Focus particles and focus domain in Hindi – A comparison with Japanese toritateshi particles –

Introduction

Languages often use morphological means to mark the focus ¹ of a sentence. These morphological markings pick out a constituent in a clause while evoking a set of contextually salient alternatives. In Hindi, this function is performed by postpositions such as hī and bhī. ²

In the above examples, the sentence containing the postposition entails the relevant sentence without the said postposition, that is, ‘Ram showed his paintings to me’. The two sentences differ only in that the NP ‘apnī peṇṭiṅg’ is followed by two morphologically distinct forms – hī and bhī – which not only identify the NP as the focalized constituent, but also alter the semantic meaning of the sentence. In [1], hī introduces an exclusive reading by implying that nothing other than paintings was shown. On the other hand, bhī introduces an inclusive reading in [2] by implying that something other than paintings was shown. In other words, these postpositions, henceforth focus particles, identify the constituent under focus while implying the existence of alternative entities.

In sentences such as [1] and [2], the focus particle appears to the immediate right of the focalized constituent. However, while extremely underreported, Hindi also displays focus patterns where the focus particle attaches to a sub-constituent within the focalized constituent, as demonstrated below.

Context: Ram promised that he would show his paintings and lend art supplies. He only did the former.

Context: Ram promised that he would lend art supplies. He did so and show his paintings as well.

In both examples, the focus particles hī and bhī attach to the NP ‘his paintings’ (apnī peṇṭiṅg). However, as can be inferred from the English translation, the focalized constituent is not the NP but rather the VP containing this NP. The act of ‘showed his paintings’ (peṇṭiṅg dikhāī) is contrasted with ‘lent the art supplies’ (kalā ki sāmagrī udhār dī), thus producing a felicitous context. The NP is therefore a sub-constituent within the focalized constituent which extends to the predicate. This lack of surface correspondence between the position of the focus particle and its focalized constituent is not unique to Hindi and has been reported in other SOV languages such as Japanese.

The present study attempts to provide an account of the focus patterns available in Hindi by investigating the relationship between the position of a focus particle, the focalized constituent, and the domain over which the focus particle holds semantic influence (See section, ‘Focus domain’ for details). We do so by adopting the analysis of focus patterns displayed by Japanese toritateshi particles ³ in Numata (2009). Based on our observation that the focus particle either appears on the focalized constituent that corresponds to the focus domain or appears on the leftmost element within the focus domain, we claim that the main function of Hindi focus particles is to mark the domain initial position. The paper is structured as follows. The section “Focalization in Hindi” outlines the scope of this study and presents an overview of the characteristic features of focus particles in terms of their grammatical positions and focus domain. The subsequent section, “Three types of focus patterns”, investigates Hindi focus particles based on Numata (2009)’s analysis of focus patterns observed in Japanese toritateshi particles. The final section concludes the paper.

Focalization in Hindi

Previous studies note that Hindi uses multiple devices to evoke focus, such as restructuring the word order (syntactic means), prosodic prominence through marked intonation or accent (phonological means), and lexical markings (morphological means) (Kachru 2006:251-252, Montaut 2015:4, Bhatia 2014:1-2). Of these, morphological means take the form of adverbs like sirf, bas, keval, mātr, ⁴ and postposition particles like hī, bhī, to, and tak (Sharma 1999:3, Kachru 2006:269-270, Bhatia 2014:1-2). The range of pragmatically and semantically restrictive meanings conveyed by these particles is diverse, ⁵ but their broad discourse function as focus markers, as stated in Sharma (1999:3) and Kachru (2006:108), may be summarized as follows.

Kachru (2006) and Bhatia (2014) further report that it is possible to use multiple devices to focalize the same constituent. Focus particles may appear in combination with other-than-default position, stressed intonation, and other focus markings. The current study limits the analysis to clauses where the focalized constituent appears in the default position, lacks stressed intonation, and is marked by a single focus particle. Only exclusive and inclusive focus particles – hī and bhī – are investigated. Below we give an overview of focus particles in terms of their grammatical position within a clause and their focus domain by drawing upon the findings of previous studies. We also note that Hindi shares some broad syntactic features with Japanese.

Three types of focus patterns

Examples taken from previous studies on Hindi focus particles, as exemplified in [5] to [16], focalize the element(s) to the immediate left of the focus particle. However, as seen in [3] and [4] above, position alone does not determine the focalized constituent. Numata (2009) observes the following three patterns concerning possible configurations of Japanese toritateshi particles and their focus.

The following section outlines the main features of the three types of patterns as discussed in Numata (2009) while demonstrating that Hindi only allows the first two patterns.

Normal focus

Backward focus

Numata (2009) gives [27a] as an example for backward focus where bakari (‘only’) focalizes the VP ‘drink tea’, contrasting it with the action of ‘working’. The same sentence can also be expressed as in [27b] where the focus particle attaches to the verb phrase and displays normal focus without affecting the semantic meaning conveyed by the sentence. Numata (2009) accounts for these sentences through movement – the toritateshi particle bakari moves backwards from its domain end position in [27b] to domain initial position in [27a].

It should be noted that while Hindi also exhibits instances where the focus marker attaches to a sub-constituent within the focus domain (see [3] and [4] above), unlike Japanese, this pattern is obligatory in Hindi ⁹ and cannot be expressed as normal focus. In other words, the focus particle does not move from a domain end position to a domain initial position and therefore does not accompany a ‘backward’ movement corresponding to that displayed by Japanese toritateshi particles. Furthermore, this restriction cannot be attributed to the morphosyntactic properties of postposition particles alone as is evidenced from the fact that hī and bhī attach to verbs in constructions where they do not function as focus markers. For example, in [28], hī attaches to the imperfective form of the verb and conveys immediacy. In [29] and [30], it attaches to modal verbs where the former takes future tense and indicates a higher level of certainty in the speaker, and the latter takes infinitive form and indicates a higher degree of obligation (Varma 2006). Examples of bhī are limited to contexts in [31] where it attaches to a conjunctive participle and conveys that the opposite of what is expected will happen.

Another noteworthy feature concerns the position of focus particle within the focus domain. We observe that the element which bears the focus particle is the leftmost sub-constituent within the domain. ¹⁰ We demonstrate this through the following examples based on the Japanese examples [20] to [22] above. In [32], which is based on [20], the focus domain is restricted to the predicate. The focus particle attaches to the noun of the complex verb due to the specific prosodic and affixal properties of the particle. In contrast, [33], which is based on [21], displays backward focus where the direct object (‘important book’) bears the focus particle, but the focus domain extends till the predicate. [34], which is based on [22], exhibits a wider focus domain that extends from the indirect object (‘Rita’) till the predicate. [35] demonstrates that adjuncts may also bear focus particles. In other words, focus particles may appear in different positions within the VP, on either NPs or AdvPs, but they always appear in the domain initial position.

Numata (2009) presents the following sentences to demonstrate that an element to the left of the sub-constituent bearing the focus marker is excluded from the focus domain. [36a] contrasts ‘the mother enjoys reading’ with ‘the young daughter practices piano’. [36b] is grammatically well-formed but contrasts ‘the mother enjoys reading’ with ‘the mother enjoys other activities’ and therefore does not convey the same semantic content as [36a]. This difference can only be attributed to the difference in the surface position of the focus marker mo. In [36a], mo appears on ‘mother’ (hahaoya) which is included in the focus domain. In contrast, in [36b], the focus particle appears on ‘reading’ (dokusho) and therefore the focus domain does not extend to include ‘mother’.

A similar argument can be made for Hindi which displays the same characteristics as the above Japanese sentences, demonstrating that both languages mark the domain initial position.

Given the above, we may represent the backward focus pattern in the two languages as follows. In both II and II’, the clause initial element (= NP_n/AdvP_n) may appear to the right of the element that bear the focus marking (= NP_i/AdvP_i or NP₁/AdvP₁) or correspond to it. In the case of the former, the focus domain is narrower than the clause. In case of the latter, the focus domain contains all the elements within the clause. In all the above instances, the focus marker appears in the leftmost position within the focus domain thereby marking the domain initial position.

Japanese toritateshi particle (Numata 2009:70)

 II [(<NP_n/AdvP_n(<NP_i/AdvP_i TP NP₁/AdvP₁ Pred>)₁>)_i>)_n]

  i:n≧i≧1

Hindi focus particle

 II’ [(<NP_n/AdvP_n(<NP_i/AdvP_i FP NP₁/AdvP₁ Pred>)₁>)_i>)_n]

  i:n≧i≧1

     []: clause boundary, (): focus domain, < >: focalized constituent

Forward focus

In this pattern, the focus marker attaches to the verb, but the focalized constituent is a NP/AdvP within the VP. For this reason, the focus marker lies outside the focalized constituent. In [37], bakari attaches to the gerund ‘eat’ (tabete) while focalizing the NP ‘salty foods’ (karai okazu).

Numata (2009) also notes that this pattern is found in relatively small morphologically distinct toritateshi particles like bakari and sae and presents syntactic restrictions concerning complex sentences which are not observed in normal focus and backward focus. She accounts for this pattern through movement. In [37], the toritateshi particle bakari moves from the position adjacent to the focalized NP, shown in [38] below, and attaches to the predicate ‘eat’ while continuing to focalize the NP. Both [37] and [38] can convey the same semantic meaning.

As seen from the representation below, the focus marker appears in the rightmost position within the focus domain and therefore marks the domain final position.

Japanese toritateshi particle (Numata 2009:71)

 III […… (<NP/AdvP> … … Pred) TP]

     []: clause boundary, (): focus domain, < >: focalized constituent

This pattern has not been reported in previous studies on Hindi focus particles, and the infelicity of sentences such as [38’] demonstrates that it is unavailable in Hindi.

Summary

The relationship of focus marker position, focalized constituent, and focus domain observed in Hindi and Japanese is summarized in Table 1 below. We observe that the focus domain may correspond to the focalized constituent or extend beyond it. The focus marker may attach to the element that appears in the domain initial or domain final position. In instances where the focus domain corresponds to the predicate, the focus marker may appear as marking the domain final position, however, this is due to the surface manifestation of postpositions which cannot precede the element it attaches to.

The differences in the two languages can be summarized thus. Japanese toritateshi particles can mark both the domain initial as well as the domain final positions. This explains why sentences such as [27a] and [38] that mark the leftmost element and sentences such as [27b] and [37] that mark the rightmost element can convey the same semantic content in Japanese. In contrast, the ungrammaticality of corresponding Hindi sentences such as [26’a], [26’b] and [38’] demonstrates that Hindi focus particles may not mark the domain final position.

Conclusion

In this paper we showed that hī and bhī not only appear in a wide range of grammatical positions but also display two focus patterns. A comparison with Japanese provides us with an explanation as to why certain patterns are allowed and others lead to infelicitous sentences, and strongly suggests that Hindi focus particles and Japanese toritateshi particles are operators that mark the domain boundary.

However, the present account deals with only a small portion of the entire phenomenon. It is still unclear as to why Hindi blocks hī and bhī from appearing in clause final position when focalizing a VP, or in other words, does not allow focus particles to mark the domain final position. The fact that Hindi can only mark domain initial position while Japanese can mark both initial and final position may be accounted for from a typological perspective which we leave as a task for future investigation. Another topic for further exploration concerns the semantic and syntactic characteristics of morphologically distinct focus particles in relation to Japanese toritateshi particle. While a contrastive analysis has been presented in Imamura & Pardeshi (2018), given the difference in the interpretation of [39b] and [39’b] below, an analysis that takes the focus domain into account will have relevance for the field of Japanese language pedagogy as well.