Some Remarks on Focus Adverbs

Focus Particles Inside Prepositional Phrases: A Comparison of Dutch, English, and German

“…Although many have claimed that English allows PP and DPinternal focus particles (e.g., Bayer 1996;Büring andHartmann 2001), others (e.g., Rooth 1985;Taglicht 1984) have questioned this possibility on the basis of differing acceptability judgments. On the other hand, the general consensus on German and Dutch seems to be that PP and DPinternal focus particles are impossible (Jacobs 1983;Bayer 1996;Büring and Hartmann 2001), although this claim, too, has been disputed on the basis of empirical evidence (Hoeksema and Zwarts 1991;Hoeksema 1999). To resolve some of the issues regarding focus particles, we performed a large scale corpus investigation.…”

“…Although none of these accounts explicitly addresses Dutch, Bayer ' s predictions for German should carry over to Dutch, since Dutch patterns like German with respect to preposition stranding. However, problematic for Bayer ' s analysis is the observation made by Hoeksema and Zwarts (1991) and Hoeksema (1999) that PPinternal focus particles are sometimes possible in Dutch.…”

“…Note that since Bayer links the option of PP internal focus particles to the possibility of preposition stranding, he predicts that languages such as Dutch, which pattern like German with respect to preposition stranding, should likewise bar PPinternal focus particles. As Hoeksema and Zwarts (1991) and Hoeksema (1999) have argued, however, PPinternal focus particles are sometimes possible in Dutch, and so this prediction seems to be too strong. See also below for more discussion of the Dutch data.…”

Given claims about new topics. How Romance and Germanic speakers link changed and maintained information in narrative discourse

“…highlighting a change in polarity, Germanic languages have specific particles, like Dutch toch/wel and German doch (see Hoeksma and Zwarts, 1991;Hogeweg, 2009;Karagjosova, 2006;Van Valin, 1975). Romance languages, on the other hand, do not usually mark a change of polarity with specific particles (although some intensifiers might be expected in these contexts, e.g.…”

The placement of focus particles in Dutch

“…5. Positional preferences of a particle for one of the patterns 1-4 Hoeksema & Zwarts (1991) make some observations with respect to the placement of focus adverbs. They show that certain focus adverbs must precede their target, others must follow them and still others can do both.…”