Grammatical effects of topic and focus information

This dissertation examines how topic and focus information are realized within sentences and how they affect sentence forms, i.e. what morpho-syntactic resources are involved in expressing constructions associated with topic and focus information in Korean. I show that the topic feature is morphologically realized in-situ or by syntactic movement, whereas the focus feature is realized by pitch accent with no syntactic movement. Consequently I argue against the existence of focus movement in Korean.;Patterns of both nominal and predicate topics are examined; in particular, morpho-syntactic patterns of predicate topic constructions are scrutinized. Specifically the topic encoder is uniformly identified as the particle -nun for both nominal and predicate topics. Predicate topic constructions, called here Ha- and R-constructions, are examined to identify various morpho-syntactic properties and provide a systematic account for those properties. I claim that the two constructions are one and the same construction in terms of syntax and semantics, but they arise as a result of morphophonological variation at PF/Morphological Component. That is, the Ha- and R-constructions and their variations arise as a result of phrasal movement targeting different domains in narrow syntax and an optional deletion process in the lower copy in PF.;As for focus information, I show that pitch accent is responsible for focus interpretation, with apparent syntactic movement playing no significant role for focus interpretation. Sentential stress patterns and their implications for focus interpretation are examined. In particular, this dissertation examines whether scrambling has anything to do with focus. While I show that nuclear stress falls on the most deeply embedded XP in the base position, whether the sentence is scrambled or not, Saito's (1989) early observation is maintained that scrambling is an optional syntactic operation with no semantic effect as far as focus interpretation is concerned. As for the question of syntactic focus movement, constructions which are often claimed to be involved with focus movement, so-called 'sluicing' and cleft constructions, are examined only to refute the existence of syntactic focus movement. Also word order variations in copular constructions are examined to see how topic and focus information are relevant in restricting sentence word order.