Sinhala focus concord constructions from a discourse-syntactic perspective

• Main Author: Hideki Kishimoto
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Open Library of Humanities 2018-01-01
• Series: Glossa
• Subjects: focus concord; focus particle; particle movement; CP-domain; Sinhala
• Online Access: https://www.glossa-journal.org/articles/260

Sinhala is a language in which a focus particle may be used for marking focus with no visible movement. In Sinhala, a focused constituent can be delimited by a focus particle appearing in clause-internal position, but the same particle is often allowed to occur in clause-final scope position as well, in which case a focused constituent is not overtly marked by the particle. In this paper, I argue that the focus particle located in a focus-delimiting position is raised to the scope position in the CP domain to specify the scope of its associated focus constituent. Focus particles are distinguished according to whether or not they carry an interrogative meaning. On the basis of 'wh'-island effects observed for long distance pseudo-clefting in interrogative focus concord constructions, and their absence in non-interrogative focus concord constructions, it is suggested that a non-interrogative focus particle is located in FocP, and an interrogative focus particle, ForceP at the LF level. It is also shown that A’-movement of a focus particle to its scope position can take place either in narrow syntax or at LF even if it appears in clause-internal position in the surface strings.