Focusing in Persian

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Abstract

In Persian, focusing triggers scrambling in which the focused element moves to the specifier of focus projection either in spell-out or in logical form. The results of a study which checked this hypothesis showed that first of all contrastive reading is not the only reading of the focused phrase when focusing happens in spell-out; secondly, contrary to what is reported in the related literature, when focusing happens in LF, both the focused phrase and the focused feature are able to move; and thirdly, the movement of more than one non-inherently focused element is permissible in surface structure of sentences in Persian.

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