Lecture 10: Topic, Focus and Negative Fronting

 So far we have seen that the front of the clause is reserved for the part of sentence semantics that deals with force  Interrogative/declarative/exclamative/etc.  This is where complementisers, inverted auxiliaries and wh-elements are situated  [ CP if/that [ IP he is alive]]  [ CP will [ IP he arrive on time]]  [ CP who did [ IP you speak to]]  [ CP what a nice house [ IP you have]]

 But the front of the clause also houses other elements too:  Those people, [ IP I don’t talk to anymore]  A: did you see Bill? B: no, (it was) JOHN [ IP I saw]  Under no circumstances would [ IP I lie to you]  All these examples involve the front of the clause (in front of the IP at least), but they do not contribute to the force of the sentence  Instead they seem to affect the information status of the fronted element  How important a piece of information it is  What kind of information it carries

 Topicalisation is the name of the fronting movement in the following examples  John, I hate  In this school, we pay attention to rules  Ugly, he certainly was

 Topic is a notion usually defined as what a sentence is about  Perhaps more accurately it is what a set of connected sentences (discourse) is about  what holds them together  A man walked into a shop  The shopkeeper greeted him  The man asked for a pound of cheese  He paid the shopkeeper and left

 Therefore, the topic is something that has already been introduced into a conversation  Or is assumed to be present (and to the fore) in both the speaker and hearers mind during the conversation  even if it hasn’t actually be mentioned  Certain things can be ‘triggered’ by the mention of something else  We went to a restaurant yesterday  The food was awful

 We say that the topic carries ‘old’ information  What follows the topic (the comment) carries the new information

 We can see from our story that the topic is associated with certain forms  A man walked into a shop  The shopkeeper greeted him  The man asked for a pound of cheese  He paid the shopkeeper and left  Pronouns  Definite DPs  However, topics are not necessarily fronted  Why is the fronting movement called ‘topicalisation’?

 Unfortunately this is a misnomer and has caused some confusion ever since its introduction  But the name has become standard and so we seem to be stuck with it

 To be fronted, an element not only needs to be a topic but it also must involve contrast  Contrast involves the comparison between at least two things  So contrastive topics involve the presupposition of a set of topics  things that have been previously introduced, or ‘triggered’ in a conversation  The speaker selects one of this set and contrasts it with the others in the comment

 Three men went into a shop  One of them, the shopkeeper already knew  This implies that he didn’t know the other two  Because ‘the shopkeeper knew him’ is given as a piece of information contrasting with the other two men

 Obviously a contrastive topic is moved to the front of the clause  But where does it move to?  A first idea is that it moves to the specifier of CP  The same place that the wh-phrase moves to  But there are reasons to believe that this is not so

 There can be more than one contrastive topic  In this school, this kind of behaviour we will not tolerate  There can only be one fronted wh-phrase  * who where did you meet?  Who did you meet where?  A contrastive topic can precede a wh-phrase  In this town, where can I buy some shoes?  In embedded clauses, the contrastive topic follows the complementiser  I said that, in this town, there are no shoeshops

 If the topic moves to a specifier position of some phrase, the fact that there can be more than one of them indicates that there must be more than one such phrase

 It has been suggested that the particular phrase involved is one dedicated to topicalisation, headed by an abstract ‘topic’ head

 Evidence in favour of this idea is that some languages overtly realise this abstract topic marker:  Japanese  kodomo ga Terebi o mita child nom TV acc watched “the child watched the TV”  Terebi wa kodomo ga mita TV top child nom watched “as for the TV, the child watched it”

 However, we need to ask what category the ‘Top’ head belongs to  It takes CP, IP and TopP complements  [ TopP that idiot Top [ CP who would [ IP vote for]]] ... [ CP that [ TopP this man Top [ IP I just can’t stand]]]  [ TopP in this place Top [ TopP this behaviour Top [ CP we don’t like]]  So it is not like a functional head  C  IP  I  VP  D  NP  Deg  AP

 But it is not a predicate, taking arguments  So it is not like any thematic head  It is a head which is nothing like any other head  This means it cannot be analysed with the categorial features [±F, ±N, ±V]  This is a problem for the theory of categories

 Another possible analysis is that the topic is in an adjunction structure  This accounts for why there can be more than one of them  There would be no abstract ‘topic’ head required

 We know that adjunction movements are possible  When a head moves to another head, it adjoins to it  Given that the topic is a phrase, it makes sense that it will adjoin to another phrase (CP, IP, etc.)

 We have seen that topics can precede wh- phrases and follow complementisers  This button, who wants to press?  I think that, this button, the president shouldn’t press  In the first case the topic must be adjoined to the CP and in the second it must be adjoined to IP

 However, it appears that it is not optional whether the topic adjoins to CP or IP  A topic cannot adjoin to the IP of a main clause:  * when did, [ IP that man, [ IP you meet]]  A topic cannot adjoin to the CP of an embedded clause:  * I think, [ CP that man, [ CP that I don’t like]]

 One way to describe all this is:  The topic has to adjoin to the highest possible clausal node  Usually this is CP  But nothing can adjoin to the CP of an embedded clause  Because this CP is selected by a governing head  Therefore, in this case, it has to adjoin to the next highest clausal node  i.e. The IP

 It is hard to see whether a subject can topicalise because it is already at the front of the clause:  ? John, hates Bill  Even if the subject is of an embedded clause it is difficult to tell:  John, I think, hates Bill  Does this involve topicalisation of the subject or an epenthetic comment?  John hates Bill, I think

 However, a subject does not precede a wh-phrase in a main clause  Who does John like  * John, who does like  This suggests that subject cannot topicalise  But the subject of an embedded clause can precede a wh-phrase in the main clause  That man, who thinks likes Mary  This cannot be treated as an epenthetic comment  * that man likes Mary, who thinks  So it is only the subject of the main clause that cannot topicalise

 We have seen that there can be more than one topic  In this town, gun slingers, the sheriff shoots  However, it is not possible to have more than one DP topic  * Mary, flowers, I gave  This is very odd and has no obvious explanation

 We have seen that adverbials of all kinds (VP and sentential) can occupy the initial position  Quickly, he hid the evidence  Obviously, I had never seen him before  This looks like the topic position  It is at the front of the clause  It has a similar intonation pattern  While it can have the same contrastive meaning that topics do:  Today, we will start on a new project  But this isn’t always the case  He suddenly realised the time  Suddenly, he realised the time

 It seems that these are two different processes:  Today, who wants to go first  * suddenly, who realised their mistake  Who did suddenly John realise was missing  Fronted adverbs therefore seem to adjoin to the IP, even in main clauses  Adverbs can be topicalised (adjoined to CP in main clauses), but only if contrastive

 This involves a fronted element and a ‘resumptive pronoun’ in the place associated with it  That man, I don’t like him  Given that there is a pronoun in this kind of structure, it is not easily analysed as involving movement  Moreover, subjects can be left dislocated  My father, he doesn’t like cats

 The meaning of a left dislocation structure is also different from topicalisation  It is mainly used to introduce a new topic rather than to contrast a set of established topics  A: well, that’s life!  M: life, don’t talk to me about that

 A dislocated item is adjoined in the same place as a topic:  CP of a main clause  [ CP My idea, [ CP what do you think about it]]  IP of an embedded clause  I assumed that, [ IP my father, [ IP he wouldn’t like it]]

 There is a construction which seems to be a mixture of contrastive topicalisation and left dislocation:  As for my wife, she didn’t leave the house  The fronted element is a contrastive topic  But the structure also involves a resumptive pronoun  As subjects can appear as ‘as for’ topics, this is how we can contrastively topicalise a subject in English  They are adjoined like other topics  As for this idiot, why would anyone vote for him  I think that, as for me, I wouldn’t buy his car

 Consider the following:  A: you’ve met Bill, haven’t you?  B: no, JOHN I know, but not Bill  Obviously the fronted element (JOHN) is contrastive

 But it is not a topic  It carries new information  it corrects something that was wrongly believed  So it is new to the hearer  It has a different intonation pattern to the topic  It carries more stress  There is no pause after it  John, I know  JOHN I know

 Something that introduces new and important information is called a focus  In English, focus is usually marked by intonation alone – main stress:  A: who did you meet?  B I met BILL  A: who knows the answer  B: JOHN knows the answer

 But it can be fronted, particularly if it is strongly contrastive (as in corrective situations)  A: who did you meet  B: I met BILL  : ??? BILL I met  A: you met John  B: no, BILL I met  : no, I met BILL

 Unlike topicalisation, only one fronted focus is allowed:  A: you met John at his house  B: * no, IN THE PARK BILL I met  This suggests that this movement is not an adjunction  Therefore it moves the focus into a specifier position  But which one?

 The fronted focus position precedes the subject  The obvious candidate would be specifier of CP  This is supported by the fact that fronted foci and wh-phrases are in complementary distribution:  * BILL who met  But against this hypothesis is the fact that fronted foci follow complementisers  I said that BILL I met

 There are independent reasons why wh-elements and foci cannot appear in the same sentence  You can’t ask for new information and provide new information in the same sentence  This is shown by the ungrammaticality of the following, which doesn’t involve focus fronting:  * who likes BILL  All in all, then, we can assume that the fronted focus does not move to the specifier of CP  There must be another phrase between the CP and the IP

 What heads this phrase?  What is its category?

 We know that C takes an IP complement  But the phrase containing the fronted focus cannot be IP as  There can be no extra inflection  * BILL will I may meet  Inflections take VP (or vP) complements, not IP

 A possible solution:  similar to the ‘little v’ there is a ‘little i’  V = [-F, +V, -N]v = [+V, -N]  I = [+F, +V, -N]i = [+F, +V]  Complementisers select for a [+F, +V, -N] complement  IP and iP satisfy this requirement

 However, ‘i’ is never overtly realised, so we have no direct evidence of its existence

 Negative phrases can be moved to the front of the clause  [Not a single person] have I seen all day  Note that there is an inverted auxiliary in this structure  Perhaps the fronted negative moves to the specifier of CP

 But like Foci, fronted negatives follow complementisers  I said that [under no circumstances] was the money to be spent  So it seems as though the relevant position is specifier of iP  Note that the inverted auxiliary occupies the ‘i’ position  This is overt evidence for its existence

 The question arises  If both foci and fronted negatives move to specifier of iP, why is the inversion only with fronted negatives?  The difference between negatives and foci are that negatives affect the type of clauses they are part of

 Something happened, didn’t it  Nothing happened, did it  Positive sentences are tagged with negative tags  Negative sentences are tagged with positive tags  John arrived and so did Bill  No letter arrived, an neither did a parcel  Positive sentences trigger ‘so’  Negative sentences trigger ‘neither’

 There is no indication that there is such a thing as a ‘focus’ type of sentence  In this way, negatives are like wh-elements  Their presence affects the meaning of the whole sentence

 Wh-elements affect the status of the CP by agreeing with the C head  So something must be in this position

 Similarly we can assume that the negative also needs to agree with the i head  So something needs to be in this position  Hence, inversion

 As focus does not affect the meaning of the clause in this way, it does not need to agree with the head  So the head position does not need to be filled

 There are a number of movements which target the front of the clause  Adjunctions  Contrastive topics  Adjoin to the highest clausal node possible (CP or IP)  Fronted Adverbials  Adjoin to the IP  Movements to specifiers  Wh-movement  Specifier of CP  Focus fronting  Specifier of iP  Negative fronting  Specifier of iP