Volume 36, Issue 2 -

This article argues that variation in how 3rd person clitic combinations are solved across Catalan varieties depends on the internal morphosyntactic shape of the dative clitic in each variety. We argue that the dative clitic in Valencian Catalan is an inherently case-marked pronominal form (KP), while non Valencian Catalan varieties, that contain a locative clitic, build the dative as a definite locative pronominal which receives structural case. This allows Valencian Catalan to license each clitic in a different area, while non Valencian Catalan is forced to license a sequence of clitics in the same area, with the result that the two forms compete with each other for the licensing by the same head, leading to surface impoverishment of the sequence. Our analysis provides an explanation of these impoverishments as simple syntactic competition for licensing by the same set of heads, making OCP effects in morphology or syntax unnecessary as analytical devices for such cases.

This paper addresses the issue of the questions embedded under predicates normally selecting for propositions like know (unselected embedded questions UEQ). This problem was handled in Adger and Quer (Adger, David & Josep Quer. 2001. The syntax and semantics of unselected embedded questions. Language 77. 107–133) and Öhl (Öhl, Peter. 2007. Unselected embedded interrogatives in German and English : S-selection as dependency formation. Linguistische Berichte 212. 403–438). Both articles notice a difference between yes/no- and wh -questions. The distribution of the latter seems to be less restricted. However data from Classical Greek shed new light on the matter. Classical Greek uses two sets of wh -items in what looks like embedded questions ( h - and t -). It is shown that h -clauses do not denote questions but propositions. The selection mismatch arises with t -clauses. They denote questions and have the same distribution as yes/no -questions. Moreover Classical Greek provides new evidence in favor of 1) the sensitivity of the UEQ to the polarity of the environment, building on Giannakidou’s (Giannakidou, Anastasia. 1998. Polarity sensitivity as (non) veridical dependency . Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins) definition of nonveridicality; 2) the presence of a determiner on top of the UEQ as proposed in Adger and Quer (2001). The article argues nevertheless that the sensitivity is not due to the determiner, but to an operator going along with UEQs. It is shown that the determiner is a type-shifter turning the question into a proposition and thus repairing the apparent selection mismatch.

This paper explores fronted verb phrases in German, drawing attention to the difference between passive/unaccusative VPs and fronted agentive v Ps. While both kinds of verb phrases have been discussed in the literature as being frontable, it has been largely overlooked that fronted v Ps typically come with a certain kind of post-fronting context and a rise-fall or bridge-contour intonation, which is characteristic of I-topicalization. We observe that, unlike VPs, agentive v Ps essentially need to be I-topics, with a high tone at the right edge of the fronted domain, in order to be frontable. Given the special context required for fronted v Ps, the situation described by the v P does not contain new information but must already have been under discussion and is now being commented on. We present the results of two experimental studies and appeal to the thetic/categorical distinction to offer a new angle on the definiteness effect that has been associated with fronted verb phrases. We propose that a subject-containing fronted v P is associated with a thetic rather than the default categorical judgment, which means that the fronted subject and predicate form only one information-structural unit (a topic) rather than two (topic and comment). Contributing to the literature on theticity, we observe that, unlike in non-fronting thetic statements, the subject in fronted v Ps cannot be a true definite. We attribute this to clashing intonation restrictions on theticity in non-fronting constructions versus theticity in just the fronted portion of a sentence.

The study of Ellipsis has been of special interest to scholars of linguistics. One reason for this interest is the fact that the meaning of a sentence with ellipsis cannot purely be based on its antecedent. Elliptical constructions in the literature are categorised according to their syntactic structures. This article intends to discuss ellipsis in Persian Complex predicate constructions in which parts of the verbal construction along with some of its arguments are elided. We will argue that ellipsis resolution in such constructions is licensed due to the logical form of such verbal constructions and the relationship that holds amongst parallel elements in the source and the target sentence. Finally, we will propose that distinguishing between primary and secondary occurrences of anaphoric expressions in the logical form can account for the correct and grammatical reading of intended anaphoric expressions in elliptical sites.