Comparative Syntax of the Balkan Languages (Oxford ... - Cryptm.org

152 DALINA KALLULLI(62) a. weil ich morgen den Bus nehme. Germbecause I tomorrow the bus takeb. weil ich den Bus morgen nehmebecause I the bus tomorrow take'because I will take the bus tomorrow.'In line with what was stated above, den Bus 'the bus' in (62a) can denote eitheran individual (that is, some bus vehicle or other or some bus line or other) or aproperty. In other words, both (63a) and (63b) are valid paraphrases for (62a).Construction (63a) is an event-related reading; that is, den Bus here denotes aproperty and translates therefore as a predicate at LF.(63) a. because, as for me, I will engage in bus-taking tomorrow.b. because, as for (me and) the bus, 1 will take it tomorrow.In (62b), on the other hand, the scrambled DP den Bus denotes anindividual only; that is, it may denote some bus or other or some bus line orother. In other words, the scrambled bus in (62b) is specific and presuppositional.Since specificity abd presuppositionality are properties of arguments, notof predicates, den Bus in (62b) is an argument variable not a predicate, as it can(though need not) be in (62a). Crucially, (62b) lacks the event-related readingthat obtains for (62a). This suggests that scrambling applies to arguments only,not to predicates. Hence the unavailability of the reading in (63a) for thesentence (62b). The same pattern obtains with clitic doubling of definites inAlbanian and Greek.In sum, it may be stated that definite noun phrases and a-expressions aresemantically (and perhaps syntactically) nonhomogeneous; they are not alwayssyntactic arguments when objects of verbs (and prepositions) but may translateeither as arguments or as predicates at LF depending on whether the clausalpredicate selects an individual (type ) or a property (type ) as itsinternal argument (cf. also van Geenhoven 1996 for a similar treatment ofindefinites). The type of shifting mechanism (cf. Partee 1987) allows for thisduality. This creates the illusion that scrambling or doubling of definites and a-expressions is optional. In fact, scrambled and doubled objects are alwayssyntactic arguments. Since argument noun phrases are always specific (read:individual denoting), specificity effects will be observed in scrambling constructions.Nonscrambled and nondoubled objects may, but need not, be arguments.5. ConclusionIn this paper, I have shown that direct object clitic doubling in Albanian andGreek produces information structure in a systematic way: doubled DPs areunambiguously interpreted as topics. This suggests that topichood is, at least inpart, encoded in the syntax for these languages. Whether this is the Case universallyand whether the representation of topics involves the same syntacticconfiguration cross-linguistically remain issues subject to further study. I have