Spring, 2013 Syntax Colloquium
國立清華大學語言所專題演講
演講人：舒志翔（中央研究院）
講題：The Fine Structure of Focus-sensitivity
時間：2013年5月2日（星期四）上午10時
地點：清華大學人社院C519室
摘要：
In this talk I present a novel syntactic account for certain left-periphery expressions. Previous studies of left-periphery expressions have generally focused on the hierarchy of functional heads (Rizzi 1997, Cinque 1999, inter alia). These analyses say very little about focus-sensitive expressions, and when they do, they paradoxically acknowledge that functional heads can be focus-sensitive but also treat this property as irrelevant. On the other hand, previous studies of focus-sensitive expressions (Bayer 1996, Horvath 2007) also suffer from various theoretical problems and are ill-equipped to account for a wider range of empirical facts. The state of affairs calls for not only the study of the fine structure of left-periphery, but also the fine structure of focus-sensitivity. I demonstrate what we can gain by this line of research by teasing apart the syntactic components of sentence adverbs, focus movement, and exclamative clauses. Furthermore, I argue that the Agree theory (Chomsky 2000 et seq) is better equipped to account for focus-sensitivity than those adopted by previous studies.
演講人：舒志翔（中央研究院）
講題：The Fine Structure of Focus-sensitivity
時間：2013年5月2日（星期四）上午10時
地點：清華大學人社院C519室
摘要：
In this talk I present a novel syntactic account for certain left-periphery expressions. Previous studies of left-periphery expressions have generally focused on the hierarchy of functional heads (Rizzi 1997, Cinque 1999, inter alia). These analyses say very little about focus-sensitive expressions, and when they do, they paradoxically acknowledge that functional heads can be focus-sensitive but also treat this property as irrelevant. On the other hand, previous studies of focus-sensitive expressions (Bayer 1996, Horvath 2007) also suffer from various theoretical problems and are ill-equipped to account for a wider range of empirical facts. The state of affairs calls for not only the study of the fine structure of left-periphery, but also the fine structure of focus-sensitivity. I demonstrate what we can gain by this line of research by teasing apart the syntactic components of sentence adverbs, focus movement, and exclamative clauses. Furthermore, I argue that the Agree theory (Chomsky 2000 et seq) is better equipped to account for focus-sensitivity than those adopted by previous studies.