Greek marks topics instead of foci

Abstract

This article discusses the discourse-semantic properties of Greek preverbal and postverbal object foci. Greek preverbal object foci are compared with their postverbal counterparts with respect to exhaustivity, contrastivity and discourse topichood. It is shown that preverbal and postverbal object foci do not differ with respect to exhaustivity and contrastivity. In particular, preverbal and postverbal object foci can receive a non-exhaustive interpretation. Preverbal as well as postverbal object foci can be interpreted contrastively. It is argued that preverbal object foci differ from their postverbal counterparts with respect to discourse topichood. Greek preverbal object foci obligatorily function as discourse topics. In this respect, the fact that object foci can occur preverbally is due to the fact that they are discourse topics. Evidence for this claim is provided by backward anaphora resolution and by a continuation test. The continuation test has been carried out by means of a questionnaire.