Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Xavier Villalba
Departament de Filologia Catalana
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
villalba@lingua.fil.ub.es
Kayne’s (1994) restrictive theory of word order and phrase structure rests on the assumption
that a rigid mapping exists between hierarchical structure and linear order. This mapping is
formulated as the Linear Correspondence Axiom, which ensures that linear order is just a
corollary of asymmetric c-command. Such a strong hypothesis has raised the issue of
rightward movement and right-adjoined sites. One construction that becomes crucial for
testing the empirical coverage of such a proposal is Right Dislocation, or more exactly, Clitic
Right Dislocation (CLRD). Sometimes, this construction —when considered at all— has been
analyzed as the mirror image of Clitic Left Dislocation (CLLD); see, for example, Vallduví
(1990). Kayne (1994) rejects such an analysis on the basis of the Linear Correspondence
Axiom, proposing instead that CLRD is the covert counterpart of CLLD, that is, clitic right-
dislocated elements appear in complement position and move to the left at LF. In section 1 I
will offer a significant bulk of data supporting Kayne’s claim against the symmetric analysis
of CLRD. However, in section 2, it will be shown that his analysis has serious empirical
drawbacks as well and cannot be assumed. Finally, in section 3, a more inclusive and
principled alternative will be offered: the Split-Topic Hypothesis —argued for elsewhere
(Villalba 1996a). This proposal shows how the existence of two different leftward landing
sites for dislocated elements —the specifier of the Internal Topic Phrase in the periphery of
the VP area for CLRD, and that of the External Topic Phrase in the Comp area for CLLD— is
capable of offering a principled account for the whole of empirical data respecting the
conceptual restrictions imposed by the LCA.
*
This paper has benefited from intelligent suggestions by Anna Bartra, Albert Fontich, Richard Kayne and
Gemma Rigau. They are, however, exempt from any error remaining in it.
(1) a. D’això, vaig dir que volia que tothom en parlés.2
of this PAST-1 say that wanted-1 that everybody of-it talk-SUBJ-3
‘I said that I wanted everybody to talk about this.’
b. De què1 vaig dir que volia que tothom parlés t1?
of what PAST-1 say that wanted-1 that everybody talk-SUBJ-3
‘About what did I say that I wanted everybody to talk?’
In contrast, since Ross’ thesis (Ross 1986: 258), it is assumed that CLRD is bounded to its
own sentence. However, standard examples don’t allow us to test this claim directly as long
as the contexts commonly adduced are islands for extraction of a dislocate (namely, relative
clauses or subject sentences). Nevertheless, there is an indirect way of testing Ross’ claim.
Consider the following sentence:
If we dislocate to the right the italicized constituents, the supposed upward boundedness of
CLRD will result in a fixed order of the dislocates, since each occurs in a different sentence.
If both were in the same level, a free ordering between them would be expected (this is a
typical property of both CLRD and CLLD; see Bartra 1985, Cinque 1990, Vallduví 1990,
Villalba 1996a, b). The data confirm Ross’ claim:
1
I will assume without any justification that both CLRD and CLLD are instances of movement. See Villalba
(1996a) for a justification.
2
For the sake of clarity, I will italicize both the dislocate and the resumptive clitic thorough the article. The
glosses are to be interpreted as follows: 1, 2, 3 = 1st, 2nd, 3rd person, FEM = feminine, LOC = locative, MASC =
masculine, NEG = negation, PL = plural, SUBJ = subjunctive.
It seems clear that CLRD is really upward bounded, an unexpected contrast for the symmetric
analysis.
??
(4) a. Qui1 creus que, de Cuba, t1 en parla al seu llibre?
whom believe-2 that of Cuba of-it talk-3 in-the his/her book
‘Who do you believe talks about Cuba in his/her book?’
b. *[Amb qui]1 creus que, de Cuba, en parla t1 Chomsky?
with whom believe-2 that of Cuba, of-it talk-3 Chomsky
‘With whom do you believe that Chomsky talks about Cuba?’
c. *Com1/??On1/??En quin llibre1 creus que, de Cuba, en parla t1 Chomsky?
how/where/in which book believe-2 that of Cuba of-it talk-3 Chomsky
‘How/Where/In which book do you believe that Chomsky talks about Cuba?’
(5) *Conec un noi [amb qui]1 (crec que), d’aquest tema, se n’ha de parlar t1.
know-1 a boy with whom (think-1 that) of-this subject, SE of-it-have-3 of talk
‘I know a boy with whom (I think that) someone has to talk about this subject.’
In contrast, CLRD creates no island effect, against the prediction the symmetric analysis
raises:
The negative polarity items (NPIs) —in boldface for the sake of clarity— are licensed by
negation. What would happen if the phrase containing the NPI were dislocated?4 CLLD
destroys the context for licensing NPIs:
On the contrary, CLRD maintains the context for the licensing of NPIs, against the
expectations of a symmetric analysis:
3
This is extensible to similar processes in other languages. See, among others, Rochemont (1989) for Italian and
English, Borer (1995) for Hebrew, Lasnik and Saito (1992) for English, and Müller and Sternefeld (1993) for
German.
4
Dislocation of the NPI itself is deviant as long as dislocation of [-specific] elements is strongly restricted. See
Roca (1992) and Quer (1993).
An interesting asymmetry follows when we take into account the interaction between CLRD
and CLLD. Whereas we can always left-dislocate a constituent from within a right-dislocate,
the converse is never true:
(11) a. [Del meu avi]2, me les1 han explicat totes, [les (seves) històries t2 ]1.
of-the my grandfather to-me them-FEM have-3PL told all the his stories
b. *[Les (seves) històries e2]1, me les1 han explicat totes, [del meu avi]2.
the his stories to me them-FEM have-3PL told all of-the my grandfather
‘They have told me all the stories of my grandfather.’
Here neither CLRD nor CLLD move outside their sentence, so then in ((11)b) there is no
violation of the boundedness condition. The contrast remains without explanation for the
symmetric analysis.
5
Note, however, that CLLD is fine if the dislocate is in the periphery of the main clause:
Once more, the contrast remains a mystery for the symmetric analysis.
Here CLRD is not felicitous because els llibres ‘the books’ has not been previously
introduced in the discourse. Compare with the following:
Focus is assigned to the last element in the sentence. ((17)a) is not felicitous since it is a
thematic element, a casa ‘at home’, that receives focus interpretation. In order to allow the
correct element, un llibre ‘a book, to receive focus, the disturbing element appears in a right-
dislocated position, as in ((17)b). It is in this very special sense that we can say that CLRD is
a focalization process. CLLD, on the other hand, does also have this role, as ((17)c) shows.
Nevertheless, it also fulfills other tasks in the informational level, namely, introducing a new
or shift topic, as we have just shown. We’ll turn back to this difference in 3.1 below.
Thirdly, the interaction between CLRD and CLLD shown in paragraph 1.4 gives us the
following paradigm:
Kayne’s analysis correctly predicts situations in A) and B), but has no principled way to
account for C). If it were the case that right-dislocates occupied a complement position before
their covert moving to the CLLD position, then there would be no difference between case B)
and C) excepting the overt/covert nature of the movement. This contrast is even more
puzzling for Kayne’s analysis when put together with the lack of contrast between CLRD and
CLLD with respect to wh-extraction, we have just seen. Obviously, something else has to be
said in order to explain the contrast.
Furthermore, the unavailability of CLLD with non-finite clauses, shown in paragraph 1.5,
cannot easily be explained by means of an overt vs. covert movement analysis: if both CLLD
and CLRD involved movement to the same position, it would be unclear why they should
contrast with respect to nonfinite clauses. This contrast is a mystery for Kayne’s proposal.
Finally, the covert movement of the right-dislocate is very dubious on conceptual grounds.
The left-peripheral position of CLLD has to do with its informational status as a new/shift
topic —it is worth noting that this concrete correlation between informational role and
position is universal: all languages place their new/shift topics in the left periphery. Since
CLRD doesn’t bear this informational role, it is not clear what the motivation would be for
such a covert operation. His assumption of an optional feature forcing both visible —
invisibility for the mechanism assigning focus and a special intonation— and invisible effects
—movement at LF— is just a machinery without clear motivation. On a minimalist view of
language the covert movement of the right-dislocate is suspicious, at least.
To sum up, neither the symmetric analysis nor Kayne’s one can offer a principled
explanation for the set of properties of CLRD. A new analysis is called for.
Let us see how this clause structure can easily derive the whole bulk of empirical contrasts.
As long as the partition of the information carried by the sentence has to follow such a
derivation, we expect the right-dislocate to correctly surface on the right edge of the sentence
regardless of it having been moved to the left.
(23) [L’ ... [L(FocP) [VP ...twh...]... [L’(IntTopP) ... [...tVP... ]]]]
To sum up, CLRD does create a barrier, but its low position permits the bypassing strategy
just suggested. Such an option is not available for CLLD, since ExtTopP is too high in the
structure.
Consider now the licensing of NPIs. We have seen in paragraph 1.3 that, whereas CLLD
destroys the context for the licensing of NPIs, CLRD doesn’t. Our analysis makes the correct
prediction without any additional stipulation. The low position of IntTopP straightforwardly
explains the licensing of NPIs: it is still under the scope of negation. In the case of CLLD,
ExtTopP is too high in the structure to allow licensing by negation.
6
See Lasnik & Saito (1992) for a different explanation based on a (modified) barriers framework and on the
assumption that Topicalization/CLLD is adjunction to IP.
The interaction between CLRD and CLLD surveyed in paragraph 1.4 is another empirical
issue that follows from our analysis without any additional assumption. Consider again the
possible configurations:7
Leaving aside case A), which is unproblematic, it is obvious that neither B) nor C) pose any
problem to the split-topic analysis, rather they directly follow from it. On the one hand, case
B) is perfect since CLLD will always be movement to a higher [Spec, ExtTopP]. On the other
hand, C) is a clear instance of improper —i.e. downward— movement, given the relative
position of ExtTopP and IntTopP in ((21)).
Finally, something has to be said with respect to the impossibility of having CLLD in
nonfinite clauses (paragraph 1.5). The problem might have to do with clause structure. Let us
assume that nonfinite clauses lack part of the higher functional structure present in finite ones.
If so, there is no problem with CLRD, but this would affect ExtTopP. This is just a
speculation, but examples like the following show that it might be on right track:
The appearance of the wh-element and hence of a richer functional structure over the
nonfinite verb seems to license CLLD.8 More research is, however, needed.
7
It is still to be explained why dislocates are opaque domains for wh-movement but not for dislocation.
8
Nevertheless, note that a wh-relative doesn’t rescue CLLD:
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