Abstract
According to the alternative semantics for focus, the semantic reflec of intonational focus is a second semantic value, which in the case of a sentence is a set of propositions. We examine a range of semantic and pragmatic applications of the theory, and extract a unitary principle specifying how the focus semantic value interacts with semantic and pragmatic processes. A strong version of the theory has the effect of making lexical or construction-specific stipulation of a focus-related effect in association-with-focus constructions impossible. Furthermore, while focus has a uniform import, the sources of meaning differences in association with focus are various.
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I thank Dorit Abusch, Manfred Bierwisch, Maria Bittner, Peter Blok, Gennaro Chierchia, Angelika Kratzer, Manfred Krifka, Irene Heim, Julia Hirschberg, Sjaak de Mey, Manfred Pinkal, Arnim von Stechow, Ede Zimmermann, two reviewers, participants in ESCOL ’90 at Ohio State, the 1991 Cognitive Science Workshop at the University of Texas, the Greater New York Computational Linguistics Seminar, the workshop on focus at the 1991 summer school at Saarbrücken, and colloquium audiences at UMass Amherst, Groeningen, Stuttgart and Saarbrücken for initial discussions of the ideas which were eventually realized in this paper, reactions to oral presentations of this and related work, or comments on the written version. This work was done at AT & T Bell Laboratories.
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Rooth, M. A theory of focus interpretation. Nat Lang Seman 1, 75–116 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02342617
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02342617