Discourse-driven V-to-C in Early Modern Romanian

Abstract

The Moldavian Chronicles of the 17th and 18th centuries are the first literary texts written directly in Romanian. In these Early Modern Romanian (EMR) texts, declarative clauses display an alternation between clitic > V(erb) and V(erb) > clitic orders, which reflects low verb movement (Verb-to-Tense/V-to-T) or high verb movement (Verb-to-Complementizer/V-to-C), respectively. The analysis concentrates on V-to-C, and demonstrates that, within a cartographic approach to the left periphery of the clause, V-to-C is actually V-to-Focus. Hence, the paper argues for discourse-driven (versus structure-preserving/formal) verb movement to C in EMR, and thus contributes to current studies that view V-to-C in Old Romance as an epiphenomenon of the information packaging at the left periphery of clauses.