Studies in Language. International Journal sponsored by the Foundation “Foundations of Language” - Volume 40, Issue 2, 2016

Many tests have been used in eliciting focus constructions and determining what type of focus a certain linguistic strategy expresses. This paper provides an overview of the various diagnostics for focus, indicating how they show the size of the focused constituent and what semantic-pragmatic type of focus is expressed. These types range from simple pragmatic focus to semantically more complex focus, signalling exclusivity or exhaustivity either as an inherent semantic part of the focus, or merely an implicature. The discussion of these diagnostics brings to light how some diagnostics are flawed, and whether the linguistic strategy tested is actually a dedicated strategy for focus at all.

This paper reports the results of two identical experiments, one in Hindi and one in Indian English, that elicited semi-spontaneous sentences containing a focused agent or a focused patient. The primary aim of the experiments was to investigate the prosodic correlates of information structure in the two languages and to explain these correlates with a phonological model. The resulting phonological model proposes that focus is realized with enhanced correlates of phrasing and not with prominence, at least not of the same kind as languages using pitch accents. Secondary aims were to verify the ecological validity of similar data elicited with scripted speech (Patil et al. 2008) and to reflect on the place of Hindi and Indian English in a typology of intonation.

This article discusses the temporal interpretation of two attributive clause markers in Korean -te-un and -nu-un, which are standardly analyzed as carrying past imperfective and present imperfective meanings, respectively. I show that -te-un and -nu-un carry not only temporal but also modal/evidential meanings and they do so in ways hitherto unnoticed. I claim that -te-un presents an eventuality from a retrospective point of view, providing a window into what I call ‘an evidential past’, whereas -nu-un does so from a projective point of view, providing a window into what I call ‘a metaphysical future’. The findings of this paper suggest that the line between Tense, Aspect, Mood, and Evidentiality can be blurrier in some languages than in others, and that when interpreting attributive clauses, what is construed as the viewpoint holder and in which direction the viewpoint is headed relative to some temporal anchor may matter greatly.

This article sheds new light on the puzzling phrase structure of complex adjectival phrases which are common in Semitic, specifically in Hebrew, and which are equivalent to Indo-European phrases such as ‘swift of foot.’ The article draws a clear distinction between these constructions and adjectival compounds such as ‘swift-footed’, which are prevalent in major Indo-European languages but are absent from Semitic languages. The Hebrew construction under discussion is a genitival construct consisting of an adjective followed by a modifying noun in genitive status. The adjective is the head of the construction, but agrees in number and gender with a noun outside the construction. This construction has invited controversial analyses by different scholars, most recently in the framework of generative grammar. The present study construction is anchored in the framework of Construction Grammar. It nevertheless advances a morphosyntactic and semantic analysis of its inner composition. Functional aspects and the speaker’s perspectival choice in construing such attributive phrases are taken into account as well.

This study examines the interaction of contrastive focus-marking with nominalization in bisected contrastive focus constructions of Alto Perené, a Kampa Arawak language of Peru. It also investigates morphosyntactic means of contrastive focus-marking in two neighboring Kampa languages, Ashéninka Pichis and Ashaninka Tambo. The languages are shown to employ various focus-marking strategies. The Alto Perené polar (truth value) focus construction shows a preference for nominalizing a lexical verb. In Ashaninka Tambo, the expression of polar and modal operator focus (the latter attested in negated clauses) does not require nominalization of the lexical verb, but in clefted content and polar questions and affirmative declarative clauses, nominalization is mandatory for the purpose of argument focusing. In Ashéninka Pichis, the argument focus-marking strategies include the syntactic movement of the focus constituent to the preverbal focus position and either an elision of the subject index on the verb, or inflecting the verb for stative aspect.