Clausal Periphery Research Articles

A/Ā-Operations at the Mongolian Clausal Periphery

This paper examines and provides a unified analysis for the interaction between ECM and A¯\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\hspace{1.27777pt}\\overline{\\hspace{-1.27777pt}\ ext {A}\\hspace{-1.27777pt}}\\hspace{1.27777pt}$$\\end{document}-operations such as thematic topicalization and wh-licensing at the Mongolian embedded clausal periphery. Building on a previous proposal that ECM targets Spec CP, which can be an A-position in Mongolian (Fong 2019), I argue that thematic topicalization and wh-licensing are associated with an A¯\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\hspace{1.27777pt}\\overline{\\hspace{-1.27777pt}\ ext {A}\\hspace{-1.27777pt}}\\hspace{1.27777pt}$$\\end{document}-domain projected below CP. Furthermore, I advance an analysis in which the A- and A¯\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\hspace{1.27777pt}\\overline{\\hspace{-1.27777pt}\ ext {A}\\hspace{-1.27777pt}}\\hspace{1.27777pt}$$\\end{document}-properties of syntactic dependencies are the result of different features involved in Agree relations. The Agree-based analysis allows for a flexible account for the intricate patterns of the A/A¯\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\hspace{1.27777pt}\\overline{\\hspace{-1.27777pt}\ ext {A}\\hspace{-1.27777pt}}\\hspace{1.27777pt}$$\\end{document}-interactions at the Mongolian clausal periphery, while also making concrete predictions confirmed by independent facts from this language. I then compare the Mongolian case with typical cases of improper movement, and discuss the implications of the current account for a general theory of movement typology.

Feature Geometry and Head Splitting in the Wolof Clausal Periphery

This article is a study of the morphosyntax of the clausal periphery in Wolof, specifically the two layers commonly labeled CP and IP. It has long been noted that (a) C and I share a number of properties, and (b) languages differ in the amount of structure over which functional features are distributed. I propose a structure-building mechanism that can both explain the C-I relationship and derive the variation in the distribution of features over syntactic heads. I argue that features of C and I are bundled together and that this feature bundle can be divided into multiple heads via Head Splitting, which allows parts of feature bundles to reproject. The proposal is illustrated through a detailed exploration of the C-I domain in Wolof, which bundles C and I into one head in some structures and splits them in others.

On English Multiple Discourse-Related Movement

In light of the cartographic Complementizer Phrase (CP) analysis, in which two computationally requisite functional projections (i.e., Force Phrase: ForceP and Finite Phrase: FinP) sandwich two optional discourse-related projections (i.e., Topic Phrase: TopP and Focus Phrase: FocP) in the clause-peripheral domain, it is theoretically reasonable to postulate the former as phase, a basic computational unit assumed in recent minimalist syntactic theory. We call this hybrid-type of syntactic analysis Phase-based CP Cartographic Analysis. Using this, we investigate multiple discourse-related movement (MDM) phenomena in English, including Topicalization, Focalization and Wh-movement at the clausal periphery. Our approach can appropriately capture the grammaticality regarding word order, which is derived from the combination of these clause-peripheral movements.

VP-fronting: Movement vs. dislocation

AbstractWhile VP-fronting in English has various properties that are generally taken to be hallmarks of$$\overline A $$-movement, other properties of the construction militate against an analysis in terms of displacement of VP to the clausal periphery. Such an analysis falls short of providing principled answers to the questions of why the trace of VP-fronting must be nominal, why certain kinds of morphological mismatches between the fronted VP and its trace are possible, why fronting of remnant VPs is impossible, and others. This article proposes an analysis of English VP-fronting – plausibly extending to English ’topicalization’ in general – based on the observation that the construction shares these non-movement properties with left-dislocation of VP in German. Connectivity effects, on such an approach, are the result of ellipsis. By assimilating VP-fronting to dislocation, the analysis furnishes principled explanations for the striking asymmetries between English-type VP-fronting (dislocation) and German-type VP-fronting ($$\overline A $$-movement).

Right-dislocation as deletion

While the left clausal periphery has been in the center of attention of syntactic theory since the 1970s, the right periphery remains comparatively ill-understood. The goal of this paper is to rectify this situation. We argue that Germanic right-dislocation constructions are composed of two juxtaposed clauses, the dislocated peripheral XP being a remnant of ellipsis in the second clause. This analysis explains the extra-sentential status of right-dislocated constituents while simultaneously accounting for signs of syntactic connectivity. These two seemingly conflicting facets are reconciled in a manner familiar from deletion-based accounts of sluicing and fragment answers, i.e. by attributing the relevant (apparent) grammatical interactions to parallel but silent clausal structure. We show that this analysis successfully derives the core properties of both backgrounded and focused (‘afterthought’) phrases at the right periphery, whereas monosentential movement or base-generation accounts necessarily fall short of accounting for the observed facts. The analysis not only eliminates a putative case of rightward movement, but shows that right-dislocation can be fully understood in terms of independently motivated computations, thereby removing constructional residue from the theory of Universal Grammar.

Discourse particles in the left periphery

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.