Jaume Solà i Pujols - Departament de Filologia Catalana ...

c. Comprarà el menjar en Joan aquesta tarda
Will-buy the food the J. this afternoon
'Joan will buy the food this afternoon'
d. ?Comprarà el menjar aquesta tarda en Joan
0 e. Ho escriurà en Joan amb l'ordinador
It-will-write the J. with the-computer
'Joan will write it with the computer'
f. (?)Ho escriurà amb l'ordinador en Joan
We will interpret the preceding facts in the following way:
a) In Catalan, the EA inverted subject is right-adjoined to the VP. It can be extraposed to
the right of the time/place/manner adjuncts, giving less natural sentences.
b) Therefore the other Arguments precede the inverted subject, unless they are
extraposed to its right: since extraposition is easier for optional and locative Arguments in
general, the latter will more easily appear to the right of the inverted subject than objects and
other oblique Arguments, which cannot be extraposed so easily.
c) Spanish, unlike Catalan, allows the inverted subject to be left or right adjoined to the
VP freely (modulo Focus interpretation), so that no contrast in acceptability appears in the word
order w.r.t. arguments. I assume that other languages cluster together with either Catalan or
Spanish. Italian is like Catalan. Portuguese is, as far as I know, like Spanish. Some dialects or
varieties of Catalan (Valencian, speakers with strong Spanish interference in immigration areas)
are probably like Spanish. In Romanian left adjunction (the inverted subject preceding the
object) is not only possible, but in fact obligatory (see Motapanyane (1989)).
reason.
d) Right VP-adjoined inverted subjects usually have Focus interpretation for some
The last point may suggest that we are missing something in simply saying that we are
dealing with VP-adjunction. Perhaps there is a right-branching Focus Specifier. However, right
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