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Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 16: Selected papers from the 47th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Newark, Delaware
Edited by Irene Vogel
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 16] 2020
► pp. 187–202

On recomplementation, high adverbs and V-movement in Spanish

| University of Connecticut

I address the structure of the Spanish left periphery regarding recomplementation, i.e., double-complementizer constructions. I establish a contrast between Latin American Spanish (LAS) and European Spanish (ES): while there is an overt low complementizer que in ES, there is a null low complementizer in LAS – this is a novel empirical observation. The latter is different from the construction where low que is absent in ES: the null low complementizer in LAS patterns with the overt low complementizer in ES with respect to the phenomena discussed in this paper. I further tie this difference to the height of V-movement and adverb placement in LAS and ES. I then propose a phase-based account of the contrast.

Keywords: complementizer, left periphery, phases, adverbs, Spanish
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Contrast between ES and LAS
  • 3.High adverbs and height of V-movement
  • 4.Analysis
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgement
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 21 August 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.16.12mar
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