TY - JOUR AU - Erlewine, Michael Yoshitaka PY - 2019/05/10 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - Explaining leftward focus association with "even" but not "only" JF - Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung JA - SuB VL - 18 IS - 0 SE - Articles DO - UR - https://ojs.ub.uni-konstanz.de/sub/index.php/sub/article/view/308 SP - 128-145 AB - <p>The ability of English VP-<em>even</em> but not VP-<em>only</em> to associate with a leftward subject (Jackendoff, 1972) has been a long-standing puzzle for the theory of focus association, and runs counter to the generalization that focus-sensitive operators associate with a focused constituent in their scope. Here I argue that such backwards association is illusory. In cases of apparent leftward subject association, <em>even</em> is associating with the subject’s predicate-internal lower copy of movement, which is within the scope of <em>even</em>. The same configuration with <em>only</em> yields an uninterpretable structure, due to independent differences in the semantic contribution of <em>even</em> and <em>only</em>. I then show that this pattern of association extends to other cases of movement as well: in general, <em>even</em> but not <em>only</em> is able to associate with material which has moved out of the operator’s scope. Patterns of leftward focus association present a new argument against the scope theory of <em>even</em>.</p> ER -