An Argumentative Approach to Too in English

Abstract

Traditionally, too has been treated as a trigger of an existential presupposition. Hence, the particle in the sentence Jeff joined the race, too is responsible for the presupposition ‘There is a person other than Jeff who joined the race.’ This analysis, however, is inadequate for handling a wide variety of cases involving diverse types of focus the particle can be associated with. It is necessary for the lexicon of too to specify how the focus particle constrains the immediate context. Adopting the theory of argumentation, the present study proposes two conditions as part of the semantic contents of too: the Co-Support Condition and the Parity Condition. The former constrains the context by having the proposition expressed by the sentence or clause containing too and the proposition expressed by the preceding sentence or clause to support a contextually relevant conclusion in unison. The latter makes sure that the two propositions are on a par with each other. Enriching the lexical contents of too in this way helps capture the semantic contribution of the focus particle as a relational operator.