The Left Periphery

This study of the interaction of syntax, pragmatics, and prosody in left peripheral positions focuses on two left dislocation constructions in Czech, Hanging Topic Left Dislocation and Contrastive Left Dislocation. The structure of the left periphery is delineated through a thorough description and analysis of these constructions with respect to their syntactic behavior, discourse function and prosody. Following recent work on the Syntax-Phonology interface, prosody in these constructions is shown to interact in interesting ways with the narrow syntax. Unexpected patterns of left-edge resumption are explained through the role of the PF component of the grammar.

Olena Tsurska, Arizona State University, on Linguist List 20.2583, 2009:
Sturgeon's clear and comprehensive study of the left dislocation in Czech will be a valuable resource for Slavic linguists interested in studying similar phenomena in other Slavic languages.