All Focus is Contrastive: On Polarity (Verum) Focus, Answer Focus, Contrastive Focus and Givenness. (22nd January 2022)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- All Focus is Contrastive: On Polarity (Verum) Focus, Answer Focus, Contrastive Focus and Givenness. (22nd January 2022)
- Main Title:
- All Focus is Contrastive: On Polarity (Verum) Focus, Answer Focus, Contrastive Focus and Givenness
- Authors:
- Goodhue, Daniel
- Abstract:
- Abstract: I develop a general theory of focus and givenness that can account for truly contrastive focus, and for polarity focus, including data that are sometimes set apart under the label "verum focus". I show that polarity focus creates challenges for classic theories of focus (e.g. Rooth 1992, a.o.) that can be dealt with by requiring that all focus marking is truly contrastive, and that givenness deaccenting imposes its own distinct requirement on prominence shifts. To enforce true contrast, I employ innocent exclusion (Fox 2007 ), which I suggest may impose a general filter on what counts as a valid alternative. A key, novel feature of my account is that focal targets are split into two kinds, those that are contextually supported and those that are constructed ad hoc, and that the presence of a contextually supported target can block the ability to construct an ad hoc target. This enables a novel explanation of the data motivating true contrast, and enables polarity focus to be brought into the fold of a unified and truly contrastive theory of focus. I then compare the account to theories of verum focus that make use of non-focus-based verum operators, and make the argument that the focus account is more parsimonious and has better empirical coverage.
- Is Part Of:
- Journal of semantics. Volume 39:Number 1(2022)
- Journal:
- Journal of semantics
- Issue:
- Volume 39:Number 1(2022)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 39, Issue 1 (2022)
- Year:
- 2022
- Volume:
- 39
- Issue:
- 1
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2022-0039-0001-0000
- Page Start:
- 117
- Page End:
- 158
- Publication Date:
- 2022-01-22
- Subjects:
- Semantics -- Periodicals
Semantik
Semantics
Periodicals
401.43 - Journal URLs:
- http://jos.oxfordjournals.org/ ↗
http://www3.oup.co.uk/semant/ ↗
http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/ ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1093/jos/ffab018 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 0167-5133
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - 5063.380000
British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 20746.xml