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

206 MARIA LUISA RIVERO(8) a.b.KogawhenjaitceteS?read-PRES.2SG•When are you reading it?'NeNEGjaitceteS.read-PRES. 2SG'You are not reading it.'Finite verb movement resembles LHM in relation to the list of characteristicsthat identify rules that apply in PF. It is triggered by PF requirements of functionalcategories such as //' (= C) or clitic pronouns (D or Agr), which imposedifferent structural conditions, leading to the main clause versus subordinateclause asymmetries depicted above. Later, I discuss the requirements of li thattrigger fronting in all clauses. Blg clitic pronouns impose PF conditionsresembling those of the finite auxiliaries: namely, they must appear in PF in thecomplement of a head that is visible at this level. In their presence, then, theapplication of finite V-to-C is limited to a subset of main clauses and excludedfrom all embedded clauses (*Znam ce cetes ja for (7b)). Finite verb movementis also blocked by computational operations like Merge (the insertion of Neg) orMove (wh-movement). It has no foregrounding effect and therefore no input toLF, as these verb-initial clauses are topicless or focusless. As to the three economyconditions, I show later that this rule too escapes Last Resort or fails to establisha successful checking relation, even when it moves the verb as attracteeinto the checking domain of an attractor, such as li in (7). However, this processis like the syntactic rule in that it violates Procrastinate for convergence at PF—a forced violation—(*Ja cetes), and obeys the Minimal Link Condition, asdiscussed in Rivero (in preparation).LHM and finite verb movement as stylistic rules apply under similar conditionsin Blg. However, these are two processes that should be kept apart for avariety of reasons. One reason is that not all languages need display both ofthem; another is that different historical stages of one language may display onerule but not the other. As to the first reason, Breton and Blg exhibit LHM withidentical properties (Borsley, Rivero and Stephens 1996), but only Big exhibitsstylistic finite verb movement. This difference follows from the PF requirementsof auxiliaries versus clitic pronouns in the two languages. That is, the Bretonclitic pronouns, unlike the Breton auxiliaries, need not appear in PF in the complementof a visible head, which, unlike their Blg counterparts, allows them tobe string initial. Also, most medieval Romance languages display stylistic finiteverb movement, but only some display LHM. As to the second reason,Medieval Spanish is like Blg in that it displays both LHM and finite verbmovement, but post-Renaissance Spanish only displays stylistic finite verbmovement and has lost LHM (Rivero 1995). If the two processes are distinguished,it becomes possible to seek the factors that underlie these differences,such as the suggested contrast between the PF requirements of clitic pronounsand auxiliaries in Breton, which, according to some views, might mean that thefirst are not clitics while the second are.