Not only ‘only’, but ‘too’, too: Alternative-sensitive Particles in Bura

This article discusses the syntactic and semantic behaviour of alternative-sensitive particles in Bura (Central-Chadic, Afro-Asiatic), a tone language spoken by about 250.000 speakers in Northeastern Nigeria. The observed findings help to evaluate a number of claims on the syntactic and semantic nature of alternative-sensitive particles, which have been made largely on the basis of European languages. Katharina Hartmann and Malte Zimmermann Alternative-sensitive Particles in Bura 197 1 Alternative-sensitive particles in European languages We define alternative-sensitive particles (AS-particles) as functional elements whose interpretation depends on the alternatives introduced by foci or (contrastive) topics. The cross-linguistic inventory of alternative-sensitive elements includes the exclusive particles only (Engl.), nur (Germ.) (1a), the additive particles also/too/either, auch (1b) and the scalar particles even, sogar (1c) (König 1991). Only universally quantifies over alternatives, also and even existentially quantify over alternatives. In addition, even presupposes a scalar ordering of the alternatives (Karttunen & Peters 1979). (1) a. Peter ate only guacamole. For all x, if Peter ate x, x is guacamole b. Peter ate also guacamole. assertion: Peter ate guacamole presupposition: Peter ate something else in addition c. Peter ate even guacamole. Assertion: Peter ate guacamole presupposition 1: Peter ate something else in addition presupposition 2: The fact that Peter ate guacamole is relatively unlikely compared to his eating of alternative dishes. AS-particles associate with the focus or the (contrastive) topic (Krifka 1999) of the sentence. The focus-sensitive particles are constrained by the following structural restrictions: First, focus-sensitive elements must c-command the focus in English and German (Jacobs 1983, Bayer 1990, Büring & Hartmann 2001, Reis 2005): (2) a. Peter showed only PICTURESF to John. b. *PETERF showed only pictures to John. intended: Peter is the only one who showed pictures to John Second, the focus-sensitive elements in English (3a) (except for too and either) and German (3b) typically precede the focus: (3) a. ?*Peter showed PICTURES only to John. b. *Peter zeigte Hans BILDER nur. There are two theories concerning the adjunction site of the focus-sensitive particles only and nur. Rooth (1985), Bayer (1990), and Reis (2005) assume that focus-sensitive elements are semantically flexible and can adjoin to nominal arguments (DPs) and (extended) verbal projections (VP, CP) alike. Jacobs (1983) and Büring & Hartmann (2001), in contrast, argue that focus-sensitive elements never adjoin to arguments (CP, Katharina Hartmann and Malte Zimmermann Alternative-sensitive Particles in Bura 198 DP), but only to non-arguments: extended VPs, APs, root and adjunct CPs. Third, the focus-particle must be placed as close as possible to the focus constituent (Büring & Hartmann 2001: 237). Typically, focus-particle and focus constituent are adjacent. (4) a. Gestern hat Rufus nur dem MÄDCHENF Blumen geschenkt. yesterday has Rufus only the girl flowers given ‘The only person that Rufus gave flowers to was the girl.’ b. *Gestern hat nur Rufus dem MÄDCHENF Blumen geschenkt. Fourth, English only must associate with a focus constituent that is formally marked, and hence identifiable, as focus constituent even in second occurrence focus contexts (SOF). In the final clause in (5), association with focus is evidenced by a slight but measurable prosodic prominence on the SOF Bobby (e.g. Beaver et al. 2007). (5) You know what? You only introduced Mona to BOBBYF yesterday. You also only introduced ASHLEYF to BOBBYSOF yesterday. Fifth, focus sensitive particles associate into syntactic islands, such as relative clauses (Drubig 1994, Krifka 2006). The varying interpretation of (6ab) depends on the different placement of the focus within the relative clause. (6) a. John only liked [the man that introduced BILLF to Sue]FP. b. John only liked [the man that introduced Bill to SUEF]FP. To summarize, focus-sensitive elements such as only are focus-functional: they make direct reference to the focus-background structure of a clause in their lexical specification and are subject to formal licensing conditions (Beaver & Clark 2003). Section 2 gives some grammatical information on Bura and discusses the inventory and the syntactic distribution of the AS-particles in this language. Section 3 presents a syntactic and semantic analysis of the exclusive particle daci (‘only’). Section 4 analyses particle combinations in Bura and section 5 some differences between them. Languages seem to exhibit cross-linguistic variation concerning particle placement. While English is relatively flexible with respect to particle placement, particles in German (v. Stechow 1991) and Tangale (Chadic, Hartmann & Zimmermann 2007) always adoin to the same category, i.e. VP (and extended projections) in German, and DP in Tangale, respectively. Katharina Hartmann and Malte Zimmermann Alternative-sensitive Particles in Bura 199 2 Alternative-sensitive particles in Bura 2.1 Syntactic structure of Bura The basic word order of Bura is SVO. Bura has no overt case or tense morphology, but shows aspectual marking, cf. (7). It is worth pointing out that the functional projections DP and NegP in (8a), and CP with the final question particle Q in (8b) are right-headed structures. Adjectival modifiers also occur to the right (8c). (7) Kubili ∅ / akwa / ata / ana tsi mtika. K. PERF / PROG / FUT / HAB slaughter chicken ‘Kubili slaughtered/ is slaughtering/ will slaughter/ slaughters a chicken.’ (8) a. Kubili [ adi tsi [ mtika ni ]] wa K. PRT slaughter chicken DEF NEG ‘Kubili didn’t slaughter the chicken.’ b. [Wa an likita ni ] ri? c. taku (na) wala who PRT doctor DEF Q horse LINK big ‘Who is the doctor?’ ‘a big horse’