Given that FNQ interpretation is considered a focus-affected reading, our main concern at present is as follows: Which is involved in the identification of the focused expression with which an FNQ associates? In this subsection, we argue that in Japanese FNQ sentences deaccented material is interpreted as contributing to the domain of quantification of a quantifier (e.g., background)
in the tripartite quantificational structure introduced in the previous subsection.
A good place to start is to examine English sentences containing the quantifier most, discussed by Hendriks (2003). Although determiners such as most are assumed to be focus-insensitive, emphatic stress can affect the interpretation of quantificational sentences involving these determiners (Hajičová et al. 1998). Effects of stress can be modeled by the following constraint which restricts the realization of information structure (from Hendriks 2003: 10):
72 Many researchers derive stress syntactically and project foci domains from stress (see, e.g., Ladd 1980, 1996; Schwarzschild 1999). Furthermore, as argued by these researchers, contextually given elements show an effect of rejecting accent, but the anaphoric nature and/or the small content of functional elements will often allow them to be taken a s given, in which case deaccenting results. The same thing can also apply to interesting issues relating to the correct account of the behavior of FNQs in Japanese.
70 (4.13)
DEACCENTING:
If a constituent is anaphorically deaccented, it must contribute to the domain of quantification of a quantifier.
This constraint on the realization of focused NPs is insensitive to other structural properties of the relevant constituent (e.g., whether the constituent is an NP or not, whether it appears preverbally or postverbally). The basic idea behind the deaccenting constraint is that an element can only be anaphorically deaccented if its sister is contrastively accented (cf. Williams 1997).73 Thus, contrastively accenting large in the noun phrase the large ships gives rise to the anaphoric deaccenting of ships. Similarly, contrastively accenting unload in the verb phrase unload at night gives rise to the anaphoric deaccenting of at night. Note that being deaccented is not the same as not bearing any accent.
An element is deaccented if it is the sister of a contrastively accented element. If no contrastive accenting occurs, then deaccenting does not occur either. Note also that a default accent does not give rise to deaccenting. In cases where default sentential accent is indistinguishable from contrastive accent, we expect potential ambiguity, which can only be resolved by contextual information.
Hendriks argues that the constraint DEACCENTING in (4.13) predicts intonational patterns realized in quantificational sentences such as (4.14) and (4.15). The deaccented part of the VP helps restrict the domain of quantification.
(4.14)
Most ships unload AT NIGHT.
73 This implies that accented constituents have to be interpreted as focus.
71 (4.15)
Most ships UNLOAD at night.
Indeed, this prediction is borne out by the interpretation of these sentences.
Here, the sentence meanings differ with respect to whether the phrases ships, unload and at night contribute to the domain of quantification or to the scope of quantification.
Accented material, on the other hand, is predicted not to contribute to the domain of quantification if it occurs in a position where it should according to syntactic structure contribute to the scope of quantification, and vice versa.
This prediction seems to be borne out by the following data containing only (cited from Hendriks 2003: 16-7):
(4.16)
Only ships unload AT NIGHT
(4.17)
Only ships UNLOAD at night
If only adjoins to the subject NP, the VP generally yields the domain of quantification. If a constituent in this VP is accented, as in (4.16) and (4.17), this accented element does not seem to be interpreted as contributing to the scope of quantification. That is, (4.16) does not seem to have the interpretation that only ships that do something at night unload. Similarly, (4.17) does not seem to have the interpretation that only ships that unload do so at night. Again, the interpretation deviates from the interpretation dictated by the syntactic structure of the sentence alone.74
Standardly, semantic relations such as the argument sets of a determiner
74 We will consider the semantics of only in section 4.2.5.
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are assumed to be based on syntactic structure (see Hendriks and de Hoop 2001; Hendriks 2003). In this view, the first argument set of a determiner, i.e.
the domain of quantification, is supplied by its noun and possible modifiers of the noun. The predicate supplies the second argument set.
However, prosodic prominence can also be a factor in determining the two argument sets of a quantificational determiner.
(4.18)
a. Most ships unload AT NIGHT b. Most people SLEEP at night
The preferred reading of ((4.18) a) under the assignment of stress as indicated is that most ships that unload do so at night. So the first argument set is given by the noun and the verb, whereas the second argument set is given by the adverbial phrase in focus. The preferred reading of ((4.18) b), on the other hand, is that what most people do at night is sleep. Here, the first argument set is given by the noun and the adverbial phrase, whereas the second argument set is given by the focused verb. In both examples, non-focal material yields the first argument set of the determiner, i.e., the domain of quantification or restrictor (R). Focal material yields the second argument set of the determiner, i.e., the scope of quantification or nuclear scope (S). If the stress patterns are reversed, we still find this effect:
(4.19)
a. Most ships UNLOAD at night b. Most people sleep AT NIGHT
Here, the domains of quantification are given by the set of ships that do something at night and the set of people that sleep, respectively. That is, the non-focal part of the sentence gives us the first argument set of the determiner.
73
The focal parts of the sentence, unload and at night, give us the second argument set of the determiner. Next we will argue that this line of analysis can be applied to the analysis of FNQ constructions.
We will now consider deaccenting relevant to the FNQ construction.
Informally speaking, if a listener wishes to interpret a sentence containing an FNQ, one of the things they must do is identify that focused expression. The analysis developed in what follows is based on a grammaticalized account of focus such as the one adopted in the structured meaning approach (Krifka 1991, 2006; Partee 1991; von Stechow 1991; Herburger 2000), which largel y relegates focus to syntax and semantics.75 Non-focused material forms a restriction on the quantifier, and the focused material constitutes its topic, which is compatible with the view discussed in the previous subsection.
Under the assumption that the restriction on a structured quantifier is background or presupposed/entailed and the scope is asserted (see (4.12)), the difference in information packaging follows directly from the assumption that since sentences containing an FNQ must have a certain quantificational structure and information structure, deaccented material is interpreted as contributing to the domain of quantification of a quantifier (e.g., background) (see Hendriks and de Hoop 2001, and Hendriks 2003 for further discussion).
One benefit within this account is that quantificational structure and information structure need not be specified as separate levels of semantic representation. Rather, they must be evoked by certain lexical items and specified in a single semantic representation of the syntactic structure.
The association between prosodic prominence and focus has been shown to hold in a variety of languages and is widely believed to be universal
75 Degrammaticalized accounts of focus, including the alternative semantics approach of Rooth (1985, 1992) and the approach of von Fintel (1994), remove focus from the grammar and place it in pragmatics. Under a pragmatic approach, focus is assumed to signal the presence in the context of a certain kind of presupposition, to which some FNQs might be anaphorically or presuppositionally related (see also Mori and Yoshimoto 2002 for a discussion of the interaction between presupposition and certain types of floating quantifiers).
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(Valluduví and Vilkuna 1998; Fretheim 2001; Gundel 1999, 2004; Van Valin 2005).76,77 Focus interpretation can basically be induced by prosody as well as word order and morphology (see Jackendoff 1997, 2007; Rooth 1985, 1992;
Erteschik-Shir 1997, 2007 for related discussion).
In terms of discourse-semantics, we will consider how the intonationally highlighted part, which is often associated with the most informative part, i.e., the focus, can be accommodated into the structured meaning (see section 4.2.3).
The investigation of accenting and deaccenting is useful especially when we consider NP-related FNQs that often show general deaccenting phenomena such as downstep (or decreasing) effects (see Chapter 5 for more discussion).78