When additive particles can associate with wh-phrases

Abstract

The distribution of certain additive particles is restricted. It has been suggested that in wh-questions they can only associate with the wh-phrase if the question receives a showmaster interpretation (Umbach, 2012). I present novel data challenging this generalization and account for these data by lifting Beaver and Clark (2008)’s QUD-based account of additive particles to an inquisitive semantics setting, so that it captures the contribution of additive particles in assertions, polar questions and wh-questions.