Abstract
This paper studies the occurrence of verum accent in declaratives and polar interrogatives. Verum accent exhibits two kinds of interpretational effect: (i) it requires an epistemic conflict across sentence types and (ii) it may also convey a negative speaker bias in polar interrogatives. We argue that the former effect is due to a presuppositional VERUM operator and that the latter effect arises from the possibility of said operator carrying polarity focus. Our proposal implies that verum accenting and polarity focus are two distinct phenomena that interact in interesting ways.
Highlights
The phenomenon of verum accent involves placing a pitch accent on the finite auxiliary and triggering certain interpretational effects (Hohle 1992).1 In this paper, we try to get a theoretical handle on this phenomenon by studying the occurrence of verum accent in declaratives and polar interrogatives
We looked into the interpretational effects of verum accent in declaratives and polar interrogatives
This paper argued that verum accent is the overt realization of a VERUM operator, which presupposes an epistemic conflict about the prejacent proposition and which may generate a negative speaker bias in polar interrogatives
Summary
The phenomenon of verum accent involves placing a pitch accent on the finite auxiliary and triggering certain interpretational effects (Hohle 1992). In this paper, we try to get a theoretical handle on this phenomenon by studying the occurrence of verum accent in declaratives and polar interrogatives. As for their focus semantic values, we assume that these are equivalent and consist of the two most basic functions on propositions, i.e. identity and complementation, as shown in (24) This is the set comprised of the ordinary meanings for VERUM and negation, where the presupposition associated with the former operator is ignored.. In order to derive the optionality of speaker bias, we propose that verum-marked polar interrogatives may be associated with two homophonous Logical Forms, one with and another without focus marking. While both forms contain VERUM and require conflicting evidence about the prejacent, only the variant in which VERUM carries polarity focus conveys a bias.
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