Left-Dislocation in Italian Conversation

The Linguistic Review

The paper argues for a bisentential, paratactic account of Hanging Topic Left Dislocations wherein the syntactically unconnected hanging topic phrase is the remnant of an elliptical copulative sentence which is linearly juxtaposed to the second, host sentence. This proposal represents a natural extension of Ott’s system for Clitic Left Dislocations and predicative non-restrictive nominal appositives. By assuming that the hanging topic is structurally disconnected from the host sentence, the analysis constitutes a radical departure from integrated/monosentential approaches within cartography, which analyze hanging topics as intrasentential, albeit peripheral, constituents in the left spine of the clause. Using data from English and Spanish as well as from other linguistic varieties, the paratactic approach provides a principled account of various issues facing monosentential analyses of hanging topics, including anti-connectivity, coreference with the resumptive/epithetic correlate, ...

2018

Unlike in Germanic languages, in the Romance family the prosodic realization of polarity focus is strongly restricted. Instead, we observe a wealth of formal means that involve other language domains, such as the lexicon and non-canonical syntax. In this article, we provide a fine-grained analysis of the contribution of marked syntax to the expression of polarity focus in French, Italian and Spanish, by examining two constructions: clitic dislocation and sì che / sí que. Our main goals are to understand the distribution of these structures and their cross-linguistic differences on the basis of data gathered from the Direct Europarl corpus. Based on a Question Under Discussion model, we identify the main contexts of use to which clitic dislocation and sì che / sí que appear to be a good fit thanks to their functional properties; in particular, we recognize the framing function of clitic left dislocation as one of the most relevant features justifying the affinity between these structures and the expression of polarity focus. Finally, we explain the profound asymmetry observed in the distribution of clitic dislocation and sì che / sí que in our dataset on the basis of inherent grammatical grounds (related to the absence vs. presence of a system of clitic subject pronouns in the three languages), as well as the typology of information structure within the Romance family, as put forward by Leonetti (Leonetti 2010 and 2014) in his recent works.

The Syntax and Semantics of the Left Periphery, 2004

Both German Left Dislocation (GLD) as well as so called Hanging Topic Left Dislocation (HTLD) are commonly considered to be topic marking constructions. This paper demonstrates that while this is in fact true for the former construction, it is not for the latter. Contra the standard assumption it will be shown that the resumptive pronoun (RP) of GLD may be positioned in the middle field of a German clause. However, it cannot appear anywhere in the middle field, but only in the designated topic position. Thus, the RP necessarily has the status of a sentence topic. As regards discourse properties, it is shown that GLD has to respect the condition of recoverability, and that it is a sentence topic promotion device, which, however, maintains the current discourse topic. GLD differs crucially from the HTLD construction and standard V-second clauses with regard to these properties. In addition, the syntax of GLD is considered. After a critical discussion of two recent movement analyses of the dislocated phrase, it is argued that an analysis which base generates the dislocated phrase at the left periphery of the clause containing the RP is more adequate. The paper ends with some reflections about the relationship between the syntactic structure of GLD and its discourse properties.

Círculo de Lingüística Aplicada a la Comunicación , 2002

The syntactic construction referred in the literature as “left-dislocation” has received wide attention within the different linguistic theories. French grammars (Bally 1932) were the first to describe the construction and to coin the term, which was soon adopted by the generative model (Ross 1967). Since then, both formal and functional linguists have filled pages with their perspective on the matter, focusing, respectively and very grossly, on the syntactic properties of the construction and on its discourse pragmatic functions. However, and despite the differences in the theoretical backgrounds and foci of interest, there are at least two facts on which agreement is almost general: (a) left-dislocation is a topic-marking construction, i.e. it serves to mark the topic-comment relation in an overt or explicit matter, and (b) it is universal, in the sense that all languages seem to count on identical or equivalent forms of the construction, presumably with the same topic-marking function, In this paper I will compare examples of left-dislocations in spoken English and Spanish, and then will place the eventual formal and functional divergences within a set of pragmatic and syntactic devices used by both languages to convey certain meanings and fulfill certain functions. For this study, I have used a sample of Svartvik and Quirk's (1980)Corpus of English Conversation, and of F.Marcos Marín's (1992) Corpus oral de referencia del español contemporáneo. I have also consulted M.Esgueva y M.Cantarero's (1981) Corpus El habla de la ciudad de Madrid.

Lingua, 2014

This paper first argues that Japanese right dislocation, where a constituent appears in the post-verbal position, is derived in two ways, depending on whether the dislocated constituent is accompanied with Case-markers/postpositions or not. In particular, it is argued that while right dislocation involves clausal ellipsis when the dislocated element is accompanied with Case-markers/postpositions, it is derived from what is called the bare-topic construction when the dislocated element is not accompanied with Case-markers/postpositions. Then, it is illustrated that the bare-topic construction, where the topic element is base-generated in the sentence-initial position without any Case-marker, postposition, or the topic-marker -wa, has close similarities with Hanging Topic constructions found in Romance and other languages. Claiming that the bare-topic construction should be equated with Hanging Topic constructions, this paper argues that an investigation of the properties of Japanese right dislocation makes it possible to contribute to a deeper understanding of the nature of the bare-topic construction, which in turn opens a novel way of comparing Japanese with other languages in terms of the syntax of topics.

2007

Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 2007

Anti-agreement is the phenomenon whereby the morphosyntactic form of subject/verb agreement is sensitive to whether or not an agreeing subject has been locally extracted. This paper argues that, together with an anti-locality constraint on movement (Grohmann, 2003) which prohibits overly local movement as elaborated in (i–v), the occurrence of a canonically left dislocated subject in anti-agreement languages accounts for all syntax peculiar to the phenomenon in the Bantu language of Kinande: (i) subjects can extract long-distance even across islands; (ii) subjects are locally unextractable if the canonical subject/verb agreement occurs; (iii) local subject extraction requires a change in subject/verb agreement morphology; (iv) objects cannot locally extract even if they appear to do so; and (v) objects can extract long-distance; however, they are sensitive to islands. Evidence comes from an analysis of the distribution of nominal expressions in the language as well as in-depth examination of two different wh-question formation strategies in the language. This study also reveals that the last resort strategy in a language is relativized to what is first resort: if resumption is first resort, movement is last resort, and vice versa.

John Benjamins Publishing Company eBooks, 2015

In this work I consider the properties of Clitic Left Dislocation (CLLD) and Hanging Topic (HT) in Italian. Rizzi (1997) proposed that the syntactic space pertaining to the complementizer must be conceived of as a layer, i.e. as a set of hierarchically ordered projections, including those for contrastive focus and topics. In the literature following this hypothesis, a focused phrase is argued to be moved, whereas topics such as CLLD and HT are analyzed as base generated in the left periphery. Here I argue that their unmoved status follows from their very special syntax, given that the heads projecting the phrases where they are hosted belong to a peculiar category, i.e. they are prosody-oriented heads. Prosodyoriented heads are not associated to a lexical content, but to a phonological one, i.e. are read off at the interface with phonology as instructions for the assignment of prosodic values. The properties and distribution of CLLD and HT will be shown to follow from this hypothesis.

Features and interfaces in Romance: essays in …, 2001

The definition of a topic at the sentential level has typically been linked to a dichotomical distinction involving pairs of concepts such as given versus new information, theme versus rheme or pressuposition versus focus. 1 Topics have traditionally been analyzed as the first member of these dichotomies, that is, as given or presupposed information or as themes. The following examples taken from Contreras (1976) illustrate the dichotomy: