The realization of information focus in Catalan

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• dc.contributor.author Mayol, Laia
• dc.contributor.author Cruschina, Silvio
• dc.date.accessioned 2023-03-13T07:17:29Z
• dc.date.available 2023-03-13T07:17:29Z
• dc.date.issued 2022
• dc.description.abstract Answers to wh-questions are the most widespread method to elicit information focus. When studying the syntax of focus, however, this method is problematic because the most natural answer to a wh-question is often a fragment that only includes the focus. This problem has led to considerable controversy in the literature about the position in which information focus is realized, particularly for Spanish, but also for Catalan. In order to enhance the naturalness and reliability of the question-answer test, we designed an experiment with a new elicitation technique (i.e., questions with a delayed answer) in which some material is inserted between the question and the point in which the participant is asked to answer the question, so that the Catalan participants would spontaneously utter a full sentence instead of a fragment, without being explicitly instructed to do so. The material of this production experiment was then adapted in a rating experiment on the acceptability of preverbal and postverbal information foci in Catalan. The results of this second study confirm the findings of the production experiment: postverbal focus is always preferred over preverbal focus, both in the case of subjects and objects.
• dc.description.sponsorship This research has been partially funded by project PGC2018-094029-A-I00 from the Spanish State Research Agency (AEI) and the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER, UE).
• dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
• dc.identifier.citation Cruschina S, Mayol L. The realization of information focus in Catalan. Languages. 2022;7(4):310. DOI: 10.3390/languages7040310
• dc.identifier.doi http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/languages7040310
• dc.identifier.issn 2226-471X
• dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/10230/56171
• dc.language.iso eng
• dc.publisher MDPI
• dc.relation.ispartof Languages. 2022;7(4):310.
• dc.relation.isreferencedby https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/WQ8JK
• dc.relation.projectID info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/2PE/PGC2018-094029-A-I00
• dc.rights © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
• dc.rights.accessRights info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
• dc.rights.uri https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• dc.subject.keyword information focus
• dc.subject.keyword Catalan
• dc.subject.keyword questions with a delayed answer
• dc.subject.keyword production experiment
• dc.subject.keyword acceptability judgements
• dc.subject.keyword subject focus
• dc.subject.keyword object focus
• dc.title The realization of information focus in Catalan
• dc.type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
• dc.type.version info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion