TY  - JOUR
A1  - Fanselow, Gisbert
A1  - Lenertova, Denisa
T1  - Left peripheral focus mismatches between syntax and information structure
JF  - Natural language & linguistic theory
N2  - In Czech, German, and many other languages, part of the semantic focus of the utterance can be moved to the left periphery of the clause. The main generalization is that only the leftmost accented part of the semantic focus can be moved. We propose that movement to the left periphery is generally triggered by an unspecific edge feature of C (Chomsky 2008) and its restrictions can be attributed to requirements of cyclic linearization, modifying the theory of cyclic linearization developed by Fox and Pesetsky (2005). The crucial assumption is that structural accent is a direct consequence of being linearized at merge, thus it is indirectly relevant for (locality restrictions on) movement. The absence of structural accent correlates with givenness. Given elements may later receive (topic or contrastive) accents, which accounts for fronting in multiple focus/contrastive topic constructions. Without any additional assumptions, the model can account for movement of pragmatically unmarked elements to the left periphery ('formal fronting', Frey 2005). Crucially, the analysis makes no reference at all to concepts of information structure in the syntax, in line with the claim of Chomsky (2008) that UG specifies no direct link between syntax and information structure.
KW  - Czech
KW  - German
KW  - Focus
KW  - Topic
KW  - Information structure
KW  - Intervention effects
KW  - Cyclic linearization
KW  - A-bar-movement
KW  - Prosody-syntax interface
KW  - Accentuation
Y1  - 2011
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-010-9109-x
SN  - 0167-806X
VL  - 29
IS  - 1
SP  - 169
EP  - 209
PB  - Springer
CY  - Dordrecht
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Fanselow, Gisbert
T1  - Cyclic phonology-syntax-interaction
BT  - movement to first position in German
JF  - Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632
N2  - This paper investigates the nature of the attraction of XPs to clauseinitial position in German (and other languages). It argues that there are two different types of preposing. First, an XP can move when it is attracted by an EPP-like feature of Comp. Comp can, however, also attract elements that bear the formal marker of some semantic or pragmatic (information theoretic) function. This second type of movement is driven by the attraction of a formal property of the moved element. It has often been misanalysed as “operator” movement in the past. Japanese wh-questions always exhibit focus intonation (FI). Furthermore, the domain of FI exhibits a correspondence to the wh-scope. I propose that this phonology-semantics correspondence is a result of the cyclic computation of FI, which is explained under the notion of Multiple Spell-Out in the recent Minimalist framework. The proposed analysis makes two predictions: (1) embedding of an FI into another is possible; (2) (overt) movement of a wh-phrase to a phase edge position causes a mismatch between FI and wh-scope. Both predictions are tested experimentally, and shown to be borne out.
KW  - topicalization
KW  - focus movement
KW  - operator movement
KW  - A-bar-movement
Y1  - 2004
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-8264
SN  - 1866-4725
SN  - 1614-4708
IS  - 1
SP  - 1
EP  - 42
ER  -