"Either" as a Focus Particle

Many analyses of initial coordination are based on the view that elements like either, both and neither are conjunctions. Such a view, however, leaves many questions unanswered with respect to the prosodic and syntactic structure of these constructions and their interpretation. This study argues that English either and its Dutch counterpart of are focus particles rather than conjunctions. This not only accounts for their relatively free distribution but also explains the restrictions that are posed on their possible surface positions by focus and intonation. In addition, the scopal effects that have been observed in either-or constructions can be explained. The behavior of English either and Dutch of with disjunctions thus suggests a complex interaction between syntactic, prosodic and discourse-semantic information in the process of sentence generation.

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