Clausal arguments as syntactic satellites: A reappraisal
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Dennis Ott
Abstract
This paper defends the Satellite Hypothesis of clause-initial CPs (sentential subjects and fronted complement clauses) proposed by Koster (1978) and Alrenga (2005). According to this hypothesis, clause-initial CPs are not simply fronted to the edge of the superordinate clause, but are in fact leftdislocated and hence structurally external to their host. This hypothesis has recently come under fire because of its failure to account for connectivity effects (Takahashi 2010, Moulton 2013). I show in this paper that once the Satellite Hypothesis is couched in terms of Ott’s (2014) theory of left-dislocation, it avoids these problems and persists as a plausible representation for peripheral sentential arguments. The fact that clause-initial CPs must occur in dislocated (rather than fronted) position is tentatively related to a linearization failure arising at the root when the fronted XP and its complement are non-distinct in category.
Abstract
This paper defends the Satellite Hypothesis of clause-initial CPs (sentential subjects and fronted complement clauses) proposed by Koster (1978) and Alrenga (2005). According to this hypothesis, clause-initial CPs are not simply fronted to the edge of the superordinate clause, but are in fact leftdislocated and hence structurally external to their host. This hypothesis has recently come under fire because of its failure to account for connectivity effects (Takahashi 2010, Moulton 2013). I show in this paper that once the Satellite Hypothesis is couched in terms of Ott’s (2014) theory of left-dislocation, it avoids these problems and persists as a plausible representation for peripheral sentential arguments. The fact that clause-initial CPs must occur in dislocated (rather than fronted) position is tentatively related to a linearization failure arising at the root when the fronted XP and its complement are non-distinct in category.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter i
- Contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Introduction 1
- Merge, labeling and their interactions 17
- Merge(X,Y) = {X,Y} 47
- Features and labeling: Label-driven movement 69
- Labeling and other syntactic operations 91
- Is Transfer strong enough to affect labels? 117
- Clausal arguments as syntactic satellites: A reappraisal 127
- A labelling-based account of the Head-Final Filter 161
- The structural configurations of root categorization 203
- How Unlabelled Nodes work: Morphological derivations and the subcomponents of UG operations 233
- Exocentric root declaratives: Evidence from V2 263
- Index 291
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter i
- Contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Introduction 1
- Merge, labeling and their interactions 17
- Merge(X,Y) = {X,Y} 47
- Features and labeling: Label-driven movement 69
- Labeling and other syntactic operations 91
- Is Transfer strong enough to affect labels? 117
- Clausal arguments as syntactic satellites: A reappraisal 127
- A labelling-based account of the Head-Final Filter 161
- The structural configurations of root categorization 203
- How Unlabelled Nodes work: Morphological derivations and the subcomponents of UG operations 233
- Exocentric root declaratives: Evidence from V2 263
- Index 291
