Aspects Of The Grammar Of Focus In English

The grammar of focus has been studied in generative grammar from its inception. It has been the subject of intense, detailed cross-linguistic investigation for over 20 years, particularly within the Principles and Parameters framework. It is appropriate at this point, therefore, to take stock. Appraisal at this particular point is all the more legitimate because it comes at a time of general evaluation of the results of the profound activity that has characterized the Principles and Parameters framework. This general assessment has produced a radical new direction within that framework. The volume starts off with an introductory chapter that aims to provide an outline for the assessment, to be followed by an overview of the evolution of the study of focus in generative grammar, and a recapitulation of the principal issues associated with focus. These issues are taken up in the remaining chapters of the book, where various grammatical means of marking focus (as well as grammaticalization of focus marking) are analyzed in a wide variety of languages.

The book examines the aspects of focus within the recent minimalist paradigm. Focus is viewed here as a grammar's response to the requirements of the systems external to (narrowly defined) language. Thus, the properties of focus are explored at the two interfaces: syntax-phonology and syntax-semantics. The book surveys some recent views on the interface and left-periphery status of focus. With respect to the semantics of focus, the book argues for its tripartite division into: information, non-exhaustive identification, and exhaustive identification. It further contains a proposal of the phase-based derivation of sentences featuring focus in English, and finally, offers an account of Polish, in which focus interestingly correlates with the phenomenon of scrambling.

The proposed book is best described as a linguistically oriented textbook taking the grammar of English as its subject matter. It is directed to professional teachers of English (ESL and EFL) and their students, as well as those currently training to become teachers of English. The book is also likely to be of interest to interpreters, translators and other English language professionals. It will explore selected aspects and problem areas of English from a broadly “functional” linguistic perspective. My experience as a teacher and teacher trainer has shown me that this perspective has the potential to inspire teachers and students with a genuine enthusiasm for the grammatical features of English and that it often enables them to “make sense” of the grammar in a way that all too often other approaches signally fail to do. An important focus of the book is on understanding grammar as a series of conventionalized patterns rather than a set of rules (which is how grammar has traditionally been presented). Moreover, unlike many other grammar books, this book emphasizes how the grammatical constructions under consideration are employed in various types of communicative situation, attention being given to the importance of discourse context in interpreting the target forms. In line with contemporary linguists generally, the approach adopted is descriptive rather than prescriptive. While the main focus is on English, I offer occasional comments on how the issue under discussion is expressed in languages other than English. Apart from the inherent interest which I hope such comparisons may have for the reader, I take the view that these can be helpful in casting further light on the grammar of English.

The notion of focus structure in this work refers to the distinction between categorical, thetic and identificational sentences. The central claim is that the syntactic representation of every sentence has to encode which of these types of focus structure is realized. This claim is discussed in great detail with respect to syntax, intonation and semantics within the framework of the Minimalist Program. It is shown that the incorporation of focus structure into syntax offers new perspectives for a solution of vexing problems in syntax and semantics. For example, fronting (preposing, 'topicalisation') is treated as a syntactic operation which clearly belongs to core grammar, i.e. is not optional or 'stylistic'; the semantic notion of quantifier raising is dispensed with in favour of a focus structural treatment of phenomena which gave rise to it. The book appeals to generative linguists and to functional linguists who do not believe in an unbridgeable gap between the formal and functional analysis of language.

Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject American Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,3, University of Potsdam (Institut f r Anglistik und Amerikanistik), course: The Structures of English, 23 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: The aim of the following work is mainly to present focus strategies in English sentences. The topic has been of great interest to me since such focus constructions are an important grammatical means of re-arranging the information within a sentence according to one's intention. Being familiar with a wide variety of focus strategies is one possibility of improving one's style, both in written and spoken English. Several university level grammar books provide a great number of different means to assign focus within a sentence. In the following course of this paper I'm first going to explain and discuss the term focus as well as its function in English grammar and then show the possible ways of organizing a message. Due to the above mentioned variety of focus strategies not all of them can be itemized here. I decided on presenting those focus constructions which, in my opinion, seem most relevant for the purposes of a foreign language student. The prescribed extent of this work makes a detailed description of each construction, as it can be found in scholarly grammar book, impossible. Therefore, only the most important attributes and particularities of each strategy are named. In most cases examples are added for visualization and a better understanding. In their publications linguists present different ways of classifying focus strategies which makes a clear division of the constructions relatively difficult. Furthermore different notions of which grammatical structure can be considered a focus strategy are existing. Under the respective headline these problems will be discussed in greater detail. Dealing with these focus strategies and the purpose they serve raised the question if these constructions can be found in