This paper discusses the following two important issues in contemporary linguistics; (a)
association with
focus, and (b) the
semantic frameworks of focus representation. We will first discuss different focus-
sensitive constructions recognized in the previous literature (Dretske 1972; Hajicova 1984; Sgall, Hajicova and Panevov6 1986; Partee 1991; Rooth 1995, etc.). Then we summarize different syntactic and semantic frameworks for the interpretation of focus. The syntactic one is usually referred to as the Focus LF Movement approach (Chomsky 1977). The semantic ones, which are characterized by their different ways of accessing focus and the
background, include the following four; (a) Double Access Theory (Jackendoff 1972, etc. ),
operating on both focus and the background; (b) Replacive Theory (Pulman 1997), operating on focus only; (c) Alternative Semantics (Rooth 1985, 1992, 1995), operating on the entire proposition, which involves no direct access to focus or the background; and (d) In - Situ Binding Semantics (Kratzer 1991; Wold 1996), operating on the background only. Krifka (1997) shows that none of the above frameworks can assign correct interpretation to sentences involving "only", which leads him to propose a hybrid framework of focus interpretation. Under his framework, association with focus involves two separate processes; (1) direct association of focus - sensitive operators (FO) with focus phrases, which observes the island constraints thus modeled by LF Movement; and (2) indirect association of FO' s with focus via Alternative Semantics.
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