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Musings on the left periphery in West Germanic

German left dislocation and ‘survive’

Abstract

An analysis of German Left Dislocation is proposed which combines the findings in recent work on the construction with a theoretical model of syntactic derivation that dispenses with the existence of the EPP-feature. The findings at stake are basically those in Frey (2000, 2004a), where it is shown that the topical character of left-dislocated structures is the result of movement of the D-pronoun to a middle-field, and not a pre-field, topic projection. The theoretical model adopted is ‘Survive Minimalism’ (Stroik, 2009; Putnam, 2007; Putnam and Stroik, in progress). The core of the proposal is that ‘Merge’ of both the D-pronoun and the left-dislocated XP with C is triggered by the presence of a [+REF] feature on the three heads, as in Stroik’s (2009) account of English wh-constructions with a pair-list reading.

Abstract

An analysis of German Left Dislocation is proposed which combines the findings in recent work on the construction with a theoretical model of syntactic derivation that dispenses with the existence of the EPP-feature. The findings at stake are basically those in Frey (2000, 2004a), where it is shown that the topical character of left-dislocated structures is the result of movement of the D-pronoun to a middle-field, and not a pre-field, topic projection. The theoretical model adopted is ‘Survive Minimalism’ (Stroik, 2009; Putnam, 2007; Putnam and Stroik, in progress). The core of the proposal is that ‘Merge’ of both the D-pronoun and the left-dislocated XP with C is triggered by the presence of a [+REF] feature on the three heads, as in Stroik’s (2009) account of English wh-constructions with a pair-list reading.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. List of contributors vii
  4. Preface ix
  5. Part I. Introduction
  6. Traveling without moving 3
  7. The numeration in Survive-minimalism 21
  8. Part II. Studies of movement phenomena and structure building in Survive-minimalism
  9. Long-distance agreement without Probe-Goal relations 41
  10. Musings on the left periphery in West Germanic 57
  11. Tense, finiteness and the survive principle 91
  12. When grammars collide 133
  13. Using the Survive principle for deriving coordinate (a)symmetries 169
  14. Part III. Covert and non-movement operations in Survive-minimalism
  15. Syntactic identity in Survive-minimalism 195
  16. Evidence for Survive from covert movement 231
  17. Language change and survive 257
  18. Towards a derivational syntax index 267
Towards a Derivational Syntax
This chapter is in the book Towards a Derivational Syntax
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.144.04cho

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. List of contributors vii
  4. Preface ix
  5. Part I. Introduction
  6. Traveling without moving 3
  7. The numeration in Survive-minimalism 21
  8. Part II. Studies of movement phenomena and structure building in Survive-minimalism
  9. Long-distance agreement without Probe-Goal relations 41
  10. Musings on the left periphery in West Germanic 57
  11. Tense, finiteness and the survive principle 91
  12. When grammars collide 133
  13. Using the Survive principle for deriving coordinate (a)symmetries 169
  14. Part III. Covert and non-movement operations in Survive-minimalism
  15. Syntactic identity in Survive-minimalism 195
  16. Evidence for Survive from covert movement 231
  17. Language change and survive 257
  18. Towards a derivational syntax index 267
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