Towards a novel analysis of was-für-split

In this paper I address a number of issues related to the was-f¨ur-construction in German. I suggest a route to an analysis that is not construction-specific but reflects independent properties of the grammar such as phases (syntax), information structure and the postsyntactic realization of inherent case as prepositions (PF). In combination these aspects yield a more natural picture and a better understanding of certain features of this construction than do analyses which rely on syntax alone.