A modular approach to the grammar of additive particles: the case of German Auch

Abstract

In this paper we give a modular account of the grammar of additive particles. In doing this we take issue with the standard descriptions of focus particles, which are based on just one possible pattern: the particle preceding the main stressed constituent it relates to (its RC). Additive particles, however, occur in a second, equally unmarked pattern: the RC preceding the main stressed particle. Former accounts do not only miss this comple-mentary distribution as to position and stress pattern relative to the RC, but, as we demonstrate in detail, they misrepresent the relation between syntax, semantics and focus structure of these (and similar) particles in general. Using German Auch as our prime example, we argue in particular (i) that there is just one Auch underlying the ± stressed variants, and that the complementary distribution cannot be explained by a movement analysis; (ii) that the set of alternatives the Auch proposition p and some contextually given proposition q induced by Auch belong to, is not supplied by the focus structure of p but by comparing p and q; (iii) that the syntactic scope of Auch is crucial for its semantics in that the adding

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