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13.3.2.Contrastive focus and topic movement

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This section discusses focus and topic movement, which are illustrated in (112a) and (112b), respectively. The fact that the movements in (112) involve a PP, which moreover functions as a subpart of a clausal constituent, immediately shows that we are dealing with A'-movement. We will represent the lexical domain of the verb as [LD ... V ...] instead of [vP ... v [VP ... V ...]], and ignore traces of subjects if they are not directly relevant for the discussion; cf. the introduction to Section 13.3.

Example 112

a.	dat	Marie [FocP	[op Peter]i Foc [LD [AP	erg dol ti]	is]].
	that	Marie	of Peter	very fond	is
	'that Marie is very fond of Peter.'

weet

niet

wat

Marie van Jan

vindt,

maar

weet

wel ...

dat

ze [TopP

[op Peter]i Top [LD [AP

erg dol ti]

is]].

know

not

what

Marie of Jan

considers,

but

know

aff

that

she

of Peter

very fond

'I donʼt know how Marie feels about Jan but I do know sheʼs very fond of Peter.'

The contrastive phrases in (112) are characterized phonetically by a specific accent involving a high pitch followed by a sudden drop in pitch. The two cases differ in that the contrastive focus accent, which is sometimes called A-accent, concludes after the fall in pitch, while the contrastive topic accent, which is sometimes called B-accent, has an additional rise in pitch; cf. Jackendoff (1972: section 6.7), Büring (2007), and Neeleman & Van de Koot (2008). The development of the two pitch accents is represented in (113) by means of lines: in the examples words with an A-accent will be indicated by means of small caps in italics, while words with a B-accent will not be in small caps but will be doubly underlined as well as italicized; cf. (112).

Example 113

Semantically speaking, contrastive accent evokes a set of alternative propositions. A common intuition is that contrastive focus involves "some kind of contrast between the Focus constituent and alternative pieces of information which may be explicitly presented or presupposed" (Dik 1997:332). This can be formally represented by assuming that focus adds an additional semantic value (henceforth: focus value) to the regular semantic value (henceforth: ordinary value) of a clause; cf. Rooth (1997). So, while the ordinary value of the sentence Jan bezoekt Marie'Jan is visiting Marie' is simply the proposition given in (114a&b), the added focus values are sets of proposition, as indicated in the primed examples, in which the value of the variables x and y are taken from the set of (contextually defined) individuals E.

Example 114

[Jan bezoekt [Focus Marie]]o = visit(j,m)

ordinary value

a'.

[Jan bezoekt [Focus Marie]]F = {visit(j,x) | x ɛ E}

focus value

[[Focus Jan] bezoekt Marie]o = visit(j,m)

ordinary value

b'.

[[Focus Jan] bezoekt Marie]F = {visit(y,m) | y ɛ E}

focus value

The function of non-contrastive (new information) focus is that the speaker fills in an information gap on the part of the addressee by adding or selecting a proposition to or from the focus value; the speaker crucially does not intend to imply anything for the alternative propositions from the focus value. By using the A-accent on the other hand, the speaker implies that the ordinary value of the clause is counter-presuppositional. An utterance such as Jan bezoekt Marie then opposes the ordinary value of the clause in (114a) to other propositions from the focus value in (114a') that the speaker assumes to be considered true by the addressee, that is, the speaker implies that Jan did not visit at least one individual from E; see also Neeleman & Vermeulen (2012). It should be noted that the nature of the counter-presuppositional relation can be further specified by focus particles like alleen'only' and ook'too'; we will return to this in Subsection IC. By using the contrastive B-accent, the speaker implies that there is at least one other potential discourse topic that could have been addressed. For instance, the plurality of the finite verb in question (115a) implies that the set of contextually defined individuals E contains at least two persons who are expected to be invited for the party. The answer in (115b) does not provide an answer to the question but asserts something about one of the individuals from E; cf. Büring (2007), Neeleman & Van de Koot (2008) and Neeleman & Vermeulen (2012).

Example 115

a.	Wie	zijn	er	uitgenodigd	voor het feest?	question
	who	are	there	invited	for the party
	'Who are invited to the party?'

b.	Geen idee.	Ik	weet	alleen	dat	Peter	niet	kan	komen.	answer
	no idea	I	know	only	that	Peter	not	can	come
	'No idea. I only know that Peter cannot come.'

The examples in (112) have already shown that contrastive foci and topics are characterized syntactically by the fact that they can be displaced. This property will be investigated in more detail in the following subsections. Subsection I starts with a discussion of focus movement, which is followed by a discussion of topic movement in Subsection II. The investigation of focus and topic movement is relatively recent and it is therefore not surprising that there are still a large number of controversial issues, some of which will be discussed in Subsection III.

I. Focus movement
II. Topic movement
III. Controversial issues

[+] I. Focus movement

The direct objects in answers such as (116b&c) are assigned regular sentence accent (indicated by small caps) and are therefore part of the new-information focus. They can nevertheless be construed as contrastive foci in the sense that they exclude values of the variable x other than Marie. It should be noted, however, that in these cases the contrastive interpretations are entirely pragmatic in nature, as Grice’s cooperative principle requires the answers in (116) to be complete; cf. Neeleman & Vermeulen (2012).

Example 116

a.	Wie	heeft	Jan/hij	bezocht?	question: ?x(Jan/he has visited x)
	who	has	Jan/he	visited
	'Who has Jan/he visited?'

b.	Hij	heeft	een vriendin	bezocht:	Marie.	answer
	he	has	a friend	visited	Marie
	'He has visited a lady friend: Marie.'

c.	Jan heeft	Marie	bezocht.	answer
	Jan has	Marie	visited
	'Jan has visited Marie.'

The cases of contrastive foci that will be discussed in this subsection are different in that they are characterized as contrastive by the phonetic property of carrying a contrastive A-accent and the syntactic property that they can be moved leftward by focus movement. Subsection A starts by discussing the landing site of focus movement, Subsection B will argue that focus movement is A'-movement, and Subsection C will conclude by arguing that focus movement is obligatory, just like other semantically motivated movements.

[+] A. The landing site of focus movement

This subsection discusses the landing site of focus movement. Following the line of research in Rizzi (1996) and Haegeman (1995), one option would be to postulate a focus phrase (FocP) in the middle field of the clause, the specifier of which is a designated landing site for focus movement. Neeleman & Van de Koot (2008) assume that focus movement is motivated by the need to assign scope to the focus phrase or, in their formulation, to distinguish contrastive foci from the backgrounds against which they are evaluated; see Barbiers (2010) for an alternative proposal. Since we have seen that contrastive foci evoke a set of alternative propositions, we may safely conclude that the background at least contains the lexical domain of the main verb: this entails that FocP is part of the verb’s functional domain.

Example 117

... [FocP XPi Foc [ ... [LD ... ti ...]]]

Neeleman & Van de Koot argue against hypothesis (117), in as far as it postulates a designated target position for focus movement, and claim that focus movement can target any position from which the contrastively focused phrase may take scope over its background. The advantage of their proposal is that we can easily account for examples such as (118) by saying that the word order difference between the two examples reflects a scopal difference between the focused phrase and the modal adverb waarschijnlijk'probably': the adverb is in the scope of the focus in (118a), but not in (118b).

Example 118

a.	dat	ze	[op Peter]i	waarschijnlijk [LD [AP	erg dol ti]	is].
	that	she	of Peter	probably	very fond	is
	'that she is probably very fond of Peter.'

b.	dat	ze waarschijnlijk	[op Peter]i [LD [AP	erg dol ti]	is].
	that	she probably	of Peter	very fond	is
	'that she is probably very fond of Peter.'

A potential problem for the hypothesis that the contrastively focused phrase can target any position from which it may scope over the lexical domain of the clause is that it seems to overgenerate. The examples in (119b&c), for instance, show that the target position of focus movement cannot follow negation or precede a weak subject pronoun in the regular subject position.

Example 119

a.	dat	ze	[op Peter]i	niet [LD [AP	erg dol ti]	is].
	that	she	of Peter	not	very fond	is
	'that she probably isnʼt very fond of Peter.'

b.	*	dat	ze	niet	[op Peter]i [LD [AP	erg dol ti]	is].
		that	she	not	of Peter	very fond	is

c.	*	dat	[op Peter]i	ze	niet [LD [AP	erg dol ti]	is].
		that	of Peter	she	not	very fond	is

The schematic representation in (120a) summarizes the positions in which the contrastively focused PP op P eter can or cannot be found. On the assumption that focus movement targets the specifier position of a FocP, we can account for this in at least two ways. One option is to adopt the representation in (120b), according to which there are two FocPs, one relatively high and one relatively low in the middle field of the clause; cf. Belletti (2004), Aboh (2007), and Zubizarreta (2010). Another option is that there is just a single FocP but that the modal adverb can be placed either above or below FocP depending on its scope relative to the contrastive focus, as in (120b').

Example 120

dat <*PPi> hij <PPi> waarschijnlijk <PPi> niet <*PPi> [LD [AP erg dol ti] is].

dat hij .. [FocP .. Foc [.. waarschijnlijk [FocP .. Foc [NegP .. Neg [LD ...]]]]]

b'.

dat hij <waarschijnlijk> [FocP .. Foc [.. <waarschijnlijk> [NegP .. Neg [LD ...]]]]

Since the debate on the landing site of focus movement is just in its initial stage, we will not evaluate the three proposals any further, but simply assume for concreteness’ sake that focus movement targets the specifier of FocP.

[+] B. Focus movement is A'-movement

This subsection reviews a number of arguments for assuming that focus movement is A'-movement. A first, and conclusive, argument is that focus movement can affect non-nominal categories. It has also been argued that focus movement may violate certain word order restrictions that constrain A-movement, but we will see that there are certain difficulties with this argument. A third argument found in the literature is that focus movement is not clause-bound.

[+] 1. Categorial restrictions

A-movement is restricted to nominal categories. The fact illustrated again in (121b) that focus movement may also affect PPs is therefore sufficient for concluding that we are dealing with A'-movement. Example (121c) further supports this conclusion by providing an example in which an adjectival complementive has undergone focus movement.

Example 121

a.	dat	Jan waarschijnlijk	[het boek]i	niet ti	wil	kopen.
	that	Jan probably	the book	not	wants	buy
	'that Jan probably doesnʼt want to buy the book.'

b.	dat	Jan waarschijnlijk	[op vader]i	niet ti	wil	wachten.
	that	Jan probably	for father	not	wants	wait
	'that Jan probably doesnʼt want to wait for father.'

c.	dat	Jan deze zaak	waarschijnlijk	[zo belangrijk]i	niet ti	vindt.
	that	Jan this case	probably	that important	not	considers
	'that Jan probably doesnʼt consider this case that important.'

The conclusion that focus movement is A'-movement is in line with the conclusion that focus movement may target a position to the right of the modal adverbs because Section 13.2 has shown that nominal argument shift targets a position to the left of the modal adverbs. This contrast can be highlighted by the VP-topicalization constructions in (122), which show that the direct object can only be stranded in a position after the clause adverbials if it is contrastively focused.

Example 122

a.		[VPti	Kopen]	wil	Jan	<het boeki>	waarschijnlijk <*het boeki> tVP.
		[VPti	buy	wants	Jan	the book	probably

b.		[VPti	Kopen]	wil	Jan waarschijnlijk	het boekitVP.
		[VPti	buy	wants	Jan probably	the book

It can also be illustrated quite nicely by means of the placement of strong (phonetically non-reduced) referential personal pronouns like zij'she' en haar'her'; such pronouns may only occur after the modal adverbs if they carry an A-accent.

Example 123

a.	dat	<zij/zij>	waarschijnlijk <zij/*zij>	het boek	gekocht	heeft.
	that	she/she	probably	the book	bought	has
	'that she/she probably has bought the book'

b.	dat	Jan	<haar/haar>	waarschijnlijk <haar/*haar>	wil	helpen.
	that	Jan	her/her	probably	wants	help
	'that Jan probably wants to help her/HER.'

Furthermore, that nominal argument shift and focus movement target different landing sites is highlighted by the fact that -human referential personal pronouns can never occur after the modal adverbs, for the simple reason that they are obligatorily reduced phonetically; in order to contrastively focus an inanimate entity, the demonstrative deze/die'this/that' is needed.

Example 124

a.	dat	hij	<de auto>	waarschijnlijk <de auto>	gekocht	heeft.
	that	he	the car	probably	bought	has
	'that he probably has bought the car.'

b.	dat	hij	<ʼm/die>	waarschijnlijk <die/hem/ʼm>	gekocht	heeft.
	that	he	him/dem	probably	bought	has
	'that he probably has bought that one.'

[+] 2. Word order

Another argument in favor of an A'-movement analysis of focus movement has to do with word order. Section 13.2, sub IC, has shown that nominal argument shift cannot affect the unmarked order of nominal arguments (agent > goal > theme) in Dutch. Neeleman & Van de Koot (2008), Van de Koot (2009) as well as Neeleman & Vermeulen (2012) claim that focus movement is able to change the order of nominal arguments, as illustrated in (125), and that this supports the claim that we are dealing with A'-movement.

Example 125

a.	%	Ik	geloof	[dat	dit boeki	Jan Marie ti	gegeven	heeft].
		I	believe	that	this book	Jan Marie	given	has

b.	%	Ik	geloof	[dat	Jan dit boeki	Marie ti	gegeven	heeft].
		I	believe	that	Jan this book	Marie	given	has

c.	Ik	geloof	[dat	Jan Marie	dit boek	gegeven	heeft].
	I	believe	that	Jan Marie	this book	given	has
	'I believe that Jan has given Marie this book.'

The argument is not entirely convincing; the fact that this type of order preservation does not hold for German nominal argument shift shows that it is not a defining property of nominal argument shift; cf. Section 13.2, sub IC. Furthermore, the judgments given by Neeleman and his collaborators are controversial, as some speakers of Dutch (including the authors of this work) reject the examples in (125a&b) with the indicated intonation pattern; see also Neeleman & Van de Koot (2008:fn.2) and Van de Koot (2009:fn.4). A simpler example –which is likewise rejected by some of our informants– is given in (126). In our view, the unclear acceptability status of (125a&b) and (126a) makes it impossible to draw any firm conclusion from them; in fact, it remains to be seen whether these examples should be considered part of the standard variety of Dutch, but we will leave this issue for future research.

Example 126

a.	%	Ik	geloof	[dat	dit boeki	Jan ti	gelezen	heeft].
		I	believe	that	this book	Jan	read	has

b.	Ik	geloof	[dat	Jan dit boeki	gelezen	heeft].
	I	believe	that	Jan this book	read	has
	'I believe that Jan has read this book.'

In order to avoid confusion, we should note that the examples marked with % become acceptable if the contrastively accented phrases are given a B-accent, in which case we are dealing with a contrastive topic; Subsection II will provide more data showing that topic movement may indeed affect the unmarked order of nominal arguments under certain conditions.
Example (127a) shows that focus movement is able to change the unmarked order of nominal and prepositional objects: while prepositional indirect objects normally follow direct objects, focus movement of the former can easily cross the latter. It should be noted, however, that this requires the direct object to follow the modal adverb: the examples in (127b&c) show that object shift of het boek has a degrading effect on focus movement regardless of whether the focused phrase precedes or follows the modal adverb; we added the adverb niet to (127c) to make focus movement visible. Observe that (127b) becomes fully acceptable if the PP is assigned a B-accent, which shows that topic movement may cross a shifted object.

Example 127

a.	dat	Jan	<aan Els>	waarschijnlijk <aan Els>	het boek	zal	geven.
	that	Jan	to Els	probably	the book	will	give
	'that Jan will probably give the book to Els.'

b.	??	dat	Jan	aan Els	het boek	waarschijnlijk	zal	geven.
		that	Jan	to Els	the book	probably	will	give
		'that Jan will probably give the book to Els.'

c.	dat	Jan het boek	waarschijnlijk	<??aan Els>	niet <aan Els>	zal	geven.
	that	Jan the book	probably	to Els	not	will	give
	'that Jan probably will not give the book to Els.'

This subsection has shown that the claim that focus movement is able to change the unmarked order of nominal arguments in Standard Dutch is controversial; whether this property could be used as an argument in favor of the claim that focus movement is A'-movement is not clear either, as order preservation seems to be an accidental property of nominal argument shift in Dutch.

[+] 3. Focus movement is not clause-bound

A'-movement differs from A-movement in that it allows extraction from finite clauses under certain conditions. Neeleman (1994a/1994b) and Barbiers (1999/2002) have shown that this also holds for focus movement: the examples in (128) illustrate that foci can target a focus position in the middle field of a matrix clause. The percentage signs are used to indicate that this type of long focus movement is normally not found in writing but can be encountered in colloquial speech; cf. Zwart (1993:200).

Example 128

a.	%	Ik	had	[in de tuin]i	gedacht	[dat	het feest ti	zou	zijn].
		I	had	in the garden	thought	that	the party	would	be
		'I had thought that the party would be in the garden.'

b.	%	Ik	had	[een boek]i	gedacht	[dat	Jan ti	zou	kopen].
		I	had	a book	thought	that	Jan	would	buy
		'I had thought that Jan would buy a book.'

That the landing site of the foci is external to the embedded clause is clear from the fact that the foci precede the clause-final main verb of the matrix clause. Because the examples in (129) show that embedded topicalization is impossible in Dutch (cf. Section 11.3.3, sub II), it is even impossible for foci to follow the verbs in clause-final position.

Example 129

a.	*	Ik	had gedacht	[[in de tuin]i	dat	het feest ti	zou	zijn].
		I	had thought	in the garden	that	the party	would	be

b.	*	Ik	had	gedacht	[[een boek]i	dat	Jan ti	zou	kopen].
		I	had	thought	a book	that	John	would	buy

Although examples such (128) may be objectionable to certain speakers, the sharp contrast with the examples in (129) show that they are at least marginally possible in standard Dutch. This conclusion is also supported by the fact that the examples in (128) are clearly much better than the corresponding examples in (130) with the factive verb betreuren'to regret'. This contrast shows that long focus movement is only possible in specific bridge contexts.

Example 130

a.	*	Ik	had	[in de tuin]i	betreurd	[dat	het feest ti	zou	zijn].
		I	had	in the garden	regretted	that	the party	would	be

b.	*	Ik	had	[een boek]i	betreurd	[dat	Jan ti	zou	kopen].
		I	had	a book	regretted	that	John	would	buy

There are reasons for assuming that long focus movement is like long wh-movement in that it has to pass through the initial position of the embedded clause. A weakish argument in favor of this claim is that the direct object een boek'a book' in (128) can easily cross the subject, as this is a well-established property of A'-movements that target the clause-initial position. A stronger argument is that long focus movement cannot co-occur with long wh-movement, as is illustrated by the examples in (131): the examples in (131b&c) first show that wh-phrases and foci can be extracted from the embedded clause in (131a), while (131d) shows that they cannot be extracted simultaneously. This would follow immediately if long movement must proceed via the clause-initial position of the embedded clause: long wh-movement would then block long focus movement (or vice versa) because this position can be filled by a single (trace of a) constituent only; see Barbiers (2002) for a slightly different account.

Example 131

a.	Ik	had gedacht	[dat	Jan morgen	in de tuin	zou	werken].
	I	had thought	that	Jan tomorrow	in the garden	would	work
	'I had thought that Jan would work in the garden tomorrow.'

b.	Waari	had	jij	gedacht	[dat	Jan morgen ti	zou	werken]?
	where	had	you	thought	that	Jan tomorrow	would	work
	'Where had you thought that Jan would work tomorrow?'

c.	%	Ik	had morgenj	gedacht	[dat	Jan tj	in de tuin	zou	werken].
		I	had tomorrow	thought	that	Jan	in the garden	would	work
		'I had thought that Jan would work in the garden tomorrow.'

d.	*	Waari	had	jij	morgenj	gedacht	[dat Jan tjti	zou	werken]?
		where	had	you	tomorrow	thought	that Jan	would	work

[+] C. Is focus movement obligatory?

There is good reason for assuming that A'-movement is obligatory because it is needed to derive structures that can be interpreted by the semantic component of the grammar. Section 11.3.1.1, sub II, argued, for instance, that wh-movement in wh-questions is obligatory because it derives an operator-variable chain in the sense of predicate calculus. And Section 13.3.1, sub II, has argued that negation movement is obligatory in order to assign scope to sentence negation. In view of this we may hypothesize that focus movement is needed to assign scope to contrastively focused phrases (unless there is some other means to indicate scope). Languages such as Hungarian, where contrastive foci are obligatorily moved into a position left-adjacent to the finite verb, seem to support this hypothesis; cf. É. Kiss (2002:ch4). Languages such as English, which seem to mark contrastive focus by intonation only, are potential problems for the hypothesis, but since it has been argued that English does have focus movement in at least some constructions (cf. Kayne 1998), it remains to be seen whether languages like English constitute true counterexamples. This subsection argues that focus movement is normally obligatory in Standard Dutch by appealing to constructions featuring focus particles of two types: counter-presuppositional focus particles ( alleen'only', ook'also', etc.) and scalar focus particles ( al'already', nog'still', maar'just', etc.).

[+] 1. Constituents with an A-accent that remain in situ

One potential problem for the hypothesis that focus movement is obligatory in Standard Dutch is that it is sometimes possible to leave constituents with an A-accent in their original position. This is illustrated by the two examples in (132), which suggests that focus movement is optional. Of course, this conclusion is valid only if the two examples are semantically equivalent; this does not seem to be the case, however.

Example 132

a.	dat	Jan [FocP	[op Peter]i Foc [LD [AP	erg dol ti]	is]].
	that	Jan	of Peter	very fond	is
	'that Jan is very fond of Peter.'

b.	dat	Jan [AP	erg dol	op Peter]	is.
	that	Jan	very fond	of Peter	is
	'that Jan is very fond of Peter.'

Before showing that the two examples in (132) are not fully equivalent, we will first consider example (133a), which clearly has two readings: contrastive focus may be restricted to the direct object only, in which case the sentence expresses that there are certain other things in the domain of discourse that Jan did not read, or it may extend to the verb phrase, in which case the sentence expresses that there were certain things that Jan did not do. The examples in (133b&c) show that the two readings evoke different word orders if the negative adverb niet is present. The clearest case is (133b), in which contrastive focus is restricted to the moved direct object. Example (133c) is somewhat more complicated, as it again allows two readings, one with contrastive focus on the verb phrase, and one with contrastive focus on the noun phrase. This can be accounted for if we assume that in both cases we are dealing with constituent negation: Hij heeft niet de roman gelezen, maar het gras gemaaid'he hasnʼt read the novel, but mowed the grass' versus Hij heeft niet de roman gelezen, maar het gedicht'he didnʼt read the novel but the poem'.

Example 133

a.	dat	Jan	waarschijnlijk	de roman	gelezen	heeft.
	that	Jan	probably	the novel	read	has
	'that Jan has probably read the novel.'

b.	dat	Jan	waarschijnlijk	de roman	niet	gelezen	heeft.
	that	Jan	probably	the novel	not	read	has
	'that Jan has probably not read the novel.'

c.	dat	Jan	waarschijnlijk	niet	de roman	gelezen	heeft.
	that	Jan	probably	not	the novel	read	has
	'that Jan has probably not read the novel.'

The crucial thing for our present discussion is that (134a) is more suitable for expressing the restrictive focus reading than (134b). The former case evokes alternative propositions that express that there are persons other than Peter that Jan is very fond of, while (134b) rather expresses that the state of being fond of Peter is not applicable to Jan, as is clear from the fact that it cannot easily be followed by maar op MARIE'but of Marie'.

Example 134

a.	dat	Jan	[op Peter]i	niet [[AP	erg dol ti]	is],	maar	(wel)	op Marie.
	that	Jan	of Peter	not	very fond	is	but	aff	of Marie
	'that Jan isn't very fond of Peter, but that he is of Marie.'

b.	dat	Jan niet [[AP	erg dol	op Peter]	is],	maar	ʼm	haat.
	that	Jan not	very fond	of Peter	is	but	him	hates
	'that Jan is not very fond of Peter, but that he hates him.'

For completeness’ sake, note that the PP in (134a) must precede the negative adverb niet'not': cf. *dat Jan niet op PETER erg dol is. This is expected if it targets the specifier of FocP; see the discussion of (119) and (120).
Although constituents carrying an A-accent can remain in situ, the discussion above suggests that this disfavors the restrictive focus interpretation. Of course, before we can conclude from this that focus movement is obligatory, more should be said about the cases with constituent negation, but one thing is already clear: because niet'not' is not located in the specifier of NegP if it expresses constituent negation, its location does not tell us anything about the location of the contrastively focused phrase following it. The next subsection will show that there are reasons for assuming that the negative adverb niet functions as a focus particle if it expresses constituent negation and that the contrastively focused phrase following it normally occupies the specifier of FocP.

[+] 2. Counter-presuppositional focus particles

Focus adds an additional semantic value (henceforth: focus value) to the regular semantic value (henceforth: ordinary value) of a clause, as indicated again in (135) for the sentence Jan bezoekt Marie'Jan is visiting Marie'.

Example 135

[Jan

bezoekt [Focus

Marie]]o = visit(j,m)

ordinary value

a'.

[Jan bezoekt [Focus Marie]]F = {visit(j,x) | x ɛ E}

focus value

[[Focus Jan] bezoekt Marie]o = visit(j,m)

ordinary value

b'.

[[Focus Jan] bezoekt Marie]F = {visit(y,m) | y ɛ E}

focus value

The function of non-contrastive (new information) focus is that the speaker simply fills in an information gap on the part of the addressee by adding/selecting a proposition to/from the focus value of the clause; the speaker does not intend to imply anything for the alternative propositions. Contrastive focus, on the other hand, is counter-presuppositional in the sense that it aims at modifying the subset of propositions (PA)S, that is, the subset of propositions which the speaker presupposes to be considered true by the addressee; see the discussion of (114) in the introdution of this section. The modification can take various forms; we will slightly adapt Dik’s (1997) classification by making the four-way distinction in Table 1. The column expression type provides the English focus particles prototypically used to express the various subtypes; all subtypes are marked by an A-accent, which is represented by an exclamation mark.

Table 1: Types of counter-presuppositional focus

	(PA)S	modified set PS	expression type
correcting	X	Y	not X, but Y!
expanding	X	X and Y	also Y!
restricting	X and Y	X	only X!
selecting	X or Y	X	X!

Correcting focus is the most complex case as correction involves two simultaneous actions: rejection and replacement. The examples in (136) show that the speaker may perform both actions explicitly but that he may also leave one of the two implicit. The act of rejection is performed by means of constituent negation, that is, the focus particle niet'not' in combination with the A-accent, while the A-accent suffices to perform the act of replacement. Note in passing that (136b) is special in that it requires an additional accent on the negative adverb niet.

Example 136

Jan	heeft	het boek	gekocht.
Jan	has	the book	bought
'Jan has bought the book.'

a.		Nee,	hij	heeft	niet	het boek	gekocht,	maar	de plaat.	correction
		no	he	has	not	the book	bought	but	the record

b.		Nee,	hij	heeft	niet	het boek	gekocht.	rejection
		no	he	has	not	the book	bought

c.		Nee,	hij	heeft	de plaat	gekocht.	replacement
		no	he	has	the record	bought

Expanding, restricting and selecting focus are illustrated in (137). All cases again involve the A-accent. Expansion and restriction are prototypically expressed by means of the focus particles ook'also' and alleen'only', while selection is like replacement in that it does not involve the use of a focus particle.

Example 137

a.		Jan	heeft	het boek	gekocht.
		Jan	has	the book	bought

a'.	Ja,	maar	hij	heeft	ook	de plaat	gekocht.	expansion
	yes	but	he	has	also	the record	bought
	'Yes, but he has also bought the record.'

b.		Jan	heeft	het boek en de plaat	gekocht.
		Jan	has	the book and the record	bought

b'.		Nee,	hij	heeft	alleen	de plaat	gekocht.	restriction
		no	he	has	only	the record	bought

c.		Heeft	Jan	het boek of de plaat	gekocht?
		has	Jan	the book or the record	bought

c'.		Jan heeft	de plaat	gekocht.	selection
		Jan has	the record	bought

In the primed examples in (137) the focus particles ook and alleen are associated with nominal arguments but they can also be associated with larger constituents. In the primed examples in (138), for instance, the contrastive focus consists of the verbal projection given within square brackets and the focus particles are therefore associated with this phrase.

Example 138

a.		Jan	heeft	het boek	gekocht.
		Jan	has	the book	bought

a'.	Ja,	en	hij	is ook	[naar de bioscoop	geweest].	expansion
	yes	and	he	is also	to the cinema	been
	'Yes, and he has also been to the cinema.'

b.		Jan	heeft	het boek	gekocht	en	is naar de bioscoop	geweest.
		Jan	has	the book	bought	and	is to the cinema	been

b'.		Nee,	hij	heeft	alleen	[het boek	gekocht].	restriction
		no	he	has	only	the book	bought

c.		Heeft	Jan het boek	gekocht	of is hij	naar de bioscoop	geweest?
		has	Jan the book	bought	or is he	to the cinema	been

c'.		Jan heeft	[het boek	gekocht].	selection
		Jan has	the book	bought

More special cases not mentioned by Dik are focus particles like zelfs'even' and slechts'merely', perhaps because they are not necessarily counter-presuppositional. These particles are often akin to the particles ook'also' and alleen'only', but in addition they express a subjective evaluation, extremely high degree, surprise, etc.

Example 139

a.	Er	waren	veel mensen	aanwezig.
	there	were	many people	present
	'Many people were present.'

b.	Ja,	ik	heb	zelfs Peter gezien.
	yes	I	have	even Peter seen
	'Yes, I have even seen Peter.'

For the discussion below it is crucial to realize that a focus particle and the contrastively focused phrase associated with it may form a constituent. This is clear from the fact that they can occupy the clause-initial position together, as is illustrated in (140) for the relevant examples in (136) and (137). Observe that for unknown reasons it is not readily possible to construct similar cases for the examples in (138): cf. ??Alleen het boek gekocht heeft hij.

Example 140

Niet het boek

heeft

Jan gekocht,

maar

de plaat.