Towards a Typology of Positive Polarity Focus Constructions

Abstract

This paper explores the cross-linguistic diversity of grammatical ways of encoding positive polarity focus in declaratives, termed polarity focus constructions. In addition, the paper attempts to address the question if such constructions cross-linguistically commonly target finite verb forms. A 20-language convenience sample was used for the study, spanning 10 language families from six geographic areas of the world: the Ethiopian Highlands, Europe, Mesoamerica, the Northwestern Coast of North America, Siberia and West Africa. The data were primarily collected from secondary sources. The investigation has confirmed all the structural types of polarity focus marking noted in previous work touching on the cross-linguistic structural diversity in polarity focus marking: prosodic prominence on the finite verb form, special syntactic positioning of the finite verb form, special morphemes and auxiliary verbs. What is more, it has attested to structural elements in polarity focus marking not mentioned in previous cross-linguistic work. One instance of these are special subject-agreement suffixes on the verb in Bench (Ta-Ne-Omotic, Ethiopian Highlands). Another instance is absence of structural elements that occur in canonical wide predicate-focus declaratives. This pattern was found in Bench and Somali (Afro-Asiatic, Cushitic, Ethiopian Highlands). In addition, all three pairs of languages within the same genus that are included in the dataset feature completely different polarity focus constructions: Bura-Pabir and Marghi South (Afro-Asiatic, Chadic, Bura-Marghi), English and Swedish (Indo-European, Germanic), and Croatian and Russian (Indo-European, Slavic). This suggests that polarity focus constructions might be a diachronically unstable feature. Finally, the polarity focus constructions in 16 of the 20 languages can be analysed as marking the finite verb form as the focus domain, with the data lacking for the remaining four languages. This suggests that the finite verb form as the syntactic domain of polarity focus may be a cross-linguistically common pattern.