Localizing conditional clauses in the left periphery: evidence from multiple complementizer constructions in romance

This article analyzes the distribution of conditional clauses in multiple complementizer constructions, showing that preposed adverbial clauses could occupy in early Italo-Romance varieties different specifier positions within the left periphery of embedded clauses, a possibility that has been lost...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Nicola Munaro
Format: Article
Language:deu
Published: University of Ljubljana Press (Založba Univerze v Ljubljani) 2016-12-01
Series:Linguistica
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.uni-lj.si/linguistica/article/view/7207
Description
Summary:This article analyzes the distribution of conditional clauses in multiple complementizer constructions, showing that preposed adverbial clauses could occupy in early Italo-Romance varieties different specifier positions within the left periphery of embedded clauses, a possibility that has been lost with time in Italo-Romance but is still attested in modern Ibero-Romance. It is further argued that in multiple complementizer structures the highest complementizer invariably lexicalizes the head Force°, while the other occurrences of the complementizer mark the lower boundary of the main two Topic subfields.
ISSN:0024-3922
2350-420X