Discourse, sentence grammar and the left periphery of the clause

The term left periphery refers to that area on the left of the subject, in the syntactic representation of a clause, where the relationships with the context are encoded. In this work I propose a syntactic analysis that goes beyond mere sentence grammar and integrates prosodic and discourse features as well. On the one hand, this move accounts for some observations previously not fully understood, such as the anomalous syntactic properties of Clitic Left Dislocation and Hanging Topic, their differences with respect to Focus and their similarities with parentheticals. On the other, it aims at providing a theory of grammar able to encode the relationships between sentence grammar, context and bigger units such as discourses

Strategies of Subject Extraction

Strategies of Subject Extraction Subjects typically are harder to move than objects to a long-distance left peripheral positions; and yet subject extraction is necessary for question formation, focalization, etc. So, natural languages invent structural strategies to make subject movement possible. In this paper we adopt a framework which provides a principled explanation for the constraints on subject movement: it is based on the principle known as Criterial Freezing, and on the idea that the subject position is characterized by special interpretive properties which make it a criterial position, in the sense of Rizzi (1997). We then turn to the kinds of strategies that languages adopt to circumvent the freezing effect and make subject extraction possible: A. Fixed subject strategies, allowing the formation of an A’-dependency without extracting the subject, e.g. by using a resumptive pronoun (Modern Hebrew) or by pied-piping a larger constituent (Imbabura Quechua); B. Skipping strategies, involving the use of some kind of expletive pronominal to fill the freezing positions, and thus permitting the thematic subject to skip it and remain available for movement (French que-qui, special particles licensing subject movement in Scandinavian languages, etc.)

Clitic positions and restructuring in Italian

Verbs can be introduced (merged) either in a lexical VP or in a functional head, the latter giving rise to restructuring contexts. This paper argues that there are two clitic positions in Italian ‘restructured’ clauses. One position is associated with the (restructured) lexical verb and the other position is a clausal clitic position located in the functional domain. While restructuring can be recursive, clitics appear either on the restructured infinitive (no clitic climbing) or in the functional domain of the highest verb (full clitic climbing). There is no clitic climbing to an intermediate restructuring verb. We argue that only the lowest restructured verb makes a position for clitics available. We then discuss the distribution of the infinitive-final [e] and argue that its position should be identified with the lexical clitic position. Finally, it is shown that the functional ~ lexical dichotomy is too sharp and that a variety of verb classes must be admitted, including one which we call quasi-functional (causative, perception, and motion verbs.) The properties exhibited by each class of verbs correlates with the point in the structure in which they are merged

The order of verbal complements. A comparative study

Hebrew and Italian manifest a relative freedom in the ordering of complements in double complement constructions. Hypothesizing that the base order is NP PP, we proceed to delineate the transformational processes involved in the derivation of the alternative PP NP order. This leads us to identify a strategy of structural focalization involving a Focus projection which we take to be responsible for the derivation of a subset of the structures displaying the order PP NP. We discuss the interaction of this strategy with ‘subject inversion' which we interpret as also involving structural focalization. Differences between Hebrew and Italian are correlated with the linear position of Spec/FocusP in the clause structure and the availability or non-availability ofpro in object position. It is observed that the range of options open to heavy objects is greater than that available to non-heavy or light objects. We claim that the order PP NPheavy does not submit to a uniform analysis and that a process of heavy NP Shift must be admitted alongside a process shifting the PP over NPheavy