Focus in Child Language: Evidence from the Acquisition of Chinese Peng Zhou and Stephen Crain Macquarie University 1. Introduction A standard view in linguistics maintains that the interpretation of focus structures involves multiple levels of linguistic knowledge: syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and phonology. Therefore, children’s emerging linguistic competence with focus structures could offer insights into the development of these different levels of linguistic knowledge. This paper focuses on how Mandarin-speaking children interpret contrastive focus structures, as in (1). (1) Zhiyou Yuehan chi-le pingguo. only John eat-ASP apple ‘Only John ate an apple.’ a. Only [John] F ate an apple. b. *Only John [ate an apple] F . c. *Only John ate [an apple] F . The focus operator zhiyou in (1) corresponds to English only. Syntactically, the focus operator zhiyou associates with elements in its c-command domain (e.g., Jackendoff, 1972; Reinhart, 2004, 2006). For this reason, when zhiyou appears in presubject position as in (1), it can only associate with the subject noun phrase (NP) John, as in (1a), since John is the only element in the c-command domain of zhiyou. It cannot associate with the entire verb phrase (VP) ate an apple or with the object NP inside the VP an apple, as indicated by the asterisk ‘*’ in (1b) and (1c). The element in focus is indicated by F-brackets throughout. When the corresponding focus operator zhi 1 occurs in preverbal position, as in (2), it can associate with the entire VP, as in (2a), or with an element within the VP, i.e., the object NP an apple, as in (2b). But it cannot associate with the subject NP John, as in (2c), since John is outside the c- command domain of zhi. (2) Yuehan zhi chi-le pingguo. John only eat-ASP apple ‘John only ate an apple.’ a. John only [ate an apple] F . b. John only ate [an apple] F . c. *[John] F only ate an apple. Semantically, the focus operator zhiyou partitions the semantic structure of sentences that contain it into two meaning components, a presupposition and an assertion (Horn, 1969). The presupposition states that the property denoted by the predicate applies to the element in focus, whereas the assertion states that this same property doesn’t apply to any member of a contextually established set of alternatives being contrasted with the focus element. Consider (1), for example, repeated here as (3). 1 Zhiyou and zhi are two variants of the same focus operator, the choice of which depends on the positions of the focused element. Zhiyou is used to modify the focused elements in the subject position, whereas zhi is used to modify the focused elements in the predicate. © 2009 Peng Zhou and Stephen Crain. Proceedings of the 3rd Conference on Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition North America (GALANA 2008), ed. Jean Crawford et al., 336-346. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.