1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 THE SYNTAX OF INFORMATION STRUCTURE AND THE PF INTERFACE
Kriszta Szendrői (UCL)1
1. Introduction
1.1 Two types of focus movement
Certain languages exhibit movement of the focal constituent to a
noncanonical position. The first such languages that were identified
display focus movement to a left peripheral position. In particular, Brody
(1990, 1995) showed that focus movement in Hungarian targets a leftperipheral functional specifier position, as in (1). This is accompanied by
movement of the finite verb to the head of this functional projection, as
shown by the fact that the particle-verb complex splits, as is familiar from
V2 in Germanic languages.
(1)
[TopP Péter [FocP MARIT
mutatta
[VP be tV
tDP Zsófinak]]]
Peter Mary-acc introduced Prt
Sophie-dat
‘Peter introduced MARY to Sophie (not someone else)
Similarly, Rizzi (1997) proposed that Italian left-peripheral focus targets a
designated functional specifier in the left periphery of the clause, but in
Italian there is no accompanying verb movement to the head of this
functional projection.
(2)
[FocP [DP Il TUO libro] Foc0 [TP ho [VP comprato tDP ]]] (non il suo)
the your book have-I bought not the his
‘I bought YOUR book, not his.’
Brody (1990, 1995) and Rizzi (1997) proposed a unified analysis of the
two cases. They argued that focus movement is like wh-movement. It has
A-bar characteristics: it is quantificational; it gives rise to weak crossover
violations. Accordingly, a designated position Foc0 was proposed,
alongside the syntactic [+focus]-feature, attracting the focal element to
the specifier of Foc0. In addition, the verb itself may be optionally
attracted to the head position.
(3)
Focus criterion
[FP XPfocus Foc0 ... [VPV tXP]
[+F]
[+F]
41 1 I thank Ad Neeleman and Fatima Hamlaoui for many discussions. I also
thank Gisbert Fanselow, Valéria Molnár, Nino Grillo for data. I also thank
the audiences at the DGfS A3 Workshop on ‘Alternatives to formal
features’ and 2015 meeting of the LAGB. 1 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 In this paper, I propose that this unified treatment is on the wrong track. In
contrast, I propose that focus movement comes in two types: Type 1
focus movement, as exemplified by Hungarian focus movement in (1), is
always accompanied by verb movement; Type 2 focus movement, as
exemplified by Italian focus movement in (2), is not accompanied by verb
movement. The reason for separating two types of focus movement is
that there seems to be a cluster of properties that distinguish them. First,
Type 1 focus movement may take place in embedded clauses, while
Type 2 focus movement seems to be restricted to root environments.
Second, Type 1 focus movement is prosodically unmarked in a sense to
be clarified below, while Type 2 focus movement is prosodically marked.
Third, Type 1 focus movement is pragmatically unmarked in that it can be
used as a simple (exhaustive) answer to a wh-question, while Type 2
focus movement is only felicitous in pragmatically marked contexts, such
as explicit contrastive or corrective contexts. These defining
characteristics are listed in Table 1 below for ease of reference.
Table 1: Characteristics of focus movement
Type 1 focus movement
Type 2 focus movement
involves verb movement
no verb movement
root or embedded contexts
only in root context
prosodically unmarked
prosodically marked
pragmatically unmarked (i.e. can Pragmatically marked (i.e. must be
express new information focus)
contrastive or corrective)
The analysis I propose below for the two types of focus movement relies
on a direct link between prosody and information structure (see section
2). It gives up syntactocentrism, which is the hallmark of the cartographic
approach of Rizzi (1997) and subsequent work. There is no [+focus]
feature that ensures a one-to-one mapping between syntactic position
and interpretation on the one hand (i.e. at LF) and position and prosodic
realisation on the other (i.e. at PF). Nevertheless, as I hope to show in the
subsequent sections the analysis is both restrictive and explanatory.
Understanding the syntax-phonology mapping of clauses involving moved
foci allows us to get an insight into why the characteristics of Type 1 and
2 focus movement cluster the way they do. Moreover, the analysis also
makes a number of testable typological predictions, as I discuss in
section 4. In particular, it follows from the proposed analysis that (i) Type
1 focus movement always involves verb movement, (ii) topic movement is
never accompanied by verb movement, (iii) right-peripheral focus
movement always targets a position lower than the surface position of the
verb. But let me first explain my reasons for abandoning the cartographic
approach.
1.2 Against the cartographic approach to focus movement
As I discuss in much more detail elsewhere (Szendroi to appear), the
cartographic approach is inherently ill-suited for the treatment of
information structure related phenomena, in particular focus movement
(see also Fanselow (2006)). Let me summarise some of the arguments
here briefly. In the interest of space, I restrict myself to those arguments
2 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 that are directly concerned with the tacit assumption underlying all
cartographic work, namely that there is a one-to-one mapping between
designated functional projections and their interpretations at LF.
One immediate advantage of the cartographic approach is that by
determining the syntactic position of a particular constituent, we can
immediately ‘read off’ its interpretation from its position: e.g. a focal
constituent is interpreted as such because it sits in [Spec, FocP]. But this
breaks down in the face of the fact that in most languages that have focus
movement, the movement of the focal constituent is optional. This means
that either we assume that in all those cases where it appears not to take
place, movement is covert, or we must allow for a many-to-one mapping,
i.e. both the moved and the base position may give rise to the same
interpretation. The first is problematic, because no convincing case has
ever been put forward for covert focus movement in a language that does
not have focus movement overtly. The second would be a serious
weakening of the cartographic assumption.
In addition, over the years, as more languages were investigated, focus
positions started to proliferate. Alongside the Brody/ Rizzi left-peripheral
position, a structurally lower right-peripheral position was identified
(Samek-Lodovici 2005). Cruschina (2011) proposed different types of
focus positions for new information focus (IFoc0) and contrastive focus
respectively (CFoc0). While languages with an active middle field, such as
Dutch, were shown to necessitate a whole series of focus positions, if
analysed in the cartographic approach (Neeleman et al 2009). On first
blush, this is perhaps not so problematic. After all, if the grammar can
conceptualise a Foc0 position as such, then there is no reason why this
may not have arbitrary many instantiations. But proliferation is clearly a
problem in light of the main underlying assumption of the cartographic
proposal, namely that there is one-to-one correspondence between
position and interpretation. There are only two possibilities, either one
identifies a subtle, yet distinct interpretative effect for all these positions,
or one has to weaken the cartographic assumption to allow for a many-toone mapping between position and interpretation. The latter option is
certainly a fatal blow to the cartographic endeavour, as it would make it
devoid of any content. What is the point of assuming ‘designated
functional positions’ if there are more than one of these and foci may
target either of them, as well as remain in situ? The former option seems
empirically untenable, in the light of languages like Dutch. It also faces
theoretical problems, given that different focus positions would
presumably contain different syntactic focus features. Features on
features would contradict the axiom that features are atomic units of
syntax.
3 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 2. Type 1 focus movement is optimal for the syntax-phonology
mapping of clauses
2.1 Stress-focus
mapping
and
the
syntax-phonology
Abandoning syntactocentrism, I follow Reinhart (1995, 2006) in assuming
that there is a direct link between focus and its prosodic correlate. In
particular, the following is assumed to hold in any language that has
stress system (i.e. not lexical or grammatical tones):
(4)
146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 correspondence
Stress-focus correspondence:
The focus of an utterance always contains the prosodically
most prominent element of the utterance.
(Reinhart 1995, 2006)
This holds for all foci, including moved and in situ focus, as well as new
information and contrastive foci.
We can build an analysis using the assumption in (4) that can provide an
explanation for the complex pattern of possibilities available in the world’s
languages for focus movement if we take into account that main stress is
often located at the edges of intonational phrases. Intonational phrases,
in turn, often correspond to syntactic clauses. There is no consensus in
the literature of the syntax-phonology interface about the correct definition
of ‘clause’ (see Selkirk 2005, 2011, Zerbian 2006, Truckenbrodt 2007, to
appear, Cheng & Downing 2009).
Following Szendroi (2001), Hamlaoui and Szendroi (2015) proposed that
the clause should be understood as ‘the highest projection in the root
clause (see Downing 1970), to which the verbal material (i.e. the verb
itself, the inflection, an auxiliary or a question particle) is overtly moved or
inserted, together with the material in its specifier.’ This is achieved by the
following set of constraints, which are operative at the syntax-phonology
mapping at the ‘clause’ level.2
2 Strictly speaking two further constraints are employed by Hamlaoui and
Szendroi (2015) to ensure that whatever falls outside the projection
whose head is filled by the overt verbal material is wrapped under an
intonational phrase layer and does not remain extrametrical. The
combination of these two constraints and the constraints under (5) in the
main text give rise to nested intonational phrases.
Syntax-phonology mapping (extra constraints)
(iii) ALIGN-L (SA-ι): Align the left edge of the syntactic constituent
expressing illocutionary force with the left edge of an ι.
(iv) ALIGN-R (SA-ι): Align the right edge of the syntactic constituent
expressing illocutionary force with the right edge of an ι.
4 168 (5) Syntax-prosody correspondences on the ‘clause’-level
169 a. Syntax-prosody mapping
170 171 172 .
(i) ALIGN-L (HVP-ι): Align the left edge of the highest projection
whose head is overtly filled by the root V, or verbal
material, with the left edge of an ι.
173 174 175 .
(ii) ALIGN-R (HVP-ι): Align the right edge of the highest
projection whose head is overtly filled by the root V, or
verbal material, with the right edge of an ι.
176 b. Prosody-syntax mapping
177 178 179 .
(i) ALIGN-L (ι-HVP): Align the left edge of an ι with the left edge
of the highest projection whose head is overtly filled by the
verb or verbal material.
180 181 182 .
(ii) ALIGN-R (ι-HVP): Align the right edge of an ι with the right
edge of the highest projection whose head is overtly filled
by the verb or verbal material.
183 184 185 186 187 188 What I called above Type 1 focus movement arises as a result of an
unmarked syntax-prosody mapping. This means that in all the structures
discussed below either all the constraints are satisfied. As I will discuss in
section 4, this is not the case for Type 2 focus movement.
189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 Hamlaoui and Szendroi (2015) argue that the presence or absence of
verb movement is crucial for whether a particular left-peripheral element
will be phrased inside or outside the core intonational phrase. Let is
consider the abstract schemata they give.
2.2 Instances of Type 1 focus movement
(6)
a. (ι XP V ... tV ... tXP)
b. (ι XP ...( ι V … tXP))
see (7), (8)
In (6a), the verb moves together with the moved XP, and as a result both
will be inside the largest projection whose head is overtly filled by the
verb or verbal material. So, by (5), the left edge of the intonational phrase
precedes the moved XP. In contrast in (6b), the XP moves to a position
that is higher than the surface position of the verb (this may be the in situ
position of the verb or not). By (5), now the XP is phrased outside the
core intonational phrase. As Hamlaoui and Szendroi (2005) argue
extensively such a position is ideal for topic constituents. They show that
indeed Hungarian left-peripheral topics and the zero-coded passive leftdislocation in Bàsàá exemplify this schema.
But let us concentrate here on instances of focus movement. As already
mentioned, in Hungarian focus movement, the focus movement targets a
left-peripheral specifier accompanied by movement to the head position.
5 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 So this structure, see (7), exemplifies schema (6a). As Hamlaoui and
Szendroi (2015) show in detail, the default position of main prominence in
Hungarian is on the leftmost phonological phrase of the core intonational
phrase. As a result, the focal constituent satisfies the stress-focus
correspondence principle in a structure that involves syntactic movement
of the focus (and the verb) but which has unmarked syntax-prosody
mapping.
(7)
Hungarian focus movement:
(ι [FocP Péterti
szerettej [PredP meg tj [VP
Peter.ACC loved
Prt
‘It was PETER that Mari fell in love with.’
Mari ti]]] )
Mary
Another scenario that exemplifies the schema in (6a), as Hamlaoui and
Szendroi (2015) show, is German V2 clauses. Here verb movement to C
has the consequence that the whole CP is mapped onto the core
intonational phrase. As a result, the initial [Spec, CP] position provides a
natural landing site for (among others) focal (or part-focal) constituents.
This is what happens in what has been described as ‘stylistic fronting’ by
Fanselow and Lenertová (2011) in languages like German and Czech, as
the German example in (8).
(8)
Stylistic fronting in German V2 clauses
b. Den Josef]i mag jeder ti .
the.acc Josef likes everybody.nom
‘Everyone likes JOHN.’ (Fanselow and Lenertová 2011: 170)
Here, I would like to add that given the syntax-phonology mapping rules
in (5), stylistic fronting is predicted to happen only if there is verb
movement in the language to a high position independently (i.e. V2
syntax), or if the C head is active in other ways (i.e. Czech auxiliary clitics
are in C (Toman 1999, Lenertová 2004)). This is because if (5) is on the
right track, then in the absence of verb movement there is no convenient
slot available at the left edge of the intonational phrase for stylistic
fronting to target.
Another schema that could accommodate focus movement by (5) is given
in (9). Here, the focus targets a right-peripheral position. Crucially, the
verb must move to a position structurally higher than the landing site of
the right-peripheral focus. So, for instance if the focus is in a position
right-adjoined to VP, the highest position that is overtly filled by verbal
material must be at least I. Otherwise, the XP would in fact fall outside the
core intonational phrase.3
(9)
( ι V ... tV tXP … XP)
see (10), (11)
Accordingly, the schema can be exemplified by the so-called right 3 That may very well be how one should analyse right-dislocation or
emargazione in Italian, but I will not pursue this line here further. 6 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 peripheral focus construction in Italian (Samek-Lodovici 2005). As Italian
has V-to-I, the syntactic projection that corresponds to the core
intonational phrase is IP. So, the moved focus, adjoined to VP, occupies
the rightmost position within the core intonational phrase. This, as many
have argued is the default prominence for main stress in Italian (Szendroi
2001, Samek-Lodovici 2005 etc.)
(10)
Italian right-peripheral focus movement (Samek-Lodovici 2005)
A:
Chi non hai presentato a nessuno?
Who not have-you introduced to anyone
B:
(ι [TP Non ho [VP [VP presentato a nessuno] GIANNI]])
Not have-I introduced to anyone Gianni
‘GIANNI I didn’t introduce to anyone.’
Another case that exemplifies the schema in (9) is heavy NP-shift in
English, as shown in (11) (see also Williams 2003 for a similar analysis).
Again, the NP adjoined to VP falls inside the intonational phrase because
the I node is active in English,-- it hosts auxiliaries.
(11)
(ι [TP John T0 [VP [VP gave tDP to Mary ] [DP all the money in the SATCHEL]]])
In sum, I have shown that it is possible to provide a unified syntactic
account of Hungarian left-peripheral focus movement, German/ Czech
stylistic fronting, Italian right-peripheral focus movement and heavy NP
shift in English if one assumes that for the purposes of the syntaxphonology mapping of intonational phrases ‘clause’ should be understood
as the largest constituent whose head is overtly filled by the verb or
verbal material.
3. Characteristics of Type 1 focus movement and typological
implications
3.1 Characteristics of Type 1 focus movement
I noted in the introduction that there is a cluster of properties that
characterize Type 1 focus movement (see Table 1). These were that
Type 1 focus movement involves verb movement, it is both prosodically
and pragmatically unmarked and that it can occur in both root and
embedded contexts. In section 2 I have shown that if we follow Hamlaoui
and Szendroi’s (2015) proposal for the syntax-prosody mapping of
clauses, then we can explain why the presence of verb movement leads
to an unmarked syntax-prosody mapping.
I speculate that the unmarked pragmatics is simply the result of the
unmarked syntax-prosody mapping. This can be thought of as a corollary
of the stress-focus correspondence principle in (4) in the sense that the
function of prosodic prominence is to indicated to the hearer the focused
constituent. It is perhaps not too far-fetched to imagine that marked
prosody would be employed for marked instances of foci. As far as left 7 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 peripheral focus in Hungarian is concerned, this can be uttered in new
information contexts, as shown in (12). In fact, this is the default way one
answers a wh-question in the language. Note that the focus in the answer
is interpreted exhaustively (Szabolcsi 1994), but nevertheless, its
pragmatic function is simply to provide new information. So in this sense,
it can be understood to be pragmatically unmarked.
(12)
A: Kit
szeretett meg Mari?
Who-acc loved
prt Mary
‘Who did Mary fall in love with?
B: (ι [FocP Péterti
szerettej [PredP meg tj [VP Mari ti ]]] )
Peter.ACC loved
Prt
Mary
‘It was PETER that Mari fell in love with.’
Similarly, Italian right-peripheral focus is not necessarily contrastive.
Rather it can used to provide an answer to a corresponding wh-question
as illustrated above in (10). Heavy NP shift in English has been argued to
affect focal constituents (Williams 2003) but as the name suggests it can
be argued that it is also triggered by weight. There is certainly no sense
of contrastivity required, the NP undergoing heavy NP shift can be a
simple new information focus. As far as stylistic fronting is concerned,
Fanselow and Lenertová (2004) have argued extensively that the fronted
constituent has no special pragmatic import. In fact, as they showed it
does not even need to be the focus of the utterance, subparts of foci can
also undergo stylistic fronting, see (13) where the focus is on the verb
phrase, as indicated by the context question, yet only the object noun
phrase is fronted.
(13)
a.
What did he do?
[Ein BILD]i hat er ti zerrissen. (Ge)
a picture has he torn
‘He tore a picture.’ Fanselow & Lenertová (2004:175 ex 10)
Indeed, it seems to be the case, as Fanselow and Lenertova (2011)
argue, that what is attracted to the initial position is not the focus but the
accented constituent. In terms of an analysis that relies on an optimal
mapping at the syntax-prosody interface this makes perfect sense,
because prosodic prominence often aligns with prosodic domain edges.
Again, unmarked prosody does not give rise to consistently marked
pragmatics.
Naturally, in all these cases contrastive accent can be put on the moved
constituents, in which case contrastive pragmatics is licenced. The point
is that the constructions are all well-formed in the absence of contrastive
prosody and marked pragmatics.
Let me now turn to the final characteristic that distinguishes Type 1 focus
movement from Type 2 focus movement, namely that it can occur in
embedded and other non-root contexts. Again, this follows from the
8 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 specific formulation of the syntax-prosody and prosody-syntax mapping
constraints as in (5). Note that these two sets of constraints are not
entirely symmetrical. Rather, Hamlaoui and Szendroi’s (2015) formulation
allows the presence of an intonational phrase boundary at the edge of the
embedded clause (as marked by the highest overt position of the
embedded verb) but only forces the presence of an intonational phrase
boundary at the edges of the main clause (marked by the highest position
of the main verb).4
Accordingly, in many languages, simple complement clauses do not
project their own intonational phrases in the default case. 5 But the
presence of such an intonational phrase does not violate the mapping
principles, so long as the intonational phrase corresponding to the
embedded clause is aligned with the highest position of the embedded
verb.
Turning now to the data, as one would expect, Hungarian allows focus
movement in complement clauses, as shown in (14a) and adjunct
clauses (14b). As both examples show, in such sentences the embedded
verb moves within its clause, leaving its particle behind. In addition, in the
case of adjunct clauses the expletive pronoun associate of the clause
(addig ‘until that time’) must be focused within the matrix clause for the
adjunct clause to be able to accommodate a focus. So in this case, there
is also verb movement within the matrix clause.
(14)
a. (ι Elismételte, hogy (ι MARIT választották be a bizottságba))
PRT-repeated-he that Mary-acc selected-they PRT the committee-to
‘He repeated that they selected MARY to be a member of the committee.’
b. (ι ADDIG olvasom föl hangosan a bevezetőt, amíg (ι MARI jön föl a
színpadra))
until.that.time read-I PRT the introduction-acc while Mary comes PRT
the stage-onto
‘I will read out loud the introduction until MARY comes on stage.’
It seems that stylistic fronting is also possible in embedded clauses, but
4 As Hamlaoui and Szendroi (subm) explain, this difference can be
attributed to the difference in motivation for the syntax-phonology and
phonology-syntax mapping principles. The interested reader is referred
there fore details. 5
Note, however, that some languages have been argued to map
embedded clauses onto intonational phrases (e.g. Japanese (Selkirk,
2009) or Huave and Luganda (Pak, 2008)). Whether this is indeed a
default or whether perhaps there are some independent triggers for the
presence of these extra boundaries is a matter of debate, which I am not
in the position to discuss here. The reader is referred to Hamlaoui and
Szendroi (subm) for a more detailed discussion.
9 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 only in case the embedded clause displays V2.6
(15) A: What do you think you have to do in your new job?
B: Ich glaube, WINDELN werde ich wechseln müssen
I think, diapers
will
I change must (Gisbert
Fanselow p.c.)
If the embedded clause does not display V2, stylistic fronting targets the
sentence-initial position in the matrix clause:
(16) a. What has she been doing there so long?
b. [Das AUto]i denk ich hat sie versucht zu ti reparieren! (Ge)
the car think I has she tried
to repair
‘I think she has tried to repair the car!’ (F & L: 182 ex 32)
4.2 Typological implications of the proposal
I argued above, following Hamlaoui and Szendroi (2015), that leftperipheral focus in Hungarian can be explained by a set of syntaxphonology mapping constraints that refer to the highest position the verb
or verb al material overtly fills. I also showed that the same scenario can
accommodate stylistic fronting in languages like German and Czech, and
that left-peripheral focus in Italian and heavy NP shift in English can be
subsumed under the same analysis.
We can state some specific typological implications of the proposal. First,
TYPE 1 focus movement targeting the left-periphery must be
accompanied by verb movement. As already stated by Hamlaoui and
Szendroi (2015), in the absence of verb movement the left-peripheral
element will fall outside the core intonational phrase by the syntaxphonology mapping constraints in (5). So, Hungarian and Italian focus
movement is qualitatively different, since the former involves verb
movement while the latter does not.
A corollary to this, again already noted by Hamlaoui and Szendroi (2015),
is that topic movement is not expected to be accompanied by verb
movement ever. This is because topic movement often serves to provide
a position for the topical constituent outside the core intonational phrase.
Accompanying verb movement would have the undesirable effect of
enlarging the core intonational phrase to include the moved topic.
Second, TYPE 1 focus movement targeting the right-periphery must
6
Note that I predict that such embedded V2 clauses should form their
own intonational phrases. I do not have direct information about whether
this is the case in German, but as Myrberg (2013) shows Swedish
embedded main clauses seem to manifest what Myrberg (2013) termed
‘initial accent’, which marks the left edge of an intonational phrase, while
normal subordinate clauses lack such prosodic marking. (Roll 2006)
10 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 475 476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 target a position c-commanded by the highest overt position of the verb or
verbal material. So, do we not expect to find heavy NP-shift style
movement to target a higher position, say right-adjoined to IP (unless
there is V-to-C of course).
Third, V2 syntax or T-to-C can give rise to stylistic fronting: Fanselow and
Lenertová (2011) for German and Czech, providing a prominent initial slot
for accented phrases. This is not the same as Hungarian style focus
movement in the sense that the verb movement is independent of the XP
fronting. Typologically, stylistic fronting is thus not expected to arise in the
absence of independent verb movement to C or the presence of verbal
material (e.g. auxiliary clitics) in C.
In sum, several typological generalisations can be formulated based on
the proposal that Type 1 focus movement is movement of a focal
constituent to a position that, due to the specific constraints proposed for
the syntax-phonology mapping of clauses (see 5), can easily bear
prosodic prominence.
Before we turn to Type 2 focus movement, let us take stock and
enumerate all the possible schemata that would give rise to potential
structures for focus movement. In other words, let us consider all the
logical possibilities where a moved XP would be phrased as the leftmost
or rightmost constituent inside the core intonational phrase. These are
given in (17).
(17)
Typology if Type 1 focus movement
a. (ι XP V ... tV ... tXP)
à Hungarian left-peripheral focus movement;
stylistic fronting in German and Czech
b. ( ι V ... tV tXP … XP)
à Italian right-peripheral focus movement;
English heavy NP shift
c. i. (ι XP ... tXP tV V) or ???
ii. (ι ... tXP tV V XP)
d. i. (ι
Turkish?, Bengali?, Japanese??
… XP V)
ii. (ι (ι … V XP) …) IAV in Bantu/Chadic?
Besides the two schemata I discussed in the earlier sections there are
two further structures that we need to mention. I am not in the position to
study these here in detail, but they are clearly promising avenues for
future research. First, it is conceivable that a language might have a left
or right peripheral high focus position with verb movement to a high rightperipheral position accompanying the moved focus. This possibility is
schematized in (17c). I have not found a language that would illustrate
this possibility. This might simply be due to the relatively low number of
languages that have verb movement to a high right-peripheral position. At
the same time, it is possible that this is not an accidental gap, but rather it
is the case that languages that are so strictly head-final in their character
that they would have verb movement to the right to a high position would
have another way of ensuring appropriate position for their foci. In
11 487 488 489 490 491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500 501 502 503 504 505 506 507 508 509 510 511 512 513 514 515 516 517 518 519 520 521 522 523 524 525 526 527 528 529 530 531 532 533 534 535 536 particular, in strict OV languages it has been argued that there is a
freedom of base-generated orders in the VP (Neeleman 2014). This
means that such languages may in fact utilise the structure in (16di) to
base-generate the focal constituent in the rightmost position within the
clause (save the verb) and thus ensure that it is in a position to receive
main stress in its base-generated position. Possibly, such a scenario
could be at play in languages like Turkish, Bengali or Japanese.
Finally, I would like to speculate that the structure in (16dii) might be
exhibited by the IAV (Immediately After the Verb) focus position familiar
from many Bantu and Chadic languages. Such languages are strictly VO,
but sometimes they allow for structures where the verb perhaps in a VPshell, appears in a position immediately left-adjacent to the focal
constituent. The prosodic characteristics of such constructions would
need to be investigated in detail to see if there is indeed a right
intonational phrase boundary following such foci, as is speculated here.
To sum up, so far I generalised the original idea of Szendroi (2001),
which proposed that in certain languages, the focus-correspondence
principle is satisfied by syntactic means, by focus movement to a position
that would normally receive prosodic prominence by the stress rules of
the language (see also Zubizarreta 1998 and subsequent work for a
similar approach). The proposal extends to right-peripheral focus in
Italian, heavy NP shift in English, as well as to stylistic fronting in German
and Czech. What lies at the heart of the unified analysis is that all these
exhibit verb movement. This is exploited by the syntax-phonology
interface, which by definition, takes ‘clause’ to be the highest projection
whose head is overtly filled by the verb or verbal material for the
purposes of determining intonational phrase edges.
The current proposal makes some testable typological predictions. It is
expected that Type 1 focus languages always have accompanying verb
movement; that topic movement never does; that stylistic fronting relies
on independent verb movement being present in the syntax of the
language; and that heavy NP shift always targets a position that is
structurally lower than the surface position of the finite verbal material.
4. TYPE 2 focus movement
Let us now turn to Type 2 focus movement. As mentioned in
introduction, a hallmark of this kind of movement is that it is
accompanied by verb movement, it always has a contrastive
corrective) pragmatic import, and that it is restricted to root contexts. I
not the first to note these characteristics.
the
not
(or
am
As far as Standard Italian left-peripheral focus movement is concerned
(see 2 above from Rizzi 1997), in a series of papers Bianchi (2011, 2013)
and Bianchi et al (2013) have argued that it has a corrective import, and
that it can only occur in clauses that have the potential to update the
12 537 538 539 540 541 542 543 544 545 546 547 548 549 550 551 552 553 554 555 556 557 558 559 560 561 562 563 564 565 566 567 568 569 570 571 572 573 574 575 576 577 578 579 580 581 582 583 584 585 586 discourse, so typically root contexts and also in so-called embedded root
contexts. We already noted above that Italian focus movement is not
accompanied by verb movement.
Another case in point is Finnish, where Molnár (2001) argued that
sentence-initial constituents may be topical or focal, but they are always
contrastive. There is no accompanying V2 movement:
(18)
A:
B:
Pekka lensi Tukholmaan.
‘Pekka flew to Stockholm’
REYKJAVIKIIN Pekka lensi.
‘To PEYKJAVIK, Pekka flew.’ (Molnar 2001:104, ex 8)
The same sentence is not felicitous as an answer to a corresponding whquestion (Molnár 2001: 104).
In addition to being obligatorily contrastive and not involving verb
movement it also seems that Finnish focus movement is restricted to root
contexts. As (19) shows (Molnar p.c. from Finnish informant) no
contrastive focus movement is possible in embedded contexts:
(19)
A: En lue hänen kirjaansa
not-1sg read her/his book
'I will not read her book'
B. #Toivon, että MINUN kirjani sinä luet.
hope-1sg that my book you read-2sg
'I hope that MY book you WILL read' (Molnar p.c. from Finnish
informant)
So, the B sentence can only be uttered as a second-occurrence focus or
with accent on LUET ‘read’ with a contrastive topic interpretation on ‘my
book’.
The same restrictions also hold of English focus topicalisation: it is also
restricted to root contexts, and is necessarily contrastive; and it is of
course not accompanied by verb movement.
Cruschina (2011) distinguished two different focus constructions in
Sicilian: one which is verb-adjacent and which can be uttered as a simple
new information focus answer to a corresponding question and one which
requires no adjacency, but which is contrastive in interpretation. He gave
an account for these by positing two different functional projections IFoc0
and CFoc0, respectively, with the former but not the latter attracting the
verb, although no independent explanation is given why this is the case.
Also, he does not account for the fact that the two positions cannot both
be filled at the same time.
I propose to account for the cluster of properties that characterise Type 2
focus movement making reference to the syntax-phonology mapping of
clauses. In contrast with Type 1 focus movement, Type 2 focus
13 587 588 589 590 591 592 593 594 595 596 597 598 599 600 601 602 603 604 605 606 607 608 609 610 611 612 613 614 615 616 617 618 619 620 621 622 623 624 625 626 627 628 629 630 631 632 633 634 635 636 movement gives rise to a misaligned syntax-phonology mapping. The
intonational phrase is exceptionally enlarged to include the focal
constituent at its left edge. Presumably to place it in a salient edgealigned position. The schema is given in (20).
(20)
(ι XP ...[ V ...tXP])
It follows from the proposed analysis that Type 2 focus is prosodically
marked, since it is the result of a misaligned syntax-phonology mapping.
In particular, among the constraints responsible for the mapping, ALIGNL (HVP-ι) and ALIGN-L (ι-HVP) are both violated. I propose that this
accounts for the fact that Type 2 focus movement is pragmatically
marked too. It cannot be a simple new information focus, rather a more
marked meaning is associated with it e.g. corrective (e.g. Italian),
mirative, contrastive (e.g. Finnish). Type 2 focus is unlikely to be possible
in embedded clauses, given that typically embedded clauses do not form
their own intonational phrases (pace Japanese, Selkirk (2009)). So,
typically, it is expected that Type 2 focus is a root phenomenon. (cf.
Bianchi 2011 for a different explanation.)
5. Conclusions
In this paper I argued that a better understanding of Hungarian and Italian
left-peripheral focus movement is if they are taken to be instantiations of
two distinct type of focus movements, Type 1 and 2, respectively. The
former is a manifestation of an optimal syntax-phonology mapping of the
clause, while the latter is a case of misaligned mapping. I followed
Hamlaoui and Szendroi (2015) in proposing that the notion of ‘clause’
should be understood to refer to the highest position the verb or verbal
material overtly fills. I showed that this provides a unified analysis for
Hungarian left-peripheral clauses, Italian right-peripheral clauses, stylistic
fronting in German and Czech and heavy NP shift in English. I further
argued that Type 1 displays a cluster of properties (obligatory presence of
verb movement, pragmatically and prosodically unmarked, possible in
embedded clauses), which can all shown to follow from the proposed
analysis. I also investigated what the possible structures that can
exemplify Type 1 focus movement are, mapping out some possibilities for
future typological work in this topic. In the final section I discussed how
the cluster of properties that characterise Type 2 focus movement (no
verb movement, marked pragmatics and prosody (i.e. misaligned syntaxphonology mapping), restricted to root contexts) can be explained making
rise to the syntax-phonology mapping. I hope to have shown that it is
possible to formulate restrictive and powerful analyses that can account
for syntactic generalisations in the area of focus movement without
recourse to a designated syntactic [+focus] feature or designated
functional projections.
14 637 638 639 640 641 642 643 644 645 646 647 648 649 650 651 652 653 654 655 656 657 658 659 660 661 662 663 664 665 666 667 668 669 670 671 672 673 674 675 676 677 678 679 680 681 682 683 684 685 686 687 688 689 690 References
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