The acceptability of sentences and the role of information focus in Vietnamese

Abstract

There are grammatically correct but inacceptable sentences and on the contrary there are grammatically incorrect but acceptable sentences. To assess the acceptability of sentences it is necessary to resort to different semantic-pragmatic factors, among which the information focus is an important one. This paper investigates the role of information focus for the acceptability of Vietnamese sentences as reflected in the choice of  word-order alternatives and ellipsis alternatives. The results show that under the pressure of information focus specific sentences could be considered acceptable or inacceptable in certain contexts relatively independent of their grammaticality.