Download - Department of Linguistics and English Language ...

position higher in the structure than the accusative case assigning head, and thus does not
intervene between the object and Acc, as illustrated by (389).
(389) …[YP V+v+Acc+X+Y [XP [subject] tX [AccP tAcc [vP tsubject tv [VP tV object]]]]]
As evidence in favor of the second possibility, Belletti compares the position of the
Icelandic subject, which allows V S O order, to the position of the Italian subject, which
does not. Consider first Icelandic, in which the subject occurs between the adverbs
sennilega 'probably' and alveg 'completely'. If the subject follows both of these adverbs,
the sentence is ungrammatical (390b).
(390) a. það luku sennilega einhverjir studentar alveg verkefninu.
there finished probably some students completely the assignment
b. *það luku sennilega alveg einhverjir studentar verkefninu.
there finished probably completely some students the assignment
(Bobaljik and Jonas 1996:21, cited in Belletti 2004)
Compare these sentences to Italian sentences containing the adverbs tutto 'everything'
(391) or completamente 'completely' (392), in which the subjects must follow these
adverbs. 30
(391) a. ?Spiegherà completamente Maria al direttore.
will.explain completely Maria to.the director
b. *Spiegherà Maria completamente al direttore.
will.explain Maria completely to.the director
(392) a. Spiegherà tutto Maria al direttore.
will.explain everything Maria to.the director
30 Alessandro Duranti has commented that these sentences are acceptable in certain contexts. I will accept
Belletti's judgments, however, given that she is considering a neutral context.
163