The Semantics of Questions and the Focusation of Answers

In Krifka (2001) I argued that three distinct phenomena of question semantics – alternative questions like Did it rain or not?, multiple constituent questions with pair-list readings like Who bought what? and the focus patterns of answers to constituent questions – cannot be dealt with adequately within the framework of Alternative Semantics. In Krifka (to appear) I argue that Alternative Semantics also is problematic as a framework for focus semantics in general; in particular, it makes wrong predictions in case focus occurs in syntactic islands.

In this paper I will take up an issue of Krifka (2001) again, concentrating specifically on focus patterns in answers to constituent questions. Büring (2002) argued that the discussion of phenomena in Krifka (2001) was inconclusive, and that Alternative Semantics actually does not have problems with the data put forward there. I agree with the first point, but I will also show that on closer inspection, Alternative Semantics does not predict the correct patterns of answer focus. I will also show that the same holds for the theory of Schwarzschild (1999) which works with Givenness instead of a semantic notion of Focus. The Structured Meaning theory, on the other hand, does not have these problems.