An analysis of focus and its role in the answering systems of polar questions in Chinese and English

Instead of classifying natural languages in terms of their answering systems for polar questions, this study investigates how languages construct the answering system for the polar questions with a special concentration on the answering system of the Chinese ma particle question and English polar questions. We argue that the primarily mechanism that natural languages adopt to construct an answering system is the focus mechanism which is based on the relationship between a focus sensitive marker and its association of focus. The different answering patterns to polar questions result from different scopes of focus. In a polar question, what is being focused by the focus sensitive marker or focus operator falls into question scope (focus association). The respondent answers the polar question based on the proposition in the question scope. Answering with a positive particle expresses agreement with that question proposition while answering with a negative particle conveys that the question proposition is not true.

Focus Association by Movement: Evidence from Tanglewood

We argue for the existence of covert focus movement in English focus association with only. Our evidence comes from Tanglewood configurations of the form in Kratzer 1991 . We show that Tanglewood configurations are sensitive to syntactic islands, contrary to Kratzer’s claims and predictions. We propose that Tanglewood configurations always involve covert movement of the focused constituent—possibly with covert pied-piping—to bind a bound variable in the ellipsis site. This availability of covert pied-piping explains examples such as Kratzer’s where the Tanglewood construction appears to be island-insensitive. We show that covert focus movement is long-distance and not simply Quantifier Raising. Kratzer’s proposal that ellipsis enforces the identity of focus indices and several other previous approaches are shown to overgenerate Tanglewood readings.

Focus association into copies and the scope of even

Nakanishi 2012 presents a novel argument for the so-called “scope theory” of English VP-even, based on examples with antecedent-contained deletion (ACD). Nakanishi’s argument is based on the assumption that even cannot associate with a focus which has moved out of its scope. I show that this assumption is incorrect, defusing Nakanishi’s argument. I propose that when even associates with a focus which has moved out of its scope, it actually associates with focused material in the lower copies of movement (trace positions). I show that a closer look at ACD examples of Nakanishi’s type in fact forms a new argument against the scope theory. I conclude that English VP-even must always be interpreted in its pronounced position. The patterns of focus association with even presented here constitute a new argument for the copy theory of movement.

Tanglewood Untangled

We argue for the existence of covert focus movement in English focus association. Our evidence comes from Tanglewood configurations of the form in Kratzer 1991. We show that Tanglewood configurations are sensitive to syntactic islands, contrary to Kratzer’s claims and predictions. We propose that Tanglewood configurations always involve covert movement of the focused constituent—possibly with covert pied-piping (Drubig 1994; Krifka 1996, 2006; Tancredi 1997, 2004; Wagner 2006; Erlewine & Kotek 2014)—to bind a bound variable in the ellipsis site. This availability of covert pied-piping explains examples such as Kratzer’s which are apparently not island-sensitive. We show that covert focus movement is long-distance and not simply QR. Kratzer’s proposal that ellipsis enforces the identity of focus indices is shown to overgenerate Tanglewood readings.