The semantics of focus particles
The semantics of focus particles

Summary/Abstract: The article analyses the semantic properties of the restrictive focus particle only. It argues for a unitary treatment of only as an adverbial quantifier over properties of events. The study shows that the scope interactions that the particle creates support this analysis, that is the lack of interaction with D-type quantifiers and scope ambiguities created in the presence of A-quantifiers and other sentential operators such as modals and negation. Scope ambiguities, and particularly the interaction with negation, are used to determine the position of only in the LF structure of the sentence.

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