Chapter 10 FOCUS: Nowhere 1. Introduction In addition to the opposition between paradigmatic and syntagmatic FOCUS (cf. Chapter 9), there is another opposition, one that depends upon, and is limited to occurrence within, syntagmatic FOCUS. In this chapter, we turn to the expression of FOCUS that has been labelled “in situ”. To assert the existence of FOCUS in situ languages presupposes that we can determine what their neutral, basic or unmarked word order is. Unless we can do that, there is no situs to speak of.1 We will quickly discover that the “FOCUS in situ” label is too broad. Languages that have been given this appellation differ significantly among themselves, and some are in fact not FOCUS in situ at all. Languages are usually identified as FOCUS in situ by reasoning through the following four steps: (i) There is an overt expression of FOCUS; (ii) There is an identifiable range of usages for that expression, e.g. answers to wh-questions; (iii) The range of usages of (ii) are additionally associated with an in situ expression; (iv) The conclusion is that the in situ expression must share a sense of FOCUS with the overt expression of FOCUS, which in (i) was associated with the usages. It is the fact that in situ FOCUS references order that limits it to syntagmatic FOCUS. The contrasting non-in situ FOCUS of (i) is usually called ex situ, even though order may not be the actual morphosyntactic mark of its presence.2 The existence of FOCUS in situ languages forces us to modify our original claim that the semantics of language can only be expressed by three morphosyntactic means: syntagmatic contrast in order, paradigmatic contrast in alternate forms, and contrasting suprasegmentals. In “true” FOCUS in situ languages, FOCUS is nowhere to be found in the morphosyntax, and such languages depend upon contrasting contexts to distinguish different semantics. 1 Within the frame of the opposition between paradigmatic and syntagmatic FOCUS (cf. Chapter 10 and below), in situ FOCUS is confined to the latter. This seems self-evident since the use (or non-use) of order that is the sine qua non of in situ FOCUS presupposes a syntagmatic choice, which is absent from paradigmatic FOCUS. 2 Cf., for example, Northern Sotho in section 3.1 below. 2 SYNTAX & SEMANTICS Examination of FOCUS in those languages which appear to have FOCUS in situ has the beneficial effect of placing in sharper relief the role which the semantics of ASSERTION plays in shaping the semantics of FOCUS in general. ASSERTION is at the foundation of paradigmatic FOCUS (cf. Chapter 9), but it may also appear in syntagmatic FOCUS. The exploitation of ASSERTION for the purpose of expressing syntagmatic FOCUS is a graded phenomenon. While, at one extreme, there are languages whose syntagmatic FOCUS relies exclusively on ASSERTION, at the other extreme, there are languages which configure syntagmatic FOCUS while completely avoiding any appeal to ASSERTION. Still others will restrict ASSERTION to specific places in their systems of syntagmatic FOCUS. Recognizing this, we may distinguish languages along this dimension, i.e., the degree to which the semantics of ASSERTION is present in the organization of syntagmatic FOCUS. The first type will rely entirely on ASSERTION. Bella Coola, Wolof, Eastern Armenian, and Mupun (section 3.3 below) are of this type. Reliance on ASSERTION does not imply that its morphosyntactic expression will be the same in each language. Bella Coola, Wolof, Somali (Chapter 9, section 3.2.1), and Mupun are strikingly (and interestingly) different in how they have gone about formally integrating ASSERTION into FOCUS. The second type is split. These languages will employ ASSERTION (in paradigmatic FOCUS) as the sole mark of focused Agents, while the other functions will have another FOCUS that is ASSERTION free.3 The third type of language will give expression to ASSERTION in a way tangential to FOCUS. ASSERTION is present and intersects orthogonally with it, but ASSERTION does not itself give expression to FOCUS. Hausa (section 3.2 below) is a language of this type. While not relying on ASSERTION to compose FOCUS, Hausa permits the expression of ASSERTION as an independent modulation of each of the three degrees of FOCUS which the language does express. The fourth type is like Hausa, but the tangential use of ASSERTION is restricted and does not occur with all degrees of FOCUS. Modern Standard Arabic (section 2.1) illustrates this type. The fifth type separates the semantics of ASSERTION from the semantics of syntagmatic FOCUS entirely. Except for coexisting in the same utterance, they do not interact at all. Miya, Modern Greek and (probably) Haida are of this type.4 Rather than grouping all languages which fail to use order to signal FOCUS together, with no further distinction, and instead of using only the formal 3 We will return to try to explain why this should be so in the following chapter as part of the explanation of why FOCUS has an affinity for EVENTS and certain positions in word order. 4 I am not aware of any reason to connect the morphology of -¢uu with the semantics of ASSERTION. FOCUS: Nowhere 3 criterion that FOCUS is expressed in the same word order position which the focused content would otherwise occupy, were it not focused, I now propose a functional semantic behavior of in situ FOCUS. The outcome will be that some, but not all of the FOCUS in situ appearing languages are truly FOCUS in situ. The proposal uses the typology of the preceding pragraph. This is the FOCUS in situ Conjecture:5 (i) A language has more than one degree of FOCUS in terms of a scale of LAX versus INTENSE FOCUS; (ii) The semantic composition of the force of FOCUS is not structured in terms of ASSERTION (e.g., as it is in Wolof); (iii) When this occurs, the weaker degree of FOCUS will be expressed by a “weaker” morphosyntax, i.e., in situ, with or without the assistance of suprasegmentals. The FOCUS in situ Conjecture makes predictions that are easily falsifiable.6 It also raises further questions. If a language satisfies conditions (i) and (ii), is it necessarily the case that it will be FOCUS in situ? And unless we allow some nonarbitrary connection between meaning and expression, why should the weaker FOCUS be expressed by the formal means that is FOCUS in situ? We will begin to address these questions in section 3.3 in a discussion of Mupun. The involvement of ASSERTION in FOCUS will be fairly easily to detect, either by the specific morphosyntax that is used,7 or by the semantics associated with the morphosyntax,8 or both.9 Conversely, the absence of ASSERTION from the constitution of FOCUS will also be easily identified.10 The languages we discuss in this chapter will be presented according to the neutral word order attributed to them in the literature: VSO, SVO, and SOV. 2. In Situ Languages that are VSO 2.1 Modern Standard Arabic11 5 Recall that since in situ FOCUS is dependent upon syntagmatic FOCUS, this conjecture applies only to that kind of FOCUS. 6 So it may have a very short life span. 7 Bella Coola. 8 Hausa (below). 9 Mupun (below). 10 A useful heurisic in recognizing the presence of ASSERTION is that an utterance that can be questioned yes/no is one that is asserted. But ASSERTION, like FOCUS, comes in degrees. Cf. Davis Ms.c. There are many other treatments of ASSERTION in the literature. 11 The following sources provide the material for this section: Bahloul 1993, Bakir 1980, 4 SYNTAX & SEMANTICS We shall first examine Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). Our reason for beginning with MSA is that it appears in some ways to challenge our previous conceptualization of FOCUS. Moutaouakil (1989.1) describes MSA thusly: Modern Standard Arabic, essentially a written language, is the vehicle of culture in the Arabic world; it is the language of contemporary Arabic literature, of the press and of education. Although Modern Standard Arabic is markedly different from ‘Classical’ Arabic, it continues to display the same fundamental structure, for largely cultural reasons. The language is also known as Literary Arabic, about which Bakir (1980.1 & 3) writes: ... no Arab acquires this form of the language at home and therefore there is no NATIVE speaker of it ... By Literary Arabic I mean the variety of Arabic used by educated Arabs for a variety of linguistic functions. It is used exclusively in books, newspapers and writing media; radio, television and even in personal letters. Literary Arabic represents a continuation of Classical Arabic . Diferrent terms have been used to name this form of Arabic: Standard Arabic’ Modern Standard Arabic; Modern Written Arabic .... There is unanimity in attributing a neutral word order of VSO to the language: ... although Arabic allows a number of variations in the word order of the sentence, the VSO order should be taken as ... the basic order .... (Bakir 1980.3) Il existe en Arabe un ordre non marqué (ou neutre) selon lequel les constituants sujet et objet occupent, dans la phrase verbale (don le prédicat est un verbe), les positions VSO .... (Moutaouakil 1984.144-145) I assume ... that SA [Standard Aabic] is underlyingly an SVO language and VSO word order is achieved through verb movement to INFL. Such a movement is rendered obligatory in SA so verbs get tense features ....” (Bahloul 1993.214)12 I accept the fact that VSO is indeed the discourse neutral word order (Mohammad Mohammad 2000, Moutaouakil 1984 & 1989, Ouhalla 1993, 1994a, 1994b, 1997a, 1997b & 1999, Plunkett 1993, and Shlonsky 2000.