Locative Inversion

Abstract

Locative inversion patterns are instances of a non‐canonical word order where a locative phrase (in a canonically SVO language) moves to preverbal position, leaving the thematic subject postverbally. There are a wide variety of morphosyntactic variations in this basic inversion pattern cross‐linguistically (and even within individual languages), and the evidence suggests that different syntactic mechanisms are used in different instances to generate the same surface word orders, both in English and in various Bantu languages. Analyses and diagnostic evidence are presented for all of these languages showing that, despite the range of variation, similar syntactic mechanisms appear to be at play across languages. The non‐canonical patterns that occur in locative inversion constructions raise important questions for theoretical assumptions about Case licensing, agreement, and locality in particular, and the theoretical work in those areas is addressed as well.

Anti-locality and subject extraction

“…24Ungrammatical object extraction from prefield: The ungrammaticality of the string in (24) also teaches us that a derivation where the wh-word vos moves from its base position directly to the intermediate Spec,CP -leaving Spec,TP empty -is also unavailable. This follows from the EPP requirement of Yiddish Spec,TP; see Diesing (1990) for motivating arguments for the EPP in Yiddish.…”

“…The fourth and final argument for the anti-locality approach comes from the behavior of complementizer-trace effects in Yiddish as described in Diesing (1990). Yiddish allows for embedded V2 clauses with an overt complementizer az (22).…”

“…(22) Yiddish embedded V2: (Diesing 1990 one make from grapes also 'You should know, my dear children, that one can make wine from grapes also.' Yiddish exhibits complementizer-trace effects targeting the extraction of material in the embedded prefield, not specifically subjects.…”

External Set‐Merge of Heads and Composite Probing: the Case of Locative Inversion in English and Chinese1

“…The derivation of English locative inversion (ELI, henceforth) in (1a), where the locative prepositional phrase (PP) moves across the DP argument, as in (2), raises important questions for theoretical assumptions about A/Ā‐distinction and the motivation and minimality of movement in syntactic theory (see Diercks 2017for a recent overview).…”

“…Culicover & Levine (2001:291‐306), following Levin & Rappaport Hovav (1995), argue that ELI is also available with unergative verbs as in (i) (contra Bresnan & Kanerva 1989and Bresnan 1994) with the argument structure in (ii). Culicover & Levine's (2001) propose a “heavy inversion” analysis of (i) where the locative PP (directly) topicalizes to the CP domain, while the DP first moves to spec,TP, and then undergoes extraposition to the right edge of the clause as depicted in (iii) (see Salzmann 2013for arguments against this analysis, and Diercks 2010, 2011, 2017for crosslinguistic support for heavy inversion from Lubukusu).…”