On the Topic of Pseudoclefts

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4238317
AutoresIman Paul (0000-0001-7528-0156, autor de correspondencia), Ileana Paul
Año2008
Volumen11
Número1
Páginas91-124
Fecha de publicación2008-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSyntax (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1368-0005 • E-ISSN: 1467-9612
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-9612.2008.00104.x
OpenAlexW2147485593
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas6
Referencias citadas26

This paper presents arguments in favor of a pseudocleft analysis of a certain class of sentences in Malagasy, despite the lack of an overt wh-element. It is shown that voice morphology on the verb creates an operator-variable relationship much like the one created by wh-movement in free relatives in English and other languages. The bulk of the paper argues in favor of an inversion analysis of specificational pseudoclefts in Malagasy: a predicate DP is fronted to a topic position from within a small clause constituent. Moreover, it is shown that the same inversion occurs in equative and specificational sentences in Malagasy, which suggests that these types of sentences share the same syntactic structure. The proposed analysis also provides support for the view that specificational pseudoclefts have a topic > focus structure, where the wh-clause has been overtly topicalized

Focus (optics · Inversion (geology · Linguistics · Natural language processing · Physics · Predicate (mathematical logic · Verb · Computer Science · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Multilingual Education and Policy · Philosophy · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation