Fronting and verum focus in Spanish

Leonetti, Manuel; Escandell-Vidal, M. Victoria

doi:10.1075/slcs.112.07leo

Cited by 121 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…I will show that preposed negation shares this behaviour with other constructions associated with verum-focus (focus on the truth value of the sentence) such as VP-preposing and optative clauses. The verum-focus and the fact that the subject is within the scope of negation has consequences for the information structure of the clause, as also shown in the analysis of fronting in Spanish as verum-focus in Leonetti and Escandell-Vidal (2009). The interpretation of indefinite subject NPs, the distribution of topicbinding adverbs, and other information structure-related phenomena point to the conclusion that the subject is de-topicalized.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Negating the verum

Ørsnes

2012

J Comp German Linguistics

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In Danish the base position of the negation (and negated quantifier phrases) is between the subject and the finite verb in embedded clauses. However, in embedded clauses introduced by a non-veridical complementizer such as hvis 'if' or om 'whether', the negation can also appear between the complementizer and the subject. This little-studied phenomenon is referred to as preposed negation. The article investigates the syntax and semantics of preposed negation from a primarily descriptive point of view. It is argued that preposed negation is associated with negated verum-focus of a clause lacking an (aboutness-)topic. The negation of a verum predicate explains why preposed negation-like other constructions with verum-focus-fails to license strong negative polarity items and fails to rule out positive ones. The lack of a topic explains why preposed negation is preferred with non-referential subjects and with weak readings of indefinite subjects and why preposed negation is incompatible with topic-binding particles. It is further argued that preposed negation is not a lexical head (or part of a compound), but that it projects a phrase with wide scope, which is selected by the complementizer, rather than adjoined to the following clause. Two possible analyses of preposed negation are presented: an account where the preposed negation is in the specifier of a (selected) Polarity Phrase, and one where the preposed negation is selected as an optional complement by the complementizer.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Negating the verum

Ørsnes

2012

J Comp German Linguistics

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“…María yes came to the party 'María DID come to the party' Leonetti & Escandell (2009) have argued that sentences like the following, where a quantified element is fronted, are instances of verum focus. (98) a. Algo debes saber.…”

Section: Subclasses Of Focimentioning

confidence: 99%

Information structure and its syntactic manifestation in Spanish: facts and proposals

Fábregas

2016

Borealis

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ABSTRACT. This article presents the main facts about how information structure is syntactically codified in Spanish, with particular attention to the syntax of topics and foci. These facts will be used to assess whether cartographic and minimalist approaches can, in their pure version, account precisely for this set of facts in a predictive way. We discuss the taxonomy of topics and foci, the evidence for their syntactic position, their A'-movement properties, the asymmetries between left-and right-dislocated elements, and the availability of information structure inside subordinate clauses.Keywords. topic; focus; information structure; embedded contexts; dislocation; root clause RESUMEN. Este artículo presenta los principales datos acerca de la codificación sintáctica de la estructura informativa en español, con especial atención a la sintaxis de tópicos y focos. Estos hechos serán utilizados para evaluar si, en su forma más pura, las teorías cartográficas o minimistas pueden explicar estos hechos de una forma predictiva. El trabajo discute la taxonomía de tópicos y focos, qué datos hay para identificar su posición sintáctica, sus propiedades de movimiento A', las asimetrías entre elementos dislocados a izquierda y derecha, y la posibilidad de introducir estructura informativa marcada en el interior de las oraciones subordinadas.

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“…In Spanish, some works have identified types of focus other than contrastive focus (Torrego, 1980;Uriagereka, 1988;Quer, 2002;Gallego, 2007;Leonetti and Escandell, 2009), yet all these analyses agree that T-to-C is compulsory in Spanish focus fronting.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Cruschina, 2012, inspired by the use of the notion of mirativity by DeLancey (1997DeLancey ( , 2001), Resumptive Preposing (cf. Cinque, 1990;Cardinaletti, 2004;Leonetti and Escandell, 2009), and Quantifier fronting/Negative Preposing (cf. Âmbar, 1999Barbosa, 2001;Bosque, 1980;Quer, 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Towards a typology of focus: Subject position and microvariation at the discourse–syntax interface

Jiménez-Fernández

2015

Ampersand

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Fronting and verum focus in Spanish

Cited by 121 publications

References 18 publications

Negating the verum

Negating the verum

Information structure and its syntactic manifestation in Spanish: facts and proposals

Towards a typology of focus: Subject position and microvariation at the discourse–syntax interface

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