Michael Rochemont

Focus in Generative Grammar

The topic of this book is the notion of ‘focus’ and its linguistic characterization. The main thesis is that focus has a uniform grammatical identification only as a syntactic element with – in English at least – a certain systematic phonological interpretation and – presumably universally – a range of semantic interpretations. In broad respects, the framework within this investigation is conducted is that of Chomsky & Lasnik (1977) and the subsequent Government and Binding framework. After considering defining the location of prominence in a focused phrase in terms of constituent structure, the author argues that an argument structure approach to the focus phrase/prominence relation is more promising. This is then exemplified in analyses of cleft focus and constructional focus.

English focus constructions and the theory of grammar

Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Theoretical assumptions 2. Extraposition from NP 3. Stylistic inversion 4. NP shift 5. English focus constructions Notes References Index of names Index of subjects.

ISLAND CONSTRAINTS: AN INTRODUCTION!

Island constraints have formed a central component of grammatical theory since the ground breaking work of Ross (1967) developing a proposal in Chomsky (1964). The papers collected in this volume address island constraints from a variety of theoretical linguistic and psycholinguistic perspectives. They result from a conference held at the University of Ottawa during the fall of 1989, at which specialists from several fields met to engage in interdisciplinary dialogue over the nature and manifestations of island constraints. In this brief introduction, we will attempt to summarize the intellectual setting that serves as backdrop to the investigations reported on here. To do so both fully and briefly presents a difficult challenge. But we think the inevitable risk of misrepresentation and offense is worth the effort. For it is only by making results accessible outside their domains of specialization that we can hope to foster the cross-disciplinary dialogue that we believe so essential to the growth of our knowledge and understanding of the mechanisms of language.