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The puzzle Stress and focus must generally correspond (1)Who saw a movie?(Subject focus) a.[My MOM] F saw a movie. b.# [My mom] F saw a MOVIE. (2)What did your mom see?(Object focus) a.# My MOM saw [a movie] F. b.My mom saw [a MOVIE] F. (3)How many people saw a movie?(Focus on the number) a.[THREE] F people saw a movie. b.# [Three] F PEOPLE saw a movie. c.# [Three] F people saw a MOVIE. HLS 20103Brad Hoot
Citation preview
Narrow Focus on Pre-Nominal Modifiers in
Spanish
Brad HootUniversity of Illinois at Chicago
Hispanic Linguistics SymposiumOctober 14-17, 2010Bloomington, Indiana
An Optimality Theoretic Analysis
Outline1. The puzzle2. Rightmost focus
1. P-movement2. Conflicting constraints
3. Analysis1. Stress2. Syntactic well-formedness3. Stress-focus correspondence4. Stress-focus correspondence revised
4. Implications/Conclusions
HLS 2010 2Brad Hoot
The puzzle Stress and focus must generally correspond
(1) Who saw a movie? (Subject focus)a. [My MOM]F saw a movie.b. # [My mom]F saw a MOVIE.(2) What did your mom see? (Object focus)a. # My MOM saw [a movie]F.b. My mom saw [a MOVIE]F.(3) How many people saw a movie? (Focus on the number)a. [THREE]F people saw a movie.b. # [Three]F PEOPLE saw a movie.c. # [Three]F people saw a MOVIE.
HLS 2010 3Brad Hoot
The puzzle Stress in Spanish must generally be rightmost
(4) Mi mamá vio una PELíCULA.my mom saw a movie‘My mom saw a movie.’
(5) # Mi MAMÁ vio una película.
HLS 2010 4Brad Hoot
The puzzle Focused constituents in Spanish are
generally rightmost(6) Who saw a movie? (Subject focus)
a. Vio una película [mi MAMÁ]F
b. # [Mi mamá]F vio una PELÍCULA.
c. # [Mi MAMÁ]F vio una película.
HLS 2010 5Brad Hoot
The puzzle However, the case of pre-nominal modifiers
complicates this picture(7) How many police officers arrested the suspect? (Narrow focus on the number)a. Lo arrestaron [cuatro]F POLICÍAS.Cl.Acc arrested four police‘Four police officers arrested him.’b. # Lo arrestaron [CUATRO]F policías.c. # [Cuatro]F policías lo ARRESTARON.
Stress does not correspond with focus, which is unusual
Yet the subject is still rightmost
HLS 2010 6Brad Hoot
The goals of this talk Provide an analysis of the data in (7) in
terms of constraint conflict Discuss the implications of this analysis
for our understanding of focus realization
HLS 2010 7Brad Hoot
Two quick notes I’m concerned with presentational/information focus, not
contrastive/emphatic focus, which has different behaviors.
It should be noted that not all speakers agree with the judgment of (7). Some speakers strongly reject final stress (7a) in favor of stress on the modifier (7b), while others strongly prefer final stress (7a). Perhaps this is a difference of dialect. Fieldwork is currently underway to determine how
widespread this phenomenon is. Nonetheless, this data represents some subset of
Spanish speakers, and those whose varieties are different can also be accounted for under this analysis.
HLS 2010 8Brad Hoot
Rightmost focus: P-movement Perhaps the most influential analysis of focus in
Romance is Zubizarreta (1998) Zubizarreta (1998) analyzes Spanish rightmost
focus in terms of prosodically motivated movement (p-movement)
There are two stress rules, a Nuclear Stress Rule (NSR) and a Focus Prominence Rule (FPR), and when they conflict, p-movement saves the day
HLS 2010 9Brad Hoot
Rightmost focus: P-movement In Zubizarreta’s framework for Spanish, the NSR always
requires rightmost stress The FPR, though, requires stress on the focused constituent If the focused constituent is not the rightmost constituent, the
NSR and the FPR conflict, picking two different elements to stress(8) * FPR NSR
Lori le dio [un erizo]F a Meghanne.Lori Cl.Dat gave a hedgehog to Meghanne‘Lori gave a hedgehog to Meghanne.
HLS 2010 10Brad Hoot
Rightmost focus: P-movement Solution: move the discourse-given
constituent so that the focused constituent is at the end, assigned stress by both rules(9) FPR NSR
Lori le dio a Meghanne [un erizo]F
Lori Cl.Dat gave to Meghanne a hedgehog ‘Lori gave a hedgehog to Meghanne.
HLS 2010 11Brad Hoot
Rightmost focus: P-movement However, if p-movement occurs so the NSR and FPR
can both be satisfied, it cannot be the explanation for (7). In (7), the subject is rightmost despite the fact that the
FPR still isn’t satisfied. Stress-focus mismatch can’t be rescued by p-movement.
(7) How many police officers arrested the suspect? a. Lo arrestaron [cuatro]F POLICÍAS.
Cl.Acc arrested four police‘Four police officers arrested him.’
HLS 2010 12Brad Hoot
Rightmost focus: Conflicting Constraints Büring & Gutiérrez-Bravo (2006), Gutiérrez-Bravo (2002) and
Samek-Lodovici (2005) analyze focus realization in Romance and Germanic using Optimality Theory
They propose constraints requiring rightward stress, stress-focus correspondence, and syntactic well-formedness, which conflict
In Romance, it is claimed, stress-focus correspondence is undominated
Rightmost stress in Spanish is also claimed to be undominated
Both outrank syntactic well-formedness (for our purposes, this means SVO order)
Thus, stress must be rightmost, and stress and focus must correspond, so the focused constituent must be rightmost
HLS 2010 13Brad Hoot
Rightmost focus: Conflicting Constraints
(10) Who saw a movie?(Subject focus)
a. Vio una película [mi MAMÁ]F
saw a movie my momb. # [Mi mamá]F vio una PELÍCULA.
c. # [Mi MAMÁ]F vio una película.
HLS 2010 14Brad Hoot
Analysis: Stress Let’s assume a constraint on prosody similar to
Samek-Lodovici’s(11) Align (Head, Right; iP, Right) (Align-iP-R)
The head of each intonational phrase is aligned with the right edge of the phrase.
Violated once for phonological phrase boundary between the intonational phrase head and the intonational phrase’s right
edge. Let’s further assume it is undominated And that it admits gradient violation
HLS 2010 15Brad Hoot
Analysis: Syntax Assume constraints on syntactic well-formedness to be low-ranked
EPP: Sentences must have subjects. Stay: No traces
But, if syntactic well-formedness is ranked low, why can’t we get (12)?(12) How many police officers arrested the suspect? Policías lo arrestaron [CUATRO]F tpolicías.police Cl.Acc arrested four‘Four police officers arrested him.’
Not all syntactic constraints are created equal(13) Trace-Government (T-Gov) (Samek-Lodovici 2005)A trace is governed.Violated once for each trace that is not properly governed.
T-Gov is undominated Has the practical upshot of not letting the noun move out from below its modifier
HLS 2010 16Brad Hoot
Analysis: Stress-focus correspondence Some constraint requires that stress and focus correspond Let’s take something basic to start with, like Büring & Gutiérrez-
Bravo’s FocusProminence(14) FocusProminence (FP) [Initial formulation]
Focus is most prominent.Violated if the main stress (the iP-level stress) does not correspond to the Foc-marked node(s).
As mentioned, Büring & Gutiérrez-Bravo, Gutiérrez-Bravo, and Samek-Lodovici take some similar constraint to be undominated
In fact, something similar – such as the Stress-Focus Correspondence Principle (Reinhart 2006; Szendrői 2001) or the Focus Prosody Correspondence Principle (Zubizarreta 1998, based on Chomsky 1971 and Jackendoff 1972) – seems to be a part of all analyses of focus across the board
HLS 2010 17Brad Hoot
Analysis: Stress-focus correspondence However, as we’ve already seen, stress and focus do not
correspond in the Spanish data presented here Obviously, then, FP can’t be undominated But allowing Align-R to outrank FP isn’t enough – That way we just
end up with (15b)(15) How many police officers arrested the suspect?
a. Arrestaron al sospechoso tres POLICÍAS.Arrested the suspect three police officers‘Three police officers arrested the suspect.’
b. # Tres policías arrestaron al SOSPECHOSO.c. # TRES policías arrestaron al sospechoso.d. # Arrestaron al sospechoso TRES policías.e. * Policías arrestaron al sospechoso TRES.
HLS 2010 18Brad Hoot
Analysis: Stress-focus correspondence(16)
HLS 2010 19Brad Hoot
Analysis: Stress-focus correspondence FP needs to be reformulated What if it were an alignment constraint, like with stress? In fact, this isn’t that crazy an idea – Truckenbrodt (1999) proposes an
alignment constraint that aligns focus and prosodic structure (specifically, with the edge of an phonological phrase in Chicheŵa), and notes that similar constraints exist in Bengali, Japanese, and Korean(17) FocusProminence (FP) [Revised formulation]
Focus is aligned with prominence.Violated once for each phonological phrase boundary
between main stress (the phonological phrase head that projects the intonational phrase head) and a phonological phrase head corresponding to a Foc-marked node.
This has the practical upshot of penalizing a structure for each ‘step’ away from the focus the main stress falls
This would give the correct predictions
HLS 2010 20Brad Hoot
Analysis: Stress-focus correspondence(18)
HLS 2010 21Brad Hoot
Analysis: Stress-focus correspondence Reformulating FP gives the correct
predictions for the data It also explains why the subject should be
rightmost despite the fact that the stress-focus mismatch still occurs – the answer is that the mismatch is less severe, that is, it incurs fewer violations of FP
HLS 2010 22Brad Hoot
What about other focused modifiers? They seem to have the same behavior
(19) Which Bad Religion record did you buy?a. Compré su [último]F DISCO.bought.1st their latest record‘I bought their latest record.’b. # Compré su [ÚLTIMO]F disco.(20) Which contestant won the prize?a. Ganó el premio el [primer]F CONCURSANTE.won the prize the first contestant‘The first contestant won the prize.’b. # Ganó el premio el [PRIMER]F concursante.c. # El [primer]F concursante ganó el premio. (Regardless of stress) (21) Which platypus did Kalyani buy?a. Kalyani compró [este]F ORNITORRINCO.Kalyani bought this platypus‘Kalyani bought this platypus.’b. # Kalyani compró [ESTE]F ornitorrinco.(22) Which platypus ate all the food?a. Comió toda la comida [este]F ORNITORRINCO.Ate all the food this platypus‘This platypus ate all the food.’b. # Comió toda la comida [ESTE]F ornitorrinco.c. # [Este]F ornitorrinco comió toda la comida. (Regardless of stress)
HLS 2010 23Brad Hoot
Implications/Conclusions An analysis was given of (7) based on conflicting
constraints(7) How many police officers arrested the suspect?a. Lo arrestaron [cuatro]F POLICÍAS.Cl.Acc arrested four police‘Four police officers arrested him.’b. # Lo arrestaron [CUATRO]F policías.c. # [Cuatro]F policías lo ARRESTARON.
Constraint Ranking: (23) (T-Gov <<>> Align-iP-R) >> FP >> EPP >> Stay
HLS 2010 Brad Hoot 24
Implications/Conclusions Stress-focus correspondence is not absolute
Its violations are gradient It is an alignment constraint, like so many other
constraints on prosody Stress-focus correspondence is not always
undominated It can be outranked by other concerns In most languages, though, it indeed appears to be
undominated, as in English, which is what gives it the appearance of being an either/or constraint – when it’s undominated, even one violation is enough to doom the structure
HLS 2010 25Brad Hoot
Implications/Conclusions Those accounts that derive focus FROM stress, like the
Stress-Focus Correspondence Principle of Reinhart (2006) and Szendrői (2001), or the F-marking rules of Selkirk (1995), cannot be correct on this account
There are cases where stress and focus do not in fact correspond, and thus the focus cannot be derived from stress
Instead, this points to an analysis in which focus is determined independently, perhaps based on the pragmatics of the context, and is then required to correspond (as closely as possible) to stress (something like Schwarzschild (1999), perhaps)
HLS 2010 26Brad Hoot
ReferencesBüring, D., & Gutiérrez-Bravo, R. 2006. Focus-related constituent order without the NSR: A prosody-
based crosslinguistic analysis. In M. Séamas (Ed.), Syntax at Santa Cruz 3, 41-58.Chomsky, N. 1971. Deep structure, surface structure and semantic interpretation. In D. Steinberg
and L. Jakobovits (Eds.), Semantics: An interdisciplinary reader in philosophy, linguistics, and psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gutiérrez-Bravo, R. 2002. Focus, word order variation and intonation in Spanish and English: An OT account. In C. Wiltshire & J. Camps (Eds.), Romance phonology and variation (pp. 39-53). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Jackendoff, R. 1972. Semantic interpretation in generative grammar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Reinhart, T. 2006. Interface Strategies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Samek-Lodovici, V. 2005. Prosody-syntax interaction in the expression of focus. Natural Language
and Linguistic Theory 23:687-755.Selkirk, E. 1995. Sentence prosody, intonation, stress, and phrasing. In J. Goldsmith (Ed.), The
handbook of phonological theory (550-569). Oxford: Blackwell. Schwarzschild, R. 1999. Givenness, AvoidF and other constraints on the placement of accent.
Natural language semantics 7: 141-177.Szendrői, K. 2001. Focus and the syntax-phonology interface. UCL Dissertation.Truckenbrodt, H. 1999. On the Relation Between Syntactic Phrases and Phonological Phrases.
Linguistic Inquiry 30: 219-256.Zubizarreta, M. L. 1998. Prosody, Focus, and Word Order. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
HLS 2010 27Brad Hoot
Thank you!
Special thanks to Luis López-Carretero and the members of the Bilingualism Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Comments/feedback welcome.
Brad HootUniversity of Illinois at Chicago
HLS 2010 28Brad Hoot