Focus in Generative Grammar
1st Edition
Published on 1. January 1986
IX, 221 pages
978-90-272-8633-8 (ISBN)
Description
The topic of this book is the notion of 'focus' and its linguistic characterization. The main thesis is that focus has a uniform grammatical identification only as a syntactic element with - in English at least - a certain systematic phonological interpretation and - presumably universally - a range of semantic interpretations. In broad respects, the framework within this investigation is conducted is that of Chomsky & Lasnik (1977) and the subsequent Government and Binding framework. After considering defining the location of prominence in a focused phrase in terms of constituent structure, the author argues that an argument structure approach to the focus phrase/prominence relation is more promising. This is then exemplified in analyses of cleft focus and constructional focus.
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Michael Rochemont
Focus in Generative Grammar
Book
01/1986
John Benjamins Publishing Co
€72.08
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Content
- FOCUS IN GENERATIVE GRAMMAR
- Editorial page
- Title page
- Copyright page
- Table of contents
- PREFACE
- Dedication
- Introduction
- Chapter 1. Accent and Focus
- 1.1. The NSR and The NSR'
- 1.2. The NSR
- 1.3. Prominence
- Chapter 2. The Interpretation of Focus
- 2.1. The Presupposition Analysis
- 2.2. c-construable
- 2.3. Narrow Focus, Contrast, and Default Accent
- Chapter 3. The Representation of Focus
- 3.1. Focus and Argument Structure
- 3.2. The Structure of Discourse
- Chapter 4. Constructional Focus
- 4.1. The Constructional Focus Principle
- 4.2. The Constructional Focus Position
- Chapter 5. Cleft Focus
- 5.1. The Interpretation of Clefts
- 5.2. The Structure of Clefts
- 5.3. Cleft Focus Constructions and Parametric Variation
- APPENDIX: On Overt wh Phrases in English Cleft Clauses
- Chapter 6. Summary
- FOOTNOTES
- References
- The series STUDIES IN GENERATIVE LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS
