What is it about?
Focus, which is primarily a category of information structure, has also been interpreted in formal syntactic analysis (generative syntax, minimalism) as a head in the left periphery of a clause. The paper offers a view of focus which is not directly coded in narrow syntax, but is rather an interpretive outcome of a more general syntactic relation, referred to as (specification) Predication. The properties of focus as predication are presented in the context of the discussion of a type of copular clauses in Polish.
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Why is it important?
The view is an alternative to standard, accounts of focus in terms of sentence cartography and aims at the subsumption of more specific grammatical relations, such as copular clauses, focus and predication under one grammatical scheme of predication. It also applies a consistently derivational framework of minimalist syntax.
Perspectives
A link between predication and focus has been recognized and elaborated on by many authors. However, the idea still needs more exemplification and justification. I think the paper contributes to the discussion of the status of both predication and focus with new facts from the syntax of Polish.
Prof.dr.hab. Przemysław Tajsner
Adam Mickiewicz University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: On Specification Predication and the Derivation of Copular to-Clauses in Polish, Studia Anglica Posnaniensia, January 2015, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1515/stap-2015-0032.
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