In that case the sentence would be evaluated by examining whether the two girls arrested three boys each. If true, there would be six boys arrested, all told. If the object is the topic a parallel analysis can be given. In that case, under the distributive reading of the object, each boy would be arrested by two girls, so that six girls, all told, would be involved in the arresting. The unscoped reading results if neither the subject nor the object is interpreted as a topic. In that case the sentence will be interpreted as predicated of a stage topic, which is interpreted as the current here-andnow in (), or else it can have an overt stage topic as in (). ()
Today/at o’clock/on the corner, two girls arrested three boys.
() will be true if an event of two girls arresting three boys took place on the specified “stage.” The reading in which the object has wide scope is less accessible than the other two readings. It has frequently been observed that subjects are unmarked topics across languages (e.g., Li and Thompson ; Reinhart ; Andersen ; Lambrecht ; Winkler and Göbbel ). Sentences with stage topics are also unmarked, as can be seen by the ease in deriving the unscoped reading. Sentences with object topics are marked. We return to this point in section .. This section argues that once IS is taken into account scopal ambiguity does not occur. That scope follows from topic assignment also has repercussions for the architecture of grammar in general and the role of LF in particular as shown in section . below. What has been shown in this section is that the optimal notion of topic is not easy to find if we link it to syntactic phenomena such as topicalization. This is because these phenomena are not uniform across languages. In some languages, topics must be syntactically marked, as in Catalan, for example. Such languages are called topic prominent.23 English is an 23
See Li and Thompson for this notion.
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example of a subject-prominent language in which such syntactic marking is uncommon. In subject-prominent languages, the subject is in fact the unmarked topic. Danish exemplifies a language which is harder to classify. Topicalization is frequently used, but it is still optional. Another difficulty is that topicalization does not select the same class of elements even in the two languages examined here. This might lead one to the unhappy conclusion that there are several kinds of topics, and that languages may mark some but not all of them.24 A variety of phenomena connected to topichood could be described in this way, but it would not provide an explanation. Our aim should instead be to derive the various kinds of topics from a minimal set of primitives. In the next section, we define the other basic primitive, the focus. We continue to show that these two basic IS primitives, topic and focus, interact in such a way that all types of topic and focus can be derived from them without the need for further primitives. 2.2 Inventory: foci Foci, like topics, have been defined in many ways and from several perspectives (semantic, phonological, syntactic, and pragmatic). In this section, illustrative examples of each of these perspectives are examined. 2.2.1 Semantic definitions Chomsky , Jackendoff , and Lambrecht , among others, define the focus as the non-presupposed information in the sentence.25 The presupposition is defined as “the information in the sentence that is assumed by the speaker to be shared by him and the hearer” (Jackendoff : ). In view of the fact that topics are given (in the extended sense of given) they are generally presupposed. It follows from this definition of focus that the two notions, topic and focus, are mutually exclusive. 24 According to Chafe , a topic in a topic-prominent language such as Chinese “sets a spatial, temporal, or individual framework within which the main predication holds.” This is a property of topics in some languages; in others topics are what the sentence is about. The two properties, according to Chafe, do not go hand in hand, as Strawson would have it, and different languages mark different topic properties. 25 This is not quite accurate. Chomsky : in fact defines the focus as follows: “The focus is the phrase containing the intonation center; the presupposition, an expression derived by replacing the focus by a variable. Each sentence, then is associated with a class of pairs (F,P) where F is a focus and P is a presupposition, each such pair corresponding to one possible interpretation.” In fact, Chomsky derives the focus from intonation. See section . for discussion of this tack.
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This turns out not to be accurate as we show in section .. It also follows that foci must be new in the discourse. The question–answer test also follows since the answer to the wh-question is necessarily new, and the rest of the sentence, which must be present in the question, is presupposed (the focus is in capitals, the presupposition in italics): () a b c d e f
Q: A: Q: A: Q: A: Q: A: Q: A: Q: A:
What did John do? He WASHED THE DISHES. What did John wash? He washed THE DISHES. Who washed the dishes? JOHN washed them. What happened to the dishes? JOHN WASHED them. What happened? JOHN WASHED THE DISHES. What did John do with the dishes? He WASHED them.
In (a), only the subject is presupposed and is therefore the only candidate for topichood. The VP is the focus. In this example, the syntax– IS mapping is therefore perfect and, as we shall see in Chapter , this is in fact the unmarked case. In (d) the topic is also identified with the presupposition, yet the focus does not form a syntactic constituent. This is a problem for those theories that consider foci to be a property of syntactic constituents, but is not a problem for the semantic definition which identifies foci as the complement of the presupposition. In (b) and (c) the presupposition and the topic do not overlap. These sentences are evaluated with respect to “John” and “the dishes,” respectively. It follows that the topic is contained within the presupposition in these examples, but cannot be identified with it. (e) illustrates an all-focus sentence with no presupposition. These sentences have a stage topic as argued above. In (f) the presupposition is “John did something with the dishes,” leaving the verb as the focus. Jackendoff recognizes the role of focus in interpretation (association with focus, VP-anaphora), and offers a preliminary account employing this definition of focus as the complement to the presupposition. Rooth ; , developing the ideas in Jackendoff, gears his definition of focus to a more formal account of these issues. Here we set aside these semantic issues, yet Rooth’s definition is still of relevance. Rooth employs
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the notion of p-sets: the sets of alternatives under consideration in the discourse. The focus semantic value of a phrase, under this view, is “the set of propositions obtainable from the ordinary semantic value by making a substitution in the position corresponding to the focused phrase” (Rooth : ). Examine (), as an illustration: () Q: Which laundry did John wash? A: He washed THE WHITES. The question sets up a set of alternatives such as: “John washed X laundry,” where X can be the colored laundry, the white laundry, the fine laundry, the woolens, etc. In the answer “the white laundry” is selected to be substituted for X, and is therefore the focus value by Rooth’s definition. Notice first that it also follows from Rooth’s definition that the presupposition and the focus complement each other. Another point is that the set of alternatives are defined contextually. The question in () makes this clear since a which-question must range over a discoursally available set. What happens when such a set is not readily derivable from the context? The what-question in (b), for example, does not in and of itself engender such a well-defined set. Certainly, the answer must range over a set of “washables,” but this set is only vaguely defined in the context of this question. According to Rooth, these two types of sets need not be distinguished. We shall see in section . that constituents which range over contextually restricting sets, as illustrated in (), have different IS properties from those that don’t. We will also see how this distinction is derivable from different topic and focus assignments. In the previous section, we noted that topics can be contrastive. This is also the case for foci. () is just like (), except that the set of alternatives is specified overtly. () Q: Which laundry did John wash, the white or the colored? A: He washed the WHITE laundry. A contrastive focus focuses one element of the contrast set and eliminates the other alternatives. Contrastive foci are therefore included under Rooth’s definition. They are analyzed in section . as a subset of the foci which range over contextually restricted sets. Contrastive foci are often referred to as “narrow,” “exhaustive,” or “exclusive” foci. Noncontrastive foci are referred to as informational foci or presentational foci (when they occur in existentials).
architectures and information structure
An interesting take on the semantic approach stems from the idea in Heim a that the division between presupposition and non-presupposition is semantically represented as a division into a restrictive clause and a nuclear scope. Heim’s semantics is intended to regulate the interpretation of definites and indefinites. Partee recognizes that this division is in fact to be viewed as a distinction between topic and focus, with the topic identified as the restrictive clause and the focus as the nuclear scope. Diesing proposes an algorithm which derives this division from the syntactic representation: VP-external material is mapped onto the restrictive clause and VP-internal material is mapped onto the nuclear scope. One advantage of Diesing’s approach is that subject topics are structurally distinct from subjects which are within the domain of the focus as in an all-focus sentence. The former are located outside the VP, the latter inside it. This affords an explanation of the different properties of individual-level predicates for which the subject must be VP-external and stage-level predicates for which the subject can either be VP-internal or VP-external (see section .). 2.2.2 Marking foci by stress Just as it is common in languages to mark topics by fronting, so it is common to mark foci by stress.26 Jackendoff : defines this relationship as follows: () If a phrase P is chosen as the focus of a sentence S, the highest stress in S will be on the syllable of P that is assigned highest stress by the regular stress rules. At the time, the “regular stress rules” included the Nuclear Stress Rule (NSR) which assigns main stress to the final constituent. Simplifying a great deal, this means that sentence-final stress leads to focus ambiguity (capitals indicate stress): () a b c
Maxwell killed the judge with [a HAMMER]FOC Maxwell [killed the judge with a HAMMER]FOC [Maxwell killed the judge with a HAMMER]FOC
In the three examples in (), the stress is on the sentence-final constituent, “a hammer.” This means, according to Jackendoff’s rule, that the focus can be this DP as in (a), or the whole VP as in (b), or the whole 26 Duration, amplitude, and pitch combine to give the effect of perceived pitch accenting. The term “stress” is used for convenience throughout.
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sentence as in (c). This also means that the full sentence answer to the three questions in () will sound the same, i.e., it will have stress on “hammer,” since the answers to these three questions are (a), (b), and (c), respectively. () a b c
What did Maxwell kill the judge with? What did Maxwell do? What happened?
Answering a wh-question with a full sentence, without pronominalizing the topic, is highly artificial. Even so, it is not difficult to elicit intuitions as to the relative appropriateness of the answer in () to each of the questions in (). The answer with only final stress is most appropriate as an answer to (a). It is much less successful as an answer to (b) and (c). The answers to these questions require additional stresses as shown in (a) and (b), respectively. () a b
Maxwell KIlled the JUdge with a HAmmer MAxwell KIlled the JUdge with a HAmmer
Although the final stress on “hammer” is highest in all three cases under discussion, the additional stresses cannot be left out totally, although the “middle” stresses can be somewhat reduced depending on the speed in which the sentence is uttered.27 () is probably the most natural answer to (c): ()
MAxwell killed the judge with a HAmmer.
Without the initial stress on the subject, the sentence, in the desired context, would be awkward indeed. A stress rule that renders these results, from Erteschik-Shir ; Erteschik-Shir and Lappin b, is: () Assign stress to the focus constituents. This rule together with a rhythm rule which allows the reduction of intermediate stresses in rapid speech results derives stress distributions such as the one illustrated in (): The beginning of the focused constituent is minimally marked with a low accent the end of this constituent with 27 The fact that out-of-the-blue sentences such as (b) are assigned a sequence of high pitch accents on each of the major constituents has been noted by Schmerling and Steedman : among others. More recently Hockey concludes from an experimental study of pitch, duration, and amplitude that information structure focus is marked on all the words within a focus constituent, calling into question the idea that there is ambiguity about how large a constituent is marked as focus by pitch accent placement on a particular word.
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a high accent, and the intermediate accents are lowered to a minimum down to nothing. The motivation behind the stress rule in () is that stress is a way to mark foci, just as fronting is a way to mark topics. Since the rule applies to the whole focus, and not only its final constituent, it in fact marks the focus unambiguously by minimally marking its beginning and its end in fast speech (due to the rhythm rule) and maximally marking each one of the major constituents in slow speech. Both Jackendoff’s and Erteschik-Shir’s stress rules take as their input sentences in which the focus constituent(s) are marked. Jackendoff : considers how this marking may come about: He introduces F, a syntactic marker “which can be associated with any node in the surface structure.” Stress assignment and interpretation are then derived in this way from the free assignment of a focus feature. 2.2.3 Deriving foci from stress The opposite view, namely that focus assignment is derived from the distribution of pitch accents, is also common. As an illustration of this view, we examine Selkirk .28 In order to derive the focus from pitch accents, Selkirk : – proposes a Basic Focus Rule which states that “An accented word is F(ocus)-marked.” (This is the exact reverse of the rule in () which derives stress from focus assignment.) Selkirk then proposes the following three rules of “Focus Projection:”29 () a b c
F-marking of the head of a phrase licenses the F-marking of the phrase. F-marking of an internal argument of a head licenses the F-marking of the head. F-marking of the antecedent of a trace left by NP- or whmovement licenses the F-marking of the trace.
It follows from these rules that if either a verb or an object is accented, then Focus projection licenses the interpretation of the VP as the focus. According to the Basic Focus Rule, accent on the verb means that the verb is F-marked. According to (a), once the verb is F-marked, the F-marking
28 Other proponents of this type of approach which Selkirk draws on are Gussenhoven ; Rochemont ; Schmerling ; Selkirk . More recent proponents of this view are Cinque ; Reinhart ; ; Selkirk ; Neeleman and Reinhart ; Szendröi . 29 Focus which does not project is often referred to as “narrow” focus.
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of the VP is also licensed. (b) ensures that F-marking of the object licenses F-marking of the verb, which, in turn, according to (a), licenses F-marking of the VP. The F-marking of the VP, according to Selkirk, licenses the F-marking of the whole sentence via licensing of the various intervening heads. If, however, the subject is accented, focus projection to other elements of the sentence is blocked because the subject is an external argument and neither (a) nor (b) licenses projection from external arguments. Rule (c) is intended to explain why focus does project from certain accented subjects. An example is given in () which is a possible answer to “What’s been happening?” ()
The SUN came out.
Selkirk adopts the hypothesis that the subjects of unaccusative predicates are derived by movement from object position leaving a trace. According to (c), this trace can be F-marked since its antecedent is. Once the object trace is F-marked, so is the VP.30 Rules such as (c) are highly counterintuitive and should probably be avoided. Yet stress rule () which derives stress from focus assignment fares no better. If the sentence is all-focus, both major constituents will be stressed and not just the subject as required. An account of these cases is proposed in Chapter , section . There it is shown that this intonation pattern is determined contextually and is not limited to unaccusative verbs, nor does it depend on a syntactic movement analysis. Although (a) and (b) also do not seem to follow from any general principles, deriving focus assignment from rule-governed pitch accent has one major advantage: It does not require the introduction of focus features in the derivation, a problem for other theories as we shall see below in section . It does, however, depend on an independent mechanism of pitch accent assignment, yet pitch accent assignment depends at least in part on what the intended focus is. Therefore, theories such as Selkirk’s turn out to be somewhat circular.31 A different perspective on the derivation of focus–background interpretation from intonation comes from von Heusinger , who introduces a mechanism into Discourse Representation theory which allows the derivation of foreground–background interpretation For this case, Selkirk need not invoke (c): Since the subject is in fact an internal argument, focus projection also follows from (b). 31 For comments on this type of approach and further developments see, among others, Schwarzschild and Büring . 30
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from intonation:32 Pitch accent marks the focused constituent which is replaced by a designated variable in the background. The background representation marks the part of the sentence that is already “anchored” or given in the discourse.33 The two views—deriving stress from focus and deriving focus from stress—can, in principle, be viewed as two sides of the same coin: the former reflects the perspective of the speaker, who uses stress to mark the focus of the utterance, and the latter the perspective of the hearer, who uses stress to discern the focus of the utterance heard (Van Valin, personal communication). However, most of the researchers who use one or the other perspective to analyze the relationship between focus and stress do not view their analyses as reflecting actual processing, but rather as a purely theoretical approach to deriving the correct correlation. The different views should therefore be evaluated purely on the basis of their success in this endeavor. This is not to say, of course, that an analysis in terms of processing from the two perspectives wouldn’t be welcome. 2.2.4 Deriving stress from syntax Cinque derives stress prominence syntactically by viewing it as a reflection of depth of embedding: The most deeply embedded phrase is the one that is most prominent.34 In this way, Cinque is able to derive the dependence on position of prominence from the headedness of languages. His prediction is that in phrases that are right branching, stress prominence is on the rightmost constituent (as in English), whereas left-branching phrases have stress prominence on the left. German has mixed headedness: NPs are head initial (right branching) and therefore stress final; VPs are head final (left branching) and the most deeply embedded constituent will be the one immediately to the left of the verb as shown in (a) with the example in (b), both from Cinque : .
Discourse Representation theory, or File-Change Semantics, originated with Heim b and Kamp . The key idea in the way of thinking about the semantics of discourse is that each new sentence or phrase is interpreted as an “update” of the context in which it is used. 33 In addition, von Heusinger argues that boundary tones indicate breaks in the construction of the DRS. The resulting representations can be used to express discourse relations or can be used as arguments for semantic operators. See also Kadmon for a different theory of the interpretation of accent placement. 34 For other proponents of the syntax-based approach to prosody and the prosody–focus relation see, among others, Culicover and Rochemont ; Ladd ; Liberman . 32
architectures and information structure () a
IP NP
I9 I
VP V9
YP
V
XP b
…daß Fritz einem Kind GELD gegeben hat that Fritz a child money given has
The parallel sentence in English, however, will be stressed on the final constituent which is most deeply embedded, as shown in () adapted from Cinque : . () a
IP NP
I9 I
VP V9 V
VP YP
V9 V
b
XP
Fritz gave a child MONEY
In order to derive the correct results for examples of this sort in rightbranching languages, Cinque adopts a VP-shell analysis of these constructions in English (but not in German). Cinque’s syntactic account of stress prominence is hard to evaluate in cases in which the syntactic account of a particular construction is controversial, but would in principle have great potential as an explanation of the cross-linguistic differences between right- and left-branching languages and structures with respect to stress prominence were it not the case that it only accounts for default stress in all-focus sentences, and does not, in and of itself, offer an account of the connection between stress prominence and focus assignment. In order to do that Cinque stipulates a separate
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discourse grammar procedure for stress assignment on focus constituents. Cinque has the discourse procedure interact with the syntactic derivation of prominence as follows: The discourse procedure determines that stress on focused constituents wins out (relatively) over stress on presupposed constituents. In other words, syntax is responsible for stress assignment, but discourse principles can overrule this assignment. One might wonder whether syntactic-determined stress assignment and discourse-determined stress assignment are both necessary in the grammar. Cinque argues that they are since the syntactic rule applies blindly to both focused constituents and presupposed constituents. The discourse rule, however, is responsible only for stressing focused constituents. If stress prominence is a way of signaling focus, the appearance of stress on presupposed elements is indeed problematic. It would be an achievement if such stress were merely a result of a syntactic rule. Cinque’s example is given in () (his (); : ); the accent indicates stress prominence on the focus, the hatchet indicates the additional detectable prominence within the presupposition): () a b
(Any news of John?) [NP Our poor chîld] [VP is in bed with a ’flú]. (Who’s in bed with a ’flu?) [NP Our poor chíld] [VP is in bed with a ’flû].
Cinque argues that both the presuppositions in these two examples (the NP in (a) and the VP in (b) ) as well as the focus constituents have “a detectable prominence” which, in the null theory, follows from the sentence grammar procedure that applies to all phrases blindly (i.e., independently of the discourse grammar rule). One of the foremost strengths of Cinque’s proposal is its ability to predict the different stress assignments on right- and left-branching languages without any stipulation. Details aside, Cinque’s rules will always assign main stress to the most deeply embedded constituent in a phrase. In a right-branching language, this constituent will be to the right, and in a left-branching language, to the left, predicting the observed distinctions on purely structural grounds. I propose in section . below that the additional stresses on the presupposed part of the sentence (a) can in fact be derived by a theory which derives stress from focus assignment, once the theory allows for multiple topic and focus assignments. In (b), the presuppositional part of the sentence is repeated from the question. Such repetitions inherit their stress from
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the stress pattern in the question, explaining the (weak) stress on the final element of the VP.35 This would leave unexplained the difference in prominence between left- and right-branching languages. Here the rhythm rule introduced in section . comes into play. It is not difficult to envision how such a rule can be parameterized such that the rhythm of the language is dependent on its structure. Right- and left-branching structures and languages would then differ only in the application of the rhythm rule and we could still maintain that focus constituents are universally marked, either by stress, morphology, or word order or some combination of these features. Cinque holds the common view that foci are constituents. It is not obvious that this is so as shown in the next section. 2.2.5 Deriving syntax from IS Steedman a argues that intonational phrase boundaries and surface syntactic boundaries coincide, rendering the “unconventional” syntactic structure in ():36 () a
b
MarCEL proved completeness
MARcel proved completeness
According to Steedman the rhythm rule (not the rhythm rule discussed here) which applies in certain dialects to move the stress onto the first syllable of “Marcel” applies to the intonational phrase “Marcel proved” (on a par with “Marcel Proust”), requiring, within his framework, that the latter be analyzed as a syntactic constituent as in (b). It is a wellknown fact that prosodic rules cannot apply across syntactic boundaries and so Steedman’s syntax follows. This is only one of Steedman’s arguments that syntactic structure does not map onto prosodic structure and therefore must be amended. For more details on the pronunciation of such repetitions, see Erteschik-Shir : –. 36 Steedman’s (a: ) proposal is couched in Combinatory Categorial Grammar which directly pairs phonological and logical forms without intermediary representational levels. He argues that such a theory “in which phrasal intonation and information structure are reunited with formal syntax and semantics is not only possible, but much simpler than one in which they are separated.” 35
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According to Steedman a: both (a) and (b) are possible, each as an answer to a different question: () Q: I know who proved soundness. But who proved completeness? A: (Marcel) (proved completeness) () Q: I know which result Marcel predicted. But which result did Marcel prove? A: (Marcel proved) (completeness) In () the subject “Marcel” is focused in view of the fact that it answers the wh-question. In addition the object “completeness” is contrasted (with “soundness”), hence the stress on these two constituents. In (), however the object “completeness” answers the wh-question and is therefore focused. In addition, the verb is contrasted and therefore stressed. It is this fact which causes the prosody in which the subject and verb form a constituent, allowing the rhythm rule to apply within it. Any account in which syntax mediates between prosodic structure and IS will have to take such issues into account. A possible solution which does not require structures such as (b) is outlined in section . below. 2.2.6 Deriving focus pragmatically According to Dik : , “the focal information in a linguistic expression is that information which is relatively the most important or salient in the given communicative setting, and considered by [the] S[peaker] to be most essential for [the] A[ddressee] to integrate into his pragmatic information.” Such information is often new, and if not new it re-emphasizes information already available to A rendering explicit or implicit contrast. Dik’s definition of focus is along the same lines as that of ErteschikShir , based on Erteschik-Shir and Erteschik-Shir and Lappin : () The FOCUS of a sentence S = the (intension of a) constituent c of S which the speaker intends to direct the attention of his/her hearer(s) to, by uttering S. The definition of focus in terms of speakers’ intentions entails that it is a discourse property which is assigned to a constituent in a context of conversation. For any sentence several focus assignments will generally be possible, one of which is realized in discourse. A sentence, in discourse, has only one main focus which is assigned to a syntactic constituent. This
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constituent may be an NP, a VP, or even the whole S (as in an out-of-theblue sentence). The topic of a sentence is excluded as a focus because it is by definition already in the hearer’s attention. Hence, the focus constituent is selected freely among the non-topic constituents of the sentence. The fact that the focus is defined as the constituent to which the hearer’s attention is drawn enables the constituents contained in it to provide the topics of the following sentences since these constituents have become part of the domain of what the hearer is now attending to, allowing for focus chaining to occur. The focus, under this definition, is also identified by the question– answer test since the constituent that answers the wh-phrase is indeed the constituent to which the hearer’s attention is drawn. Another test which follows from the definition in terms of the hearer’s attention is the lie-test: ()
LIE-test: Speaker A: John said that he knows Peter. Speaker B: a. That’s a lie, he didn’t. b. That’s a lie, he doesn’t.
Each response indicates a different IS: (a) takes the subject as a TOPIC and the whole VP as the FOCUS. The fact that (b) is a possible response indicates that the lower sentence can be the one that the speaker directs the hearer’s attention to and hence the focus can fall on or within it. This test is therefore not a test for focus per se, but rather a test for the domain(s) within which the focus potentially may occur. The actual focus in a particular utterance is restricted to these domains. The pragmatic definition differs from the semantic one in that the complement of the focus is not necessarily presupposed. This can be seen in (b) in which the upper clause does not belong to the focus or to the presupposition. Another example is given in (): () Q: Where is the book? A: I gave it to Mary. The focus of the answer is “to Mary,” yet it is not presupposed that “I gave it to someone.” Since the pragmatic definition of focus does not depend on interpretation or on stress assignment, these properties must be derived from (topic and) focus assignment. In () (section .), a stress rule was proposed which derives stress from focus assignment. Interpretation in this framework follows mainly from topic assignment as seen above.
architectures and information structure
Focus plays a role only in its interaction with the topic. The definition is syntactically anchored in that foci must be syntactic constituents. Something further therefore must be said about a sentence such as (d) in which the focus consists of the subject and the verb and is therefore seemingly not a constituent. This issue will be addressed in section . below. 2.2.7 Summing up focus properties Any definition of focus must measure up to the requirement that it be universal. This excludes any definition of focus which is based solely on intonation, since not all languages use stress to mark the focus. Just as topics can be marked by word order (fronting), so foci, in certain languages, take up a particular syntactic position. An example is Hungarian in which foci and wh-question words are positioned preverbally (see the discussion of Hungarian in Chapter , section ). In still other languages, topics and/ or foci are marked by morphological means. Dik : – offers two illustrations. The first is Wambon, a Papuan language of Irian Jaya.37 It has one focus marker -nde which marks foci and question words:38 () A: Jakhove kenonop-nde takhim-gende? they what-Foc buy-pl:pres:final “What do they buy?” B: Ndu-nde takhim-gende. Sago-Foc buy-pl:pres:final “They buy SAGO.” Dik also shows that -nde marks contrastive foci and also contrastive topics. These are illustrated in () and (), respectively. () A: Mbitemop ndune ande-tbo Bitemop sago eat-sg:past:final “Bitemop ate sago.” B: Woyo, nekheve ndu-nde e-nogma-tbo No he sago-Foc neg-eat-sg:past:final “No, he didn’t eat SAGO, Dik’s Wambon data are from Vries . Observe that wh-question words which identify the focus in the answer are treated as though they themselves are foci both in Hungarian and in Wambon. In languages which mark focus by intonation, however, the wh-constituent is not treated like a focus and is not stressed. Instead, it is marked by fronting. For an analysis of focus and stress in wh-questions see Erteschik-Shir and the references cited therein. See also Erteschik-Shir : chapter on the different interpretations of wh-constituents in questions. 37 38
architectures and information structure
nekheve ande-nde ande-tbo he banana-Foc eat-sg:past:final he ate BANANAS.” () A: Nombone ndu-ngup ande-ngup? This sago-and banana-and “What about this sago and bananas?” B: Wembane ndu-nde takhima-tbo Wemba sago-Foc buy-sg:past:final “Wemba bought the SAGO, Karolule ande-nde takhima-tbo Karolus bananas-Foc buy-sg:past:final Karolus bought the BANANAS.” B’s response in () refutes the focused object and replaces it, and both the refuted object and the one replacing it are marked with the focus marker. In (), however, the sago and the bananas have been contextually defined as the topic. In B’s response, which contrasts the two, these elements are also marked with the focus marker. A characterization of focus following from the distribution of the focus marker in Wambon has to include not only the regular foci which replace wh-constituents in the answer, but also contrastive foci, and contrastive topics.39 Contrastive topics are also stressed in languages in which foci are marked by stress (see (d) above). Contrastive topics must therefore be classified both as topics and as foci. In section ., we show how this can be accomplished. The second illustration of focus marking offered by Dik (: –) is Aghem, a Grassfields Bantu language of Cameroon.40 According to Dik, Aghem is a tone language which does not use stress to mark focus. Instead, it marks focus by means of constituent order and a focus-marking particle (nò). (In addition, it uses clefts and a special Focus-bound Past tense marker.) The focus position is postverbal and it hosts wh-constituents as well as regular foci. Elements in the postverbal focus position are contrastive. Contrastive subjects, however, remain in situ. In a multiple focus reading such as the answer to “Who met who?”, the subject does appear in the focus position and the other focus (which answers the other wh-phrase) appears either preverbally or in final position, X and Y, respectively, in the schema in () modified from Dik. 39 In order to understand focus marking in Wambon fully, one would also have to know how VP foci and sentence foci are marked. 40 Dik cites Watters for these facts about Aghem but does not give any examples.
architectures and information structure
()
S Aux X V Foc O Y
It follows that it must be possible to distinguish contrastive foci and multiple foci since they appear in different positions in Aghem. When the focus marker follows a constituent, it leads to contrast. If the constituent marked by this particle is already contrastive, it is interpreted as “only,” excluding alternative options. In order to get the contrastive meaning of the focus morpheme, it could be viewed as an operator which selects the focused element and eliminates the other member of the contrast set from discussion. That, after all, is what contrast means. If the same operator applies to a contrasted element, it again eliminates the other element of the contrast set, emphasizing the uniqueness of the focused element. The function of the Aghem “focus” morpheme is therefore not just a way to mark foci, it is much narrower than that. Although an account of stress–focus correlations is needed in some languages, this cannot be the basis of a definition which applies to all languages. We are therefore left with a choice between a semantic and a pragmatic characterization of the focus, since neither of these definitions depends on the language-particular means of focus marking. The difference between these two approaches comes into play mainly in sentences with parts that are neither focused nor presupposed. More importantly, as we have already shown, the division of a sentence into focus and presupposition, without acknowledging the function of a topic as well, will leave us without sufficient tools to account for important IS-properties of sentences. The next section shows how the two IS primitives, topic and focus, suffice to characterize the different topic and focus types found in natural language. 2.3 Putting it all together: f(ocus)-structure Several approaches to IS assume a binary division of the sentence. An example is the semantic view of focus which sees the focus and the presupposition (or the background) as complementary. The other type of binary approach takes the topic as its point of departure and refers to the rest of the sentence as “the comment.” A different terminology for the same division is theme and rheme.41 The previous sections have shown that the IS notions topic and focus are both linguistically significant in 41 For theme–rheme or topic–comment divisions, see Firbas ; Gundel ; Halliday ; and Jacobs among others. Halliday’s definition of theme is the first element in
architectures and information structure
that they can be marked intonationally, syntactically (by word order), and morphologically. The binary approaches, even if they allow for both divisions, tend to ignore the interactions between topic and focus and view them as separate, independent entities.42 In the next section I introduce Erteschik-Shir’s model of IS, f(ocus)-structure, which examines the interaction between topic and focus, and show that this theory enables an account of a variety of topic and focus types without recourse to more than these two primitives. This model allows for non-binary divisions of the sentence: The topic and focus do not necessarily complement each other and the remainder of the sentence forms the background as illustrated in examples () and () in section ., repeated here for convenience.43 () John said that he knows Peter. () Q: Where is the book? A: I gave it to Mary. As shown above, the matrix of () need not be attended to and hence neither topic nor focus will be assigned to it. In (), the topic is “I” and the focus is “Mary.” Both examples include a backgrounded part, namely the part of the sentence to which neither topic nor focus is assigned.
2.3.1 Topic–focus interactions F-structure is a structural description, annotated for topic and focus, which interfaces with syntax and both semantics and intonation. Due to topic marking this structural description is scopally unambiguous (see section . above), making LF redundant. Following Reinhart , the common ground or context set (see section .) is (metaphorically)
the sentence. Therefore, his notion of theme differs significantly from that of the others. For focus–background divisions, see, in addition to Chomsky and Jackendoff cited above, Chafe ; Prince a; Rochemont ; Ward ; Zubizaretta , among others. See also Casielles-Suárez ; Erteschik-Shir ; Vallduví ; and Winkler and Göbbel for overviews of the various approaches. 42 An exception is Steedman b who makes a distinction between background/focus as well as theme/rheme. For him both theme and rheme can be partitioned into background and focus. 43 See Büring for the same division.
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represented by a set of file cards.44 Each file card represents a discourse referent. Entries on each card correspond to what is presupposed about the discourse referent in question. The cards are organized so that the most recently activated cards are to be found on top of the stack of cards. (Some people find it hard to envision a stack of cards with more than one card on top. Another metaphor that works equally well is that of a drawer with file cards, where the front section of the drawer is equivalent to the top of the file.) These are the discourse referents which provide potential topics in the discourse. How do cards get to be on top of the file? This follows implicitly from the definition of the focus. If the attention of the hearer is drawn to (the referent of) X, then the hearer (metaphorically) selects the card for X and puts it in a place of prominence, namely on top of his stack of file cards. The card can be selected from among the already existing file cards if it is definite and therefore represents an existing referent. If this is not the case, the hearer is required to make out a new card for this new (indefinite) referent and again, this card is positioned on top of the stack. This is how the interaction between topic and focus comes into play. It is also the explanation for both topic chaining and focus chaining. A topic remains on top of the file and can therefore be continued. A focused element can become a topic in the next sentence since focusing a discourse referent requires the positioning of its card on the top of the stack. The file system thus involves locating cards on top of a stack (topics) or positioning them there (foci). In addition, each card manipulated through the processing of an utterance is also updated with the information contained in the utterance. Topic and focus are therefore defined as triggering instructions to manipulate a stack of filing cards, each of which represents a referent available in the discourse. The rules apply to referential constituents within top/foc domains: () F-structure Rules a TOPIC instructs the hearer to locate on the top of his file an existing card with the appropriate reference. b FOCUS instructs the hearer to either (i) open a new card and put it on the top of the file. Assign it a new label (for an indefinite) or (ii) locate an existing card and put it on the top of the file (for a definite). See De Cat for a comparison between Reinhart , Lambrecht , Vallduví , and Erteschik-Shir . All except for Lambrecht employ file card metaphors for discourse referents. 44
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UPDATE instructs the hearer to enter the focus on the topic card and then to copy all entries to all cards activated by the focus rule.
Let us illustrate with the question–answer pairs in () modified here: () a
Q: A: Q: A: Q: A: Q: A: Q: A:
What did John do? He WASHED THE DISHES. They are now clean. b What did John wash? He washed THE DISHES. They are now clean. c Who washed the dishes? JOHN washed them. He is very pleased with himself. d What happened to the dishes? JOHN WASHED them. He is very pleased with himself. e What happened? JOHN WASHED THE DISHES. He is very pleased with himself. They are now clean. The question in (a) presupposes that the subject “John” has already been introduced and that a card for this referent is available on top of the file. “The dishes” are part of the focus and so the card for this referent is positioned on top of the stack. This enables focus chaining licensing the continuation. (Continuations with topic chaining are not listed.) In section ., it was suggested that pronouns must be interpreted as topics. We are now ready to demonstrate why this is so. In processing the answer in (a) the card for “John” which is available on top of the file is updated with the content of the utterance as shown in (). () John he washed the dishes The subject pronoun is interpreted as coreferent with the referent of the label of a card upon which it is entered. Since the pronoun “he” is entered on the card labeled John, the pronoun is interpreted as coreferent with John. If such a card were not available, the pronoun would not be interpretable. The availability of a topic card is therefore necessary to interpret a pronoun. It follows that pronouns must be topics.45 45
(i)
Pronouns are sometimes ambiguous as illustrated in (i). Johni gave a book to Billj. Hei/j loved it.
Ambiguity occurs when two cards are available on top of the file upon which the pronoun could be interpreted.
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In (b), “the dishes” are again focused and the account is the same. In (c), it is the card for “the dishes” which is already on top of the stack, and the subject “John” is focused. The card for “John” is therefore positioned on top of the file, allowing the continuation with John as a topic. Similarly for (d). The question in (e) triggers an answer with a stage topic. Both the subject and the object are part of the focus and their cards must therefore be put on top of the stack, licensing both continuations listed. Remember that certain cards are always available as topics as discussed in section .. These are the cards for the speaker, the hearer, and the current stage. All three follow from the discourse situation which always involves a speaker, a hearer, and the spatio-temporal parameters they are in. The speaker and hearer’s attention is automatically drawn to these elements and therefore attention need not be drawn to these cards by focusing. In section ., a further set of discourse referents were singled out. These are the permanent fixtures such as “the moon,” “the president,” etc. These are members of the common ground shared by speaker and hearer, which are in and of themselves prominent and can therefore be positioned on the top of the stack with the help of a bit of context, but without specific mention. In () (=(a) ), for example, the moon is part of the inventory of the situation: darkness in a night-time situation outside. ()
It’s dark. The moon has disappeared.
Yet another set of elements were shown to be potential topics without previous mention. These are elements in the discourse situation which can be pointed at. Pointing can be considered a form of focusing, and so it is not surprising that pointing at a referent brings it to the top of the stack. The top of the file consists of several cards at any point in the discourse. These include not only the permanently available cards, but also additional cards which have been positioned on top of the stack in the course of the discourse. Which one is chosen at any particular point and the lifespan of each card in that position is likely to be restricted by broader discourse considerations which may impose an internal structure on the set of cards which belong to the top of the stack. For example, in the processing of a sentence, a new card for a focus will be placed on top of the card for the topic. In the following sentence, if the referent for this uppermost card is selected as the topic, a shift topic is derived. If, however, the card beneath it is selected, a continued topic is derived. More complex considerations concerning the level of “activation” of
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referents have been widely discussed, but will not be taken up here, since they have little impact on syntactic structure.46 2.3.2 Notation It should now be clear how to assign topic and focus in simple sentences. (We will return to matters of architecture and to the question as to how these features arise in section .) In order to facilitate discussion, we use the following notation. Topic constituents are subscripted “top,” and focus constituents are subscripted “foc.” We again illustrate with our question–answer pairs: () a b c d e f
Q: A: Q: A: Q: A: Q: A: Q: A: Q: A:
What did John do? hetop [washed the dishes]foc What did John wash? hetop washed [the dishes]foc Who washed the dishes? Johnfoc washed themtop What happened to the dishes? [John washed themtop]foc What did John do with the dishes? [hetop [washed themtop]foc]foc What happened? stopt [John washed the dishes]foc
The f-structures in (a), (b), and (f) are unmarked as suggested in section .. This is due to the fact that in these f-structures the topic precedes the focus. In (a) and (b) the subject is the topic and in (f), the implicit stage topic (the subscripts “s” and “t” stand for the spatial and temporal parameters respectively) can easily be taken to precede the sentential focus. When the object is the topic as in (c) and (d), the identity of the topic cannot be resolved until later in the sentence, leading to the markedness of the construction.47 (d) requires a comment since the following f-structure might have been expected:
46 Among the many references dealing with various aspects of the activation level of referents are the articles in Walker, Joshi, and Prince and the references cited therein; Ariel ; Chafe ; Dryer ; and Shimojo . 47 The f-structures (c), (d), and (e) in which the object is the topic were assigned the following f-structures in Erteschik-Shir :
(i) Q: Who washed the dishes? A: topi [Johnfoc washed themi]
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() Q: What happened to the dishes? A: [John washed]foc themtop (d) and () are in fact notational variants. In the former, the topic is included within the focus, in the latter it is not. Yet a topic embedded within a focus will still behave like a topic and therefore its inclusion in the focus makes no interpretative difference. The reason to prefer (d) to () is that in the latter, the focus, the subject + the verb, does not form a syntactic constituent. By choosing the notation in (d) , we can maintain the assumption that the foci and overt topics must be associated with syntactic constituents. Doing so requires a slight modification of the stress rule since it does not apply to topics embedded in this way within the focus. This leaves (e) which has two topics. Each topic must have a focus associated with it. (For convenience, I refer to each such top-foc pair as an “f-structure.”) It follows that this sentence has two f-structures superimposed on each other: one of them is (a) (marked in bold) and the other is (d). I assume that one of these takes precedence, and this is the one for which the truth value is calculated. I also assume that the f-structure that takes precedence is the unmarked one. These assumptions are intuitively plausible, but nothing hangs on them. The distinction between “main” f-structures and “subordinate” ones does play a role in other cases, as we shall see below. 2.3.3 Contrastive and restrictive topics and foci Contrast is contextually constrained to occur only if a contrast set is available. This is the case both when the focus is contrasted as in () (= () ) and when the topic is contrasted as in (). () Q: Which laundry did John wash, the white, or the colored? A: He washed the WHITE laundry. () B: Tell me about your brothers John and Bill. A: JOHN is the smart one. (ii) Q: A: (iii) Q: A:
What happened to the dishes? [John washed themtop]foc What did John do with the dishes? topi[hetop [washed themi]foc]foc
These are in fact a notational variant of the ones in (). The focus structure of sentences with object topics under this annotation is then isomorphic to structures with topicalization. The initial implicit topic forms a chain which is pronounced at its tail. The premiss behind this notation is that any departure from topic-focus order requires that the topic must be identified elsewhere. This is what the chain notation indicates.
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In both responses, one member of the contrast set provided in the context is selected and in both answers, this element is stressed.48 In () the contrastive element answers a wh-question and is therefore a contrastive focus. In (), the contrastive element is diagnosed as a topic by the topic test. Even though the subject in () could also answer a contrastive wh-question (Who is the smart one, John or Bill), it must be analyzed as a contrastive topic, rather than a contrastive focus, because it is the subject of an intransitive individual-level predicate and as such must be a topic as shown in section .. The theory of f-structure outlined in the previous section provides an explanation for the fact that contrastive elements can function as both topics and foci: The contextually available set in (), {John, Bill}, provides a topic, and the element selected from this set provides a focus. This is shown in (). ()
{Johnfoc, Bill}top
The contrastive element has a subordinate f-structure which includes both a topic and a focus. This is why contrastive elements can function both as topics and as foci. The full f-structure of () is shown in (). ()
[{Johnfoc, Bill}top]top [is the smart one]foc
The stress rule applies to the subordinate focus explaining the stressed topic. The contrastive interpretation results from selecting one element and eliminating the other from consideration. This subordinate topic, “Bill,” can be dropped or pronounced: ()
John, not Bill, is the smart one.
A further focus type with distinct properties is what I refer to as a restrictive focus. Restrictive foci, like contrastive ones, require a contextspecified set: ()
Q: Which one of his friends wants to meet John? B: JANET wants to meet John.
Here the focus, “Janet,” is selected from the contextually specified or restrictive set of John’s friends, which provides a hypertheme in the terminology used above in section .. (It is d(iscourse)-linked in Pesetsky’s () 48 Contrastive foci are distinct from plain foci in that they are not constrained to syntactic constituents. In (i), for example, the contrastive focus is on the prefex “un-”.
(i)
He didn’t TIE his shoes, he UNtied them.
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terms.) Restrictive foci differ from contrastive ones in that the context set need not be as clearly defined and therefore the complement of the selected element is not eliminated. “Janet” in this case is not contrasted with any other particular individual belonging to the set of John’s friends. Here again, the set of John’s friends provides the topic of a (subordinate) focus structure in which “Janet” is the focus. Restrictive elements are like contrastive ones in that they combine topic properties (they range over a contextually specified set) and focus properties (one element of this set is focused). This is why they too can function both as topics and as foci. Restrictive foci have a different distribution from non-restrictive ones. One example is the fact that multiple wh-questions necessarily range over restrictive sets: () Q: Who read what? A: John read The Times, Peter read the New Yorker, and Susan read The Economist. The question in () is licensed in a context in which the set of “readers” (John, Peter, and Susan) are under discussion. The set of papers (The Times, the New Yorker, The Economist) may or may not be contextually available. In Chapter , this observation will be shown to be partially responsible for superiority effects. Contrastive topics and foci are similar to restrictive ones, but they differ in one property. Whereas the elements of restrictive sets need not be specified overtly and can be derived from world knowledge, contrasted elements must be clearly defined. This is because contrast divides the topic set into two subsets; one such subset is selected, the other is eliminated. To see this compare () and (). The interpretation of () involves not only John being smart, but also the assertion that Bill is not smart. Bill is thus eliminated as a possible topic of the predicate. In (), however, the selection of Janet as the one who wants to meet John doesn’t necessarily mean that none of the other friends wants to meet him. The difference does not show up in the f-structure of the sentence; it is derived from the manner in which the topic set is discoursally defined. The approach outlined here affords an explanation for why contrastive and restrictive elements can function as both topics and foci. There is therefore no need for more than one notion of topic and one notion of focus. It is the interaction of topic and focus and the possibility of imposing one f-structure on the other that derive the various topic and focus readings. The particular f-structure assigned to contrastive and restrictive elements is associated with a particular interpretation as outlined above. In addition, it is not surprising that these elements are associated with particular stress
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patterns: in view of their focal component, they are stressed, whether they function as topics or foci in the main f-structure, and in view of their topic component, further tonal elements can be added, generating the characteristic tunes associated with contrast and restriction. Büring gives the following parallel examples in English and German respectively: () A: Did your wife kiss other men? B: [My]T wife [didn’t]F kiss other men. () A: Hat deine Frau fremde Männer geküßt? B: [Meine]T Frau hat [keine]F fremden Männer geküßt. According to Büring, when (German) topics are pronounced with a rising pitch contour, then other alternatives to the one indicated by the topic are considered to be relevant. This is the case even if the alternatives have not been introduced in the context. () is another illustration from Erteschik-Shir : (adapted from the analysis in Pierrehumbert and Hirschberg of Jackendoff’s classical example). The intonation is marked using the notation introduced in Pierrehumbert : H and L stand for high and low tones respectively, * stands for pitch accent, and % stands for boundary tone. The combination L+H is the notation for the “fall-rise” tune observed on the restrictive element here. () Q: What about the beans? Who ate them? A: Fredfoc ate [{[the beans]foc; [other foods]}top]top H* L L+H* L H% According to Pierrehumbert and Hirschberg a set of salient foods including the beans is evoked by the question. “The beans” is therefore assigned a restrictive f-structure in the answer: The set consisting of the beans and the other foods under discussion provides the subordinate topic, and “the beans” provides the subordinate focus. This constituent, in turn, provides the main topic of the utterance with “Fred” as its focus. The pitch accent on the high tone is assigned by the focus stress rule, the L tone preceding it is assigned due to the availability of the subordinate topic set.49 2.3.4 Indefinite topics As mentioned in section ., contrastive and partitive indefinites can be topics. The examples in () are repeated from (). (a) is contrastive and (b) is restrictive. 49 For more details of the correspondence between f-structure and intonation see Erteschik-Shir : chapter ; Erteschik-Shir and Lappin b; Erteschik-Shir .
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() a A DOG is intelligent, a CAT is not. b Two/some of the students are intelligent. In both cases, the indefinite foci are selected from discoursally available sets allowing the constituents to function as topics (as well as foci) as discussed in the previous section. Specific indefinites are another type of indefinite which is licensed as a topic. We have already given two pieces of evidence for this. Specific indefinites topicalize in Danish (section .) and they occur as subjects of intransitive individual-level predicates (section .). An indefinite cannot be associated with a card in the file, since it represents a new entity, and cards represent entities already introduced in the discourse. If there is no card associated with an indefinite, there cannot be a card on top of the file for it, and hence, from what we have said so far, indefinites cannot be interpreted as topics. The fact that specific indefinites can be interpreted as topics therefore requires an explanation. The explanation must have to do with specificity, since non-specific indefinites are not possible topics. Whereas an indefinite is new to both speaker and hearer, a specific indefinite is new only to the hearer. Specific indefinites contain a modifier which minimally indicates that the speaker has a particular referent in mind. Examples are given in (). () a A person I know is famous b A friend of mine is famous. c A certain student loves linguistics. The subject of (a) which functions as the topic of the sentence has a subordinate f-structure of its own: () A personfoc [Itop know_] In this f-structure the indefinite is in fact the focus (and is therefore stressed), and the topic is found within the relative clause (the st person subject which is permanently available on top of the stack). The fstructure of this constituent is therefore equivalent to the f-structure of the simple sentence in (). ()
Itop know [a person]foc
These f-structures require the positioning of a new card on top of the stack with the label person and the entry “I know_”. The entry indicates that the speaker knows the person in question or more generally that the speaker has this person in mind. If this f-structure is processed
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before the f-structure of the complete sentence in (a), then a card for the specific indefinite will in fact be available on top of the stack, by the time the sentence is processed. This does not mean that an ordering on the processing of f-structures has to be imposed in this system. If the opposite order is applied, the sentence will fail to get evaluated, since in this case no card for the topic will be available on top of the stack. The requirement that a new card is made out for an indefinite focus enables a new card to be positioned on top of the stack for a specific indefinite. The referent of this card can then play the role of topic of the sentence as a whole. The other two examples receive similar analyses. The adjective “certain” is interpreted as meaning that the speaker has someone in mind. It is this interpretation of the adjective which enables the opening of a new card for the student. It is the fact that the f-structure system allows for subordinate f-structures which in turn trigger the introduction of new cards that allows a simple explanation for the licensing of specific indefinites as topics. Subordinate f-structures of this type are not restricted to indefinites and also explain stress on complex definite topics such as (a) discussed in section . above and repeated in (a) and (b). () a (Any news of John?) b [NP Our poor chîld] [VP is in bed with a ’flú] c Ourtop [poor child]foc (c) is the subordinate f-structure of the subject topic. The st person subordinate topic “our” belongs to the set of permanently available cards and the subordinate focus on “poor child” explains the stress on this constituent. 2.3.5 Some answers We are now ready to tackle the syntax–IS relationship challenged by Steedman a. Remember that Steedman’s syntactic structures are based on intonational phrasing and involve constituents such as subject+verb. These structures are repeated in (). () a
b
MarCEL proved completeness MARcel proved completeness
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Instead of positing such unorthodox syntactic structures, I propose a mapping of f-structure onto intonational phrases.50 Since foci are anchored to syntactic constituents, but not to all syntactic constituents, only partial isomorphism is predicted between syntax and prosody. The intonational phrasing in (a) is consistent with an f-structure assignment in which the subject is the topic and the VP is focused. Since the VP is an f-structure constituent, it must be pronounced as an intonational phrase. (b), with the intonational phrasing indicated (i.e., “Marcel proved” forms an intonational phrase), can be an answer to: I know which result Marcel predicted. But which result did Marcel prove? This phrasing is also derivable from f-structure of the sentence. The fstructure annotated tree structure is presented in (). ()
vp Marcel[top] proved[top]/[foc] completeness[foc]
In order for the interpretation to follow, the verb must be contrasted. This is accomplished by assigning both top and foc to it. (In fact, the topic set is {predicted/proved} with the latter focused.) My claim is that intonational boundaries are derived from f-structure boundaries and that the contrastive f-structure boundary between the verb and its focused object forces an intonational boundary in that position. In order to account for the full mapping of f-structure to intonational phrases an investigation of which f-structure boundaries are phonologically visible must be pursued. My point here is merely that such an investigation should be made before positing special syntactic structures for this purpose. We started out by showing the need to distinguish shift topics from continued topics, since these provided Links in Catalan. Shift topics include contrastive and restrictive topics and these are easy to characterize in view of their distinct f-structure. But how do we distinguish continued topics from cases of focus chaining? Continued topics involve repeated selection of the same card from the top of the file, and focus chaining involves the selection of the most recently added card to the top of the file. In order to distinguish these, a special status must be assigned to the card most recently added to the top of the file. One would hope 50 Here the distinction between intonational and intermediate phrases may become relevant.
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that this kind of bookkeeping should not be necessary to explain natural language phenomena. A more careful examination of exactly what the class of shift topics encompasses within and across languages is needed before any such move is made. So far IS has been treated as though it stands apart from the rest of the grammar. The next section attempts to tackle the question as to which architecture best accommodates IS. 2.4 IS architecture It is now clear that topic and focus play a pervasive role in grammar and interact with phonology (intonation), morphology (top/foc markers), syntax (linear order), and interpretation (quantifier scope). These notions are also critical in information structure in that they constrain the possible sequence of sentences in discourse. In spite of the many roles played by topic and focus there is little agreement as to how and where they are introduced in the grammar. The architectures of multilevel models of grammar (e.g., HPSG, LFG, CCG, RRG) allow for IS to be integrated as a level on a par with argument structure, semantics, etc. and therefore naturally incorporate IS. The architectures of grammar posited in the Principles and Parameters model (Chomsky ) and developed into the model of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky ; ; ), however, pose two obvious problems with integrating IS. In this model, syntactic computation interfaces with both the phonological component (PF) and the semantic component (LF), yet there is no interface between PF and LF as shown in (). ()
Lexicon
(spell-out)
PF
LF
As we have seen, IS has both phonological and interpretative repercussions. It follows that IS features must be available to both PF and LF and must therefore be present already in the syntax. Here is where the second problem comes in. As has often been pointed out (e.g., Zubizaretta : ), if topic and focus features are not introduced lexically, they violate the condition of inclusiveness, since they will have to be added in the derivation:
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()
Inclusiveness Any structure formed by the computation…is constituted of elements already present in the lexical items selected for the numeration; no new objects are added in the course of computation apart from rearrangements of lexical properties. (Chomsky : )
One way of getting around this is to derive focus from stress which, in turn, is assigned to syntactic configurations. This approach was discussed in section . and was found lacking. In addition to the problems mentioned there, this approach does not offer an account of topic assignment and therefore also no account of the interaction between topic and focus. Another approach which also does not violate inclusiveness is Diesing’s () in which topic and focus are derived from the syntactic structure (see section .). Diesing’s approach, however, is geared to explain certain word order alternations, but does not afford an explanation of the relationship between focus and stress. Another problem which comes up in this connection is the optionality of movement triggered by IS features. In the Minimalist Program (MP) movement is triggered by obligatory feature checking, and optional movement is therefore excluded. A number of different approaches to these issues are available, each involving a different view of the theory of grammar. Chomsky addresses these issues to some extent in his analysis of Scandinavian object shift. According to Holmberg , Scandinavian object shift moves topical objects across preceding adverbs. Holmberg further proposes an adjacency requirement on this rule (see the next section). It follows that object shift has both interpretative (the shifted object is a topic) and phonological properties (adjacency). In view of the split between LF and PF (see () ), such a combination of properties is problematic. Chomsky proposes the following account. First, he introduces the economy principle, that “surface semantic effects are restricted to narrow syntax.” Chomsky further claims that whereas certain displacement rules do not involve surface semantic effects, and can therefore be assumed to be phonological, object shift is driven by the semantic interpretation of the shifted object (it is a topic) and must, at least partially, fall within narrow syntax. But in view of the adjacency requirement, it must also be phonological. Chomsky explains object shift and the distinction between languages in which object shift occurs and those in which it does not by positing the interpretative features INT and INT′ assigned according to () and (), where only object shift languages observe ():
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() The EPP position of v*P is assigned INT. (Universal)51 () At the phonological border of v*P, XP is assigned INT′. (Object shift languages) Although Chomsky does not admit to this, INT and INT′ equal topic and focus respectively. () is therefore equivalent to the idea that predicates must have a topic. This according to Chomsky is a universal principle. (), however, is a property only of languages that have object shift. It states that the focus occurs at the edge of the VP. An unshifted object will therefore be interpreted as a focus and not as a topic as required. Chomsky’s INT and INT′ features do not play a role in narrow syntax, but are interpreted at the interfaces. Their assignment according to the rules in () and () does therefore not violate the inclusiveness principle. Rule optionality is regulated according to (). () Optional operations can apply only if they have an effect on outcome. Since object shift does have an effect on outcome, its optionality is licensed. One problem with this approach is that it is not embedded in a general theory of topic and focus, and it is, for example, unclear how foci which are not at the VP edge are assigned. These issues could potentially be worked out. Yet, as far as I can see, there is no way to connect the assignment of the INT features at the C-I (conceptual–intentional) interface to their intonational properties at the A-P (articulatory–perceptual) interface. 2.4.1 Stylistic components52 Holmberg argues for a stylistic component, containing rules dependent on focus structure. According to Holmberg, Scandinavian object shift involves the movement of [−Foc] objects. Such movement is licensed when all phonologically visible non-adjunct material has been removed from between the launching site and the landing site of the movement, regardless of how it is removed. This type of constraint on object shift excludes a syntactic analysis according to Holmberg and points to a phonological one. Holmberg : , however, rejects the idea that OS is a phonological operation, “since it does not make reference 51 52
See Chomsky for the properties of v*P. These are not relevant for our purposes. The idea that certain word order phenomena are stylistic stems from Ross .
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to phonological primitives such as vowels, feet, nasality, etc. Nor is it a morphological process, since it does not make reference to primitives such as stems or affixes etc.” Holmberg’s view of phonology is rather strict and could be loosened to include movement which is restricted by clearly phonological parameters such as adjacency. Adding an extra component to the grammar as Holmberg proposes has to be weighed against modifying the domain of phonology in this way. This is exactly the tack taken by Kidwai . She gets around the Inclusiveness Condition by arguing for an architecture in which the focus feature is PF Interpretable and generated by UG. This type of feature can be checked only in the phonological component, which interfaces with a discourse component. Kidwai’s view is supported by the fact that word order triggered by focus structure is constrained by a variety of adjacency requirements. Such requirements are taken to be characteristic of phonology rather than syntax. Her architecture does not include topic features and does not allow for the derivation of scope from f-structure since the discourse component does not feed LF. Kidwai revises this architecture and posits that PF derivational outputs interface with both the C-I and the A-P systems. In principle this could enable interpretation of IS; however, Kidwai’s revised system does not allow for LF access to the discourse component. 2.4.2 S-structure Zubizaretta notes that subject foci in Germanic and French trigger destressing of the non-focused constituents whereas the same focus assignment in Spanish and Italian triggers the movement of the nonfocused elements, leaving the focused subject in sentence-final position. Compare the English and Spanish examples in () and () from Zubizaretta : –, both answers to “Who ate an apple?” ()
Jóhn ate an apple.
()
Comió una manzana Juan.
In order to account for such data, Zubizaretta weakens the inclusiveness principle to allow for the features [F] (=focus) and [prosodic prominence] to be introduced in the derivation at the point where a single phrase marker has been derived. She refers to this point as Σ-structure. The computation continues and the the NSR (Nuclear Stress Rule, see section .) and the Focus Prominence Rule (FPR) apply here. (The FPR assigns more prominence to a sister node which is
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marked [+F] than to one marked [−F].) If these two rules have contradictory outputs one of two things may happen: In certain languages (Germanic and French) defocalized ([−F] marked) constituents become invisible with respect to the NSR (as in () ); in other languages (Spanish and Italian) these constituents undergo movement (as in () ). Zubizaretta refers to this kind of movement as prosodically motivated movement or p-movement. P-movement is therefore a way of moving non-focused material out of a focus position, along very similar lines to Chomsky’s (: ). At this point (λ-structure) the derivation branches to PF and Assertion Structure. F-structures are associated with one or more Assertion Structures and these Assertion Structures are in turn associated with explicit or implicit context questions. Zubizaretta further identifies λ-structure with LF, since p-movement has an impact on LF. Zubizaretta’s model is diagrammed in () (Zubizaretta : ). ()
(sets of phrase markers, feature checking) Σ-structure (F-marking, stress rules, p-movement) Λ-structure = LF PF
Assertion Structure
There are a number of aspects of this model that one might want to question, the most critical is the need for a post-syntactic, pre-phonological set of rules (the stretch between Σ-structure and Λ-structure). These rules do not belong in the syntax, since they do not adhere to syntactic constraints. They also do not belong in the phonology since they are formulated in terms of hierarchical structure. This is why Zubizaretta invents a special place in the grammar for them. This might be justified if Zubizaretta had singled out a set of rules which had something in common. This cannot be said for such diverse rules as focus assignment, stress assignment, and p-movement, each with its own properties and constraints. Although Zubizaretta accounts for a broad range of crosslinguistic phenomena, adding such a new component is a high price to pay to accomplish this.53 An additional peculiarity of Zubizaretta’s Bailyn invokes prosodically motivated movement in “functional form” which is equivalent to Zubizaretta’s Assertion Structure. Such movement is invoked in contradictory situations in which Assertion Structure (i.e., context) requires a certain word order and 53
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architecture is that LF provides the input to the phonology. This is a side effect of having F-marking affect LF as required. Yet the purpose of the split between PF and LF is that the output of LF movement is not pronounced. Not enough detail is given about Assertion Structure to evaluate its function and position in the architecture. Winkler and Göbbel in their extensive review of Zubizaretta make another important point: Zubizaretta’s account of topicalization assumes a syntactic topic feature. In addition F-marking in the post-syntactic component marks topics as [−F]. This duplication of features seems redundant. Winkler and Göbbel consider how Zubizaretta would handle syntactic focus movement in languages which move foci to the left periphery. Since the focus feature is only introduced at Σ-structure, it is not available in the syntax. An additional syntactic focus feature is therefore required in these cases, causing even more duplication in the system. 2.4.3 IS at PF Neeleman and Reinhart set out to explain why topics must scramble in Dutch.54 (a) illustrates the normal OV order in Dutch. (b) illustrates scrambling in which the object precedes an adverb. () a b
dat Jan gisteren het boek that Jan yesterday the book dat Jan het boek gisteren gelezen heeft
gelezen heeft read has
They adopt Cinque ’s procedure which derives the most prominent stress on the most deeply embedded constituent. It follows that both in languages with basic VO order and in languages with basic OV (e.g., Dutch), the main stress will fall on the object. In scrambled structures (restricted to OV languages) the main stress will fall on the verb. According to Neeleman and Reinhart, potential focus assignments constitute a “focus set” which consists of the constituents containing the main stress of the IP. The object is included in the focus set in the unscrambled structure, but not in the scrambled structure. () and () show the focus sets for the two structures.
neutral intonation is used. He notes that infelicitous order is not ungrammatical and sees this as evidence that such sentences are not the result of syntactic feature-checking crash. According to Bailyn, languages differ as to which mechanisms are available for dealing with such contradictions. 54
For a general discussion of scrambling see Chapter , section .
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() Non-scrambled Structure a Syntax: [V′ AdvP [V′ DP V] ] b c
Focus set: Object:
{IP, VP, Object} Stressed
() Scrambled Structure a Syntax: [V′ DP [V′ AdvP V] ] b c
Focus set: Object:
{IP, VP, V} Destressed
Yet although it is included in the focus set, the object in the unscrambled structure can be a topic. It must therefore be destressed. This is accomplished by destressing, one of two stress-shifting operations posited by Neeleman and Reinhart: () a b
stress strengthening: economy entails that stress strengthening applies only to derive foci not in the focus set. anaphoric destressing: applies to a constituent iff it is d-linked to an accessible discourse entity.
Stress-shifting operations are “marked” and only apply when necessary for discourse reasons. Reinhart argues that optional operations, like stress shift at the PF branch, or QR at the LF branch, are always economy violations.55 If using an uneconomical operation is the only way to satisfy a certain interface need, the derivation results in a grammatical sentence. Yet although it is included in the focus set, the object in the unscrambled structure can be a topic. It must therefore be destressed by (b), which is an uneconomical operation. Since an alternative structure is available in Dutch in which the object has scrambled and is therefore not included in the focus set, uneconomical destressing is ruled out. Marking the object as a topic is therefore for free. It follows that topics must shift in Dutch. In English, however, scrambling is not available. Therefore, when the verb needs to be the sole focus, English must use the stress-shifting operation in order to strengthen the verb: () a I have read the book yesterday, and did not tear it up b # I have read the book yesterday, and did not tear it up. The reasoning behind Neeleman and Reinhart’s approach can be viewed in two different ways: 55
See () for Chomsky’s version of this constraint.
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() a b
Under a movement analysis: move in order to avoid destressing. Under non-movement analysis: destress in order to avoid movement.
In view of the minimalist exclusion of optional movement, Neeleman and Reinhart opt for the second analysis and allow the base generation of both the scrambled and the unscrambled word orders, thus accounting for the optionality of scrambling in Dutch. Since both orders are base generated, neither order is more costly than the other. Choosing the order that avoids destressing, a costly PF operation, is the economical thing to do. Only in languages in which no other order is available can discourse-motivated destressing apply. Their approach is thus the opposite of Zubizaretta’s, discussed in the previous section, which proposes the equivalent of (a). Zubizaretta avoids the optionality problem: On the one hand, p-movement is, in fact, obligatory, and on the other, p-movement is not syntactic and hence is not required to be obligatory. Neeleman and Reinhart’s explanation of Dutch scrambling is similar to Chomsky’s account of object shift, yet the latter is too sketchy to enable serious comparison. Their approach also does not violate inclusiveness, since the focus set is derived from stress assignment which, following Cinque’s procedure, can be read off the syntactic tree. Van Gelderen : criticizes Neeleman and Reinhart for the lookahead problem with their approach: Since IS effects are essentially PF effects, yet the choice between which structure to merge is in the syntax, syntax has to look ahead to PF. In order to overcome this problem van Gelderen suggests late adjunction (maybe even at PF) of adverbs following Lebeaux . This raises a new problem since adverb order may determine scope and therefore affects LF. Van Gelderen concludes that MP architecture must be relaxed to allow syntax to be sensitive to both PF and LF, a somewhat radical modification of MP theory. According to van Gelderen , information structure is part of the PF Interface and is free to linearly order the various constituents as it sees fit. PF imposes order on partial structures delivered to it by early spell-out. Yet only languages with certain particular case systems allow early spell-out. The free word order resulting from PF ordering is therefore restricted to such languages.56 56
Details of Van Gelderen’s account of scrambling will be given in Chapter , section .
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2.4.4 Functional features One way is to introduce information structure notions (topic, focus) into the syntax as functional features which project syntactic structure and trigger movement (e.g., Horvath ; Rizzi ). In MP, triggers for word order phenomena are morphosyntactic in nature. In the presence of an active feature, movement must occur, and in its absence it cannot occur. Optional movement, in MP, cannot be syntactically motivated. Since IS-motivated movement is optional, Rizzi allows for the optional projection of topic and focus phrases which, once they are projected, necessarily trigger movement. The topic and focus features will survive to the C-I interface in view of the fact that they are interpretable, yet for the same reason they won’t be visible at PF. Intonation, in this framework, therefore remains unaccounted for. There is also no account of the fact that topics and foci may remain in situ. The only way Rizzi can account for this option is by not assigning them topic and focus features. But in that case they will fail to be interpreted as topics or foci as well. (Rizzi’s proposal is discussed in detail in Chapter .) 2.4.5 Lexical features Erteschik-Shir assumes annotation of f-structure on the output of syntax. F-structures provide the input to PF where stress is assigned and also to interpretation. Since scope is calculated directly from f-structure, LF is rendered superfluous. A serious problem with this view is that it violates the principle of Inclusiveness. In order to overcome this problem, I argue in Erteschik-Shir a that top and foc features are introduced as a part of lexical selection where each selection of a lexical item licenses an optional assignment of a top or foc feature.57 Rather than assuming that top and foc are heads that project their own phrases (as in, e.g., Rizzi ), I view top/foc as features which are optionally assigned to lexical items. By analogy with φ-features, they may percolate to the maximal projection of the lexical item they are assigned to.58 57 Breul : contends that topic and focus features cannot be lexical due to the fact that constituents are formed in the derivation which do not exist at initial merge. Breul’s point is well taken and the theory of lexical insertion of these features goes hand in hand with a theory of syntax which does not allow for the composition of new constituents in the derivation. Breul himself assumes that the choice of which phrase is topic or focus is made in the conceptual-intentional system of the speaker’s mind. He also posits a [∀ foc]-feature which projects the FocP. This feature is assigned to the finite root verb. 58 I assume the possibility of percolation from N to its extended projection, DP. Similarly, percolation is possible from I to CP allowing foc assignment to a full sentence.
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(b) illustrates the set of assignments appropriate to the discourse in (a): the subject is assigned top and the object is assigned foc. These features percolate to the DP with no further percolation possible. (c) is the merged (rough) tree structure, what I refer to as the f-structure of the sentence. (This structure and the ones below are grossly simplified. Most functional projections, including IP and CP, are ignored for presentational purposes.) () a b
c
Q: What did John wash? A: He washed the dishes.. select “dishes”→ assign [foc] select “the” → no assignment select “wash” → no assignment select “he” → assign [top] vp he[top] wash
dp
the dishes[foc] The f-structures derived in this fashion are interpreted according to assumptions outlined in section . In view of the fact that the question identifies “John” as the topic and forces focus assignment on “dishes,” the answer to the wh-question, the f-structure in (c) is indeed the only appropriate one in the context of this question. (For sample derivations of a variety of f-structure in this manner see Erteschik-Shir a.) In this example neither top nor foc projected. Feature projection is illustrated in () in which the object is assigned top. () a b
c
What happened to the dishes? John washed them. select “them” → assign [top] select “washed” → assign [foc] select “John” → no assignment vp[foc]
John washed[foc] them[top] This example is symmetric to the previous one: in both cases the topic is embedded in the focus domain, yet in the former case if the topic is
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removed, the remaining focus is a constituent, in the latter it is not. Since the focus rule applies vacuously to the topics contained in it, the effect is that what is interpreted as a focus in the latter case is not a constituent. It follows that even though a syntactic assignment of focus to a non-constituent is impossible we in fact derive a focus interpretation of a nonconstituent with a purely syntactic assignment procedure. F-structure assignments can also result in a subordinate f-structure. () shows how foc embedded in top is interpreted contrastively. In this case, top is contextually construed as a set of two alternatives and foc on one of these alternatives eliminates the other. () a b
c
Q: What did John wash, the pots or the pans? A: He washed the pots (not the pans). select “pots” → assign [foc] select “the” → assign [top] select “washed” → no assignment select “he” → assign [top] vp he[top] washed dp[top]/[foc]
the[top] pots[foc] The contrastive interpretation depends on the contextual availability of a contrast set, i.e., a set introduced overtly or implicitly (here, {the pots; the pans}). The card for this set (positioned on top of the file) consists of a conjunction of two individual cards. The assignment of top to the DP must therefore be interpreted as a reference to the topic set as a whole. The assignment of foc to “pots” and its percolation to DP make the same syntactic constituent a focus as well. The focus rule applies to one member of the conjunctive set and positions it, by itself, on top of the file. Update enters the rest of the sentence on the card, and the correct interpretation is derived, selecting “the pots” and not “the pans” as the answer to the question. The architecture which follows from these assumptions is shown in ():59 59 See Erteschik-Shir and Rapoport a; ; in preparation, for a theory in which θ-assignment and structural/lexical case can be read off structure merged and projected by verbal meaning components.
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() Initial merge (incl. top/foc) θ-assignments dislocation
Interpret ↓ PF computation
morphology phonology The output of narrow syntax is delivered to the C-I interface, which depends on the configuration of initial merge and f-structure. At the A-P interface, structures are linearized and may no longer be transparent to interpretation. “Interpret” thus applies to the merged structure, a view reminiscent of the Aspects model of deep structure. This is possible since LF functions are taken over by f-structure. In view of the fact that topicalization is optional, I propose that it is to be analyzed as part of the phonological linearization process. Other optional dislocation processes should probably also be analyzed in this way. This is particularly appropriate in cases such as this one in which dislocation is to the edge of a prosodic domain. Dislocation is therefore a property of PF computation. (For some evidence for these ideas see Erteschik-Shir b; a; a.) Once PF dislocation is licensed, the question arises whether all dislocation is phonological or whether syntactic dislocation still applies. A model which allows only one kind of dislocation is obviously preferable, yet removing dislocation from the domain of syntax is a drastic measure for which much more evidence must be found. A comparison between this approach and the one involving top/foc annotations of syntactic structures reveals that the two approaches derive exactly the same f-structure. It follows that they are notational variants, the only difference being that lexical insertion does not violate inclusiveness. In order to decide which approach is preferable, one would have to reach a better understanding of the theoretical significance of the principle of inclusiveness at least as it pertains to topic and focus features. We return to the special status of topic and focus in the conclusion to this book. 2.4.6 Multiply-dimensional architectures What the theories in this section have in common is that syntax, phonological, and semantic information is encoded in parallel. Therefore,
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in contradistinction to generative grammars, IS is easily integrated into these theories in parallel to the other components. Frameworks which have such parallel architectures to a greater or lesser extent include Head Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) (e.g., Sag and Pollard ), Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) (e.g., Bresnan ), Dynamic Syntax (e.g., Kempson, Meyer-Viol, and Gabbay ), Jackendoff’s Parallel Grammar, Construction Grammar (e.g., Croft ; Goldberg ), Representation Theory (Williams ), and Role and Reference Grammar (e.g., Van Valin and LaPolla ).60 The contributions of these frameworks to IS vary. Here only a few examples of these architectures and their contribution to IS research are offered. In HPSG, according to Engdahl : -, “the building blocks of the theory are multidimensional signs, containing information about phonology, syntax, semantics (or content) as well as about the context in which the sign is used.” According to Engdahl, the HPSG architecture allows an account of the focus–prosody connection without recourse to a syntactic feature as required in MP and its precursors, where phonology and LF are necessarily mediated by syntax. In HPSG this connection can be expressed directly in the sign by a constraint which says that any constituent which “contains a focus accent, must be interpreted as providing focal information and vice versa.” The inclusion of the context dimension also means that there is a natural way of incorporating IS into the grammar. In RRG, syntactic knowledge is stored in the form of constructional templates. The templates give the morphosyntactic, semantic, and pragmatic properties specific to a given type of construction. The templates thus provide a way for syntactic constructions to be linked to focus structure. This framework thus allows formally for an interaction between syntax and IS. According to Van Valin : , there are two different cases for the assignment of focus structure to sentence types, specialized templates and unspecialized ones. The former account for cases in which a particular focus structure is associated with a sentence type. In such cases, the focus structure is stored with a particular template. Van Valin gives two examples: (a) illustrates a wh-question which, according to Van Valin, always has narrow focus on the wh-phrase in the initial (precore) slot. (The dotted lines indicate the potential focus 60 RRG integrates Lambrecht’s theory of focus structure in, e.g., Lambrecht . Lambrecht’s work touches on many of the topics in this book and is discussed where relevant. See in particular, Chapter .
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domain and the triangle the actual focus domain.) (b) is the specialized template for locative inversions (e.g., Into the room ran a mouse) which are assumed to have sentence focus. () a
SENTENCE | CLAUSE | CORE
PrCS | XP [+WH]
SPEECH ACT
b
SENTENCE | CLAUSE | CORE PP
NUC | PRED | V |
NP
SPEECH ACT
Neither focus structure assignment is uncontroversial: Erteschik-Shir argues that wh-phrases (except in echo questions and multiple whquestions) are not foci, and the preposed locative in locative inversions may best be analyzed as a stage topic, excluding it from the focus domain of the sentence.61 This is, however, besides the point. What is theoretically interesting is the option of having specialized templates to account for structures which are by definition associated with a particular focus structure. (Here RRG bears some similarity to Cognitive Grammar.) RRG also allows 61 This may indeed be Van Valin’s intention. He states that locative inversion structures “are always sentence focus,” yet the template indicates that the actual focus excludes the PP.
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for unspecialized templates for simple transitive sentences which can be associated with a number of different focus structures depending on context. For these some mechanism must be devised to ensure that the correct selection of focus structure is made with respect to a particular context. For this purpose Van Valin incorporates von Heusinger’s DRT theory of the interpretation of intonation introduced in Section . above. LFG models syntax as linked parallel structures (c(onstituent)-structure, f(unctional)-structure (subject–object functions), and a(rgument)structure). In addition multiple instances of top, foc, and adjunct are allowed. “top and foc indirectly map to the argument structure by being identified with, or anaphorically linked to, another syntactic function” (Bresnan : ). LFG thus allows for a mapping of these functions as well. According to Payne (: fn ) “in LFG, order does not ‘fall out from’ assumptions about configurational constituency. Rather, the very LFG architecture opens the door to the possibility of mapping relationships between order and (grammaticized) cognitive or discourse statuses, grammatical relations, argument structure, or constituency.” Even though LFG architecture easily accommodates topic-focus assignment, King points out that the approach fails when a head is assigned either topic or focus and the domain of the assignment projects to the “sub-f-structure” containing the head, yet the discourse function is in fact contained within the domain.62 One such case is when a verb is contrasted, yet the focus domain cannot be narrowed down to just the verb. King’s solution to the lack of overlap between f-structure constituency and the assignment of topic and focus functions is to posit a separate level of i(nformation)-structure. She thus reaches the same conclusion for LFG as others have reached in generative grammar (see sections ., . above). LFG has been enriched with Optimality Theory (OT). This enables violable alignment constraints, such that the propensity for a focus to be sentence final could be expressed by there being a constraint aligning the focus to the right. Since constraints are ranked, another constraint may take precedence, so that in fact, foci are not required to be placed at the right periphery in all cases.63 Chapter of King is an implementation of LFG to Russian word order. She proposes a basic phrase structure in which all nodes are potentially optional. These nodes are ordered by linear precedence rules. Annotations on the phrase structure determine the grammatical and discourse functions of the constituents. These annotations may employ functional uncertainty so that a range of possible functions is licensed. 63 See Broadwell for an example of how this is done and de Hoop ; and Choi for the application of optimality theoretical approach to the IS phenomena involved in scrambling. 62
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Williams : introduces Representation Theory (RT) which is also based on the idea that sentences consist of several structural levels or “sublanguages” in Williams’s terminology: Theta Structure, Case Structure (CS), Surface Structure (SS), Quantification Structure, and Focus Structure (FS). The syntax of a sentence, in this theory, is “a collection of structures from each of these sublanguages, and a set of shapeconserving mappings among them.” When two structures, each from a different sublanguage, are isomorphic, shape-conserving mappings apply and one such structure is said to “represent” the other. A simple example to illustrate this theory is Williams’s (: ) account of the difference between English and Spanish with respect to the position of the focus. In English, the focus need not appear sentence finally; in Spanish it does. This means that English allows FS to be misrepresented by SS in order to maintain an accurate CS representation; in other words, shape conserving is maintained between SS and CS, but not between SS and FS: Case structure wins over focus structure when it comes to word order. In Spanish, the focus is restricted to sentence-final position and so shape conserving is maintained between SS and FS in this language. Williams : recognizes the similarity between the architectures of RT and LFG. According to Williams one of the main differences between the two is that the matching between levels is not an economy principle within LFG as it is in RT where the “exact isomorphism is the ‘goal’ of the relations that hold between successive levels.” Kempson, Cann, and Kiaer argue that the Dynamic Syntax framework (DS) can capture the construal of topic and focus without adding a special level of information structure to the grammar. In their framework the dynamics of the parsing process, which incrementally builds an interpretation as the sentence is processed, constitutes the grammar formalism and provides the necessary tools to explain topic and focus effects cross-linguistically. Importantly, all context-dependent aspects of interpretation are represented. Although intuitively simple, the formalism of the framework is too intricate to introduce here. Instead, I have selected one example from their work in order to informally demonstrate the power of the DS system. In view of the fact that sentences are processed from left to right, the DS system can easily predict differences in interpretation between elements on the left periphery and on the right: () As for John, he was sick ()
She talks too fast, Ruth Kempson.
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According to Kempson et al., “topic is a structure that provides an antecedent for later identification by some anaphoric device.” This explains the role of the initial topic element in () and the anaphoric pronoun which identifies it later in the sentence. In (), the rightperipheral element is also interpreted as topical, but it has the effect of a reminder. This follows from the order in which the topic and anaphoric pronoun are processed in the two constructions. When the pronoun comes first as in () it (being a pronoun) already has a contextually provided value, and the element on the right periphery has to agree with it. Such a reading is not available at the left periphery since the left-peripheral element itself provides the context for the value of the pronoun. The architecture of this framework, in which contextually sensitive syntactic tree building is accomplished though processing, is therefore potentially suitable to account for the IS–syntax interface, and the insights it provides follow from its architecture, in particular the fact that the grammar is built up incrementally.64 This section demonstrates that architectures can be more or less congenial to incorporating IS into the grammar. It is particularly problematic to incorporate it into generative grammar, yet exactly because of this difficulty, interesting research has been engendered. A problematic architecture is therefore in and of itself not a bad thing, although serious research into IS within MP may trigger serious revision of the architecture itself. The multidimensional architectures accommodate IS with ease and as a result tend to focus on IS and its interaction with other levels to a large extent, leading to much interesting IS research. An example is RRG, which incorporates the IS theory of Lambrecht , which could in principle be incorporated into one of the other theories. Yet the pairing of this theory with RRG has in fact triggered the development of both. The contrast between actual vs. potential focus domain is not found in Lambrecht’s work, for example, and the distinction has led to work on focus structure in different types of embedded clauses, discussed further in Chapter , section .. The incorporation of IS as an integrated level into RRG has also led to interesting cross-linguistic research. A basic claim in RRG theory is that IS plays a role in the grammar of all languages, but the particular role of IS in each language varies.65
64 65
See Wedgewood for an application of Dynamic Syntax to Hungarian word order. See Van Valin and LaPolla for discussion.
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2.5 Functionalism 2.5.1 Functionalism vs. formalism According to Newmeyer : , The functionalist literature is replete with discussions of the difficulties in defining and identifying such constructs as “topic”, “focus”, “theme”, and so on. …And formal syntacticians, on the relatively rare occasions when they choose to make reference to cognitive and discourse-based units, tend to look to the rich literature in formal semantics. Clearly, a major task ahead—and one in which formalists and functionalists can work jointly—is to arrive at even good descriptive generalizations about the nature of these units.
Newmeyer proposes that such units should be derived from “independently-motivated human cognitive attributes.” Yet he complains that “there is no theory of cognition in existence from which the properties, say of ‘discourse topics’ (whatever they may be) fall out as a special case.” Functionalism is a cover term for a number of linguistic approaches which seek to construct a pairing between form and function.66 Functionalists are, according to Newmeyer , empiricists and they therefore generally have an interest in data derived from actual language use. Since sentences are used in context, functionalists necessarily take into account contextual factors in the analysis of sentences. It follows that functionalists are necessarily concerned with the dynamics of discourse and the factors which govern it. It is therefore natural to look for work on the syntax–IS interface in the work of functional linguists. Unfortunately, much functionalist work is not easily accessible to formal syntacticians of the generative persuasion and vice versa. (The purpose of Darnell et al. is to mend this rift.) Newmeyer illustrates the problem in his discussion of Givón . According to Newmeyer, the purpose of Givón’s book is twofold: first to show that transformational generative grammar is useless and second to motivate an approach to syntax which is based on communicative function and discourse pragmatics. Givón thus belongs to the post-generative tradition which adheres to the belief that generative grammar has no place for function. Newmeyer points out that this is, in fact, a fallacy and quotes Chomsky : – as follows: Cognitive Grammar, Construction Grammar, and Role and Reference Grammar are considered to be functionalist by some although others find them too theoretical. References to these works can be found throughout this book. Here I list only a small sample. Construction Grammar: Croft ; Goldberg ; Cognitive Grammar: van Hoek ; Langacker ; ; ; Role and Reference Grammar: Van Valin ; b; ; Van Valin and LaPolla . Most functionalist work is independent of a particular model of grammar. Examples are Givón ; ; ; Gundel ; ; ; ; Kuno ; Kuno and Takami ; Lambrecht ; ; Prince a; b; ; . 66
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I have never suggested that “there is no interesting connection between the structure of language and its purpose, including communicative function,” nor have I arbitrarily assumed “that use and structure do not influence one another….” Surely there are significant connections between structure and function; this is not and never has been in doubt… Where it can be shown that structures serve a particular function, that is a valuable discovery.
There was, however, good reason for Givón’s belief at the time, since function was generally far from the concern of generative grammarians then. Even though functional notions such as topic and focus have been introduced into generative grammar and play an important role in syntax (e.g., Rizzi ), they have been introduced without much notice paid to their functional role in the discourse. Unfortunately, many linguists who did take function and discourse seriously took their anti-generativism to an extreme and also became anti-formal. As a result, they investigated function and discourse without much concern for structure, and so serious research into the interface between formal syntax and information structure has suffered from neglect from both research perspectives. According to Payne : , functionalism is “an approach which views language as a tool for communication, and in which both the communicative jobs to be accomplished vis-à-vis the hearer, and the general cognitive makeup and language processing constraints of the speaker/hearer, can affect the online production. Across time, these factors also affect the grammaticalization of linguistic forms.” Payne views the Chomskian approach to word order as incompatible with the functionalist approach, yet other formalist approaches such as LFG are potentially compatible with it. There is therefore no clear dividing line between functionalism and formalism as such. One of the characteristics of functionalism, according to Payne, is that functionalists are interested in understanding speakers’ motivations for the choices between propositionally equivalent but formally distinct structures, especially when there is a rule-governed relationship between a functional factor and the formal structure (e.g. motivations for choosing a passive over an active construction).67
Generative formalists, according to Payne, allow for discourse to play a role in explaining phenomena such as word order, yet they consider such explanation as external to grammar in opposition to her own view. Newmeyer : points out that linguists such as Ellen Prince (e.g., Prince ; Lambrecht ), who investigate form–function 67 Bolinger expresses this succinctly: “When we say two things that are different, we mean two different things by them.”
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interaction, also adhere to a modular view of syntax and argue that the form–function interface cannot be derived from extra-linguistic abilities. Architecture is therefore also not a clear diagnostic of functionalism versus formalism. An illustration of what Payne has in mind is in order. Payne : makes the following generalization with respect to a Wyampi text: Once a new topic is established, nominal references to it follow the verb, except when such a topic participant occurs in a clause “which serves to mark off the end of a thematic unit, signaling that the current major topic is ending its tenure, and that a different participant will be the next major topic.” Focused (contrasted and questioned) phrases, however, occur preverbally. It is feasible that a formalist theory can account for the postverbal position of topics and the preverbal position of foci, yet the textual marking of the last occurrence of a topic in preverbal position would probably go unobserved. Payne presents formalist generalizations made in Hale ; Hale and Selkirk . These generalizations follow from the need of the preverbal complement to be lexically governed by the verb explaining asymmetries concerning intonation, determiner allomorphy, and extraction. Payne would like to see a comprehensive analysis which covers both types of generalization. Yet the potential for a formalist explanation of the functional data, and the potential for a functional explanation of the formalist data, is very small. The linguistic literature rarely offers the possibility of comparing a formalist and a functionalist explanation that cover exactly the same data, since it is in the nature of the two approaches to focus on data of different types. Another example in Payne : is a series of rules that account for word order in O’odham (Papago). It is the combination of the set of rules that predicts word order, yet each particular rule is followed in a high percentage of cases, but not in all cases. Two of these rules are listed in (): () Information is preverbal when it is: a
pragmatically marked. This includes information which is contrastive, questioned, answers to information questions, and other similar statuses. b Nonidentifiable and discourse-topical/important. A formalist will probably baulk at terms such as “pragmatically marked” or “important” and will probably wonder why “important” goes with “topical” rather than with non-topical or focused.
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DeLancey , in accounting for topicalization, attempts an explanation for why it is that topics tend to occur in initial position. His account is intended to avoid the type of circularity built into Payne’s rules. DeLancey points out that “in a wide range of languages, across various language types, we find a construction in which a constituent occurs in sentence-initial position, which ordinarily would occur elsewhere in the sentence, and that in language after language, this construction is used when the constituent is a contrastive or resumptive topic.” He gives a couple of examples including the following English one: ()
Costello I’d hire in a minute.
According to DeLancey, “a legitimate explanation for the typological facts here must offer an account which provides a principled reason for the association of topic function with initial position—otherwise it is not an explanation, merely a description.” His explanation is based on the psychological fact that the initial element in a series has a “perceptually privileged position” in the research of Gernsbacher (e.g. Gernsbacher ; Gernsbacher and Hargreaves ; and, in more recent work, Kim, Lee, and Gernsbacher ). One of the early experiments showed that participants’ recognition latencies to the probe Tina were faster in () than in (): ()
Tina beat Lisa in the state tennis match.
()
Lisa beat Tina in the state tennis match.
It follows that the initial component is most accessible. In most English sentences, the initial element is the subject and/or the agent, hence it is difficult to separate out the role of the initial position versus the role of subjecthood or agenthood in these experiments. Kim, Lee, and Gernsbacher is a report of similar experiments in Korean which has much freer word order than English and in which there is no correlation between initial position and subjecthood. In Korean, it is also possible to distinguish initial position from agent in that the passive is marked morphologically and not by word order. The results of the Korean experiments strongly confirmed the previous results. The question then is, what are the linguistic repercussions of the fact that first position is most easily accessible? Kim, Lee, and Gernsbacher : suggest (based on Gernsbacher and Hargreaves and Green (see also Givón : ) ) that “first mentioned information provides importance and summons attention. According to such a functional account, speakers and writers use the
architectures and information structure
passive voice or grammatical inversion to emphasize the patient or object of a sentence. For example in the case of spoken English, speakers usually put the important constituent—the focus, topic or theme of the sentence—first, and listeners are assumed to construct a representation of the sentence based on the shared pragmatic knowledge of language use.” The first point, namely that first position is accessible because it summons attention, is testable and maybe even has been tested. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that this correlation is solid. The second point, namely that therefore the “important” constituent, the focus, topic, or theme, comes first, brings us back to the question we raised concerning Payne’s generalization in () as to what it means to be linguistically important. Kim et al. list topic and focus as both being important, Payne only “topical.” Going back to DeLancey, remember that topicalization targets not only regular topics, but also contrastive topics. A generous reading of Kim et al. would consider their mention of “focus” to refer to contrastive topic, since for some researchers stress is automatically associated with focus, and the properties of contrast are ignored. We could then derive that topics (including contrastive ones) are placed in first position because they require attention. Yet this is quite counterintuitive. After all a topic is already attended to by not only the speaker but also the hearer, and so there is no need to further draw the attention of the hearer to it. If there were, we would predict that topics would never be dropped as they commonly are. Something is clearly amiss in this interpretation of the functional explanation at hand and I don’t think it would pass DeLancey’s requirements for what counts as an explanation. The authors enhance their explanation with the following from Gernsbacher’s Structure Building Framework according to which “first-mentioned information is more accessible because it … serves as a cornerstone to enable integration (mapping) of further information” (Kim, Lee, and Gernsbacher : ).68 This is intuitively plausible, but does not pick out topics as the element which must be perceptually privileged as DeLancey would have it. The search for a functionalist explanation of topicalization, based on general cognitive properties, was therefore not successful in this case. DeLancey proposes that the figure–ground organization of percepts is another cognitive property which may have been adapted to language. The sentences in () and () are organized differently with respect to figure and ground: 68
Compare, among others, MacWhinney ().
architectures and information structure ()
The bank is next to the Post Office.
()
The Post Office is next to the bank.
() describes the location of the bank, using the Post Office as a reference point, and () describes the location of the Post Office, using the bank as a reference point. According to DeLancey, “the subject of each sentence denotes the referent to which the speaker wishes to draw the addressee’s attention, and the oblique NP denotes a referent used as a background against which the subject can be identified.” DeLancey thus draws a parallel between visual perception and the organization of the elements in these two sentences, and it makes sense that the different choice of subjects makes for a different point of view. DeLancey is careful not to associate the figure–ground distinction with other linguistically relevant functions, e.g., topic or focus.69 This can be tested by applying the question test: () and () answer the questions in () and () respectively and the opposite question–answer pairing is impossible. () Where is the bank? It is next to the Post Office. #The PO is next to the bank. () Where is the Post Office? It is next to the bank. #The bank is next to the PO. The test shows that subjects are topics and that the PPs, which answer the wh-question, are focused. This result is exactly the opposite of the approach taken in the work of Erteschik-Shir. There figure and focus are associated since both are what the attention of the perceiver/hearer is drawn to.70 It seems then that the linguistic description of a visual percept is not divided in a parallel way into figure and ground, in that the visual focus and the sentential focus are not aligned. I conclude that although I agree with DeLancey that the figure–ground distinction plays an important role in linguistic theory, it is not the role that DeLancey envisions. This may also be the reason why focus of attention has been mistakenly related to topic as noted above.
69 It is possible that this is due to his belief that there is no predefined set of functions. A more formal approach would seek to narrow down the set of functions as much as possible. 70 It is not obvious that there is an association between “ground” and some linguistic concept. This is not strange since the ground is the complement of figure and it does not have any interesting properties of its own as far as I know.
architectures and information structure
To conclude this section, I might add (in spite of my own work in this direction) that it may be premature to search for a cognitive basis for IS concepts such as topic and focus at this stage. As shown in this chapter, there is little agreement among linguists as to what IS theory should be, and therefore it is difficult to employ psycholinguistic findings to explain it. 2.5.2 Functionalist methodology In the functionalist literature, one can often find criticism of what counts as data among those formalists who rely on grammaticality judgements of informants. The criticism is aimed not only at this particular methodology, but also at the fact that judgements are solicited on sentences outside of context or without considering their intonation patterns. It is obvious that in order to decide whether discourse functions such as topic and focus play a role in word order, for example, one would have to have judgements for the contextual naturalness of sentences. Grammaticality outside of context is irrelevant in such cases. Functionalists often base their generalization on “real” data, such as that found in recordings or in written texts. Such sources are considered to be authentic and therefore not open to questioning. This method is also problematic since one cannot conclude from the absence of a particular structure in such sources that it is not a possible sentence in the language. Functionalists also often rely on statistical judgements. This goes hand in hand with the functional assumption “that cognitive processing during actual discourse production can affect the order of elements (and, in a historical way, the eventual grammaticalization of new structures)” (Payne : –). Finally, as shown in the previous section, functionalists also rely on psycholinguistic experiments that enable them to link linguistic properties to other cognitive processes. Poulsen’s thesis includes a whole chapter on methodology in which he questions the reliability of “real data” used by functionalists as well as data gathered from corpuses. He discusses experimental methods that have been used to further standardization in the use of acceptability data.71 He concludes that each methodology (subjective judgements, objective judgements, corpus studies, and reading time experiments) has its advantages and disadvantages. The topic of Poulsen’s thesis is what he refers to as “sentence intertwining” in Danish. These are cases of extraction out of subordinate 71
See references in Poulsen .
architectures and information structure
clauses often involving violations of island constraints.72 He compares the data in various studies of the phenomenon and finds that the data in Erteschik-Shir ; Erteschik-Shir and Lappin are as reliable as data gleaned from a corpus. It seems to me that there is at least some correlation between the reliability of linguistic data and the care with which they are solicited. It is probably very hard for a linguist to evaluate data in a language in which she or he does not have native intuitions, yet as has often been observed, relying on one’s own native intuitions often leads to bad data. One way to get around this is for a linguist who does have native or near-native intuitions in some language to solicit data from other native speakers in order to get the data corroborated. Data related to the syntax–IS interface require even more of an effort. For this type of data, context and intonation must be controlled for as well. And as Paulsen states there is no easy way to accomplish this. Although functionalism seems, at least in principle, to be best geared to probe the IS–syntax interface, valuable insights are to be gained from the whole spectrum of theories that deal with the issue. Unfortunately, much energy on all sides has been spent on linguistic wars between the proponents of the various theories. Rarely have these “wars” produced interesting ideas; instead, they have generally been waged with very little understanding of the tenets of the other side, leading to only more and more misunderstanding. I hope this book will help further a more constructive dialogue leading to a better understanding of the division of labor between syntax and IS. This chapter provides an outline of an array of IS theories (without attempting anything like a full survey) with the aim of familiarizing the reader with the methodologies employed to account for syntax–IS interactions. The next chapter deals with word order, a topic where IS factors play a central role. It follows that any analysis of word order both shapes, and is shaped by, the particular architecture of grammar assumed. The direction of future linguistic research, as pointed out by Bailyn a, may therefore in part be determined by the results of findings in this area.
72 See Erteschik-Shir and Chapter , this volume, for an account of extraction and an explanation of why Danish (and other Scandinavian languages) allow extraction out of more subordinate sentence types than English, for example. Traditional Danish grammarians refer to the result of such extraction as “knot”-sentences because a knot is tied by introducing an element from a subordinate clause into the main clause.
3 Configurations In the previous chapters, we have seen that topic and focus play a central role in all languages, but that these notions can be signaled in a variety of ways. In this chapter, we examine the relationship between word order and topic-focus articulation. First, we examine languages in which the basic word order functions to signal topic and focus and contrast them with languages in which basic word order functions to signal syntactic argument type. We continue to investigate the role of the left periphery of the sentence in determining topic and focus roles (section ). Fronting to the left periphery can also be altruistic. In such cases the fronted element itself does not play a particular IS role, yet its movement enables another element to take on an IS role it could otherwise not have. Altruistic fronting is examined in section . In section , we show that word order also marks information structure in cases of scrambling. Scrambling is then compared to Scandinavian object shift (section ). 3.1 Configurational languages Some languages allow a variety of word orders. Such languages are commonly referred to as non-configurational languages with a flat, non-hierarchical structure. In these languages, there is no direct mapping between structure and grammatical role.1 Instead, word order is determined by informationstructural considerations. Languages in which word order is highly restricted are referred to as configurational languages. In such languages the overriding function of word order is to identify the subject and the verbal complements. English exemplifies a configurational language. The word order in such 1 According to Carnie and Harley , this conclusion led many functionalists and formalists (as in the LFG and RG traditions) to abandon structural accounts of word order phenomena. Ross proposed that such languages had a stylistic or purely phonological rule which took a fully specified hierarchical structure and “scrambled” its elements. Hale proposed a configurationality parameter which allowed free ordering of elements.
configurations
a language is relatively fixed and the topic and focus constituents are marked by intonation and prosody. This does not mean that word order never plays a role in identifying topic and focus in English. The examples in () illustrate cases in which word order marks constituents as topics (in italics) and the examples in () illustrate cases in which word order marks the focus (in capitals): () a The first part of the movie John missed out on. (Emonds : ) b Into the pool Mary jumped. (Emonds : ) c Mary, why must she always be late? () a There is a FLY in my soup. b It was a MOSQUITO that bit me. c What I saw was A BIG WASP. In section , it will be shown that the left-peripheral constituents, such as the ones in (), are interpreted as topics. The existential structure in (a) marks an informational focus (Chapter , section .) whereas the clefts in (b) and (c) mark a contrastive focus. These constructions are discussed further in sections . and ., respectively. Although constructions exist in English that mark topic and focus, English sentences in general do not require such marking and word order is mostly determined strictly by syntax. In Hungarian, in contrast, the focus necessarily occurs in a designated position immediately preceding the verb and overt topics occur sentence initially. Hungarian word order is therefore governed by IS and not by the need to identify the subject and the object. Hungarian is therefore non-configurational in this sense. Yet Hungarian is configurational in the sense that its word order is restricted by topic and focus marking. Hungarian can therefore be categorized as a “discourse configurational” language (e.g. É. Kiss ). In such languages, word order is not determined by syntactic function and the position of subjects and objects is not fixed. The following Hungarian examples are from É. Kiss : : mutatta be () a János [PredP IMRÉT John Imre.ACC introduced prev “John introduced to Susan IMRE.” be b Zsuzsának [PredP JÁNOS mutatta Susan.DAT John introduced prev “Susan was introduced to Imre by JOHN.”
Zsuszának] Susan.DAT Imrét] Imre.ACC
configurations c Imrét [PredP ZSUZSÁNAK mutatta be János] “Imre was introduced by John to SUSAN.”
According to É. Kiss, (a) is a statement about John, (b) is about Susan, and (c) is about Imre. (In each case, stress on the preverbal focus is marked in capitals.) It follows that the topic cannot only be the subject (the most common case), it can also be any one of the fronted objects. The word orders illustrated in () are S O V IO, IO S V O, and O IO V S, respectively. Discourse-configurational languages such as Hungarian are therefore considered to have free word order. Free-word-order languages in this sense may have hardly any restriction on the order among their verb, arguments, and adjuncts, yet word order is restricted according to the position of the topic and the focus. Van Valin c: – in fact proposes a four-way contrast. As mentioned in Chapter , section ., in RRG languages (and constructions) are distinguished according to their potential focus domain. According to Van Valin, one distinction is whether or not the language has a rigid syntax, the other is whether or not it has a rigid focus structure: “languages in which the potential focus domain is the entire main clause in simple sentences will be considered to have flexible focus structure, whereas those in which the potential focus domain is restricted to a subpart of the main clause will be considered to have rigid focus structure.” The following table is Van Valin’s categorization of several languages according to these distinctions: ()
Rigid Syntax Flexible Syntax
Rigid Focus Structure French, Toba Batak Sesotho, Italian
Flexible Focus Structure English, Toura Russian, Polish
Even with this four-way distinction, it is still difficult to draw a strict line between configurational languages and discourse configurational languages. Take, for example, Germanic languages which require the verb to be in second position and in which the topic occupies the preverbal position ( () and () are in Danish): () a Peter så jeg Peter saw I “I saw Peter yesterday”
igår. yesterday
configurations b Jeg så I saw () a Ham him b Jeg I
Peter Peter
i går. yesterday
så saw så saw
jeg I ham him
igår. yesterday igår. yesterday
As noted in the previous chapter, topicalization is optional in Danish. The sentences in () and () can all be used in a context in which Peter has been introduced in the previous sentence, e.g., Tell me about Peter. On the one hand, fronting marks a constituent as the topic of the sentence; on the other, the topic can equally well be interpreted in situ. Danish therefore probably should not count as a discourse-configurational language in spite of the fact that topicalization occurs in a very large proportion of naturally uttered sentences. Languages may choose to mark only the topic or only the focus configurationally. A diagnostic of the former, also referred to as a “topicprominent” language, is that categorical and thetic judgements are syntactically distinguished (É. Kiss : ).2 () illustrates categorical judgements (in Hungarian) in which the subject is the topic. In such cases, the subject precedes the VP. The sentences in () are thetic. Here the subjects follow the verb. egy scontot] () a [T Fido] [VP rág Fido chews a bone “Fido is chewing a bone.” b [T A kutya] [VP háziállát] the dog domestic-animal “The dog is a domestic animal.” az esö] () a [VP Esik falls the rain “It is raining.” egy kutya b [VPVan is a dog “There is a dog in the room.”
a the
szobában] room-in
2 See Chapter , section . on the distinction between thetic and categorical sentences. See Li and Thompson for definitions of subject-prominent and topic-prominent languages.
configurations c [VPBejött egy kutya a came a dog the “A dog has come into the room.”
szobába] room-into
In the sentences in (), the topic is identified with the subject, yet it is not always obvious whether such examples are to be analyzed as TopicVP structures rather than Subject-VP structures. The way to tease these apart is by examining cases in which the subject is non-specific. É. Kiss offers the following examples: ()
[VP szereti a csontot] [T Fido] szerintem Fido according-to-me likes the bone “Fido, according to me, likes bones.” [VP szereti a csontot] b *[T Minden kutya] szerintem every dog according-to-me likes the bone “According to me, all dogs like bones.” a
What is wrong with (b) is that a quantified phrase does not occur in topic position in Hungarian. Only a non-quantified, specific phrase is licensed there. The position before the adverbial is reserved for topics. Therefore, the presence of the adverbial disambiguates the f-structure of the sentence. Thetic sentences, as argued in Chapter , section ., are predicated of an implicit stage topic and their word order does not exhibit reordering for the sake of topic or focus marking. In categorical judgements, however, an argument plays the role of topic. This topic will always be fronted in a topic-prominent language. That is why the word order of thetic and categorical judgements will always differ in topic-prominent languages. By this criterion, Danish is not topic prominent, since topicalization is not obligatory and therefore the word order of categorical and thetic sentences does not necessarily differ. É. Kiss : illustrates word order variation in Hungarian by showing that the sentences in () will appear in a different order if one of the elements is specific and can function as a topic: [VPbejött egy kutya] () a [T a szobába ] the room-into came a dog “Into the room came a dog.” szerintem [VPminden kutya szereti] b [T A csontot] the bone-ACC according-to-me every dog likes “In my opinion, bones are liked by every dog.”
configurations
(a) is predicated of an overt stage topic, (b) is predicated of the specific object. The preadverbial position ensures that the initial element is indeed interpreted as a topic. The word order of free-word-order languages such as Hungarian is therefore free in terms of the order of the arguments and the verb, but it is fixed with respect to focus structure. That is why É. Kiss’s term discourse-configurational languages is so apt. Discourse-configurational languages can be divided into those which are topic-prominent languages (they are discourse configurational with respect to topics), and those which mark foci by word order (they are discourse configurational with respect to foci). Hungarian illustrates a language which is discourse configurational with respect to both functions. Catalan, described in Chapter , is discourse configurational only with respect to topics. Catalan, and to some extent Danish, are languages which mark topics by word order, but which mark foci by intonation. An interesting question is whether there are languages which mark only foci by word order, but mark topics in some other fashion or do not mark them at all. Celtic languages such as Welsh, Irish, and Scottish Gaelic, all VSO languages, may fit in this category. According to É. Kiss , these languages are neither topic prominent nor subject prominent. Yet Welsh allows argument preposing of either a topic or a focus. Further investigation is needed to investigate whether fronting a focus in Welsh is limited to contrast. If so, this type of fronting may fall under the general category of topicalization which includes both plain topics and contrastive ones.3 Another question we have touched on is the obligatoriness or optionality of topic and focus marking. Intonational focus marking, where it exists, is strictly required. Topic marking, by movement to the left periphery, is more often optional. This may be because topics are also identified by context. Languages may differ in this respect. In English topicalization is rarely employed. In Danish, it is common, but not obligatory. In Hungarian, topicalization is strongly preferred. The reason for the stronger effect in Hungarian may be the fact that the foci are dislocated to the preverbal position and topicalization is needed in order to get the topics out of the way of the foci.
3 See Chapter , sections . and ., for the view that contrastive elements can be analyzed as topics as well as foci.
configurations
3.2 The left periphery The idea that information structural categories such as focus project syntactic structure originates with linguists working on Hungarian syntax, e.g., Horvath ; ; É. Kiss . The first to introduce FocP was Bródy . As noted in the previous section, Hungarian has a dedicated focus position preceding the verb. Movement to this position has been argued to be syntactic A-bar movement in view of the fact that this movement passes diagnostics of A-bar movement such as island sensitivity. There are two properties of the preverbal focus position in Hungarian that will be discussed here. The first is the interpretation associated with the preverbal position. The other is the complementary distribution of verbal particles and foci in the preverbal position: When the verbal particle is preverbal (rather than postverbal) the sentence does not have a narrow focus. The preverbal focus position has traditionally been associated with “exhaustive identification” or contrast rather than new information.4 According to Horvath : , for example, “the preverbal focus exhaustively identifies the proper subset of a contextually relevant set of entities as the one for which the predicate holds.” In other words, the Hungarian preverbal focus is a restrictive focus. Horvath illustrates this as follows: () Q: Kit hívtak meg? “Who did they invite?” a [JÁNOST] hívták meg t John-acc invited-pl Perf “They invited JOHN (and nobody else).” b Meghívták *(például/többek között) JÁNOST. Perf-invited-pl for-example/among others John-acc “They invited JOHN, for example/among others.” (b) provides evidence that a focus may remain in situ, yet unless it is preposed it cannot receive the identificational reading. Horvath conclude that Hungarian has grammaticalized the notion of exhaustive identification.5 From the previous section, we gathered that topics are preposed in Hungarian. Here we see that identificational/restrictive foci occur in preverbal position. Vastly simplifying the organization of the left periphery in Hungarian, we derive the following linear order of elements: See, for example, É. Kiss ; Kenesei . Horvath in this paper therefore dispenses with the analysis of Hungarian focus preposing triggered by a focus feature and replaces it with an exhaustive identification operator which triggers overt movement. 4 5
configurations
() Top … Restrictive-Foc V …. Informational-Foc … Szabolcsi discusses the full set of left-peripheral elements in Hungarian. According to Szabolcsi, the preverbal position may host either FocP or PredOpP. The latter contains counting operators like few boys or less than six boys. According to Surànyi : , the elements which were before relegated to PredOp (counting quantifiers) because they are not identificational, could be considered to be foci and therefore in FocP, if FocP is taken to house not only contrastive foci, but other foci as well. This would explain the complementary distribution of PredOp and FocP, a problem for approaches which generate designated positions for each element type in the left periphery. Yet postverbal informational foci would still be unaccounted for. Sentences in which no topic or restrictive focus occurs can be verb initial as illustrated in the sentences in () above. Verbal particles play an interesting role in such cases. This can also be seen in the examples in (). Note that the verbal particle “meg” follows the verb in (a), but precedes it in (b). This distinction in the order of the verbal particle correlates with the occurrence of a preverbal focus. In (a) the object is in preverbal focus position, and the particle is postverbal. In (b), however, no element is in focus position and the particle is preverbal. The complementary distribution of the two elements has led researchers to the assumption that the focus and the preverbal particle fill the same slot. Yet neither the verb nor the particle is necessarily interpreted as the focus when the particle is preverbal. An account of the Hungarian focus position, which employs a focus feature as the trigger for movement, will not be able to capture the distribution of particles without further ado.6 3.2.1 Cartography In the previous sections, we saw that, at least in some languages, the left periphery is the position in which we find topics. There is a long tradition in Germanic linguistics that sentences are organized linearly according to function (the topological fields theory starting in the early nineteenth century).7 One reason why this theory may have developed among Germanic linguists is the fact that the verb in main clauses occurs 6 Szendröi () argues that focus movement in Hungarian is stress driven. For a critique of Szendröi see Horvath . 7 For a recent account within this framework see Kathol . The approach started in Germany and was applied by Diderichsen ; (first published in ) to Danish. For an implementation of topological field theory within LFG see Ahrenberg cited in Kathol.
configurations
in “second” position in the linear order of the sentence, the phenomenon known as V-. The element which occurs in the “first” position (the “Vorfeld” or pre-field) includes a variety of elements, some of which can be identified as topics, others of which do not play an obvious information-structural role. What distinguishes the topological view from the accepted syntactic view is that the former is linear and the latter is hierarchical. We will return to the role played in Germanic by elements in this position in section below. Many linguists have also noted that “given” information precedes “new” information as already mentioned in the previous chapter. As pointed out in Prince a, different constructions conspire to achieve this result. Movement motivated by discourse function has been discussed within the generative framework notably by Jackendoff , Chomsky , Culicover and Rochemont , and Rochemont .8 For syntacticians the question arises as to how such ordering is to be accounted for. If topics, for example, are fronted, how is this movement motivated and are topics on the left periphery adjoined or are they to be found in dedicated specifier positions? In his groundbreaking article Rizzi argues for the latter position and shows that the various positions on the left periphery in Italian can be mapped for topic-focus functions as shown in () (* indicates that the node is recursive). ()
Force P
Force
TopP∗
Top⬚
FocP
Foc⬚
TopP∗
Top⬚
FinP
Foc⬚
IP
8 Chomsky employs a rule of predication to limit the choice of left-dislocated NPs and guarantee their interpretation as being what the sentence is about.
configurations
According to Rizzi, the following four kinds of elements typically occur in the left periphery: interrogative and relative pronouns, topics, and focalized elements. Rizzi’s system is embedded in the minimalist approach in which movement to a specifier position is triggered by the satisfaction of feature requirements of the head, in the cases at hand, features with an interpretative import. A constituent with topic or focus features must therefore end up in the Spec position of the relevant head.9 The tree structure in () therefore predicts that topics can occur both preceding and following the focus in Italian. However, there can only be one focus. (ForceP and FinP are ignored here.) In fact, no order is predicted between foci and topics since both sets of topic projections are optional. Foci can therefore either precede or follow topics, and can also occur in their midst. According to Rizzi : , the specifier of a TopP is the topic and its complement is the comment as shown in (). ()
TopP XP = topic XP
Top⬘ Top⬚
YP = comment YP
() thus represents the structural mapping of the topic–comment division (see Chapter , section ). Rizzi’s structure of the left periphery also maps the division into focus–presupposition. The specifier of the FocP is the focus, and the complement is the presupposition (Rizzi : ):
(15)
FocP ZP
ZP = Focus WP = Presupposition
Foc⬘ Foco
WP
9 See also Chomsky for the view that optional operations can apply only if they have an effect on outcome, i.e., they must be driven by the interpretative needs of the constituent in question.
configurations
Rizzi therefore maps both binary divisions, and mapping makes strong predictions with respect to both word order and interpretation.10 An important prediction Rizzi makes is that FocP cannot be recursive, since if it were, it would give rise to a structure in which a Focus is embedded within a presupposition (the complement of a higher FocP), causing an interpretative clash. Such an interpretative clash does not arise when topic phrases are embedded within each other, since the comment does not exclude a topic within it. An examination of the data Rizzi brings to bear on these predictions raises problems which do not lend themselves to obvious solutions. In order to see this we will examine Rizzi’s data with an eye to test the correlation of topic-focus function and cartographical position. Rizzi cites the following two types of fronting: ()
Il tuo libro, lo ho letto the your book, it I have read
()
IL TUO LIBRO ho letto the your book I read
(, non not
il the
suo) his
According to Rizzi, () is a case of Clitic Left Dislocation (CLLD), with the clitic lo coreferential to the topic on the left. The constituent to the left in () is a contrastive focus and cannot be interpreted as conveying a non-contrastive informational focus. Italian also allows an in situ lower stressed focus which may or may not be contrastive as shown in (): ()
Ho letto IL TUO LIBRO (, non il suo) I read the your book not the his
In order to explain weak crossover, Rizzi assumes, following Chomsky , that this focus moves to Spec,FocP in LF.11 The structure Rizzi proposes for Italian is not all that different from the Hungarian left periphery: In both a topic occurs sentence initially, and in both a A nice outcome of Rizzi’s : system is that it allows for languages with focus and topic particles. In these languages the top and foc heads are filled. However, if top and foc constituents are pronounced in situ in these languages, LF movement will not rescue the derivation in which top and/or foc particles are attached to topics and foci pronounced in situ. 11 Chomsky’s classical examples are: 10
(i) Hisi mother SHOT Johni. (ii) ??Hisi mother shot JOHNi. In (ii) focusing generates a weak crossover effect. This would follow if the focus movement applied to the object in (ii).
configurations
contrastive/restrictive focus follows the topic, whereas an informational focus remains in situ. The two languages differ in that the second topic position in Italian is not available in Hungarian and that the Italian focus position is not preverbal. Rizzi, following Cinque outlines the following four distinctions between topic and focus constructions:12 . A topic can involve a resumptive clitic within the comment. In Italian, the clitic is obligatory when the direct object is topicalized. (The leftperipheral element in () can only be interpreted as a topic.) . A topic does not give rise to weak crossover effects. Rizzi, following Lasnik and Stowell , employs WCO as a diagnostic for A′ relations involving quantification. A′ binding, under this view, comes in two versions: either it involves a quantifier which binds a variable (as in (a) ) or it is non-quantificational and binds a null epithet or a null constant (as in (b) ). Only the former is sensitive to WCO: ()
a ?* Who does his mother really like t (=vbl)? b John, who his mother really likes t (=nc)…
Rizzi concludes that Focus involves quantificational A′ binding while Topic does not. This is his explanation for the fact that topics do not produce weak crossover effects. It also affords an explanation for the first property of topics and foci: foci do not allow resumptive clitics since a clitic does not qualify as a variable and if foci are quantificational, they must bind a variable. It also follows that topics require a resumptive clitic since without the clitic, the object trace would not be licensed since it cannot be a variable (the non-quantificational topic cannot identify it), nor can it be any other type of empty category. It follows that topicalization must give rise to a resumptive clitic, yet Rizzi says this is only a requirement for object topics and posits a null constant in the cases in which the resumptive clitic can be left out. He does not assume any differences between cases of topicalization with and without overt resumptive pronouns and, it seems, predicts that WCO effects should surface in both cases. Both relative clauses and topicalization in Hebrew exhibit WCO effects only when the optional resumptive pronoun is absent as predicted by Rizzi:
12
Rizzi lists five properties. Only the first four are of relevance here.
configurations
() a ?? Hayeled še-imo mefaneket kol hazman The-boy that-mother-his spoils all the-time me’od mefutax. very developed “The boy that his mother spoils all the time is very developed.” b Hayeled še-imo mefaneket oto kol hazman The-boy that-mother-his spoils him all the-time me’od mefutax. very developed “The boy that his mother spoils all the time is very developed.” c Hayeled (še-)oto imo mefaneket kol hazman The-boy that-him mother-his spoils all the-time me’od mefutax. very developed “The boy that his mother spoils all the time is very developed.” (a), without the optional resumptive pronoun allowed in Hebrew relative clauses, exhibits a weak crossover effect. (b) and (c) both have a resumptive object pronoun; in (b) it is in situ and in (c) is fronted and incorporated in the complementizer (used in written style). Both (b) and (c) are much better than (a), showing the improvement rendered by the resumptive pronoun. Hebrew thus exhibits a correlation between the lack of WCO effects and the presence of a resumptive pronoun. () illustrates the same effect in Hebrew topicalization: () a ?? Hayeled haze, imo mefaneket kol hazman boy this mother-his spoils all the-time “This boy, his mother spoils all the time.” b Hayeled haze, imo mefaneket oto kol hazman. boy this mother-his spoils him all the-time “This boy, his mother spoils him all the time.” If Rizzi’s null constant is identical to an overt resumptive pronoun, such correlations cannot be explained. The Hebrew data also demonstrate that the WCO effect is sensitive to the absence of resumptive pronouns both in relative clauses and in cases of topicalization. It is hard to imagine how Rizzi’s account of topicalization could be extended to relative clauses, and the correlation between resumption and WCO may be orthogonal to the analysis of topicalization as such.13 But see Grosu ; Kuno for a possible relation between topicalization and relativization. 13
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Rizzi’s prediction also poses the following problem: the correlation between topicalization and resumptive clitics or pronouns does not hold across and even within languages. Rizzi distinguishes languages in which topicalization gives rise to a resumptive clitic (Italian) and those that do not (English) by claiming that the former lack a null anaphoric operator. It is this operator which replaces the clitic in English. He also explains optionality of resumptive pronouns in Italian by arguing that PPs in fact do not exhibit optional resumptives in that each case is a result of a different structure. In Hebrew resumptives are optional with direct objects and obligatory with PPs. Rizzi might surmise that Hebrew only has one type of PP, the one that requires resumptives, whereas Italian also has the type that does not allow resumptives. Cross-linguistic evidence for these two types of PPs is however lacking. . Bare quantificational elements (no one, all, etc.) cannot be topics in CLLD constructions. They do allow focalization as shown by the examples in (): () a *Tutto, everything b Tutto Everything
lo it ho I
ho fatto. I did fatto. did
According to Rizzi, these data are more complex than they appear. (a) is much improved if the quantified expression includes a lexical restriction: () Tutti i tuoi libri, li ho rimessi a all your books them I-have put-back in
posto. place
Rizzi’s account involves QR movement in both cases. In the restricted case () the quantifier binds the variable within Spec, Top; in the nonrestricted case (), the variable is not in an A position and does not qualify as a variable violating Full Interpretation. . The number of peripheral topics is unlimited, but there can only be one fronted focus. This focus can be both preceded and followed by topics as shown in (): () A Gianni, QUESTO, domani, gli dovrete dire To Gianni, THIS, tomorrow, to-him you-should tell Rizzi lists the following possible permutations for this example. Both topics, in either order, can precede or follow the focus and the two topics can also occur in both orders when the focus intervenes. Rizzi rejects the idea that topics should be adjoined because they are recursive and
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argues for an X′ projection of topics on a par with foci. Instead, he claims that the different properties of topics and foci follow from their different interpretative properties, as noted above. This is an interesting explanation, but note that it precludes the existence of multiple (fronted) foci universally, most likely an unwelcome result. Rizzi : claims in footnote that this result holds in Italian: () a A GIANNI ho ditto t che dovremmo leggere il tuo libro. “TO GIANNI I said that we should read your book.” b Ho ditto a Gianni che IL TUO LIBRO dovremmo leggere. “I said to Gianni that YOUR BOOK we should read.” c *A GIANNI ho ditto che IL TUO LIBRO dovremmo leggere “TO GIANNI I said that YOUR BOOK we should read.” The data in () show that either main clause or subordinate focus can be fronted within its clause, but that it is impossible to front both. These data cannot be accounted for by a syntactic constraint which blocks fronting in both main and subordinate clauses since this is possible, as shown in () in which the same two constituents have been fronted within their clauses, but here they are both interpreted as topics: () A Gianni, gli ho ditto che il tuo libro, lo dovremmo leggere. “To Gianni, I said to him that your book, we should read it.” In order to be able to draw clear conclusions with respect to this type of data, it would have been useful if Rizzi had presented similar cases in which one of the fronted constituents was focused and the other was not. His prediction would be that both these cases should be possible since the only excluded case is a focus embedded within the complement of another focus. Another problem with Rizzi’s approach arises in a system in which contrast is marked as both topic and focus, as suggested in Chapter , section .: contrastive elements are fronted in many languages. Rizzi’s system cannot handle elements which are marked both topic and focus, because topics and foci necessarily land in separate projections. This is argued very convincingly by Ritter and Rosen by showing that English not-topicalization cannot receive an account within Rizzi’s cartographic system since not-topics have both topical and focal content: ()
a I think I’ll smoke a cigarette. b [Not [in Bill’s car] ]i you won’t (smoke a cigarette ti).
According to Ritter and Rosen, the fronted XP (excluding the negative element) is topical old information, and the negative element itself is
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focused, triggering stress on the whole XP. As topics, the fronted XPs don’t induce WCO effects and cannot consist of bare quantifiers; as foci they don’t license resumptive pronouns. Ritter and Rosen conclude that a system which defines separate functional projections for topics and foci cannot accommodate not-topics which have the properties of both constituent types. This argument against a cartographic account of topic and focus placement is a serious one. No syntactic account of topic and focus placement which assumes functional projections for topic and focus can accommodate elements which are marked both topic and focus. We either have to give up the account of restrictive and contrastive elements as having a complex f-structure, or else we have to give up the syntactic account. 3.2.2 An even finer structure of the left periphery Benincà and Poletto show that taking Rizzi’s cartographic system to its logical conclusion, in which the functional projections are more accurately associated with pragmatic functions, requires a larger number of FPs than envisioned by Rizzi. They replace Rizzi’s recursive TopP projections with a series of such carefully defined FPs, both within the topic and the focus fields. First they show that in Italian the lower topic position is in fact an extension of the focus field (): ()
a
Un libro di poesie, A GIANNI, lo A book of poems TO GIANNI, it “You will give a book of poems to Gianni.” b *A GIANNI, un libro di poesie, lo TO GIANNI a book of poems it
regalerete you will give regalerete you will give
In (a) the order is topic followed by focus. The reverse order (b) is strongly ungrammatical. They argue that Rizzi’s evidence for the occurrence of topics below foci is restricted to temporal adverbs (see () above). Temporal adverbs, according to Benincà and Poletto, are distinct from DPs and PPs in that they can occur at the IP edge. A test is proposed for the position of temporal adverbs: Subject clitics are apparently optional. If it is assumed that the presence of a subject clitic indicates left dislocation of the subject and its absence indicates that the subject is in situ then adverbs can intervene between subjects and inflected verbs both in the presence of a subject clitic and in its absence. In the latter case, the adverb must be in a position lower than the usual subject position. In the former case, it could be in a topic position. Temporal adverbs
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therefore do not provide evidence for the presence of a lower topic position since they are structurally ambiguous between a topic and post-subject position. Benincà and Poletto made a point similar to the one made above concerning contrast. They argue that stress does not necessarily indicate a focus, since preposed contrast can allow a resumptive object clitic, indicating a left-dislocated topic (their ():): () A:
Mi ha ditto che il tappeto, lo compra l’anno prossimo. “He has told me that the carpet he will buy it next year.”
B: No, ti sbagli, IL DIVANO lo compra l’anno prossimo. “No, you are wrong, THE SOFA he will buy it next year.” Benincà and Poletto also show that a contrastive topic such as the one in () is not subject to WCO effects, indicating that stress is not necessarily an indication of focus status (their ():): () A:
B:
padrei non lo vede Marioi, suo Mario, his father not him sees “His father never sees Mario.” No, GIANNIi, suoi padre non lo No, Gianni his father not him “No, his father never sees Gianni.”
mai. never vede mai. sees never
Foci do exhibit WCO and can be distinguished from topics, not by their stress, but by their not permitting resumptive clitics. They conclude that in all examples in which the sequence is seemingly [Topic Focus Topic], it is in fact [Topic Focus Focus] with the two foci each having a particular function. Their findings thus contradict Rizzi’s in two ways. First, more than one focus is allowed, and second, all topics precede the foci. The following example is an illustration of this distribution (their ():): () A GIORGIO, questo libro, TO GIORGIO this book “You must give this book to Giorgio.”
devi you must
dare. give
Benincà and Poletto analyze questo libro as an informational focus which is licensed by the presence of a contrastive focus (a Giorgio) preceding it.14 14 Southern Italian does not require a contrastive focus as a trigger for preposing an informational focus. It is difficult to imagine a cartographic account that can predict such dialectical variation.
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According to Benincà and Poletto the topic field is also complex and consists of two different topic types: the hanging topic (HT) and left dislocation (LD) illustrated in (a) and (b) respectively (their ():): ()
a
Mario, non ne parla più Mario not of-him talks anymore “Mario, nobody talks of him anymore.” b Di Mario, non (ne) parla più Of Mario not (of-him) talks anymore “Of Mario, nobody talks of him anymore.”
nessuno. nobody nessuno. nobody
These two types of topicalization differ in a number of ways: . HTs can only be DPs, but LDs can also be PPs (as in (b)). . There can only be one HT, but there can be several LDs. . HTs always require resumptive pronouns (or a copy) which agree with them in number and gender, but not in case. LDs only require a resumptive pronoun (which agrees in number, gender, and case) when they correspond to direct or partitive objects. . The HT copy can be a topic pronoun or an epithet. The copy of the LD must be a clitic. . If both types of topicalization occur, HT must precede LD. . HTs are more restricted in embedded clauses and do not occur in relative clauses. Benincà and Poletto propose to account for these differences by introducing a separate FP for each with the HT above the LD projection. Scene-setting adverbs (stage topics) occur higher than LDs but below HT, but it is not clear whether they require an independent FP since they cannot be distinguished from LDs. (The authors refer to the HT and the scene-setting adverbs together as the “frame.”) Benincà and Poletto also propose to distinguish another type of LD, namely contrast, within a given set (list interpretation, LI). () (their ():) should be understood in the following context: “a farm producing a set of goods that are known to the people involved in the conversation.” ()
La frutta la regaliamo, la verdure la vendiamo. The fruit it we-give-for-free, the vegetables it we-sell “We give the fruit for free, while we sell the vegetables.”
This type of LD, they propose, is located below the LD projection. (They refer to the LD and the LI projections together as the “theme.”)
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Instead of recursion, a series of distinct FPs, each specialized for a particular interpretation, are proposed. These FPs belong to two main fields, the topic field and the focus field, with the former preceding the latter. They consider this order, proceeding from information shared by speaker and hearer to new information, to be likely to be universal. This guiding principle also governs the order within each field. Thus, the contrastive focus which relates to a contextual context set is more topical than the informational focus which has no such contextual relation. Here again “old” precedes “new.” Although this article presents a more articulated, and therefore more precise, analysis of the Italian left periphery, in which care is taken to contextually analyze each peripheral position, it also illuminates the problems with the cartographic program quite clearly. Rizzi’s view of the left periphery clearly needs to be examined crosslinguistically. An example of an article which attempts to analyze the Korean left periphery within this framework is Gill and Tsoulas . These authors demonstrate that it is not tenable to “accept that the positions hosting topics and foci in Korean are different and dedicated to the distinct discourse functions that these elements fulfill in specific sentences.” They thus reject the cartographic approach and propose instead that independent operations of narrow syntax and phonology “conspire in order to produce the observed results” (). (a) and (b) illustrate short (clause-internal) and long (across one or more CP boundaries) topicalization in Korean (their ():): ()
a
I chayk-un [Swunja-ka e sassta] this book-TOP Swunja-NOM bought “As for this book, Swunja bought (it)” b I chayk-un [Younghee-ka [Swunja-ka e sassta]-ko This book-TOP Younghee-NOM Swunja-NOM bought-COMP malhayssta] said “As for this book, Younghee said that Swunja bought (it)”
The authors demonstrate that the TOP morpheme-(n)un is pronounced with a rising tone followed by an intonational break when the topic is fronted. The topicalized element is interpreted either as a plain or as a contrastive topic.15 When topicalization does not apply, the subject itself
15
n(un)-marked elements can also be interpreted as contrastive foci if left in situ.
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is interpreted as a topic. This positions Korean as a language which is halfway between topic and subject prominent. Gill and Tsoulas refer to fronting without n(un) marking as scrambling. (a) and (b) illustrate short and long scrambling respectively. ()
I chayk-uli Younghee-ka ei ilkessta this book-ACC Younghee-NOM read “Younghee read this book.” b I chayk-uli [Chelswu-ka [Younghee-ka ei ilkessta]-ko this book-ACC Chelswu-NOM Younghee-NOM read-COMP malhayssta] said “Chelswu said that Younghee read this book.”
a
Scrambling and topicalization interact in an interesting way: it is possible to scramble an object over a n(un)-marked subject as illustrated in (). [Chelswu-nun ei () I chayk-uli This book-ACC Chelswu-CF “It is CHELSWU who bought this book.”
sassta] bought
Scrambling across such a subject has the effect of forcing a contrastive focus reading of the subject (marked CF). It is this property of the subject in () which challenges the cartographic model. If we assume a dedicated position for the scrambled element, then the head of this projection is not only responsible for rendering an appropriate interpretation for the scrambled element itself, it must also determine the interpretation of the subject which is situated in a position below it. As Gill and Tsoulas point out, it would be surprising if such a functional head were to exist.16 Another point which is problematic for a cartographic approach, and Rizzi’s proposal in particular, is the restriction in Korean that only one topic may be fronted. It is not clear what type of parameter could distinguish between Italian, which, according to Rizzi, allows the fronting of more than one topic, and Korean, which does not. Gill and Tsoulas propose that I is endowed with a [+stress] feature which forces the rising tone on the element moved into Spec,IP. They justify Issues such as these lend themselves well to an optimality theoretical approach. Choi shows that there is only a minor difference in the ranking of the constraints between Korean and German. We return to his analysis in the context of our discussion of German in section below. 16
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their proposal by assuming, along the lines of Holmberg , that the EPP is phonologically motivated. This approach divorces syntactic position from topic/focus interpretation. Instead, they argue that interpretation is at least partially derived as a consequence of general constraints on accentual phrasing. In (), for example, the contrastive interpretation results from a contrast between the expected pitch accent in nonsentence-initial position and the pitch accent assigned there relative to the first accentual phrase().17 This analysis of Korean may or may not be on the right path. What this paper makes clear, however, is that the cartographic approach does not provide insight into the analysis of a language such as Korean. A potentially good test case for Rizzi’s approach is Hungarian, in which topics and foci are strictly ordered on the left periphery. At the beginning of this section several properties of the preverbal focus position in Hungarian were outlined. Problematic for Rizzi’s approach is the particular interpretation which preverbal foci receive in Hungarian as well as the distribution of counting quantifiers and verbal particles. There is a wealth of work on these issues in Hungarian; however, there is, as yet, no accepted view of their analysis. Even those that adopt Rizzitype functional projections do not agree on which functional categories to employ. For some recent discussion of these issues with respect to Hungarian, see É. Kiss ; to appear; Horvath ; Surànyi ; Szendröi ; , among others. As pointed out by Andrew Carnie in a Linguistlist review of Rizzi b ( January ) the program allows for an examination of microvariation among closely related dialects, but it has yet to be examined within a broader cross-linguistic perspective. This is particularly critical, I believe, in view of the large number of functional categories that must be introduced in the universal inventory (e.g., HT, LD, LI, contrastive focus, informational focus, scene-setting adverbial, etc.), and the availability of evidence to the language learner of the occurrence of each such category in the language being acquired. Maybe even more serious is the “optionality” problem discussed in the previous chapter in section : Since movement to the left periphery of these categories is often optional, the Minimalist Program must often resort to rather baroque analyses in order to account for which ones of these are optional and which are obligatory and what, if any, pragmatic difference 17 Their approach thus belongs to those theories of information structure which derive function from stress rather than vice versa (see Chapter , section .).
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there is between fronting one of these categories and leaving it in situ. In sum, lacking explanatory power, the cartographical model is reduced to descriptive adequacy. 3.3 The importance of information structure In the previous section, it was shown that in order to account for the variation in the order of fronted elements, a large number of functional categories were introduced, each with its own information-structural characterization. If we constrain information structure theory and limit the basic notions involved to topic and focus, then the number of different functional projections is automatically constrained as well. Benincà and Poletto, as just mentioned, were forced by their data to conclude that certain stressed elements are contrastive topics rather than foci as assumed by Rizzi. If we adopt the analysis of contrast in Erteschik-Shir (see Chapter , section .), then all cases of contrast can be viewed as either topics or foci. Topicalizing languages may therefore differ as to whether contrastive elements are viewed as topics, and consequently fronted, or whether they are viewed as foci, and therefore not allowed to be fronted.18 Under this more restricted view, information structure-motivated movement to the left periphery can be motivated either by topic assignment (possibly including contrast) or by focus assignment (possibly including contrast). There may also be languages which restrict movement to the left periphery to contrastive elements alone. Frey to appear also couches his account of topicalization in German in cartographic terms, but argues that not all cases of movement to the left periphery have information-structural import. (a) and (b) below illustrate topicalization in German (his () ): ()
a
(Ich erzähle dir etwas über Hans.) I tell you something about Hans Den Hans wird eine polnische Gräfin heiraten theACC Hans will a polish countess marry “A polish countess will marry Hans.” b Dem Hans hat Maria nicht geholfen, wohl aber dem Otto theDAT Hans has Mary not helped PRT but theDAT Otto “Mary has not helped Hans, but rather Otto.”
18 The latter case is rare and may have to do with the unacceptability of sentence-initial stress.
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According to Frey, the initial element in (a) is a topic, in the given context. The fronted element in (b) is contrastive. Fronted contrastive elements can answer wh-questions, and are therefore assumed to be foci, yet the type of wh-question which they answer is restricted to one which identifies a discourse-specified set ( (b), for example, answers a question such as “Which of her friends did Mary help?”). Since the answers to such questions range over this set, this contrastive element can equally well be analyzed as a (contrastive) topic. Data such as these could therefore equally well lead to the generalization that what is topicalized is a topic. According to Frey, however, contrastive elements must be distinguished from both topics and foci. This, he argues, is necessary in order to explain the fact that movement of a constituent from an embedded clause (long movement) to the left periphery necessarily results in contrast, whereas short movement of the same element does not (Frey to appear: ; his () ): ()
Ich erzähle dir was über Max. a Den Max sollte unsere Gruppe unterstützen group support theACC Max should our b Den MAX1 meint Maria, dass unsere Gruppe t1 theACC Max thinks Maria that our group unterstützen sollte support should
Frey notes that whereas Max in (a) need not receive a contrastive reading nor must it be stressed, Max in (b) must be stressed and interpreted contrastively. Frey’s account of this distinction is that Contrast (but not topic and focus) projects a functional projection between CP and FinP, which hosts A′-moved contrastive elements and checks their contrast feature. Spec, FinP hosts constituents moved from the local “middle field”, i.e., the set of constituents between the finite verb or the complementizer and the verbal elements at the end. CP hosts certain discourse-type adverbials. These are merged directly in Spec,CP or else the head C hosts a complementizer. According to Frey, each of these three phrases (CP, ContrastP, FinP) is associated with an EPP feature, each with its particular characteristics, yet only one EPP feature occurs in a particular sentence. The verb then moves to the head which carries the “active” EPP feature, positioning the verb in second position as required. Although Frey’s set of projections correctly distinguishes the properties of contrastive elements, the theoretical consequences are problematic. The constraint that only one EPP feature is realized when three different EPP features are available is ad hoc and so
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is the association of verb movement and EPP. Another problem is policing the optional movement of contrastive elements. Frey’s analysis thus suffers from the same type of problems as do other cartographic proposals. Let us therefore have another go at the idea that fronted elements in German are necessarily topics and that topics may be contrastive. This would save at least one dedicated functional projection on the left periphery and would unify Frey’s contrast projection with FinP. Here Svenonius comes to our aid. He argues that the left-peripheral element in Germanic as a whole is a “switch topic” or a “shifted topic,” and not a “continued topic.”19 Such elements, according to Svenonius : , “redirect the emphasis of the discourse.” Svenonius offers the following illustrations (his () and (); : ): () Varmt og kaldt vann var det jo ikke. Norwegian Warm and cold water was it after.all not ()
Swedish Ja, for tre veckor sen fick professorn besök av Yes for three weeks ago got the.professor visit of en herre som talade med stark brytning … a gentleman that spoke with strong accent “Yes, three weeks ago a man with a strong accent came to see the professor.” b De talade länge. they spoke long “They had a long talk.” c och sedan packade professorn och gav sig i väg and then packed the.professor and gave rfx in way med den främmande herrn … with the unknown gentleman “Then the professor packed his luggage and left with the stranger.” a
The fronted element in () is indefinite and has not been mentioned in the preceding discourse, and so could be considered to be new, yet it connects to the previous discourse in that it would have to be uttered in 19 See Chapter , section . for these notions. Lambrecht makes a similar point. According to Poulsen , both focal and topical elements get fronted in Danish and therefore he finds it difficult to define the function of fronting. Instead, he suggests that the first position marks linkage with the previous clause. As argued in the previous chapter, however, the function of fronted elements in Danish can be viewed as a topicalization process if one takes into account that topicalization applies to switch topics, including contrastive and restrictive ones which may have been mistakenly analyzed as foci by Poulsen.
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a context in which accommodations are under discussion. The fronted element is necessarily viewed as one of the relevant features of accommodation, hence a topic according to the definition of topic used here. (See also Chapter , section ..) In () the obvious topic is “the professor,” yet this element does not appear in initial position in the discourse. This, according to Svenonius, is because “the professor” is a continued topic. The time adverbial in () is a stage topic (bound by the current here and now) which shifts attention to this point in time. In (b), the plural pronoun groups the professor and the gentleman, both of whom are now discoursally available as topics. In (c) again the choice is not to use any of the available topics but rather to again employ a stage topic. This text is not unusual, but it is easy to find fronted continued topics in Germanic as well, as shown in () repeated from Chapter , section ..20 () A: Hans kan jeg godt lide. Hans can I good like “I like Hans a lot.” B: (i) Ham kan jeg også lide. him can I also like “I like him too.” (ii) Jeg kan også lide ham. I can also like him “I like him too.” In the context of (A), the fronted pronoun in B’s response in (i) is a continued topic. If stressed, it becomes contrastive and other candidates under discussion will be excluded. B could also respond with (ii) which is slightly less natural. The arguments in both responses are pronominal continued topics and in canonical topic positions, the topicalized position and the subject position, respectively. Let us therefore examine a case in which one argument is a continued topic and the other is a switch topic. This is illustrated in () in which the object is a switch topic and the subject is a continued topic and in () where it is the other way around. () A: Hvor har hun lagt tingene? Where has she put the.things B: a Bogen har hun lagt på bordet. the.book has she put on the.table “She put the book on the table.” 20
Svenonius admits that continued topics occur, and that they are usually subjects.
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b #Hun har lagt bogen på bordet. She has put the.book on the table () A: Hvor har børnene lagt bogen? Where have the.children put the.book? B: a #Bogen har Hans lagt på bordet. the.book has Hans put on the.table “Hans put the book on the table.” b Hans har lagt bogen på bordet. Hans has put the.book on the.table. A’s question in () establishes a set of things of which the book in B’s answer is a member. The subject pronoun is a continued topic. The answer in which the switch topic (the book) is topicalized (a) is much better than the one in which the continued topic is in initial position and the switch topic is left in situ. From these data, we can conclude that the order switch topic–continued topic is preferred. () renders the same result: The order in which “Hans,” one of the children, hence a switch topic, is in situ in subject position, yet the continued topic “the book” is topicalized, is less good than the one in which the switch topic precedes the continued topic. Further research is required to determine whether switch topics always precede continued topics and if not what the circumstances are in which the order can be reversed. What is clear, however, is that topics (in the broad sense) occupy first position in Germanic.21 Choi , who works within LFG augmented with OT (see Chapter , section .), argues that the canonical or unmarked word order in a scrambling language is determined by a set of syntactic constraints whereas another set of constraints control the mapping from information structure to phrase structure. The IS features employed by Choi are shown in (). ()
− New +New
+Prom Topic Contrastive Focus
−Prom Tail Completive Focus
21 Weskott employs the notion “elaborating” topic to characterize topicalized elements in German which are members of a restrictive set or hypertheme in the preceding context. Such topics would here receive a restrictive f-structure and would not require a special category.
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The information structure constraints (Choi : ) are shown in (). ()
a new: [−New] should precede [+New] b prom: [+Prom] should precede [−Prom]
The syntactic constraints may be in conflict with the IS constraints. Such conflicts are resolved in OT by having a set of violable universal constraints which are ranked so that a higher-ranked constraint is given preference over a lower-ranked constraint. The grammar of a language in OT is in essence the way it ranks these constraints. In German, according to Choi : , PROM is ranked above NEW. The syntactic constraints are: () cn: SUBJ should be structurally more prominent than (e.g., “c-command”) non-SUBJ functions. cn: Non-SUBJ functions align reversely with the c-structure according to the functional hierarchy. (SUBJ > D.OBJ > I.OBJ > OBL > ADJUNCT) In German, these rules are ranked with respect to the information structuring constraints as follows (Choi : ): ()
Constraint Ranking (German) prom >> cn >> new >> cn
This ranking allows for IS-motivated scrambling because IS precedence constraints are ranked higher than the syntactic constraints. The fact that cn is ranked fairly high predicts that the scrambling of subjects is less common than that of the other constituent types. According to Choi : , topics, which are [−New, +Prom] (see () ), will be sentence initial; non-contrastive foci (completive foci in Choi’s terminology) will be placed immediately before the verb because they have the features [+New, −Prom]. What about contrastive elements? These are [+New, +Prom] and in view of the positive value of the Prom feature will scramble over −Prom elements. Choi’s system thus classifies contrast with topics in that they are both +Prom and therefore he predicts that they both topicalize. Choi : further distinguishes shift topics from continued topics, which he asserts are not +Prom, but are merely anaphoric (Tail in () ). Since +Prom elements topicalize, he predicts that shift topics and contrastive topics will take precedence over continued topics in initial position, the conclusion which was reached immediately above. His view of shift topics as +Prom is similar to Svenonius cited above, for whom shift topics redirect the emphasis
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of the discourse. Choi’s OT analysis is more elegant and less stipulative than the cartographic approach. It may fail, however, when faced with the German data discussed in section . below where an element with no IS function is fronted. Choi’s account of German word order carries over to Korean with only a slight difference in ranking (: ): ()
Constraint Ranking (Korean) prom >> new >> canon
Korean differs from German in that both syntactic constraints are superseded by the IS constraints. This explains both the similarity in word order between the two languages and also the slight difference between the two: In German the subject is harder to scramble over than other arguments. Splitting canon in two in German, but not in Korean, accounts for this difference. Choi’s system offers an elegant account of the problematic example in (), also noted by Gill and Tsoulas , in which topicalization of an object over a nun-marked subject forces a contrastive reading of the subject. Choi : argues that nun is a “prominence” marker in Korean in that it marks both topics and contrastive foci. The nun-marked subject should therefore have both interpretations, but in fact receives only the contrastive interpretation in this case. Choi argues as follows: assume that the subject is [−New] and the object is [+New]. In this case the subject would be a topic since it is also [+Prom]. The object would lose to the subject since both the features of the subject [−New] and [+Prom] “urge” it to precede other elements and it doesn’t matter whether the object is a complete focus or a contrastive focus. If the object doesn’t scramble in this case no constraint is violated, yet if the object scrambles, canon is violated as well as new (and also prom) if the object is contrastive. If, however, the subject is contrastive, i.e., it is [+New] and [+Prom], and the object is a topic and is also [+Prom], then the object can precede the subject. This word order violates canon, but satisfies new which is a higher-ranked constraint. Ideally rankings should be motivated. If for example the difference in ranking between German and Korean could be linked to some other property distinguishing the two languages, the theory would be much stronger. 3.3.1 Distinguishing topicalization from left dislocation in English
Left dislocation is characterized by there being a resumptive pronoun where topicalization has a gap. According to Prince left dislocation
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in English fulfills three different functions: (i) simplifying discourse processing by fronting a non-topic from a position which is usually reserved for topics, a strategy which we will return to in section .; (ii) amnestying an island violation by leaving a resumptive pronoun in cases of topicalization in which leaving a gap would cause an island violation;22 (iii) triggering a (po)set inference (see Chapter , section . (n. ) ). It is only in this last case that a particular discourse function is associated with the fronted element itself. It is therefore interesting to compare the function of this type of LD to that of plain topicalization. Examples (Prince’s (c–f) ) are given in ().23 () a [Reply to a note whose sender says he is considering buying Miss All-American Beauty, Touch of Class, Folklore, Pristine, Brigadoon, Red Lion, and Sheer Elegance.] “David, Forget Miss All American Beauty, not a show rose. Touch of Class and Folklore are. Pristine is if you can get to the show before it opens. Brigadoon, maybe with older plants, Red Lioni [e] dug iti years ago, Sheer Eligance [sic], [e] see a few in the shows but no queens here. To find out the best show roses for your area you must check on the shows and keep record of what wins there this year, not ten years ago.” b “This I don’t call cooking, when you go in that refrigerator and get some beans and drop them in a pot. And TV dinnersi, they go stick themi in a pot and she say she cooked. This is not cooking.” c “She had an idea for a project. She’s going to use three groups of mice. Onei, she’ll feed themi mouse chow, just the regular stuff they make for mice. Anotheri, she’ll feed themi veggies. And the third she’ll feed junk food.” d “ ‘My father loves crispy rice,’ says Samboon, ‘so we must have it on the menu. And Mee Grob, tooi, he loves iti just as much.’ Mee Grob ($.) is a rice noodle…” According to Prince (her ()), the function of these poset LDs is “to trigger an inference on the part of the hearer that the entity represented by the initial NP stands in a salient partially-ordered set relation to some entity or entities already evoked in the discourse model.” Poset See Erteschik-Shir for an account of resumptive pronouns in islands. Prince notes that the left-dislocated constituents of this type have a characteristic fall–rise prosody which requires further study. (For the sources of these examples see Prince .) 22 23
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relations include subset and subtype relations. In (a), for example, a set of rosebushes has been evoked and enumerated. The reply lists the members and asserts a property of each one. (c) evokes a set of three groups of mice, and the LD refers to one of these groups. In (b) and (d) the context does not supply a set explicitly and so this set must be constructed by accommodation. In these two cases, the introduction of a refrigerator and a menu in the context facilitates accommodation of the relevant sets: things contained in refrigerators and things contained on menus, respectively. From this characterization of posets, we can conclude that they have much in common with restrictive sets and will assume that they are identical. We can therefore summarize Prince’s generalization as saying that the referent of a left-dislocated constituent must be interpreted as a member of a restrictive set. Prince uses (c), in which two LDs are followed by a case of topicalization, to illustrate the different functions of the two strategies. Following Prince b she defines the discourse function of topicalization in two parts, of which the first part is identical to the definition of (poset) LD. The second part attributes a “focus/presupposition” information structure to the topicalized sentence similar to the one found in clefts (see section . below). Yet the topicalized element itself is not the focus; the focus is to be found within the clause. This can be seen in the topicalized (last) sentence in (c). By the time this sentence occurs, we not only have a contextually evoked set of groups of mice, we also know that each element of this set is being paired with a type of food. The focus of the sentence is therefore presupposed to be a food type. According to Prince, the new information in the topicalized example is that it is junk food that the third group will be fed. Another way of putting this is to say that topicalization is employed to assert a pairing between elements of two restrictive sets, whereas LD involves the listing of the members of one such set. According to Prince’s view that topicalization is more specialized than LD, all cases of topicalization should also be able to appear as LD constructions. Gregory and Michaelis show that this prediction is false since topicalization, but not LD, is possible with anaphoric elements.24 This is illustrated in () (their (); : ): () Context: A has just outlined some possible policies for the local school board. 24 Gregory and Michaelis disagree with Prince’s view of the function of topicalization for technical reasons which will not be dealt with here.
configurations B: Uh huh. That’s some pretty good ideas. Why don’t you do something with those? You should run for local school board position. A: That I’m not so sure about. I’ve got a lot of things to keep me busy. (TOP) A′: *That I’m not so sure about it. I’ve got a lot of things to keep me busy. (LD)
Gregory and Michaelis first point out that the preposed pronoun is contrastive and therefore expresses a poset relation. According to Prince, both topicalization and LD should therefore be possible, yet LD is clearly bad. Gregory and Michaelis’s view of LD differs from that of Prince. They explain the restriction against LD fronting of anaphoric expressions by the definition of LD. According to these authors, LD is a topic promoting construction. Since pronouns are by definition topics, they cannot be promoted in this way. What they mean by topic promoting (following Lambrecht among others) is that the referent is not in the discourse context prior to the utterance and remains in the discourse context after its utterance. Topic promoting does not contradict the poset relation. The discourse-available set allows the introduction of a new referent while at the same time forcing a well-defined connection to the previous discourse. Gregory and Michaelis’s notion of topic promotion may therefore boil down to the same notion that Svenonius refers to as a switch topic (see immediately above), but whereas Germanic exhibits a preference for switch topics in topic position, English LD is fully restricted to such topics. Further research is required to test this analogy. 3.3.2 Focus preposing and Yiddish movement in English
According to Birner and Ward : , the following examples illustrate focus preposing and not topicalization:25 () a I made a lot of sweetbreads. A couple of pounds I think I made for her. b I: Are there black kids in that school now? S: Not many. I had two really good friends. Damon and Jimmy their names were. c I promised my father—on Christmas Eve it was—to kill a Frenchman at the first opportunity I had. 25 For the sources of the utterances of these sentences, see Birner and Ward : . For an early observation of this point see Keenan-Ochs and Schieffelin .
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One of the prominent differences between topicalization and focus preposing is the fact that the preposed constituent is accented. However, preposed foci and topics have in common their inferential linking to an antecedent in previous discourse. In (a), for example, the preposed amount is rendered salient, according to Birner and Ward, in view of the previous mention of a quantity of sweetbreads. Similarly in (b), the mention of people, and the expectation that people have names, allows for the preposing of the two names. Finally, in (c), the mention of an event makes salient the time of its occurrence. Birner and Ward also define the fronting of contrastive elements as focus preposing (their (a); : ): () Waitress: Did you want tea? Customer: Coffee I ordered, I think. This is described as follows: the tea and coffee “represent alternate values in the inferred anchoring poset {beverages}, rendered salient in light of the waitress’ query regarding the customer’s beverage order.” In our terms, in the context of the waitress’s question concerning “tea,” the contrast set tea/coffee becomes available, allowing the contrastive interpretation of “coffee” in (). If focus preposing in fact is restricted to the preposing of contrastive or restrictive foci, then focus preposing can in fact be collapsed with topicalization, the only difference being that a focus is contained within the topic set. In view of the fact that foci are stressed, the difference between plain topicalization and contrastive topicalization follows. In order to see whether this is indeed the case, the examples in () should be examined in order to verify that they are indeed restrictive. According to Birner and Ward, they all depend on the availability of a poset relation, i.e., a contextual restrictive set, from which the focused element is selected. (This is the case in (a) in which a set of quantities is salient, one of which is picked. In (b) a set of two friends is introduced, the name of each of these friends is listed (i.e., all the elements of the set are selected), and in (c), the promising event allows for a set of times, one of which is selected.) Focus preposing can therefore be seen as one type of topicalization, not a category on its own. The requirement that the assertion be salient follows from the contextual requirement on restrictive sets. Yet another type of fronting, “Yiddish movement,” was first analyzed in Prince b.26 (a) is from Birner and Ward : , (b) and (c) are from Prince (also cited in Birner and Ward). 26 This construction is restricted to those English dialects which were influenced by Yiddish.
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()
a Then came bald Uncle Hymie, one fist shaking violently in the air—like Lenin he looked! … b A: How’s your son? B: Don’t ask! A sportscar he wants! c A: How’s your son? B: Don’t ask! #A sportscar he stole!
The preposed element in Yiddish movement is stressed and it can be brand new (a). The distinction between (b) and (c), according to Prince, is that someone’s wanting something can be presupposed through general knowledge of the world, yet someone’s stealing something cannot. The only restriction on Yiddish movement seems to be that the assertion should be generally known or plausible. It need not be salient as is the case for focus preposing in other dialects of English. 3.3.3 When the left-peripheral element does not have informationstructural impact As mentioned in section ., Prince argues for a type of LD, a simplifying LD, in which fronting is not directly motivated by the discourse status of the fronted element. An example is given in () (Prince’s () ).27 ()
a “…there won’t be any dead up there. There’ll just be tombstones setting there. Because the coal is under the graves. An old preacher down therei, they augered under the grave where hisi wife was buried. And he’s nearly blind and he prayed and everything.” b “I know what this piece of equipment’s raised to do. Any companyi, if they’re worth million dollars you don’t need to think for a minute theyi’re not gonna know what you’re doing. They didn’t get there that way.” c “My sister got stabbed. She died. Two of my sisters were living together on th Street. They had gone to bed, and this man, their girlfriend’s husband, came in. He started fussing with my sister and she started to scream. The landladyi, shei went up, and he laid her out. So sister went to get a wash cloth to put on her…”
These all involve the fronting of discourse-new entities, yet discourse newness is not a sufficient condition for fronting, as is shown in (), a variant of (c) (Prince’s () ). 27
For the sources of these examples see Prince .
configurations ()
My sister got stabbed. She died. Two of my sisters were living together on th Street. They had gone to bed, and this man, their girlfriend’s husband, came in. He started fussing with my sister and she started to scream. The landlady went up, and he laid her out. #So a wash clothi, sister went to get iti/onei to put on …
According to Prince, the difference between () and (c) is “the position which the initial NP would occupy if the sentence were in canonical form. In all cases, the NP would be in a position that is strongly disfavored for NPs evoking Discourse-new entities.” One such position is the subject position (e.g., (b) and (c) ). The other is the position of a possessive (e.g., (a) ). In (), however, the fronted element is fronted from object position, a position which favors discourse-new elements. LD is therefore disfavored. The purpose of LD can therefore be seen as maintaining a canonical f-structure for the sentence, since once the discourse element has been introduced at the left periphery, its copy within the sentence is discourse old, the favored role in the syntactic positions in question. 3.3.4 Fronting non-topics According to Frey to appear, not all initial elements are topics. FinP, in Frey’s framework, hosts elements moved from the initial position of the middle field. Topics often front to this position, and when they move on to initial position, their topic status is maintained.28 Yet the initial position of the middle field does not necessarily host a topic, hence Frey predicts that the peripheral element in FinP need not be a topic. Such cases are illustrated in (). Here, according to Frey, the fronted elements are not referential and require contextualization: ()
Fast Jeden Kollegen findet der berühmte Linguist linguist nearly everyACC colleague thinks the famous sympathisch (is) nice “The famous linguist thinks nearly every colleague is nice.” b In einem Garten hat Maria den Hund gefüttert fed in a garden has Mary theACC dog “Mary fed the dog in a garden.” a
According to Frey, (a) in the context in () is perfect: 28 See Jäger and Meinunger for the view that it is topics that are “scrambled” to the initial position of the middle field. See also section below.
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()
Hans fühlt sich wohl an seinem neuen Arbeitsplatz. Hans feels REFL fine at his new working place Fast jeden Kollegen findet der berühmte Linguist sympathisch.
Note that the preceding sentence introduces the “place of work” into the context, allowing it, and any of its natural parts, to be the topic of the following sentence. “Colleagues” are clearly a natural part of a place of work and therefore qualify as the topic of (a). This follows if elements which are “subsets” of previously mentioned constituents are defined as topics, a definition not adopted by Frey. Frey does not supply a context for (b) but assumes that the preposed locational PP cannot be a topic. Yet in a framework which allows stage topics, a PP may in fact play the role of a topic. (b) cannot answer the question: Where did Mary feed the dog? It follows that the PP does not play the role of focus. Moreover, the fact that () is well formed indicates that the PP in fact must be the topic, since the other sentence constituents are indefinite and therefore do not qualify as potential topics and a sentence must have at least one topic to be interpreted. () In einem Garten hat ein Mädchen einen Hund gefüttert. in a garden has a girl a dog fed It follows that (b) and () are predicated of a stage topic in which “a garden” restricts the location defined by the discoursally available current stage. Yet arguments for topichood do not extend to (a) and similar examples in which the fronted elements are argued by Frey to have no information-structural impact.29 () a Leider hat keiner dem alten Mann geholfen. man helped unfortunately has nobody theDAT old “Unfortunately, nobody has helped the old man.” sagte Karl, dass t1 dem alten Mann keiner b *Leider1 unfortunately said Karl that the old man nobody geholfen hat helped has “Karl said that unfortunately nobody helped the old man.” (a) exemplifies a sentence adverbial which cannot be topical. (b) shows that such elements cannot be fronted from within a subordinate clause, an indication that A′ movement is not involved. Since A′ movement must be motivated by semantic or pragmatic import, lack of moveI exclude from discussion Frey’s examples in which the initial element is a subject. Subjects are unmarked topics, but it is not necessarily the case that subjects must be topics. 29
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ment is thus predicted. Frey concludes that the mechanism which allows for the local fronting of such elements is purely formal and is motivated by the EPP requirement which can also be fulfilled by expletives. That adverbs such as “leider” are not likely topics is uncontroversial, yet it is not obvious that the various word orders listed in () are equivalent from an information-structural perspective ( (a) = (a) ): () a Leider hat keiner dem alten Mann geholfen. unfortunately has nobody the old man helped b *Keiner/ KEINER hat leider dem alten Mann nobody has unfortunately the old man geholfen. helped c Dem alten Mann hat leider keiner geholfen. the old man has unfortunately nobody helped d *Dem alten Mann hat keiner leider geholfen. the old man has nobody unfortunately helped (b) shows that the subject keiner can be topicalized only when it is contrastive. This German quantifier thus does not qualify as a noncontrastive topic.30 The definite object dem alten Mann, predictably, can be topicalized whether contrasted or not as shown in (c). (d) is ruled out because keiner has scrambled to the left, and, as shown in section . below, scrambling targets (subordinate) topics. The only word order in which the left-peripheral element is not a topic is therefore (a). A straightforward conclusion is that fronting an element which does not function as a topic indicates that none of the other elements in the sentence is to be interpreted as a topic. This would leave the sentence topicless, not an option in a framework in which every sentence must have a topic for truth value assignment to take place. The only other option is that sentences such as these must be predicated of a stage topic. The sentences in () show that an initial adverb is possible in sentences in which all the arguments are indefinite and therefore cannot be interpreted as topics. This proves that these sentences are indeed to be interpreted as having a stage topic. ()
a Glücklicherweise hat ein Mädchen einem alten Fortunately has a girl an old geholfen. helped “Fortunately a girl helped an old man.”
Mann man
Erteschik-Shir : for arguments showing that quantifiers of this type cannot be topics. 30
configurations b Leider hat ein Hund einen alten Mann gebißen. Unfortunately has a dog an old man bitten “Unfortunately, a dog bit an old man.”
I conclude that fronting a non-topic marks the sentence as having a stage topic in German. It follows, that, contra Frey, fronting adverbs to the left periphery does have information-structural impact. This impact however is not associated with the fronted element itself. The following Danish data give the same results: ()
a Desværre kom Hans/han ikke til selskabet. unfortunately came Hans/he not to the party “Unfortunately Hans/he didn’t come to the party.” b Hans/han kom desværre ikke til selskabet. Hans/he came unfortunately not to the party “Hans/he unfortunately didn’t come to the party.”
Here again, only (a) can be employed out of context. (b), however, requires that the subject is interpreted as a topic, and is therefore a good response to “Tell me about Hans.” (a) is not a possible continuation in this context. We can therefore conclude that in these Germanic languages when the initial element does not qualify as a topic, then the sentence is interpreted with an implicit stage topic. Fronting a nontopic signals a particular IS, namely one in which none of the overt elements is a topic. Svenonius claims that the initial position is not a simple topic position as argued above; he claims it is a “switch topic.” He includes in this category contrastive foci, speaker-oriented adverbials, discourse connectives, scene-setting adverbials, and actual switch topics. If no switch topic is available, a continued topic, often the subject, is placed in initial position, and if neither a shift topic nor a continued topic is available, an expletive may appear. Svenonius’ description of the elements in initial position can be captured by the following generalization: The initial element in Germanic is either a topic or else the sentence is interpreted as having a stage topic. Since the class of topics includes continued topics, switch topics, contrast, and overt stage topics, topicalization in Germanic in these cases can be seen as motivated by the movement of a topic. It is only when the fronted element is itself not a topic that such motivation fails. This is one of the reasons why Svenonius rejects the cartographic approach and also the reason why Frey separates topicalization from movement to FinP which is not motivated by information structure.
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The idea that formal or stylistic fronting may have a discourse function, albeit not one connected to the fronted element itself, has also been proposed by Holmberg , following É. Kiss .31 His proposal is that subject “fillers,” such as those created by stylistic fronting as well as expletives, create a structure which allows the merger of what we have here referred to as a stage topic. É. Kiss : develops this argument further and rephrases the EPP as a requirement that “sentences express predication about a constituent in SpecTopP.” She allows this constituent to be an overt or implicit stage topic and explains the unacceptability of Hungarian sentences with individual-level predicates with no constituent in SpecTopP as a violation of this version of the EPP: Since individual-level predicates do not allow stage topics, no predication of an implicit stage topic is possible.32 É. Kiss further argues that her version of the EPP also applies to a non-topic-prominent language such as English. Evidence is drawn from the placement of speaker-oriented sentential adverbials in English (her (): ): ()
a *[TPA baby boy luckily was born] b Luckily [TP a baby boy was born] c John luckily [TP was born on time]
(a) shows that a non-specific subject cannot be followed by a sentence adverbial and (b) shows that the adverb must precede such a subject. (c) shows that a specific subject may precede the adverb. According to É. Kiss the preverbal subject in this example is located in SpecTopP. (b), however, is predicated of an implicit stage topic (also situated in SpecTopP). These data are similar to the German data in (a) and (). There too an initial sentence adverb indicates a stage topic. The question that arises is how this word order is motivated. For É. Kiss the adverb demarcates the border between topic and predicate, i.e., the topic projects above the adverb. When the topic is an implicit stage topic, the adverb shows up in initial position.33 For Frey, however, the adverb moves, hence his assumption that its movement cannot be motivated by information structure.
Although worthwhile, a comparison between Frey’s formal fronting and Holmberg’s stylistic fronting will not be undertaken here. 32 See Chapter , section . for an account of the differences between individual-level and stage-level predicates in terms of information structure. 33 According to É. Kiss , existential there is also fronted to SpecTopP, forcing an interpretation with an implicit stage topic. 31
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Rizzi a also discusses fronting of non-topic adverbials and argues for another (recursive) left-peripheral projection, Mod, to accommodate their distribution (his () ): ()
Force Top* Int Top* Focus Mod* Top* Fin IP34
Rizzi assumes that “salience” is associated with this projection. He doesn’t clarify what he means by that, although it seems that all left-peripheral elements are salient in this sense. Although examples are given of adverbials which function as topics and as foci, and therefore land in the appropriate projections, most adverbials do not have informational properties. Rizzi distinguishes topics from such fronted adverbials which, although they share intonational properties with topics, cannot be said to be what the sentence is about. In order to explain the difference between these two categories with respect to extraction (topics do not trigger minimality interactions, adverbials do), Rizzi offers two possible explanations. () It follows from the recursive property of topics. Hence he predicts that in languages which do not allow multiple topics, the minimality interactions with topics should appear, but he has found no case to test this prediction. () Rizzi associates the left-peripheral projections with the features +− Arg, +−Mod, +−Q each with its own defining features.35 According to Rizzi, only topics can be viewed as defined “in a purely negative way with respect to this system.” They are neither argumental, nor quantificational, nor modificational. Since relativized minimality (RM) effects depend on “sameness” of structural type expressed by a positive feature specification, topics would be correctly excluded from the system of positions which exhibits RM effects. Both attempts at explaining the difference between topics and other left-peripheral elements seem highly stipulative.36 Rizzi a also suffers from the same criticisms outlined with respect to Rizzi in sections . and . above.37
34 Another addition to the scheme is Int, the landing site of “higher” wh-elements such as “perché” (why). 35 The features associated with argumental elements are person, number, gender, and case. Those associated with quantificational elements are Wh, Neg, focus, etc., and Modifiers include the following: evaluative, epistemic, Neg, frequentative, declarative, measure, and manner. 36 For another explanation of why topics are not subject to the same constraints as other elements when moved see Erteschik-Shir , recapitulated in Chapter , section .. 37 For further discussion and criticism of Rizzi’s view of the left periphery and its application to a variety of languages, see among many others Paul ; De Cat ; Massam ; López ; Aboh .
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All the cases listed in this section are illustrations of a left-peripheral element which does not itself have information-structural properties, yet it signals a particular information structure, namely one with a stage topic. These structures also have another property which may explain their information-structural status: Due to the fact that the left-peripheral element is not an argument, the subject is never in its canonical position in which it is interpreted as a topic. The motivation for these constructions may therefore be to oust the subject from this position in order to enable a non-topic interpretation of the subject, rendering, in this case, an outof-the-blue interpretation.38 Another reason to postpose the subject is to enable its interpretation as a focus. This is the topic of the next section. 3.3.5 Focusing the subject: existentials One way of “marking” a sentence as being all focus and having a stage topic is therefore for a non-topic to occupy the left-peripheral position. According to É. Kiss and Holmberg , existentials employ exactly this strategy. The outcome is an all-focus sentence predicated of a stage topic: () a (s)Topt[There is a/*the dog in my garden]foc b sTop(t)[There is a/*the meeting at two o’clock]foc c (s)Topt[There are many/*all people who like ice cream]foc In such an f-structure, the full sentence is entered on the card for the current here-and-now which provides the stage topic (using f-structure). When the stage topic is lacking in contextual definition, i.e., either the place or the time is not contextually available, then a “new” stage is defined by adding these parameters to the stage. This can be seen in (). In (a) the location is not given contextually and in (b) the time is missing in the context. In (c) no locative parameter is contextually available, yet this parameter is not provided in the sentence either; the new stage is accommodated to mean the whole world.39 The definition
38 For the observation that, cross-linguistically, topics have a strong tendency to coincide with subjects see among others Gundel ; Givón ; Li and Thompson ; Reinhart ; Lambrecht . 39 The elements following be must provide a focus. Without focusable elements the sentence will be incomplete, explaining why sentences such as
(i) There are people. (ii) There are cats. seem incomplete unless they receive an ontological interpretation. Such an interpretation is less feasible for (i) than for (ii).
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of a new stage requires new inventory. Definites presuppose a referent associated with a location. Located referents are therefore incompatible with the interpretation of a new stage. This is the explanation for the definiteness effect in existentials. The definition of a new stage in this way also provides an explanation for when the definiteness effect applies. () illustrates examples in which it does not hold:40 ()
a There’s city hall, the museum, and the park. b There’s the meeting at o’clock and the office event at .
Such existentials generally provide a list of elements contained in a certain place, or time: (a) could be a description of the sights in a given town. (b) could be a response to a request for the day’s schedule at the office. In both cases, the context must include reference to the stage in question, namely the town and the office events, respectively, but what’s special about these stages is that they are unpopulated, and it is in this sense that they are new. The inventory which is listed in the existential may be given, yet it is new to the stage in question. An obvious difference between the sentences in () and () is that the former lack at least one of the parameters of the stage and the latter require full contextual specification of the stage (e.g., for (a), a particular city, and for (b), a particular day at work). Since the stage is not new, the inventory on it need not be new either. The definiteness effect is therefore predicted to hold only of new stages.41 40 According to Wagner , structures which exhibit a definiteness effect are in fact not incompatible with definites but only with DPs that are given. He gives the following examples:
(i)
a # There’s the mother in the garden. b This soap opera is just like Hamlet. There’s the mother, who conspires to kill her husband, …
Wagner’s illustration fits the account given here. For a characterization of definites in existentials see also Hannay . 41 The same definiteness effect is also found in locatives such as (ia) and (b) but not in possessives such as (ic): (i)
a My souptop [has a/*the fly in it]foc b Johntop [has a/*the hat on]foc c Johntop [has a/the hat (in his hand)]foc
In (ia) and (b) the subjects are interpreted as locations and therefore function as stage topics. Their f-structure is therefore parallel to that of the sentences in () in that these stage topics also require the filling in of the location by a prepositional phrase. (ic) differs in that the subject is interpreted as a possessor and not as a location. The definiteness effect does not apply and the addition of a locational prepositional phrase is optional.
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3.3.6 Clefts: syntactic mapping of information structure
According to Gundel clefts are also employed in order to mark subjects as non-topics: “information structure is more directly mapped onto syntactic structure in the sense that the focus (informationstructural predicate) is in post-copular position and is kept out of syntactic subject position.” Gundel’s paper poses the question as to why Norwegian clefts (b) are so much more frequent than English clefts (a). () a It was Nielsen who won. b Det var It was
Nielsen
som REL
vant. won
This is an important question in view of the fact that the informationstructural properties of clefts in the two languages are the same: In both languages, the cleft clause encodes information that is presupposed or “taken for granted” in some sense, so that it may be conceptualized as a single, individuated entity, with a referential givenness status of at least uniquely identifiable. With respect to … topic-focus structure, both languages allow clefts where the cleft clause encodes the topic and the clefted constituent is the information focus/comment. ()
Both languages also allow the reverse situation in which the cleft clause is the focus (or part of the focus). According to Gundel, the source of the difference is that there is a stronger tendency in Norwegian to map information structure directly onto syntactic structure.42 In the case of clefts it “allows the material in the cleft clause to be treated on a par with other uniquely identifiable material, such as the content of a definite description even when it is not the topic of a sentence” as well as keeping the focused material out of subject position. 3.3.7 Other strategies for marking subjects as non-topics
Existential constructions and clefts are thus ways for subjects to be marked as non-topics. Existentials and clefts are constrained in a number of ways so that other strategies for marking the subject as a non-topic are also needed. According to Lambrecht : , such strategies involve “cancellation of those prosodic and/or morphosyntactic subject properties which are associated with the role of subjects as topic 42 See also Erteschik-Shir in which a similar point is made in comparing Danish and English.
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expressions in PF (predicate focus) sentences.”43 Lambrecht : allows for two different implementations of this strategy. One way is by assigning prosodic prominence to the subject (prosodic inversion), the other is by dislocating the subject (syntactic inversion). The former tack is taken by English, the latter by Italian (Lambrecht’s () ): () ()
a Her husband is SICK. b Il suo marito e malato.
(Italian)
a Her HUSBAND is sick. b E malato il suo marito.
Lambrecht argues that the purpose of these inversions is the marking of paradigmatic contrast by assigning the subject object properties, rather than the iconic view that the focused subject must occur towards the end of the sentence in order to be nearer to subsequent mention of its referent as a continued topic. This explanation does not apply to the English case in (a).44 Syntactic accounts of postposing focused subjects have had to overcome the ban on rightward movement. Zubizaretta : , for example, accounts for the inversion of focused subject in Italian as follows: the focused subject is in the specifier position of a functional projection above TP (in the SVO order). Then, p(rosodically motivated)-movement left-adjoins the TP (VO) to the FP rendering the VOS order and the correct interpretation of the subject as a focus. One of the arguments in favor of an account in terms of p-movement is that Italian is sensitive to the relative weight of the constituents which invert. P-movement applies in cases of prosodic conflict, i.e., when different prosodic rules assign conflicting prominence to two metrical sister nodes.45 Samek-Lodovici supports the prosodically driven analysis originating with Zubizaretta which explains the final position of focused subjects as the position which
According to Lambrecht, a distinctive property of all-focus sentences is the absence of a topic–comment relation between the subject and the predicate. He does not invoke stage topics. 44 For an analysis of this phenomenon within RRG theory see Van Valin and LaPolla : – and Van Valin : –. 45 Zubizaretta argues that in spite of its prosodic motivation, p-movement is syntactic. She also gives an account of Spanish postposed subjects in terms of p-movement, yet her analysis of Spanish differs significantly from that of Italian. For an account of Spanish subject placement, see also Casielles-Suárez . 43
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is compatible with stress assignment. Samek-Lodovici shows that seeming counterexamples to Zubizaretta’s generalization, cases in which the focus is not rightmost in the sentence, can be accounted for if it is assumed that such cases result from the dislocation of discourse-given constituents to the right of the focus. Such rightdislocated material is pronounced with an intonational pause and remains unstressed. An example of a non-final focused subject in Italian is given in () (from Samek-Lodovici, his ()). (Note that right dislocation applies to given, yet “heavy” material, explaining Zubizaretta’s observation that the positioning of the focused subject in final position in Italian is sensitive to the relative weight of the subject and the constituents that follow it.) ()
Context: We were told that Bill took the children to the zoo. No. Li ha portati allo zoo GIANNI, i bambini No. Them has taken to-the zoo John, the children “No. JOHN took the children to the zoo.”
Samek-Lodovici thus argues for a fixed position for foci at the right periphery of the IP. Clause-internal and initial foci arise due to the dislocation of constituents to the right of the focus. The more rightdislocated constituents there are the further to the left the focus will be found. This analysis of the position of Italian foci invalidates the idea of a left-peripheral focus position à la Rizzi. Samek-Lodovici’s conclusions concerning the right-peripheral position of foci in Italian, if correct, may signal that movement to the left periphery is restricted to the identification of topics (including constrastive ones). If this is so, then this may be because the unmarked case in languages is one in which there is a one-to-one mapping between grammatical subjectpredicate and information-structural subject-predicate structures.46 3.3.8 Left-peripheral prospects One of the questions that arise again and again in the study of the information-structural import of elements at the left periphery is their precise function in information structure. In many languages, the leftmost element is often defined as the topic. In some languages the topic may be contrastive as well, yet in others, only a non-contrastive topic can occupy this position. In yet other languages, there is a preference for switch topics. 46
See Erteschik-Shir and Gundel among others for the role of such mapping.
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Similarly, foci fronted to the left periphery are not uniform. According to most researchers, the Hungarian preverbal focus position hosts foci which are selected from a discourse-specified set. These restrictive foci, as argued in Chapter , section ., have properties of topics, allowing them to function as topics, at least in some languages. Similarly, the Italian preposed focus is also restrictive. Informational foci are usually excluded from the left periphery. If this is so, the left periphery seemingly hosts only topics of various kinds with significant variation across languages in terms of which types of topics occur there, and what the order between them is. If the particular topic and focus types are carefully teased apart with these questions in mind, a quite different picture of the left periphery may emerge. Another point made here is that movement of information-structural inert elements need not mean that the structure in which they occur in fronted position does not differ in information structure from a structure in which these elements remain in situ. Fronting such elements may render a thetic focus structure with a stage topic. In other cases, an element is fronted altruistically in order to focus another element such as the subject. A lot of work has been produced especially in the last decade examining the impact of information structure on word order, yet beyond the well-known fact that topics tend to precede foci, not much progress has been made as yet. Some of the syntactic frameworks discussed in Chapter may be better suited to make generalizations concerning the word order of particular languages than minimalism, the syntactic framework most discussed here. Yet, an explanatory cross-linguistic account of information structure-triggered word order is still missing. 3.4 Scrambling According to Bailyn a: , “scrambling is a general cover term for the process that derives non-canonical word order patterns in so-called ‘free word order languages’ such as Japanese, Russian, German, Hindi, and many others. In such languages, constituents can appear in a variety of surface orders, without changing the core meaning of the sentence.”47 The term originates with Ross who treated it as a stylistic rule. For many researchers it has remained extra-grammatical both because of 47 Bailyn a; b is an excellent review of the literature on scrambling. Here I deal only with those issues that are significant with respect to IS.
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its optionality and because it has no semantic import. Scrambling is distinguishable from topicalization in that it is not necessarily restricted to root clauses, yet it is not always easy to tease apart particular cases in which an element is “scrambled” to the left periphery. Since Ross’s initial observations, movement of constituents has been distinguished along a number of parameters, one of them the distinction between A-bar and A movement. Topicalization has been accounted for either in terms of A-bar movement or as Adjunction at the left periphery. Scrambling has received mixed accounts, with a large body of work dedicated to deciding whether it should be analyzed as A-bar or A movement. There is little agreement on this issue. Nor is there agreement concerning whether there is one uniform scrambling phenomenon, or whether there are several. Van Gelderen defines scrambling as (syntactic) movement driven by information structure. She therefore includes topicalization as a type of scrambling. At least three types of scrambling have been defined: () short scrambling (within the VP), () medial scrambling (to a VP-external position), and () long-distance scrambling (across a CP boundary).48 In spite of the interest this issue has engendered, a theory which predicts the occurrence of one or more of these cross-linguistically is not yet available.49 For most syntactic accounts, the optionality issue is the most difficult to resolve. Optional reordering is rarely truly optional and is often motivated by information structure.50 Whether this is the case is the topic of this section. Van Gelderen’s account of scrambling in Russian, Japanese, and Dutch provides a good starting point for the discussion. 3.4.1 Scrambling in Russian Russian is known to be non-configurational, with few restrictions, if any, on word order. The following set of examples from van Gelderen : illustrates that a sentence consisting of a subject, verb, and object can occur in all six possible orders: 48 See, e.g., Takano for these distinctions. The discussion here will mostly be limited to short scrambling. Languages differ as to whether scrambling is clause bound (German) or not (Russian, Japanese). See Bailyn b for more details and references. 49 According to Bailyn b, Slavic languages do not conform to the idea originating with Fukui and supported by Neeleman and Reinhart that scrambling languages must be head final. But see van Gelderen’s account of the scrambling parameter in section .. 50 Bailyn b lists the following research on the relation between scrambling and discourse function: Rudin , Miyagawa , and Haider and Rosengren , as well as Neeleman and Reinhart , which view this relation as a property of the PF interface.
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() a Ivan kupil knigu Ivan.NOM bought book.ACC b Ivan knigu kupil Ivan book bought c Knigu Ivan kupil book Ivan bought d Knigu kupil Ivan book bought Ivan e Kupil Ivan knigu bought Ivan book f Kupil knigu Ivan bought book Ivan “Ivan bought the/a book” What interests us here is first and foremost the information-structural properties of these word orders.51 In view of the fact that van Gelderen : defines scrambling as movement driven by IS, she is a good source for this endeavor. By using the question–answer test for focus (but abstracting away from the propensity in Russian of replying to a question with an identical word order), van Gelderen : – concludes that SVO and SOV, as well as OVS and VOS, allow the subject to be an informational focus, but that OSV and VSO never allow it. The object can also be an information focus in the SVO and SOV orders. A focused object also occurs in VSO sentences, but not in OSV, VOS, and OVS. V can be assigned informational focus in SVO and SOV and the entire sentence can be assigned informational focus in SVO and SOV. The following generalization emerges here: Both SVO and SOV function as unmarked word orders and allow all informational focus assignments. In all other cases, the informational focus is restricted to sentence-final position. Van Gelderen : provides the following evidence that the topic is in initial position in the unmarked orders:52 () A: Kto-to vse -taki etu knigu kupil someone.NOM all-this-way this book.ACC bought “Still, someone bought this book.” B: Etu knigu kupil Ivan (OVS) this book.ACC bought Ivan.NOM “This book, Ivan bought it.” Van Gelderen : provides convincing arguments for why a syntactic derivation of the “unusual” orders is not feasible. 52 For some reason van Gelderen does not test VSO for topic position, although she says that the initial element in all the marked word orders can be a topic. 51
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() A: Kto-to vse -taki etu knigu kupil someone.NOM all-this-way this book.ACC bought “Still, someone bought this book.” B: Kupil etu knigu Ivan (VOS) bought this book.ACC Ivan.NOM “Ivan bought this book.” () A: Gde eta kniga voobš č e-to? where this book.NOM generally -this Mne kažetsja ona zdes’ ležala me.DAT seems she.NOM here lay “Where is this book anyway? It seemed to me that it was lying here.” B: Etu knigu Ivan vzjal (OSV) this book.ACC Ivan.NOM took “This book, Ivan took it.” She concludes that the marked orders all exhibit initial topic and final focus.53 According to King , however, the basic word order of unemotive sentences is VSO and this is also the word order which allows sentential focus.54 King : – gives the following examples: ()
a
Šel dožd’ go rain “Rain was falling.” b [Nešlyno proletela kakaja-to neizvestnaja ptica] noiselessly fly past some unknown bird “Some type of unknown bird flew noiselessly past.” c [Prislal muž den’gi.] sent husband money “My husband sent (me) the money.”
Note that these examples all depict changes of location and can therefore be analyzed as unaccusatives. If the only instantiation of VSO out-of-the-blue sentences is of this type, then King’s argument is
53 See also King ; Erteschik-Shir and Strahov ; for the generalization that the sentence-final position is designated for foci. According to Natalia Strahov (personal communication) OSV sentences can still have stress on the object. However, in this case, the object is stressed just as it would have been stressed in sentence-final position. These sentences are known as emphatic sentences which are emotionally colored. 54 King derives this order by employing the VP-internal subject analysis and forcing the verb to raise to I.
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severely weakened. Bailyn , following most researchers of Russian, argues for SVO as the unmarked order of Russian sentences. He claims that this is the order of all-focus sentences and that this order allows for ambiguity with respect to topic and focus assignments. It also allows falling (neutral) intonation and is the word order found most frequently. Van Gelderen : also argues that the unmarked word order in the language is SVO using similar tests. Bailyn and van Gelderen thus agree that SVO is an unmarked word order in Russian. According to van Gelderen, SOV is also unmarked in that it allows for an all-focus interpretation. King, however, disagrees with both these authors and assumes that VSO is unmarked. She argues (King : ) that the reason subjects frequently occur in preverbal position is that the element selected as the subject of predication (i.e., the topic) is the thematically most prominent one, namely the subject. All three authors agree, however, that generally topics occur in initial position and that foci occur sentence finally.55 Van Gelderen allows early spell-out in certain languages, so that the linear order of elements which are not fully merged in the syntax is determined according to information structure requirements at the PF interface (see Chapter , section .). The parameter that licenses early spell-out is rich case morphology. It follows that Russian, but not English, will allow early spell-out. She also allows optional IS-driven syntactic movement. This is possible in languages which do not license early spell-out, yet languages which do allow early spell-out, such as Russian, may also allow such syntactic processes. SVO is the basic word order in Russian, according to van Gelderen. She claims, however, that SOV also functions as an unmarked word order with respect to focus assignment. Van Gelderen : also points out a number of properties that SOV has in common with SVO including that they both allow embedding and neutral (non-contrastive) intonation. The orders VSO, VOS, and OVS cannot be embedded and can only have marked intonation. The order SOV is parallel to cases of object shift in other languages. As for the OSV order, it seems to belong to both classes, depending on whether there is a “comma intonation” following the object or not. When the order OSV occurs with an intonational break between the object and the rest of the clause, it is akin to topicalization in other 55 See also Strahov for an analysis of Russian word order and Erteschik-Shir and Strahov ; for the generalization that the sentence-final position is designated for foci. For an account of Russian word order within RRG, see Rodionova .
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languages. Van Gelderen : argues that the fronted object in the O,SV order is interpreted as a contrastive topic (her () ): () A: Nu i kak, kupili knigu ili kartinu? well and how bought.PL book.ACC or painting.ACC “Well, did you buy the book or the painting?” B: Knigu, Ivan kupil, a kartinu, net book.ACC Ivan.NOM bought but painting.ACC not “As for the book, Ivan bought it, but as for the painting, he didn’t.” According to van Gelderen, this order is formed in the syntax by topicalization to Spec,TopP.56 King : – also argues for two different types of topicalization. Following Aissen , she refers to these as internal and external topics respectively, the latter being equivalent to van Gelderen’s contrastive topic which is separated from the sentence by comma intonation. According to King, the function of such topics is that of a shift topic which she defines as having been mentioned in the previous utterance, but not as a topic. (Contrast is, of course, one type of shift topic, but not the only one.) Both types of topic can occur in Russian sentences. In this case, the shift topic precedes the repeated topic. The orders SOV, SVO, and O,VS, in van Gelderen, are therefore accounted for by “normal” syntactic means. The other three orders, according to van Gelderen, are a result of linearization at PF according to IS requirements. This is possible in Russian in view of the fact that it allows early spell-out. Allowing for a division between word orders that are generated in the syntax and those that are not has certain interesting consequences. For example, Van Gelderen explains the asymmetry between main and subordinate clauses as follows: subordinate clauses are formed in syntax, hence they instantiate the hierarchical structure which the syntax provides. No reordering is therefore possible at PF. This predicts that only those orders derived in the syntax will occur in subordinate clauses. This is why only SVO, SOV, and O, SV can be embedded. Similar explanations hold for the other asymmetries. Topicalization for contrastive purposes is not unusual in languages, and the fact that it occurs in embedded clauses is not surprising if these clauses are root clauses as defined in Emonds ; , since these function as the main assertions of the sentence. In fact, the examples van Gelderen offers are The contrastive topic feature thus triggers syntactic movement. Her approach to contrastive topics thus differs from her account of contrastive foci which are assigned the feature [+CF] and are interpreted in situ. See Chapter , section . for discussion of the conceptual basis of van Gelderen’s account. 56
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all embedded under the verb “think,” which allows for embedded root clauses. Whether contrastive topicalization in Russian is syntactic as van Gelderen claims is, however, not as clear as she would have it. In order to see this, we must first examine van Gelderen’s other case of syntactic reordering in Russian, object shift. Van Gelderen quotes Svenonius who claims optionality and IS motivation as defining properties of syntactic object shift. Since the SOV order is optional, and since it also has the properties of an unmarked order, van Gelderen : – concludes that object shift is a syntactic rule which must also be motivated by IS. Surprisingly, however, van Gelderen shows consistently that there are no IS properties that differentiate SVO and SOV. If this is so, then it is hard to understand what she means by IS motivation. Note that even if focus projects in the SOV order as it does in the SVO order so that the main f-structures of the two orders are identical, the role of the objects in the two orders may still differ in their subordinate f-structure. A careful examination of the two orders and their IS properties is therefore in order. The account of Russian word order, according to van Gelderen, is therefore twofold: Contrastive topicalization and object shift are syntactic, all other reorderings are the result of linearization at PF where topics are linearized to the left and foci are linearized to the right. The distinctions van Gelderen makes between syntactic and PF reordering, both motivated by IS, can be captured by the framework introduced in Erteschik-Shir a and discussed in Chapter , section .. In this framework, topic and focus features are selected in the lexicon and optionally project by feature projection through their syntactic projection. This captures the connection between syntactic structure and interpretation and can potentially account for the Russian scrambling data via linearization in the phonology without recourse to IS-motivated syntactic movement. This is because the projection of topic and focus features is fixed in the syntax. The basic word order, SVO, will allow projection of a focused V to the dominating VP and IP. Reordering at PF optionally takes any topic and linearizes it to the left periphery and takes any focus and linearizes it to the right.57 The characteristic f-structure of contrastive topics on the left would also trigger comma intonation (an effect van Gelderen does not account for). Since the main f-structure of the SOV order is identical to that of the base order, i.e., it is the main verb which carries the focus feature, reordering here would have to depend on the subordinate f-structure assigned to the object as indicated in the previous section. There is no reason why the position of the object in this case could 3.4.1.1 Syntactic topic and focus features and Russian word order
57 For evidence that the sentence-final position in Russian is a designated focus position, see Erteschik-Shir and Strahov .
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not be established by PF linearization as well. It is reasonable to assume that main topics and foci will be marked by word order only in main or root clauses. This offers a simple explanation for why linearization to the peripheries is not available in subordinate clauses in Russian. 3.4.2 Scrambling in Japanese Remember that the parameter that distinguished Russian, which allows early spell-out and therefore scrambling, and English which does not, is the availability of rich case morphology in Russian. According to van Gelderen, Japanese is also a scrambling language, yet in spite of its case morphology, it does not allow early spell-out. This is because it is rigidly a verb-final language and early spell-out would predict word orders in which the verb would not remain in final position. Another reason for its rigid word order is that scrambling creates scope ambiguity in Japanese where none exists in the unscrambled versions. Scrambling must therefore feed LF, i.e., it must be syntactic.58 Van Gelderen is careful to point out that the different orders in Japanese have different information-structural impact. (Here she differs from many others who have investigated scrambling in Japanese.) Van Gelderen’s model therefore includes both information structure-motivated syntactic movement (Japanese scrambling, Russian topicalization and object shift), as well as information structure-motivated linearization at PF (Russian scrambling). In this way, she can maintain that the parameter for scrambling is that the language be head final. Russian is not an exception since its scrambling capability is due to early spell-out (). This move puts her proposal at a disadvantage with respect to other models which do not require such rich machinery. More significantly, although she gives an account of why syntactic scrambling is optional in terms of case checking, she does not explain the particular information structure effects of Japanese scrambled structures. Her account is a sophisticated cross-linguistic account of scrambling which at least superficially views IS as the motivation behind changes in word order. IS motivation comes for free if scrambling is a linearization effect at PF as it is in Russian. IS motivation is also necessary, in van Gelderen’s model, for syntax-internal scrambling (Japanese), since otherwise she would have no explanation for its peculiar properties. It is possible that, had she examined the IS properties of Japanese scrambling with at least as much care as she did with Russian scrambling, a more direct connection between IS and scrambling could have been made. 58 Van Gelderen offers much more evidence for the fact that scrambling in Japanese must be pre-spell-out. I refer the reader to her work for the details.
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The basic scrambling data in Japanese are given in () (from Ishii ; the foci are marked in bold).59 (a) gives the basic word order in Japanese, SOV. (b) shows that the object can be fronted across the subject. ()
a
Taroo-ga sono hon-o Taro-NOM that book-ACC “Taro bought that book.” Taroo-ga ti b Sono hon-oi that book-ACC Taro-NOM
katta. (SOV) bought katta. (OSV: O scrambled) bought
According to Ishii, the preverbal position in Japanese is the unmarked position for informational foci.60 Therefore, as expected, (a) allows not only focus on the direct object, but also on the VP and on the whole sentence. The scrambled (b), by fronting the object, positions the subject in preverbal position and enables its interpretation as the informational focus. This is the only possible focus in this sentence.61 Here, as in the Germanic cases examined in section above, scrambling of the object is altruistic, since the object itself does not gain a particular IS status, yet the movement allows the subject to be interpreted as a focus. Another way to look at this type of scrambling is to adopt Ishii’s view that scrambling is motivated as a type of de-stressing process since the scrambled element is always presupposed.62 Under this view the preverbal focus is derived from stressing the most deeply embedded constituent as in Cinque (Chapter , section .). According to Ishii, elements scrambled to the left periphery function as switch topics of the type discussed in Chapter and in section above. This is probably also what Miyagawa : had in mind when he describes the function of the fronted object as a focus, by which he means “a phrase which requires some sort of emphasis. In certain cases, the emphasis may presuppose a previous utterance of the phrase in the conversation, or something comparable. In these cases it may be more accurate to use the term topic.” Scrambling of the direct object in a double object construction allows focus on the indirect object in (b). I exclude “long” scrambling (across a sentence boundary) from discussion here. Kim has already shown that in SOV languages, the unmarked focus position is preverbal. 61 Van Gelderen discusses the fact that focus projection is possible in cases of scrambling in Japanese. In section .., I suggested that focus projection in Russian stems from the selection of the focus feature on the main verb and that scrambling of this focus structure can occur if it is motivated by subordinate focus structure. In order to see whether this hypothesis can explain the differences in focus projection between the two languages, more details of the f-structure properties of the two languages are needed. 62 Ishii follows the general approach of Neeleman and Reinhart (Chapter , section .), yet he argues that scrambling is a result of movement and not of base generation. 59 60
configurations ()
a
Taroo-ga Hanako-ni sono Taro-NOM Hanako-to that “Taro gave Hanako that book.”
b Taroo-ga sono Taro-NOM that
hon-o ageta. book-ACC gave (S IO DO V)63
hon-o Hanako-ni ageta. book-ACC Hanako-to gave (S DO IO V:DO scrambled)
() illustrates that the indirect object can also be focused in situ by stressing it. ()
Taroo-wa Hanako-ni hon-o agemasita Taro-TOP Hanako-to book-ACC gave “Taro gave a book to Hanako.”
According to Ishii, (), in which “stress shift” has occurred, can only be interpreted with narrow focus on the indirect object. He claims that the reason for this constellation is the need for presupposed elements to be contiguous. If the giving of a book is presupposed, then the order and stress in () is preferred. Finally, the object can also scramble across an adverb as shown in (b). ()
a
Taroo-wa hon-o isoide Taro-TOP book-ACC quickly “Taro quickly read a book.”
yonda (no desu). read NL COP
Here again, according to Ishii, the adverb and the verb form the presupposition and must therefore be contiguous. This requirement forces the focus to precede the adverb. Note that in both () and () the subject is marked with the contrastive topic marker “wa.” Topics are of course presupposed, but the contiguity requirement does not apply to them. The contiguity requirement is stipulated and cannot, as far as I can see, be made to follow from Neeleman and Reinhart’s theory. Although Ishii’s article does not provide a full account of scrambling in Japanese, its careful examination of the associated IS properties makes it clear that an account of Japanese scrambling without taking IS into account is doomed to failure. One of the puzzles van Gelderen solves without recourse to properties of IS is the fact that scrambling generates quantifier scope possibilities not available in the basic word order. In Chapter , section . it was pointed out that the definition of topic in terms of predication predicts that the topic will always take wide scope. If this is the case then scrambling which fixes the interpretation of a certain element as topic should 63 Van Gelderen : posits the base order to be S DO IO V. The examples given here are from Ishii who gives the base as S IO DO V.
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also have a fixed scope interpretation with the derived topic taking wide scope. The prediction is that movement for the purpose of topicalization would necessarily limit the scope possibilities, not extend them, as is the case in Japanese. Yet if scrambling does not fix the position of the topic, it would not have this effect. In order to see whether these f-structure predictions hold for Japanese, let us examine the data van Gelderen presents. Van Gelderen : – first points out that scope follows the surface order of elements in Japanese unscrambled sentences: ()
Daremo-ga dareka-o aisiteiru everyone-NOM someone-ACC love “Everyone loves someone.” ∀x [∃y [x loves y] ] *∃y [∀x [x loves y] ]
The scrambled examples in () with OSV order, however, allow both scopal readings: ()
a
Dareka-o daremo-ga someone-ACC everyone-NOM “Everyone loves someone.” ∀x [∃y [x loves y] ] ∃y [∀x [x loves y] ] b Daremo-o dareka-ga everyone-ACC someone-NOM “Someone loves everyone.” ∀x [∃y [x loves y] ] ∃y [∀x [x loves y] ]
aisiteiru love
aisiteiru love
The puzzle becomes even more intriguing when we observe that scrambling in double object constructions does not have this effect. Here both the base order (a) and the scrambled order (b) allow both scopal interpretations (the data are from Miyagawa : ): ()
a
Hanako-ga dareka-ni daremo-o syookaisita.64 Hanako-NOM someone-DAT everyone-ACC introduced “Hanako introduced everyone to someone.” b Hanako-ga dareka-o daremo-ni syookaisita Hanako-NOM someone-ACC everyone-DAT introduced “Hanako introduced someone to everyone.”
64 Miyagawa marks the wide scope reading of the second QP as questionable. Hoji marks it with a star (see van Gelderen : ). This may have to do with the propensity of the quantifier “someone” to take wide scope together with the fact that it precedes the universal quantifier. Clearly, such effects should be controlled for.
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Miyagawa comments on this as follows: “In fact the wide scope reading of the first QP is preferred in both word orders. The wide scope reading of the second QP is most easily obtained if the first QP receives focus stress.”65 Remember that what Miyagawa refers to as “focus” is likely to be a switch topic which ranges over a contextually available set. Also according to Ishii , the preverbal position is the unmarked focus position. The focus structure associated with scopal ambiguity in these cases is that the first QP functions as a switch topic and the second functions as a focus. Let us now return to the initial scope ambiguity in (). Here again, as mentioned above, the fronted object functions as a switch topic. Therefore, the only difference between the scrambled order in () and the base order in () is the interpretation of the object as a switch topic in the former but not in the latter. Abstracting away from whether or not movement has occurred, the focus structure required for the second QP to scope over the first one is that the first one be interpreted as a switch topic, i.e., a topic selected from a contextually available set. If my interpretation of the points made in Ishii and Miyagawa is correct then the explanation for the availability of scope ambiguity in Japanese must be the availability of this particular f-structure. It is still not clear why a switch topic QP would allow a following focused QP to take scope over it. This is particularly surprising in view of the fact that were the first QP a regular topic it would itself take wide scope, by definition of topics, and therefore the interpretation in which the second QP takes wide scope would be blocked. One possibility is that the switch topic requires a contextually available set over which the QP ranges. The inverse scope reading would be enabled if the second QP were also to receive a restrictive reading and a pairing between the elements of each of these sets resulted.66 Yet another question remains. Why is there no scope ambiguity in the base order ()? If the line of reasoning presented here is in the right direction, the reason would have to be that the subject in left-peripheral position cannot be interpreted as a switch topic. Future research will have to verify this. Interestingly, sentences such as these are in fact ambiguous according to some speakers as noted in Van Valin : . There it is argued that -ga marks both topics and foci and therefore the scope ambiguity is predicted. Miyagawa allows for the base generation of both orders as well as focus movement, so that the examples in () each have two derivations, one base generated and one scrambled. If the wide scope of the second QP is achieved by stressing the first one, then the first one must have been scrambled. See also Miyagawa for an updated analysis of these facts. 66 For similar points but different data see Kuno and Erteschik-Shir : –. 65
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The point of this speculative section was to show that it might be worthwhile to investigate f-structure properties more carefully in order to see whether the explanation for interpretative effects such as scope (and probably also other properties such as binding) can receive an explanation independently of the syntactic analysis of scrambling. This is an important issue to decide since it is exactly these types of phenomena upon which arguments for particular syntactic analyses of scrambling rest. It is also important in order to reach a better understanding of linguistic variation. Van Gelderen : uses the fact that scrambling modifies the scope possibilities in Japanese but not in Russian to argue for two different accounts of scrambling in the two languages. But this difference may have to do with independent f-structure properties of the two languages and may therefore not warrant van Gelderen’s conclusion. Teasing apart f-structure properties and syntactic properties of scrambling will therefore have to await further research, research that will take more seriously the language-specific f-structure properties and their account. 3.4.3 Dutch scrambling 67 In Dutch direct objects can occur both before and after an adverb. This is illustrated in () from van Gelderen : (her () ): () a Iedereen weet dat Jan op zondag het boek heeft everyone knows that Jan on Sunday the book has b Iedereen weet dat Jan het boek op zondag heeft everyone knows that Jan the book on Sunday has “Everyone knows that Jan read the book on Sunday.”
gelezen read gelezen read
Van Gelderen adopts Neeleman and Reinhart’s account of Dutch scrambling discussed in Chapter , section .. This requires the base generation of both orders, and therefore a different approach from that offered for the other cases of scrambling she discusses. In order to evaluate this approach, we first examine the informationstructural properties of the two word orders in more detail. According to de Hoop only strong DPs scramble.68 This is illustrated in () from de Hoop : . 67 See among others Eckardt ; Haider and Rosengren ; Wagner and the references therein for accounts of German scrambling that relate to information structure. German is very similar to Dutch with respect to adverb-DP order. The two languages however differ in their scrambling of double objects. This may have to do with availability of overt case in German, but not in Dutch. Here the discussion is limited to scrambling across adverbs. 68 De Hoop proposes that the type of DP that scrambles is a generalized quantifier. All strong DPs belong to this type. When weak DPs such as “two men” are scrambled, they get a strong (partitive or referential) reading, i.e., “two of the men” or “those two men”.
configurations
() a dat ik gisteren alle krakers/ twee krakers heb gesproken that I yesterday all squatters/ two squatters have spoken b dat ik alle krakers/ twee krakers gisteren heb gesproken that I all squatters/ two squat yesterday have spoken “that I talked to all squatters/two squatters yesterday” c omdat iedereen (*een plas) nog *(een plas) moet doen since everyone still a piss must do “since everyone still has to take a piss” (a) and (b) show that strong quantifiers or weak quantifiers that can receive strong readings scramble optionally (with only the strong reading of the weak quantifier available in the scrambled version (b) ). (c) shows that a weak DP which excludes a strong reading cannot scramble. An additional factor is contrast: weak DPs which receive a contrastive reading can occur before the adverb as shown in () from de Hoop . () a Wist jij dat Els gisteren een EENHOORN heft gezien? Knew you that Els yesterday a unicorn has seen b Wist jij dat Els een EENHOORN gisteren heft gezien? Knew you that Els a unicorn yesterday has seen “Did you know that Els saw a UNICORN yesterday?” Since strong and contrastive DPs are potential topics, a plausible account of Dutch scrambling is that it involves topicalization. Yet de Hoop ; argues that Dutch scrambling is truly optional and that there are no interpretational differences between the scrambled and unscrambled versions. Therefore, if she is right, this generalization cannot hold. De Hoop first shows that a context which forces a topic reading of the object still allows both word orders. This is shown in () from de Hoop . () A: Hoe zit het met Petra/je oude klasgenoten/de koningin? Spreek je die nog weleeens? “How about Petra/your old classmates/the queen? Do you still see her/them/her?” B: a Ja, ik heb vorige week Petra/al m’n klasgenoten/ yes I have last week Petra/all my classmates/ twee van m’n klasgenoten/de konigin opgebeld two of my classmates/the queen called
configurations b
Ja, ik heb Petra/al m’n klasgenoten/twee van m’n yes I have Petra/all my classmates/two of my klasgenoten/de koningin vorige week opgebeld classmates/the queen last week called “Yes, I called Petra/all my classmates/two of my classmates/ the queen last week.”
The context in A asks about the objects and clearly forces a topic reading of the object in the answer. The fact that this topic can occur both postverbally as in (a) and preverbally in (b) indicates, according to de Hoop, that topics need not scramble, although they may. Although de Hoop employs a context to make her point, the discourse she cites is not a natural one, since the full DP and not a pronoun is repeated in the answer. Were a pronoun used, only the scrambled version would be acceptable. Yet the fact that the first set of answers in B are at all possible does back up de Hoop’s claim that scrambling is truly optional. De Hoop is further puzzled by the following data: () a
omdat ik zelden de since I seldom the b omdat ik de kat since I the cat “since I seldom pet the cat”
kat cat zelden seldom
aai pet aai pet
() a
koningin queen gisteren yesterday
zag saw zag saw
() a
bus bus altijd always
neem take neem take
omdat ik gisteren de since I yesterday the b omdat ik de koningin since I the queen “since I saw the queen yesterday” omdat ik altijd de since I always the b omdat ik de bus since I the bus “since I always take the bus”
According to de Hoop, the sentences in () are well behaved with respect to the topicality of the scrambled object. In the scrambled version, (b), the unmarked reading is that the cat is linked to the previous discourse, and in (a) the cat is not contextually available. (However, as shown immediately below, context and intonation may allow for different topic
configurations
assignments.) () and () differ in this respect. In neither sentence does the scrambled or the unscrambled version require that the object be contextually available. In () “the queen” is taken to be the current queen, and in () “the bus” is taken to be whatever bus is relevant to transporting the speaker in the reported event. De Hoop takes this as evidence that scrambling in these two sentences does not function to signal a topic in preadverbial position. However, as discussed in Chapter , section ., referents such as “the queen,” “the sun,” and even “the bus” are contextually available between speaker and hearer with no need for previous mention. It follows that they can always function as topics (namely, “The sun is shining” as an out-of-the-blue sentence). Since they don’t have to function as topics, either word order works. The “good” behavior of () breaks down, according to de Hoop, when a disambiguating context is supplied. She gives the following two contexts: ()
a Recently, Paul seems to be under stress. b Paul has a cat that seems to be under stress, recently.
Both orders are equally acceptable in both contexts. The context in (a) does not offer an antecedent for the cat and therefore it should not be interpreted as a topic and should not scramble. The context in (b) introduces a cat into the context and therefore the object must be interpreted as a topic in the continuation, yet again both orders are good. De Hoop concludes that adding a specific context limits the number of interpretations and, as a result, there is no need for the word order to mark the topic. Another way to look at these data is to assume that since the definiteness of the object requires that the cat be known to both speaker and hearer, the cat (just like the queen, above) can be interpreted as a topic even when it is not introduced overtly as in (a). Further, when it is introduced as in (b), it should be able to scramble, and the question that remains is why it doesn’t have to. Another piece of evidence presented by de Hoop for her claim that scrambling is not equivalent to topicalization is that no scopal effects are associated with scrambling, as would be expected if the scrambled order necessarily has a different IS from the unscrambled one: Although the unmarked case is that the word order does reflect the scopal order (and therefore scrambling does seem to have the expected effect), this interpretation can be overruled by stress. The following examples are also from de Hoop (the translations indicate the scopal interpretation):
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()
a
dat Jan drie KEER alle meisjes that Jan three times all girls “All girls, Jan kissed three times.” b dat Jan alle MEISJES drie keer that Jan alle meisjes drie keer “Three times, Jan kissed all girls.”
kuste kissed kuste kuste
In (a) the stressed adverbial “three times” precedes the object, yet it has narrow scope, and in (b) the stressed object precedes the adverbial, yet it too has narrow scope. An obvious response to de Hoop is that intonation changes information structure and therefore changes the scopal interpretation. If, for example, the object in (b) is contrastive (as it would be if we want to maintain the idea that the scrambled object is a (contrastive) topic), then the reading indicated is what we would expect.69 More serious are the following examples from de Hoop which show that an unscrambled object can take wide scope (a) and that an adverb can take scope over a preceding scrambled object. ()
a
dat Jan minstens één keer per jaar al z’n vrienden bezoekt that Jan at least once a year all his friends visits “All his friends, Jan visits them at least once a year.” b dat Jan alle brieven een keer versheurd heft that Jan all letters once torn up has “Once, Jan tore up all letters.”
The reason for these scopal interpretations, according to de Hoop, is that the other scopal interpretation is pragmatically implausible. Although de Hoop employs this example as further evidence for her claim that scrambling is optional in Dutch, one might also conclude that, in these cases, the accepted reading is accommodated in view of the implausible reading that is derived from the linear order of the quantifiers in the sentence. De Hoop takes her conclusion further. She argues that in Dutch the relation between IS and syntactic structure is flexible. Dutch thus differs from languages such as Catalan, Italian, Turkish, and Urdu in which this relation is strict.70 More specifically, “if there is a conflict between context and scrambling in Dutch, context definitely wins.” This conclusion leads her to an optimality theoretical analysis. A lot therefore rests on de Hoop’s interpretation of her data. Another interpretation of the same data is to note that the function of scrambling in Dutch may be to mark a subordinate topic and not the 69 70
See Chapter , section . for an account of how scope can be read off f-structure. See de Hoop for the relevant references.
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main topic of the sentence. In the examples listed above, the subject is the main topic of the sentence. In principle, some other constituent fronted to the left periphery could also play this role. It follows that, although scrambling may be restricted to topical elements, these never function as the main topic of the sentence, but only as a subordinate one. It is plausible that the importance of marking the main topic and focus is more critical for processing than marking subordinate ones. This may be why scrambling is not required in all cases in which the object may be interpreted as a topic. It is unlikely that this is a sufficient explanation, however, in view of the fact that there are scrambling facts that are rigid in Dutch: Pronouns, which are necessarily interpreted as topics, must scramble and non-specific, non-contrastive indefinites which cannot be interpreted as topics cannot scramble.71 That is why flexibility only shows up in the case of definites. According to Schaeffer ; ; to appear, the optionality of the scrambling of definites is only apparent. She makes three observations which lead her to this conclusion. First she shows that the requirements for scrambling differ depending on whether scrambling is over negation or over a sentential adverb. () shows that scrambling of definites over negation is obligatory and () shows that scrambling over a sentential adverb is seemingly optional (examples from Schaeffer to appear: chapter ): () a dat Hella het boek niet gelezen heeft that Hella the book not read has “that Hella hasn’t read the book” b *dat Hella niet het boek gelezen heeft that Hella not the book read has () a dat Saskia waarschijnlijk de krant gelezen heeft that Saskia probably the newspaper read has “that Saskia probably read the newspaper” b dat Saskia de krant waarschijnlijk gelezen heeft that Saskia the newspaper probably read has “that Saskia probably read the newspaper” Schaeffer’s second observation is that when the sentence includes both a sentential adverb and negation, the scrambled object can occur in two different positions, one before negation but after the adverb (a) and one before both. 71 According to Schaeffer ; Dutch weak pronouns cliticize to the verb on their right.
configurations
() a dat Saskia waarschijnlijk de krant niet gelezen heeft that Saskia probably the newspaper not read has “that Saskia probably didn’t read the newspaper” b dat Saskia de krant waarschijnlijk niet gelezen heeft that Saskia the newspaper probably not read has “that Saskia probably didn’t read the newspaper” Schaeffer concludes from this evidence that there must be two different landing positions for scrambled items. Schaeffer’s third observation is that when the context provides an antecedent for the referent of the object, scrambling over sentential adverbs is also obligatory (or at least that these cases exhibit a strong preference for scrambling):72 () A: Wat zei je dat Saskia met de krant what said you that Saskia with the newspaper gedaan heeft? done has “What did you say Saskia did with the newspaper?” B: (a) Ik zei dat ze de krant waarschijnlijk I said that she the newspaper probably geLEzen heeft. read has “I said that she probably read the newspaper.” (b) ??Ik zei dat ze waarschijnlijk de krant I said that she probably the newspaper geLEzen heeft. read has When such an antecedent is not contextually available, scrambling is strongly dispreferred: () A: Wat zei je dat Saskia gedaan heeft? what said you that Saskia done has “What did you say Saskia did?” B: (a) ??Ik zei dat ze de krant waarschijnlijk I said that she the newspaper probably gelezen heeft. read has “I said that she probably read the newspaper.” 72 In all cases in which scrambling is either preferred or dispreferred, the data are not absolute; this is often the case when grammaticality judgements depend on whether an element is perceived as a topic or not.
configurations (b) Ik zei I said gelezen read
dat ze that she heeft. has
waarschijnlijk de probably the
krant newspaper
Schaeffer singles out the class of definites which do not scramble across sentential adverbs (but do scramble across negation). This class, according to Schaeffer, includes the sun, the moon, the newspaper, the president, the mailman, the queen, and proper names such as Susan. (But see de Hoop’s : (b).) These referents are available in the discourse without requiring overt mention in the discourse. They can therefore always be selected as topics, but in view of the fact that they have not been previously mentioned, they force a topic shift. Schaeffer (personal communication) also agrees that shift topics, selected from a context-specified set, belong to this class. Examine the following discourses: () De familie Jansen The family Jansen a Ik heb I have b ??Ik heb I have c Ik heb I have d *Ik heb I have
woont in lives in gisteren de yesterday the de vader the father de vader the father niet de not the
de Hoofdstraat. the Hoofdstreet vader ontmoet. father met gisteren ontmoet. yesterday met niet ontmoet. not met. vader ontmoet father met
In all cases, the referent for the father is derivable from the introduction of the family to which he belongs. (a) and (b) show that such topics do not shift across adverbs. (c) and (d) show that they must shift across negation. Schaeffer concludes from the fact that there are two scrambling positions that definites, whether they are regular topics or shift topics, always scramble. The former scrambles to the higher scrambling position and the latter to the lower one. Schaeffer’s approach is thus along the lines of Rizzi’s in that functional projections provide landing sites for fronted items and each such projection is endowed with the relevant interpretation. Schaeffer’s distinctions thus enable a view of scrambling which leaves no room for optionality and which does not lend itself to an OT account. Schaeffer’s generalizations, however, do not explain why scrambling across negation should have different properties from scrambling over adverbs. Here the scopal properties of negation might be at stake. Negation differs from adverbs in that it is associated with focus, therefore, if the object
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is to be interpreted as a topic (and here it doesn’t matter what type of topic it is), it cannot stay in the scopal domain of the negative element. The motivation for scrambling across an adverb must be different and seems to be to remove the topic from the focused VP domain in line with Diesing’s analysis (see Chapter , section .).73 Shift topics, it seems, are tolerated in this domain (below the adverb, but above negation). One possible reason for this is that scrambling must be examined in the context of other reordering operations such as topicalization. If it is the case in Dutch, as in other Germanic languages, that topicalization applies to switch topics, then switch topic objects should be topicalized rather than scrambled.74 This type of interaction should be studied further to see if this claim is valid. How do these conclusions concerning the properties of Dutch scrambling fare with the Neeleman and Reinhart approach? As outlined in Chapter , section ., Reinhart and Neeleman allow for the base generation of both the scrambled and the unscrambled orders.75 They assume, following Cinque , that stress is derived from syntactic structure such that the most deeply embedded element is stressed. The focus set is derived by listing all constituents which project from this set. It follows that in Dutch unscrambled OV structures main stress will fall on the object, which is therefore included in the focus set. In scrambled structures, the main stress will fall on the verb and the object is no longer included in the focus set (a). If the object is a topic and it is not scrambled, it will have to be de-stressed in order to avoid being included in the focus set as shown in (b).76 ()
a
Ik heb het boek gisteren gelezen, en niet verscheurd: I have the book yesterday read, and not torn-up b #Ik heb gisteren het boek gelezen, en niet verscheurd
The motivation for scrambling across an adverb in Dutch can’t be prosodic, since contrastive (stressed) topics scramble as do regular unstressed ones (e.g., (b) and (b) above). 74 As noted above, section , Frey to appear argues that the initial element in the middle field in German feeds topicalization. Since this is also the position of scrambled elements, the idea that the two positions compete as hosts for topics is supported. German should be examined to see if indeed the left periphery hosts shift topics and the middle field hosts regular topics as predicted. 75 The terms scrambled and unscrambled order are used to indicate the linear order of the constituents and do not imply that these orders are derived by movement. 76 (a), with stress on the object, would be good if the object, not the verb, were contrastive (on a par with (b) ). Although Neeleman and Reinhart do not mention such cases, they could account for this type of case by a stress-shifting operation which assigns stress to foci not included in the focus set and associate such stress assignment with contrast. 73
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De-stressing the topic, according to Neeleman and Reinhart, is uneconomical, as are all stress-shifting operations. It follows that topics must scramble. If de Hoop ; were right and the scrambling of topics is truly optional, then Neeleman and Reinhart’s account fails, as de Hoop herself argues. If, however, Schaeffer is right, then scrambling is obligatory and de Hoop’s argument against Neeleman and Reinhart fails. Yet how would Neeleman and Reinhart incorporate the fine distinctions required to account for Schaeffer’s data? First of all, in order to derive (a), Neeleman and Reinhart would have to base generate a third structure, namely the one in which the object occupies the lower scrambling position between the adverb and negation. Second, they would have to add some machinery that would distinguish switch topics and regular topics. Otherwise, since neither belongs in the focus set, both types of topic would be predicted to occur before the adverb. Neither of these additions to their framework is desirable and so their framework fails as well. This leaves Schaeffer’s Rizzi-type approach which is open to all the same weaknesses Rizzi’s approach suffers from. 3.4.4 Scrambling in Persian
Karimi and Roberts demonstrate that the “free” word order of Persian is also determined by IS. The discussion here is limited to their accounts of the position of direct objects. According to Karimi : , the base position of specific objects, marked by the specificity marker -râ, is Spec,VP. He argues at length that non-specific objects differ in their syntactic, semantic, and morphological properties and therefore have a different base position immediately preceding the verb. The two orders are derived by the phrase structure rules in (). ()
a [VP DP[+specific] [V′ PP V] ] b [VP [V′ PP [V′ DP[-specific]V] ] ]
Karimi goes on to demonstrate that specific direct objects may also scramble above an adverb indicating that it has scrambled to a position external to the VP. This is illustrated in () and () from Karimi : . [vPSepide () Kimea porsid [CPke [ketâ-ro]i diruz Kimea asked that book-râ yesterday Sepide kojâ gozâsht] ] ] [VPti where put-sg Lit.: “Kimea asked, as for the book, where did Sepide put (it) yesterday.”
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()
Kimea porsid [CPke [ketâ-ro]i diruz [vPSepide [VPti Kimea asked that book-râ yesterday Sepide be ki dâd] ] ] to whom gave Lit.: “Kimea asked, as for the book, to whom did Sepide give (it) yesterday?”
As can be seen from the literal translation, the scrambled object is interpreted as a topic. Scrambling of both specific and non-specific objects is possible if these are stressed and interpreted contrastively. This is shown for a non-specific object in () from Karimi : . ()
Kimea [(ye) ketâb]i barâ -sh ti Kimea (a) book for -her “Kimea bought a BOOK for her.”
xarid bought
Karimi posits that although the non-specific is new, it can still scramble when contrasted, since contrast involves discourse linking. As shown in the previous chapter, contrast falls naturally in the class of topics under the view that contrast involves a subordinate focus structure, hence the fact that non-specific contrastive elements can be topicalized is not surprising. Karimi anchors his analysis of scrambling and the two different base positions for specific and non-specific objects by showing the different scope and binding properties of the different positions. If, however, these effects are derived directly from the f-structure properties of the constituents involved as proposed in Erteschik-Shir ,77 then it may be possible to do away with the different base positions and offer an account in terms of topicalization to the left periphery of the VP. Roberts goes into more detail concerning the IS properties of the various word orders in Persian. He argues that Chomsky’s theories of Principles and Parameters or Minimalism are “typologically inadequate for accounting for the languages of the world” (). His main reason for rejecting these theories is that they require constituent structure and hence are inadequate to handle free word order languages such as Persian. Instead, he proposes an analysis in terms of RRG which incorporates Lambrecht’s approach to IS. In order to account for examples such as () in which a non-specific object has scrambled and is interpreted contrastively, Roberts : posits the specialized template in (). As shown in Chapter , section ., specialized templates are employed for constructions which are associated with a particular 77 See also Chapter , section . for the analysis of scope in terms of f-structure and Chapter , section for the analysis of anaphora as a dependency governed by f-structure.
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() SENTENCE | CLAUSE | CORE
XPi
XP
PERIPHERY
(XPi) …
NUC | PRED | V (XPi) = unmarked focus position
SPEECH ACT
focus structure. Such specialized templates can be viewed as the RRG parallel to syntactic top/foc projections in Minimalism. The dotted lines at the bottom of the diagram indicate the potential focus domain, in this case the whole structure. The solid lines below the diagram indicate the actual focus in the sentence. The template in () is surprisingly reminiscent of Karimi’s analysis of scrambling illustrated in ()–(). Both authors stipulate a specific landing site for the scrambled object. In addition, Roberts distinguishes the templates for scrambled indefinites and scrambled definites because the former must be identified as contrastive foci whereas the latter are contrastive topics under his analysis. Both Karimi’s and Roberts’s analyses suffer from the same weakness in that the mapping from syntax to IS is stipulated. Roberts shows convincingly that RRG notation allows for all the required mappings, but doesn’t assume any constraints on such mapping. Therefore, although all languages can be accounted for in this way, it is not clear how the system imposes constraints on these mappings, predicting that any mapping whatsoever is possible in natural language. Karimi’s analysis offers more: he shows correlations between his mappings and interpretative effects. It is hard to imagine how these correlations can be made to follow from specialized RRG templates. In the next section, we examine object shift in Scandinavian. Object shift also involves the ordering of objects and adverbials, yet, as we shall see, it is usually distinguished from scrambling in the other Germanic languages. It is possible, however, that an analysis of object shift can shed light on how to approach these types of scrambling as well. We return to this possibility at the end of the next section. 3.5 Scandinavian object shift In Scandinavian languages, objects also scramble across adverbials. In the mainland Scandinavian languages and in Faeroese only pronouns shift,
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but in Icelandic full DPs also shift as long as they are interpreted as topics. Scandinavian object shift (OS) has been distinguished from scrambling mainly because OS is restricted by Holmberg’s generalization and scrambling is not. According to Holmberg’s generalization OS depends on the occurrence of verb movement which positions verbs in Scandinavian in “second” position in main clauses. It follows that OS does not occur in subordinate clauses or in main clauses with auxiliaries in which the auxiliary rather than the verb itself moves. The following examples illustrate the classic cases of object shift in Danish: ()
Peter mødte ham ikke. Peter met him not “Peter didn’t meet him.”
()
a
Peter Peter b … at that
har has Peter Peter
ikke not ikke not
mødt met mødte met
ham. him ham. him
In () both the verb and the object have moved. In the sentences in (), neither the verb nor the object has moved. In (a), the presence of the auxiliary blocks verb movement and (b) illustrates the lack of verb movement in subordinate clauses. That IS is involved in OS is obvious only in Icelandic which allows full DPs to shift. It has often been observed that only definites which qualify as topics undergo OS in Icelandic. In the other Scandinavian languages only pronoun topics shift, and therefore the reason for their linear position need not follow from their being topics. Icelandic OS is illustrated in () and (): ()
()
a
Ég les aldrei nyjar I read never new “I never read new books.” b *Ég les nýjar bækur I read new books a
Jón Jon b Jón Jon
las read las read
bækur. books aldrei never
bókina the books ekki not
ekki. not bókina. the books
(b) shows that non-generic indefinites cannot undergo OS and () shows that definites do so optionally. Here OS depends on context: it presupposes recent mention, i.e., topichood.
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Holmberg argues that OS applies in a post-spell-out component of stylistic rules, containing rules dependent on focus structure. Movement is triggered by the need of −foc constituents to be governed by a +foc feature assigned to the verb and is only licensed when all phonologically visible non-adjunct material has been removed from between the launching site and the landing site of the movement. This is how Holmberg links OS to verb movement. Holmberg derives the linkage between verb movement and OS from the assignment of an inherent +foc feature to verbs. The restriction on OS in terms of phonological visibility calls for a phonological account, yet Holmberg rejects the idea that OS is a phonological or a morphological operation since it does not make reference to phonological or morphological primitives. Chomsky , although tempted by a phonological analysis of OS, rejects it at least in part precisely because it is driven by the semantic interpretation of the shifted object (see Chapter , section ). But in view of the fact that OS cannot apply across a phonologically visible category it must also be phonological. Chomsky explains OS and the distinction between OS and non-OS languages by positing the interpretative features INT and INT′. INT′ is assigned in OS languages only according to (): () At the phonological border of v*P, XP is assigned INT′. Chomsky doesn’t specify what the features INT and INT′ are. For his purposes it suffices that these features have interpretative import. If the assignment of INT′ is to explain OS, then INT′ must be Focus (and INT must be topic). Therefore () is equivalent to the idea that OS languages have a designated focus position at the VP edge. Optionality is resolved by the economy principle in (): () Optional operations can apply only if they have an effect on outcome. Since the optional assignment of the feature INT′ has an effect on interpretation, it has an effect on outcome, and the optional assignment of the feature is licensed. Chomsky’s approach shows how an optional reordering process with IS-interpretative effects as well as adjacency constraints can be handled within a minimalist syntactic approach, as long as information-structural features are allowed to be assigned in the derivation. Note that the interpretative effect cannot be dealt with at LF since the assignment of the INT features depends on phonological boundaries and therefore must occur post-spell-out.78 78 Numerous papers have been written on OS and its theoretical repercussions. For a recent collection of articles on the subject, see the special issue of Theoretical Linguistics on object shift, (/), .
configurations
Erteschik-Shir a; b examines OS from a different angle: instead of attempting an account of the placement of the object, she seeks to understand the placement of adverbs. According to ErteschikShir, Scandinavian adverbs must incorporate prosodically into an available host. This is also true of pronouns. A potential host for pronoun incorporation is the verb. This is shown schematically in (): ()
a V+Adv DP b *V+Adv pronoun c V+pronoun+Adv
(a) shows the order with the verb linearized in second position. The adverb incorporates into the verbal host. The full DP object does not incorporate. In (b) the adverb incorporates into the verb and the pronoun is no longer able to incorporate as required. That is why this sequence is ruled out. In (c), however, the pronoun incorporates first. The verb+pronoun sequence, probably due to the phonological weakness of the incorporated pronoun, can still serve as a host for incorporation, allowing the adverb to incorporate. In this order both the adverb and the pronoun are incorporated as required.79 When the verb remains in situ, the pronoun is adjacent to the verb and can incorporate without the need for a different linear order. This explains Holmberg’s generalization. This story does not automatically carry over to Icelandic, since it is not at all obvious how the placement of full DPs can receive a prosodic account. There is, in fact, no evidence that full DPs in Icelandic incorporate into the verb. However, the adverb and the object seem to form a prosodic unit in both orders in (). I therefore assume that Icelandic adverbs, like all Scandinavian adverbs, are weak and must prosodically incorporate (PI). Yet whereas Danish adverbs PI into the verb, Icelandic adverbs PI into the object (either pro- or enclitically) in these cases: ()
a
bókina+ekki books-the not b ekki+bókina80 As expected heavy noun phrases do not shift:
()
a
Ég sá ekki ráðherrann sem allir eru að kvarta yfir. I saw not minister-the who all are to complain over “I didn’t see the minister who everyone was complaining about.”
There is more to this than revealed here. See Erteschik-Shir a for details. It is in fact hard to detect a difference in stress between the two. This may be due to the fact that phrasal stress is final. 79 80
configurations
b ??Ég sá ráðherrann sem allir eru að kvarta yfir ekki. I saw minister-the who all are to complain over not This follows naturally from an account in terms of prosodic incorporation. Adverb placement and prosodic incorporation occur in the computation to PF. Since the interpretative effects follow from the interpretation of f-structure and do not directly depend on the linear order of the elements, this approach is not linked to a particular architecture. Under this view OS is not optional. Full DP topics must shift. Non-topics cannot shift.81 But why must topics shift in Icelandic? Erteschik-Shir a claims that shifting the object identifies it as a topic. The ID constraint as defined in the next chapter is concerned with the identification of the syntactic roles of arguments as well as the identification of topic and focus. The identification of foci is either through intonation or through linear position or both; the identification of topics is either through fronting or through de-stressing. Several factors interact to determine which of these tactics are employed in each particular case. Word order can be used to identify topics and foci if it is not also used to identify syntactic category. A language such as Icelandic which has morphological case is therefore free to use word order for IS purposes and hence allows scrambling of full DPs where other “caseless” Scandinavian languages do not. Another factor is whether the type of topic that needs identification is prosodically uniform. If regular topics and contrastive topics form a class, then this class cannot be prosodically identified. In Scandinavian languages, an element fronted to the initial position in the sentence is identified as the main (shift) topic of the sentence as discussed above. An element fronted within the VP is interpreted as a subordinate topic. Another way to mark subordinate object topics is by not stressing them. This is the strategy used in the Mainland Scandinavian languages and in English. The fact that Icelandic can identify subordinate topics by movement is due to the fact that it has overt morphological case marking, not available in Mainland Scandinavian. There may therefore indeed be a connection between the potential for ID-ing topics and foci by word order and the availability of overt case as commonly assumed.82 In certain dialects of the Mainland Scandinavian languages OS of pronouns is optional. For a phonological account of this type of optionality, see Erteschik-Shir a: –. 82 For an explanation of why Faeroese, which exhibits overt morphological case, does not allow OS of full DPs, see Erteschik-Shir a: –. 81
configurations
In other Germanic languages such as German and Dutch, (subordinate) topics undergo scrambling. Scrambling has much in common with Scandinavian OS, yet it occurs independently of verb movement. Neeleman and Reinhart predict that VO languages do not allow scrambling. They argue that case can be checked either in prosodic (requiring adjacency) or in syntactic domains. Preference is given to prosodic checking since this allows the derivation to reach the articulatory system sooner. The VO order, but not OV order, allows prosodic case checking which therefore must take place. VO languages will therefore not allow scrambling to check case. It follows, under this view, that scrambling is restricted to OV languages such as Dutch and German and that Scandinavian OS cannot be a subcase of scrambling.83 If OS is in essence a matter of PF linearization dependent on language-specific incorporation processes, then the difference between OS and scrambling may in fact boil down to differences in prosody which in turn may be connected to the differences in basic word order. An examination of the prosodic properties of scrambling along the lines outlined here for OS should therefore be fruitful. 3.6 Concluding remarks on word order In spite of the growing body of work on IS and word order, this research is only at its initial stages. Much of the syntactic research suffers from insufficient attention to the significance of IS features and focuses more on the repercussions for syntactic theory. Even so, some superficial “tendencies” can be observed. That topical information precedes focal information has been known at least since the days of the Prague School. The leftmost peripheral position is therefore often dedicated to the topic. The particular type of topic found on the left periphery may differ across languages and also within a language if it has several types of topicalized constructions, i.e., with and without resumption. In addition, certain types of languages also scramble objects, which function as secondary topics to the left, to a position at the VP boundary.84 If, as suggested speculatively in section ., it turns out that topicalization “bleeds” scrambling, i.e., a switch topic object topicalizes and therefore is not available for scrambling, then the syntactic theory which accommodates this sort of relationship will have very Wagner argues that scrambling and OS can in fact be seen as one and the same phenomenon. 84 In Chapter , section . the order of multiple objects within the VP will also be shown to be determined to some extent by information structure. 83
configurations
different properties from the currently available ones. One likely option is that both scrambling and topicalization involve PF linearization and that linearization takes into account the complete string and does not position each element separately. We have also observed that leftward movement for IS purposes need not be motivated by the properties of the moved element itself; the motivation may be more global, resulting in a linear order in which a focus is positioned to the right. This type of process is not amenable to the cartographic approach since movement is not triggered by a feature of the moved element. This is yet another reason to reject a purely syntactic account of those aspects of word order which are IS motivated. More promising avenues of investigation are those that involve PF processes. IS-determined word order involves linear order and not hierarchical order; it also interacts with prosody and prosodic boundaries rather than syntactic boundaries. Cross-linguistic differences may have to do at least in part with language-specific prosodic properties. If, for example, the analysis of object shift proposed in Erteschik-Shir a is on the right track, then variation in the prosody of adverbs within and across languages may provide at least a partial account of their placement within the sentence. Another example might be provided by the designated focus position in Hungarian, which is preverbal. Non-contrastive verbs are prosodically weak. A stressed element will therefore be more prominent if it is placed next to the verb. This explanation could account for those languages in which the designated focus position is adjacent to the verb, yet it does not suffice to explain why in some of these languages the focus precedes the verb and in others, it follows it. In Hungarian word stress is word initial. If we assume that the focus+verb is pronounced as a prosodic unit, then it follows that if the focus were to appear after the verb, initial stress would not be possible and the sequence would not be pronounceable. This is a potentially interesting explanation for why the designated focus position is preverbal in Hungarian, an explanation which may extend to other languages with a focus position adjacent to the verb.85 All these factors point to the need for a phonological account. Research that examines the IS–PF interface and which does not neglect IS interpretation may not only advance our understanding of word order as such, it may also make more precise the role played by syntax in grammar. 85 This idea originates with Szendröi who argues for stress-driven focus movement. See also Costa’s comments on this approach in Szendröi and Costa which raises important questions relevant to the syntax–prosody–IS interfaces.
4 Information Structure Constraints The purpose of this chapter is to show that the processing of information structure plays an important role with respect to constraints which have traditionally been viewed as syntactic constraints. The first section demonstrates that word order in simple sentences is constrained by the need to avoid an ambiguous parse of the linear string. This is demonstrated for Danish and Hebrew. The second section deals with constraints on extraction including the sentential subject constraint and the that-t effect and argues that dependencies can be processed only within canonical f-structures. The third section shows that the fact that canonical f-structure is parameterized across languages affords an explanation for the difference in superiority effects in different languages. The languages discussed in this section are English, Hebrew, German, and Danish. Section shows that the constraint on extraction introduced in section not only accounts for extraction from complex NPs, it also predicts extraposition from NP. Section discusses evidence for an account of extraction constraints in terms of processing. 4.1 Identification 4.1.1 Argument identification, a constraint on topicalization In Chapter , section , it was demonstrated that Danish topicalization applies optionally to topics with a preference for switch topics. Danish topicalization, however, is further constrained.1 The examples in () show that even definites, which qualify as topics, are sometimes ruled out (a) or less than optimal (b). ()
a
1
*Marie/Pigen mødte Peter Marie/the girl met Peter “Peter met Marie/the girl yesterday.”
igår. yesterday
The material in this section is to a large extent drawn from Erteschik-Shir a.
information structure constraints b ?Marie/Pigen mødte jeg Marie/the girl met I “I met Marie/the girl yesterday.”
igår. yesterday
Due to V-, topicalized sentences in Danish consist of a DP V DP string just as non-topicalized transitive sentences do. As a consequence, the arguments are not identified as subjects or objects by word order and are potentially ambiguous. (a) would be ambiguous if the topicalized reading were acceptable. Ruling out the topicalized reading thus prevents ambiguity. In (b) the subject is a case-marked (nominative) subject pronoun. In view of the fact that the subject is identified by case marking, the sentence is not ambiguous. When an accusative object pronoun is fronted, the result is also unambiguous and therefore acceptable: ()
Hende mødte Peter/jeg Her met Peter/I “Peter met her yesterday.”
igår. yesterday
Dislocation to the left periphery in Danish is thus not only restricted to constituents that qualify as topics, the result must also lead to an unambiguous parse. Note that the “ambiguity” restriction cannot be defined in terms of the fronted element only, in view of the fact that (b) is only slightly degraded. An analysis restricting fronting to overtly case-marked elements is therefore doomed to failure.2 Further evidence that parsing is at stake is the fact that topicalization is unrestricted with verbs which select one animate and one inanimate argument as in (). ()
a Den that b Den that
skuffe drawer bog book
har has har has
drengen boy-the drengen boy-the
malet. painted også also
læst. read
Here the inanimate fronted topics can only be parsed as objects. Context can also disambiguate in cases which would otherwise be ambiguous: () Hvem var det Sarah Who was it Sarah *Peter mødte Sarah. Peter met Sarah “Sarah met Peter.”
mødte, met,
Peter Peter
eller or
Thomas? Thomas?
2 Surprisingly, even though neither is ambiguous, (b) is slightly degraded compared with (). This could be because the correct parse is signaled earlier in the latter than in the former.
information structure constraints
In (), the context has been set up to induce the reading with “Sarah” interpreted as a subject: The context forces a contrastive reading of the topicalized object and still allows for a topic reading of the subject. Yet Danish informants reject the sentence in this context because they still want to assign the reading in which Peter is the subject.3 I propose a parsing constraint on the identification of arguments (ID) in (). Parsing constraints are most naturally viewed as constraints on the interface with the articulatory-perceptual system, i.e., as PF constraints. () ID: In a string, X V Y, identify X as subject and Y as object if neither is marked otherwise. ID would identify the topicalized object in (a) as a subject and the postverbal argument as an object, indeed the only interpretation of the string. In (b) the postverbal argument is identified as a subject, allowing the preverbal argument to be interpreted as an object by ID. Similarly, in () the initial element is accusative, identifying it as the object. In (), the elements are identified by the argument structure of the verb, and in () identification is accomplished contextually, yet such identification is not possible in Danish. The same sequence in Norwegian would be fine. Danish is particularly rigid in this respect. A disambiguating context can serve to identify subjects and objects more easily in Swedish and Norwegian.4 The different sensitivity to the ID constraint among the Scandinavian languages may be due to the differences in the distribution of pronominal case morphology in these languages.5 Raviv argues that ambiguity is prevalent among Norwegian pronouns. Pronouns therefore do not play a major role in 3 Note that the contrastive stress on the topic does not function to disambiguate the sentence since the same intonation would be used if Peter were a contrastive subject. 4 That languages may differ as to whether interpretation depends on context or on word order is also clear from de Hoop’s observations mentioned in the previous chapter, section .. 5 See Erteschik-Shir b and Raviv for arguments to this effect. Ambiguous wh-questions are not ruled out, even in Danish: (i) Hvem mødte Sarah? Who met Sarah “Who did Sarah meet?”/“Who met Sarah?” Wh-questions are processed differently from declaratives with respect to ID: The initial wh-phrase triggers a search for a trace and is therefore not automatically identified as a subject. Further, since wh-questions never occur out of the blue, their interpretation is necessarily linked to a disambiguating context. Finally, ambiguous wh-phrases are rarely found in Danish. They are replaced by circumlocutions such as that in (ii): (ii) Hvem er det (som) Sarah mødte? /Hvem er det som/der mødte Sarah? Who is it (that) Sarah met? /Who is it that met Sarah?
information structure constraints
disambiguating DP V DP strings in Norwegian. Without context lending a helping hand, topicalization would be blocked by ID in most cases in Norwegian. That is probably the reason why context is licensed as an identifier in Norwegian, but not in Danish, where the pronoun system serves well to disambiguate these strings.6 Topicalization in Hebrew exhibits similar constraints to the ones found in Danish and these data are also accounted for by the ID constraint. There are two types of Hebrew topicalization, one in which the verb is fronted to V- position and one in which it is not. (Hebrew preverbal subjects are topics; postverbal subjects are foci.) Ambiguity only results with V- in which the two arguments are separated by a V rendering a potentially ambiguous string. In this word order the fronted element is interpreted contrastively. () shows that fronting a definite is perfectly acceptable. ()
et haYELED pagaš haiš. the-boy met the-man “The man met the boy.”
Definite objects in Hebrew are marked by “et” (the exact nature of this element is irrelevant here), and indefinite subjects lack this marking, so if one of the two arguments is definite the sentence is unambiguous. In (), the subjects are definite. Since they lack marking by “et,” they cannot be interpreted as objects. ()
a
b
?YELED pagaš boy metmasc “The man met a boy.” YELED pagša boy metfem “The woman met a boy.”
haiš. the-man haiša. the-woman
Although neither is ambiguous, (b) may be slightly better than (a). This is due to the feminine subject-agreement marking on the verb which identifies the postverbal element as a subject. The reason (a) is slightly degraded may be that there is no overt marking that identifies the arguments. It is only the lack of “et” marking on the second argument which forces it to be interpreted as a subject, and this “missing” marking comes rather late in the sentence (compare (b) ). According to Rahkonen , who did a corpus analysis in Swedish, there were few NP V NP sequences in the corpus “intended as OVS structures to which the reader was tempted to assign an SVO word order in their actual context.” Rahkonen concluded that it is a necessary condition for the use of OVS in Swedish that it not be misunderstood. This accords nicely with our observations concerning the same facts in Danish. 6
information structure constraints
When both the subject and the object are indefinite, the result is never perfect: ()
a
b
*YELED pagaš iš, lo not boy metmasc man, “A man met a boy, not a girl.” ??YELED pagša iša, lo boy metfem woman, not “A woman met a boy, not a youth.”
yalda. girl baxur. youth
(a) violates ID. (b) does not, due to the feminine agreement morphology on the verb which identifies “the woman” as the subject. The reason (b) is degraded may be that the topicalized argument is indefinite and hard to contextualize contrastively. ()
a
b
IŠ našax kelev. man bit dog “A dog bit a man.” ??KELEV našax iš dog bit man “A man bit a dog.”
(a) is interpreted easily with the postverbal argument as the subject in view of the fact that dogs normally bite people and not the other way around. For the same reason (b) is odd. (b) is, of course, improved in a context in which a man is contrasted with a dog as being the biter. We can conclude that overt morphological marking on some element of the sentence identifies displaced DPs. This marking need not appear on the displaced element itself but could appear on the verb or on the element which remains in situ. The constraint must therefore be formulated in such a way that disambiguating overt marking on any element of the sentence qualifies to ID the displaced element. The fact that the relevant feature is not necessarily marked on the dislocated element, as well as the fact that overt morphological marking is visible only at PF, is further evidence for viewing the ID constraint on IS-motivated dislocation as a parsing constraint at PF. Languages differ as to how rigidly the ID constraint applies. Danish is extremely rigid in this respect: The SVO reading of an ambiguous string is strongly preferred and contextual clues can only overrule this interpretation with difficulty. In other languages context can more easily come into play. More research into the role of the ID constraint in a variety of languages is needed to decide what additional factors are responsible for these differences among languages and whether focus displacement is also subject to this constraint.
information structure constraints
4.1.2 Identification of IS functions Yet another aspect of the sentence which requires identification is the information structure of the sentence, i.e., topic and focus. These, as we have seen, are marked positionally, morphologically, and/or by intonation. In the previous chapter we saw that most accounts of IS-motivated word order are syntactic. Positional marking is thus singled out, leaving morphological and intonational marking to PF. We also saw that syntactic accounts suffer from serious theoretical and empirical weaknesses. A natural conclusion is therefore to view all IS marking, including positional marking, as PF operations. This approach also provides a natural account of the optionality of IS-motivated word order. The fact that IS-motivated dislocations are sensitive to the ID constraint further strengthens the argument for their analysis as occurring at PF. The ID constraint reflects that parsing of subject and object functions is facilitated by overt morphological identification of these functions. Parsing would be facilitated even further if no dislocation were to take place. Dislocation must therefore also serve some function. Both here and in the previous chapter, it was shown that particular linear positions serve to identify a variety of IS functions cross-linguistically. In Chapter , we showed that IS functions are sometimes marked morphologically and that focus is often marked intonationally. Discourse-configurational languages favor the identification of IS functions by word order. If the ID constraint is observed, then these languages must have sufficient morphological marking for the various dislocations to adhere to the ID constraint. Identifying IS roles is thus as important as identifying thematic roles. The tension created by the need to identify syntactic roles as well as identifying IS functions is thus mediated by the ID constraint.
4.2 IS constraints on syntax 4.2.1 I(dentificational)-dependencies On the basis of data of the type shown in (), I argued in Erteschik-Shir that extraction is completely determined by IS constraints: ()
a Who did John say that he had seen? b ?Who did John mumble that he had seen? c *Who did John lisp that he had seen?
There it was argued that only focus domains are transparent for purposes of extraction. The intuition behind this idea was that potential focus
information structure constraints
domains are processed differently from non-focus domains in that gaps are only visible in the former.7 Whether a particular subordinate class provides a focus and therefore allows extraction depends, among other factors, on the clause under which it is embedded. It also depends on the context in which the sentence is uttered. (b) is improved in a context in which “mumbling” has been mentioned (e.g., following “At our meetings everyone always mumbles”). (c) is acceptable in a context in which it is known that John lisps. This is because such a context enables the main verb to be defocused and consequently enables the subordinate thatclause to be focused. If intuitions are elicited out of context, judgements for sentences of this kind will depend on whatever context the informant happens to come up with. The examples in () illustrate other kinds of contextual factors that interact with focus assignment and the concomitant acceptability judgements. ()
a ??What did the paper editorialize that the minister had done? b *What did you animadvert that he had done?
(a) would sound much better if uttered by a member of an editorial board, and (b) probably can’t be contextually improved due to the fact that highly infrequent items such as animadvert are necessarily focused. Contrastive contexts also interact with extraction judgements: ()
a ?Who did John SAY that he had seen? [=contrastive] b Who did JOHN say that he had seen? [=contrastive]
Contrastive focus on the main verb, as in (a), or on another constituent of the main clause, as in (b), does not preclude focus on the subordinate clause. Therefore these sentences are fine with contrastive interpretations. The reason (a) is slightly more degraded than (b) is because it is harder to construe a likely contrast set for the verb “say.” A number of different syntactic solutions have been suggested over the years to account for such squishes in grammaticality. This type of solution, however, does not explain the contextual effects. Speakers’ judgements with respect to data of the kind illustrated in ()–() are rarely stable: Differences are found across speakers and sometimes the responses of the same speaker change. This type of instability occurs whenever grammaticality is context dependent because the judgements in such cases are also See Erteschik-Shir and Lappin a: for this proposal which also provides an explanation in terms of processing for parasitic gaps and for why resumptive pronouns salvage islands. For a different pragmatic/processing account of resumptive pronouns see Cann, Kaplan, and Kempson . 7
information structure constraints
context dependent. No syntactic account of data of the type in ()–() will be able to predict the contexts which improve acceptability. Syntactic constraints will therefore always fail empirically. The idea that extraction depends on focusability is also to be found within RRG in Van Valin b; a; Van Valin and LaPolla . The connection between wh-questioning and focusability is obvious under their view. They explain the connection between topicalization and relativization and focusability by means of the following aboutness constraint derived from Kuno ; :8 ()
Pragmatic aboutness condition on topicalization and relativization The sentence fragment following a topical element in the precore slot or a restrictive relative clause must be pragmatically interpretable as being about the precore slot element or the head noun. (Van Valin and LaPolla : )
Van Valin and LaPolla derive from the definition of topics in Reinhart the idea that in order for a sentence to be about an element (the topic), there must be an alternative form of the sentence in which the topic functions as a focus, i.e., it must be within the focus domain of the sentence. Van Valin and LaPolla make a distinction between the potential focus domain and the actual focus domain. The potential focus domain is syntactically determined by language-specific principles. In English, for example, the whole sentence is a potential focus domain and the actual focus can fall anywhere in the sentence. In Italian, French, Chinese, and Sesotho, however, the subject is excluded from the potential focus domain (Van Valin and LaPolla : ). One would indeed want some way of distinguishing a language such as Italian in which a preverbal subject cannot be focused, and a language such as English in which it can. One way of doing this is to define different potential focus domains for the two languages. Another way would be to argue for different linearization patterns in the two languages such that Italian (subject) foci are necessarily linearized at the right periphery. Unless the focusability facts can be linked to other properties found in the languages in question, both these accounts remain stipulative. There is a special constraint on the potential focus domain in complex sentences. This is stated in () (Van Valin and LaPolla : , originally in Van Valin b). 8 For discussion concerning the aboutness constraint versus a constraint in terms of focusability see Erteschik-Shir and Lappin ; a; Grosu .
information structure constraints
() A subordinate clause may be within the potential focus domain if it is a direct daughter of (a direct daughter of …) the clause node which is modified by the illocutionary force operator.9 In some languages, subordinate clauses are never included in the potential focus domain. In such languages () is irrelevant. In view of the fact that relative clauses are not modified by the illocutionary force operator, they will never allow extraction. This works very well for Lakhota which does not have wh-movement and in which the same morpheme (táku) is used for wh-words and specific indefinite pronouns. This, in general, leads to ambiguity, but not inside relative clauses where only the specific-indefinite reading occurs. Relative clauses, according to Van Valin and LaPolla : –, are necessarily excluded from the potential focus domain. This is due to the fact that relative clauses are dominated by an NP and “therefore there is no relationship between the embedded clause and the clause node modified by the illocutionary force operator” (the main clause). Since the interpretation of the pronoun as a wh-word is ruled out outside of potential focus domains, only the specific-indefinite interpretation of the pronoun is licensed. Note that it is the interpretation of the question rather than whextraction which is blocked. It follows that wh-interpretation in general, and not only wh-extraction, is restricted to potential focus domains. Van Valin and LaPolla are aware of the fact that some relative clauses allow extraction in Danish as pointed out in Erteschik-Shir : () a Det er der mange der kan lide. that are there many that can like “There are many who like that.” b Det hus kender jeg en mand som har købt. that house know I a man that has bought “I know a man who has bought that house.” c Den stil har jeg nogle elever der har skrevet. that composition have I some pupils that have written “I have some pupils that have written that composition.” In these relative clauses, the matrix is relatively empty, allowing the relative clause itself to be the focus of the utterance. Such extraction is not altogether bad in English either as shown in (), also from Erteschik-Shir .10 There is no limit on the number of direct daughters. See also Jensen for arguments that this type of data is incompatible with an analysis within RRG, and Van Valin : admits that pragmatic functions and lexical semantics are at stake. 9
10
information structure constraints ()
This is the kind of weather that there are many people who like.
Van Valin and LaPolla : admit that these facts, as well as data of the type illustrated in ()–(), indicate that the constraints on whquestion formation cannot be purely structural, but must also involve pragmatic functions, and lexical semantics. Lexical semantics is involved in extraction with verbs of manner-of-speaking in () (see section . below), and context was seen to be involved in the acceptability of (c) and (a), above. Since lexical and contextual factors can override the syntactic definition of potential focus domains in (), and since these factors are determined by focusability, it is not obvious whether a syntactic constraint is needed in addition to the IS constraint on extraction. Arguments for this syntactic constraint are supplied by crosslinguistic variation. Van Valin proposes that the constraint in () is relevant only in those languages in which the potential focus domain extends beyond the main clause. German is an example of a language where extraction out of finite subordinate clauses is all but impossible. This would be predicted if the potential focus domain in German were limited to main clauses. One might therefore want to parameterize () to distinguish languages such as English and German since English allows for much freer extraction out of that-clauses than German does. Yet some dialects of German allow extraction out of a subset of those that-clauses which allow extraction in English. Danish is even freer than English in that extraction in English is possible in a subset of those cases in which extraction is possible in Danish but both these languages would be restricted by () in the same way. Having some languages governed by (), but not others, is therefore not sufficient to explain the cross-linguistic data. One possible explanation for the fact that extraction in English is possible in the same cases as in Danish, but the results are comparatively degraded, is the fact that topicalization is prevalent in Danish but not in English, as argued in Erteschik-Shir . This explanation, however, does not carry over to German where topicalization is as common as in Danish, yet extraction is highly constrained. There is, however, another difference between German and Danish. German allows scrambling in subordinate clauses and thus has a way to mark topics in subordinate clauses without extraction. One possible venue for future research into the factors which determine the range of extraction in a particular language may therefore be the various mechanisms the language has for marking topics. The restriction that extraction requires focusability seems to hold across languages, however.
information structure constraints
In Chapter , section ., we introduced the lie-test which tests clauses for whether they are focusable or not. This test distinguishes those thatclauses embedded under manner-of-speaking verbs which do allow extraction from those that do not. It also allows for in-between cases. Consider, for example, the lie-test in (): () A: John said that he had seen Peter. B: a That’s a lie, he didn’t. b That’s a lie, he hadn’t. () A: John mumbled that he had seen Peter. B: a That’s a lie, he didn’t. b ?That’s a lie, he hadn’t. () A: John lisped that he had seen Peter. B: a That’s a lie, he didn’t. b *That’s a lie, he hadn’t. The test also does a fairly good job distinguishing those relative clauses which allow extraction in Danish from those that do not. Yet the lie-test is problematic since speakers tend to lose their intuitions after a very few test sentences. In addition, it is almost impossible to control for contextual effects which, as shown above, make a big difference. The correlation among speakers and within speakers between the results of the lie-test and the extraction facts, although quite good, is therefore not perfect. Van Valin and LaPolla provide a similar procedure which tests constituents for focusability by negating them, rather than testing the clause in which they are embedded. The idea behind both tests is the same, and they make the same predictions, namely that focusability is dependent on lexical elements and context. Only a few structures are immune to focusability and extraction. One of these (sentential subjects) is discussed in section . below. Another test can be derived from the observation in Morgan that fragment replies to utterances cannot be used if the corresponding sequence in the utterance is an island. () is Morgan’s illustration of the ungrammaticality of a fragment reply when the original utterance includes a relative clause. ()
a Did the man who Tricia fired leave town? b *No, Thelma. c No, the man who Thelma fired (left town).
If indeed fragment replies must be focused, then Morgan’s observation leads to a test of focusability. The fact that fragment replies are unacceptable inside islands also provides further evidence for the correlation between focusability and islandhood. Goldberg provides a variation
information structure constraints
to Morgan’s observation and demonstrates that such answers cannot be expressed within islands including relative clauses and complements of manner-of-speaking verbs as follows: () Why was Laura so happy? A: #The woman who thought she was dating someone new lives next door. A′: the woman who lives next door thought she was dating someone new. () A: #John shouted that she was dating someone new. A′: John said she was dating someone new. Goldberg’s adaptation of the test clearly indicates that the correlation between the answers and extraction is robust. Since answers must be focused, her test can be used to diagnose focusability.11 It thus follows from both approaches that only focus domains are transparent for purposes of extraction. In Erteschik-Shir I argue that this constraint on extraction falls under a more general constraint on “Identificational dependencies” or I-dependencies, which include anaphora, wh-trace dependencies, multiple wh-dependencies, negation and focus of negation, and copular sentences. What all these dependencies have in common is that the dependent is identified in the construction, either by its antecedent or by an operator.12 The need for the dependent to be identified contributes to the processing load of the sentence.13 In order to ease this load, dependencies are restricted to canonical f-structures. These are defined in the next section. 11 Goldberg herself argues that backgrounded constructions are islands. Since backgrounded constituents are defined as constituents that do not correspond either to the primary topic or to part of the potential focus domain (equivalent to Vallduví’s Tail), this constraint covers both the requirement that extraction occur out of focusable constituents as well as the fact that subjects, which, according to Goldberg, are the primary topic, can be extracted. Although the whole subject is not backgrounded, elements within it are, and can therefore not be extracted. The main difference between Goldberg’s approach and one that relies only on focusability concerns the status of subjects. Although subjects in the unmarked case do function as topics, they also can be focused. Hence extraction of subjects is predicted by both approaches.
In the discussion of Lakhota above, it was noted that question interpretation is restricted to focus domains even though the wh-expressions do not move. The constraint on I-dependencies is formulated so that it pertains both to wh-t dependencies and to dependencies between an operator and its dependent. In Lakhota pronominal forms depend on a question operator (instantiated by an overt morpheme) in order to be interpreted as question words. Hence, the fact that question interpretation is subject to constraint on I-dependencies is predicted. Neither account (Van Valin, Erteschik-Shir) requires covert movement in LF to account for island effects in languages without wh-movement. 13 See section for discussion. 12
information structure constraints
4.2.2 Canonical f-structures Not all f-structure assignments are equally good. () illustrates a wellknown asymmetry: objects are harder to interpret as topics than subjects (in languages with fixed word order and no morphological marking of top/foc):14 ()
Tell me about John: a He is in love with Mary. b ??Mary is in love with him.
In view of the fact that this constraint figures prominently in languages such as English which have fixed word order, I propose that the reason for this asymmetry is that in such languages there is a preference for aligning f-structure with syntactic structure. There are two canonical f-structures in English: ()
Canonical f-structures (English): a SUBJECTtop [… X …]foc b sTOPt [… X …]foc
In other words, an unmarked f-structure is one in which syntactic structure is isomorphic with f-structure: Either the subject is the topic and the VP is the focus (or the focus is contained in the VP) as in (a) or else there is a stage topic and the remaining sentence is the focus (or the focus is contained in it).15 It follows that a marked f-structure is one in which an object is the topic. Marked f-structures in English are thus characterized as having f-structures which do not match syntactic structure. Isomorphism between syntax and IS is a requirement on the processing of dependencies. This was argued in Erteschik-Shir . The intuition behind this idea is that the processing load of a marked f-structure together with the processing of the dependency leads to processing overload. This not only predicts many well-known constraints on dependencies, it also predicts the fact that these constraints are often context dependent. 4.2.3 The constraint on I-dependencies I-dependencies are therefore restricted to canonical f-structures as shown in (). See, among others, Andersen ; Lambrecht ; Li and Thompson ; Reinhart . The idea of a canonical f-structure which presupposes isomorphism between syntactic structure and f-structure is similar to the idea of shape conservation within Representation Theory (Williams ). 14
15
information structure constraints ()
SUBJECTtop/sTOPt [… X …]foc | ←I-dependency
The intuition behind this constraint is that dependents must be identified and that a canonical f-structure, in which IS functions and syntactic functions are unified, enables the processing of this identification.16 In the case of wh-traces, for example, the trace must be identified with the fronted wh-phrase. The proposed constraint restricts such identification to canonical f-structures. The constraint is thus couched in processing terms in which f-structure plays a critical role. Let us first examine how the constraint applies to the extraction facts in ()–(). In Erteschik-Shir , verbs that allowed focus on the subordinate clause and therefore allowed extraction were called bridge verbs because they allowed movement out of an island. This term has caused some confusion since the “bridge” property was understood on a par with a feature and therefore verbs could be associated with “bridgeness” or not. This contradicts the spirit of the original insight which was that whether or not a matrix verb requires focus is highly context dependent. Still some verbs never require a context in order for extraction to occur from their complement, and other verbs do, albeit to various extents. A lexical analysis is therefore called for. Such an analysis, based on ErteschikShir and Rapoport in preparation, is offered in Chapter , section . For now we will assume that there is a lexical property of manner-of-speaking verbs which attracts focus, but that the same property can be defocused contextually, enabling focus on the subordinate clause, which then meets the requirement on extraction, since, according to the constraint on Idependencies, the dependent (the trace) must be contained in the focus domain. It follows that, out of context, only that-clauses under “say” allow extraction. All the other manner-of-speaking verbs require some sort of contextualization in order for the verb to be defocused, thus allowing the The canonical f-structure proposed in (a) is in fact the same as the predicate focus structure in Lambrecht ; ; and adopted in RRG. The predicate focus structure is universally the unmarked focus type and is defined as follows (Lambrecht : ): 16
(i)
Predicate focus structure: Sentence construction expressing a pragmatically structured proposition in which the subject is a topic (hence within the presupposition) and in which the predicate expresses new information about this topic. The focus domain is the predicate phrase (or part of it).
Van Valin and LaPolla : – show that the analysis of anaphora relies on this configuration. This analysis of anaphora and the one proposed in Erteschik-Shir which relies on canonical f-structure are very similar.
information structure constraints
subordinate clause to be focused. Extraction is judged acceptable in these cases to the extent that the context enables such a focus assignment.17 According to Van Valin and LaPolla : the fact that manner-ofspeaking verbs block extraction out of their complements follows from Grice’s Cooperative Principle: “the choice of a verb which highlights the way in which something is said rather than what is said … causes the focus to shift to the verb in the main clause, because of the maxim of relevance: the speaker’s choice of an informationally richer expression (murmur) over another more neutral possibility (say) only makes sense in terms of the Cooperative Principle if the manner of expression is in fact highly relevant to the main point of the utterance. Hence the focus must fall on the matrix verb, keeping the complement from being the actual focus domain.” 4.2.4 Wh-topics Extractability does not only depend on the content of the matrix clause, it also depends on the type of wh-phrase extracted. Cinque demonstrates that extracted phrases which can be interpreted as being d-linked (restrictive in our terms, see Chapter , section .) render superior results to those in which the extracted phrases cannot be interpreted in this way. Compare () and (). ()
a ?Which book did you wonder whether John bought? b ??Which place did you wonder what John put?
()
a ??What did you wonder whether John bought? b ?*Where did you wonder what John put?
D-linking depends on whether a contextual referent for the wh-phrase is available. Hence in a context in which a set of relevant books (a) or a set of relevant places (b) is available, extraction is improved over that of () in which the wh-phrases do not require a restrictive context and hence extraction renders worse results. Cinque builds this notion of referentiality into his syntax and predicts that when the context provides the required referent, the extraction should be perfectly acceptable. What is missing in Cinque’s approach is an explanation of why referentiality should interact with syntactic constraints, such as subjacency, in this way. Such an explanation is available once the IS significance between restrictive and non-restrictive wh-phrases is observed: Restrictive wh-phrases range 17 See Featherston for experimental evidence that the quality of being a bridge verb is the same quality which permits a verb to take a verb-second complement clause in German.
information structure constraints
over a context-specified set. Such a set, as noted in Chapter , section ., enables a constituent to function as a topic. Let us assume that topics do not need to be reconstructed to trace position and therefore do not form a dependency with their trace. We would then predict that topic-whphrases would not be sensitive to island constraints and that the extraction data in () and () should be perfect, which is clearly not the case. The reason this is so has to do with superiority, the topic of section 3. 4.2.5 Topic-islands The constraint on I-dependencies, which constrains dependencies according to whether the syntactic structure and the f-structure are aligned in a certain way, may be context dependent. This is not always the case. Extraction out of sentential subjects is always ungrammatical and cannot be contextually ameliorated. () gives the f-structure assigned to such a case: ()
*Who is [that John likes t]top [interesting]foc
In order to comply with the constraint on I-dependencies, the subject, in this case a sentential one, must be assigned topic. Since dependents must be in the focus domain, they cannot be identified within topics and extraction will always be blocked.18 The extraction from a sentential subject of a restrictive wh-phrase is also blocked in spite of the fact that reconstruction is not required in such a case. This is because such extraction will leave an incomplete topic as shown in (). ()
*[Which girl]top [is [that John likes e]top′ [interesting]foc′]foc
The subordinate topic (top′) contains a gap which prevents it from providing a referent and hence disqualifies it as a topic. Sentential subjects are thus absolute islands irrespective of the nature of the extracted item.19 The application of the constraint on I-dependencies to sentential subjects depends on an f-structure analysis in which the sentential subject is necessarily analyzed as a topic. Erteschik-Shir offers a number of arguments to this effect. Miller provides much more evidence: He first argues against Bolinger : , who claims that the content of sentential subjects must not be topical and that sentences such as (a) are impossible, as opposed to (b) and (c), because the anaphoric link entails topic status. The sentences in () should be considered in the context of the question: “What do you think of running him as a candidate?” For the idea that topics are islands see also Meinunger . But see Kluender for examples of sentential subjects which present graded extraction results. 18 19
information structure constraints
()
a *To do that would be a good idea. b To run him as a candidate would be a good idea. c It would be a good idea to do that.
(a) contains the anaphoric element “that” and therefore extraposition is obligatory as shown in (c). (b) is possible because, according to Bolinger, the speaker is turning the question over in his mind and treating it as his own idea. Miller employs a corpus investigation and shows that Bolinger’s judgements are not replicated in naturally occurring sentences. One example from Miller which illustrates that anaphoric elements can occur in non-extraposed infinitivals is given in () (his (c) ).20 ()
Neither had a choice other than to accept the invitation. To have refused would have been political suicide.
According to Miller the correct distinction between extraposed and non-extraposed clauses is that they must be “discourse-old or directly inferable from the previous discourse context in order to remain in subject position. If this condition does not hold, extraposition is obligatory.” Consider the following example from Miller (his () ): () […] But we must never forget, most of the appropriate heroes and their legends were created overnight, to answer immediate needs. […] Most of the legends that are created to fan the fires of patriotism are essentially propagandistic and are not folk legends at all. […] Naturally, such scholarly facts are of little concern to the man trying to make money or fan patriotism by means of folklore. That much of what he calls folklore is the result of beliefs carefully sown among the people with the conscious aim of producing a desired mass emotional reaction to a particular situation or set of situations is irrelevant. Miller predicts the acceptability of this complex sentential subject since its purpose is “to sum up the content of the preceding forty lines and thus make it available as a discourse referent for the judgment ‘is irrelevant’.” This example also clearly shows, as pointed out by Miller, that it cannot be mere “heaviness” that accounts for the difference between extraposition and non-extraposition as is sometimes assumed. Whereas all the examples of sentential subjects in Miller’s corpus are discourse old or inferable, extraposed sentential subjects can be either discourse new, 20 For the sources of Miller’s examples and many more illustrations of the points made by Miller see his paper.
information structure constraints
discourse old, or inferable. () (Miller’s () ) is an example of a discourse-new extraposed sentential subject. ()
European Central Bank Row Won’t be Last PARIS—It is astonishing that the real questions about Europe’s new single currency, the euro, and about the new European Central Bank were never addressed during the -hour row among European governments that ended in Sunday’s sad compromise on the new bank’s president. Those questions are: Can this bank truly be independent? And, if it tried to be truly independent, could it survive? The answer to both clearly is “no.” (Herald Tribune, May , first lines of the article)
Miller shows that the non-extraposed variant of this sentence would be infelicitous were it to occur discourse initially (his (′) ): ()
#That the real questions about Europe’s new single currency, the euro, and about the new European Central Bank were never addressed during the -hour row among European governments that ended in Sunday’s sad compromise on the new bank’s president is astonishing.
Miller’s claim that sentential subjects are discourse old is thus corroborated, and the claim made here that they are topics is too. Since canonical f-structure is asymmetric, with a special status assigned to subjects, it predicts the existence of subject–object asymmetries such as the absolute islandhood of sentential subjects, but not of other sentential complements. In the next section, the that-t effect which has been accounted for by the ECP in terms of proper government turns out also to receive an account in terms of IS. 4.2.6 That-t effects Bayer employs the idea that topics are islands to account for the that-trace effect which blocks extraction of a subject in the presence of an overt complementizer as in (a):21 21 According to Bayer, previous accounts (including ECP) are based on the subject having a special role. Bayer shows that any account which singles out subjects will fail in German where the that-trace effect arises not only with nominative subjects as shown in (i) but also with non-nominative subjects (ii):
(i)
*Wer whoNOM
glaubst believe
du, you
daß that
raucht? smokes
information structure constraints
()
a *Who do you believe that t1 likes Mary? b Who do you believe t1 likes Mary? c Who do you believe (that) Mary likes t1?
In (b), without the complementizer, extraction is fine. (c) illustrates that object extraction is insensitive to the presence of the complementizer. The effect is one of the well-known cases of subject–object assymetries subsumed under the ECP. It is well known that the that-trace effect is suspended when an element intervenes between the complementizer and the trace (the anti-adjacency effect): ()
Leslie is the person who1 I said that under no circumstances would t1 run for president.
Bayer argues that these cases involve an f-structure with a stage topic (see also Erteschik-Shir : ), allowing for a non-topical interpretation of the subject. The that-trace effect thus boils down to a constraint on extracting topics (constrained to subject topics in English.) This generalization does not, however, solve the problem of why the constraint only applies when the complementizer is overt. Bayer argues that when the complementizer is left out, the main clause functions as a parenthetical and is ignored when it comes to extraction.22 Bayer shows this for English as well: () Wh-object a Who did John believe Susan will meet? b *Who did John believe Susan will meet? () Wh-subject a Who did John believe will meet Susan? b Who did John believe will meet Susan? () shows that the main clause material intervening between the whphrase and the subordinate clause cannot be left out, and so cannot be considered to be parenthetical when the object is extracted. Object extraction is therefore not predicted to depend on the presence or absence of an overt complementizer as is indeed the case. () shows that when the sub(ii)
*Wem glaubst du daß whoDAT believe you that “Who do you believe is afraid?”
Angst fear
ist? is
Bayer uses examples of Was–für split to argue for a that-trace effect for objects as well. The reader is referred to Bayer’s paper for these data. 22
Bayer cites Reis for this idea.
information structure constraints
ject is extracted, it is possible to leave out the main clause, and therefore it can be analyzed as a parenthetical.23 Bayer also explains why it is that the effect is weaker in German than it is in English: In English the subject is more strongly identified with the topic than it is in German and other languages with relatively free word order. Bayer’s explanation has to do with the different canonical f-structures of the two languages. The canonical f-structure of German is discussed in section .. below. Bayer’s account also predicts the following results of the focusability test in Van Valin and LaPolla : (their .): ()
Speaker : Scully said Mulder talked to the detective. Speaker : No, Skinner. (= “Skinner said…,” = “Scully said Skinner talked…,” = “Mulder talked to Skinner”) b Speaker : Scully said that Mulder talked to the detective. Speaker : No, Skinner. (= “Skinner said…,” = “Mulder talked to Skinner,” but ?? “Scully said Skinner talked…”)
a
According to Van Valin and LaPolla, Skinner can replace any of the three NPs in Speaker ’s utterance. In the presence of the complementizer in (b), however, it is difficult to interpret Skinner as replacing Mulder. It follows that it is harder to interpret the subject of the thatclause as a focus in the presence of the complementizer than it is in its absence. Van Valin and LaPolla corroborate this evidence by the following observation: “It is easiest to interpret Mulder as the focus in (b) if that is destressed and Mulder is stressed” (). Van Valin and LaPolla do not provide an explanation for these observations, but they do predict a correlation between focusability and extraction. These observations are not surprising in view of Bayer’s argument to the effect that extraction of a subject under that violates the topic constraint. If the element in question must be a topic, then the fact that it cannot be focused follows. Van Valin : supplies the following explanation for why subjects can be extracted in the absence of a complementizer: “Note that when the complementizer is absent, the ‘subject’ of the embedded clause occurs in effect in a position equivalent to the final position in the matrix core, a position which is the most unmarked focus position, and in this case marked narrow focus on the ‘subject’ of the embedded clause is indeed possible…” According to this explanation it is predicted 23 As noted in Erteschik-Shir : , the complementizer is optional in English only with “bridge” verbs. These verbs make for natural parentheticals, providing further evidence for Bayer’s view.
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that extraction from the subject of an embedded complement without a complementizer is degraded if there is a temporal or other adjunct in the main clause as illustrated in () (Van Valin’s .). ()
a Who did Kim say talked to Dana? b *Who did Kim say yesterday talked to Dana?
In such cases, the subject position cannot be argued to be in the unmarked focus position of the matrix. This type of example is also predicted by Bayer’s idea that subject extraction depends on the main clause being interpreted as a parenthetical: a Who did Kim say talked to Dana? b *Who did Kim say yesterday talked to Dana? It follows from Van Valin’s discussion that focus on a subject of a subordinate clause is marked, yet an explanation for the fact that extraction of such a subject in the presence of a complementizer is totally blocked is not offered. Van Valin’s and Bayer’s approaches are not all that different. For Van Valin it is the focusability of the subject which is at stake; for Bayer it must not be a topic. Either way the that-t effect can be seen to follow from the constraint on I-dependencies since both the requirement of focusability and the topic constraint are built into it. The constraint on I-dependencies based on the idea that canonical f-structures reduce processing load also predicts superiority effects as shown in the next section. ()
4.3 Superiority24 Superiority provides a good test case to demonstrate how f-structure theoretical constraints predict both the data and their contextual dependence. The examples in () show superiority effects in English: ()
a b c d e f
Who read what? *What did who read? Which boy read which of the books? Which of the books did which boy read? ?What did which boy read? ?*Which of the books did who read?
The answer to a multiple wh-question forms a paired list, as demonstrated in (): 24 The account of superiority in English is from Erteschik-Shir . The extension to Hebrew, German, and Danish is from Erteschik-Shir b.
information structure constraints ()
Q: Who read what? A: John read the Odyssey and Peter read Daniel Deronda.
Such an answer can be viewed as “identifying” each object (answer to “what”) with one of the subjects (answer to “who”). In this sense the multiple wh-question itself forms an I-dependency in which one whphrase is dependent on the other. Superiority effects are the result of two I-dependencies in the same structure: () ∗What did who read t
One I-dependency is between the fronted wh-phrase and its trace. The other one is between the two wh-phrases. As () illustrates, the dependent is identified in two different dependencies at once. This results in an interpretative clash, thus blocking the processing of the sentence. The constraint on I-dependencies is not violated, however, since the subject wh-phrase can be assigned topic (the question ranges over a discourse-specified set; it is d-linked) and the trace can be analyzed as within the focus domain. Since it is not f-structure assignment which rules out the sentence, context should not have an effect on cases of superiority. This prediction is false, however, as shown by the following well-known example: ()
I know that we need to install transistor A, transistor B, and transistor C, and I know that these three holes are for transistors, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out from the instructions where what goes! (Pesetsky , from Bolinger )
The answer to this puzzle lies in a proper understanding of the distinction between d-linked and non-d-linked questions, however not the one proposed in Pesetsky (see Erteschik-Shir ; ). (a) and (b) illustrate a non-d-linked and a d-linked question, respectively, and the f-structure of each one: ()
a What did you choose? [What] did youtop [choose t]foc b Which book did you choose? [Which book]top [did you choose t]foc
In the non-d-linked question in (a), the fronted wh-phrase and its trace form an I-dependency and the trace is interpreted as an anaphor. Such a question must therefore conform to the constraint on I-dependencies. In (b), however, the fronted wh-phrase functions as a topic in that it ranges
information structure constraints
over a contextually available set (of books). The trace can therefore be interpreted on a par with a coreferent pronoun, since the set over which it ranges is discoursally available. Since no I-dependency is defined, the constraint is not violated, hence no superiority effects are predicted with which-phrases, which must be interpreted as d-linked. Questions with simple wh-phrases can be interpreted as being d-linked if the context provides a set over which they must range. That is why superiority violations such as () can be contextually ameliorated. They are always degraded, however. The reason is that both wh-phrases have to be interpreted as topics as shown in (): () [Where]top [ [whattop [goes t]foc]foc I-dependency The subject wh-phrase forms an I-dependency with the trace in order to render the pair-list reading. The constraint on I-dependencies requires the subject to be a topic. The fronted wh-phrase must be interpreted as a topic because otherwise it will form an I-dependency with the trace which will then be doubly identified as in (). Bolinger’s detailed context allows for such an interpretation. The question will be viewed as degraded relative to whether the context forces a topic reading on both wh-phrases or not. Note that both wh-phrases must be interpreted as d-linked. Whichphrases are necessarily d-linked. Therefore, multiple wh-questions involving only which-phrases are perfect, as shown in (d). When only one of the wh-phrases is a which-phrase, the other depends on context to receive a d-linked interpretation. This is why (e) and (f) are degraded. Sag et al. present a number of real occurring illustrations of violations of the superiority effect which do not involve d-linking. A selection of these follows: () A: Did you know that there are no licensing laws or sales taxes in Andorra? B: I did not. What did who bring back? [http://gofree.indigo.ie/¢rev/text/log/log046.html] () Although nothing on this planet (or any other) can compete with the utter horror that is cilantro! Where the heck did who the heck come up with adding that gawdawful weed to otherwise civilized hote-cue-zeen? [www.scrappleface.com/MT/archives/001655.html] () We watch for a few more minutes as the recriminations begin: what did whom [sic] say and what did who hear? [Tomato is Coming, by Crispin Oduobuk]
information structure constraints ()
I must have missed something. What did who do to Pierre Salinger? [www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b1c8a4d1847.htm]
According to these authors, what characterizes these examples is “the fact that the initial wh-expression continues the topic thread and generally asks the more pertinent and relevant question in relation to the previous discourse.” If this generalization is correct, then these data are in fact predicted by the constraints advocated here and in particular the idea that topic-wh-phrases do not require reconstruction in order to be interpreted. The only change is to allow for non-d-linked topic-wh-phrases which, it seems, do occur.25 The examples in () provide further evidence for the analysis of superiority effects proposed here. They illustrate that superiority effects also arise in single wh-questions when the subject is a non-specific indefinite, i.e., a subject which cannot be interpreted as a topic: ()
a b c d e
*What did a boy find? (?)Which book did a boy find? What did a certain boy find? ≈ (e) What did a BOY find? What do boys like?
(a) violates the constraint on I-dependencies because the subject cannot be interpreted as a topic. In (b), the fronted wh-phrase is d-linked and therefore does not form an I-dependency with its trace. It is degraded on a par with a sentence with an indefinite subject and a definite object as in (): ()
a (?)A boy found the book. b A BOY found the book.
() is degraded because it is a non-canonical f-structure (cf. () ) in which the object is the topic. Note that contrastive stress on the subject as in (b) enables its interpretation as a topic, rendering a canonical f-structure. (c), (d), and (e) do not violate the constraint on I-dependencies because specific, contrastive, and generic indefinite subjects are interpretable as topics. Kayne’s () facts in () and () show that, surprisingly, an extra wh-phrase improves superiority violations: 25 Sag et al. offer a processing account of superiority effects. Their account is discussed in section .
information structure constraints
() What did [who]top [hide t where]foc
() Who knows what whotop [saw t]foc
This is because the extra wh-phrase makes it possible to circumvent doubly identifying the trace. In (), for example, the fronted wh-phrase forms an I-dependency with the trace. This dependency is licensed by the constraint on I-dependencies since the subject is interpreted as a topic and the trace is embedded in the focus. Another Idependency is formed between the two remaining wh-phrases. This I-dependency is also licensed by the constraint since the dependent is embedded in the focus. The presence of the extra wh-phrase enables the formation of two separate I-dependencies without forcing a double identification of the trace as in the classic case in (). This is how the extra wh-phrase saves the construction. Although Kayne-type questions are an improvement on the classical case, they are still quite degraded. There are two reasons for this. First, the subject wh-phrase has to be contextualized as ranging over a topic set. Second, the integration of the two separate dependencies poses a heavy processing load: One I-dependency in () is between who and where allowing for the pair-list interpretation of these two wh-phrases. However, in order to process the question the fronted wh-phrase what must also be accommodated so that the interpretation of the question is that it asks for a “triple” list reading.26 The account of superiority effects proposed here thus affords an explanation of when context can improve acceptability and when it cannot and predicts the fine distinctions in acceptability evident in the English data. 4.3.1 Superiority in other languages The account of the English superiority data extends to other languages, once the nature of their canonical f-structures is determined. In the next sections Hebrew, German, and Danish superiority data are discussed and it is demonstrated that superiority effects are determined by the same considerations as in English. Differences are due to variation in the application of the constraint on I-dependencies which is in turn determined by the particular canonical focus structure of the language in question. 26 Triple dependencies are not derivable in this framework, a desirable result since they do not render an optimal output.
information structure constraints
4.3.1.1 Superiority in Hebrew The first observation concerning Hebrew is that although topicalization may result in OSV, superiority violations are licensed only in the order OVS, as shown in (a) and (b) from Fanselow :
()
a
ma kana mi? what bought who b *ma mi kana? what who bought c mi kana ma? who bought what
(a) is only licensed in a d-linked context in which a set of goods are contextually specified and (c) requires a d-linked context in which a set of buyers are contextually specified. Note that there is no parallel to a “which-phrase” in Hebrew. The phrase that comes closest, “eize X,” is best paraphrased as “what X” and it does not require a contextual set. The fronted d-linked whphrase (c) does not form an I-dependency with its trace. Therefore only one I-dependency is at work in such Hebrew multiple wh-questions, namely the one that renders the paired reading. () shows this for (a). ()
ma kana mi I-dependency
The constraint on I-dependencies constrains I-dependencies to the canonical f-structure of a particular language. In English, the canonical f-structure is one in which syntactic structure and f-structure are aligned. The fact that the OVS and SVO orders of (a) and (c) are equally good in Hebrew and that the OSV order of (b) is ruled out may mean that it is the OSV word order which is the culprit. The difference between OSV and OVS in Hebrew is associated with the function of the subject when the object is fronted. When it is interpreted as a topic, it is placed preverbally, and when it is focused, it is placed after the verb. The examples in ()–() demonstrate that this is the case: ()
a
et hasefer moshe kana.27 the-book Moshe bought “Moshe bought the book.” b et hasefer kana moshe.
27 “et” marks definite objects. mi (= “who”) in object position is most naturally marked with “et” whereas ma (= “what”) is not. There is some indication that when object wh-words are marked with “et” they are d-linked. The distinction between mi and ma in this respect may be connected to the fact that it is more common to contextually specify sets of humans than sets of objects.
information structure constraints
() a
hasefer yeled exad the-book boy one “Some boy bought the book.” b et hasefer kana yeled the-book bought boy “Some boy bought the book.”
() a
*et
et
hasefer hu the-book he “He bought the book.” b *et hasefer kana the-book bought “He bought the book.”
kana bought exad. one
kana. bought hu he
() shows that a definite subject which can function as both a topic and a focus can occur both preverbally and postverbally. () shows that an indefinite subject which cannot be interpreted as a topic is restricted to the postverbal position. (), in turn, shows that a subject pronoun, which must be interpreted as a topic, can only occur preverbally. (a) and (a) also require contextualization in view of the fact that both the topicalized object and the preverbal subject are interpreted as topics. Since every sentence requires a focus, this forces the verb to be focused or else one of the arguments must be interpreted contrastively. In either case the f-structure is marked. To complete our investigation of the unmarked f-structure in Hebrew, we must also examine the untopicalized cases: () a
moshe Moshe b ?yeled boy
kana bought exad one
et hasefer/sefer the-book/(a) book kana et hasefer bought the book
The most natural f-structure of (a) is one in which the subject is the topic and the VP or object is focused. (b) with the definite object interpreted as a topic is marked. The results of both orders are schematized in (): () a b c d e f
*Otop ?Otop Otop *Otop Stop ?Sfoc
Sfoc Stop V V V V
V V Sfoc Stop Ofoc Otop
information structure constraints
(c) and (e) are the only unmarked cases. I conclude that the unmarked focus structure in Hebrew is one in which the topic precedes the verb and the focus follows it. Hebrew dependencies therefore do not depend on the syntactic structure of the sentence, but only on the linear order of topic and focus with respect to the verb. The constraint on I-dependencies, parameterized to reflect the Hebrew canonical f-structure, is shown in ():28 () An I-dependency can occur only in a canonical f-structure: Hebrew Xtop V [… Y …]foc () correctly rules out (b) because its f-structure (equivalent to (b) ) is not canonical as shown in (): ()
matop mitop kana
The I-dependency between the two wh-phrases is therefore not licensed. Both (a) and (c) are licensed since they conform to the canonical f-structure in (). It also follows that they are restricted to d-linked contexts since the initial wh-phrase must be a topic. I conclude that multiple wh-questions in Hebrew are governed by the same considerations as they are in English. Differences between the two languages follow from their different canonical f-structures. According to many authors, German lacks superiority effects. Wiltschko not only argues that this is not the case, but also explains why German superiority effects have been overlooked. One of the reasons she offers is that controlling for d-linking is difficult since “discourse-related contrasts are often rather subtle” (). Along these lines, Featherston b performed an experiment in which informants were asked to grade the data according to an open-ended scale. His results showed that superiority effects are “robustly active” in German. It turns out, then, that German does not differ significantly from English in this respect. Fanselow , although aware of Featherston’s results, still distinguishes the status of English and German with respect to superiority effects. Fanselow points out that in German the superiority effect does appear when the subject wh-phrase is in Spec, IP (his () ):
4.3.1.2 Superiority in German
() a wann hat’s wer gesehen when has it who seen b ?*wann hat wer’s gesehen “who saw it when?” 28
In this section sentences with stage topics have been ignored.
information structure constraints
In (a) the subject follows the object clitic, indicating its VP-internal position. In (b), it precedes the object clitic and so must be outside the VP. These data are reminiscent of the Hebrew facts just discussed: German subjects in Spec, IP must be interpreted as topics, whereas VP-internal subjects are interpreted as foci. D-linking is also required, as noted by Wiltschko. Fanselow gives the following illustration (his () ): () wir haben bereits herausgefunden we have already found out a wer jemanden gestern anrief, und wer nicht who.nom someone.acc yesterday called and who.nom not b wen jemand gestern anrief, und wen nicht who.acc someone.nom yesterday called and who.acc not Aber wir sind nicht eher zufrieden, bis wir auch wissen But we are not earlier content until we also know a´ wer WEN angerufen hat who.nom who.acc called has “who called who” b´ wen WER angerufen hat who.acc who.nom called has According to Fanselow, OSV order is licensed only if the object is discourse linked, but SOV order is also allowed in an out-of-the-blue multiple wh-question (his () ): () Erzähl mir was über die Party. “Tell me something about the party.” a Wer hat wen getroffen? who.nom has who.acc met? “who met who?” b ??Wen hat wer getroffen who.acc has who.nom met? Fanselow’s example cannot, however, be considered out of the blue. A party necessarily involves a set of participants. These are what the whphrases range over in the questions following the initial sentence. Since both wh-phrases range over the same set of party participants, they are equivalent. (a), in which no reordering has occurred, is therefore preferred. From these data I gather that the German canonical f-structure is similar to the one proposed for Hebrew, with only one small difference: German, too, requires that the first argument be the topic and
information structure constraints
the second be the focus, yet the status of the subject is determined differently: German subjects are interpreted as foci when they are VP-internal, and as topics when they are not, as shown in (). The position of the subject is transparent only in the presence of adverbials or other elements that mark the VP boundary.29 In many of the examples in which such elements are absent, the linear position of the subject wh-phrase gives no clue as to its syntactic position. In those cases, the subject will be interpreted according to contextual clues. An I-dependency is therefore licensed between two wh-phrases in German when the first one is interpreted as a topic and the second as a focus. According to Fanselow , Swedish does not exhibit superiority effects (his () ): 4.3.1.3 Superiority in Danish
() Vad koepte vem what bought who In Danish, the same question is degraded: ()
a
Hvem who b ?Hvad what
købte bought købte bought
hvad? what hvem? who
Overt d-linking significantly improves the question: ()
Hvilken bog købte hvilken pige? Which book bought which girl?
Danish may have a preference for overtly marking d-linked wh-phrases instead of just depending on contextual clues. Danish is like English in this respect, except that the preference in English is even stronger. Danish differs from English in that superiority effects in subordinate clauses are not ameliorated by overtly d-linked wh-phrases: ()
a
*Jeg ved I know b *Jeg ved I know
ikke not ikke not
hvad what hvilken which
hvem who bog book
købte bought hvilken pige købte which girl bought
Danish generally marks the topic by fronting it to sentence-initial position. This is also the case if the topic is located in the subordinate clause. Topicalization within a subordinate clause is therefore excluded.30 It See Diesing for this effect. Topicalization is licensed in subordinate clauses under a few bridge verbs such as think. In such cases the syntactically subordinate clause functions as a main clause. 29 30
information structure constraints
follows that whereas word order may signal the f-structure of the main clause, the order within subordinate clauses does not. This is the explanation I propose for the different behavior of Danish main and subordinate clauses with respect to superiority effects. Scrambling languages such as German differ: scrambling positions topics outside the VP in subordinate clauses as well as main clauses. No difference between main and subordinate clauses is predicted in scrambling languages. This prediction is borne out for German.31 Fanselow rejects the idea that the availability of scrambling is what explains the lack of superiority effects because there are non-scrambling languages which also lack superiority effects. I would not be surprised if non-scrambling languages exhibit the same difference between main and subordinate clauses as Danish. Since the verb in Danish main clauses must appear in second position, the canonical f-structure is identical to the one proposed for Hebrew. The only difference between Hebrew and Danish is the preference for overtly d-linked wh-phrases. What is common to the languages examined here is the need for d-linking at least one of the wh-phrases in multiple wh-questions. That is why such questions are always sensitive to context. Variation among languages follows from three parameters: the canonical f-structure, the availability of topicalization and scrambling processes, and the array of wh-phrases available in a particular language. As I have shown here, all three must be taken into account in order to predict the cross-linguistic distribution of superiority effects.32 In view of the fact that the constraint on I-dependencies is parameterized according to the canonical f-structure of the language in question, different predictions are made for each language. These predictions are extended to all I-dependencies and it remains to be seen if indeed the other I-dependencies work according to the canonical f-structure assigned to each language. Here we have examined the wh-trace dependency as well Hebrew is like Danish in this respect. Since Hebrew is not a scrambling language, this is what is predicted. Since English is not a scrambling language, English should also exhibit a difference between main and subordinate clauses. This is not the case: 31
(i) Which book did which boy buy? (ii) I don’t know which book which boy bought. The difference between main and subordinate clauses in Danish arises because only in the former is f-structure marked by word order. English main clauses do not differ from subordinate clauses in this way. This may explain why no difference in superiority effects between main and subordinate clauses can be detected. 32 For a different cross-linguistic processing account and a discussion of superiority in German, Icelandic, Hungarian, and Dutch, see Haider .
information structure constraints
as dependencies between multiple wh-phrases and shown how the constraint predicts islands and superiority effects. The constraint also makes interesting predictions concerning anaphora and logophora as well as association with focus as shown in Erteschik-Shir : chapter . 4.4 IS constraints on complex NP 4.4.1 Extraposition from NP Guéron shows that PP extraposition depends on interpretation. Except for (), the following examples are from Guéron (the extraposed PPs are in italics):33 ()
a A man with green eyes appeared. b A man appeared with green eyes.
()
a The man with the green eyes appeared. b *The man appeared with the green eyes.
()
a A man with green eyes hit Bill. b *A man hit Bill with green eyes.
()
a John read a book by Chomsky over the summer. b John read a book over the summer by Chomsky.
()
a John read that book by Chomsky over the summer. b *John read that book over the summer by Chomsky.
Guéron : makes the following generalization: the extraposed PP must be marked “Complement of Focus NP.”34 Whether the subject is focused or not depends on whether the sentence is predicational or Relative clause extraposition is also sensitive to the constraints Guéron proposes for PP extraposition. See also Ziv and Cole and Maynell . Maynell argues that extraposed phrases must answer the immediate question under discussion (see Roberts for this notion), i.e., it must be a focus. The head of the relative clause must be a topic and therefore, in order for the head and clause to match informatively, the relative clause turns out in general to be contrastive. In order for the relative clause to be focused, the main clause VP must also be presupposed or informatively empty. (i) is an example from Maynell: 33
(i)
… THOSE DOCTORS were sulking who had been at the FOOTBALL game the night before.
The context includes a contrast between doctors who went to the football game and those who went to a concert, as well as the fact that some of the doctors were in a disagreeable mood. 34 In fact, she generalizes this statement to say that the extraposed constituent must be interpreted as a “Complement of Focus, where focus can be any X' node” to cover extraposition from AP and ADV as in (i) from Jackendoff :
information structure constraints
presentational. These are interpreted according to the following principles (Guéron : ): () a
b
Predication. The subject refers to an individual or object (or set of these) whose existence in the world of the discourse is presupposed: thematic subject. The VP describes a property of the thematic subject. Presentation S. The VP denotes, essentially, the appearance of the subject in the world of discourse.
It is not difficult to translate these two generalizations into IS terms: Predication is a relation between a topic subject and a focus VP, i.e., it is a categorical statement with a canonical f-structure. A Presentation S is a sentence in which the subject is introduced into the world of discourse. In IS terms, the subject must be focused and the topic is a stage topic. This corresponds to the analysis of existential sentences in Chapter , section .. Existential sentences are therefore presentational in this sense. It follows from these definitions that extraposition from the subject of a presentation sentence is predicted to be possible whereas extraposition from the subject of a predicational sentence will be ruled out. The data in () and () follow: () with the verb appear is presentational, and its subject is therefore focused. (), with the verb hit, is not, which is why extraposition is not licensed. Guéron : stresses that the nature of the verb does not in and of itself predict whether the sentence will be presentational. A number of “non-presentational” verbs can be interpreted “as predicating no more of the subject than its appearance (or disappearance) in the world of the discourse.” The following are Guéron’s illustrations of this observation: ()
a A man walked in from India. b A train chugged past with many passengers. c A bird darted by with golden wings. d Some books were burned by Pablo. e A man died from India.
Guéron argues that the verbs in the sentences in () can be understood as pragmatic synonyms of appear (or disappear), in some cases with the help of context. (d) and (e), for example, are completely acceptable in the following contexts, respectively: (i)
a I was sorry all day about what had happened b How certain are you that your horse will win? c Jim lived near the bridge last year, where there are some flowers growing.
information structure constraints ()
First the Chilean military burned the books of all political figures sympathetic to the Allende government. And then some books were burned by Pablo Neruda.
() Several visitors from foreign countries died in the terrible accident. A woman died from Peru and a man died from India. These contexts enable the verb to be “pragmatically emptied of all semantic content beyond that of ‘appearance in the world of the discourse’” (). This contextual “emptying” of the meaning of the verb is reminiscent of the same process with the verbs of manner-of-speaking discussed in section . above and also allows the verb not to be focused, allowing the subject to be focused instead. The distinction between () and () also falls out from the principle that the extraposed PP must be linked to a focus: The indefinite object in () is a potential focus, the definite object in () is an unlikely focus. Guéron : points out, however, that (b) is acceptable in a context in which “that book by Chomsky is interpreted as something alluded to but not present in the discourse context.” ()
John finally read that book over the summer by Chomsky, you remember, the one you had recommended to him.
Guéron’s generalization is therefore robust. Extraposition depends on the focusability of the constituent from which extraposition occurs and focusability, in turn, depends on lexical and contextual factors. It is not obvious, however, what the reason for this constraint might be. One possibility, which connects extraposition to extraction, is that the “gap” left behind by extraposition is only “visible” within a focused constituent as diagrammed in (): ()
…[… ei…]foc … PPi
That gaps are not visible within non-focused constituents has been observed in the context of the constraint on I-dependencies. If the gap is viewed as a dependent here as well, () falls under this constraint as well. 4.4.2 Extraction from NP Guéron : – draws a connection between extraposition from NP and extraction from NP: ()
a Who did you see a picture of? b *Who did you see that picture of?
information structure constraints
()
a Books were sold on linguistic theory. b *Those books were sold on linguistics theory.
Guéron proposes the name constraint to cover these cases. The name constraint rules out gaps within names. A Name is defined as follows: “A Name is a complete referring expression. It designates a unique object or individual (or set of these) in the world of the discourse, either directly, through the use of proper names or deictic expressions (John, that man), or indirectly, by means of complements containing direct referring expressions (the girl who sits next to you, some of those books).” The definition comes close to being a definition of topics and the continuing discussion indicates that topics is what Guéron has in mind. The name constraint is therefore equivalent to the topic constraint introduced in sections . and . above. This constraint on extraction from NPs does not cover the following data from Erteschik-Shir : :35 ()
a What did John write a book about? b ?What did John revise a book about? c *What did John destroy a book about?
In spite of the fact that extraction in these sentences occurs out of non-topics, extraction is still less than optimal in two of the cases. As argued in that paper, extraction from NP depends on the focusability of the NP from which extraction occurs and that focusability depends, among other things, on the nature of the verb and the context in which it occurs. (The reader should by now be able to find contexts in which both (b) and (c) become totally acceptable.) These data follow easily from the constraint on I-dependencies, which also covers the data pertaining to the topic constraint as noted above. It is therefore unnecessary to maintain two different constraints on extraction. Note that the extraposition data mirror the extraction data as expected: ()
a John wrote a book last year about Chomsky. b ?John revised a book last year about Chomsky. c *John destroyed a book last year about Chomsky.
We therefore conclude here that what constrains both extraction out of NPs and extraposition from them is the constraint on I-dependencies. Another set of data that goes hand in hand with the extraposition data and the extraction data is the “completeness” facts in ().36
See also Erteschik-Shir for similar data and observations. For similar data and discussion see Grimshaw and Vikner (who made the initial observations); Erteschik-Shir and Rapoport ; and Goldberg and Ackerman . 35 36
information structure constraints ()
a *The book was written. b The book was revised. c The book was destroyed.
(a) becomes perfect if something is added to the sentence as shown in (). ()
The book was written last year/in /by Chomsky.
What is “wrong” with (a) must therefore be that it is incomplete in that it lacks a focus. Once an element is added to supply such a focus, the sentence becomes good. The verbs in (b) and (c) do not need additional elements in order to be complete. They provide a focus in and of themselves. (), in which the definite subject is replaced by an indefinite, is perfect. () A book was written. Here the topic is a stage topic and the whole sentence is in focus. With the subject included in the focus, the sentence is complete. The problem with the verb in (a) is that it does not have any content beyond “make” or “create” when it appears with the object “book.” The other two verbs in () have more content and therefore provide likely foci. In the next chapter, we examine the connection between focusability and predicate type in more detail. 4.5 Processing The ID constraint and the constraint on I-dependencies have been couched in processing terminology, but no arguments have been given to support that processing is in fact at stake when it comes to the dependency data. One argument assumed here is that grammatical constraints are context independent and non-violable. In view of the graded and context-dependent data involved with dependencies, the source of the constraints imposed on them can therefore not be grammar as such.37 Research pertaining to processing of islands is available: Kluender views (unbounded) dependencies as instances of predication. These dependencies must therefore comply with principles of predication. Kluender : posits the following principle: () Initial argument expression NPs must be as referentially specific as possible; all heads and specifiers occurring in complex predicates must be as non-specific in reference as possible. 37 For argumentation along these lines see also Featherston a and Haider . For argumentation that processing of island constraints is subject to grammatical principles see Sadeh-Leicht . Sadeh-Leicht does not relate to the graded data predicted by IS.
information structure constraints
The predication principle distinguishes d-linked wh-phrases as being referentially specific and is also sensitive to the ability of predicates to provide bridges (see Chapter for more discussion). This principle is, grosso modo, very similar to the constraint on I-dependencies posited here if specificity is taken to match topichood, and lack thereof is taken to be focusability. This is not surprising in view of the fact that Kluender integrates the focusability constraint on dependencies from Erteschik-Shir with the topichood condition in Kuno mentioned in section . above. The main significance of this work is that Kluender employs the N component of event-related brain potentials (ERPs) as a measure for investigating the role of referential specificity in dependencies. A relatively large amplitude of the N indicates processing load. The initial results of these experiments were promising, showing that processing load increases cumulatively when the ingredients determining predication are lacking. This type of experimentation therefore is potentially useful in supporting the view that dependencies are governed by processing constraints defined in terms of IS principles. Kluender uses the same methodology to argue that the same processing mechanism is involved in both weak and strong islands. An example of a strong island, according to Kluender, is extraction out of a relative clause, which here has been analyzed as a violation of the constraint on I-dependencies, in particular, the fact that a dependent cannot be interpreted within an unfocusable constituent. An example of extraction out of a weak island is extraction out of an embedded question. Extraction out of embedded questions is analyzed in Erteschik-Shir on a par with the superiority effect discussed in section above which is due to the interpretative clash involved in the simultaneous interpretation of the dependent in two different I-dependencies. Both constraints restrict the interpretation or identification of the dependent, yet whereas the dependent in a strong island cannot be identified at all, the dependent in a weak island is “doubly” identified. Kluender agrees that islands result from interpretative problems, but he argues that it is the same mechanism which explains both strong and weak islands. In this paper, Kluender proposes that the difficulty involved in processing islands stems from the need to maintain the antecedent of the dependency (the filler) in working memory while encountering an additional referential processing burden at the embedded clause boundary. Kluender’s ERP data substantiated his claim that the same increased load on working memory was to be found in both types of islands. It is not clear, however, whether these results in fact argue against the two somewhat different mechanisms
information structure constraints
argued for here since it is not obvious that the difference between them would show up as a difference in processing load. As Kluender himself comments, more fine-tuned research is required to settle these issues.38 Kluender focuses on subject islands and again argues for a processing explanation in terms of working memory constraints on storage and discourse reference. He adds another parameter which is that subjects are inherently difficult to process, and that complex ones are even more so due to the fact that they “contain multiple subconstituents that escalate discourse referential processing costs sentence-initially” ().39 Research is also available on the processing of canonical word order as opposed to non-canonical word order. According to MacDonald and Christiansen , the well-known fact (since Bever ) that object relatives are more difficult to process than subject relatives follows from the fact that subject relatives exhibit canonical word order whereas object relatives do not.40 This supports the general idea behind the ID constraint, yet cross-linguistic research examining the particular canonical f-structures proposed here would be necessary to establish the validity of the proposal. Kluender provides some evidence that it is linear distance between filler and gap which contributes to processing load, yet he also maintains that the non-canonical word order of object dependencies plays a role. This can be seen clearly in SOV languages in which rich morphological case marking is available, yet displacing the object to the left still has processing consequences as reflected in brain responses. Kluender finds this surprising in view of the fact that ambiguity is resolved early on in view of the availability of overt case marking on the object. These facts call for more research which takes into account the IS functions of the sentence elements as well. If, for example, it turns out that fronting of topics and d-linked wh-phrases reduces the processing load, then the analysis proposed here may by supported. An issue which may bear on this matter is the trade-off between subject and verb phrase length in adult Italian. Kluender : cites Hyams and Wexler : – n. , who suggest 38 Goodall offers a processing account of certain properties of wh-questions in Spanish and makes some interesting predictions concerning the processing of d-linked whphrases: when extracted they ease processing; when they intervene between the extracted element and the gap, they raise the processing load. I refer the reader to Goodall’s paper for the details. 39 For more research along the same lines see Arnon et al. . 40 Hsiao and Gibson argue that the reason Chinese object relatives are easier to process than Chinese subject relatives is because Chinese relative clauses precede their head nouns. They conclude that these data are consistent with the theory that processing of embedded clauses is easier when their word order is canonical. In view of the fact that canonical word order is not necessarily equivalent to canonical f-structure, this evidence may or may not support the view proposed here.
information structure constraints
that the trade-off is between topical and non-topical information. A topical subject will have a non-topical predicate and vice versa, and non-topical constituents are longer than topical ones, which are often pronominal. This line of reasoning predicts that null topics will end up with the longest predicates. Kluender argues against this explanation and argues that the IS status of the elements cannot afford an explanation of the findings in Clark and Wasow which showed that disfluency rates in the pronunciation NPs are highest sentence initially and decrease during the course of the sentence. In addition, according to Kluender, ERP studies indicate that the beginning of a sentence “entails elevated processing costs in both comprehension and production” (). Kluender claims that these facts cannot be given an explanation in terms of IS, since, following the reasoning in Hyams and Wexler , one would expect topics and subjects to present less of an informational burden than objects. One factor which Kluender does not take into account which may be of significance is that complex subjects generally are also information-structurally complex and contain a subordinate f-structure.41 The prediction would be that a simple (pronominal or null) subject topic would provide no processing load, whereas a complex NP subject with a subordinate focus structure creating its topic status on the fly would in fact elevate processing costs to a large extent. In order to decide this issue it is therefore important to take into account not only the main topic and focus status of the subject and object, but also the IS function of the elements they contain. Sag et al. argue for a processing account of superiority effects. They assume the following wh-processing hypothesis: “Given the choice between several orders of wh-expressions, speakers disprefer those that (given the context) are associated with greater processing cost.” Such a processing hypothesis is basic to any processing account. They argue for the following processing factors which combine to derive the total processing cost: ()
I: Gaps that are further from the filler are harder to process. II: Less accessible fillers are harder to process. III: Less accessible intervenors are harder to process.
The first factor is unrelated to IS. The other two factors are and can be rephrased in the terminology used here. If we take accessible to mean topical and non-accessible to mean focal, we derive that topical fillers are easier to process than non-topical ones and that focal constituents must 41 See Chapter , section . for examples of indefinite subject topics with subordinate f-structures.
information structure constraints
not intervene between the filler and the gap. The former goes along with the idea that topical fillers need not be reconstructed and the latter is predicted by the constraint on I-dependencies: If focal constituents precede the gap, then the gap position becomes non-focusable, violating the constraint on I-dependencies. As with any IS processing constraint, graded data are also predicted. The findings presented in this article therefore provide a modicum of support for the processing constraints argued for here and in previous work. What Sag et al. cannot predict, without further ado, is the kind of cross-linguistic variation described in section . 4.6 Architectural consequences One of the conclusions drawn by Sag et al. is that since the superiority effect is a consequence of wh-processing, there is no grammatical constraint blocking superiority violations. The grammar thus remains simple and the effect follows from general cognitive principles. If processing is sensitive to IS notions as assumed here, the division of labor between grammar and processing is not quite as obvious. IS processing explains linear order as well as island constraints. This brings the division between competence and performance into question: Whereas competence is governed by universal principles of grammar, performance is governed by processing principles which may not be language specific. The processing principles proposed here involve focusing, which is not a language-specific perceptual mechanism, yet does take on particular linguistic features. F-structure as a whole is, however, unique to language and is therefore likely to belong to grammar. Yet if f-structure constraints are in fact processing constraints, and, as we have seen, their output could easily be viewed as a matter of performance, then we either have to give up the competence–performance distinction, or else the domain of grammar will be much less encompassing than previously thought. Goodall views this new division of labor as a good thing: If many problematic issues receive an account in terms of processing, what is left for the grammar can potentially receive a more minimalistic account.
5 Aspectual Focus In the last chapter, we saw several instances in which lexical properties of verbs have an effect on f-structure: Manner-of-speaking verbs block focusing on the subordinate clause, and hence on extraction (Chapter , section .). Creation verbs allow focusing on the complement of the picture noun phrase and hence license extraction (Chapter , section .). The same effect was also seen with respect to extraposition (Chapter , section .). Finally, sentence completeness was seen to be affected by properties of the verb as well (Chapter , section .). In addition, the lexical properties themselves can be affected by context: We saw that a meaning component can be backgrounded if its content is contextually prominent and that contrast and modification can force focus on a verb even though the verb itself does not require it. This chapter discusses these and similar phenomena and offers a framework within which they can be analyzed. Section briefly outlines the lexical theory of atoms and introduces the notion of aspectual focus. Section elucidates the lexical properties of manner-ofspeaking verbs predicting both the extraction facts and completeness facts. It goes on to distinguish the lexical properties of the different verb types which take picture NPs as their complements, again deriving their extraction and completeness properties. Then f-structure constraints on extraction in double object constructions are shown to follow from their lexical structure. The topic of section is missing objects which form structures with characteristic information structure properties. Finally, section accounts for the unusual stress patterns assigned to out-of-the-blue change-events pointed out in Chapter , section .. 5.1 The theory of atoms In Erteschik-Shir and Rapoport ; ; ; a; and in preparation, we offer a lexical analysis of verbs in terms of meaning components which we refer to as the theory of atoms (AT).1 There are three types of meaning com1 Note that in this theory, meaning components project syntactic structure deriving structures that are similar in many ways to the one in the work of Hale and Keyser (e.g., Hale and
aspectual focus
ponents: Manner (M), State (S), and Location (L). Verbs are composed of either one or at the most two such components. Meaning components are interpreted in one of two ways: . the component projects an activity . the component modifies adverbially In AT, all components have these interpretative options in principle. for example, project change-of-state events and modify adjectivally and L-meaning components project change-of-location events, and only modify locations. M-components project intransitive activities, and when a verb decomposes into an M-component as well as an S-or an L-component, theM-component modifies the resulting cause structure. Each component type has a “light” version. Light verbs are the basic members of their class and their meaning component has no additional meaning other than class membership.2 One difference between the distribution of a light verb and the other members of its class is that the light meaning component must project a complement. This is because a meaning component which has no content cannot modify and so must project in order to get interpreted. Put and become, for example, are light verbs of the classes in which shelve and (intransitive) break, respectively, are members: S-components,
()
a b
John put the book *(on the (top) shelf). John shelved the book (on the *(top) shelf).
()
a b
The vase became *(broken/shiny). The vase broke (into little pieces).
(a) shows that put, which contains a light L-component, requires a projected (overt) PP, whereas for shelve, which has a “heavy” L-component, the complement is optional. Similarly become requires an adjectival complement in view of its light S-component, whereas for break, which has a “heavy” S-component, the complement is optional. An additional observation is the fact that the optional complement of the heavier verbs cannot replicate the meaning component itself, since it wouldn’t add anything not expressed already by the Keyser ; ). AT theory is only roughly outlined here. According to AT, the decomposition of verbs into atomic meaning components and their syntactic projection predicts syntactic structure, aspectual interpretation, and argument selection without recourse to functional projections or movement. For details see Erteschik-Shir and Rapoport ; ; ; a; in preparation. 2 The term “light verb” is here used in the sense that the verb has little content. This use should not be confused with the same term used for “little v.”
aspectual focus
verb. That is why (b), for example, requires an adjectival modifier in order to be acceptable. (Note further that the optional complement of heavy words is, in fact, what is also known as a cognate object or complement.) 5.1.1 Aspectual focus One of the advantages of AT theory is that the decomposition into meaning components and the structures projected allow for the foregrounding of one meaning component of the verb (and its associated structure) and the backgrounding of another. This type of focus is here referred to as “aspectual” focus and should not be confused with informational focus, although the latter is to some extent constrained by the former.3 Consider the well-known fact that accomplishments (cause structures) can receive either a telic or an atelic reading as shown in ().4 () a John chopped the carrot for minutes. b John chopped the carrot in a second. c
V foc
V (M)
D John
V
V
chopped
D
V
the carrot V chopped
A S
foc
In (c), the S-component projects, rendering the change (to a “cut” state) interpretation, and cut’s instrumental M -component modifies the V-V structure, rendering the interpretation that the change is caused by a sharp instrument.5 This complex structure affords the possibility of aspectually focusing either of the components as indicated. When the Mcomponent is focused the activity reading is foregrounded allowing for (a) and when the S-component is focused the change is foregrounded, 3 Aspectual focus has been coined by Smith / to signify focusing on parts of event structure in order to explain aspectual properties. It is possible that the way the notion is used here is in fact the same although it is applied to explain different types of data. 4 I use the term cause or accomplishment structure loosely to designate structures such as (c), even though, depending on aspectual focus, the interpretation can be atelic. 5 The two copies of the verb form a chain of which only the first copy is pronounced.
aspectual focus
rendering the telic reading in (b). The examples in () show that aspectual focus on a component can be forced by modifying it. ()
a ??John chopped the carrot into little pieces for three minutes. b ??John carefully chopped the carrot in a second.
In (a) the S-component is modified making the sentence incompatible with a durational time adverbial. In (b) the M-component is modified adverbially forcing the atelic reading. Punctual verbs do not exhibit these distinctions as illustrated in (a) for the verb break. Such verbs require aspectual focus on the lower V-projection as evidenced by (b). () a John broke the vase *for three minutes/*in three minutes. b John broke the vase into little pieces. Aspectual focus on the upper V-projection depends on the nature of the the verb. The M-component of break is “force” which is what makes it punctual and hence does not allow aspectual focus. Aspectual focus is not the same as sentential focus. Both sentences in () can be assigned the same array of f-structures and stress patterns. Yet, as shown in the next section, the two are sometimes related.
M-component of
5.2 Meaning components and extraction 5.2.1 Manner-of-speaking verbs The following data, repeated from Chapter , illustrate extraction out of the complement of different manner-of-speaking verbs: ()
a Who did John say that he had seen? b ?Who did John mumble that he had seen? c *Who did John lisp that he had seen?
These verbs have a manner-of-speaking (Msp) meaning component. The verb say is the light verb of this class and therefore requires a complement, whereas the verbs containing heavier manner components in this class do not. This is illustrated in (). ()
a John said *(that he had seen Mary). b John mumbled (that he had seen Mary). c John lisped (that he had seen Mary).
The data in () can therefore be seen as the opposite, in a sense, of the data in (): When the M-component is light, it does not have sufficient
aspectual focus
content to be aspectually focused. The complement is needed in order to provide such a focus. It follows that the complement of a light verb is necessarily focused, and therefore allows extraction.6 When the M-component is not light, yet the verb has a complement, the meaning component is aspectually focused and it modifies the whole predicate, which provides the focus of the sentence, preventing the elements of the complement from being focused independently, thus blocking their potential for extraction. M-components can be defocused contextually, enabling focus on the subordinate clause, which then meets the requirement on extraction. This is the case in (c) if the subject is a lisper and therefore identifies the Mcomponent of the verb, as mentioned in the previous chapter. Another example is () which improves in the context of an editorial board. ()
a ??What did the paper editorialize that the minister had done? b *What did you animadvert that he had done?
Context therefore interacts with the lexical representation of the verbs. In AT the lexical representation consists of meaning components which can be contextually manipulated. As shown in the previous chapter, contrastive stress on the verb, but not on the subject, also influences extractability: ()
a ?Who did John SAY that he had seen? b Who did JOHN say that he had seen?
The contrasted subject in (b) is still a topic and hence does not influence the f-structure of the predicate. When the verb is contrasted, however, it makes it more difficult to focus on the elements within the complement which explain the extraction facts. 5.2.2 Picture NPs The examples in () show that extraction out of picture NPs is licensed with perception verbs and creation verbs, but not with other verbs. ()
a What did John paint a picture of ? b What did John see a picture of ? c *What did John burn a picture of ?
6 The light component still needs to be interpreted. Recall that light components merely identify their verb as belonging to a certain verb class. In this case say is categorized as a mannerof-speaking verb (MSP), yet it does not have an interpretable manner. This is why its meaning component can be identified with the required complement, i.e., the utterance itself.
aspectual focus
Following Gruber : – see is analyzed as an abstract verb of motion. Thus, one “sees to a certain location.” This means that see has an L-component and it projects the structure in (): ()
V V
P
see
P
D
L
a picture
Here only one meaning component is involved, the location or endpoint of seeing, namely the picture. Aspectual focus therefore can only fall on the object of seeing. Here the relationship between aspectual and informational focus comes into play. If the verb is (informationally) focused, then the focus will be on whatever is aspectually focused within it. In this case, there is only one option, namely the object, and so extraction from the object is possible. The verb paint has two meaning components, M (“paint”-matter) and an L-component.7 The same two meaning components render both the interpretation in which paint is applied to a surface and the creation interpretation in ().8 () V (M ) V
V
paint
V
D
picture
V
P
paint
L
What is special about () is the fact that the theme “picture” instantiates the M-component in that this artefact consists of paint-matter. The presence of this theme therefore allows the identification of the picture and the M-component very much in the same way as a “lisper” identifies 7 We here depart from the traditional view of verbs such as paint (in both its uses) as changeof-state verbs. 8 In the projection of the non-creation use of paint, the fence is associated with the L-component.
aspectual focus
the M-component of the verb lisp as argued with respect to (c) above. In this way the M-component of paint is rendered “light” in the context of a theme artefact. In addition, the L-component is identified as the current stage rendering the interpretation that the picture comes into being. In other words, paint is applied to create a picture. The association of the picture with the M-component also blocks aspectual focus on the lower V-projection as shown in (). ()
a John painted a picture in an hour. b *John painted a picture for an hour.9
Here the “creation” use of the verb differs from the non-creation use in (). ()
a John painted the fence in an hour. b John painted the fence for an hour.
The M-component of the verb is thus rendered light which explains both extraction and incompleteness. It should now be pretty obvious why it is that the verb burn blocks extraction from its picture NP complement. Burn is an M, S verb like chop and therefore projects the same structure (c). This structure does not afford a way to “lighten” the M-component which therefore remains active and extraction is blocked. The M-component can, however, be manipulated by context. Imagine, for example, that each member of a group is ordered to burn a book. In such a context () is licensed. () Who did you burn a book about? Here the M-component of the verb burn is contextually bound making it “light” as required for extraction. Extraction is thus blocked in the presence of “heavy” M-components. Extraction is licensed when the verb does not contain an M-component as was the case with the verb see and also when the M-component is rendered light, either by the projected structure or contextually. The opposite facts hold for completeness. There an active M-component is required to make the predicate focusable. 5.2.3 Datives An observation due to Erteschik-Shir is that the dative object in double object constructions cannot be extracted whereas it can be extracted in its PP form: 9 These sentences should be interpreted in their creation use and not as referring to a specific picture which is being copied or filled in.
aspectual focus ()
a *Who did John give a book? b Who did John give a book to?
This was argued there to be due to the IS properties of the two objects in the double object construction in (b): The indirect object must be interpreted as a topic and the direct object must be focused. () John gave [Marytop [the book]foc] This f-structure assignment can now be derived from the projection of the verb’s meaning components which are M and L. The particular Lcomponent of the verb give is a goal location instantiated by the preposition to. These meaning components project the following two causative structures:10 V (M)
() a
V
V
V
give D
P (L)
book V give
P
D
to
Mary
V (M)
b
V
V
V
give D (L) Mary
P
V give
P
D
(with) book Similar accounts of double object constructions since Larson abound. For discussion of a selection of these, see Erteschik-Shir and Rapoport in preparation. The preposition with, following Hale and Keyser , represents the preposition of “central coincidence.” See their work for details. 10
aspectual focus
Let us now examine the possibility of assigning a subordinate f-structure to the lower V-projections in the two structures.11 Extraction possibilities depend on the focusability of the elements themselves, hence it is necessary to uncover the f-structure properties of the two objects in each structure in order to predict their potential for extraction. In (a) no constraints on the assignment of (subordinate) f-structure are imposed. Both arguments can be topics or foci. (The unmarked assignment will be one in which “the book” is a topic and the PP “to Mary” is the focus.) Alternatively, “to Mary” can function as a topic, and “the book” will then be a focus. This is due to the fact that “to Mary” is identified with the L-meaning component, a goal location and therefore a potential stage topic. The following examples, in which a pronoun fixes the topic and an indefinite the focus, illustrate that such assignments are indeed possible:12 ()
a John gave ittop [to a girl]foc b John gave [a book]foc [to her]stop
(b), however, is more restricted. Here the L-component is identified with the theme rendering the possessive interpretation in which the possessor “Mary” is the locus of the book. This possessive interpretation is employed to account for the f-structure of double object constructions. Possession constructions are individual level (see Chapter , section .) and cannot involve a stage (or alternatively the possessor is itself the stage location).13 Therefore, the PP “(with) book” is not a possible stage, and also not a possible topic. This is also evidenced by the fixing of topic and focus as before: ()
a John gave hertop [a book]foc b *John gave [a girl]foc [it]top14
11 Such an assignment is not required. It is possible, for example, to assign focus to the whole VP in both structures (and indeed both arguments can be indefinite in both). 12 Both objects can be also be topics:
(i) John gave it to her. For a similar view of the difference between the two alternative forms see Basilico . See also Clifton and Frazier for processing experiments that show that processing double object constructions is facilitated by having a definite argument preceding an indefinite. Processing of NP-PP sequences is not facilitated by ordering definites and indefinites in this way. These results are predicted by the view that only the double object construction fixes f-structure. 14 Certain dialects of English allow (i) with both pronouns pronounced incorporated into the verb: 13
(i) John gave+her+it.
aspectual focus
Contrast on the indirect object is of course possible as is the case for any topic: ()
John gave a GIRL (not a BOY) the book.
In English, the association of a subordinate f-structure with the lower V-projection of the double object construction is rigid. This is not the case across languages since the projection in (b) is not available crosslinguistically. In languages in which it is not, the option of two different orders for the two objects is determined simply by the need for topics to precede foci. This is the case in many languages including Hebrew, Finnish, and Russian.15 Prosodic properties of languages may also play a role as argued in Büring for German. 5.3 Missing objects Goldberg : cites the following examples to illustrate object omission: ()
a The chef-in-training chopped and diced all afternoon. b Tigers only kill at night. c The singer always aimed to dazzle/please/disappoint/impress/charm. d Pat gave and gave, but Chris just took and took. e These revolutionary new brooms sweep cleaner than ever.
Together with others Goldberg points out that the missing object must be interpreted as non-specific and must be predictable from context. Another characteristic of constructions with missing objects, according to Goldberg, is that they describe either iterative ( (a), (d) ) or generic actions ( (b), (c), (e) ).16 She argues that these properties follow from the status of the missing object which must be low in discourse prominence. 17 This status of the missing object enables attention to be shifted to The f-structure that gives rise to (i) is one in which the VP is focused and in which both object arguments are topics. No subordinate f-structure is assigned to the lower V-projection by itself. The reason this string is not possible in most dialects has to do with the differences among dialects as to phonological incorporation properties, an area in which dialects tend to vary. (See Erteschik-Shir a on this general topic.) 15 For a discussion of Finnish ditransitive verbs see Kaiser and for Russian ditransitives see Erteschik-Shir and Strahov . 16 (d) is not only iterative, it is also habitual. See section . for a discussion of missing objects in habituals. 17 Goldberg makes the same point and refers to constructions in which the patient argument is missing as “the deprofiled object construction.”
aspectual focus
the action. Goldberg argues that the missing object is neither a focus nor a topic. That a missing element cannot be a focus is fairly self-evident. That it is not a topic is less so, since topics are also non-prominent, and can in some languages be dropped. Still, it would be strange if English allowed object topics to drop when it does not allow subject topics to drop, a much more common phenomenon across languages. Goldberg makes the point that topics provide discourse antecedents, whereas omitted objects do not. This is illustrated in () (from Goldberg : ).18 ()
The chef-in-training chopped and diced all day. *They were put into a large salad.
()
Tigers only kill at night. *They are easily caught at that time.
If Goldberg’s analysis is correct, then the construction is motivated by IS factors yet a special IS category (high or low in discourse prominence) has to be defined to account for it. Goldberg rejects the idea that what licenses object omission is that the focus is on the activity itself as proposed by Rice : . One reason this idea does not hold up, according to Goldberg, is that object omission should be equally good if another element in the sentence were focused. This is not the case as shown in () (from Goldberg : ) in which the verb must be repeated, and thus focused, even in the presence of a focused adjunct. ()
a They claimed that Alice killed ??(someone) YESTERDAY. b She heard that the singer impressed *(an audience) last NIGHT.
Goldberg continues her argument with proof that object omission can occur without the verb being focused: () A: When do these animals hunt? B: Beavers kill during the day, but tigers only kill at night. The focus in B, identified by the wh-question in A, is the time adverbials, not the verb. Goldberg’s argument, that the verb is not focused, is well taken, yet all researchers working on object omission agree that the 18
It seems that the following sequence is acceptable: (i) I already ate. It was delicious.
Such cases are rare, and the verb eat may be exceptional in allowing discourse reference to the missing object. Eat also allows a telic particle: (ii) Eat up! We have to go. In both cases the missing object is accommodated.
aspectual focus
activity expressed by the verb is in fact focused. This generalization must therefore be expressed in some way. AT provides the necessary tool: the activity is aspectually focused, yet does not function as an informational focus as well. How this comes about is shown in section .. According to AT, however, every meaning component of a verb must be interpreted. This is how the number of arguments selected by a particular verb is fixed. Certain transitivity alternations are predicted, however. Consider for example the transitivity alternations in () and ().19 ()
a John broke the vase. b The vase broke.
() a John cut the bread. b *The bread cut Both break and cut are M,S verbs. There are in principle two different ways in which these two meaning components can project. The transitive projection was illustrated in (c). There the M-component modified the upper V-projection. The intransitive version is shown in (). There the M-component modifies the lower V-projection. ()
V V (M)
D the bread V
break
A S
The reason break can project this structure but cut cannot lies in the difference between their M-components. Break’s manner is “force” and cut’s manner is “sharp instrument.” Both of these are possible modifiers of the transitive cause-event since the causer can employ force and can also use a sharp instrument. In (), however, the M-component modifies a change-event. Such an event can be forceful, but cannot be “with a sharp instrument” in the absence of the wielder of the instrument. This is how the AT system rules out the projection in () for cut, but not for break. The AT theory, as it stands, therefore imposes strong restrictions on whether or not an argument can go missing. These restrictions are seemingly violated in cases of object omission. 19 For a discussion of why the middle is possible with cut (e.g. This bread cuts easily) see Erteschik-Shir and Rapoport ; .
aspectual focus
5.3.1 Missing objects in “Activities” Mittwoch divides cases of object omission into two types: object omission in episodic sentences and object omission in habitual sentences.20 The first type is illustrated in (), the second is discussed in section .. ()
a John is eating/reading/drinking. b He is polishing/chopping.
(a) illustrates what Mittwoch refers to as the “Activity” use.21 Mittwoch points out that these cases form activities in the aspectual sense and also in the literal sense: “they can be used to describe what a person is engaged or occupied in doing at a particular moment or interval, just like verbs such as work and rest that do not take objects at all.” The omission of the object in the Activity use does not require much contextualization and is therefore a standard use of the verbs involved. The examples in (b) differ in this respect. They are not acceptable answers to “What is he doing?” as are the examples in (a), but they can be uttered in a more specific context in which cleaning and cooking, respectively, have been mentioned. These cases of object omission provide a challenge to AT. Consider first the “Activity” use. The verbs listed by Mittwoch (: ; () ) all seem to be M,L verbs. They include verbs of creation (paint, compose, cook, bake), verbs of consumption (eat, drink), verbs of cleaning (iron, mend, dust, sweep).22 We have already seen how the L-component of creation verbs functions. The L-component of consumption verbs has the opposite function, in that the matter consumed is removed from the current stage.23 Similarly verbs of cleaning can also be viewed as verbs of removal: “Ironing” involves the removal of creases, “mending” involves This article is preceded by Mittwoch ; which deal with different aspects of this topic. 21 See Volpe for interesting arguments that verbs such as eat in fact project an unergative structure and that their objects, when they appear, are cognate objects. 22 Goldberg lists verbs of emission, ingestion, and contribution as verb types which allow object omission. She therefore excludes the verb sweep which does not belong to any of these classes and predicts the ungrammaticality of (i): 20
(i) *Phil swept onto the floor. According to Mittwoch, He is sweeping is a possible answer to What is he doing? which is why for her this verb is included among the verbs which allow object omission. 23 Anita Mittwoch (personal communication) points out that the L-component of verbs of consumption such as eat may in fact refer to the location where the food ends up. This is demonstrated in (i):
aspectual focus
the removal of holes or tears, and “dusting” involves the removal of dust. Now, according to Mittwoch these verbs are interpreted as activities when their objects are omitted. In AT, intransitive activities are projected by verbs with an M-component. This is illustrated in (): ()
V V
N
laugh
M
On a par with (), in which an M-component modifies a change-event, I propose that L-components which are bound by the current stage (and only these) can also be interpreted as modifying activity structures. This is shown in (). ()
V (L) D (L)
N
paint
M
In view of the fact that the L-component modifies the activity structure, it is necessarily aspectually defocused leaving only the activity interpretation. Since the current stage is available in any context, there are no contextual restrictions on object omission in these cases. The examples in (b), according to Mittwoch : , require a context which includes “household chores like cleaning and cooking,” but even in such contexts they still feel elliptical or coerced. It seems therefore that these M,S verbs can be accommodated when provided with a “cleaning” or “cooking” stage to be interpreted as other removal and creation verbs are. Yet they still feel elliptical since their S-component is left uninterpreted. Another verb discussed by Mittwoch is the verb build. This verb also does not allow the omission of its object without further ado, even though it is a creation verb. This is shown in the examples in (), also from Mittwoch. (i) A: What happened to that sandwich? B: I ate it. It seems to me that the interpretation of B’s response in this context could be something like “I am responsible for the removal of the sandwich.” This interpretation would be consistent with the analysis of the verb as a verb of removal.
aspectual focus
()
a ??He is building. b John is building on the empty lot at the bottom of the road.
Mittwoch comments that build differs from the creation verbs such as cook, which allow object omission without a special context, in that it takes much longer to build something than it takes to prepare a meal, and that maybe this explains why it is harder to conceive of building as an activity. As support for this intuition she notes that (a) can only be understood as referring to (a child) building with building blocks. It might also be that the M-component of build is the light verb in the class of construction verbs, and therefore it cannot be aspectually focused as required for projection as an activity. In (b), however, a location is added which on the one hand binds the L-component of the verb, and on the other supplies a focus.24 5.3.2 Object omission in habituals The examples in () are all from Mittwoch. ()
a b c d e
She cleans and polishes all day. In Mediterranean countries they build mainly on the hilltops. Psychiatrists certify as a last resort. They murdered, raped, and plundered. You only take, you never give.
All the verbs that allow object omission in the “Activity” use also allow object omission in habituals.25 Habitual sentences permit a much larger range of verbs to drop their objects. This follows, according to Mittwoch, from the fact that they “generalize over an unlimited number of situations, and therefore… also over an unlimited number of instantiations of the denotee of the missing object, e.g. houses or villages for [b], people for [c]. It is therefore natural that the missing object should 24 As Mittwoch mentions, the verb cook is similar to build in that they both involve many different activities. Yet cook does allow object omission easily. The reason the analysis of build as a light construction verb does not carry over to cook may have to do with the shorter time frame of cooking. 25 Mittwoch notes that the meaning of object omission in the Activity use can differ from that in the habitual use. Compare (i) and (ii).
(i) He is writing. (ii) He writes. (i) as an answer to What is he doing? denotes making marks with a pen, chalk, etc.; (ii) could involve using a typewriter, a computer, or even dictation. Similar for drink which in the habitual use is restricted to alcohol.
aspectual focus
be understood as a bare plural” (). Event plurality is also achieved by conjunction as in (d) and also by iteration as illustrated in (d). According to Mittwoch contrast, illustrated in (e), is the best enabler of object omission. Mittwoch argues that the purpose of object omission in such cases is to make the verb prominent. Mittwoch concludes that the missing object is a phonologically null pro-NP with the features [+plural, ±human]. Alternatively, she suggests, one could claim that, depending on context, object arguments could be saturated in the lexicon rather than in the syntax. In order to show how Mittwoch’s insights can be incorporated into AT, we must first briefly examine how plurality functions in this framework. In Erteschik-Shir and Rapoport a, we show that each meaning component also has a plural variant. Incremental verbs such as cool and advance have plural S- and L-components, respectively, because there is a plural number of increments included in the events they describe. Similarly, iterative verbs such as flash and beep are also plural. This is why these achievement verbs allow modification by for adverbials. As is well known, the same effect is achieved by a plural theme as shown in (). ()
a The soup cooled for an hour. b Glasses /*a glass broke for an hour.
In the same paper, we show that lexical plural also can affect lexical structure in that plural verbs, although only consisting of a single (plural) meaning component, can also project a transitive accomplishment structure: ()
a John cooled the soup. b The officer advanced the regiment.
We argue that it is the plural which modifies the V-V structure and renders the meaning that the agent initiates the plural event. The availability of a plural lexical component fits very nicely with Mittwoch’s conclusion if we argue that what licenses the omission of the object in habituals is not a syntactic null proform, but rather the lexical plural which projects the missing theme argument as shown in () for (a).26
26 This is an extension of the approach in Erteschik-Shir and Rapoport a, where the plural component does not in fact project a theme on its own, but only as part and parcel of a plural DP.
aspectual focus
()
V D she
V(M) V polish
V D pl
V V polish
A S
The projection of the lexical plural is licensed, following Mittwoch, only in cases of habituals. Note that there is no need for the feature [±human] since the value of this feature of the theme can be derived from the particular meaning components of the verbs. Mittwoch’s two alternative accounts, the syntactic proform and lexical saturation, are both instantiated in the analysis proposed here. One more property of these constructions should still be discussed here and that is the fact noted by Mittwoch that contrast is the best enabler of object omission in habituals (e.g., (e) ). This follows from the generic nature of these sentences and that therefore they cannot be predicated of a stage topic. Since the object is unavailable, only the subject remains as a candidate for topichood. If the sentence is unmodified by adjuncts, then the focus must fall on the verb. Yet the “activity” indicated by the M-component is also unavailable in habituals, since no particular instance of an activity can be focused on. Focusing on a single verb therefore does not provide a sufficient focus. Contrast, iteration, conjunction of several verbs, or an adjunct are therefore necessary to supply the sentence with a focus. 5.4 Contextual binding of lexical constituents The idea that components can be bound by the current stage, proposed in section ., also supplies an explanation of the unexpected stress pattern of intransitive unaccusatives when they are uttered out-of-the blue discussed in Chapter , section .. Compare the sentences in () to those in (): () a b c
The boy LAUGHED. The baby CRIED. The baby’s CRYING.
aspectual focus () a b c
A BOY left. My BIKE broke. The BABY’s crying.
In view of the fact that all these sentences are all-focus sentences, they should, according to the stress rule, be pronounced with stress on the whole sentence, with highest stress on the final constituent, in this case the verb. The sentences in () are pronounced as expected with some stress on the subject and highest stress on the verb. The sentences in (), however, are unexpectedly pronounced with stress only on the subject and so seemingly present a mismatch between prosodic prominence and focal interpretation. (a) and (b) illustrate change-events and are explained in the same way. (a) projects the structure in (). ()
V D a boy
V sTOPt V
P
leave
L
Out-of-the-blue change-events are used to answer the question What happened? and therefore presuppose that some change-event has occurred (for example: I hear a door slam and ask what happened and am presented with the answer in (a) ). The parameters of the stage topic are therefore identified with those of the change-event and in this sense the stage topic binds the change-event as indicated in (). Note that the particular changed state or location specified is still aspectually focused (in this case a change “away from” the current stage). The verb therefore plays a conflicting role: it expresses both the “change” (topic) as well as the particular change (aspectual focus). Since the stress rule applies to sentential foci and not to aspectual ones, the verb is excluded from stress assignment as is any topic embedded in a focus as argued in Chapter , section .. The stress rule will therefore apply solely to the subject rendering the desired stress pattern. As is the case with any topic, the verb can, of course, be contrastively stressed as in (): () What happened? A child LEFT. Whereas change-events can naturally answer the question What happened?, activities such as () do not. This is because this question, in addition to
aspectual focus
forcing an out-of-the-blue context, also presupposes that an event occurred as just argued. Such a presupposition is generally incompatible with the activity reading assigned to unergatives. Yet, depending on context, some unergatives can in fact occur in the unexpected stress pattern as shown in (c). In AT the projected structure is restricted only by the requirement that all components are interpreted. Consider therefore that the unergative (c) projects a change structure such as (). ()
V D
V sTOPt
the baby V cry
A M
This structure not only imposes a change-event interpretation, but also imposes an interpretation in which the “crying” manner is interpreted as a state. Such an interpretation is appropriate in the case of babies since they enter a “crying-state” naturally and the sentence then means: “The baby is now (changed its state to) crying”. The fact that this projection is licensed for this verb in the relevant context accounts for the fact that the sentence can occur in the intonation pattern associated with the change structure. Eventive all-focus sentences are thus uttered in a context in which something has happened: a loud noise, an expression of horror or pleasure, etc., i.e., a reaction to a contextual event. Such a context may also prompt an explicit question such as What happened? or What was that? Both questions presuppose the occurrence of an event. This event (together with the current spatio-temporal parameters) constitutes the topic of the so-called all-focus sentence. That lexical properties of verbs interact with IS has been known for some time. The exact nature of this interaction has been hard to define. This is partially due to the fact that neither theories of IS nor theories of the lexicon are geared to probe the IS–lexicon interface. AT theory is designed for this purpose, in that it employs lexical decomposition in a way that allows different assignments of aspectual focus which in turn interact with IS. Although this theory could only be superficially outlined here, its potential to elucidate the lexicon–IS interface has hopefully been made clear through the investigation of extraction, completeness, missing objects, and the intonation assigned to eventive sentences.27 27 For a more detailed account see Erteschik-Shir and Rapoport in preparation. For a different account of these data see Zubizaretta .
6 The Division of Labor between Syntax and IS Research into the syntax–IS interface has been hampered by the fact that no agreement has been achieved among researchers as to what a theory of IS should look like to the extent that definitions of the basic IS notions are still controversial. This is not to say that the role of IS in determining syntactic properties such as word order has not been recognized, yet the precise nature of how this comes about is still quite vague across linguistic frameworks. In view of this state of affairs, I thought it best to try to promote research in this area by emphasizing the particular methodology needed to sharpen both the theory of IS as well as its application to syntactic questions. In so doing I have also attempted to show how far-reaching the purview of IS is within grammar. Yet although some theories view IS as an integral part of grammar, others relegate it to the interfaces. Within minimalism, for example, the Rizzi-type approach to the left periphery discussed in Chapter integrates topic and focus features into the grammar, while other minimalists (e.g., Reinhart , Chomsky in Stemmer ) view IS as operating on the interfaces. Chomsky expresses his view as follows: I suppose it is possible to argue that the computational-representational system accesses features of language use, though what such a system would look like, I have no idea. Suppose, for example, we consider the (plainly correct) fact that in a linguistic interchange, new/old information is a matter of background that participants assume to be shared (what is some-times misleadingly called “discourse”; there need be no discourse in any significant sense of that term). Suppose further (as appears to be correct) that old/ new information relates to “displacement effects” in narrow syntax. And suppose further (merely for concreteness) that we take these displacement effects to be expressed in narrow syntax by transformational operations. Should we then say that the operations of object-shift, topicalization, and so on literally access shared background information? This seems close to incoherent; any clarification of these intuitive ideas that I can think of yields computational systems of hopeless scope, compelling us to try to formulate what amount to “theories of everything” that cannot possibly be the topic of rational inquiry.
division of labor between syntax and is
… A more reasonable approach, I think, is to take the operations to be “autonomous,” i.e., syntax in the broad sense, and to understand pragmatics to be a theory concerned with the ways properties of expressions (such as displacement) are interpreted by languageexternal (but person-internal) systems in terms of old/new information. That leaves us with manageable and coherent questions. (Stemmer : –)
Neither of these approaches can accommodate the full array of IS–syntax interactions for which evidence has been presented here. Whether IS should in fact be integrated into grammar or not must therefore still be left as an open question within this framework. A possible way of investigating the issue is to examine universal properties of IS, beyond the accepted principle that topics tend to precede foci. An initial attempt at such an investigation is offered in Chapter . There it was argued that the constraint on dependencies must be couched in terms of unmarked f-structure, where unmarked f-structures are parameterized across languages. Since the definition of an unmarked f-structure depends on the mapping of IS onto syntactic structure, it is hard to envision how such a mapping can take place without integrating IS as part of grammar. And, even if this were possible, detaching IS from grammar would also remove constraints on word order and on dependencies from the purview of syntax, leaving very little work for syntax itself. Another issue which pertains to this question is the role of processing, also discussed in Chapter . Constraints on word order and constraints on dependencies were defined as processing constraints, and processing has generally been considered to be an interface property and again not something that is part and parcel of grammar proper. One possible way of reconciling the two points of view, one forcing IS outside of grammar, the other keeping it inside, is to consider IS as part of the phonological computation. This is a plausible tack to take since IS processing is what controls the linear order of elements in the sentence and linearization is conceivably a phonological rule. This is in fact the position argued for in Erteschik-Shir b where I propose the following (uncontroversial) initial division of labor between syntactic and phonological computation: ()
Syntax lexically determined hierarchical— c-command syntactic constituents
Phonology morphologically determined linear— adjacency, left/right edges prosodic constituents
division of labor between syntax and is
The factors listed under Phonology in () are not properties of syntactic computation and should therefore not play a role in syntax. To the extent that factors such as these do play a role in the account of word order, the account cannot be syntactic, but must rather be phonological. The idea that IS belongs in a post-syntactic component was discussed in Chapter in the context of theories that derive focus assignment from syntactic stress assignment, yet in those theories the purpose of such a component was to leave syntax intact and to provide a home only for those IS phenomena that resist a syntactic account. These proposals also had to exclude from the post-syntactic component any phenomena with interpretative import, since these would have to be computed by LF syntax. In the framework presented in Erteschik-Shir , it was argued that phenomena accounted for by LF syntax, such as quantifier scope, can be directly read off f-structure. This follows, as also shown in Chapter , from the fact that topics take wide scope. If LF-syntax is unnecessary, then it is possible that the output of a phonology which includes IS-processing will be visible to both the conceptual-intentional and the articulatory-perceptual interfaces. Such a model would reflect the fact that IS contributes both to interpretation and to pronunciation. (See Chapter , section . for such an architecture.) Incorporating IS into the grammar in this way means that topic and focus features must also be integrated into the computational system. In view of the fact that both features are marked across languages by a variety of linguistic tools including morphology, intonation, and word order, this is not surprising, yet as discussed in Chapter , it is not obvious how the features are introduced into the computation. In Erteschik-Shir and Lappin we argue that focusing is a non-modular process which identifies the foregrounded constituent in representations of all modular systems including vision and (non-linguistic) auditory perception. Focusing is therefore viewed as a general cognitive mechanism which interacts with linguistic computation as it does with other modes of perception. In that sense, it is external to grammar. Yet the particular properties it takes on are specific to language although these properties are to some extent parasitic on the properties of auditory perception: High pitch and amplitude, for example, draw our attention to any sound, not just linguistic ones. One might wish to examine theories of visual and auditory perception to see if focusing is considered an integral part of the computation of these types of percept. If so, linguists might want to adopt this view as well.
division of labor between syntax and is
The notion of topic is different. It does not play a role in noncommunicative perception. Since it is language specific, it is likely that it is indeed an integral part of linguistic computation. Yet there are also cognitive requirements on an appropriate use of topic. Jelinek and Carnie : surmise that “we may have a general cognitive sense of ‘what’s new’ and ‘what’s old’ but languages differ in how they lexicalize this into formal features in the lexicon.” Assume that Jelinek is right and that the ability to distinguish “what’s old” or to recognize what we have encountered before is part of general cognition. Does it follow that topichood is part of general cognition? The answer to this question is probably negative. True, the definition of topics presupposes the ability to make this distinction, yet this ability could conceivably be available without it playing a role in language in the way topics do. This question has been the focus of some research into language acquisition starting with Baker and Greenfield , who have shown that children are already able to distinguish new from old information in their first year. In single-word utterances, children report on or about new information. At the two-word stage totally presupposed information was also omitted. Baker and Greenfield view the new–old distinction “as the perceptual/cognitive foundation for the topic-comment and the presupposition-assertion distinctions in later language.” Schaeffer , however, argues that children’s pragmatic system is underdeveloped in that children cannot always distinguish shared and non-shared information. This, she argues, explains non-adult-like object scrambling in Dutch children. For the same reason subject omission in Russian is overextended by children under the age of according to Gordishevsky and Schaeffer . Under this view children overextend topic assignment, yet they have the capacity to correctly mark (by omission or scrambling) the topics that they do identify. Dyakonova argues that “information structure seems to be acquired in a parallel rather than consecutive fashion compared to syntax.” She examines OV and VO order in Russian child language. Object topics occur preverbally whereas object foci occur postverbally in Russian. According to Dyakonova the child exhibited sensitivity to these constraints and she explained those cases in which non-topics were positioned preverbally as due to a misanalysis by the child of the shared knowledge in the situation at hand. Her conclusion is therefore very much along the lines of Schaeffer . De Cat makes the point that children appear to have the required competence to encode topics from the onset of the multiword stage. She observes that children consistently dislocate non-pronominal subjects
division of labor between syntax and is
in individual-level predicates in which the subjects must be interpreted as topics, but such dislocation is not found in all-focus sentences. She concludes that children’s spontaneous production of these constructions indicates that they have the ability to identify and encode topics in a target-like fashion. Although the acquisition research is still inconclusive, the results so far indicate that IS notions play a central role in language acquisition as well. This does not come as a surprise to linguists working in frameworks in which IS is integrated in the grammar. Van Valin and LaPolla : put the point of view of such theories succinctly: “Researchers investigating language acquisition and development from the communicationand-cognition perspective do not assume that the cognitive endowment that enables children to learn language is autonomous. Rather, they take the question of unique cognitive structures for language learning to be an open question to be decided by empirical research and not by theoretical fiat.” It seems that this perspective stands a better chance of arriving at an understanding of the cognitive functions of topic and focus and their role in language acquisition, yet so far not much work has been done on the acquisition of IS within integrated frameworks. One question that looms high on the wish-list for future research is the question of IS bootstrapping for language acquisition: If focusing is a general cognitive mechanism which interacts with linguistic computation as it does with other modes of perception, it may be an excellent candidate as a bootstrapping mechanism for language acquisition. Bever : , in the context of a discussion of functionalist explanations of linguistic structures, poses the question: “Why should a linguist care about these abstruse potential extra-linguistic sources for linguistic structures?” and continues: “I cannot dictate an answer, but I do know that the truth shall set you free.” And he concludes: “… we want to understand the potential relations between linguistic and general cognitive properties, when exploring the biological and ontogenetic bases for either one.” Further research into the theory of information structure as well as its acquisition is therefore called for. This book is intended to encourage just that.
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Index of terms A-bar movement , Aboutness , Accent - see also pitch accent –, n., , accentual phrasing accommodation , , , , , , , , –, , , , n. , , activity –, –, , adverb n., , , , –, , , , , , –, , –, –, , –, , , , , , all-focus , , , , , , , , –, A movement antecedent –, , –, , , , , , , architecture –, , , , , , , , –, , , , aspectual focus , , –, –, – assertion , , –, –, , background –, –, , n., , , bare plural boundary tone n., canonical f-structure , , –, , –, –, –, , , cartography , , –, n., –, , , , categorical n., –, causative change of location , , change of state , n., – cleft , , , clitic n., –, –, n., Clitic Left Dislocation (CLLD) , cognate object , n. cognition , , –
Combinatory Categorial Grammar (CCG) , n., common ground , , Communicative Dynamism (CD) Completeness , –, –, , , , configurational language , –, , , constituents –, , , –, , –, n., –, –, n., , , n., –, , , –, –, , , n., , , , , –, , , , , , , , , n., , n., , –, –, – constraints – alignment – functional – I-dependency –, , –, , , –, , – Identification (ID) , – – information structure motivated –, –, –, – – island , , , n., – on extraction , , , , – phonological – processing , , , , – syntactic , –, n., , , –, , , , , – topic –, Construction Grammar , n. context –, , –, –, n., –, –, , , , n., , , , –, n., –, –, –, –, , –, –, n., , –, –, –, , –, , , –, –, , –, –, –, –, –, –, –, , , , , , –, , , context set , , , continued topic n., , , , , , –, ,
index of terms
contrast , , , , –, , , –, –, , –, –, , , , , , , , , n., , , – contrast set , n., , , –, , , contrastive focus , , , , , , , –, –, , n., , contrastive topic –, –, , , , –, , , , –, , , , coreferent pronoun, see pronoun d(iscourse)-linked , , , –, , , –, – definiteness effect distressing , –, , , discourse configurational language –, , discourse referent , , , , , Discourse Representation Theory (DRT) –, d-linked, see d(icscourse linked) double object construction , , , – Dynamic Syntax , , n. EPP , , , , eventive sentences , exhaustive focus exhaustive identification existential , , , , –, extraction , , , , , –, –, –, –, –, , –, , extraposition , , –, f(ocus)-structure – canonical, see canonical f-structure f(ocus)-structure – main, see main f-structure f(ocus)-structure – restrictive, see restrictive f-structure f(ocus)-structure – subordinate, see subordinate f-structure f(ocus)-structure boundaries fall-rise tune figure-ground –
file system , –, , , focus – aspectual, see aspectual focus focus – contrastive, see contrastive focus focus – exhaustive, see exhaustive focus focus – identificational, see identificational focus focus – informational, see informational focus focus – narrow, see narrow focus focus – presentational, see presentational focus focus – preverbal, see preverbal focus focus – restrictive, see restrictive focus focus – sentential, see sentential focus focus – tests , , , , focus chaining , –, , , –, focus feature –, , , , , , n., , , , n., , focus marking (F-marking) –, –, –, , – focus preposing n., – focus projection –, n. focus-definition , –, –, , focusability , –, –, –, foreground , , functional features Functional Grammar , Functional Sentence Perspective Functional Syntax Functionalism –, Generic –, , , , , Given , –, –, , , , , , , –, ground , , , – habitual , , – Head Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) , , high tone Holmberg’s Generalization , hypertheme –, –, –, , , I(dentificational)- dependencies –, , –, , –, –,
index of terms Identification , –, , , , , , , , – argument identification – identification of IS functions – Identification (ID) constraint, see constraints identificational focus I-level, see individual level predicate inclusiveness –, –, incorporation , , –, – indefinite topic individual level predicate , , , , , information packaging information structure primitives , , informational focus , , , –, , , , , , , , , interface –, , , –, –, , –, , , , , , – intonation (see also prosody) –, , , n., –, , , , , , , , , , , , –, , , , –, , , , , , intonational boundaries intonational phrase , , – islands , , , n., –, , , , , –, iteration , – language acquisition , – left detachment – Left Dislocation (LD) , , –, , –, – left periphery , , , , , , –, , , –, , , –, , , , , , , , left-branching – lexical decomposition , lexical features Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) , , –, , , , lexical structure , lexicon , , , , , lie-test , light verbs , –,
linearization , –, –, , Logical Form (LF) , , , , , –, –, , , , , long distance scrambling low tone main f-structure , , main topic , , , , manner-of-speaking verbs –, , , , n. mapping between syntax and information structure , , , , , , , meaning component , –, –, , – merge –, n., , , , middle field , Minimalist Program (MP) , –, –, , , , , multi-level models , , , multiple topics , , multiple wh-questions , , –, , , narrow focus , n., , , , negation –, new information , , , , , , , , –, nuclear scope Nuclear Stress Rule (NSR) , – object shift –, , , , –, –, old information , , , , Optimality Theory (OT) , –, , –, , out of the blue , –, , , , , , , – Parallel Grammar parsing constraint , partitive , , , , PF (Phonological Form) –, –, –, , , , –, –, PF computation phonological computation
index of terms
picture NPs , pitch accent , n. , –, , p-movement (prosodically motivated movement) –, , poset , – potential focus domain , , , , –, PP-extraposition Prague School –, n., Pre-field (see also Vorfeld) presentational focus presupposition , , , –, , , , –, , , , , preverbal focus , –, , , Principles and Parameters , , processing , –, , , , , , , , –, –, n. , , , –, , – see also constraints (processing) prominence , –, –, , , , , –, , –, , , , , , , –, , pronoun , –, , –, , –, , , , , –, , –, –, –, , , , , –, , –, , , , pronoun – coreferent , n., prosody , , –, , –, –, , , , n., –, , , quantifier scope , , question-answer pairs –, , , , , , , referent, referent – discourse, see discourse referent Representation Theory , n., , , n. restrictive clause restrictive focus –, –, , , restrictive set –, , , resumptive , –, –, , , , n. rheme , – right detachment
right dislocation , right-branching – Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) –, , –, n., , n., –, , n., n. root clauses , – salience , , , –, scope –, , , , , , –, , , scrambling , –, n., , , –, , , –, –, –, , , scrambling – long distance, see long distance scrambling sentential focus , , , set of alternatives , shifted topics , S-level, see stage level predicate spatio-temporal –, , , specific –, –, , , , , , –, , –, , –, , –, –, –, –, , –, , , , – specific indefinites –, , , , –, , spell-out , , –, , stage level predicate n., , n. stage topic, implicit stage topic –, –, –, , –, , –, , , –, , , , , , , , , , – stress , –, –, , –, , , , –, –, , –, , n., n., –, , –, –, –, , , , , , , –, –, stress shift , , – stylistic fronting subject prominent , , , , subject-object asymmetry subordinate f-structure –, –, , , , , , – subordinate topic , , , , , , –,
index of terms superiority , , , –, , –, , – switch topics, see shifted topics Tail , –, , , , –, n. Telic –, that-t(race) , –, thematic progression – theme , , , , , –, , – thetic , –, topic – continued, see continued topic topic – contrastive, see contrastive topic topic – indefinite, see indefinite topic topic – main, see main topic topic – stage, see stage topic topic – subordinate, see subordinate topic topic chaining , , , – topic feature , , Topic Focus Articulation (TFA) , topic prominent , , n., n., –, topic –shifted, see shifted topics topic –switch, see shifted topics topic tests –, , Topicalization –, , , –, , , , , –, –, –,
–, –, –, , –, , , , , , –, , , –, n., , topic-definition , , –, , , , , , , topic-drop – topics – multiple, see multiple topics topological fields truth value –, –, , –, , truth value gaps , , unaccusative , , unergative , universal , , , , , , , , , , , , V- (verb second) , Vorfeld (see also pre-field) weak crossover (WCO) –, – wh-movement , , wh-topics word order – canonical (see also word order – unmarked) , , word order – unmarked , , Yiddish movement –
Language Index Aghem – Catalan –, , –, n., , , , , Celtic languages Chinese –, n., , n. Danish –, –, , , , –, , n., n., , n., , , –, –, n., , – Dutch –, , –, –, , , n., English n., n., –, , –, , , , , –, n., –, , –, –, , , , –, , , , , –, , –, –, , –, –
Hungarian n., , n., –, –, –, , , , , n. Icelandic , –, n. Irish Italian –, , –, –, n., –, –, , , Japanese –, – Korean , –, Lakhota , n. Norwegian , , – O’odham Persian –
Faeroese , n. French , , –, ,
Russian n., , –, –, , n.,
German , –, , n., , , –, –, –, n., n., , , , n., n., , n., , –, Germanic , –, , –, –, , , , , ,
Scandinavian –, n., , –, –, Scottish Gaelic Spanish –, , n., n. Swedish , , n.,
Hebrew –, , , n., –, ,
Wambon – Welsh Wyampi
Index of authors Aboh, E. O. n. Ackerman, F. n. Ahrenberg, L. n. Aissen, J. n., Andersen, T. , n. Ariel, M. n. Arnon, I. n. Bailyn, J. F. n., , , n.–, Baker, N. Basilico, D. n., n., n. Bayer, J. – Beaver, D. n., n. Benincà, P. –, Bever, T. G. , Birner, B. J. n., n., Bolinger, D. n., –, – Bresnan, J. n., – Breul, C. n. Broadwell, G. A. n. Bródy, M. Büring, D. n., n., n., , Cann, R. , n. Carnie, A. n., , Casielles-Suárez, E. n., n. Chafe, W. , n., n., n., n., n. Choi, H.-W. n., n., – Chomsky, N. , n., –, , –, , , n., , , , , –, Christiansen, M. Cinque, G. n., –, , , , , , Clark, H. H. Clifton Jr, C. n. Cole, P. n. Costa, J. n. Croft, W. , n. Culicover, P. W. n.,
Daneš, F. – Darnell, M. De Cat, C. n., n., n., de Hoop, H. n., –, , , DeLancey, S. – Diderichsen, P. n. Diesing, M. , , , n. Dik, S. C. , , – Dryer, M. S. n. Dyakonova, M. É. Kiss, K. n., –, , , Eckardt, R. n. Emonds, J. , Engdahl, E. , Erteschik-Shir, N. –, , , –, n., –, n., , n., , n., n., , –, n., , , –, , n., n., n., n., n., n., , , , –, , n., n., n., , n., n., –, –, , , n., n., , , , , , n., , n., n.–, n., , n., – Fanselow, G. , – Featherston, S. n., , n. van Finkel, K. n. Firbas, J. , n. Frey, W. –, –, n. Fukui, N. n. van Gelderen, V. , –, –, n., –, Gernsbacher, M. A. – Gibson, E. n. Gill, K.-H. –, Ginzburg, J.
index of authors
Givón, T. n., n., , , n. Goldberg, A. E. , n., , n., –, n. Goodall, G. n., Gordishevsky, G. Green, G. Greenfield, P. Gregory, M. L. – Göbbel, E. , n., Grice, P. H. Grimshaw, J. n. Grosu, A. n., n. Gruber, J. S. Guéron, J. – Gundel, J. K. , n., n., n., n., , Gussenhoven, C. n. Haider, H. n., n., n., n. Hajicˇová, Eva , n. Hale, K. L. , n., n., n. Halliday, M. A. K. , , n., n. Hannay, M. n. Hargreaves, D. – Harley, H. n. Heim, I. , n. Hirschberg, J. n., Hockey, B. A. n. van Hoek, K. n. Hoji, H. n. Holmberg, A. –, , , , – Horvath, J. , , n., Hsiao, F. n. Huang, C.-T. J. – Hyams, N. Ishii, Y. –, Jackendoff, R. –, , , n., , , , n. Jacobs, J. n. Jäger, G. n. Jelinek, E. Jensen, A. n. Joshi, A. K. n. Junghanns, U. n.
Kadmon, N. n. Kaiser, E. n. Kamp, H. n. Kanerva, J. n. Kaplan, T. n. Karimi, S. – Kathol, A. n. Keenan-Ochs, E. n. Kempson, R. , –, n. Kenesei, I. n. Keyser, J. – n., n. Kidwai, A. n., Kim, A. H. O. n. Kim, S. – King, T. H. , – Kluender, R. n., – Kratzer, A. n., n. Krifka, M. Kuno, S. , n., n., n., n., , , Kuroda, S.-Y. n. Ladd, D. R. n. Ladusaw, W. – n.– Lambrecht, K. n., , n., , n., n., , , n., , n., –, n., n. Langacker, R. W. n. LaPolla, R. J. , n., , n.–, n., –, n., , , Larson, R. J. n. Lasnik, H. Lebeaux, D. Lee, J. – Li, C. n., n., , n., n., n. Liberman, M. n. López, L. n. MacDonald, M. C. Massam, D. n. Meyer-Viol, W. Maynell, L. A. n. Meinunger, A. n., n. Michaelis, L. A. – Miller, P. H. –
index of authors Mittwoch, A. – Miyagawa, S. n., , – Molnár, V. n. Morgan, J. L. – Neeleman, A. n., –, n.–, n., , , –, Newmeyer, F. , – Nikolaeva, I. n. Panevová, J. , n. Partee, B. H. Paul, I. n., n. Payne, D. , –, Pesetsky, D. . Pierrehumbert, J. Poletto, C. Polinsky, M. n. Pollard, C. , Poulsen, M. n., n. Prince, E. F. , n., n., n., n., n., n., , , – Rahkonen, M. n. Rapoport, T. n., , n., –, n., n., , n. Raviv, A. S. Reinhart, T. –, n., , , , n., , n., –, n., n.–, n., , , –, , , n., Reis, M. n. Rice, S. Ritter, E. – Rizzi, L. , , –, –, , , , , Roberts, C. , n. Roberts, J. R. – Rochemont, M. S. n., n., n., Rodionova, E. V. n. Rooth, M. – Rosen, S. T. – Rosengren, I. n., n., n. Ross, J. R. n., n., Rudin, C. n.
Sadeh-Leicht, O. n. Sag, I. A. , , , n., – Samek-Lodovici, V. – Sasse, H. n. , n. Schaeffer, J. n., –, , Schieffelin, B. n. Schmerling, S. F. – n. Schulz, B. Schwarzschild, R. n., n. Selkirk, E. –, Sgall, P. , n. Shimojo, M. n. Smith, C. S. n. Steedman, M. , n., –, n., Stemmer, B. – Stowell, T. Strahov, N. n., n., n., n. Strawson, P. F. –, , , Surànyi, B. , Svenonius, P. –, , , , Szabolcsi, A. Szendröi, K. n., n., , n. Takami, K.-I. , n. Takano, Y. n. Taverniers, M. n. Thompson, S. n., n., , n., n., n. Tsoulas, G. –, Vallduví, E. , , , –, n., n., n., n. Van Valin, J. , n., , –, n.–, , n., , –, n., n., , –, Vikner, S. n. Villalba, X. , Volpe, M. n. von Heusinger, K. , n. Vries, L. d. n.
index of authors
Wagner, M. n., n., n. Walker, M. A. n. Ward, G. n., n., n., n., – Wasow, T. Watters, J. R. R. n. Wedgewood, D. J. n. Weskott, T. n.
Wexler, K. , Williams, E. , , n. Wiltschko, M. – Winkler, S. , n., Ziv, Y. n. Zubizaretta, M. L. n., , –, , , n. Zybatow, G. n.
