Focus [Lat. Focus ‘Hearth, Fireplace’]

Questions on this topic? Just ask!

Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics

Term for the informational content of a sentence which the speaker wishes to express. The main grammatical means used to indicate the focus of a sentence are word order ( topicalization) and intonation. If the question test is applied to a sentence, the focus will be the scope of the most normal question posed. Thus in the sentence We went to the movies yesterday, the most natural question is Who went to the movies yesterday? With different intonation We went to the movies yesterday, the natural question would be Where did you go yesterday? Because a speaker generally emphasizes new information in a sentence, the focus will usually correspond to the rheme or comment. ( also functional sentence perspective)

Chomsky, N. 1969. Deep structure, surface structure and semantic interpretation. In D.D.Steinberg and L.A.Jakobovits (eds), Semantics. London and Cambridge. (Repr. in N.Chomsky, Studies on semantics in generative grammar. The Hague, 1972. 11–61.)

Jacobs, J. 1986. The syntax of focus and adverbials in German. In W.Abraham and S.de Meij (eds), Topic, focus and configurationality. Amsterdam.

103–27.

König, E. 1993. Focus particles. In J.Jacobs et al. (eds), Syntax: an international handbook of contemporary research. Berlin and New York. 978–88.

Lyons, J. 1977. Semantics, 2 vols. Cambridge.

Quirk, R. et al. 1985. A comprehensive grammar of the English language. New York.

Rochemont, M.S. 1986. Focus in generative grammar. Amsterdam.

Taglicht, J. 1984. Message and emphasis: on focus and scope in English. London.

——1993. Focus and background. In J.Jacobs et al. (eds), Syntax: an international handbook of contemporary research. Berlin and New York. 998–1005.

theme vs rheme, topic vs comment

This is the complete article, containing 275 words (approx. 1 page at 300 words per page).

View More Summaries on Focus (linguistics)