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subject is interpreted as Focus and Focus requires an exhaustive reading.
Similar considerations are valid for non-copulative individual level predicates (such as 'to
know how', 'to hate'): they easily allow an inverted subject as far as an exhaustive reading
interpretation is pragmatically available or linguistically emphasized:
(21) a. De nosaltres, només sap cantar bé en Joan
Of us only knows to-sing well the Joan
'Out of us, only Joan can sing well'
b. Jo odio les cerimònies, però encara les odia més en Joan
I hate the ceremonies but even them-hates more the J.
'I hate ceremonies, but Joan hates them even more'
2.2.4. On the Availability of Subject Inversion
It has often been claimed that subject inversion is a highly restricted option in languages
allowing it. Since we are going to argue that the inverted subject position is a Case position
available in principle for any sentence in a NSL, we should say something in this connection. Let
us revise two recent proposals on the issue.
Rizzi (1991-a) suggests that subject inversion is only possible if no overt complements
intervene between the verb and the inverted subject. This would be due to a requirement of
adjacency for Nominative assignment. I think this suggestion is problematic for at least two
reasons:
a) We would be dealing with merely phonological adjacency, for when the complements
are absent, they must be realized as empty categories. This is not in accordance with traditional
proposals on adjacency requirements for Case marking.
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b) If the adjacency requirement was due to Case assignment, we would expect sharply