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Clause Internal and Clause Leftmost Verbs in Hittite

  • Andrej V. Sideltsev EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: December 1, 2014
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Abstract

The object of the paper is non-canonical, non-final verb position within the clause in genuine Hittite texts. It is demonstrated that, contrary to current standard descriptions, two such positions can be delimited in a Hittite clause: clause internal position and clause leftmost position. Both positions are defined structurally: clause internal position is to the left of the immediately preverbal position and to the right of a direct object. Clause leftmost position is in the left periphery. The difference correlates with two other syntactic features. First, it is the position the verb moves around: when the verb moves into the left periphery, it moves around subject and object; when the verb moves into clause internal position, it moves around the immediately preverbal position. The verb may move into the left periphery around the immediately preverbal position, but only if the subject and object are not fully stressed in the clause. The second difference is in the information structure status: whereas verb fronting into the left periphery is information structure motivated (as contrastive focus etc.), verb movement into clause internal position is not homogeneous: it may be evacuational or unconditioned.

Acknowledgement

I wish to express my sincere gratitude to B. Alexandrov, P. Arkadiev, A. Bauer, O. Belyaev, J. Hazenbos, J. Miller, A. Rizza, Y. Testelets, and T. Yanko who read earlier drafts of the paper.

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Note

The paper was supported by grant from RNF No 14-18-03270 “Typology of Word Order, Syntax-Semantics Interface and Information Structure in the Languages of the World”. Naturally, the author alone remains responsible for all possible errors. Abbreviations follow those of the Chicago Hittite Dictionary.


Published Online: 2014-12-1
Published in Print: 2014-6-1

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