LINGUIST List 21.2290
Thu May 20 2010
Diss: Syntax: Gupton: 'The Syntax-Information Structure Interface ...'
Editor for this issue: Mfon Udoinyang
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1. Timothy
Gupton,
The Syntax-Information Structure Interface: Subjects and clausal word order in Galacian
Message 1: The Syntax-Information Structure Interface: Subjects and clausal word order in Galacian
Date: 18-May-2010
From: Timothy Gupton <timothy-guptonuiowa.edu>
Subject: The Syntax-Information Structure Interface: Subjects and clausal word order in Galacian
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Institution: University of Iowa
Program: Department of Spanish & Portuguese
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2010
Author: Timothy Gupton
Dissertation Title: The Syntax-Information Structure Interface: Subjects and clausal word order in Galacian
Linguistic Field(s):
Syntax
Subject Language(s): Galician (glg)
Dissertation Director:
Paula Kempchinsky
William D Davies
Roumyana Slabakova
Jason Rothman
Dissertation Abstract:
Previous accounts of preverbal subjects in Spanish and European Portuguese(EP) in the literature have debated the syntactic position of theseelements. According to some analyses, preverbal subjects are canonicalarguments appearing in an A-position (e.g. Goodall 2001, 2002; Suñer 2003for Spanish; Duarte 1997; Costa 2004 for EP). Other analyses propose thatpreverbal subjects are non-arguments appearing in a left-peripheral -perhaps CLLD - A'-position (e.g. Uribe-Etxebarria 1990, 1995; Ordóñez &Treviño 1999 for Spanish; Barbosa 1996, 2000 for EP). Although Galician isan ideal language for insight on this debate due to linguistic ties with EPand political ties with Spain, Gupton (2006) obtained inconclusive resultsregarding the status of preverbal subjects in Galician.
As the literature on Galician lacks descriptions of preferred word ordersaccording to discourse context, I collected quantitative and qualitativeexperimental data to describe the syntax-information structure interface inGalician. The vast majority of speakers of this minority language areSpanish-Galician bilinguals with (self-reported) high levels of competencyin both languages. This is of relevance because a variety of bilinguals,including heritage speakers, attrited L1 speakers, and those who have beenclaimed to have incompletely acquired the heritage language have been shownto exhibit instability and optionality at the linguistic interfaces, inparticular at the syntax-discourse pragmatics interface (e.g. Hulk & Müller2000; Sorace 2005 among numerous others), which is the subject ofinvestigation in this dissertation. The data collected indicate a markedpreference for SVO in a wide variety of discourse contexts, a preferencethat differs from those claimed to apply in similar contexts in Spanish(e.g. Ordóñez 1997, Zubizarreta 1998, Casielles 2004).
Assuming that the presence of clitics implies the projection of F (Raposo &Uriagereka 2005) and the extension of the preverbal field into the leftperiphery, the cliticization data gathered for Galician in main clauses,subordinate clauses and recomplementation contexts suggest a number ofpreverbal positions in which preverbal subjects, affective phrases, andTopic elements may appear, one of which I suggest is Spec, DoubledFceP,following Martín-González (2002), but with proposed modifications. The dataalso suggest necessary modifications for López's (2009) syntax-informationstructure interface proposal in Romance, which suggests a reduced,syncretic left-peripheral position (Spec, FinP) in which CLLD Topics, WH-elements, and Fronted Focus elements appear and are assigned [+c](contrastive) by the Pragmatics module. Within the preverbal architecture Ipropose, preverbal subjects and other left-peripheral elements coincide,but in a variety of syntactic positions. Therefore, for pragmatic featureassignment to successfully assign [+c], Pragmatics must distinguish betweenpreverbal subjects and other left-peripheral phrases.
Page Updated: 20-May-2010
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