Relativism and Universalism in Linguistics - Fachbereich 10 ...

Workshop 5 – Gro 181
Left-Peripheral Interactions in Sardinian
Remberger, Eva-Maria
Berlin
eremberg@lingrom.fu-berlin.de
Concerning the phenomena commonly attributed to the left periphery, Sardinian does not differ
from Romance languages like Italian and Spanish with respect to clitic left dislocated topics,
right dislocation, contrastive focus and wh-interrogatives. However, in Sardinian, there are
some crucial differences in the organization of the left periphery compared to Italian or Spanish:
First, whereas contrastive focus constructions in these languages show non-predicative, i.e.
referential fronted constituents, Sardinian also allows fronted predicative elements, e.g. in
auxiliary constructions. Second, a fronted element in Sardinian must not necessarily have
contrastive focus, but can also be interpreted as having information focus. Third, these fronting
phenomena are not only found in declarative sentences, but also in subordinate complement
sentences. Furthermore, fronting of predicative and non-predicative elements is particularly
common in yes/no questions. Forth, Sardinian disposes of an alternative strategy to mark
yes/no-questions via the question particle a. Finally, neither focus fronting nor questionmarking
through the question particle are allowed in wh- and in negated contexts.
Thus, the main issue to be addressed in this talk is how the interaction between focus fronting,
question-marking, negation and also topicalization can be formalized and explained in a given
grammar model. I will interpret the data from Sardinian in the more static cartographic
framework of Rizzi (1997) and, as an alternative, in the dynamic model of the mainly featuredriven
minimalist probe-and-phase approach (Chomsky 1995ff.).
Selecting Complementizers
Roussou, Anna
Patras
aroussou@upatras.gr
The aim of this paper is to discuss local and non-local selection of complementizers (C).
Typically, a verb like know is compatible with a that-complement, and excludes an ifcomplement
(embedded interrogative) (e.g. I know that/*if John left). In some cases though
the same verb may allow for the presence of the C if, as long as there is a propositional
operator in the matrix clause (e.g. I don’t know if John left). This kind of restrictions and
switching effects hold not only English, but also in Greek and Romance for example (Adger
& Quer 2001, Roussou 2006). Romance allows for one further option, namely keeping the
non-interrogative C que but changing the mood of the embedded clause from indicative to
subjunctive (Adger & Quer 2001, Manzini 2002, among others). This option is not available
in Greek given the absence of morphological subjunctive.
A more detailed investigation of the distribution of complementizers reveals that despite
apparent differences, sentential complementation exhibits a uniform pattern. More precisely,
in English, Greek, and Romance switching to a different C is a function of the matrix
predicate (it belongs to a certain class) and the presence of a relevant operator in the matrix
clause. In all cases local selection involves a dependency between matrix V and embedded C
(or extending to I where relevant), while in non-local selection the dependency is extended to
include an operator. Furthermore, switching effects of this type are indicative of the properties
that characterize complementizers. For example, as has been argued in the literature cited
above, operators like Negation or Question also license polarity items (indefinites). On this
basis, the subjunctive that appears in the relevant Romance contexts is treated as a polarity
item, i.e. an indefinite. Extending this approach to Cs which may also be affected, we can also