Focus on what's not at issue: gestures, presuppositions, supplements under Contrastive Focus

Masha Esipova, NYU

Abstract

I will talk about how different types of not-at-issue content (in particular, gestures, presuppositions, and supplements) interact with Contrastive Focus (CF). I'll specifically focus on cases in which the at-issue interpretation of content that is typically not-at-issue is forced/available under CF, and I will discuss the consequences those data have for the debate about the semantic status of gestures (Ebert (& Ebert) 2014, 2017; Schlenker to appear) and for the typology of not-at-issue content in general.