Edges and gaps: Contrast at the interfaces

Molnár, Valéria; Winkler, Susanne

doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2008.08.010

Cited by 57 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…The intonational phrase is exceptionally enlarged to include the contrastive constituent at its left edge. The misaligned mapping places the contrastive element in an edge-aligned position (see also Molnár & Winkler 2010). The corresponding schema is given in (26).…”

Section: Contrast-related Movement To the Left Edgementioning

confidence: 99%

The syntax of information structure and the PF interface

Szendrői¹

2017

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

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Focus movement to a left-peripheral position has been posited for both Hungarian and Italian. In this paper I argue against a unified cartographic treatment of focus movement, which analyses both as instances of movement to [Spec, Focus 0 ]. I raise some theoretical issues for cartography, such as the proliferation of focus heads and the difficulties with accounting for optionality. Empirically, I show that a set of properties distinguish Hungarian and Italian left-peripheral focus movement suggesting a different syntactic analysis for the two constructions. Following Hamlaoui & Szendrői's (2015) proposal for the syntax-prosody mapping of clauses, I show that Hungarian focus movement is prosodically motivated in that it is movement targeting the position that main stress is assigned to in the prosody. I show how the same proposal extends to right-peripheral and string-medial focus in Italian and heavy NP shift in English. I discuss the typological predictions of the that it follows from the proposal that left-peripheral focus movement is always accompanied by verb movement, while right-peripheral focus movement will target a position lower than the surface position of the finite verb. Finally, I propose that Italian left-peripheral focus movement is motivated by contrastivity. This accounts for the different characteristics of the two constructions: (i) that Hungarian, but not Italian, focus movement is accompanied by the movement of the finite verb; (ii) that Hungarian left-peripheral focus is prosodically unmarked, while Italian left-peripheral focus comes with marked prosody; and (iii) that Hungarian focus movement is pragmatically unmarked, in the sense that it can answer a wh-question, while Italian focus movement is explicitly contrastive (or perhaps even mirative or corrective).

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Section: Contrast-related Movement To the Left Edgementioning

confidence: 99%

The syntax of information structure and the PF interface

Szendrői¹

2017

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

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“…The two types of focus: information and contrastive focus can be distributed by laysa via three readings of focus. These are wide, 6 Contrast is a notion that is frequently in connection with focus or topic (Repp 2009, Molnár & Winkler 2010). There are some interpretive differences between contrastive topic and contrastive focus, which derive from the widely held view that focus is a propositional notion, while a topic is an utterance level notion (Tomioka 2010, Neeleman & Vermeulen 2012).…”

Section: Laysa and Focusmentioning

confidence: 99%

On Negation and Focus in Standard Arabic: Interface-based Approach

Al-Horais¹

2017

J. Univers. Lang.

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This paper addresses the interface between syntax and information structure by interpreting focus under negation. To this end, data will be examined from the Arabic negative marker laysa, which exhibits interesting focus features that broaden our knowledge of syntactic and semantic aspects of negation and deepen our understanding of what information structural effects play a role at the interface. Focus typology can be expressed by laysa in its two major types, namely the information focus and contrastive focus, resulting in three different ways in which negation and focus can interact at the Syntax-Information Structure Interface. These ways  I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Qassim University for supporting this work. I am very grateful to Anders Holmberg and Abdelkader Fassi Fehri for many interesting discussions we have had about syntax in general and Minimalism in particular. Special thanks are forwarded to Ahmed Alkuraydis for helping me with the bibliographies. I am solely responsible for any mistakes or inadequacy.Nasser Al-Horais Arabic Language Department, Qassim University P.O.Box 6611, Buraidah 51425, Saudi Arabia Email: nasser.alhorais@gmail.com Received 11 February, 2017; Revised 13 March, 2017; Accepted 17 March, 2017 2 On Negation and Focus in Standard Arabic: An Interface-based Approach are of three different readings of focus (wide, bound, and free). Each of these foci involves a different derivation which reflects how the autonomous notions of information structure -topic, focus, and contrast -interact in systematic ways with syntax as shown by the proposed minimalist analysis for each type.

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“…The element bearing a [+FOC] feature is either new information or is contrasted with some other element. When focus is contrastive, it denotes that there exists at least one set that is excluded from the relevant alternative sets that may be the referent (Molnár and Winkler, 2010). This type of focus exhaustively interprets its answer(s).…”

Section: The Focusmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Topics are disjoint constituents that are not quantificational (Rooth, 1992), define the aboutness or familiarity of the topicalized constituent (Kiss, 1998), do not convey new information like focus, and do not create scope (Lipták, 2010). Like focus however, they are able to be contrastive or noncontrastive, the latter being the most typical types of topic (Molnár and Winkler, 2010). They may occur in numerous positions throughout the periphery in Ibibio.…”

Section: Appendixmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pieces of the periphery: A glance into the cartography of Ibibio’s CP domain

2016

KWPL

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Edges and gaps: Contrast at the interfaces

Cited by 57 publications

References 41 publications

The syntax of information structure and the PF interface

The syntax of information structure and the PF interface

On Negation and Focus in Standard Arabic: Interface-based Approach

Pieces of the periphery: A glance into the cartography of Ibibio’s CP domain

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