Association with focus in denials

Prosody is usually understood to convey the distribution of focused and presupposed information: New information is accented, while old information is deaccented. For example, in question-answer pairs, the constituent corresponding to new information in an answer to a WH-question is commonly accented. Past phoneme-monitoring experiments suggest that listeners allocate more attention to new information, as listeners are faster to monitor for phoneme targets in the locations of new information in answers predicted by preceding WH-questions, for example.; Not all pitch accents mark new information, however. Narrowly focused denials can be focused in a variety of locations, and in addition, such denials have a more restrictive interpretation than broadly focused denials. Semantic theories in generative grammar have accounted for this by proposing that negation associates with focus, potentially activating a contrast set consisting of the affirmative form of the denial with the focused constituent replaced with a variable. Previous work has shown that listeners can use contrastive accent in imperatives to construct such a contrast set. If listeners construct contrast sets during the interpretation of denials, they may use this information during the interpretation of counterassertions that follow the denial, analogous to the way that listeners interpret the relationship between a question and an answer.; A series of phoneme-monitoring experiments are reported demonstrating that listeners use an intonationally or syntactically-signaled focus in a denial to direct their attention to alternatives present in a counterassertion following the denial, at least with respect to early parts of the counterassertion. A judgment experiment demonstrated that the effect observed in the phoneme-monitoring experiments is not restricted to early portions of the counterassertion. The results of these experiments support the role of focus in denials in directing the attention of listeners to potential alternatives.