Chapter published in:
Current Issues in Syntactic Cartography: A crosslinguistic perspective
Edited by Fuzhen Si and Luigi Rizzi
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 267] 2021
► pp. 53–110

Chapter 4
Invariant die and adverbial resumption in the Ghent dialect

| Ghent University
| Ghent University
This chapter focusses on the apparent V3 pattern in (1), which is salient with some speakers of the Ghent dialect: an initial adverbial constituent in the root clause, vroeger (‘formerly’), is separated from the finite verb by an optional ‘pleonastic’ (Vanacker 1980) element, die. The element die has no impact on the truth value of the proposition it introduces.
(1)
Vroeger,
Formerly
(die)
(die)
bakten
baked
wij
we
vier
four
soorten
sorts
brood
bread
‘We used to bake four kinds of bread.’ (Gijzenzele 0.28) (Vanacker 1980: 76)
The chapter focusses on the distribution of resumptive constituents in Standard Dutch and in the Ghent dialect, comparing Ghent resumptive die with alternative adverbial resumptives in the Ghent dialect and with the corresponding StD resumptives. A first analysis is based on the Poletto/Wolfe V2 typology, which proposes that the Germanic languages are characterised by a Force-V2 requirement, meaning that the finite verb moves to Force, via Fin. We argue – in line with the literature – that the resumptive adverbial dan in StD and the Ghent dialect is phrasal, it merges TP-internally, moves via SpecFinP to SpecForceP and satisfies the Force V2-constraint. A constituent preceding resumptive dan is clause-external. In contrast, resumptive die in the Ghent dialect is a head which spells out Force. Because Force is spelt out by die, the finite verb halts in Fin. The final part of the chapter speculates on an alternative analysis in terms of a fully articulated left periphery in which die is a variant of Force that is specifically involved in the indirect satisfaction of LP criteria on Top and Foc.
Keywords: Ghent dialect, adverbial resumptive die , V2 typology, force, left periphery, LP criteria
Article outline
  • 1.Scope and goals of the chapter
    • 1.1The V2 constraint
    • 1.2Resumptive V3
      • 1.2.1Argument resumption
      • 1.2.2Adverbial resumption
    • 1.3Resumption in the Ghent dialect
      • 1.3.1Nominal CLD
      • 1.3.2Adverbial resumption
    • 1.4Goals
  • 2.Adverbial resumption: Specialized resumption vs. generalized resumption
    • 2.1Specialized resumptives
    • 2.2Generalized resumptives
    • 2.3Specialized vs. generalized resumptives
  • 3.Invariant die in the Ghent dialect
    • 3.1The initial adverbial constituent
      • 3.1.1Categorial features
      • 3.1.2Optionality
    • 3.2Discourse function of the resumptive patterns
      • 3.2.1Nominal CLD
      • 3.2.2Adverbial CLD
      • 3.2.3Arguments against the generalized topic analysis
      • 3.2.4An additional contrast between specialized resumptives and invariant die
    • 3.3The resumptive constituent
      • 3.3.1Focusing
      • 3.3.2Mid-position of the resumptive
      • 3.3.3P-stranding and resumptive V3 patterns
    • 3.4Summary and outline of a derivation
  • 4.The cartography of invariant die resumption
    • 4.1The ingredients
    • 4.2The options
    • 4.3Invariant die as a left peripheral expletive
    • 4.4Invariant die as a left peripheral head
      • 4.4.1 Invariant die as a root complementizer
      • 4.4.2Some predictions of the analysis
      • 4.4.3 Verb first, null operators and invariant die
    • 4.5Enriching the Wolfe/Poletto hypothesis: An articulated left periphery
      • 4.5.1The articulated left periphery and indirect satisfaction of the criteria
      • 4.5.2Satisfying the LP criteria by enriched Force
        • 4.5.2.1SubjP, the Subject Criterion and subject extraction
        • 4.5.2.2Enriching Force
        • 4.5.2.3The derivation of Force-V2
  • 5.Summary
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 12 October 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.267.04dec
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