In
linguistics
Linguistics is the science, scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure ...
, focus (
abbreviated
An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word ''abbrevia ...
) is a grammatical category that conveys which part of the sentence contributes new, non-derivable, or contrastive information. In the
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
sentence "Mary only insulted BILL", focus is expressed
prosodically by a
pitch accent
A pitch-accent language, when spoken, has word accents in which one syllable in a word or morpheme is more prominent than the others, but the accentuated syllable is indicated by a contrasting pitch ( linguistic tone) rather than by loudness ...
on "Bill" which identifies him as the only person Mary insulted. By contrast, in the sentence "Mary only INSULTED Bill", the verb "insult" is focused and thus expresses that Mary performed no other actions towards Bill. Focus is a cross-linguistic phenomenon and a major topic in linguistics. Research on focus spans numerous subfields including
phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
,
syntax,
semantics
Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comp ...
,
pragmatics
In linguistics and related fields, pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship between the interpreter and the in ...
, and
sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural Norm (sociology), norms, expectations, and context (language use), context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on languag ...
.
Functional approaches
Information structure has been described at length by a number of linguists as a grammatical phenomenon. Lexicogrammatical structures that code prominence, or focus, of some information over other information has a particularly significant history dating back to the 19th century. Recent attempts to explain focus phenomena in terms of discourse function, including those by
Knud Lambrecht and
Talmy Givón
Thomas Givon (also known as Talmy Givón) (born June 22, 1936) is a linguist and writer. He is one of the founders of "West Coast Functionalism", today classified as a usage-based model of language, and of the linguistics department at the Unive ...
, often connect focus with the packaging of new, old, and contrasting information. Lambrecht in particular distinguishes three main types of focus constructions: predicate-focus structure, argument-focus structure, and sentence-focus structure. Focus has also been linked to other more general cognitive processes, including
attention orientation.
In such approaches, ''contrastive focus'' is understood as the coding of information that is contrary to the presuppositions of the
interlocutor.
The
topic–comment
In linguistics, the topic, or theme, of a sentence is what is being talked about, and the comment (rheme or focus) is what is being said about the topic. This division into old vs. new content is called information structure. It is generally ...
model distinguishes between the topic (theme) and what is being said about that topic (the comment, rheme, or focus).
Formalist approaches
Standard formalist approaches to grammar argue that
phonology
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
and
semantics
Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comp ...
cannot exchange information directly (''See Fig. 1''). Therefore, syntactic mechanisms including features and
transformations include prosodic information regarding focus that is passed to the semantics and phonology. Focus may be highlighted either prosodically or syntactically or both, depending on the language. In syntax this can be done assigning focus markers, as shown in (1), or by preposing as shown in (2):
(1) I saw
OHN Ohn is a Burmese name, used by people from Myanmar. Notable people with the name include:
* Daw Ohn (1913–2003), Burmese professor in Pali
* Ohn Gyaw (born 1932), Burmese Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1991 to 1998
* Ohn Kyaing (born 1944), Bur ...
f.
(2)
OHN Ohn is a Burmese name, used by people from Myanmar. Notable people with the name include:
* Daw Ohn (1913–2003), Burmese professor in Pali
* Ohn Gyaw (born 1932), Burmese Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1991 to 1998
* Ohn Kyaing (born 1944), Bur ...
f, I saw.
In (1), focus is marked syntactically with the subscripted ‘f’ which is realized phonologically by a nuclear
pitch accent
A pitch-accent language, when spoken, has word accents in which one syllable in a word or morpheme is more prominent than the others, but the accentuated syllable is indicated by a contrasting pitch ( linguistic tone) rather than by loudness ...
.
Clefting
A cleft sentence is a complex sentence (one having a main clause and a dependent clause) that has a meaning that could be expressed by a simple sentence. Clefts typically put a particular constituent into focus. In spoken language, this focusing is ...
induces an obligatory intonation break. Therefore, in (2), focus is marked via word order and a nuclear pitch accent.
In English, focus also relates to phonology and has ramifications for how and where
suprasegmental information such as
rhythm
Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular re ...
,
stress
Stress may refer to:
Science and medicine
* Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition
* Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
, and
intonation is encoded in the grammar, and in particular intonational tunes that mark focus.
Speakers can use pitch accents on syllables to indicate what word(s) are in focus. New words are often accented while given words are not. The accented word(s) forms the focus domain. However, not all of the words in a focus domain need be accented. (See
for rules on accent placement and focus-marking). The focus domain can be either ''broad'', as shown in (3), or ''narrow'', as shown in (4) and (5):
(3) Did you see a grey dog or a cat? I saw
grey DOGf.
(4) Did you see a grey dog or a grey cat? I saw a grey
''DOGf.
(5) Did you see a grey dog or a black dog? I saw a
''GREYf dog.
The question/answer paradigm shown in (3)–(5) has been utilized by a variety of theorists
to illustrate the range of contexts a sentence containing focus can be used felicitously. Specifically, the question/answer paradigm has been used as a diagnostic for what counts as new information. For example, the focus pattern in (3) would be infelicitous if the question was ‘Did you see a grey dog or a black dog?’.
In (3) and (4), the pitch accent is marked in bold. In (3), the pitch accent is placed on ''dog'' but the entire noun phrase ''a grey dog'' is under focus. In (4), the pitch accent is also placed on ''dog'' but only the noun ''dog'' is under focus. In (5), pitch accent is placed on ''grey'' and only the adjective ''grey'' is under focus.
Historically, generative proposals made focus a feature bound to a single word within a sentence. Chomsky and Halle formulated a Nuclear Stress Rule that proposed there to be a relation between the main stress of a sentence and a single constituent. Since this constituent is prominent sententially in a way that can contrast with lexical stress, this was originally referred to as "nuclear" stress. The purpose of this rule was to capture the intuition that within each sentence, there is one word in particular that is accented more prominently due to its importance – this is said to form the nucleus
Nucleus ( : nuclei) is a Latin word for the seed inside a fruit. It most often refers to:
*Atomic nucleus, the very dense central region of an atom
* Cell nucleus, a central organelle of a eukaryotic cell, containing most of the cell's DNA
Nucl ...
of that sentence.
Focus was later suggested to be a structural position at the beginning of the sentence (or on the left periphery) in Romance languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language ...
such as Italian, as the lexical head of a Focus Phrase (or FP, following the X-bar theory
In linguistics, X-bar theory is a model of phrase-structure grammar and a theory of syntactic category formation that was first proposed by Noam Chomsky in 1970Chomsky, Noam (1970). Remarks on Nominalization. In: R. Jacobs and P. Rosenbaum (eds.) ...
of phrase structure). Jackendoff, Selkirk,[ Rooth,] Krifka, Schwarzschild[ argue that focus consists of a feature that is assigned to a node in the syntactic representation of a sentence.
Because focus is now widely seen as corresponding between heavy stress, or nuclear pitch accent, this feature is often associated with the phonologically prominent element(s) of a sentence.
Sound structure (]phonological
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
and phonetic
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
) studies of focus are not as numerous, as relational language phenomena tend to be of greater interest to syntacticians and semanticists. But this may be changing: a recent study found that not only do focused words and phrases have a higher range of pitch compared to words in the same sentence but that words following the focus in both American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances i ...
and Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...
were lower than normal in pitch and words before a focus are unaffected. The precise usages of focus in natural language are still uncertain. A continuum of possibilities could possibly be defined between precisely enunciated and staccato styles of speech based on variations in pragmatics
In linguistics and related fields, pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship between the interpreter and the in ...
or timing.
Currently, there are two central themes in research on focus in generative linguistics. First, given what words or expressions are prominent, what is the meaning of some sentence? Rooth,[ Jacobs,] Krifka,[ and von Stechow] claim that there are lexical items and construction specific-rules that refer directly to the notion of focus. Dryer, Kadmon, Marti, Roberts,[ Schwarzschild,] Vallduvi, and Williams argue for accounts in which general principles of discourse explain focus sensitivity.[ Second, given the meaning and syntax of some sentence, what words or expressions are prominent?
]
Prominence and meaning
Focus directly affects the semantics, or meaning, of a sentence. Different ways of pronouncing the sentence affects the meaning, or, what the speaker intends to convey. Focus distinguishes one interpretation of a sentence from other interpretations of the same sentence that do not differ in word order, but may differ in the way in which the words are taken to relate to each other. To see the effects of focus on meaning, consider the following examples:
(6) John only introduced Bill to SUE.
In (6), accent is placed on Sue. There are two readings of (6) – broad focus shown in (7) and narrow focus shown in (8):
(7) John only ntroduced Bill to SUEf.
(8) John only introduced Bill to UEf.
The meaning of (7) can be summarized as ''the only thing John did was introduce Bill to Sue''. The meaning of (8) can be summarized as ''the only person to whom John introduced Bill is Sue''.
In both (7) and (8), focus is associated with the focus sensitive expression ''only''. This is known as association with focus. The class of focus sensitive expressions in which focus can be associated with includes exclusives (''only'', ''just'') non-scalar additives (''merely'', ''too'') scalar additives (''also'', ''even''), particularlizers (''in particular'', ''for example''), intensifiers, quantificational adverbs, quantificational determiners, sentential connectives, emotives, counterfactuals, superlatives, negation and generics.[ It is claimed that focus operators must ]c-command
In generative grammar and related frameworks, a node in a parse tree c-commands its sister node and all of its sister's descendants. In these frameworks, c-command plays a central role in defining and constraining operations such as syntactic movem ...
their focus.
Alternative semantics
In the alternative semantics Alternative semantics (or Hamblin semantics) is a framework in formal semantics and logic. In alternative semantics, expressions denote ''alternative sets'', understood as sets of objects of the same semantic type. For instance, while the word "Le ...
approach to focus pioneered by Mats Rooth, each constituent has both an ordinary denotation and a focus denotation which are composed by parallel computations. The ordinary denotation of a sentence is simply whatever denotation it would have in a non-alternative-based system while its focus denotation can be thought of as the set containing all ordinary denotations one could get by substituting the focused constituent for another expression of the same semantic type. For a sentence such as (9), the ordinary denotation will be the proposition
In logic and linguistics, a proposition is the meaning of a declarative sentence. In philosophy, " meaning" is understood to be a non-linguistic entity which is shared by all sentences with the same meaning. Equivalently, a proposition is the no ...
which is true iff Mary likes Sue. Its focus denotation will be the set of each propositions such that for some contextually relevant individual 'x', that proposition is true iff Mary likes 'x'.[
(9) Mary likes UEsub>f.
In formal terms, the ordinary denotation of (9) will be as shown below:
* .
Focus denotations are computed using the ''alternative sets'' provided by alternative semantics. In this system, most unfocused items denote the singleton set containing their ordinary denotations.
*
*_
Focused_constituents_denote_the_set_of_all_(contextually_relevant)_semantic_objects_of_the_same_type.
*_,_where_''E''_is_the_domain_of_type_theory.html" ;"title="text">![\text!">text.html" ;"title="![\text">![\text!f = \
*
Focused constituents denote the set of all (contextually relevant) semantic objects of the same type.
* , where ''E'' is the domain of type theory">entities or individuals.
In alternative semantics, the primary composition rule is ''Pointwise Functional Application''. This rule can be thought of as analogous to the cross product.
* Pointwise Functional Application: If is a constituent with daughters and which are of type and respectively, then
Applying this rule to example (9) would give the following focus denotation if the only contextually relevant individuals are Sue, Bill, Lisa, and Mary
*
The focus denotation can be "caught" by focus-sensitive expressions like "only" as well as other covert items such as the ]squiggle operator
In formal semantics, the squiggle operator \sim is an operator which constrains the occurrence of focus. On one common definition, the squiggle operator takes a syntactic argument \alpha and a discourse salient argument C and introduces a presu ...
.
Structured meanings
Following Jacobs[ and Williams,][ Krifka][ argues differently. Krifka claims focus partitions the semantics into a background part and focus part, represented by the pair:
::
The ]logical form
In logic, logical form of a statement is a precisely-specified semantic version of that statement in a formal system. Informally, the logical form attempts to formalize a possibly ambiguous statement into a statement with a precise, unambiguou ...
of which represented in lambda calculus is:
::
This pair is referred to as a ''structured meaning''. Structured meanings allow for a compositional semantic approach to sentences that involve single or multiple foci. This approach follows Frege's (1897) Principle of Compositionality: the meaning of a complex expression is determined by the meanings of its parts, and the way in which those parts are combined into structured meanings. Krifka’s structured meaning theory represents focus in a transparent and compositional fashion it encompasses sentences with more than one focus as well as sentences with a single focus. Krifka claims the advantages of structured meanings are twofold: 1) We can access the meaning of an item in focus directly, and 2) Rooth's[ alternative semantics can be derived from a structured meaning approach but not vice versa. To see Krifka’s approach illustrated, consider the following examples of single focus shown in (10) and multiple foci shown in (11):
(10) John introduced Bill to UEf.
(11) John only introduced ]ILL ILL may refer to:
* '' I Love Lucy'', a landmark American television sitcom
* Illorsuit Heliport (location identifier: ILL), a heliport in Illorsuit, Greenland
* Institut Laue–Langevin, an internationally financed scientific facility
* Interlibra ...
f to UEf.
Generally, the meaning of (10) can be summarized as ''John introduced Bill to Sue and no one else'', and the meaning of (11) can be summarized as ''the only pair of persons such that John introduced the first to the second is Bill and Sue''.
Specifically, the structured meaning of (10) is:
:: where ''introd'' is the denotation of ''introduce'', j ''John'', b ''Bill'' and s ''Sue''.
The background part of the structured meaning is; ''introd (j, b, x)''; and the focus part is ''s''.
Through a (modified) form of functional application (or beta reduction
Lambda calculus (also written as ''λ''-calculus) is a formal system in mathematical logic for expressing computation based on function abstraction and application using variable binding and substitution. It is a universal model of computation tha ...
), the focus part of (10) and (11) is projected up through the syntax to the sentential level. Importantly, each intermediate level has distinct meaning.
Focus marking
It has been claimed that ''new'' information in the discourse is accented while ''given'' information is not. Generally, the properties of ''new'' and ''given'' are referred to as a word's discourse status. Definitions of ''new'' and ''given'' vary. Halliday defines ''given'' as " anaphorically" recoverable, while ''new'' is defined to be "textually and situationally non-derivable information". To illustrate this point, consider the following discourse in (12) and (13):
(12) Why don’t you have some French TOAST?
(13) I’ve forgotten how to MAKE French toast.
In (13) we note that the verb ''make'' is not given by the sentence in (12). It is discourse new. Therefore, it is available for accentuation. However, ''toast'' in (13) is given in (12). Therefore, it is not available for accentuation. As previously mentioned, pitch accenting can relate to focus. Accented words are often said to be in focus or F-marked often represented by F-markers. The relationship between accent placement is mediated through the discourse status of particular syntactic nodes. The percolation of F-markings in a syntactic tree is sensitive to argument structure and head-phrase relations.[
]
Selkirk and accent placement
Selkirk[ develops an explicit account of how F-marking propagates up syntactic trees. Accenting indicates F-marking. F-marking projects up a given syntactic tree such that both lexical items, i.e. terminal nodes and phrasal levels, i.e. nonterminal nodes, can be F-marked. Specifically, a set of rules determines how and where F-marking occurs in the syntax. These rules are shown in (1) and (2):
(14) Basic Rule: An accented word is f-marked.
(15) Focus Projection:
::a. F-marking the head of a phrase licenses F-marking of the phrase.
::b. F-marking of the internal argument of a head licenses the F-marking of the head.
::c. F-marking of the antecedent of a trace left by NP or wh-movement licenses F-marking of the trace.
To see how (14) and (15) apply, consider the following example:
::Judy f f a parrot f">dopted f a parrot ff] foc][
Because there is no rule in (14) or (15) that licenses F-marking to the direct object from any other node, the direct object ''parrot'' must be accented as indicated in bold. Rule (15b) allows F-marking to project from the direct object to the head verb ''adopted''. Rule (15a) allows F-marking to project from the head verb to the VP ''adopted a parrot''. Selkirk][ assumes the subject ''Judy'' is accented if F-marked as indicated in bold.][
]
Schwarzschild and accent placement
Schwarzschild[ points out weaknesses in Selkirk’s][ ability to predict accent placement based on facts about the discourse. Selkirk’s theory says nothing about how accentuation arises in sentences with entirely old information. She does not fully articulate the notion of discourse status and its relation to accent marking. Schwarzschild differs from Selkirk in that he develops a more robust model of discourse status. Discourse status is determined via the entailments of the context. This is achieved through the definition in (16):
(16) Definition of given: An utterance of U counts as given if it has a salient antecedent A and
::a. if U is type type theory, e, then A and U corefer;
::b. otherwise: modulo -type-shifting, A entails the existential F-closure of U.
The operation in (16b) can apply to any constituent. -type-shifting "is a way of transforming syntactic constituents into full ]proposition
In logic and linguistics, a proposition is the meaning of a declarative sentence. In philosophy, " meaning" is understood to be a non-linguistic entity which is shared by all sentences with the same meaning. Equivalently, a proposition is the no ...
s so that it is possible to check whether they are entailed
In English common law, fee tail or entail is a form of trust established by deed or settlement which restricts the sale or inheritance of an estate in real property and prevents the property from being sold, devised by will, or otherwise alien ...
by the context". For example, the result of -type-shifting the VP in (17) is (18):
(17) ums a happy tune
(18) ''x'' 'x'' hums a happy tuneref name=German/>
Note that (18) is a full proposition. The existential F-closure in (16b) refers to the operation of replacing the highest F-marked node with an existentially closed variable. The operation is shown in (19) and (20):
(19) ''x'' f_tune_f">'x''_hums_[a_happy_f_tune_ff.html" ;"title="_happy_f_tune_f.html" ;"title="'x'' hums [a happy f tune f">'x'' hums [a happy f tune ff">_happy_f_tune_f.html" ;"title="'x'' hums [a happy f tune f">'x'' hums [a happy f tune ff
(20) ''Y''''x''[''x'' hums ''Y''][
Given the discourse context in (21a) it is possible to determine the discourse status of any syntactic node in (21b):
(21)
::a. Sean [hummed a happy tune] VP
::b. Angie ummed_[Chopin’s_Funeral_Marchf.html" ;"title="hopin’s_Funeral_March.html" ;"title="ummed [Chopin’s Funeral March">ummed [Chopin’s Funeral Marchf">hopin’s_Funeral_March.html" ;"title="ummed [Chopin’s Funeral March">ummed [Chopin’s Funeral MarchfVP][
If the VP in (21a) is the salient antecedent for the VP in (21b), then the VP in (21b) counts as given. -type-shifed VP in (21a) is shown in (22). The existential F-closure of the VP in (21b) is shown in (23):
(22) ''x''[''x'' hums a happy tune]
(23) ''Y''''x''[''x'' hums ''Y'']][
(22) entails (23). Therefore, the VP of (21b) counts as given. Schwarzschild][ assumes an optimality theoretic grammar.] Accent placement is determined by a set of violable, hierarchically ranked constraints as shown in (24):
(24)
::a. GIVENness: A constituent that is not F-marked is given.
::b. Foc: A Foc-marked phrase contains an accent
::c. AvoidF: Do not F-mark
::d. HeadArg: A head is less prominent than its internal argument.
The ranking Schwarzschild[ proposes is seen in (25):
(25) GIVENness, Foc >> AvoidF >> HeadArg
As seen, GIVENness relates F-marking to discourse status. Foc relates F-marking to accent placement. Foc simply requires that a constituent(s) of an F-marked phrase contain an accent. AvoidF states that less F-marking is preferable to more F-marking. HeadArg encodes the head-argument asymmetry into the grammar directly.][
]
=Responses
=
Recent empirical work by German ''et al.''[ suggests that both Selkirk’s][ and Schwarzschild’s][ theory of accentuation and F-marking makes incorrect predictions. Consider the following context:
(26) Are the children playing their game?
(27) Paul took down their tent that they play their game in.][
It has been noted that prepositions are intrinsically weak and do not readily take accent.][ However, both Selkirk and Schwarzschild predict that in the narrow focus context, an accent will occur at most on the preposition in (27) as shown in (28):
(28) Paul took down their tent that they f_trace_(linguistics)">t_f.html" ;"title="n_f_trace_(linguistics).html" ;"title="lay their game [in f trace (linguistics)">t f">n_f_trace_(linguistics).html" ;"title="lay their game [in f trace (linguistics)">t ffoc].][
However, the production experiment reported in German ''et al.''][ showed that subjects are more likely to accent verbs or nouns as opposed to prepositions in the narrow focused context, thus ruling out accent patterns shown in (28). German ''et al.'' argue for a stochastic constraint-based grammar similar to Anttila] and Boersma that more fluidly accounts for how speakers accent words in discourse.
See also
*Information structure
In linguistics, information structure, also called information packaging, describes the way in which information is formally packaged within a sentence.Lambrecht, Knud. 1994. ''Information structure and sentence form.'' Cambridge: Cambridge Univer ...
*Topic–comment
In linguistics, the topic, or theme, of a sentence is what is being talked about, and the comment (rheme or focus) is what is being said about the topic. This division into old vs. new content is called information structure. It is generally ...
*Topic-prominent language
A topic-prominent language is a language that organizes its syntax to emphasize the topic–comment structure of the sentence. The term is best known in American linguistics from Charles N. Li and Sandra Thompson, who distinguished topic-promin ...
*Question under discussion In semantics, pragmatics, and philosophy of language, a question under discussion (QUD) is a question which the interlocutors in a discourse are attempting to answer. In many formal and computational theories of discourse, the QUD (or an ordered s ...
*Squiggle operator
In formal semantics, the squiggle operator \sim is an operator which constrains the occurrence of focus. On one common definition, the squiggle operator takes a syntactic argument \alpha and a discourse salient argument C and introduces a presu ...
Notes
References
* Cinque, Guglielmo (1993). "A null theory of phrase and compound stress". ''Linguistic Inquiry'' 24: 239–267.
* Neeleman, Ad and Tanya Reinhart
Tanya Reinhart ( he, טניה ריינהרט; July 1943 – March 17, 2007) was an Israeli linguist who wrote frequently on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She contributed columns to the Israeli newspaper '' Yediot Aharonot'' and longer articles ...
(1998). "Scrambling and the PF-Interface". In ''The Projection of Arguments'', CSLI Publications, 309–353.
*Ocampo, Francisco (2003). "On the notion of focus in spoken Spanish: An empirical approach". In ''Theory, Practice, and Acquisition'', ed. by Paula Kempchinsky and Carlos-Eduardo Pineros. Sommerville: Cascadilla Press, 207–226.
* Pereltsvaig, Asya (2002). "Topic and focus as linear notions: evidence from Russian and Italian". ''Proceedings of the Conference on the Interaction between Syntax and Pragmatics at UCL''.
*Szendrői, Kriszta (2004). 'Focus and the interaction between syntax and pragmatics'. ''Lingua
Lingua (Latin, 'tongue') may refer to:
* ''Lingua'' (journal), a peer-reviewed academic journal of general linguistics
* ''Lingua'' (sculpture), by Jim Sanborn
* ''Lingua'' (play), a 17th-century play attributed to Thomas Tomkis
* Project Ling ...
'' 114(3), 229–254.
*Xu, Y., C. X. Xu and X. Sun (2004). 'On the temporal domain of focus'. In ''Proceedings of International Conference on Speech Prosody 2004'', Nara, Japan: 81–84.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Focus (Linguistics)
Grammatical categories
Syntactic entities
Semantics
Formal semantics (natural language)