scieee
Science in your language
This paper explores two possible syntactic configurations of multiple topics attested across languages, namely the strict vs. free arrangement of fronted topics in the left periphery. I suggest that these rigid/flexible devices can be explained by implementing Chomsky s (2008) C-to-T feature inheritance mechanism so as to include both agreement features and discourse features (Miyagawa, 2005; 2010), in combination with Richards (1999) multiple-specifier approach to multiple movement, though subject to modifications. In my system, the possibility of free ordering of multiple topics is ultimately the consequence of lowering discourse features from C to T and specifying T as a multiple-attractor in the relevant language. This is the case of languages such as Spanish, as opposed to English. The specific type of topic feature which percolates to T in languages such as Spanish may attract familiar topics (Frascarelli & Hinterhölzl, 2007) to spec-TP
1 CL PA ST .3SG PA ST.3SG ACC PA ST CL FU T.1SG (9) CP DP C Esa cam isa CTP DT TP la + plancha á DP P D +V V P plancha á VBig DP plancha á DP CL esa cam isa la 10 PA ST .3SG PA ST .3SG PA ST .3SG 11 PA ST .3SG CL PA ST .3SG 2 NOM PA ST.3SG ACC ACC ACC NOM ACC ACC CL PA ST .3SG ACC 12 NOM ACC PA ST .3SG NOM ACC PA ST .3SG NOM ACC PA ST.3SG Q 20 1 2 2 21 PA ST .3SG CL PA ST.3SG 1 2 1 2 22 2 1 1 2 CL PA ST.3SG 20 1 2 10 11 12 20