Focus Realization in Romance and Beyond
Editors
What are the linguistic means for expressing different types of foci such as (narrow) information focus and contrastive focus in Romance languages, and why are there such differing views on such a presumably clear-cut research subject? Bringing together original expert work from a variety of linguistic disciplines and perspectives such as language acquisition and language contact, this volume provides a state-of-the-art discussion on central issues of focus realization. These include the interaction between prosody, syntax, and pragmatics, the typology of word order and intonation languages, the differentiation between focus and related notions such as contrast and presupposed modality, and the role of synchronic variation and change. The studies presented in this volume cover a broad range of Romance languages, including French, Italian, Portuguese, and different varieties of Spanish. Moreover, the book also offers new insights into non-Romance languages such as English, German, and Quechua.
[Studies in Language Companion Series, 201] 2018. viii, 391 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
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Preface | pp. vii–viii
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Chapter 1. Introduction: Core issues of focus realization in RomanceMelanie Uth and Marco García García | pp. 1–30
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Part I. Prosody and word order
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Chapter 2. Language variation at the prosody-syntax interface: Focus in European SpanishMaria del Mar Vanrell and Olga Fernández-Soriano | pp. 33–70
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Chapter 3. Focus realization at the prosody-syntax interface: Yucatecan Spanish opposed to Standard Mexican SpanishMelanie Uth | pp. 71–98
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Chapter 4. Acceptability and frequency in Spanish focus markingSteffen Heidinger | pp. 99–128
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Part II. Prosody, focus, and related pragmatic functions
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Chapter 5. Prosodic nuclear patterns in narrow and broad focus utterances: Pragmatic and social factors in Central Mexican SpanishPedro Martín Butragueño and Érika Mendoza | pp. 131–172
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Chapter 6. Distinguishing contrast and focus at PF: A view from ItalianJacopo Torregrossa | pp. 173–200
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Part III. Modality and exclamatives
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Chapter 7. Presupposed modalityUli Reich | pp. 203–228
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Chapter 8. NP exclamatives and focusMarco García García | pp. 229–252
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Part IV. Cleft constructions
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Chapter 9. Adverbial cleft sentences in Italian, French and English: A comparative perspectiveAnna-Maria De Cesare and Davide Garassino | pp. 255–286
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Chapter 10. Cleft sentences in the history of French and English: A case of pragmatic borrowing?Carola Trips and Achim Stein | pp. 287–310
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Part V. Focus and language acquisition
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Chapter 11. Developing strategies for encoding additive and contrastive relations in French and German child narrativesChristine Dimroth and Sandra Benazzo | pp. 313–356
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Chapter 12. Focus, prosody, and subject positions in L3 Spanish: Analyzing data from German learners with Italian and European Portuguese as heritage languagesChristoph Gabriel and Jonas Grünke | pp. 357–386
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Index | pp. 387–392
Cited by
Cited by 5 other publications
Cruschina, Silvio & Laia Mayol
2022. The Realization of Information Focus in Catalan. Languages 7:4 ► pp. 310 ff. 
Fliessbach, Jan, Nuria Martínez García & Melanie Uth
2024. The Production of Post-Lexical Prosodic Prominence in Yucatec Maya and its Perception by Speakers of Yucatecan Spanish. International Journal of American Linguistics 90:2 ► pp. 185 ff.
Rosemeyer, Malte, Daniel Jacob & Lars Konieczny
2022. How alternatives are created. In When Data Challenges Theory [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 273], ► pp. 116 ff.
Uth, Melanie & Marco García García
2018. Chapter 1. Introduction. In Focus Realization in Romance and Beyond [Studies in Language Companion Series, 201], ► pp. 1 ff.
Uth, Melanie & Nuria Martínez García
2022. Circumflex Nuclear Configurations in Yucatecan Spanish as a Supraregional Feature: The Roles of Bilingualism and Gender. Language and Speech 65:4 ► pp. 833 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.
Subjects
Main BIC Subject
CF/2AD: Linguistics/Romance, Italic & Rhaeto-Romanic languages
Main BISAC Subject
LAN009060: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Syntax