Scrambling and Information Focus in Old and Contemporary Portuguese

This paper proposes that object scrambling both in Old and Contemporary Portuguese is a strategy to create appropriate information focus configurations. Essentially, it makes the rightmost constituent that would otherwise bear the neutral sentence nuclear stress escape it. In narrow information focu...

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Autor principal:	Ana Maria Martins
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	CA EN
Publicado:	Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona 2011
Materias:	Object scrambling information structure word order Old Portuguese European Portuguese Philology. Linguistics P1-1091
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/163cdcf45e854101be86be9b126b64b9
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:163cdcf45e854101be86be9b126b64b92021-11-27T10:47:27ZScrambling and Information Focus in Old and Contemporary Portuguese10.5565/rev/catjl.351695-68852014-9719https://doaj.org/article/163cdcf45e854101be86be9b126b64b92011-12-01T00:00:00Zhttps://revistes.uab.cat/catJL/article/view/35https://doaj.org/toc/1695-6885https://doaj.org/toc/2014-9719This paper proposes that object scrambling both in Old and Contemporary Portuguese is a strategy to create appropriate information focus configurations. Essentially, it makes the rightmost constituent that would otherwise bear the neutral sentence nuclear stress escape it. In narrow information focus structures this amounts to defocusing of the scrambled constituent. In broad information focus sentences the scrambled constituent is prosodically and pragmatically demoted with respect to salience. Thus, leftward displacement of the scrambled constituent either allows another constituent to acquire discourse/informational prominence or creates a ‘flat’ structure in that respect. The informational import of the scrambling strategy is constant throughout the history of Portuguese. But while Old Portuguese allowed both short scrambling (i.e. adjunction to VP) and middle scrambling (i.e. raising to multiple Spec,TP), only short scrambling is a grammatical option in Contemporary European Portuguese. Hence, Old Portuguese scrambling could derive SOV sentences whereas Contemporary European Portuguese scrambling maintains the object in postverbal position. The view that scrambling may induce loss or downgrading of discourse/ informational prominence as it removes constituents from the clause-final position to which such prominence is assigned is supported by cross-linguistic evidence (Taylor & Pintzuk 2010 for Old English, Pinkster 1990 and Devine & Stephens 2006 for Latin).Ana Maria MartinsUniversitat Autònoma de BarcelonaarticleObject scramblinginformation structureword orderOld PortugueseEuropean PortuguesePhilology. LinguisticsP1-1091CAENCatalan Journal of Linguistics, Vol 10 (2011)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	CA EN
topic	Object scrambling information structure word order Old Portuguese European Portuguese Philology. Linguistics P1-1091
spellingShingle	Object scrambling information structure word order Old Portuguese European Portuguese Philology. Linguistics P1-1091 Ana Maria Martins Scrambling and Information Focus in Old and Contemporary Portuguese
description	This paper proposes that object scrambling both in Old and Contemporary Portuguese is a strategy to create appropriate information focus configurations. Essentially, it makes the rightmost constituent that would otherwise bear the neutral sentence nuclear stress escape it. In narrow information focus structures this amounts to defocusing of the scrambled constituent. In broad information focus sentences the scrambled constituent is prosodically and pragmatically demoted with respect to salience. Thus, leftward displacement of the scrambled constituent either allows another constituent to acquire discourse/informational prominence or creates a ‘flat’ structure in that respect. The informational import of the scrambling strategy is constant throughout the history of Portuguese. But while Old Portuguese allowed both short scrambling (i.e. adjunction to VP) and middle scrambling (i.e. raising to multiple Spec,TP), only short scrambling is a grammatical option in Contemporary European Portuguese. Hence, Old Portuguese scrambling could derive SOV sentences whereas Contemporary European Portuguese scrambling maintains the object in postverbal position. The view that scrambling may induce loss or downgrading of discourse/ informational prominence as it removes constituents from the clause-final position to which such prominence is assigned is supported by cross-linguistic evidence (Taylor & Pintzuk 2010 for Old English, Pinkster 1990 and Devine & Stephens 2006 for Latin).
format	article
author	Ana Maria Martins
author_facet	Ana Maria Martins
author_sort	Ana Maria Martins
title	Scrambling and Information Focus in Old and Contemporary Portuguese
title_short	Scrambling and Information Focus in Old and Contemporary Portuguese
title_full	Scrambling and Information Focus in Old and Contemporary Portuguese
title_fullStr	Scrambling and Information Focus in Old and Contemporary Portuguese
title_full_unstemmed	Scrambling and Information Focus in Old and Contemporary Portuguese
title_sort	scrambling and information focus in old and contemporary portuguese
publisher	Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
publishDate	2011
url	https://doaj.org/article/163cdcf45e854101be86be9b126b64b9
work_keys_str_mv	AT anamariamartins scramblingandinformationfocusinoldandcontemporaryportuguese
_version_	1718409031227277312

Scrambling and Information Focus in Old and Contemporary Portuguese

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