Toward a typology of focus and focus constructions (1).

From: Linguistics: an interdisciplinary journal of the languagesciences | Date: January 1, 2003| Author: | Copyright information

Abstract

Departing from the assumption that focus is nonuniform (Drubig 1994; Kiss 1998) this paper takes preliminary steps toward a typology of focus and focus constructions. Focus is taken to be a syntactic feature assigned freely to word-level categories at numeration, licensed either by integration into a wider domain (presentational focus constructions) or by overt/covert movement to a functional projection headed by a polarity formative (focus operator constructions). Cross-linguistic variation in the target position of focus movement (sentence-peripheral vs. ...

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