We are happy to announce a talk by Caroline Féry in the Phonology Colloquium.
Room: IG 4.301
Date: Wednesday January 28th
Time: 16-18 ct.
Title: On Negative Verum Answers
Abstract:
Höhle (1988, 1992) introduced the notion of Verum Fokus, nowadays often called Polarity
Focus, see also (Lohnstein 2012, Goodhue 2018 and many others). The focus is put on the
affirmative or negative content of a sentence and is expressed by a nuclear accent on the finite
part of the verb (or on Comp), see (1B).
(1) A: I asked Hanna what Karl is doing these days and she made the silly claim that he is
writing a screenplay.
B: Das stimmt. Karl schreibt ein Drehbuch.
‘It is true. Karl is writing a screenplay.’
I am interested in cases such as (2B), also from Höhle (1988), in which the sentence is negated,
but the nuclear accent is still on the finite verb.
(2) A: I hope Anna finally writes a book.
B: Aber Karl sagte mir, sie schreibt nicht an einem Buch.
‘But Karl told me she does not write a book.’
The nuclear accent placement in (2B) doesn’t comply to a simple focus-prosody model where
the new and focused information gets the nuclear stress: the main prominence is on the given
verb, not on the new negation.
Compare (2B) with (3B) where the negation is accented.
(3) A: Ich weiß, dass du David Bowie magst, du sollst mal die neue Doku auf Arte anschauen.
B: Ich mag ihn nicht.
I will examine the distinction between counterassertive (3B) and counterpresuppositional
negations (2B) mentioned by Gussenhoven (1983) and explain the “deviant” accent in (2B).
Other approaches will also be discussed, especially addressing additional pragmatic meanings
associated with verum focus or replacing it with operators.
The typological variation in accent placement was examined in joint work with Anja Arnhold.