Focusing on unlikely accented nominals: context, alternatives and implied expectations

Abstract

In English, accenting a pronoun occasionally switches its reference rela- tive to an unaccented pronoun: (1) John pushed Bill and... a. heb/# j fell. b. HEj/#b fell. However, accent does not always have this effect - it is not licit in (2) below: (2) John bought Bill a drink and then... a. hej/?b went home. b. # HE went home. This paper argues that the felicity of the accent in (1b) is dependent on a presupposition of relative unlikeliness, which is unfulfilled in (2b). The presence of this accent is due to a focus-sensitive operator, Opunlikely, which presupposes the existence of a likelier alternative to the asserted one. The reference and the distribution of accented pronouns is due to the satisfaction of this presupposition. Opunlikely not only accounts for accents on pronouns, but also on coreferential nouns and other types of constituents as well. Finally, this operator also accounts for the distribution of accent and unlikeliness associated with other focus-sensitive constructions.