![fluent aphasia aphasia, Wernicke’s aphasia focus [Lat. focus ‘hearth, fireplace’] (also comment, psychological object, rheme)](https://images.tandf.co.uk/common/jackets/crclarge/978041520/9780415203197.jpg "fluent aphasia aphasia, Wernicke’s aphasia focus [Lat. focus ‘hearth, fireplace’] (also comment, psychological object, rheme)")
ABSTRACT
Term for the informational content of a sentence which the speaker wishes to express. The main grammatical means used to indicate the focus of a sentence are word order ( topicalization) and intonation. If the question test is applied to a sentence, the focus will be the scope of the most normal question posed. Thus in the sentence We went to the movies yesterday, the most natural question is Who went to the movies yesterday? With different intonation We went to the movies yesterday, the natural question would be Where did you go yesterday? Because a speaker generally emphasizes new information in a sentence, the focus will usually correspond to the rheme or comment. ( also functional sentence perspective)
References
Chomsky, N. 1969. Deep structure, surface structure and semantic interpretation. In D.D.Steinberg and L.A.Jakobovits (eds), Semantics. London and Cambridge. (Repr. in N.Chomsky, Studies on semantics in generative grammar. The Hague, 1972. 11-61.)
Jacobs, J. 1986. The syntax of focus and adverbials in German. In W.Abraham and S.de Meij (eds), Topic, focus and configurationality. Amsterdam. 103-27.
