scholarly journals Little pro’s, but how many of them? – On 3SG null pronominals in Hungarian

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 61-73
Author(s):  
Gréte Dalmi
Keyword(s):  
Left Periphery ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Functional Projection ◽  
Free Variation

While Hungarian 3SG individual reference null pronominals are in free variation with their lexical counterparts, 3SG generic reference null pronominals do not show such variation. This follows from the fact that Hungarian 3SG generic null pronominals behave like bound variables, i.e. they always require a 3SG generic lexical antecedent in an adjacent clause. Both the 3SG generic lexical antecedent and the 3SG generic null pronominal must be in the scope of the GN operator, which is seated in SpeechActParticipantPhrase (SAPP), the leftmost functional projection of the left periphery in the sentence (see Alexiadou & D’Alessandro, 2003; Bianchi, 2006). GN binds all occurrences of the generic variable in accessible worlds (see Moltmann 2006 for English one/oneself). These properties distinguish Hungarian from the four major types of Null Subject Languages identified by Roberts & Holmberg (2010).

Some remarks on subject positions and the architecture of the left periphery in Spanish

2010 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernhard Pöll
Keyword(s):  
Simple Rule ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Subject Field ◽  
Subject Positions ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Landing Sites ◽  
The Subject

AbstractThis article reexamines the puzzling issue of where subjects, lexical and null, are located in Spanish and offers a novel explanation for the incompatibility of preverbal lexical subjects with fronted focussed constituents. Both SpecIP and the left periphery appear to be potential landing sites for subjects, according to discourse-pragmatic factors. Assuming that pro is a clitic, it is argued that the aforementioned incompatibility can be captured by a simple rule: SpecIP must be empty for focus fronting to occur. This is the case with pro, which adjoins to Infl, or with postverbal subjects since they remain in SpecVP. From this analysis it follows that: 1) the subject field in Spanish is less articulated than is generally assumed, 2) the differences between Spanish and other null subject languages with respect to the availability of preverbal subjets can be reduced to this rule and a different ordering of focus and topic phrases, and 3) it is unnecessary to posit two different topic positions.

On the left periphery of three languages of Northern Italy

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-117
Author(s):  
Federica Cognola
Keyword(s):  
Northern Italy ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Simple Description ◽  
Functional Projection ◽  
Technical Sense ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Pragmatic Interpretation ◽  
Interrogative Clauses ◽  
Finite Verb

Abstract Through a focus on the properties of subject-finite verb inversion and XP fronting in three relaxed V2 languages, namely Cimbrian, Ladin and Mòcheno, this paper aims to widen and refine our understanding of relaxed V2 languages, i.e. languages in which the V2 property should be understood in a technical sense as obligatory V-to-C movement, not as a simple description referring to linearisation (Benincà 2006, 2013; Ledgeway 2016). It will be shown that inversion differs across relaxed V2 languages in two ways. In a first subtype, inversion is not associated with any marked pragmatic interpretation of the lexical subject and the subject appears in an A position in the IP area: this type is instantiated by Old Italian (Benincà 2006, Poletto 2014). A second option, instantiated by the languages considered in this paper, is that the lexical subject receives a pragmatically marked interpretation which is encoded in a Functional Projection (FP) in the vP periphery (Belletti 2004, Poletto 2006). This paper confirms that V3/V4 word orders involve the presence of a double articulation for foci and wh-elements, which appear in different positions in the CP layer in relaxed V2 languages (Poletto 2002, Wolfe 2015 a,b). It also contributes to our understanding of the syntax of topics in relaxed V2 languages by showing that (i) topics can be moved to CP and (ii) the movement option is not restricted to main clauses lacking an XP in the left periphery; it also occurs in interrogative clauses (unlike in the relaxed V2 varieties considered in Walkden 2014, 2015).

Old Gallo-Romance, periodization, and the left periphery

2020 ◽  
pp. 9-40
Author(s):  
Sam Wolfe
Keyword(s):  
Left Periphery ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Empirical Basis ◽  
History Of ◽  
Verb Placement ◽  
Inversion Effects

This chapter seeks to reappraise the value of periodization for both early French and Occitan, by analysing a range of syntactic changes including verb placement, inversion effects, the structure of the left periphery, the null subject system and the particle SI. On this basis, it is argued that in syntactic terms there is some value in assigning the label ‘middle’ to a particular period in the history of French, whereas there is minimal empirical basis to assign the same label to a particular stage in the history of Occitan. Overall in terms of comparative Romance syntactic typology this is linked to the fact that medieval and modern Occitan are syntactically closer to the ‘southern’ Romance prototype than French.

Generalising Asymmetric Coordination with Resumptive Pronoun: A Syntactic Analysis of Certain Dislocations in Biblical Hebrew

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincent DeCaen
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Hebrew ◽  
Minimalist Program ◽  
Syntactic Analysis ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Subject Pronoun ◽  
The One ◽  
Special Case ◽  
Asymmetric Coordination

This study clearly distinguishes Biblical Hebrew topicalisation (fronting) from the hanging topic construction (extraposition) within the framework of the Minimalist Program. Topicalisation involves the movement of some constituent into [spec,TopP] resulting in a gap. In contrast, the hanging topic is not moved but rather base-generated in [spec,&P]. Thus, extraposition is simply a special case of asymmetric coordination. In addition, this study explains how and why these distinct constructions are easily and generally confused. On the one hand, verb movement into the left periphery may render the relative position of constituents opaque. On the other hand, and more importantly, Biblical Hebrew is a robust pro-drop language. Consequently, there may be some ambiguity between the gap resulting from clause-internal topicalisation and the apparent gap of a null subject pronoun resuming a clause-external hanging topic.

On Left-Peripheral Expletives in Central Colombian Spanish

2019 ◽  
pp. 329-354
Author(s):  
José Camacho
Keyword(s):  
Left Periphery ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Colombian Spanish ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Preceding Discourse ◽  
Current Proposal

This chapter analyzes a construction involving an expletive-like demonstrative, eso, which appears in the left periphery of the clause in dialects of Spanish spoken in Central Colombia and Venezuela, two closely related null-subject varieties. This expletive is optional, it can only appear preverbally, and is mostly restricted to declarative matrix clauses. When it appears in questions, they can only be interpreted as echo (noninformational) questions. It is incompatible with a wide focus interpretation; rather it introduces a contrast with some discoursive item or some salient element in the context. The essay builds on previous proposals for related optional expletives in Romance, which propose that optional expletives are subjects of predicational cleft-like structures such as it is true that where some parts have been deleted. The current proposal suggests that eso is the subject of a predication whose predicate is the full clause. The expletive, in turn, links to the preceding discourse.

Old Gallo-Romance

2018 ◽  
pp. 65-86
Author(s):  
Sam Wolfe
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Old French ◽  
Detailed Account ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
New Information ◽  
Old Occitan ◽  
Information Focus

This chapter provides a detailed account of the word order properties of Old French and Old Occitan. It shows that Old French is a descriptively stricter V2 system than Old Occitan but that both are V2 grammars, with a prefield nonspecialized for subjects, a dominant V2 order, Germanic inversion, and matrix/embedded asymmetries. However, as with Old Italo-Romance the precise makeup of the left periphery is distinct between varieties, later Old French does not license new information focus like Occitan, and both differ in their clitic pronominal and null subject properties.

Pro-drop in interrogatives across older Germanic and Romance languages

2021 ◽  
pp. 97-136
Author(s):  
Federica Cognola ◽  
George Walkden
Keyword(s):  
Romance Languages ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Agreement Morphology ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Interrogative Clauses ◽  
Germanic Languages

This chapter investigates the mechanisms of null subject licensing in direct interrogatives, an environment which is generally neglected in investigation into null subjects, using data from a range of early Romance and Germanic languages considered to be asymmetric pro-drop languages, i.e. languages in which null subjects are favoured in main clauses. We find that there is subtle variation between the languages in question, but that two factors in particular – interrogative type and person – are crucial in conditioning this variation, and we sketch analyses based on the differential availability of Agree relations with left-peripheral elements. Therefore, null subjects in main interrogative clauses are licensed in two slightly different manners in the two language families – a fact which we show follows from differences in the structure of their left periphery and in agreement morphology

Left periphery and Chinese yes-no questions

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-213
Author(s):  
Rui-heng Ray Huang
Keyword(s):  
Fine Structure ◽  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Southern Min ◽  
Syntactic Behavior

Assuming the cartographic approach (Rizzi 1997, 2004; Cinque 1999), this study attempts to map four Chinese yes-no question markers onto the left periphery, including ke/shifou/A-not-A in Mandarin Chinese and kam in Taiwan Southern Min. It is found that while these four markers all represent yes-no questions, they are not exactly alike on syntactic grounds. The syntactic behavior of ke is particularly different in that it is not able to lead an embedded null-subject question whereas kam/shifou/A-not-A are able to. Also, ke in its own right cannot license the focus interpretation of its following NP or clause whereas kam/shifou/A-not-A (MEpi-not-MEpi) can. Given these differences, this study proposes a topography and attributes them to different projections of the question markers in the fine structure of split CPs, where ke is merged in Fin0 and raised to Int0 in LF, while kam/shifou/A-not-A(MEpi-not-MEpi) are merged in SpecFocP and raised to SpecIntP in LF. VP-not-VP forms, however, are not base-generated in CP, but within TP/IP. They are subsequently forced to raise to SpecIntP in LF to check the feature [+Q].

Variation in the Gallo-Romance left periphery

2020 ◽  
pp. 71-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Ledgeway
Keyword(s):  
Radical Change ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Parametric Variation ◽  
Major Exception ◽  
Null Subject Parameter ◽  
History Of ◽  
Embedded Contexts ◽  
Edge Feature

Exploiting parallels between nominal and clausal structures, it is argued that the strong / weak D dimension of parametric variation for nominals can be extended to clauses, such that V2 syntax can be reinterpreted as the reflex of a strong C setting. On this view, we observe in the history of most Gallo-Romance varieties a parametric shift from strong to weak C manifested in the loss of generalized V-to-C movement and the concomitant reassignment of the EPP edge-feature from CP to TP, as witnessed in the emergence of a dedicated preverbal subject position and reversal in the null-subject parameter. Within this scenario, it is shown that Gascon represents a major exception having uniquely retained its medieval V2 syntax and, indeed, further extended it to embedded contexts. In particular, in the passage from medieval to modern Gascon, the grammar has witnessed a radical change in the formal realization of the strong C head requirement (while the accompanying EPP edge-feature remains unchanged) such that strong C is no longer satisfied through the Move option raising the finite verb to the C position, but through the Merge option directly lexicalizing the latter position with a so-called ‘enunciative’ particle. This development is the result of intensive contact with Basque, a language independently known to present similar preverbal particles, highlighting how the medieval Gallo-Romance V2 constraint was exceptionally reinforced in this area, but at the same time aligned with a Basque model triggering a shift from the Move to the Merge options in satisfaction of strong C and the emergence of an elaborate system of C-particles.

scholarly journals Discourse particles in the left periphery

2004 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 543-566
Author(s):  
Malte Zimmermann
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Type ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Descriptive Content ◽  
Functional Projection ◽  
Discourse Particles ◽  
Linguistic Evidence ◽  
Peripheral Position ◽  
Discourse Particle ◽  
Semantic Properties

This article analyses the German discourse particle wohl 'I suppose', 'presumably' as a syntactic and semantic modifier of the sentence types declarative and interrogative. It is shown that wohl does not contribute to the propositional, i.e. descriptive content of an utterance. Nor does it trigger an implicature. The proposed analysis captures the semantic behaviour of wohl by assuming that it moves to SpecForceP at LF, from where it can modify the sentence type operators in Force0 in compositional fashion. Semantically, a modification with wohl results in a weaker commitment to the proposition expressed in declaratives and in a request for a weaker commitment concerning the questioned proposition in interrogatives. Cross-linguistic evidence for a left-peripheral position of wohl (at LF) comes from languages in which the counterpart of wohl occurs in the clausal periphery overtly. Overall, the analysis sheds more light on the semantic properties of the left periphery, in particular of the functional projection ForceP.  

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