Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T02:32:13.444Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Clause-final subjects in English and Scandinavian

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2009

Marit Julien
Marit Julien*
Affiliation:
Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University. P.O. Box 201, 22100 Lund, Sweden. [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

In English and in Scandinavian, presentational expletive constructions with clause-final subjects can be derived by moving the subject to a Spec position in the C-domain, and then raising the remainder of the clause across the subject to an even higher position. The discourse properties of the clause-final subjects then follow without further stipulations. Moreover, the view that the clause-final position of the subject is the result of a phonological operation is not tenable, which means that various problems that would arise from this view are avoided after all. The differences between English constructions with clause-final subjects and their Scandinavian counterparts are consequences of the properties of the respective expletives. While the English expletive there can be the partial spellout of a subject copy, Scandinavian expletives are always syntactic elements in their own right. Two constructions that to some degree resemble the construction under discussion are shown not to be derived in a parallel fashion. For locative inversion, no analysis is given, but it is shown that it is syntactically rather different from the presentational expletive construction. For the English construction with an expletive and a divalent verb, which Chomsky (2001) takes to involve obligatory movement of the subject to clause-final position, it is argued that it involves a verb with two internal arguments appearing in their base order. The same holds for the corresponding Norwegian construction.

Keywords

antitopicclause-final subjectdivalent verbexpletivefocuspresentational construction
Type
Research Article
Information
Nordic Journal of Linguistics , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , June 2009 , pp. 73 - 109
Copyright
Copyright © Nordic Association of Linguistics 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Åfarli, Tor A. 1992. The Syntax of Norwegian Passive Constructions. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aissen, Judith. 1975. Presentational-there insertion: A cyclic root transformation. Chicago Linguistic Society (CLS) 11, 1–14.Google Scholar
Belletti, Adriana. 1988. The case of unaccusatives. Linguistic Inquiry 19, 1–34.Google Scholar
Benincà, Paola. 2001. The position of Topic and Focus in the left periphery. In Cinque, Guglielmo & Salvi, Giampaolo (eds.), Current Studies in Italian Syntax: Essays Offered to Lorenzo Renzi, 39–64. Amsterdam: Elsevier.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Börjars, Kersti & Vincent, Nigel. 2005. Position vs function in Scandinavian presentational constructions. In Butt, Miriam & King, Tracy Holloway (eds.), LFG '05 Conference, 54–72. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications. http://cslipublications.stanford.edu/LFG/10/lfg05.htmlGoogle Scholar
Bresnan, Joan. 1994. Locative inversion and the architecture of Universal Grammar. Language 70, 72–131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carlson, Gregory N. & Pelletier, Francis Jeffry (eds.) 1995. The Generic Book. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Chierchia, Gennaro. 1995. Individual-level predicates as inherent generics. In Carlson, & Pelletier, (eds.), 176–223.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 2001. Derivation by phase. In Kenstowicz, Michael (ed.), Ken Hale: A Life in Language, 1–52. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Collins, Chris. 1997. Local Economy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Culicover, Peter W. & Levine, Robert D.. 2001. Stylistic inversion in English: A reconsideration. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 19, 283–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diesing, Molly. 1992. Indefinites. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Erguvanlí, Eser Ermine. 1984. The Function of Word Order in Turkish Grammar. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Fox, Danny & Pesetsky, David. 2004. Cyclic linearization of syntactic structure. Ms., MIT.Google Scholar
Haider, Hubert. 1997. Extraposition. In Beerman, Dorothee, LeBlanc, David & van Riemsdijk, Henk (eds.), Rightward Movement, 115–151. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hazout, Ilan. 2004. The syntax of existential constructions. Linguistic Inquiry 35, 393–430.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoekstra, Teun & Mulder, René. 1990. Unergatives as copular verbs: Locational and existential predication. The Linguistic Review 7, 1–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmberg, Anders. 2001. Expletives and agreement in Scandinavian passives. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 4, 85–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Julien, Marit. 2002. Syntactic Heads and Word Formation. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Julien, Marit. 2007. Embedded V2 in Norwegian and Swedish. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 80, 103–161.Google Scholar
Kornfilt, Jaklin. 1997. Turkish. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Krifka, Manfred, Pelletier, Francis Jeffry, Carlson, Gregory N., ter Meulen, Alice, Chierchia, Gennaro & Link, Godehard. 1995. Genericity: An introduction. In Carlson, & Pelletier, (eds.), 1–124.Google Scholar
Kural, Murat. 1997. Postverbal constituents in Turkish and the Linear Correspondence Axiom. Linguistic Inquiry 28, 498–519.Google Scholar
Lambrecht, Knud. 1994. Information Structure and Sentence Form. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lødrup, Helge. 1995. The realization of benefactives in Norwegian. Chicago Linguistic Society (CLS) 31, 317–328.Google Scholar
Milsark, Gary. 1979. Existential Sentences in English. New York: Garland.Google Scholar
Platzack, Christer. 1998. A visibility condition for the C-domain. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 61, 53–99.Google Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 1997. The fine structure of the left periphery. In Haegeman, Liliane (ed.), Elements of Grammar, 281–337. Dordrecht, Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rochemont, Michael S. & Culicover, Peter W.. 1990. English Focus Constructions and the Theory of Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Taraldsen, Knut Tarald. 1986. Som and the binding theory. In Hellan, Lars & Christensen, Kirsti Koch (eds.), Topics in Scandinavian Syntax, 149–184. Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsimpli, Ianthi-Maria. 1998. Individual and functional readings for focus, wh- and negative operators: Evidence from Greek. In Joseph, Brian D., Horrocks, Geoffrey C. & Philippaki-Warburton, Irene (eds.), Themes in Greek Linguistics II, 197–227. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vikner, Sten. 1995. Verb Movement and Expletive Subjects in the Germanic Languages. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Edwin. 1994. Thematic Structure in Syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Williams, Edwin. 2006. The subject–predicate theory of there. Linguistic Inquiry 37, 648–651.CrossRefGoogle Scholar