VP-Deletion, Obligatory too, and Focus Semantics∗

The additive particle too seems to be obligatory in VP-ellipsis contexts: John came to the store. Bill did { # ∅ / too}. Pesetsky [25] attributes to Kai von Fintel (p.c. to Pesetsky) the suggestion that this fact might be derivable from Heim’s [12] Maximize Presupposition! Amsili and Beyssade [1] suggest an implemen-tation of von Fintel’s idea. The implementation involves certain assumptions that do not follow from a general theory of Maximize Presupposition! I suggest a way to eliminate the stipulations by spelling out a precise set of assumptions needed to generate structures with elided VPs (Rooth [26], Heim [14]). This set of assumptions, along with a modification of Rooth’s [27] theory of focus to allow the existence of multiple focus interpretation operators, suffice to derive the obligatoriness of too in these contexts. To the extent that the arguments here are sound, they also support such a modification to the theory of focus semantics. 1 Obligatory too and VP-Deletion It has long been observed that too (among other discourse particles) is often obligatory in certain contexts (eg. Green [9, 10], Kaplan [17], Krifka [19], Zeevat [36], Sæbø[28], Amsili and Beyssade [1], Chemla [4]). Consider, as a special case, VP-deletion contexts: 1. (a) John came to the store, and Bill did too (b) # John came to the store, and Bill did One thing to note immediately is that the effect appears in arbitrarily em-bedded contexts, below the level of speech act: 2. (a) If John came to the store and Bill did too, then Mary will be quite pleased (b) #If John came to the store and Bill did, then Mary will be quite please