Szendrői, Kriszta;
(2017)
Focus movement.
In:
The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax.
Wiley: Hoboken, New Jersey, USA.
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Abstract
A language has a focus construction if a focused constituent (at least optionally) appears in a non-canonical syntactic position. Jackendoff's (1972) invention, the [focus] feature, and Chomsky's (1976) observation that focus gives rise to weak crossover effects paved the way for an analysis of focus constructions as instances of focus movement. For presentational purposes the analyses can be divided into three groups, which also by-and-large correspond to their order of appearance. The first group of analyses, which includes for instance Horvath (1986), regards the often-attested adjacency requirement between the focus and the V (or other functional head, like I or C) as the crucial characteristic of focus constructions. Characteristics of focus movement in this approach are explained by the notion of government. One of the main advantages of this view is that it is able to accommodate both preverbal and postverbal focus positions with some degree of explanatory adequacy. The second group of analyses, starting from Rizzi's (1997) influential paper on Italian focus, comprises the cartographic approach to focus movement. The approach stems from the close proximity between focus movement and wh-movement. Its main tenet is that focus movement is triggered by a syntactic [focus] feature, and it targets a designated unique, pre-determined syntactic position: the specifier of a functional Focus head. One immediate advantage of such a view is that it easily accounts for the quantificational properties of focus constructions. The third set of analyses can be grouped under the umbrella term, interface approaches. These approaches stem from recognizing the fact that a syntactic [focus] feature is a direct violation of Chomsky's (1995) Inclusiveness Principle, and that if focus movement is triggered by such a feature then the autonomy of syntax cannot be maintained. One set of interface analyses concentrates on the syntax-prosody interface and seeks to explain focus movement by making reference to the seemingly universal property of focus that if a language has a stress system, focus always bears main stress. The second set of analyses concentrates on the syntax-semantics/pragmatics interface and either seeks to explain focus movement in terms of mapping principles between syntax and semantics/pragmatics, or gives up the idea of information structurally-motivated movement altogether.
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