Journal article
Object focus marking in Spanish: An investigation using three tasks
Glossa: a journal of general linguistics, Vol.5(1), 70
2020
DOI: 10.5334/gjgl.1160
Appears in Diamond Open Access
Abstract
The literature on focus in Spanish contains a divide between theoretical claims and quantitative empirical evidence: While Spanish is often regarded as resorting to syntactic movement to mark focus, quantitative and/or experimental data often do not support this claim. Research focusing on non-final objects within the VP can provide valuable clarity to the empirical picture, especially when evidence is gathered using multiple methods, a practice known as triangulation. In this article, we use three different tasks (judgments, sentence processing, and production) to provide evidence of object focus marking in Spanish. We found that: (i) canonical orders (object in-situ) were preferred overall; (ii) marking object focus via movement strategies is possible—we find a relationship between object-focus marking and non-canonical (S)VPPO order, as predicted by mainstream syntactic accounts; and (iii) Spanish focus is not marked asymmetrically by position (subjects vs. non-subjects). Overall, results show canonical orders (i.e., SVOPP) can be used to realize focus on any constituent, while their non-canonical counterparts are contextually restricted. This finding suggests mainstream syntactic accounts in which information structure triggers syntactic movement may need to be revised to include alternative focus-marking mechanisms.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Object focus marking in Spanish: An investigation using three tasks
- Creators
- Bradley HootTania LealEmilie Destruel
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Glossa: a journal of general linguistics, Vol.5(1), 70
- DOI
- 10.5334/gjgl.1160
- ISSN
- 2397-1835
- Date published
- 2020
- Academic Unit
- Linguistics; French and Italian
- Record Identifier
- 9984222745802771
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