Marking Contrastive Topics in a Topic Shift Context: Contrastive Adverbs versus Emphatic Pronouns

Contrastive Focus and Contrastive Topics in Greek

This paper puts forward the idea that in Greek contrast is an independent feature, represented in syntax by a preverbal position. Contrast can be assigned to diierent sorts of entities, topics and foci, once a set/list of contrasting alternatives/entities has been introduced or directly implied by the discourse. Evidence for an independent treatment of contrast is provided by similarities in th...

Contrastive Topic and/or Contrastive Focus

Contrast and Contrastive Topic

The starting point of this paper is the observation that in a question-answer dialog the use of but instead of and is obligatory if the answer is overinformative in that it includes an additional topic. A focus-semantic analysis of but is presented showing that (a) but is focus-sensitive and (b) but requires a denial with respect to the appropriate quaestio. This analysis provides a uniform bas...

Contrastive topic constituents in German

This article reports on a study investigating the intonational realization of context-changing and context-preserving contrastive topics in German. Results of the pilot study show that both kinds of topics can be marked by different pitch accents on the topic constituent, although speakerspecific differences emerge. When speakers do use different pitch accents, low rises (L*H) exclusively occur...

Contrastive Topic: Meanings and Realizations

CONTRASTIVE TOPIC: MEANINGS AND REALIZATIONS