In Proceedings of NELS 43, 2014, pages 117–130

Intervention in focus pied-piping⇤Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine & Hadas Kotek
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

1.

Introduction

In this paper we propose a new argument in support of the view that focus association
involves covert focus movement with pied-piping, as proposed by Drubig (1994) and more
recently supported by Krifka (2006) and Wagner (2006), and against the more prominent
approach which does not involve movement (Rooth 1985, 1992). The evidence will comefrom an interaction between the interpretation of pied-piped constituents with focus intervention effects (Beck 2006).
The two approaches to the syntax/semantics of focus make different predictions regarding where Roothian focus alternative computation will be used in the interpretation of thestructure. In the in-situ interpretation approach (1a), focus alternative computation (indicated by a squiggly arrow) will be used over the full extent between the focused constituent
and the focus operator only. In the covert movement approach (1b), focus alternative computation will only be used in a region near and above the focused constituent.
(1)

Two approaches to interpreting focus:a.

I only read a book from THISF library.
focus alternative computationb.

I ... only read [covert pied-piping a book from THISF library].
movement

focus alternative computation

The theory of focus intervention effects (Beck 2006) predicts that if a focus operator
occurs above an alternative-generating element, it will block its interpretation by higher
operators. In this paper we will show that this logic applies to focus constructions, substantiating a prediction of Beck’s (2006) theory, and then apply focus intervention as adiagnostic to the question of how focus association is interpreted (1).
⇤ We thank David Pesetsky, Martin Hackl, Danny Fox, Irene Heim and audiences at NELS 43 and MIT

for helpful comments and discussion. We thank Ivona Kučerova for an engaging conversation which led us
down this path. All errors are each other’s.

Erlewine & Kotek
This paper is structured as follows. First, we give a brief background on the two theories of focus association and Beck’s (2006) theory of focus intervention effects. In Section
3 we show that focus intervention occurs inside overt pied-piping constituents in English itclefts. In Section 4 we examine the pattern of intervention in sentences with VP-level focus
operators and show that intervention occurs only above and near the F-marked constituent,corresponding to the size of the covertly pied-piped constituent. This pattern supports theview that focus association involves covert focus movement with pied-piping and is unpredicted by the in-situ interpretation approach.
2.

Background: Focus association and focus intervention effects

It is well known that focus-sensitive operators such as only, even, etc., are interpreted relative to a particular constituent that is focused. Two different approaches have been proposed
for how the operator combines compositionally with the focused constituent and its alternatives: (a) in-situ interpretation via focus alternative computation and (b) covert focus
movement with pied-piping. We will briefly describe these two approaches in turn.
2.1

In-situ interpretation with focus alternative computation

Rooth (1985, 1992) proposed that focused constituents are interpreted in-situ and theiralternatives are interpreted through an alternative mode of semantic composition. This
computation of focus semantic values allows for the interpretation of focus without a syntactically local relationship between the focus operator and its focused constituent.1
In this paper we will use a squiggly arrow to denote focus alternative computation
between a focused constituent (with F) and its interpreting focus operator (in italics). In a
simple example as in (2), where coffee is focused, this approach predicts focus alternative
computation to occur between this focused constituent and the only that it associates with:(2)

John only drinks COFFEEF .

Following Jackendoff (1972), Rooth (1992), and Selkirk (1996), we adopt the viewthat focused constituents bear an abstract F feature in the narrow syntax, which affects thesemantic interpretation at LF and the phonetic realization at PF.2
This in-situ interpretation approach using focus alternative computation has the advantage of being in principle unbounded. Example (3) below shows that focus association
between a focus operator and its associated focused constituent can be long-distance, andin particular is not restricted by syntactic notions of locality such as islandhood. Evidence
such as this has made this approach the most widely adopted approach to focus associationin recent work by both semanticists and syntacticians.
1 Following Rooth (1992), we use JaK f to indicate the focus semantic value of a node a, and JaKo for

its ordinary semantic value. See Beaver and Clark (2008, pp. 81–84) for a modern description of how focus
semantic values are computed. See also Hamblin (1973) where essentially this same parallel mode of semantic computation is proposed for the interpretation of wh-words.
2 The phonetic realization of F-marking is orthogonal to the topic at hand. For our purposes it suffices tosay that part of the F-marked constituent will be realized with additional intonational prominence.

Intervention in focus pied-piping(3)

Long-distance focus association through a syntactic island (Rooth 1985):
They only investigated [the question of whether you know [the woman who chaired[the ZONING BOARD]F ]].
) They did not investigate the question of whether you know the woman who
chaired any other chairable entity.

2.2

Focus movement with pied-piping

An alternative approach to establishing a relationship between a focus operator and its
associate is to move the focused constituent to the operator, thereby producing a local
relationship. In the case of focus association with F-marked constituents in their regular
positions in the clause, this movement step would be covert. The challenge for the focus
movement approach comes from focus association’s disregard for syntactic locality andislandhood, as we saw in (3). Here we consider a simpler example (4), from Drubig (1994):(4)

He only invited ex-convicts with REDF shirts.

If the interpretation of only in (4) involves covert focus movement of the F-marked
constituent, this movement would violate the Left Branch Constraint. Indeed, the corresponding wh-question in (5) is ungrammatical:(5)* [What color] did he invite ex-convicts with [shirts ]?

Drubig (1994) proposes that in such cases, the covert focus movement pied-pipes material with the F-marked constituent, so that the movement does not violate syntactic constraints on movement. If A-movement of the F-marked constituent by itself is not allowed(e.g. because it is in an island), a constituent properly containing the F-marked constituent
which can be moved is moved instead. (6) below illustrates how example (4) would beinterpreted under this approach.3 Focus alternative computation takes place inside the piedpiped constituent, between the F-marking and the edge of the pied-piping (Horvath 2000,
Krifka 2006, Wagner 2006).
(6)

He ... only invited [covert pied-piping ex-convicts with REDF shirts].
movement

focus alternative computation

More recently, Krifka (2006) and Wagner (2006) have offered independent evidence insupport of this view that focus association involves covert movement with pied-piping.
Below we will argue that covert focus movement with pied-piping is the correct approach
to focus association, by examining the behavior of focus intervention effects in focus constructions. To do so, we next introduce focus intervention effects.
3 Drubig (1994, p. 6) shows that in Hungarian, an obligatory focus movement language, in sentences par-allel to (4), the entire constituent corresponding to “ex-convicts with REDF shirts” is overtly moved to a
pre-verbal focus position.

Erlewine & Kotek
2.3

Focus intervention effects

One feature of Roothian focus alternative computation is that it is unselective; that is, thesemantic contribution of a focused constituent is not indexed to be only visible to one
particular focus-sensitive operator. Therefore if another focus-sensitive operator intervenes,
it can interrupt the association of the higher operator with the focused constituent below.
Such effects are called focus intervention effects, schematized in (7):4(7)

The focus intervention schema (Beck 2006):* Op1 ... Op2 ... XPF

Beck (2006) first discussed focus intervention effects as a solution to so-called LF
intervention effects in wh-questions. An example of this phenomenon is observed in Korean
below. Example (8a) is a baseline showing a grammatical in-situ object wh-question. Example (8b) shows that if the subject “Minsu” is changed to “only Minsu,” the question becomes
ungrammatical. Example (8c) shows that the question intended in (8b) can be asked, provided that the object wh-word be overtly scrambled to a syntactically higher position than
the subject only-phrase.
(8)

Intervention effect in Korean wh-questions (Beck 2006):a.

Minsu-nun nuku-lûl po-ss-ni?
Minsu-TOP who-ACC see-PAST-Q‘Who did Minsu see?’b. * Minsu-man nuku-lûl po-ss-ni?
Minsu-only who-ACC see-PAST-Q
Intended: ‘Who did only [MINSU]F see?’c.

Nuku-lûl Minsu-man po-ss-ni?
who-ACC Minsu-only see-PAST-Q‘Who did only [MINSU]F see?’

Following a view from Hamblin (1973) a.o. that in-situ wh-phrases can be interpreted
in-situ at LF through the projection of alternatives, Beck (2006) proposes that in-situ whphrases are interpreted precisely using the focus alternative computation mechanism used
for the interpretation of focus (Rooth 1985, 1992). Example (9a) below shows this mechanism for an example such as (8a), for illustration purposes using English words and word
order. Under this view wh-phrases are inherently alternative-generating, with its focus
semantic value being the individuals in its domain, corresponding to possible short answers
to the wh-question (9b). The projection of these alternatives generates alternative propositions in the scope of the complementizer (9c). The entire question at CP, then, is thequestion whose possible answers correspond to the focus semantic value of TP (9c).
4 This schema is called the General Minimality Effect in Beck (2006, p. 17).

Intervention in focus pied-piping(9)Interpreting (8a), presented as wh-in-situ English:a.

[CP CQ [TP Minsu saw whob.

JwhoKf = {John, Mary, Bill,...}c.

JTPKf = {Minsu saw John, Minsu saw Mary, Minsu saw Bill,...}The ungrammaticality of (8b) is due to a focus intervention effect: the alternatives generated by the wh-word must be interpreted by the question complementizer in order for theclause to be interpreted properly as a question. However, the intervening focus-sensitive
only blocks the complementizer from interpreting the wh-word’s alternatives, schematizedin (10) below, exemplifying the focus intervention configuration in (7). When the wh-word
is scrambled above the intervener (8c), however, the wh-word’s alternatives will be introduced into the focus semantic value above the intervener, allowing it to be interpreted
properly by the complementizer, as schematized in (11). Potential interveners will be inbold in this paper.
(10)Intervention configuration in (8b):* [CP CQ [TP only [MINSU]F saw who(11)

Intervention bled by scrambling in (8c):[CP CQ [TP who [ only [MINSU]F saw

Beck’s (2006) focus intervention schema also predicts that in sentences with multiple
focus association relations between a focus operator and an F-marked constituent, thesedependencies cannot be crossing. However, such examples can be constructed. Example(12) is from Beck (2006), attributed to Rooth (1996). Given the context in (12a), example(12b) instantiates the configuration of crossing focus associations predicted to be ungrammatical by the Beck theory, assuming that the focused constituents are interpreted in-situ
via focus alternative computation. In particular, the only in (12b) is predicted to block theproper interpretation of the F-marked Bob below by the focus operator also above. However, example (12b) is judged to be grammatical with its intended interpretation.5(12)

Crossing focus dependencies (Rooth 1996, as cited in Beck 2006):
a.

I only introduced [MARILYN]F to John Kennedy.

b.

I also only introduced [Marilyn]F to [BOB]F Kennedy.

5 The F-marked Marilyn in (12b) is clearly interpreted as the semantic focus associate of only, but it seems

to lack a pitch accent. This is referred to as Second Occurance Focus (SOF) and is licensed by the preceding
context (12a), where it is introduced with a pitch accent. It is possible that Marilyn here being SOF is precisely
what makes (12b) grammatical. See in particular Tomioka (2012) who proposes that SOF is selective, unlike
novel focus associations, which are unselective.

Erlewine & Kotek
The fact that this prediction of Beck’s (2006) theory of focus intervention is not borneout must mean that (a) Beck’s (2006) logic of focus intervention is not correct and/or (b)the assumption that focused constituents as in (12) are interpreted in-situ is not correct.
We will show in the remainder of this paper that Beck’s (2006) logic of focus intervention is indeed correct, and focus intervention effects do affect focus constructions,but instead the assumption that focused constituents are interpreted in-situ is the faulty
assumption above. In the following section, we will demonstrate focus intervention effects
in English it-cleft constructions, establishing a baseline for intervention in focus constructions. We will then use focus intervention effects as a diagnostic for regions of focus alternative computation in focus assocation with VP-level focus operators. We will argue thatcovert focus movement with pied-piping is the correct approach to focus association, andcorrectly predicts the pattern of intervention that we find.
Focus intervention effects in it-clefts

3.

It-clefts are an overt focus movement construction in English. The material that occurs
in the pivot is moved there from its based-generated position inside TP (Chomsky 1977).
Example (13) shows that it is possible to pied-pipe different sized material around the Fmarked constituent and that these different choices of pivot size do not affect the resulting
meaning of the sentence.
(13)

Pied-piping in it-clefts:
John read a book from THISF library.
a.

It’s [a book from THISF library] that John read.

b.

It’s [from THISF library] that John read a book.

c.

It’s [THISF library] that John read a book from.

Independent syntactic considerations can constrain the possible size of the moving constituent. For example, if the F-marked element occurs inside an island, the entire islandmust be pied-piped to the cleft pivot.
(14)

It-cleft with island: entire island must be pied-piped (Krifka 2006):
a. * It was [a BEER]F that I met [island the man that offeredb.

to Sue].

It was [island the man who offered [a BEER]F to Sue] that I met.

As first noted by Jackendoff (1972), the cleft semantics introduced by the it-cleft operates only on the F-marked constituent inside the pivot, rather than on the entire pivot.6
In (15) we see that different choices for the F-marking inside the pivot result in different
meanings of what is otherwise the same sentence.
6 We refer here to “cleft semantics” rather than “exhaustivity” as it is often described in the literature. See

Horn (1981, to appear), Velleman et al. (2012) on the status of the exhaustivity inference of clefts.

Intervention in focus pied-piping(15)

F-marking in pivot affects meaning of it-cleft (Velleman et al. 2012):a.

It was [John’s eldest daughter]F who liked the movie.
) No other people liked the movie.

b.

It was [John’s [ELDEST]F daughter] who liked the movie.
) None of John’s other daughters liked the movie.

c.

It was [[JOHN’S]F eldest daughter] who liked the movie.
) Nobody else’s eldest daughter liked the movie.

The F-marked constituent is thus interpreted using focus association inside the pivot,
between the F-marked constituent and the edge of the pivot. Consequently, it-clefts use
both movement and focus alternative computation in their interpretation:(16)

It’s [pied-piping a book from THISF library] John readfocus alternative computation.

movement

Viewing it-clefts in this light, Beck (2006) predicts focus intervention to occur inside
the pivot, in the region between the F-marked consituent and the edge of the pivot, where
focus alternative computation is utilized (cf schema in 7). Such intervention does occur:(17)

Intervention in it-cleft pivots:
a. * It’s [no book from THISF library] that John read.

b.

It’s [from THISF library] that John read no book.

c.

It’s [THISF library] that John read no book from.

Note that the semantics expected for (17a) is the same as the semantics of the grammatical (17b, c). Therefore the ungrammaticality is not caused by an illicit interaction between
the negation and the semantics of the cleft itself.7 Instead, it is the result of pied-piping a
constitent that contains the negation: the alternatives projected by the F-marked constituent
must reach the edge of the pivot to be interpreted by the cleft semantics. In the case of(17a), but not (17b,c), an intervening focus operator inside the pivot (in this case, the negation) blocks the alternatives from reaching the edge of the pied-piping, resulting in a focus
intervention effect as predicted by the schema in (7).

7 Note that the it-cleft’s existential presupposition is not over the open proposition left after movement of

the pivot, as commonly assumed. Instead, its existential presupposition is over the alternatives for the focus
within the pivot. This is best demonstrated by a negative cleft, such as It’s not [[JOHN’S]F brother] thatcame to the party. The presupposition of this sentence is that “someone’s brother came to the party,” not that“someone came to the party.” See Jackendoff (1972) and Velleman et al. (2012) for more on the effects offocus association inside cleft pivots.

Erlewine & Kotek
Other interveners also yield the same effect as the negation in (17), showing that thiscontrast is not specifically the effect of negation. Below we observe focus intervention
effects in cleft pivots with the interveners few, only, and the most.8,9
(18)

(19)

(20)

a. * It’s [few books from THISF library] that John read.

b.

It’s [from THISF library] that John read [few books].

c.

It’s [THISF library] that John read [few books from].

a. * It’s [onlyi BOOKSF,i from THISF library] that John read.

b.

It’s [from THISF library] that John read [only BOOKSF].

c.

It’s [THISF library] that John read [only BOOKSF from].

a. * It’s [the most books from THISF library] that John read.

b.

It’s [from THISF library] that John read [the most books].

c.

It’s [THISF library] that John read [the most books from].

In the next section we turn our attention to focus association with VP-level operatorsand show that focus intervention effects occur in a small region near and above the Fmarked constituent, which we argue is covertly pied-piped. The same set of interveners as
above is shown to cause this effect. We argue that this finding lends support to the view that
focus association is interpreted using covert movement with pied-piping and is unpredictedby the view that focus association is interpreted completely in-situ.
4.

Diagnosing covert pied-piping in focus association

In the past section we demonstrated that focus intervention effects, schematized in (7)above, do affect the interpretation of focus alternative computation in focus constructions,as predicted by Beck (2006). In particular, in English it-clefts, focus alternative computation is used inside the pied-piping around the F-marked constituent. When a focus-sensitive
8 Focus intervention effects inside pied-piping constituents have been independently observed in overt

pied-piping in wh-questions in German and in English (Sauerland and Heck 2003, Cable 2007). Morerecently, Kotek and Erlewine (to appear) have argued that focus intervention effects also occur in covert
pied-piping in English multiple wh-questions. Negation, few, and only are shown by these authors to causeintervention in wh-pied-piping. See the conclusion for further discussion related to the findings in Kotek and
Erlewine (to appear). For the focus-sensitivity of the most, see Partee (1991).
9 Note that there are grammatical clefts beginning with It’s only. . . , such as It’s only [books from THISF
library] that John’s read. However, in such cases the only is part of the cleft structure itself, rather than an
only inside the pied-piped constituent. We believe that the example in (19a), with the intended association of
only with books and the cleft semantics with this, is ungrammatical.
Similarly, Taglicht (1984) discusses other cases where a focus operator grammatically occurs immediately
prior to the cleft pivot, such as in It was also John who protested (Taglicht 1984, p. 173). Here, Taglicht
himself offers an explanation which helps clarify the issue: this example is grammatical on a reading where
also operates above the cleft, associating with the predicate protested, rather than being part of the pivot.
Furthermore, this sentence could not be generated through the movement of also John as a constituent fromsubject position, as *Also John protested is ungrammatical.

Intervention in focus pied-piping
operator such as negation, only, few, and the most occurs in this region, the result is ungrammatical.
In this section we turn our attention to focus association constructions where the focused
constituent has not been displaced. Recall that there are two approaches to such constructions, illustrated in (1) above. The first is to interpret the F-marked constituent in-situ at LF,
using focus alternative computation all the way up to the focus operator (1a) (Rooth 1985,
1992). The second is to covertly move the F-marked constituent, possibly with some piedpiped material around it, to the focus operator (1b) (Drubig 1994, Krifka 2006, Wagner
2006).
These two approaches make very different predictions regarding where focus intervention may occur. Under the in-situ interpretation view (1a), focus alternative computation isused everywhere between the F-marked constituent and the focus operator, predicting that
this entire region is susceptable to focus intervention effects. In contrast, under the covert
movement view (1b), focus alternative computation is only used inside the pied-piping that
may exist around the F-marked constituent. This approach predicts that focus intervention
effects should occur only inside the covertly pied-piped constituent. We thus are able touse the (in)sensitivity to focus intervention effects as a diagnostic for the existence andsize of covert focus movement and pied-piping in focus association constructions.
We begin with example (21), where sentential negation is placed between the F-marked
constituent and its associated focus operator only.10 The grammaticality of (21) is unexpected by the in-situ interpretation approach, as the negation would be predicted to interfere with the focus alternative computation for only (7). Such examples were discussed asa potential problem for the theory of focus intervention itself in Beck (2006). We argue
that the grammaticality of (21) shows that F-marked constituents are not interpreted in-situ
using only focus alternative computation and instead involve covert focus movement.
(21)

Lack of intervention by sentential negation:
I only didn’t read a book from THISF library.

Having motivated the covert movement view, our next task is to determine the size ofthe region that is pied-piped along with the F-marked constituent. For a sentence as in (22),
we can imagine at least the following three options. Note that all three covert pied-piping
options in (22a–c) will result in the same pronunciation and the same semantics for (22).11
10 Sentential negation generally acts as an intervener in wh-questions, where focus intervention effects

with the same logic are argued to occur (Beck 2006). In English, we see this behavior in superiority-violating
multiple wh-questions. In such questions, the wh-phrase pronounced in-situ must be interpreted using focus
alternative computation. The region above the in-situ wh in superiority-violating questions is thus sensitive tointervention effects. Example (i) below from Pesetsky (2000) shows that sentential negation is an intervener
in this configuration. See Pesetsky (2000) for more data and Beck (2006) for an analysis.
* Which book didn’t which boy read(i)?

11 (ii) shows a semantics for only under the focus movement approach that correctly predicts no sensitivity

to the size of pied-piping in the pivot. This semantics uses focus alternative computation inside the pied-piped
constituent to identify the F-marked element, predicting sensitivity to intervention in this region.
(ii)

Jonly(a)(b )K evaluated in world w:(see Horn 1969)

Erlewine & Kotek(22)

Possible pied-piping in covert focus movement:
I only read a book from THISF library.
a.

only(a book from THISF library)(l x. I read x)b.

only(from THISF library)(l x. I read a book x)c.

only(THISF library)(l x. I read a book from x)

Here too we can use focus intervention as a diagnostic, this time for the size of covert
focus pied-piping. That is, if any material is pied-piped, we predict a region right above
the F-marked constituent—between the F-marked constituent and the edge of the covert
pied-piping—to be sensitive to intervention effects. Example (23) shows this effect:12(23)

Intervention by DP-internal no:* I only read no book from THISF library.

The contrast between the sentential negation in (21) and the DP-internal negation in(23) shows that the problem with (23) is not simply caused by the presence of negation,
but rather by negation inside the covertly pied-piped constituent. Furthermore, example(24) below shows that this effect is not caused simply by having no in the sentence: if thenegation occurs below the F-marked constituent, no intervention is caused.
(24)

I only read THISF book containing no monsters.

In addition to negation, we also see similar intervention effects in covert pied-piping
constituents with other interveners such as few and the most as shown in (25) below.
(25)

Other DP-internal interveners:a. * I only read few books from THISF library.
b. * I only read the most books from THISF library.

The ungrammaticality of (23, 25) shows that only the largest pied-piping option in (26)
was available for covert focus movement.13 This finding is particularly surprising since wehave already seen that no such restriction on the size of pied-piping applies to overt focus
movement. The pied-piping in (26b, c) are grammatical choices for it-cleft pivots, (17b, c).
(26)

a.
a.
b.

I only read [covert pied-piping no book from THISF library].
) predicts intevention!
asserts for all x in JaKf where x 6= JaKo , Jb Ko (x) is false in w, andpresupposes Jb Ko (JaKo ) is true in w.

12 The baseline use of no in object position can be slightly degraded for some speakers. For some speakers it

can improve in the perfect, as in I’ve read no book from this library. For such speakers, we note that example(23) is still ungrammatical in the perfect: *I’ve only read no book from THISF library.
13 Recall that we did not observe intervention effects in example (21). Combined with our conclusion herethat covert pied-piping prefers to be as large as possible, example (21) teaches us that a constituent large
enough to contain the sentential negation (the entire sister of only) is not a candidate for pied-piping.

Intervention in focus pied-pipingb.
c.

I only read no book [covert pied-piping from THISF library].
) predicts no intervention
I only read no book from [covert pied-piping THISF library].
) predicts no intervention

Formally, the preference for larger covert pied-piping could be thought of as a transderivational application of the constraint Attract Closest (Relativized Minimality: Rizzi
1990; Minimal Link Condition: Chomsky 1995, 2000; also Shortest Move: Chomsky 1993).
That is, we could imagine the grammar considering the three derivations in (26) in parallel,differing only in the extent of pied-piping. The derivation with the largest pied-piping (26a)will result in the optimal satisfaction of Attract Closest-type constraints for the probing of
the focus-pied-piped constituent by only.14
Recall that if the F-marked constituent is inside an island, the focus movement approach
predicts that the entire island is moved. This might predict that intervention occurs inside
the entire island, if the F-marked constituent is interpreted in-situ inside the island andutilizes focus alternatives computation to reach the edge of the pied-piping, as in (27).
(27)

I ... only read [island the books [that Mary readat SCHOOLF ]].

However, as we can observe in (28), this does not seem to be the case:(28)

I only read [the books [that Mary didn’t readat SCHOOLF ]].

Following Drubig (1994) (in turn based on a proposal for wh-pied-piping by Nishigauchi (1990)), we propose that in clause-sized islands, the F-marked constituent can move
inside the island, thus predicting a smaller region that would be sensitive to intervention
effects:15(29)

I ... only read [island the books [... that Mary didn’t readat SCHOOLF ]].

Indeed, if an intervener is placed inside the DP but outside of the relative clause, anintervention effect is observed.
(30)

a. * I only read [no book that [Mary readb. * I only read [few books that [Mary readat SCHOOLF ]].
at SCHOOLF ]].

c. * I only read [the most books that [Mary readat SCHOOLF ]].

14 One could also imagine another proposal similar in spirit, in which the determination of pied-piping size

happens countercyclically. In this variant, only probes from above and countercyclically produces a focus
phrase to Attract. Due to the top-down nature of probing (Chomsky 2000), this would also yield a preference
for larger focus pied-piping. In this paper we will leave open such questions about the deeper motivations forthe preference for larger pied-piping.
15 Note that Drubig (1994) proposes that the F-marked constituent moves to the edge of the entire island,
regardless of the island’s category. Instead, the contrast here motivates movement of the F-marked constituent
only to the edge of clauses. Focus intervention is therefore predicted within DPs without clause-level projections, (23, 25), and outside of clauses within DPs, (30).

Erlewine & Kotek
Finally, we would like to acknowledge that the contrasts we describe here as focus intervention effects seem to be less clear when the higher focus operator is not only. Although
the contrasts are replicated with focus-sensitive negation (31), examples parallel to (23)and (25) but with a VP-level even or also, instead of only, are judged as natural or only
slightly degraded.16(31)

a. * I didn’t read few books from THISF library.
b. * I didn’t read the most books from THISF library.

(32)

a.

I even read no book from THISF library.

b. ? I even read few books from THISF library.
(33)

a.

I also read no book from THISF library.

b.

I also read few books from THISF library.

The contrast between our core data involving VP-only and negation and the behaviorof even and also is a puzzle. Assuming that the options for focus association are either
covert focus movement with pied-piping or completely in-situ interpretation through focus
alternative computation, we would expect intervention to occur in at least the configurations
above. We will leave this puzzle open for future work.
5.

Conclusion

In this paper we motivated the use of focus intervention effects as a diagnostic for regionsof focus alternative computation, resulting in a new argument for the covert movement
approach to focus association. We demonstrated that the pivot of English it-clefts is sensitive to focus intervention effects, substantiating Beck’s (2006) conjecture that focus intervention effects occur not only in wh-questions, but also in focus constructions. We thenused this diagnostic to argue for the presence of covert pied-piping in focus association
constructions with VP-level focus operators. We showed that intervention effects occur ina small region near and above the F-marked element in these constructions. Our findings
are consistent with the approach to focus association which involves covert movement withpied-piping, and are not predicted under the view that the F-marked constituent remains insitu and is interpreted solely using focus alternative computation. This is a new argument
in favor of the covert focus movement with pied-piping approach to focus association, previously proposed by Drubig (1994) and supported by Krifka (2006) and Wagner (2006).
Using focus intervention effects as a diagnostic for the size of covert pied-piping, we
showed that only the largest pied-piping option is available for covert focus movement.
This contrasts sharply with options for overt focus pied-piping demonstrated in the it-cleft,
where multiple choices for the size of the pied-piping were available. This evidence isparallel to the findings of our previous work in Kotek and Erlewine (to appear), where we
16 The combination of the focus-sensitive sentential negation and intervener no is not tested, as it may be

degraded for other reasons. Similarly, the combination of even/also with the most is not tested due to an
inherent incompatibility between their meanings.

Intervention in focus pied-piping
showed that covert pied-piping of wh-phrases must also choose the largest available option.
The core data is given below, where we see that although there are several options forovert wh-pied-piping in (34), only the largest option can predict the pattern of intervention
effects with covert pied-piping shown in (35). We refer the reader to Kotek and Erlewine(to appear) for more discussion of the data and its analysis.
(34)

Intervention in overt wh-pied-piping (Cable 2007):a. * [pied-piping No pictures of which president] does Jim own?

b.

[pied-piping Of which president] does Jim own no pictures?

c.

[pied-piping Which president] does Jim own no pictures of

?

(35)

Intervention in covert wh-pied-piping (Kotek and Erlewine to appear):* Which student read no book from which library?

(36)

Possible choices of covert pied-piping in (35):
a.
b.
c.

Which student read [covert pied-piping no book from which library].
) predicts intervention!
Which student read no book [covert pied-piping from which library].
) predicts no intervention
Which student read no book from [covert pied-piping which library].
) predicts no intervention

Much previous work on the syntax/semantics of wh-questions and focus constructions
has considered just one or the other phenomenon in isolation. The sensitivity of both whand focus-pied-piping to focus intervention effects motivates a view under which the two
phenomena are closely related. We believe that further research at this intersection and thecross-fertilization of theories in these areas are warranted.
References
Beaver, D., and B. Clark. 2008. Sense and sensitivity: How focus determines meaning.
Beck, S. 2006. Intervention effects follow from focus interpretation. Natural Language
Semantics 14:1–56.
Cable, S. 2007. The grammar of Q. Doctoral Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology.
Chomsky, N. 1977. On wh-movement. In Formal syntax, ed. Peter Culicover, Thomas
Wasow, and Adrian Akmajian, 71–132. New York: Academic Press.
Chomsky, N. 1993. A minimalist program for linguistic inquiry. In The view from Building
20, ed. Kenneth Hale and Samuel Jay Keyser. MIT Press.
Chomsky, N. 1995. The minimalist program. MIT Press.
Chomsky, N. 2000. Minimalist inquiries: the framework. In Step by step: Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik. MIT Press.

Erlewine & Kotek
Drubig, H. B. 1994. Island constraints and the syntactic nature of focus and association with focus. Arbeitspapiere des Sonderforschungsbereichs 340: Sprachtheoretische
Grundlagen der Computerlinguistik 51.
Hamblin, C. 1973. Questions in Montague English. Foundations of Language 10:41–53.
Horn, L. R. 1969. A presuppositional analysis of only and even. In Proceedings of CLS 5,
98–107. Chicago Linguistics Society.
Horn, L. R. 1981. Exhaustiveness and the semantics of clefts. In Proceedings of NELS 11.
Horn, L. R. to appear. Only connect: How to unpack an exclusive proposition. To appear
in a festscrift for Jay Atlas.
Horvath, J. 2000. Interfaces vs. the computational system in the syntax of focus. In Interface strategies, 183–206.
Jackendoff, R. 1972. Semantic interpretation in generative grammar. MIT Press.
Kotek, H., and M. Y. Erlewine. to appear. Covert pied-piping in English multiple whquestions. Linguistic Inquiry.
Krifka, M. 2006. Association with focus phrases. In The architecture of focus, 105–136.
Nishigauchi, T. 1990. Quantification in the theory of grammar. Kluwer.
Partee, B. H. 1991. Topic, focus, and quantification. In Proceedings of SALT 1, 159–187.
Pesetsky, D. 2000. Phrasal movement and its kin. MIT Press.
Rizzi, L. 1990. Relativized minimality. MIT Press.
Rooth, M. 1985. Association with focus. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Rooth, M. 1992. A theory of focus interpretation. Natural Language Semantics 1:75–116.
Rooth, M. 1996. On the interface principles for intonational focus. In Proceedings of SALT
6, 202–226.
Sauerland, U., and F. Heck. 2003. LF-intervention effects in pied-piping. In Proceedingsof NELS 33.
Selkirk, E. O. 1996. Sentence prosody: Intonation, stress, and phrasing. In The handbookof phonological theory, ed. John A. Goldsmith, 550–69. London: Basil Blackwell.
Taglicht, J. 1984. Message and emphasis: on focus and scope in English. Longman.
Tomioka, S. 2012. Focus matters in neo-Hamblin semantics. Presented at GLOW 35
Workshop on Association with Focus, May 2012.
Velleman, D. B., D. Beaver, E. Destruel, D. Bumford, E. Onea, and L. Coppock. 2012. Itclefts are IT (inquiry terminating) constructions. In Proceedings of SALT 22, 441–460.
Wagner, M. 2006. Association by movement: evidence from NPI-licensing. Natural Language Semantics 14:297–324.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of Linguistics & Philosophy
77 Massachusetts Ave. #32-D808
Cambridge, MA 02139
mitcho@mit.edu
kotek@mit.edu