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Stress and Focus in English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2026

Peter W. Culicover and
Michael Rochemont
Peter W. Culicover
Affiliation:
University of California, Irvine
Michael Rochemont
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia
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Abstract

Sentence stress is not always a sufficient condition for interpretation as focus. An insightful analysis of the appropriate generalizations can be accommodated under a ‘modular’ approach to grammatical theory. Certain observations concerning the stress properties of WH questions are shown to be consistent with the assumptions of trace theory as developed in, e.g., Chomsky & Lasnik 1977, where the relationship between focus and stress is mediated by S-structure. The notion of focus has no consistent pragmatic characterization; it is, rather, a grammatical notion. The interpretation of this grammatical notion in particular discourse contexts is provided by rules of Discourse Grammar using the predicate ‘c-construable’, which is here defined.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 59 , Issue 1 , March 1983, pp. 123 - 165
Copyright
Copyright © 1983 by Linguistic Society of America

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