Focus in Generative Grammar: 4 (Studies in Generative Linguistic Analysis) - Softcover

Rochemont, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9027227918 ISBN 13: 9789027227911

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Co, 1986

Synopsis

The topic of this book is the notion of ‘focus’ and its linguistic characterization. The main thesis is that focus has a uniform grammatical identification only as a syntactic element with – in English at least – a certain systematic phonological interpretation and – presumably universally – a range of semantic interpretations. In broad respects, the framework within this investigation is conducted is that of Chomsky & Lasnik (1977) and the subsequent Government and Binding framework. After considering defining the location of prominence in a focused phrase in terms of constituent structure, the author argues that an argument structure approach to the focus phrase/prominence relation is more promising. This is then exemplified in analyses of cleft focus and constructional focus.

Edition details

• Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Co
• Publication date: 1986
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9027227918
• ISBN 13: 9789027227911
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 231