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Institute
In this thesis, I develop a theoretical implementation of prosodic reconstruction and apply it to the empirical domain of German sentences in which part of a focus or contrastive topic is fronted.
Prosodic reconstruction refers to the idea that sentences involving syntactic movement show prosodic parallels with corresponding simpler structures without movement. I propose to model this recurrent observation by ordering syntax-prosody mapping before copy deletion.
In order to account for the partial fronting data, the idea is extended to the mapping between prosody and information structure. This assumption helps to explain why object-initial sentences containing a broad focus or broad contrastive topic show similar prosodic and interpretative restrictions as sentences with canonical word order.
The empirical adequacy of the model is tested against a set of gradient acceptability judgments.
Topic and focus
(2007)
The paper explicates the notions of topic, contrastive topic, and focus as used in the analysis of Hungarian. Based on distributional criteria, topic and focus are claimed to represent distinct structural positions in the left periphery of the Hungarian sentence, associated with logical rather than discourse functions. The topic is interpreted as the logical subject of predication. The focus is analyzed as a derived main predicate, specifying the referential content of the set denoted by the backgrounded post-focus section of the sentence. The exhaustivity associated with the focus and the existential presupposition associated with the background are shown to be properties following from their specificational predication relation.