Relative clauses in Cimbrian*

Abstract

This paper provides an analysis of the left periphery of relative clauses in the Cimbrian variety of Luserna and explores which of the two complementizer systems Cimbrian makes use of in restrictive and appositive relative clauses. Furthermore, the sentential particle da (lit. ‘there’), which according to Bidese et al. (2012) is obligatory in restrictive relative clauses with a full DP subject, is shown to have a distribution and function different from its counterparts in Bavarian and Hessian. We argue that the Cimbrian da is neither a locative (as the form might suggest) nor a subject expletive located in SpecT similar to English ‘there’ (as suggested by Bayer & Suchsland 1997 for Bavarian), but the specifier of a projection located in the Wackernagel space marking the Ground context with respect to the head noun individuated by the relative clause.