Erlewine, Michael Yoshitaka, 2015.
“Minimality and focus-sensitive adverb placement.”
Proceedings of NELS 45, volume 1, pages 193–202.
In this paper I discuss the distribution of focus-sensitive adverbs in Vietnamese, which exhibits a Minimality effect. Given a fixed position for focus β, there may be different structural heights within a given phase where an adverb α associating with that focus β can adjoin. The focus-sensitive adverb α must appear in the position which minimizes the structural distance between it and its focus associate β. This translates into a requirement that focus-sensitive adverbs adjoin as low as possible, within a particular set of possible adjunction positions.
Much previous literature on Minimality has focused on whether or not such effects derive from transderivational competition, based primarily on Minimality effects on movement. I show that previous approaches to well-studied Minimality patterns which avoid transderivational competition do not extend to the pattern observed here. In contrast, we can develop a uniform treatment of Minimality effects if we adopt transderivational competition as in early Minimalist work such as Chomsky (1992).
For also "Vietnamese focus particles and derivation by phase” in JEAL. This paper supplements the JEAL paper with discussions of alternative analyses.