Indefinite phrases with focus function in Brazilian Portuguese: an experimental analysis

Fernanda Rosa da Silva
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Abstract

This paper claims to investigate if the question kind: yes-no question or wh-question, and the kind answer: with dislocated focus or non-dislocated focus, influence on the acceptability de Brazilian Portuguese (BP) sentences that present focus indefinite phrases. The research was developed from a psycholinguistic experiment. We consider as acceptability the level of adequacy of the answer in relation to the question given, according to the speaker's perception. We assume the Hamblin’s theory for semantic if the questions (HAMBLIN, 1973). For the focus semantic, we assume the Rooth’s proposal (ROOTH, 1985; 1995). And for indefinite phrase, we defend the Heim’s theory (HEIM, 1982; 1991). The research was motivated by theoretical analysis presented in Rosa-Silva (to appear). The author defends which the kind of question or the dislocation strategies influence on the acceptability de answers with indefinite focus. To verify whether these results are confirmed empirically, we developed a psychologic experiment. This experiment was accomplished from an off-line questionnaire. The experiment aimed to analyze the degree of acceptability in answers with indefinite focus, dislocated or non-dislocated, in dialogues with yes/no question and wh-question. 84 individuals participated in this experiment. The statistical results obtained showed that the question variable influences the acceptability of the sentence. Dialogues with wh-questions received massively high notes compared to dialogs with yes / no questions. The answer variable, with dislocation or no, did not present statistically relevant data that could be considered preponderant for acceptability. However, some tendencies indicate that if there is a larger sample this trend can be confirmed.

Full-text of the article is available for this locale: Português (Brasil).

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