The Syntax-Focus Structure Interface

Focus structure (f-structure) theory is a model of informational structure. It provides a natural account of a wide range of linguistic phenomena, usually ac-counted for by syntactic constraints and rules of logical form (LF), including quantifier scope, interpretations of wh-questions, anaphora, and extraction. A model of grammar necessarily includes f-structure since it determines intonation. F-structure theory allows for a large part of syntax, including LF syntax, to be handled by f-structure principles. The model I propose is therefore maximally simple in that it enables interpretation off-structures directly without the mediation of LF. Constraints on f-structure take two forms: those that are only loosely deter-mined by syntax rendering marked and unmarked sequences (quantifier scope), and others which pertain to a well-defined class of dependencies which require isomorphism between f-structure and syntactic structure. This chapter aims to illustrate these claims with a selection of such dependencies (wh-movement, negation)