Discourse Configurational LanguagesKatalin É. Kiss Comprising eleven studies on languages with designated structural topic and focus positions, this volume includes an introduction surveying the empirical and theoretical problems involved in the description of this language type. Focusing on languages outside the traditional Indo-European group, the essays look at Chadic, Somali, Basque, Catalan, Old Romance, Greek, Hungarian, Finnish, Korean, and Quechua. The papers provide interesting new empirical data, as well as a variety of means and alternatives of representing them structurally. At the same time, they address important theoretical questions in the framework of generative theory. This is the first study to apply methods of comparative syntax to the study of topic and focus. |
Contents
| 3 | |
2 Structural Focus Structural Case and the Notion of FeatureAssignment | 28 |
3 Aspects of Discourse Configuationality in Somali | 65 |
4 Residual Verb Second and Verb First in Basque | 99 |
5 Structural Properties of Information Packaging in Catalan | 122 |
6 An F Position in Western Romance | 153 |
7 Focusing in Modern Greek | 176 |
8 NP Movement Operator Movement and Scrambling in Hungarian | 207 |
9 Discourse Configuationality in Finnish | 244 |
10 Focus and Topic Movement in Korean and Licensing | 269 |
11 The Theory of Syntactic Focalization Based on a Subcategorization Feature of Verbs | 335 |
12 Focus in Quechua | 375 |
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Common terms and phrases
A-bar A'-position adjacency adjunction adverbials analysis Anna argument assume base-generated Basque c-command Cali Catalan Chelswu Chelswu-ka Chelswu-sub Choe Chomsky clitic complex predicate configuration contrastive derived discourse element embedded clause English evidentials fact feature FOCUS Finnish focal foci Focus constructions Focus Movement focus phrase Focus position Focus-Criterion focused grammatical head Horvath Hungarian hypothesis Infl inflected information packaging interpretation János John Kikuyu Kiss Korean kukkia lexical licensed Linguistic Maria marker matrix clause ment morpheme move nominative NP Movement operator overt parameter parasitic gap particle pre-V constituent pre-V node pre-V position pre-verbal projection properties proposed quantifiers Quechua question relation S-structure scope semantic sentence Somali Spec SPEC-head SpecFP structure subcategorization Subjacency subject resumptive pronoun Swuni Swuni-ka Swuni-sub syntactic t₁ theory tion topic topic-prominent languages ungrammaticality Uriagereka verb verbal Verbal Complex Wh-Criterion Wh-movement wh-phrases wh-question word order Yanis Yenghi
Popular passages
Page 7 - Moreover, the categorical judgment is assumed to consist of two separate acts, one the act of recognition of that which is to be made the subject, and the other, the act of affirming or denying what is expressed by the predicate about the subject.
Page 6 - The (discourse-)semantic function of "topic", serving to foreground a specific individual/entity that something will be predicated about not necessarily identical with the grammatical subject, is expressed through a particular structural relation, ie, associated with a particular structural position, (type A) b. The (discourse-)semantic function of "focus", expressing identification, is realized through a particular structural relation, ie, by movement into a particular structural position, (type...