Squiggle operator

In formal semantics, the squiggle operator is an operator which constrains the occurrence of focus. On one common definition, the squiggle operator takes a syntactic argument and a discourse salient argument and introduces a presupposition that the ordinary semantic value of is either a subset or an element of the focus semantic value of . The squiggle was first introduced by Mats Rooth in 1992 as part of his treatment of focus within the framework of alternative semantics. It has become one of the standard tools in formal work on focus, playing a key role in accounts of contrastive focus, ellipsis, deaccenting, and question-answer congruence. rdf:langString