Second occurrence focus andRelativized Stress F

Abstract

This chapter identifies a tight relation between information structure prominence, in terms of focus, and prosodic prominence, in terms of accent. This is done by way of a detailed analysis of second occurrence focus (SOF), a phenomenon that has drawn the attention of semanticists and phonologists only in recent years. There are parallels between the semantics and phonology which can be captured by means of two generalizations. The first one is Stress F, which posits that a pitch accent must be placed somewhere in the prosodic domain of the focus constituent. The second one, called Relativized Stress F, establishes a hierarchy between two bound foci with overlapping or embedding domains. The focus with higher semantic scope is prosodically more prominent than the focus with lower scope. The effects of both constraints can be captured in a strictly local fashion by the introduction of operators that operate as modifiers on semantic combination functions, such as Functional Application. These modifiers pass the information of semantic and prosodic prominence up the syntactic tree. Thus, the chapter, despite its strong semantic bias, relates the semantic interpretation of focus to the prosody, mediated by the syntax.

Focus in Greek wh-questions

“…15 For detailed argumentation on the metrical strength approach see Büring (2006), Ladd (1996) and Rooth (2008). 16 Focus domains are here defined in syntactic terms-see (34).…”

The communicative significance of primary and secondary accents

“…In this section, we will introduce the notion of a focus domain, from Jacobs (1991) and Rooth (1992), show how this is used by Bü ring (2008) and Rooth (2010) to account for secondary accent data, and detail some shortcomings of the approach.…”

“…The major problem with this account of the ineffability of (31b) is that it is based on a false premise: it is not the case that sentences with an E-Q-A structure are in general ineffable. Rooth (2010) points out that variants of (31b) with extra material around either of the two foci are ameliorated, and also points out that (31b) becomes felicitous if uttered with ''a rising intonation indicating a partial answer on the first focus crepes.'' We agree with these judgments, and have verified them with several consultants.…”

“…Rather than arguing against phonological focus domains, we merely note that at present the notion is not sufficiently tightly specified to provide us with a predictive theory of secondary accent. Accordingly we will not consider them further here, but instead turn to an alternative reaction to focus intervention examples, a modification of Bü ring's proposal considered by Rooth (2010).…”

“…Semanticists who have addressed these questions can be divided into two camps: lumpers and splitters. Lumpers include Rooth (2010) and Bü ring (2008); both Rooth and Bü ring claim that if the notion of focus is spelt out properly, then the theory of accent will not need to make any further reference to the predictability or newness of information. Splitters, including Selkirk (2002Selkirk ( , 2007 and Beaver et al (2007), present explanations of accenting that make separate reference to a standard notion of focus on the one hand, and to predictability or newness of information on the other.…”