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Chapter 7. On the fronting of non-contrastive topics in Germanic

Abstract

The present chapter proposes a novel account of the existence of fronted non-contrastive topics in German and its absence in Dutch. The main claim is that the relevant difference between the two languages reduces to the type of scrambling they have: only Dutch scrambling is triggered by an uninterpretable phi(person)-feature on v* (M. Richards 2008). The proposal, fully compatible with Chomsky’s (2000 and subsequent work) model of cyclic Spell-Out, is extended to cover the more restrictive pattern of non-contrastive topicalization in Swedish, absent in Danish and Norwegian.

Abstract

The present chapter proposes a novel account of the existence of fronted non-contrastive topics in German and its absence in Dutch. The main claim is that the relevant difference between the two languages reduces to the type of scrambling they have: only Dutch scrambling is triggered by an uninterpretable phi(person)-feature on v* (M. Richards 2008). The proposal, fully compatible with Chomsky’s (2000 and subsequent work) model of cyclic Spell-Out, is extended to cover the more restrictive pattern of non-contrastive topicalization in Swedish, absent in Danish and Norwegian.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgments vii
  4. Contributors ix
  5. Introduction 1
  6. Chapter 1. Structure at the bottom 5
  7. Chapter 2. The absent, the silent, and the audible 19
  8. Chapter 3. Lexical change and the architecture of the Lexicon 41
  9. Chapter 4. Dylan Thomas’s meters 67
  10. Chapter 5. The metrical system of William Carlos Williams 87
  11. Chapter 6. Linearization preferences given “Free Word Order”; subject preferences given ergativity 115
  12. Chapter 7. On the fronting of non-contrastive topics in Germanic 143
  13. Chapter 8. Blackjack! 171
  14. Chapter 9. Connectivity and definiteness in an English equative construction 201
  15. Chapter 10. On certain distributional gaps of Spanish possessives 217
  16. Chapter 11. Variability in the case patterns of causative formation in Romance and its implications 237
  17. Index 269
Of Grammar, Words, and Verses
This chapter is in the book Of Grammar, Words, and Verses
https://doi.org/10.1075/lfab.8.10cho

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgments vii
  4. Contributors ix
  5. Introduction 1
  6. Chapter 1. Structure at the bottom 5
  7. Chapter 2. The absent, the silent, and the audible 19
  8. Chapter 3. Lexical change and the architecture of the Lexicon 41
  9. Chapter 4. Dylan Thomas’s meters 67
  10. Chapter 5. The metrical system of William Carlos Williams 87
  11. Chapter 6. Linearization preferences given “Free Word Order”; subject preferences given ergativity 115
  12. Chapter 7. On the fronting of non-contrastive topics in Germanic 143
  13. Chapter 8. Blackjack! 171
  14. Chapter 9. Connectivity and definiteness in an English equative construction 201
  15. Chapter 10. On certain distributional gaps of Spanish possessives 217
  16. Chapter 11. Variability in the case patterns of causative formation in Romance and its implications 237
  17. Index 269
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