What is focus?

Focus is a term that refers to information, in a sentence, that

• is new
• is of high communicative interest
• is marked by stress
• typically occurs late in the sentence, and
• complements the presupposed information typically presented early in the sentence.

Here are some examples of focused elements:

• You books are on the shelf.
• It was math that gave him trouble.

Crystal 1980 148, 283, 397

Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik 1985 86, 1361–1363

Talmy 1985 79–80

Hartmann and Stork 1972 237

Context for this page:

• Concept module: focus
• In overview module: Glossary (Linguistics): F
• In modular book: Glossary of linguistic terms, by Eugene E. Loos (general editor), Susan Anderson (editor), Dwight H., Day, Jr. (editor), Paul C. Jordan (editor), and J. Douglas Wingate (editor)
• In bookshelf: Linguistics

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 5 January 2004

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