Topic and Focus

Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics, 2015

The paper raises the topic of what the functional and logical notion of subject is. It examines the syntax-semantic nature of Icelandic and Polish quirky subject constructions (subjectless clauses in which the initial DP bears oblique Case) with psych-verbs. Of main interest is the full vs. default agreement on V which nominative DPs and quirky subjects always trigger, respectively. We attempt to define the primitive notion of subject from two standpoints – its LF representation and how it is mirrored syntactically by the predication relation of the subject with respect to vP/VP and the proposition of the sentence in TP between the subject and T′. We discuss the semantic and configurational dependencies between quirky subjects and nominative DPs and vP and TP/CP. The paper investigates also the landing site for non-nominative initial DPs and argues for the Topic Phrase in the Left Periphery (Rizzi 1997) as a most natural candidate to host quirky subjects. Hopefully, the conclusions ...

2000

Histoire Epistémologie Langage, 2015

Focusing on the works of Georg von der Gabelentz, Hermann Paul and Christoph Sigwart, the paper analyses the different ways in which logically or psychologically based categories are related to the structure of sentences. In particular, it aims at establishing the extent to which the new model of syntactic analysis is connected with a new appraisal of the role of the speaker and/or the context, in determining the final functions of the various sentence members. The method of genetic psychology is examined here from the vantage point of the debate on subjectlose Sätze.

"A semantic picture (Aristotle, Mill, direct reference) analyzes the logical structure of sentences in terms of reference –the subject denoting an object—and predication –the predicate ascribing a property to that object. Frege brought attention to puzzling dimensions of that view, concluding that proper names themselves had not only a reference, but a predicative sense (while Russell did away with reference altogether). (Correcting Russell,) Donnellan showed that not just proper names but definite descriptions had both a referential use and a predicative (attributive) use. The understanding of logical structure in terms of semantic function has by and large been ejected from linguistic theorizing, replaced in GB by structural, syntactic, analyses (although categorial grammars retain some of this understanding through rules of functional application.) Various facts detailed in this talk suggest that the referential-predicative distinction is psychologically real. A closer look at how this distinction operates deeply in our linguistic judgments sheds light on subtleties affecting belief attributions, derogation inheritance, and other presuppositional facts. First, we review subject-object asymmetries in syntax, which are legion and well-studied. Then, we observe much less studied metalinguistic subject-object asymmetries: we show that proper names are referential in subject position, but receive predicative interpretation in object position. However, we show that the relevant subject-object asymmetries are not amenable to structural explanations: they cannot be cashed out in structural or syntactic terms, but in semantic (or functional or logical or ontological) terms: the first denotes an object, the second a property. We show that interestingly (although predictably, by our analysis), the metalinguistic referential-predicative effects discussed in the talk also appear in derogation inheritance: they explain when a speaker uttering “that bastard Kaplan” will inherit, or not the, the negative presupposition. The same analysis also solves (part of) the “projection problem,” or how to compute the presuppositions of a complex sentence. "

Historiographia Linguistica, 1992

2012

The concept of centre of attention (CA) is used in Distributed Grammar focusing on its relevance for the syntax of human languages. Based on psychological evidence, this notion captures what is common between subject, topic and theme in an integrated system of concepts rather than as a disparate collection of them. We define respectively subject as the main CA of a base utterance, topic as the main CA of an extended utterance (containing both Old and New meta-informative status) and theme as the main (composite) CA of a text/discourse. When choosing an entity or an element of the semantic situation as the CA of the utterance, a speaker creates a common ground on which it becomes possible to communicate with the addressee. 1. The problem of Subject in Logic and Grammar: Subject or Argument? In ancient logic, a proposition was considered to be composed of two terms: the subject and the predicate (SP). In Aristotle‟s metaphysics, this two-fold definition of a proposition led to the ont...

2020

Acta Linguistica Hungarica, 2008

The paper explicates the notions of topic, contrastive topic, and focus as used in the analysis of Hungarian. Based on distributional criteria, topic and focus are claimed to represent distinct structural positions in the left periphery of the Hungarian sentence, associated with logical rather than discourse functions. The topic is interpreted as the logical subject of predication. The focus is analyzed as a derived main predicate, specifying the referential content of the set denoted by the backgrounded post-focus section of the sentence. The exhaustivity associated with the focus, and the existential presupposition associated with the background are shown to be properties following from their specificational predication relation.

… Workshop on Treebanks …

In this article, we examine the variation of the predicate-argument structure between English and French in an experimental and data-driven approach. We annotate a corpus of 1000 French sentences with predicate-argument structure using a framework originally developed for English. We identify a number of non-matching predicates and examine them in a qualitative analysis. We show that these two languages do not differ substantially in the inventory and the nature of verbal predicates, even though certain general grammatical properties may result in some variation at this level of representation. We argue that the proposed comparative study can provide a basis for identifying the level of specificity needed for developing a framework for multilingual annotation of predicate-argument structure.

Acta Linguistica Academica

In this work, we show that in Spanish and Polish, the distribution of dative Experiencers in the sentence is influenced by factors pertaining to argument structure as well as to information structure. From an argument-structure point of view, they are claimed to be generated in VP, in a position higher than the nominative subject, and hence it is the closest candidate to move to spec-TP and satisfy the EPP under T. From an information-structure perspective, dative Experiencers occur first only in two situations, namely when they are part of the broad focus that the whole sentence performs or when they function as topic. However, different tests will tear Spanish and Polish DEs apart with respect to their "subject" properties, which will ultimately be derived from the syntactic position they target when they are used in all-focus sentences.