The decline of Latin left-peripheral presentational foci: Causes and consequences

Abstract

This chapter is concerned with the syntax and diachronic evolution of a particular focalization strategy in Latin, which involves displacement of presentational foci to the clausal left periphery. On the basis of a large‐scale corpus study, it is shown that this phenomenon starts to decline around the first half of the first century AD. It is suggested that this evolution is related to another syntactic change that took place in the same period, namely a decreasing frequency of verb‐final sentences. It is argued that both the predominant SOV word order of Latin and the occurrence of presentational foci in the left periphery can be accounted for by assuming that the entire vP is moved to the middle field, to a position higher than the tense phrase. Finally, the loss of vP movement can explain both of the aforementioned syntactic changes.