Preposition Stranding and Resumptivity in West Germanic

Abstract

This paper addresses the phenomenon of preposition stranding in Frisian and some other West Germanic languages, mainly Dutch and German. Like Dutch and German, Frisian allows extraction of a so-called R-pronoun from PP. At first sight, Frisian exhibits extraction of full DPs from PP as well, which is impossible in Dutch and German, and which is, moreover, unexpected from the point of view of most theories on preposition stranding. On closer examination, however, it will appear that the cases of preposition stranding with full DPs in Frisian do not involve extraction from PP, but an (empty) resumptive pronoun strategy. The assumption that Frisian allows ‘preposition stranding by resumptivity’ alongside ‘preposition stranding by movement’ may account for a number of interesting differences between Frisian and Dutch; Dutch does not allow resumptive strategies. German, on the other hand, seems to be able to license resumptive pronouns. Nevertheless, Frisian and German differ considerably with respect to preposition stranding. It will be shown that these differences follow from an independently motivated subparametrization of resumptivity. The complex relationship between resumptivity and preposition stranding in West Germanic, discussed in this paper, may yield further insight into the status of resumptivity in linguistic theory.