石川邦芳 言語学研究室
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Focus-affected readings of weak NPs and information updating
LACUS Forum 31. 2005
In this study, I base my analysis on a semantic restriction on the occurrence of weak NPs along the line of Milsark (1974, 1977). I will argue that a quantificationally weak NP must receive focusing for felicity of discourse information when it provokes a conflict with a property-denoting predicate. The main question I will discuss is illustrated in the following Japanese examples.
(1) Property-denoting sentence with a weak NP subject:
a. without an accent on the subject:
# Keikan-ga aikokuteki-da.
policeman-NOM patriotic -Copula
Intended: 'A/some policeman is patriotic,' ["#": semantic infelicity]
b. with some accent on the subject:
KEIKAN-ga aikokuteki-da.
'It is a policeman/policemen who is/are patriotic.'
(2) Inalienable possession with double-nominative (DN I-POSS)
a. without an accent on either nominative NP:
#Otona-ga ashi-ga hayai.
Adult-NOM foot-NOM quick
Intended: 'Adults are quick in walking/running.'
b. with some accent on the first nominative NP:
OTONA-ga ashi-ga hayai.
'Adults are quick in walking/running.'
In (1), I observe that focus apparently affects the restriction on a weak NP co-occurring with a property-denoting predicate. The weak existential subject becomes acceptable with focus in (1b). Capital letters indicate prosodic prominence by means of accents. One and the same structure can be either felicitous or infelicitous in Japanese, depending on the focus assignment on a subject. A sentence is acceptable only when it is accompanied by an additional accent on a subject NP, as in (1b). Also in (2) with what is called Inalienable Possession with double-nominative (hereafter DN I-POSS), we see a similar contrast. Overall, the felicity contrast observed in both (1) and (2) is derived from one and the same structure, dependent on prosodic prominence, so structural or semantic representation alone cannot explain the observed phenomena.
The main points are the following: first, prosodic prominence of focusing saves an otherwise infelicitous utterance such as (1a) and (2a); second, in the observed constructions, focusing occurs as the process of information updating at the level of discourse representation, which is separate from that of structural representation. With the discourse representation, hearers can identify which part of an utterance represents a valid contribution to their information state at the time of utterance. Therefore, a weak NP must receive focusing for felicity of discourse information when it provokes a conflict with a property-denoting predicate. The examples are mainly taken from Japanese. In section 1, I will briefly discuss certain important properties that the nominative marker -ga is equipped with in Japanese. Section 2 begins with a brief introduction of some semantic restriction on weak NPs, and then follows the discussion of how the restriction can be obviated by means of focusing. Section 3 deals with the focusing involved in one kind of DN I-POSS construction, and I argue that the same focusing process as the one observed in (1) is relevant to DN I-POSS examples such as (2).