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Part of
Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2017: Selected papers from 'Going Romance' 31, Bucharest
Edited by Alexandru Nicolae and Adina Dragomirescu
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 355] 2021
► pp. 73–90

On focal and wh-projections, indirect wh-questions, and quantificational chains

| University of Cambridge

In this chapter, I investigate the cartography of focus using novel data from non-standard Italian (non-StandIT) and Trevigiano, a Venetan dialect. I argue that focus is less constrained in indirect wh-questions in these varieties than in Standard Italian (StandIT). Indeed, in Trevigiano both focalised objects and adverbials are felicitous in constructions with a lower wh-phrase. Using Featural Relativized Minimality, I argue that in the case of direct objects, the problem of crossing chains is circumvented using an IP-internal clitic that absorbs the [+N] feature of the direct object. Then, I explain the behaviour of focalised adverbials in these varieties claiming that they are externally-merged directly in the Left Periphery, hence create a high focus-chain that does not interfere with the creation of the lower wh-chain.

Keywords: syntax, cartography, focus, peripheries, wh-phrases, wh-movement, clitic doubling, chain formation, Romance
Article outline
  • 1.Focal projections in the cartographic enterprise
    • 1.1The left periphery of the clause
    • 1.2The low periphery of the clause
  • 2.Foci and wh-phrases
    • 2.1On Foc>Wh
      • 2.1.1Trevigiano and non-standard Italian
  • 3.An analysis of clitic-doubled foci
    • 3.1Enter featural relativized minimality
    • 3.2Left peripheral external-merge
    • 3.3Division of labour between the focalised NP and its doubling clitic
      • 3.3.1Cl-DF are real foci
      • 3.3.2On the role of the clause-internal clitic
  • 4.Further thoughts on chain-formation and the peripheries
    • 4.1On ‘mild’ feature relations
    • 4.2Peripheral focal- and wh-projections
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 1 December 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.355.04bon
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