Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine: Focus adverbs at the vP and higher edges

LSA Speakers Series

Focus-sensitive operators must associate with a focused constituent (the associate) in their c-command domain (Jackendoff, 1972; Rooth, 1985, 1992; Tancredi, 1990). However, I show that this c-command requirement is insufficient to capture the distribution of focus adverbs (e.g. ‘only’) in Mandarin Chinese and Vietnamese. Focus adverbs in these languages must be as low as possible while c-commanding their focus associate, within a particular extended vP domain. The generalization is similar to what has been described for German by Jacobs (1983) and Büring & Hartmann (2001), but without a formal account.