| ROA: | 181 |
|---|---|
| Title: | Word Order and Constraint Interaction |
| Authors: | João Costa |
| Comment: | |
| Length: | 28 |
| Abstract: | Word Order and Constraint Interaction Joao Costa (HIL/Leiden University) This paper presents an optimality-theoretic approach to word order facts in Portuguese, English, Dutch and Icelandic. It is shown that there is a tension between the syntactic constraint CASE, that requires arguments to move, and the discourse-related constraint ALIGNFOCUS, that requires arguments to stay in their base-position (or at the right edge of the sentence), where sentence nuclear stress is assigned (Grimshaw and Samek-Lodovici 1996). The interaction between these two constraints will derive the patterns found for Portuguese (where discourse-configurationality appears as a product of ALIGNFOCUS dominating CASE) and for English (where the rigid word order is a product of the top-ranking of CASE). The similar behavior of PPs across languages is taken as the control test, showing that discourse-configurationality is also present in English. The difference between object-shift and scrambling (A- and A-bar movement of objects) is derived as a consequence of the inter- action between CASE and STAY, and the principle of phrase structure projection developed within OT-syntax. Finally, it is shown that the OT-analysis accounts for the fact that in sentence-focus cases the unmarked word-order of each language arises. |
| Type: | Paper/tech report |
| Area/Keywords: | |
| Article: | Version 1 |