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영어

This paper examines the interaction between sentence accent(or pitch accent) and focus. Drawing on earlier works by Selkirk (1984, 1995), Gussenhoven (1983, 1992, and 2002), Rochemont (1986), and Krifka (2001/2) on the relation between sentence accent and focus, we note that focus projection/transfer intermediating between them apparently displays complement vs. non-complement asymmetry. In turn then, the complement vs. non-complement asymmetry in focus projection/transfer provides a mirror into sentence structure building and other syntactic properties such as Wh-extraction. In particular, examining more carefully the implications that the analysis of the accent-focus relation in English suggests to us, we demonstrate that focus projection/transfer displays argument vs. adjunct asymmetry rather than complement vs. non-complement asymmetry. We also suggest that Chomsky’s (2001) conception of the distinction between set-merge and pair-merge is well motivated when we take into account the accent-focus relation.