Diagnosing focus

Many tests have been used in eliciting focus constructions and determining what type of focus a certain linguistic strategy expresses. This paper provides an overview of the various diagnostics for focus, indicating how they show the size of the focused constituent and what semantic-pragmatic type of focus is expressed. These types range from simple pragmatic focus to semantically more complex focus, signalling exclusivity or exhaustivity either as an inherent semantic part of the focus, or merely an implicature. The discussion of these diagnostics brings to light how some diagnostics are flawed, and whether the linguistic strategy tested is actually a dedicated strategy for focus at all.This paper is part of the research project ‘Rethinking Comparative Syntax’, funded by the European Research Council Advanced Grant No. 269752.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the John Benjamins Publishing Company via https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.40.2.01va