Basic English Syntax with Exercises

focus

7.5.2 Focus fronting

We call the stressed element that carries new information the focus.

7.5.2 Focus fronting

As to the position of the focus, this is a little more difficult to determine. For one thing, foci and questions do not sit happily together:

7.5.2 Focus fronting

If we want to have a focus and a wh-question in the same clause, we have to indicate the focus by stress alone rather than by movement:

7.5.2 Focus fronting

115) might be used in response to someone asking ‘who would trust women?’, with the meaning that it’s men who are untrustworthy, not women. However, this complementary distribution between foci and wh-elements should not lead us to assume that the focus sits in the specifier of the CP. We can see this from the fact that in embedded clauses the focus, like the topic, follows the complementiser:

7.5.2 Focus fronting

From this perspective, it seems as though the focus sits in a similar position to the topic, adjoined to the IP in embedded contexts. This assumption is also problematic, as if both the topic and the focus were adjoined to IP, one might expect them to be able to appear in any order. But this is not so:

7.5.2 Focus fronting

At the moment it is not obvious how we can accommodate these data and in particular the position of the focus remains a mystery. We will put the issue to one side until after we have looked at one more case of movement to the front of the clause.

7.5.3 Negative fronting

Note that the fronted negative is like the focus in its interaction with the topic: the topic precedes the fronted negative:

7.5.3 Negative fronting

The fronted negative is in complementary distribution with the focus:

7.5.3 Negative fronting

Once again, if we want a focus in such a sentence it must be indicated by stress alone without the movement:

7.5.3 Negative fronting

This complementary distribution seems more significant than that which holds between the focus and the wh-element as both the focus and the fronted negative clearly occupy very similar positions. We might therefore claim that both make use of the same landing site: specifier of iP.

7.5.3 Negative fronting

This complementary distribution seems more significant than that which holds between the focus and the wh-element as both the focus and the fronted negative clearly occupy very similar positions. We might therefore claim that both make use of the same landing site: specifier of iP.

7.5.3 Negative fronting

The difference however, between the fronted focus and the fronted negative is that the latter induces inversion to ‘i’, while the former does not. Referring back to the difference between wh-movement that triggers inversion and wh-movement that does not, we proposed that inversion is triggered when there is no head to agree with. In embedded interrogatives the complementiser position could be filled and hence there will be no inversion. If we project these ideas on to the current situation, we conclude that with focus the i head is filled by some abstract element but with negative fronting the head position is unfilled. We know that the negative head is a verbal element of the category ‘v’ and so it cannot be generated directly in i. The only way for the negative head to get to i is for it to move and yet we know that the negative is not able to move to I to support the inflection in English, as it is in Finnish. Thus, there is no way for the negative head to get to i and hence when a negative element moves to the specifier of iP it will induce inversion to provide a head for it.

7.5.3 Negative fronting

With a fronted focus, on the other hand, there must be an abstract head capable of being generated in i with which the focus can agree. Let us call this head Foc. In other languages this element may appear as a morpheme on the focussed element, supporting the assumption here, as in the following Korean example:

7.5.3 Negative fronting

This head apparently cannot enter into an agreement relationship with the fronted negative and so, presumably, it must be inherently positive. Given that nothing prevents it from appearing when there is a focus, it will be present whenever there is a fronted focus and hence inversion will be unnecessary. The structures we end up with are: