Complementizer doubling and subject extraction in Italo-Romance

Bibliographic Data

ID4567765
AuthorsNicola Munaro (0000-0002-8121-6676, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume18
Issue2
Pages315-335
Publication date2018-12-31
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueLinguistic Variation (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2211-6834 • E-ISSN: 2211-6842
PublisherJohn Benjamins Publishing Company (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1075/lv.00020.mun
OpenAlexW2913424050
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited15

In this article I analyze the complementizer doubling construction attested in some early and modern Italo-Romance varieties, where a preposed (clausal or non clausal) constituent associated to the selected clause appears in the embedded left periphery preceded and followed by a subordinating complementizer. While the higher complementizer is uncontroversially interpreted as a lexicalization of the head Force°, the lower complementizer has been taken to lexicalize either the functional head Topic° or the functional head Fin°. Relying on previous formal analyses of subject extraction, I argue that in the varieties in which the lower complementizer lexicalizes Fin°, its presence reflects the lexicalization of the mood features encoded by Fin°, and is ultimately due to the extraction of the thematic subject out of the embedded clause through Spec,FinP, a movement strategy made possible by the presence of an expletiveproin the canonical preverbal subject position

Art · Complementizer · Lexicalization · Linguistics · Literature · Romance · Syntax · Computer Science · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Philosophy · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

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