TOPIC-FOCUS ARTICULATION, TRIPARTITE STRUCTURES, AND SEMANTIC CONTENT

TOPIC-FOCUS ARTICULATION, TRIPARTITE STRUCTURES, AND SEMANTIC CONTENT

Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy Volume 71 Managing Editors GENNARO CHIERCHIA, University of Milan PAULINE JACOBSON, Brown University FRANCIS J. PELLETIER, University of Alberta Editorial Board JOHAN V AN BENTHEM, University of Amsterdam GREGORY N. CARLSON, University of Rochester DAVID DOWTY, Ohio State University, Columbus GERALD GAZDAR, University of Sussex, Brighton IRENE HElM, MIT., Cambridge EW AN KLEIN, University of Edinburgh BILL LADUSAW, University of California at Santa Cruz TERRENCE PARSONS, University of California, Irvine The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.

TOPIC-FOCUS ARTICULATION, TRIPARTITE STRUCTURES, AND SEMANTIC CONTENT edited by EVA HAJICOVA Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic BARBARA H. PARTEE Department of Linguistics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Amherst, M.4, U.SA. and PETRSGALL Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic Springer-Science+Business Media, B.Y.

A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-90-481-5116-5 ISBN 978-94-015-9012-9 (ebook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-015-9012-9 Printed on acid-free paper 02-0999-150 ts All Rights Reserved 1998 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1998. Softcover reprint of the hardcover I st edition 1998 No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner

TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements... ix 1. Introduction... I 1.1 Objectives... 1 1.2 Background... 2 1.3 Plan of the work.............................. 7 2. Towards an investigation of the relation between topic-focus articulation and tripartite structures... 13 2.1 Tripartite structures: background... 13 2.2 Tripartite structures and topic-focus structure... 20 2.2.1 Background... 20 2.2.2 Which constructions are focus-sensitive?... 24 2.2.3 Connecting topic-focus structure and domain selection to anaphora, presupposition, and context-dependence... 26 2.2.4 Topic-focus articulation and its significance in both pragmatic and dynamic semantic interpretation................... 29 2.2.5 Formalization of three basic examples... 30 2.3 TF A, the anchoring of sentences in context, and semantics... 54 2.3.1 TFA, communicative dynamism, and contextual boundness 54 2.3.2 The semantic relevance of TFA... 60 2.3.3 Systemic ordering of kinds of complementations... 66 2.3.4 TFA, presupposition, and reference... 70 2.3.5 Hierarchical CD and projectivity... 72 2.3.6 Contrastive topic and left dislocation... 74 2.3.7 Summary... 75 3. Remarks on common background and shared assumptions... 79 3.1 Linguistic meaning... 80 3.2 Compositionality........ 87 4. Obstacles to joint work... 91 4.1 Initial view of obstacles from BHP's perspective... 91 4.2 Initial obstacles from HS's perspective... 93 v

vi TABLE OF CONTENTS 4.3 The partial ordering of communicative dynamism vs. recursive branching structure... 95 4.4 The attachment of only and other focalizers............. 98 4.4.1 HS's view... 99 4.4.2 BHP's view............................. 100 5. Dialogue, progressing towards a common basis for discussion 103 5.1 Notions of topic and comment, background and focus, and scope... 103 5.1.1 "Topic-comment" and "background-focus": two distinctions or one?... 103 5.1.2 Focus, scope, and background.................. 106 5.2 "Focus-sensitivity", "focalizers": views of what they are.... 114 5.2.1 What is focus-sensitivity?..................... 114 5.2.2 Issues in the order of explanation and the hypothesizing of silent focus and/or abstract focalizers... 118 5.3 The issue of universality/parochiality of TFA........... 120 6. Some hypotheses proposed and examined... 129 6.1 Initial hypotheses............................. 130 6.2 Discussion of some problematic cases... 134 6.2.1 Embedded focus and proxy focus................ 134 6.2.2 The focus of a focalizer...................... 136 6.2.3 Taglicht's examples... 138 6.2.4 Other specific cases... 143 6.2.5 Focalizer within a noun group.................. 146 6.2.6 Summary... 147 6.3 Focalizers in the topic.......................... 149 6.3.1 Focus of a focalizer within topic... 149 6.3.2 Local focus within topic may bear phrasal stress....... 155 6.3.3 Recursivity oftfa vs. reoccurring focus of a focalizer within topic.........'............................ 159 6.4 Focalizer as the only element of focus................ 161 6.5 Conclusions... 161 6.5.1 Hypotheses reconsidered... 163 6.5.2 With or without NP-attachment................. 166 6.5.3 Review of examples... 167

TABLE OF CONTENTS vii 7. 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 Future directions Sentence structure and cognitive content.............. Recursivity of TF A............................ Communicative dynamism as a linear or partial ordering... The nature of focus-sensitivity.... Dependency vs. constituency and categorial grammar...... Other issues open to further discussion............... 171 171 172 173 174 176 176 References... 179 List of abbreviations............................... 197 Name index... 199 Subject index................................... 203

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS When preparing the final version of the manuscript, the authors benefitted greatly from the opportunity to employ and react to comments from several colleagues who read the first version. We would like especially to thank Emmon Bach, Christine Bartels, Elena Benedicto, Kai von Fintel, Roger Higgins, Joachim Jacobs, Hans Kamp, Eva Koktova, Alice ter Meulen, Jaroslav Peregrin, Elisabeth Selkirk, Mark Steedman, and Satoshi Tomioka, whose remarks have inspired us in many points, and, last but not least, to the anonymous reviewers of the manuscript, who have given us many valuable comments. We are grateful to Kathleen Adamczyk, Lynne Ballard, Libuse Brdickova and K veta KraIikova for their help in production support and in the administration of various aspects of our project. Our special thanks go to Tomas Hoskovec, who has devoted enormous efforts to formatting the final camera-ready copy. Research for this book was supported in part by two grants from the International Research and Exchanges Board (lrex) to Partee to spend two semesters at Charles University engaged in this research collaboration; IREX administered these grants with funds provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the United States Information Agency, and the United States Department of State which administers the Title VIII Program. This publication is based also in part on work sponsored by the U. S. -Czechoslovak Science and Technology Joint Fund in cooperation with the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Czech Ministry of Education under Project Number 920-58, 1992-95, "Semantics of English and Czech Sentence Structure and Word Order: Contributions to a Theory of Formal Semantics and Information Structure", Eva Hajicova, Principal Investigator and Barbara Partee, U.S. Co-Partner. In the final stages of the work on the manuscript, Hajicova profited from her stay at the University of Leipzig, made possible by a research award from Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung. Our discussions and joint work were made easier by many-sided support from the University of Massachusetts, especially for sabbatical leaves to Partee in 1989-90 and in the spring of 1995, and from Charles University, its Faculties of Mathematics and Physics and of Philosophy, with its Vilem Mathesius Center. None of the supporting organizations is responsible for the views expressed. ix