Prosody, Focus, and Ellipsis in Irish

Abstract

This article analyzes a certain class of misalignments found in contemporary Irish in the relation between syntactic and phonological representations. The mismatches analyzed turn on the phonological requirements of focus (VERUM FOCUS, in particular) and of ellipsis and on how the two sets of requirements interact. It argues that the phonological mechanisms of ellipsis can be overridden when the phonological requirements of F-marking need to be satisfied. The analysis requires a theoretical framework in which the postsyntactic computation is characterized by parallel and simultaneous optimization. In particular, it is argued that certain facets of ellipsis, morphophonology, and prosody are computed in parallel, as in classic optimality theory. The analysis also relies crucially on a kind of head movement (from specifier to a commanding head position) whose existence is predicted by current conceptions of phrase structure but which seems to be little documented.