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    13.3.2.Contrastive focus and topic movement
    quickinfo

    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.

    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.'
    b. Ik weet niet wat Marie van Jan vindt, maar ik weet wel ... dat ze [TopP [op Peter]i Top [LD [AP erg dol ti] is]].
      I  know  not  what  Marie of Jan  considers,  but  I  know  aff that  she   of Peter  very fond  is
      '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).

    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.

    114
    a. [Jan bezoekt [Focus Marie]]o = visit(j,m)
    ordinary value
    a'. [Jan bezoekt [Focus Marie]]F = {visit(j,x) | x ɛ E}
    focus value
    b. [[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).

    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.

    readmore
    [+]  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).

    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.

    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).

    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.

    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').

    120
    a. dat <*PPi> hij <PPi> waarschijnlijk <PPi> niet <*PPi> [LD [AP erg dol ti] is].
    b. 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.

    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.

    122
    a. [VPti Kopen] wil Jan <het boeki> waarschijnlijk <*het boeki> tVP.
      buy  wants  Jan    the book  probably
    b. [VPti Kopen] wil Jan waarschijnlijk het boekitVP.
      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.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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).

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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'.

    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'.

    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'.

    135
    a. [Jan bezoekt [Focus Marie]]o = visit(j,m)
    ordinary value
    a'. [Jan bezoekt [Focus Marie]]F = {visit(j,x) | x ɛ E}
    focus value
    b. [[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.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    140
    a. Niet het boek heeft Jan gekocht, maar de plaat.
      not the book  has  Jan bought  but  the record
      'Jan hasnʼt bought the book, but the record.'
    b. Ook/Alleen de plaat heeft Jan gekocht.
      also/only  the record  has  Jan bought
      'Jan has also/only bought the record.'
    c. Zelfs Peter heb ik gezien.
      even Peter  have  I  seen
      'I have even seen Peter.'

    Of course, much more can be said about the meaning of focus particles, but we will not digress on this here and refer the reader instead to studies such as König (1991), Foolen (1993) and Barbiers (1995).
          Now that we have established that focus particles may form a constituent with contrastively focused phrases, we can discuss the hypothesis that focus movement is required to assign scope to the contrastively focused phrase. The examples in (141) show that while prepositional objects normally follow sentence negation, they can precede negation if they are contrastively focused. Since we have seen that focus movement normally targets a position preceding sentence negation, the fact that the contrastively focused PP can follow niet is a potential problem for the hypothesis that focus movement is obligatory.

    141
    a. Jan wil <*naar ʼm> niet <naar ʼm> luisteren.
      Jan  wants     to him  not  listen
      'Jan doesn't want to listen to him.'
    b. Jan wil <naar hem> niet <naar hem> wil luisteren.
      Jan  wants    to him  not  wants  listen
      'Jan doesn't want to listen to him.'

    In (142) we provide similar focus constructions as in (141b), but now with a focus particle present. If such particles can indeed form a constituent with the contrastively focused PP and if focus movement is obligatory, we correctly predict that the presence of these focus particles requires that the prepositional object is moved across negation.

    142
    a. Jan wil <alleen naar hem> niet <*alleen naar hem> luisteren.
      Jan wants    only to him  not  listen
      'Jan doesn't want to listen to him only.'
    b. Jan wil <ook naar hem> niet <*ook naar hem> luisteren.
      Jan wants    also to him  not  listen
      'Jan doesn't want to listen to him either.'
    c. Jan wil <zelfs naar hem> niet <*zelfs naar hem> luisteren.
      Jan wants   even to him  not  listen
      'Jan doesn't want to listen even to him.'

    The examples in (142) thus support the claim that focus movement is obligatory. Similar examples, in which the contrastively focused PP is embedded in an adjectival complementive, are given in (143). The fact that the PPs must precede the adjective if they are accompanied by a focus particle again shows that focus movement is obligatory; cf. Barbiers (2014).

    143
    a. dat Jan <(alleen) op hem> boos <(*alleen) op hem> is.
      that  Jan     only  at him  angry  is
      'that Jan is only angry with him.'
    b. dat Jan <(ook) op hem> boos <(*ook) op hem> is.
      that  Jan  also  at him  angry  is
      'that Jan is also angry with him.'
    c. dat Jan <(zelfs) op hem> boos <(*zelfs) op hem> boos <(*zelfs) op hem> is.
      that  Jan     even at him  angry  is
      'that Jan is even angry with him.'

    The examples in (142) and (143) strongly suggest that the optionality of focus movement in examples such as (141b) is only apparent. One potential alternative analysis is that niet does not function as sentence negation but as constituent negation if the contrastively focused phrase follows it: if so, we may assume that we are dealing with the phrase niet op hem, which occupies the specifier of FocP as a whole.
          The examples in (144) show that the examples in (142) and (143) alternate with constructions in which the designated focus position is filled not by the full contrastively focused phrase but by the focus particle only.

    144
    a. Jan wil alleen/ook/zelfs niet naar hem luisteren.
      Jan  wants  only/also/even  not  to him  listen
      'Jan doesn't want to listen to him only/to him either/even to him.'
    b. dat Jan alleen/ook/zelfs boos <op hem> is.
      that  Jan  only/also/even  angry   at him  is
      'that Jan is angry with him only/with him as well/even with him.'

    This feature is normally optional, with the exception of cases in which the associate of the focus particle is a complement clause: as usual, such clauses are located after the verbs in clause-final position. We illustrate this in (145a-b) by means of the focus particles alleen but similar examples can be constructed for the other focus particles; example (145c) is added to show that the focus particle and the clause can make up a constituent.

    145
    a. Jan heeft alleen gemeld [dat hij niet zou komen], niet waarom.
      Jan has  only  reported   that  he  not  would  come  not why
      'Jan has only reported that he wouldnʼt come (he didnʼt say why).'
    b. ?? Jan heeft alleen [dat hij niet zou komen] gemeld.
    c. Alleen dat hij niet zou komen heeft hij gemeld.

    Barbiers (2010) proposed that examples such as (144b) are derived by subextraction of the focus particle from the contrastively focused phrase, as in (146a); if this is correct, we can maintain in full force the hypothesis that focus movement is obligatory. An alternative hypothesis would be that the focus particle is base-generated in the specifier of FocP as a scope marker (analogous to English negative clauses such as John hasn’t seen anybody, in which the specifier of NegP is filled by the negative adverb not). If this alternative is correct, we have to revise the hypothesis that focus movement is obligatory by stating that the specifier position of FocP must be filled.

    146
    a. ... [FocP PRTi Foc ... [LD .. [ti PPA-accent]] ...]
    movement analysis
    b. ... [FocP PRT Foc ... [LD ... [PPA-accent]] ...]
    base-generation analysis

    It is not easy to distinguish between the two hypotheses. Barbiers supports the movement analysis by claiming that the focus particle can be moved further into clause-initial position; he demonstrates this subextraction by means of ook, but unfortunately the result becomes degraded with the particles alleen and zelfs. It is not so clear what the base-generation hypothesis predicts: if the comparison with not in negative clauses such as John hasn’t seen anybody is taken seriously, we may expect the focus particle to remain in its scope position. Example (147b) shows that we come across similar judgments if we move the contrastively focused PP across the particle; this example is only acceptable if the preposed PP is assigned a B-accent, that is, if it functions as a contrastive topic, in which case the adjective would normally be contrastively focused.

    147
    a. Ook/??Alleen/??Zelfs is Jan [boos op hem].
      also/only/even  is  Jan  angry  at him
      'Jan is also/only/even angry with him.'
    b. Op hemi is Jan ook/??alleen/*?zelfs [boos ti].
      at him  is Jan  also/only/even  angry
    [+]  3.  Scalar focus particles

    Scalar focus particles like pas'just/only', al'already', nog'still' and maar'just' must be associated with phrases denoting a linearly ordered scale. The focused phrase is typically a noun phrase containing a numeral or a quantifier, as illustrated in (148). The numeral/quantifier selects a specific value from some contextually defined numerical scale (say, from one to twenty), and the particles qualify the part of the scale that is covered: maa r'just' indicates that this part is smaller than anticipated while al'already' indicates that this part is larger than anticipated. The fact that the particle and the focused phrase can be placed in sentence-initial position shows that they form a constituent.

    148
    a. We hebben maar drie/weinig boeken gelezen.
      we  have  just three/few books  read
      'We have read just three/a few books.'
    a'. Maar drie/weinig boeken hebben we gelezen.
      just  three/few books  have  we read
    b. Hij heeft al tien/veel boeken gelezen.
      he  has  already ten/many books  read
      'He has read ten/many books already.'
    b'. Al tien/veel boeken heeft hij gelezen.
      already ten/many books  has  he  read

    In example (149a), the particles nog'still' and al'already' function as temporal adverbial modifiers of the eventuality denoted by Jan werken: the eventuality continues longer/starts earlier than might have been expected. In example (149b) the particles al'already' and pas'just' function as adverbial modifiers qualifying the distance between speech time and the start of the eventuality: they characterize it as, respectively, longer and shorter than might have been expected. The adverbial use of the particle maar is restricted to non-stative verbs and expresses durative aspect: Jan praat maar'Jan keeps on talking'. Although Barbiers (1995:ch3) has shown that these temporal uses also involve modification of a linearly ordered scale (the time axis), we will ignore such cases in the discussion below.

    149
    a. Jan werkt nog/al.
      Jan works still/already
      'Jan is still/already working.'
    b. Jan werkt hier al/pas sinds februari
      Jan works  here  already/just  since February
      'Jan has been working here since February already/only since February.'

    The scalar focus particles in (148) modify nominal arguments but the (a)-examples in (150) show they can also modify noun phrases embedded in a PP. The (b)-examples further show that it is also possible for such particles to modify the PP as a whole, with apparently the same meaning. The fact that the PP must precede the adjective geïnteresseerd'interested' that selects it in all these examples shows that focus movement is obligatory in these cases.

    150
    a. dat Jan <in maar één ding> geïnteresseerd <*in maar één ding> is.
      that  Jan    in just one thing  interested  is
      'that Jan is interested in just one thing.'
    a'. In maar één ding is Jan geïnteresseerd.
      in just one thing  is Jan interested
    b. dat Jan < maar in één ding> geïnteresseerd <* maar in één ding> is.
      that  Jan    in just one thing  interested  is
      'that Jan is interested in just one thing.'
    b'. Maar in één ding is Jan geïnteresseerd.
      just in one thing  is Jan interested

    That focus movement is obligatory is illustrated for direct objects in (151): while the definite noun phrase het boek'the book' can readily follow the manner adverb zorgvuldig in (151a), the phrase modified by al must precede it.

    151
    a. Hij heeft <de boeken> nauwkeurig <de boeken> gelezen.
      he  has    the books  meticulously  read
      'He has read the books meticulously.'
    b. Hij heeft <al tien boeken> nauwkeurig <*al tien boeken> gelezen.
      he  has  already ten books  meticulously  read
      'He has meticulously read ten books already.'

    Scalar and counter-presuppositional focus particles are similar in that they both trigger focus movement but they cannot be taken to belong to a single category as they exhibit different behavior in other respects (although we will see that the judgments on the relevant data are not very clear). First, the examples in (152) show that scalar focus particles differ from the counter-presuppositional ones in that they are preferably adjacent to the focused phrase; cf. the examples in (144). Although examples such as (152) are rated as fully acceptable in Barbiers (2010), we have assigned them a percentage sign because a Google search (7/2/2015) on the strings [maar in één ding geïnteresseerd is] and [maar geïnteresseerd in één ding is] revealed that only the former can be found on the internet (23 hits). Since we also found cases in which the PP is extraposed (2 hits), the search results on the corresponding strings with the finite verb is preceding maar should be considered less reliable (46 versus 13 hits).

    152
    a. % Hij heeft al nauwkeurig tien boeken gelezen.
      he  has  already  meticulously  ten books  read
    b. % dat Jan maar geïnteresseerd in één ding is.
      that  Jan just  interested  in one thing  is

    Second, the examples in (153) show that scalar focus particles can more easily follow the focused phrase than counter-presuppositional ones; cf. example (147b). Nevertheless, our Google search suggests that this option is dispreferred as well: while the search string [maar in één ding geïnteresseerd] resulted in more than a hundred hits, the search strings [in één ding maar geïnteresseerd] and [in één ding * maar geïnteresseerd] did not yield any results.

    153
    a. % We hebben drie/weinig boeken maar gelezen.
      we  have  three/few books  just  read
    a'. Drie/weinig boeken hebben we maar gelezen.
      three/few books  have  we  just  read
      'We have read three books only/only a few books.'
    b. % Jan is in één ding maar geïnteresseerd.
      Jan  is  in one thing  just  interested
    b'. In één ding is Jan maar geïnteresseerd.
      in one thing  is Jan just  interested
      'Jan is interested in just one thing.'

    Note in passing that the fact that scalar focus particles may either precede or follow the focus phrase may give rise to ambiguity. Example (154) provides slightly adapted cases from Barbiers (1995:70); the intended interpretation is indicated by means of square brackets.

    154
    a. Jan heeft één meisje [pas twee boeken] gegeven.
      Jan has  one girl   just  two books  given
      'Jan has given one girl just two books.'
    b. % Jan heeft [één meisje pas] twee boeken gegeven.
      Jan has  one girl  just  two books  given
      'Jan has given just one girl two books.'

    Third, although (153b') suggests that scalar focus particle can be "stranded" in the middle field of the clause, the examples in (155) show that they cannot be topicalized by themselves; the results are clearly more degraded that the comparable examples with counter-presuppositional focus particles in (147a).

    155
    a. * Maar hebben we drie/weinig boeken gelezen.
      just  have  we three/few books  read
    b. * Maar is Jan in één ding geïnteresseerd.
      just  is Jan in one thing  interested
    c. * Al heeft hij tien/veel boeken gelezen.
      already  has  he  ten/many books  read
    [+]  4.  On the nature of scalar and counter-presuppositional focus particles

    Barbiers (2010/2014) has shown that scalar and counter-presuppositional focus particles also differ in that the former can be doubled in certain varieties of Dutch while the latter cannot. This contrast is illustrated by the examples in (156), which involve the stative verb kennen'to know' in order to exclude a temporal reading of the second occurrence of maar; the temporal reading arises with dynamic verbs only. The percentage sign in the (b)-examples indicates that some speakers of the standard variety do not (easily) accept doubling of scalar focus particles.

    156
    a. Alleen/ook Jan ken ik (*alleen/*ook).
    counter-presuppositional
      only/also  Jan  know  I     only/also
      'I only/also know Jan.'
    b. Maar één schrijver ken ik (%maar).
    scalar
      just one writer  know  I      just
      'I know just one writer.'
    b'. Al tien boeken heeft hij (%al).
    scalar
      already ten books  has  he  already
      'He has ten books already.'

    Barbiers also observes that counter-presuppositional and scalar focus particles sometimes co-occur (with a slight difference in meaning in the case of ook ... al). The examples in (157) show that in such cases the former precede the latter. The diacritics in the (b)-examples indicate that some speakers of the standard variety may find these examples somewhat marked.

    157
    a. Jan is ook op Marie al boos geweest.
      Jan is also at Marie  already  angry  been
      'Jan has also been angry with Marie already.'
    a'. Ook op Marie is Jan al boos geweest.
      also at Marie  is Jan already  angry  been
    b. (?) Jan is alleen op Marie maar boos geweest.
      Jan  is only  at Marie  just  angry  been
      'Jan has only been angry with Marie.'
    b'. (?) Alleen op Marie is Jan maar boos geweest.
      only at Marie  is Jan just  angry  been

    The examples in (158) show that counter-presuppositional focus particles may also occur in front of the scalar focus particle, with the contrastively focused phrase in its base position.

    158
    a. Jan is ook al boos op Marie geweest.
      Jan is also  already  angry at Marie  been
    a'. ? Ook is Jan al boos op Marie geweest.
      also  is Jan already  angry at Marie  been
    b. Jan is alleen maar boos op Marie geweest.
      Jan  is only just  angry at Marie  been
    b'. ?? Alleen is Jan maar boos op Marie geweest.
      only is Jan just  angry at Marie  been

    Barbiers accounts for the data in (157) by assuming that scalar but not counter-presuppositional focus particles may be the head of a functional projection, which we will assume to be FocP. The primeless examples in (157) can now be derived by moving the contrastively focused phrase into the specifier of FocP, as indicated in (159a), while the primed examples can be derived from this structure by subsequent topicalization of the contrastively focused phrase. The primeless examples in (158) can be derived by placing the counter-presuppositional focus particles into the specifier position of FocP; we will leave open whether this is the result of subextraction of the focus particle from the contrastively focused phrase or whether the focus particle is base-generated as a scope marker in the specifier of FocP; cf. the discussion of (146). The fact that the primed examples in (158) are marked may be due to the fact that the particles are not sufficiently contentful to undergo topicalization.

    159
    a. Jan is ... [FocP [ook/alleen op Marie]i [[Foc al/maar] [LD [AP boos ti] geweest]]].
    b. Jan is ... [FocP ook/alleen [[Foc al/maar] [LD [AP boos op Marie] geweest]]].

    If scalar focus particles do not only occur as the head of FocP but can also be used to modify a contrastively focused phrase, doubling of such particles can be derived in a similar way as indicated in (159a); cf. (160a). Since the head of FocP may remain phonetically empty and scalar focus particles are not obligatory, the cases without doubling can be analyzed as in (160b&c); examples without any focus particle of course have the structure in (160d).

    160
    a. % Jan is [FocP [maar op één jongen]i [[Foc maar] [LD [AP boos ti] geweest]]].
    b. Jan is [FocP [maar op één jongen]i [[Foc Ø] [LD [AP boos ti] geweest]]].
    c. Jan is [FocP [op één jongen]i [[Foc maar] [LD [AP boos ti] geweest]]].
    d. Jan is [FocP [op één jongen]i [[Foc Ø] [LD [AP boos ti] geweest]]].

    Recall from the discussion of (152) that there are reasons for assuming that scalar focus particles cannot occur in the specifier of FocP, which would be supported by the fact that they cannot occur in structures such as (159b) either. This restriction would follow immediately if we assume that scalar focus particles are never phrasal in nature, and specifier positions can be filled by maximal projections only.
          The claim that scalar focus particles may function as the head of FocP may also account for the contrast between the two examples in (161). Barbiers (1995:84-5) noticed that while the particle maar cannot be construed as a modifier of the direct object twee vogels of the embedded clause in (161a), this is possible in (161b) where the direct object is extracted from the clause by topicalization. This can be made to follow from the analysis discussed above: example (161a) is unacceptable under the intended reading because the object has failed to undergo long focus movement, while (161b) is acceptable under this reading on the assumption that long focus movement precedes topicalization. The contrast between the two examples thus supports our earlier claim that the specifier of FocP must be filled in order to assign scope to the contrastively focused phrase.

    161
    a. # Jan zei maar dat hij twee vogels gezien had.
      Jan said  just  that  he  two birds  seen  had
    a'. Jan zei [FocP ... maar [LDtsaid [CP dat hij twee vogels gezien had]]].
    b. Twee vogels zei Jan maar [dat hij gezien had]].
      two birds  said  Jan  just   that  he  seen  had
      'Jan said that he had seen just two birds.'
    b'. [Twee vogels]i zei Jan [FocPt'i maar [LDtsaid [CP dat hij ti gezien had]]].

    The examples discussed in this subsection suggest that scalar and counter-presuppositional focus particles have a different syntactic status: while the latter are arguably heads in all their manifestations, the former show a more projection-like behavior. We will leave this for future research and refer the reader to Barbiers (2014) for an alternative proposal.

    [+]  5.  Conclusion

    The discussion above has shown that the hypothesis that focus movement is obligatory in Dutch can be upheld, provided we assume that the negative element niet is a focus particle if it expresses constituent negation; this receives independent support from the fact that niet and its associate phrase can be placed in clause-initial position together. Constructions with focus particles separated from their associate focused phrase may be an exception to the general rule if focus particles are base-generated in the specifier position of FocP as scope markers in such cases (in the same way as niet is base-generated in the specifier of NegP in English negative clauses): on this assumption we have to fine-tune the hypothesis that focus movement is obligatory by granting that the specifier position of FocP must be filled.

    [+]  II.  Topic movement

    While the linguistic literature on Dutch frequently refers to focus movement within the middle field of the clause, this rarely applies to topic movement. Furthermore, when concrete examples of topic movement are discussed, they are often considered to involve focus movement. Attempts to distinguish the two cases systematically started with the publication of Neeleman & Van de Koot (2008). Because the study of topic movement is still in its infancy, we will confine our discussion to a small number of core issues.
          The introduction to this section has already made it clear that contrastive topics are marked by a B-accent. Semantically speaking, they imply that there is at least one other potential discourse topic that the speaker could have addressed. For instance, the plurality of the finite verb in question (162a) indicates that the speaker has reason to believe that there is a non-singleton contextually defined set of individuals E, that a subset of these individuals have been invited to the party mentioned, and that the identity of these individuals in this subset is known to the addressee. The answer in (162b) does not provide an answer to the question but asserts something about only one of the individuals from E.

    162
    a. Wie zijn er uitgenodigd voor het feest?
    question
      who  are  there  invited  for the party
      'Who are invited for 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.'

    There may be various reasons why a speaker chooses to use a contrastive topic construction: he may for instance be unable or unwilling to provide the requested information. Büring (2007) notes, however, that contrastive topic constructions often introduce an adversative implicature in the sense that the comments associated with the contrasted discourse topics are different. For example, the answer in (163b) strongly suggests that the boy dancers did not wear miniskirts.

    163
    a. Wat droegen de dansers?
      what  wore  the dancers
      'What did the dancers wear?'
    b. De meisjes droegen korte rokjes.
      the girls  wore  short skirts
      'The girls wore miniskirts.'

    The question-answer pair in (164a&b) shows that topic movement may involve a PP and that we are therefore dealing with A'-movement. We will assume that the contrastive topic is moved into the specifier of a TopP in the functional domain of the clause, which would be in line with the claim in Neeleman & Van de Koot (2008) that topic movement is instrumental in distinguishing contrastive topics from the comments that provide more information about them. If we are dealing with A'-movement, we expect topic movement to be obligatory: judgments are not very clear but it does seem that the answer in (164b) is more natural with the contrastive B-accent in (113) than the one in (164b'). Example (164b') is of course felicitous without the B-accent, but this seems to disfavor the adversative implicature that the person answering the question is less fond of the children not mentioned.

    164
    a. Wat vind je van mijn kinderen? Je weet ...
      what  find  you  of my children  you know
      'How do you feel about my children?'
    b. dat ik [TopP [op je zoon]i Top [LD [AP erg dol ti] ben]].
      that  I  of your son  very fond  am
      '(You know) that I am very fond of your son.'
    b'. * dat ik [LD [AP erg dol [op je zoon] ben]].
      that  I  very fond  of your son  am
      '(You know) that I am very fond of your son.'

    That the landing site is inside the functional domain of the clause is clear from the fact that it must precede negation, which was shown to be external to the lexical domain of the clause in Section 13.3.1. This is illustrated in (165) by means of the negative counterpart of (164b).

    165
    a. dat ik [TopP [op je zoon]i Top [NegP niet Neg [LD [AP erg dol ti] ben]]].
      that  I  of your son  not  very fond  am
      '(You know) that I am not very fond of your son.'
    b. * dat ik [NegP niet Neg [TopP [op je zoon]i Top [LD [AP erg dol ti] ben]]].
      that  I  not  of your son  very fond  am

    Contrastive topics also precede contrastive foci, as is clear from the examples in (166), which show that the contrastive topic must not only precede negation but also the contrastive focus (which is signaled here by zelfs'even'). It should be noted that example (166b) sounds much better if the focus particle zelfs is omitted, which suggests that in such cases the contrastively focused subject pronoun can be moved into the regular subject position (right-adjacent to the complementizer dat).

    166
    a. dat op je zoon zelfs ik niet erg dol ben.
      that  of your son  even I  not  very  fond  am
      '(You know) that even I am not very fond of your son.'
    b. ?? dat zelfs ik op je zoon niet erg dol ben.
      that  even I  of your son  not  very  fond  am
    c. * dat zelfs ik niet op je zoon erg dol ben.
      that  even I  not  of your son  very  fond  am

    In this connection it should be noted that contrastive topics cannot cross a non-focused subject, that is, as subject in regular subject position; the starred word order in (167b) seems to be possible only in contexts that allow contrastive focus accent on the subject Marie and (167c) is unacceptable in any context given that weak pronouns can never be assigned accent.

    167
    a. Wat vindt Marie van mijn kinderen? Ik denk ...
      what  finds  Marie of my children  I think
      'How does Marie feel about my children?'
    b. dat <Marie> op je zoon <*Marie> [LD [AP erg dol ti] is].
      that    Jan  of your son  very fond  is
      '(I think) that Marie is very fond of your son.'
    c. dat <ze> op je zoon <*ze> [LD [AP erg dol ti] is].
      that    she  of your son  very fond  is
      '(I think) that she is very fond of your son.'
    [+]  III.  Controversial issues

    The study of focus and, especially, topic movement in Dutch had a recent start in Neeleman & Van de Koot (2008): a number of more recent contributions can be found in Neeleman & Vermeulen (2012). The results of these studies are not unequivocal in view of many unclear issues at the empirical level. It is now uncontroversial that focus and topic movement can take place into some position in the functional domain of the clause; that the landing sites of these two movements precede the position occupied by phrases expressing sentence negation, and that topic movement targets a position to the left of the position targeted by contrastively focused phrases.

    168
    ... [TopP ... Top [FocP .. Foc [NegP ... Neg [LD ....]]]]

    There is debate about the question as to whether focus and topic movement are obligatory: Neeleman & Van de Koot (2008) claim that these movements are optional in principle, while Barbiers (2010/2014) maintains that, at least for contrastive foci, movement must take place in order to arrive at a coherent interpretation. For focus movement in Dutch the issue is not empirical in nature, as Neeleman & Van de Koot motivate their claim on English data, but it is in the case of topic movement: Neeleman & Van de Koot provide several constructions of which they claim that they contain a contrastive topic in situ. We provided one simple case not discussed by them in (164) and our intuitions on the (b)-examples suggest that the contrastive topic reading is less easy to get if the phrase in question remains in situ. In our view, the claim that contrastive topics can remain in situ should be investigated more thoroughly before accepting it.
          Neeleman & Van de Koot (2008) also claim that focus and topic movement are able to change the unmarked order of nominal arguments, although they admit that this claim is problematical in the case of focus movement (see fn.2 of their article). Nevertheless, it seems uncontroversial that topic movement can affect the order of subjects and objects if the latter are focused, cf. (166). More examples taken from Neeleman (1994a/1994b) are given in (169).

    169
    a. dat Jan zelfs Marie zulke boeken niet geeft.
      that  Jan  even Marie  such books  not  gives
      'that Jan doesnʼt give even Marie such books.'
    a'. dat Jan zulke boeken zelfs Marie niet geeft.
      that  Jan  such books  even Marie  not gives
    b. dat zelfs Jan zulke boeken niet koopt.
      that  even Jan  such books  not  buys
      'that even Jan does not buy such books.'
    b'. dat zulke boeken zelfs Jan niet koopt.
      that  such books  even Jan  not  buys

    In fact, focus/topic movement can also affect the unmarked order of nominal arguments and complementives, which is illustrated by means of the following examples again adapted from Neeleman (1994a/1994b).

    170
    a. dat <*groen> Jan <*groen> de deur niet <groen> wil verven.
      that      green  Jan  the door  not  wants  paint
      'that Jan doesnʼt want to paint the door green.'
    b. dat Jan <zo groen> zelfs de deur niet wil verven.
      that  Jan    that green  even the door  not  wants  paint
      'that Jan doesnʼt want to paint even the door that green.'
    b'. dat <zo groen> zelfs Jan de deur niet wil verven.
      that    that green  even Jan  the door  not  wants  paint
      'that even Jan doesnʼt want to paint the door that green.'

    A more problematic claim, found in Neeleman & Van de Koot (2008:162-3), is that focus/topic movement can also move across non-focused subjects, since this is rejected by at least some of our informants (including the authors of this volume). This was already indicated in the (b)-examples in (167) and we illustrate this again in (171) for the examples in (169b') and (170).

    171
    a. dat zulke boeken %Jan/*hij niet koopt.
      that  such books    Jan/he  not  buys
    b. % dat zelfs de deur %Jan/*hij niet groen wil verven.
      that  even the door    Jan/he  not  green  wants  paint
    b'. % dat <zo groen> zelfs de deur %Jan/*hij niet wil verven.
      that    that green  even the door    Jan/he  not  wants  paint

    The percentage signs indicate that this issue should be investigated more carefully before we can say something definitive, although it is seems already clear from the fact that the pronoun cannot be used that the target position of focus and topic movement is to the right of the regular subject position (the specifier of TP).

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    About this article
    Author(s): Hans Broekhuis, Norbert Corver
    Category: Dutch Syntax
    Publication date: 22 November 2023
    Keywords: AccentContrastive AccentCounter-presuppositionalFocus ParticleInterrogative ClauseParticleScalar Focus ParticleScope
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