Lecture 10: Topic, Focus and Negative Fronting

So far we have seen that the front of the clause is reserved for the part of sentence semantics that deals with force Interrogative/declarative/exclamative/etc.

This is where complementisers, inverted auxiliaries and wh-elements are situated [CP if/that [IP he is alive]] [CP will [IP he arrive on time]] [CP who did [IP you speak to]] [CP what a nice house [IP you have]]

But the front of the clause also houses other elements too: Those people, [IP I don’t talk to anymore] A: did you see Bill?

B: no, (it was) JOHN [IP I saw] Under no circumstances would [IP I lie to you]

All these examples involve the front of the clause (in front of the IP at least), but they do not contribute to the force of the sentence

Instead they seem to affect the information status of the fronted element How important a piece of information it is What kind of information it carries

Topicalisation is the name of the fronting movement in the following examples John, I hate In this school, we pay attention to rules Ugly, he certainly was

Topic is a notion usually defined as what a sentence is about

Perhaps more accurately it is what a set of connected sentences (discourse) is about what holds them together

A man walked into a shop The shopkeeper greeted him The man asked for a pound of cheese He paid the shopkeeper and left

Therefore, the topic is something that has already been introduced into a conversation Or is assumed to be present (and to the fore)

in both the speaker and hearers mind during the conversation

even if it hasn’t actually be mentioned Certain things can be ‘triggered’ by the

mention of something else We went to a restaurant yesterday The food was awful

We say that the topic carries ‘old’ information

What follows the topic (the comment) carries the new information

We can see from our story that the topic is associated with certain forms A man walked into a shop The shopkeeper greeted him The man asked for a pound of cheese He paid the shopkeeper and left

Pronouns Definite DPs

However, topics are not necessarily fronted Why is the fronting movement called

‘topicalisation’?

Unfortunately this is a misnomer and has caused some confusion ever since its introduction

But the name has become standard and so we seem to be stuck with it

To be fronted, an element not only needs to be a topic but it also must involve contrast

Contrast involves the comparison between at least two things

So contrastive topics involve the presupposition of a set of topics things that have been previously introduced, or

‘triggered’ in a conversation The speaker selects one of this set and

contrasts it with the others in the comment

Three men went into a shop One of them, the shopkeeper already

knew This implies that he didn’t know the other

two Because ‘the shopkeeper knew him’ is

given as a piece of information contrasting with the other two men

Obviously a contrastive topic is moved to the front of the clause

But where does it move to? A first idea is that it moves to the

specifier of CP The same place that the wh-phrase moves

to But there are reasons to believe that this

is not so

There can be more than one contrastive topic In this school, this kind of behaviour we will not

tolerate There can only be one fronted wh-phrase

* who where did you meet? Who did you meet where?

A contrastive topic can precede a wh-phrase In this town, where can I buy some shoes?

In embedded clauses, the contrastive topic follows the complementiser I said that, in this town, there are no shoeshops

If the topic moves to a specifier position of some phrase, the fact that there can be more than one of them indicates that there must be more than one such phrase

It has been suggested that the particular phrase involved is one dedicated to topicalisation, headed by an abstract ‘topic’ head

Evidence in favour of this idea is that some languages overtly realise this abstract topic marker: Japanese

kodomo ga Terebi o mitachild nom TV acc watched“the child watched the TV”

Terebi wa kodomo ga mitaTV top child nom watched“as for the TV, the child watched it”

However, we need to ask what category the ‘Top’ head belongs to

It takes CP, IP and TopP complements [TopP that idiot Top [CP who would [IP vote for]]] ... [CP that [TopP this man Top [IP I just can’t stand]]] [TopP in this place Top [TopP this behaviour Top [CP

we don’t like]] So it is not like a functional head

C IP I VP D NP Deg AP

But it is not a predicate, taking arguments So it is not like any thematic head

It is a head which is nothing like any other head

This means it cannot be analysed with the categorial features [±F, ±N, ±V]

This is a problem for the theory of categories

Another possible analysis is that the topic is in an adjunction structure This accounts for why

there can be more than one of them

There would be no abstract ‘topic’ head required

We know that adjunction movements are possible When a head moves to another head, it

adjoins to it Given that the topic is a phrase, it

makes sense that it will adjoin to another phrase (CP, IP, etc.)

We have seen that topics can precede wh-phrases and follow complementisers This button, who wants to press? I think that, this button, the president

shouldn’t press In the first case the topic must be

adjoined to the CP and in the second it must be adjoined to IP

However, it appears that it is not optional whether the topic adjoins to CP or IP A topic cannot adjoin to the IP of a main

clause: * when did, [IP that man, [IP you meet]]

A topic cannot adjoin to the CP of an embedded clause:

* I think, [CP that man, [CP that I don’t like]]

One way to describe all this is: The topic has to adjoin to the highest

possible clausal node Usually this is CP

But nothing can adjoin to the CP of an embedded clause

Because this CP is selected by a governing head

Therefore, in this case, it has to adjoin to the next highest clausal node

i.e. The IP

It is hard to see whether a subject can topicalise because it is already at the front of the clause: ? John, hates Bill

Even if the subject is of an embedded clause it is difficult to tell: John, I think, hates Bill

Does this involve topicalisation of the subject or an epenthetic comment? John hates Bill, I think

However, a subject does not precede a wh-phrase in a main clause Who does John like * John, who does like

This suggests that subject cannot topicalise But the subject of an embedded clause can

precede a wh-phrase in the main clause That man, who thinks likes Mary

This cannot be treated as an epenthetic comment * that man likes Mary, who thinks

So it is only the subject of the main clause that cannot topicalise

We have seen that there can be more than one topic In this town, gun slingers, the sheriff

shoots However, it is not possible to have

more than one DP topic * Mary, flowers, I gave

This is very odd and has no obvious explanation

We have seen that adverbials of all kinds (VP and sentential) can occupy the initial position Quickly, he hid the evidence Obviously, I had never seen him before

This looks like the topic position It is at the front of the clause It has a similar intonation pattern

While it can have the same contrastive meaning that topics do: Today, we will start on a new project

But this isn’t always the case He suddenly realised the time Suddenly, he realised the time

It seems that these are two different processes: Today, who wants to go first * suddenly, who realised their mistake Who did suddenly John realise was missing

Fronted adverbs therefore seem to adjoin to the IP, even in main clauses

Adverbs can be topicalised (adjoined to CP in main clauses), but only if contrastive

This involves a fronted element and a ‘resumptive pronoun’ in the place associated with it That man, I don’t like him

Given that there is a pronoun in this kind of structure, it is not easily analysed as involving movement

Moreover, subjects can be left dislocated My father, he doesn’t like cats

The meaning of a left dislocation structure is also different from topicalisation

It is mainly used to introduce a new topic rather than to contrast a set of established topics A: well, that’s life! M: life, don’t talk to me about that

A dislocated item is adjoined in the same place as a topic: CP of a main clause

[CP My idea, [CP what do you think about it]]

IP of an embedded clause I assumed that, [IP my father, [IP he wouldn’t like

it]]

There is a construction which seems to be a mixture of contrastive topicalisation and left dislocation: As for my wife, she didn’t leave the house

The fronted element is a contrastive topic But the structure also involves a resumptive

pronoun As subjects can appear as ‘as for’ topics, this is how

we can contrastively topicalise a subject in English They are adjoined like other topics

As for this idiot, why would anyone vote for him I think that, as for me, I wouldn’t buy his car

Consider the following: A: you’ve met Bill, haven’t you? B: no, JOHN I know, but not Bill

Obviously the fronted element (JOHN) is contrastive

But it is not a topic It carries new information

it corrects something that was wrongly believed So it is new to the hearer

It has a different intonation pattern to the topic

It carries more stress There is no pause after it

John, I know JOHN I know

Something that introduces new and important information is called a focus

In English, focus is usually marked by intonation alone – main stress: A: who did you meet? B I met BILL

A: who knows the answer B: JOHN knows the answer

But it can be fronted, particularly if it is strongly contrastive (as in corrective situations) A: who did you meet B: I met BILL : ??? BILL I met

A: you met John B: no, BILL I met : no, I met BILL

Unlike topicalisation, only one fronted focus is allowed: A: you met John at his house B: * no, IN THE PARK BILL I met

This suggests that this movement is not an adjunction

Therefore it moves the focus into a specifier position

But which one?

The fronted focus position precedes the subject The obvious candidate would be specifier of CP

This is supported by the fact that fronted foci and wh-phrases are in complementary distribution: * BILL who met

But against this hypothesis is the fact that fronted foci follow complementisers I said that BILL I met

There are independent reasons why wh-elements and foci cannot appear in the same sentence You can’t ask for new information and provide new

information in the same sentence This is shown by the ungrammaticality of the

following, which doesn’t involve focus fronting: * who likes BILL

All in all, then, we can assume that the fronted focus does not move to the specifier of CP

There must be another phrase between the CP and the IP

What heads this phrase?

What is its category?

We know that C takes an IP complement

But the phrase containing the fronted focus cannot be IP as There can be no extra

inflection * BILL will I may meet

Inflections take VP (or vP) complements, not IP

A possible solution: similar to the ‘little v’ there is a

‘little i’ V = [-F, +V, -N] v =

[+V, -N] I = [+F, +V, -N] i =

[+F, +V] Complementisers select for a

[+F, +V, -N] complement IP and iP satisfy this requirement

However, ‘i’ is never overtly realised, so we have no direct evidence of its existence

Negative phrases can be moved to the front of the clause [Not a single person] have I

seen all day Note that there is an

inverted auxiliary in this structure

Perhaps the fronted negative moves to the specifier of CP

But like Foci, fronted negatives follow complementisers I said that [under no

circumstances] was the money to be spent

So it seems as though the relevant position is specifier of iP

Note that the inverted auxiliary occupies the ‘i’ position This is overt evidence for

its existence

The question arises If both foci and fronted negatives move to

specifier of iP, why is the inversion only with fronted negatives?

The difference between negatives and foci are that negatives affect the type of clauses they are part of

Something happened, didn’t it Nothing happened, did it

Positive sentences are tagged with negative tags Negative sentences are tagged with positive tags

John arrived and so did Bill No letter arrived, an neither did a parcel

Positive sentences trigger ‘so’ Negative sentences trigger ‘neither’

There is no indication that there is such a thing as a ‘focus’ type of sentence

In this way, negatives are like wh-elements Their presence affects the meaning of the

whole sentence

Wh-elements affect the status of the CP by agreeing with the C head So something must be in

this position

Similarly we can assume that the negative also needs to agree with the i head So something needs to

be in this position Hence, inversion

As focus does not affect the meaning of the clause in this way, it does not need to agree with the head

So the head position does not need to be filled

There are a number of movements which target the front of the clause Adjunctions

Contrastive topics Adjoin to the highest clausal node possible (CP or IP)

Fronted Adverbials Adjoin to the IP

Movements to specifiers Wh-movement

Specifier of CP Focus fronting

Specifier of iP Negative fronting

Specifier of iP