Was glaubt EDE, wer der Mörder ist? On D-trees, Embedded Foci, and Indirect Scope Marking

Abstract

This chapter introduces the notions of discourse moves and D-trees, drawing on Daniel Buring and earlier work by Craige Roberts. It discusses the notion of question-based discourse strategy, which will be of central importance for the discussion of embedded focus accents and wh-scope marking. The chapter briefly recapitulates the discourse-semantic analysis of focus accenting and contrastive topic (CT)-accenting in terms of D-trees and strategies. Focus accents are not restricted to matrix clauses, but can also occur in embedded environments. The chapter gives a brief overview of wh-scope marking and its semantic analysis, following Veneeta Dayal and A. Liptak and Malte Zimmermann. It also puts forwards the discourse-semantic analysis of wh-scope marking constructions as grammaticalised D-trees representing question restriction. The availability and distribution of wh-scope marking questions in a language depends on both structural and diachronic factors. The chapter also discusses a number of predictions made by the analysis. Keywords: A. Liptak; contrastive topic (CT) accent; Craige Roberts; D-trees; Daniel Buring; embedded focus accents; Malte Zimmermann; semantic analysis; Veneeta Dayal; wh-scope marking