Chapter 4

Acceptability and frequency in Spanish focus marking

In this paper, we analyze the status and relevance of three syntactic positions for focus marking in Spanish: sentence-initial, sentence-internal, and sentence-final position (as we will only consider constituents with an unmarked linear position that is postverbal and non-final, initial position is the result of fronting and final position is the result of p-movement). Although all three positions are options for both information and contrastive focus, we will show that the positions do not have the same status. Based on frequency and acceptability data from several experimental studies, we will argue that final and internal position are the preferred positions for information focus and that internal position is the preferred position for contrastive focus. Concerning the relation between frequency and acceptability, we will demonstrate that the two sources of data generally show a matching pattern: Options that are more acceptable are also more frequent (and vice versa). Nevertheless, acceptability does not imply frequency, as contrastive focus in initial position is an option that is acceptable but very rare in frequency data. Hence, acceptability is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for usage.