7. An experimental investigation of focus.

In the present experimental study, subjects were asked for direct judgements of the importance of words in a set of twenty sentences which varied systematically according to voice, dative position, and location of contrastive stress. These three sentence properties were considered to have possible focus roles. The results indicated that front-shifting, as occurs in passivization or dative movement, is a focus device, as is contrastive stress.

Published online: 01 January 1980
https://doi.org/10.1075/ssls.3.14and