Conditional Clauses: External and Internal Syntax

Abstract

The paper focuses on the difference between event-conditionals and premiseconditionals. An event-conditional contributes to event structure: it modifies the main clause event; a premise-conditional structures the discourse: it makes manifest a proposition that is the privileged context for the processing of the associated clause. The two types of conditional clauses will be shown to differ both in terms of their 'external syntax' and in terms of their 'internal syntax'. The peripheral structure of event conditionals will be shown to lack the functional head Force, which encodes illocutionary force. Event conditionals are merged inside the IP of the matrix clause. Premiseconditionals contain the head Force and they are merged outside the associated CP.

Content and Epistemic Relations: A Developmental Study of Recall

“…These data from language acquisition converge with data from language processing and diachronic linguistic research. The fact that the content meaning seems to be the one that is acquired first, is in line with results from other sources: content readings are more syntactically entrenched (Dancygier, 1998;Haegeman, 1991;Haegeman, 2003;Verbrugge & Smessaert, 2011), more easily processed (Noordman & de Blijzer, 2000) and also diachronically the central meaning from which the other classes are meta-phorical extensions (cf evidence such as Hopper & Traugott, 1993/2003Traugott, 1989).…”

Language contact and V3 in Germanic varieties new and old

“…More recently, Rizzi's (1997) hierarchy has been further expanded by Benincà and Poletto (2004) and by Frascarelli and Hinterhölzl (2007). Their revised decompositions are given in (22) and (23) respectively (see also Haegeman 2003Haegeman , 2006 FinP (Frascarelli and Hinterhölzl 2007: 112-113) Both of the revised hierarchies aim at clarifying the role and number of informationstructure-related projections, and both decompose the upper topic field, assumed by Rizzi (1997) to be recursive, into a number of unique projections. Benincà and Poletto (2004) argue for a position for hanging topics, dominating a position for scene-setting adverbials, dominating a position for left-dislocated elements, dominating a position for list-interpretation XPs; Frascarelli and Hinterhölzl (2007) argue for a distinction between shifting or aboutness topics and contrastive topics, with the former higher than the latter.…”

French adverbial clauses, rescue by ellipsis and the truncation versus intervention debate

“…So, rather than claiming that there is no left periphery at all, "positional" accounts of the incompatibility of the clausal domains in question with MCP postulate that such domains are characterized by a reduced or truncated left peripheral space. Thus, while (14a) corresponds to Rizzi"s (1997) original articulated CP, (14b) represents the reduced left periphery available in adverbial clauses and in complements to factive verbs proposed by Haegeman (2003aHaegeman ( , 2006. Haegeman (2003aHaegeman ( , 2006 further argues that the projection ForceP exclusively encodes illocutionary force, and that subordinating conjunctions are hosted by a distinct head "Sub".…”