Although syntactically focused words receive deeper processing, they are
also processed more easily due to the pre-allocation of attention. It is
therefore unclear whether the processing difficulty induced by semantically
unpredictable words would increase or be reduced by syntactic focus. An
eye-tracking reading study assessed the contributions of focusing and
de-focusing syntactic constructions on the effects of semantic prediction.
Unpredictable (but plausible) words received longer reading times than
predictable words, and predictable words were read for longer when focused.
However, the effect of predictability was not significant for focused
words, suggesting that syntactic focus facilitated the processing of
unpredictable words.