Topics in Questions Beste Kamali (Harvard) & Daniel B¨ uring (Vienna) kamali@fas.harvard.edu, daniel.buring@univie.ac.at Workshop on the Phonological Marking of Focus and Topic GLOW Vienna Wednesday, April 27, 2011 1 Contrastive Topics in Questions? 1.1 Intro: CT in Declaratives Contrastive Topics signal Superquestion–Subquestion Strategies. (1) a. Where are these guys FROM? b. Where’s the DRUMMER from? c. The DRUMMER CT ’s from TansaNIA F . (2) a. Who will be at the talk? b. Will ALFONZO be at the talk? c. Yes, ALFONZO CT will BE F there. 1.2 Strategies as Discourse Trees Superquestion Who will be at the talk? Subquestion Will Alfonzo be at the talk? answer Yes, Alfonzo will be at the talk. Subquestion Will Margaret be at the talk? answer No, Margaret won’t be at the talk. ... • Different pitch accents for CT and F in answers (B/A-accent). 1