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The study empirically examines the interpretation of focus accents in German. To this end, a methodology is developed, and it is discussed how experimental investigation can proceed at the current state of the focus theory. Methodologically, experiments directly measuring interpretation provide an alternative to the widespread practice of using only empirical preference and production data to investigate the interpretation of stimuli, and it is shown why such an alternative is necessary.
The empirical results show that one must extend and restrict theories assuming an association of free focus and scalar implicature (exhaustivity) or question–answer congruence as follows: On the one hand, situational factors in the interpretation must be taken into account to a greater extent than until now, especially their interaction with ‘physical’ properties of the speech signal (focus marking). On the other hand, a prototypical definition of Focus is called for which connects the major concepts of focus on the phonetic-phonological, semantic and information-structural levels and takes their prototypical coincidence to be the basis of focus interpretation and corresponding intuitions.
This paper discusses a specific subclass of English it-clefts posited in the theoretical literature, so-called predicational clefts. The main point of the paper is to show that there is no need to postulate such a separate class. Predicational clefts look special because of the narrow focus on the adjective within an indefinite pivot, but their special properties can all be derived from this narrow focus in a focus analysis in which it-clefts express contrasting focus. Contrasting focus means that besides the assertion of the proposition expressed in the cleft, there is one contrasting proposition which is excluded. The focus on the adjective in apparent predicational clefts gives rise to a narrow set of relevant alternatives, all of which differ only in the adjectival property within the pivot. The analysis developed here can account for many of the observations for apparent predicational clefts. Other properties are shown to be not conclusive. Thus, predicational clefts need not be considered a special subclass beyond their special focus characteristics.
Accentuation, Uncertainty and Exhaustivity - Towards a Model of Pragmatic Focus Interpretation
(2010)
This paper presents a model of pragmatic focus interpretation that is assumed to be part of a complete language comprehension model and that is inspired by Levelt's language processing model. The model is derived from our empirical data on the role of accentuation, prosodic indicators of uncertainty and context for pragmatic focus interpretation. In its present state, the model is restricted to these data, but nevertheless generates predictions.