Generalized focus intervention

Abstract

In a recent article, Li & Law (to appear) argue that focus intervention is a manifestation of inappropriate quantificational domains of focus-sensitive operators, resulting from the interaction of focus alternatives and ordinary alternatives. Their theory predicts that expressions introducing ordinary alternatives should all be subject to focus intervention, just as interrogative wh-phrases do. This paper bears out the prediction with non-interrogative wh-phrases and disjunctive phrases.