Focus Wont Go Away, But F-Features Might Daniel B uring, Vienna - - PDF document

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Focus Wont Go Away, But F-Features Might Daniel B uring, Vienna - - PDF document

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Focus Wont Go Away, But F-Features Might Daniel B uring, Vienna Division of Labor, Jan 22/23, T ubingen 2015 1 Introduction 1.1 The World As We Know It Focus Projection Rules: Mediate between Accents (or other prosodic features)

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SLIDE 1

Focus Won’t Go Away, But F-Features Might

Daniel B¨ uring, Vienna Division of Labor, Jan 22/23, T¨ ubingen 2015

1 Introduction

1.1 The World As We Know It

  • Focus Projection Rules: Mediate between Accents (or other prosodic

features) and F-markers

  • Focus Interpretation Rules, e.g. [

[] ]

F: Produce sets of focus alternatives

(or structured meanings)

  • Focus Conditions, e.g. „: Regulate when focus alternatives have to

meet which (pragmatic) criteria

1.2 The Program

Goal: Elimination of F-Markers as bona fide citizens of grammar. Precondition: (Relevant aspects of) Prosodic Structure must be part of the input to interpretations (e.g. interpret PF+LF pairs, or assume monostratal syntax) Challenge: Get the right Focus Alternatives, emulate the effects of Focus Projection Rules Prospect: See if we get additional milage out of the F-less set-up 1

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SLIDE 2

accent pattern

F- projection rules

F-pattern 1

[ [] ]

F

Ý Ñ set 1 of F-alternatives F-pattern 2

[ [] ]

F

Ý Ñ set 2 of F-alternatives F-pattern 3

[ [] ]

F

Ý Ñ set 3 of F-alternatives . . .

[ [] ]

F

Ý Ñ . . . accent pattern

[ [] ]A

Ý Ñ $ ’ ’ & ’ ’ % set 1 of F-alternatives set 2 of F-alternatives set 3 of F-alternatives . . . , / / . / /

  • Set of

Potential F-Values (Spof)

Figure 1: Strategies for Deriving Focus Values

1.3 Strategy

2 Step 1: Collecting POFOS

2.1 F Style

Object Focus ` a la Rooth (1992) S

H

Focus Retrieval „Cmary saw sue ✔ S

mary saw x Alternative Propagation

VP

saw x Alternative Propagation

DP

{mary}

V

{saw}

DPF

x Alternative Introduction

Mary saw J *

  • hn

2

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SLIDE 3

VP Focus (still Rooth) S

H

Focus Retrieval „Cmary saw sue ✔ S

mary Q Alternative Propagation

VPF

Q Alternative Introduction

DP

{mary}

V

{saw}

DPF

x Alternative Introduction

Mary saw J *

  • hn

2.2 F-Less Style: Collecting (Potential) Focus Values

S

mary saw x

Focus Retrieval „Cmary took off her glasses ✔ S

p, mary Q, mary saw x Alternative Introduction Alternative Propagation

VP

Q, saw x Alternative Introduction Alternative Propagation

DP

{mary}

V

{saw}

DP

x Alternative Introduction

Mary saw J *

  • hn

2.3 Focus Projection Rules (If you must. . . )

(1) Alternative Introduction is limited to A(lternative)-Eligible node. (2) constituent N is A-eligible iff a. it is a lexical item and accented, or b. it is a syntactic node and has an A-eligible head-daughter, or c. it is a syntactic head and has an A-eligible internal argument 3

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SLIDE 4

3 Turning Things Around

3.1 Introducing Exclusion Constraints

Instead of collecting possible foci, we collect Restrictions on Possible Foci. The idea is this: At every branching node, we add a constraint that the focus cannot contain alternatives based on the literal meaning of the strong daughter and an alternative to the weak daughter. S

x R john

Alternative Exclusion VP

R john Alternative Exclusion

DP V DP Mary saw J *

  • hn

S

H

Focus Retrieval „Cwhat happened

{ it started to rain, mary saw bob, fred kissed sue,. . . ,mary kissed john, sue saw john,. . . }

✔ S

x R john Alternative Exclusion

VP

R john Alternative Exclusion

DP V DP Mary saw J *

  • hn

Condition

  • n „C: At

least one element in C meets all Exclusion Constraints If So: You may remove any Exclusion Constraint met by at least one element in C.

(3)

weak

D

strong

D

  • r

strong

D

weak

D : introduces the Exclusion Constraints Ds x and Ds [ [Dw] ]

A (or the one which subsumes the other)

(4) Condition: At the root node, the set of restrictions is empty.

3.2 Overfocussing I

(5) Mary kissed John. — No, #Mary saw JOHN. 4

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SLIDE 5

S

mary Q

„Cmary kissed john/

what did mary do to john

✔! S

mary Q

VPF

Q

DP

{mary}

VF

R

DPF

x

Mary saw J *

  • hn

Condition (Rooth): C P [[S]]

F or

C Ď [[S]]

F

S „Cmary kissed john ✘ S

x R john

VP

R john

DP V DP Mary saw J *

  • hn

Condition

  • n „C: At

least one element in C meets all Exclusion Constraints If So: You may remove any Exclusion Constraint met by at least one element in C.

4 Prosodic Demotion (‘Deaccenting’)

(6) If in Ds Dw

  • r

Ds Dw , Dw would be the strong daughter by default (Dw has been Prosodically Demoted), Ds must be a narrow focus.(cf. ?) In Exclusion Constraint Talk: add xzDsDw Condition on Prosodic Demotion: Dw must be given. 5

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SLIDE 6

weak strong functional lexical head complement left projection right projection Figure 2: Some structural defaults, in descending order of importance.

S

x Rzsaw john

VP

Rzsaw john

john DP

tmaryu

V

tsawu

DP

{john}

Mary s * aw John

  • Rzsaw isdef the set of all relations other than ‘saw’
  • Rzsaw john is ‘do something involving John, other than seeing him’
  • Rzsaw john is the complement of that set, i.e. doing something not involving John,
  • r seeing John
  • hence Rzsaw john (the Exclusion Constraint) allows the set Rzsaw john as focus

alternatives.

  • For perspicuity, I will henceforth write Rzsaw john instead of Rzsaw john.
  • Luckily it turns out that x R john. is equivalent to x Rzsaw john, so I will write

that instead.

S

x Rzsaw john

VP

Rzsaw john

john DP

tmaryu

V

tsawu

DP

{john}

Mary s * aw John (7) a. Did John’s sister run away when she saw John? — No, she KISSED John. b. Why wasn’t John there? — Because the police ARRESTED John. 6

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SLIDE 7

c. Did everybody leave when John arrived? — No, the police AR- RESTED John. (8) Did the police kill John? — No, the police ARRESTED John.

5 Question Answer: Forcing Deaccenting

5.1 Non-Final Focus Forces Deaccenting 5.2 No Random Shifts (Even in the Background)

No Random Shifts (Even in the Background) (9) Who saw John? S

mary Rzsaw john

lGiven „C{bill saw john, jean saw

john, mary saw john, fred saw john,. . . }

✘ S

xzmary saw john Ø mary Rzsaw john

saw john VP

Rzsaw john

John DP

tmaryu

V

tsawu

DP

{john}

M * ary ¨ saw John

S mary Rzsaw john lGiven „C{bill saw john, jean saw john, mary saw john, fred saw john,. . . } ✘ S xzmary saw john

  • Ø mary Rzsaw john

saw john VP Rzsaw john John DP tmaryu V tsawu DP {john} M * ary ¨ saw John

  • the two Exclusion Constraints are incompatible: no single proposition

can meet them both (nor can any regular question meaning)

  • Possibility 1: Completely ban inconsistent Exclusion Lists.

7

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SLIDE 8
  • Possibility 2: Allow them, but insist that in this case we need two

Focus Antecedents (on top of Givenness Antecedents)

  • Note that this only happens when you have Prosodic Demotion under

Prosodic Demotion. In all other cases, the Exclusion Constraints are not only compatible, but in fact one always subsumes the other.

5.3 Hitting the Target

(10) What did Mary do to John? S

xzmary saw john, mary Rzsaw john

„Cmary R john ✘ S

xzmary saw john, mary Rzsaw john

saw john VP

Rzsaw john

john DP V DP M * ary ¨ saw John

5.4 Non-Forced Deaccenting

(11) What did John’s girlfriend do? 8

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SLIDE 9

S

x Rzkissed john

„Cjohn’s girlfriend Q ✘ S

x kissed john, x Rzkissed john

VP

Rzkissed john

john DP V DP Mary * kissed John

6 Second Occurrence Focus

{} S

w s

even(C1) {} S „C1s.b. else’s kid

  • nly skimmed

the books

zzjohn only skimmed the book S

s w

DP JOHN m skimmed the book ”skimmed the book VP

w s

  • nly(C)

{} VP Rzskimmed the book VP

s w

skimmed DP the book „Cread the book

(12) The kids only SKIMMED the

  • books. Even JOHN’s kid only

skimmed the book. Prediction: If Prosodic Demotion takes place within a P-Demoted ele- ment, the focus introduced low needs to be retrieved within the P-demoted element (which seems pretty accurate,

  • cf. ?)

9