In this paper, I will propose a uniform analysis for adjectival and certain instances of adverbial <I>eigentlich</I>. The analysis rests on the assumption that <I>eigentlich</I> contrasts the nominal content of a concept <I>C</I> with a contextually given notion of phenomenological evidence for <I>C-</I>hood. <I>eigentlich</I> offers the semantic frame to refer to two ways of <I>C-</I>hood which are usually supplied by context. In the adjectival use, the discourse content should provide an <I>N</I> exemplar in the true sense (an <I>eigentliches N</I>) along with an apparent <I>N</I>, thereby proving the two notions to be different. In the adverbial use, the message conveyed is usually that the actual world <I>nominally</I> satisfies some proposition <I>p</I> (<I>eigentlich, p</I>) while the actual world <I>looks</I> as if a contrasting proposition <I>q</I> were the case. The analysis improves on earlier accounts in German descriptive linguistics in that it offers a fully compositional account of the semantic and pragmatic contribution of <I>eigentlich</I> in a wide variety of constructions, including focus, contrastive topic and questions. The analysis proposes a delineation of <I>eigentlich</I> as an emotive marker which differs from the content use in prosody, syntax, focus sensitivity and meaning.