Untangling Tanglewood using covert focus movement
Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine, National University of Singapore
Hadas Kotek, McGill University

SALT 26
mitcho@mitcho.com
hkotek@alum.mit.edu

Summary: We argue for covert focus movement in English focus association. Evidence comes from Tanglewood configurations from Kratzer (1991). We show that Tanglewood configurations are island-sensitive, whichis unpredicted by Kratzer’s focus-index proposal. Kratzer’s arguments against covert focus movement forTanglewood are overcome by the availability of covert pied-piping. We show that covert focus movement isdifferent from QR and can be long-distance.
Background: Kratzer (1991) presents examples such as (1) as an argument against the unselective Alternative
Semantics of Rooth (1985, a.o.). The intended reading requires that alternatives covary in the pronounced
position of focus and the corresponding position in the ellipsis site. (We use XTW to indicate the availability ofsuch a Tanglewood reading with covarying alternatives.)(1) Context: You accuse me of being a copy cat. “You went to Block Island because I did. You went to Elk
Lake Lodge because I did. And you went to Tanglewood because I did.” I reply:
XTW
I only went to [Tanglewood]F because you did 4.
(Kratzer, 1991, p. 830)
Paraphrase: Tanglewood is the only place x such that I went to x because you went to x.
Kratzer claims that such data motivates the the use of focus-indices on focused constituents rather than simple
F-marking: both VPs will be of the form “go to [Tanglewood]F2 ” at LF, with focus alternatives computed using
different distinguished assignments for the focus-index F2.
Proposal: We propose that Tanglewood configurations as in (1) always involve covert movement of the overt
focus—possibly with pied-piping—to bind a bound variable in the ellipsis site:(2) LF for (1): I past only ( [Tanglewood]F ) (λx [VP go to x] [because you past [VP go to x]] )Kratzer (1991) considers example (3) with a syntactic island to claim that a covert focus movement approach asin (2) is untenable. But here the island is balanced between the antecedent and the intended ellipsis site, allowing
for an LF as in (4) using covert focus movement with pied-piping (Drubig, 1994; Krifka, 2006; Wagner, 2006;
Erlewine and Kotek, 2014), which binds a variable over different persons in the ellipsis site.
(3) Context: “You always contact every responsible person before me.” I reply:
XTW
I only contacted [the person who chairs [the Zoning Board]F ] before you did 4.

(p. 831)(4) LF for (3): I past only ( [the person who chairs [the Zoning Board]F ] )( λx [ [VP contact x] [because you past [VP contact x]] ] )Evidence from island sensitivity:(5) Tanglewood readings are unavailable with the antecedent focus in an island:Context: Our son speaks Spanish, French, and Mandarin. At one point we hired a nanny that happened
to speak French, but that wasn’t why we hired her. Another time we hired a nanny that spoke Mandarin,
but that too was a coincidence...
*TW We only hired [a nanny that speaks [Spanish]F ] because our son does 4.
Intended Tanglewood reading: Spanish is the only language x such that we hired [a nanny that speaksx] because our son speaks x.
(Intended 4 = “speak it(language) ”)(6) Tanglewood readings are available with the ellipsis site in an island:Context: I speak Spanish, French, and Mandarin. I also have many friends that speak these languages,
but for the most part that’s not why I studied these languages...
XTW
I only speak [Spanish]F because I have [a friend who does 4].
(7) LF for (6): I only ( [Spanish]F ) ( λx [ [VP speak x] [because I have [a friend who [VP speak x]]] ])Examples (5) and (6) show that Tanglewood readings are island-sensitive, contrary to Kratzer, and furthermorethat this island-sensitivity is asymmetric: embedding the pronounced focus in an island blocks the Tanglewood
reading, but embedding the ellipsis site does not. Our proposal above predicts this asymmetry: the overt focus
must move covertly to bind the variable in the ellipsis site—this covert movement is island-sensitive, but variablebinding is not. The Tanglewood reading is unavailable in (5) because movement of the focus Spanish would
violate the relative clause island, and movement of the island a nanny that speaks Spanish then cannot bind thevariable in the ellipsis site intended to range over languages, not nannies.
Tanglewood readings are similarly unavailable with the overt focus in one conjunct and the ellipsis site inanother conjunct (8). This is explained by the fact that covert movement is subject to the Coordinate Structure
Constraint (see e.g. Bošković and Franks, 2000). Additional examples using other islands exhibit similar effects.
(8) Context: I am under investigation by the Real Estate Board. John and Mary claim that I advised themboth to bid on many of the same houses, to raise their prices. I reply:*TW I only advised John to bid on [the Elm St. house]F and (told) Mary to 4 as well.
Intended Tanglewood reading: The Elm St. house is the only house x such that I advised John to bid onx and (told) Mary to bid on x as well.
In contrast, the Kratzer (1991) focus-index proposal predicts that Tanglewood readings should be possible aslong as both the overt focus and ellipsis site are within the scope of only. The unavailability of the Tanglewood
reading in (5) and (8) shows that focus indices cannot be an option. The dynamic semantics proposal sketchedin Beaver and Clark (2008) §4.6 must similarly be dismissed, as it also predicts no island-sensitivity.
Tanglewood with overt bound variables: Our approach predicts that Tanglewood readings are not dependent
on ellipsis and are possible using overt bound pronouns. Such examples can be constructed; see e.g. (9). The
context in (9) highlights the availability of the Tanglewood reading.
(9) Context: We’re interviewing witnesses in our murder investigation. You’re concerned that the interviews
you’re getting have been affected by the witnesses talking to me first.
My interviews:
BillJohn
Steve
SamtimeYour interviews:
Steve
SamJohn
DaveXTW
I only talked to [John]F before you talked to him.
(TW: judged true in context)
The nature of covert focus movement: Covert focus movement can be long-distance, and is not clause-bound.
Consider example (10) below, where a Tanglewood reading is available. The LF we propose for (10) is in (11):here the overt focus covertly moves to only across a finite clausal embedding.
(10) Context: John, the first year grad student, doesn’t quite understand the field yet. He seems to think thateveryone works on focus, on ellipsis, and on binding. Some people think he is just extrapolating fromwhat his advisor works on. But actually...
XTW
He only thinks [that everyone works on [focus]F ] because his advisor does 4.
(11) LF for (10): He only ( [focus]F ) ( λx [ [thinks [CP that everyone [VP works on x]]][because his advisor [VP works on x]] ] )Furthermore, QR of a quantifier such as exactly one topic in the parallel configuration in (12) does not yield
the bound variable Tanglewood reading. This shows that the covert movement feeding Tanglewood readings islonger-distance and specifically due to association with the higher focus operator, not simply QR.
(12) *TW He thinks [that everyone works on exactly one topic] because his advisor does 4.
Selected references: Bošković and Franks 2000. “Across-the-Board movement and LF.” Syntax 3 • Drubig 1994. “Islandconstraints and the syntactic nature of focus and association with focus” • Erlewine & Kotek 2014. “Intervention in focus
pied-piping.” NELS 43 • Kratzer 1991. “The representation of focus.” In Semantik • Krifka 2006. “Association with focusphrases.” In The architecture of focus • Wagner 2006. “Association by movement: evidence from NPI-licensing.” NLS 14