4.1.1. All-new focus

All-new focus provides information all of which is new, and refers to sentences which lack a particular salient part. This kind of focus is also known as presentational focus, information focus, neutral focus, or broad focus. The following declarative sentence is a response to what happens in a picture where a man is eating a chicken leg. In fact, all-new focus sentences are typically answers to wh-questions such as ‘What’s happening?’. The signer blinks after the subject and at the end of the sentence. Other than these blinks, there are no other prominent nonmanual markers in the sentence. This means that no particular part is salient, hence, the sentence provides a description of a state of affairs, which is all new information.

 

          eb                                                                                                                       eb

man                                              chicken                                               CL(6):‘eat’

‘A man is eating chicken.’

(adapted from Gökgöz in progress)

 

The introduction of new referents into the discourse is another case of sentences with all new information. The referents may serve as the grammatical indefinite subject of the predicate THERE_IS.

 

h1: ix_3a                   cat                         two...……………………………………………………
h2:                          cat                                                      male                     there_is

‘There are two male cats.’

(Gökgöz in progress)

In Figure-Ground sentences, the constituent which is larger and less mobile is called the Ground while the constituent which is smaller and more mobile is called the Figure. When all new focus includes Figure-Ground information, the flow of the information is Ground first and then Figure. Below the Ground is couch and the Figure is rope.

 

h1: couch                below                 rope                   soap                   tied                  there_is
h2: couch                 below                rope                    soap                  tied…………………………….

‘There is a piece of rope tied around a bar of soap under the couch.’

(Gökgöz in progress)

 

When a new segment of discourse unrelated to the previous contexts begins with a sentence containing new information, the focused element is often but not always non-manually marked with a squint. The example below includes a squint while the next one does not.

 

                                                                                                                          sq

h1:CL(w):‘extend’                     stairs

h2: CL(w):‘extend’

‘There are stairs.’

(adapted from Gökgöz in progress)

 

piano is under presentational focus below but it is not marked prosodically.

 

                    we                                                                                                                                                              we

                    re                                                                                                                                                               re 

                                                                                                                        neutral face

h1: CL(6):‘fall’     ıx_3a                          pıano                         musıc                       pıano                            CL(w):'fall'

h2:                         CL(w)                      piano                          music                       piano                            CL(w):'fall'      

‘A piano is falling down the stairs.’ 

(Gökgöz in progress)