The Syntax and Semantics of Focus-sensitive Particles in German

We propose a comprehensive account of both the distribution and the interpretation of German focus particles such as nur, auch and sogar (‘only’, ‘also’, ‘even’). We argue that they always adjoin to non-arguments (in recent terms this means that they can adjoin to VPs, IPs, APs and root CPs, but never to argument DPs or argument CPs), and that they do not undergo LF raising. Presenting a range of mostly new data and observations, we show how this theory accounts for a variety of puzzling distributional facts about adverbial and ad-adjectival particles, in particular, their specific interpretations and their behavior with respect to scope and reconstruction.