Focus particles and contrast in German

Abstract

This paper investigates the relation between focus particles (FPs; nur ‘only’, auch ‘also’, sogar ‘even’, etc.) and information structure in German assertive main clauses. The question under consideration is whether FPs induce contrastive focus, as is sometimes claimed, or whether they interact with an independently given focus structure, being able to associate with both contrastive and new information foci. An empirical approach, which takes into account the prosodic properties of the associated elements, is employed to decide between these two possibilities. First, it is demonstrated that contrastive and non-contrastive nuclear accents differ in many categorical and gradient prosodic properties, such as accent type, the occurrence of downstep, f 0-peak, and intensity. Second, it is shown that the same differences can be observed in sentences where the element bearing the nuclear accent is associated with a FP, and that the prosodic realization depends on the context rather than on the presence or absence of a FP. The results are interpreted as supporting the view that FPs are not necessarily associated with contrastive foci, but instead interact with information structure in a modular way.