Confronting Focus Strategies in Finnish and in Italian: An Experimental Study on Object Focusing

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I don't have any detailed comments on the substance of the article, since I'm not an expert on Finnish and only know a little about the focus constructions in Italian. My one comment concerns the idea in the conclusion that focus-fronting may be connected to stylistic fronting; although an interesting speculation, this idea does not appear to be motivated by the careful theoretical and empirical discussions in the core of the paper and rather seems to be a starting point for a new paper.  All in all, I'm not convinced this passage belongs here.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for her/his appreciation of our paper. The final proposal has been better discussed and motivated. We hope this improvement can meet her/his requirement.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Contribution. The paper aims at investigating whether two specific interpretive factors, namely corrective and exhaustive value, act as triggers for focus fronting in Italian and Finnish, as compared to the in situ realization of focus and  to a different focus strategy (clefts in Italian, hän-marking in Finnish). The independent variable ‘focus strategy’ was crossed with two others: presence vs. absence of an overt exhaustive operator (only), and the predicate type, aimed at comparing object fronting with fronting of an unergative and an unaccusative subject.

The first result is that in both languages, focus in situ is the largely preferred option independently of the two other factors. The second result is that the predicate type is not a relevant factor, except for the interaction with focus strategy in Finnish. Third, the presence vs. absence of the exhaustivity operator interacts significantly with the ‘focus strategy’ factor, but in different directions in the two languages: in Finnish the operator seems dispreferred under focus fronting, in Italian it increases the acceptability of both in situ and fronted foci, and it has no effect in the cleft condition.

The author(s) conclude that focus fronting is not inherently associated with a corrective value nor with exhaustivity; they propose that it is a type of stylistic movement which enhances the communicative salience of the fronted constituent.

General comments

1. The first part of the argumentation is poorly organized. First, a distinction between types of focusing is discussed, with reference to different approaches (it is not always clear which one the author(s) assume, or whether the choice is immaterial). The discussion then moves on to focus strategies. Leaving aside focus in situ as the unmarked option, fronting as a marked focus strategy is discussed for both languages. But then, two different strategies are introduced for the two languages. For Italian, clefts are assumed as a further level for the ‘focus strategy’ factor in the test; as for Finnish, it is argued that clefts are not suitable to be tested, and another unrelated strategy is introduced and assumed, namely hän marking. 

Much of the difficulty lies, in my opinion, in the fact that the author(s) have not stated explicitly at the beginning which independent factors they decided to test, and why those were selected. The working hypothesis proposed at the outset is very clear: to check whether apparent optionality of focus fronting can be explained by the interaction of specific features. However, the hypothesis is too general to provide a clear ‘roadmap’ for the following argumentation.

I would suggest a reorganization along these lines: an introductory section where the three independent factors are presented, and explicit research questions make clear why those factors were selected, and which interactions are expected (if any). Then, the discussion of focus types and focus strategies could be linked directly to the relevant independent factor, explaining why specific levels of that factor were chosen.

The presentation of the experimental design is clear; the results are reported and discussed in great detail.

Adding a table summarizing the significant factors and interactions in the two languages would improve clarity.

2. The predictions made for each of the experimental conditions should be stated explicitly. 

Since the corrective and the exhaustive values are at the core of the main hypothesis, one would have expected that they would be tested as independent factors and crossed with the ‘focus strategy’ factor. This is not the design chosen.

Exhaustivity is tested through the ‘operator’ factor. The rationale, as far as I understood, is that the overt exhaustive operator would reduce the need for focus fronting, under the assumption that fronting expresses exhaustivity.  

Moreover, one level of the ‘focus strategy’ factor involves exhaustivity –  the third strategies tested (in addition to in situ and fronting) are assumed to mark exhaustive focus .(I guess they should somehow act as a control w.r.t. fronting).

I did not understand which predictions are made through this design.  The author(s) combine both interpretive values in the same contexts: the ‘set restriction’ interpretation requires exhaustivity, but then the items are embedded in a corrective context. In this way, it is unclear how to disentangle the potentially separate relevance of the two factors. (Or is the corrective value  the same as exhaustivity? This is discussed in two points, but the authors do not make explicit such an assumption).

3. The asymmetry in the choice of the third focus strategy is puzzling: it is based on the assumption (not sufficiently proved, in my opinion) that both Italian clefts and Finnish hän-marking convey exhaustive focus. The data reported actually show that hän , as a second position clitic, can mark the preceding constituent as a topic or ‘delimiter’ (independently of the focus that falls on another constituent): this is a possible interpretation of the particle that is indeed mentioned in fn. 13.

 The hypothesis that hän licenses a lower constituent as (exhaustive?) focus under Agree must be proved, by showing that the focus in situ receives a different interpretation with and without clause-initial hän. 

The exhaustivity of the particle is assumed on the grounds that it is generally translated with a cleft in English and in Italian; this is certainly suggestive, but it hardly counts as conclusive evidence. I suggest adding the tests for exhaustivity that are briefly mentioned in line 195.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for her/his comments. We have taken into account every single point, hoping this will meet her/his requirements (see pdf attached).

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

I think that the paper is a very interesting example of how experimental syntax can help us assess (and challenge) existing theoretical assumptions.

The experiment rests on a very solid theoretical basis, as evidenced by the impressive reference list.

Typo on p. 8: "Vanrell and Fernandes-Soriano 2013" should be "Vanrell and Fernández-Soriano 2013".

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for her/his appreciation of our paper. The typo has been corrected.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The revised version is more explicit w.r.t. the research hypotheses and, consequently, the argumentation has become clearer and more compelling. The discussion of the particle hän is more detailed about its polifunctionality. 

The relation between the experimental design and results has been clarified, especially in their connection to the three research hypotheses. 

I still think that *methodologically*, in order to demonstrate the interaction of corrective value and exhaustivity these two factors should also have been tested independently of one another. This would have required a separate preliminary experiment on the first research hypothesis only, since the design chosen is already very complex. Anyway, since the first hypothesis has not been confirmed, this point can be put aside.