Focus / focusing adverbs in X-bar tree

[lynn]

Will need some example trees from @solpahi .

[solpahi]

Focus particles

Context: In English, focus-sensitive adverbs like "only", "also" and "even" require the presence of an f-marked (stressed) constituent in their c-command domain:

I only talked to Anna.

By f-marking "Anna", the adverb "only" knows what to operate on.

In Toaq, focus is not marked via stress but via particles, or rather, a particle. This particle attaches to the f-marked material thereby specifying it as the target of a covert semantic focus adverb. The pronunciation of the focus particle depends on the focus adverb: if it is [only], then the c-commanded constituent is f-marked by tou; if it is [also], it's mao; if [even], then juaq.

This parallels the mechanism used for Quantifiers, where the higher Q head determines the pronunciation of D.

The Foc head mao here is semantically inert, serving only to mark the constituent which FocAdv [also] operates on. It is spelled mao because that's what [also] does to the f-marking morpheme.

The main difference between quantifiers and this is that here an entire DP moves to the complement of FocAdv (and if desired, other kinds of constituents could be allowed to be f-marked, as in "I only borrowed the book", then those would be able to move to Comp,FocAdv, too)

A word on the labeling. The label "FocP(DP)" signifies that the phrase is headed by Foc, but has all the syntactic characteristics of a DP. The alternative would be to treat Foc as an adjunct, thus making the whole thing a normal DP, but I'm not convinced that this is appropriate. For one thing, *mao juaq áqshe should be illicit, and if Foc is an adjunct, I don't know what would prevent Foc from being stacked. Foc being a head rules out such productions automatically. We can always change labels later if need be.

Focusing adverbs have the same scope behavior as quantifiers. Here is an example showing the interaction.

Sa rảı bı dẻq tou súq ráı "There are things which only you are able to do."

ku is probably just the unmarked version of the f-marking morpheme, but I don't know what the gloss for the corresponding FocAdv would be. Maybe just [focus] for now.

[solpahi]

Wait, I just remembered.

First of all, I forgot beı. And after remembering beı I remembered how I would gloss both of them.

It was something like this:

ku:

beı:

[lynn]

This is also implemented.