The so-called cartographic approach to discourse-related word-order variation is based on the idea that particular interpretations-say, contrastive focusare licensed in the specifier of particular functional projections-say, a focus phrase. In this paper we present arguments against this view based on scrambling in Dutch. We discuss a range of implementations of the cartographic approach and show that they are either too weak, in that they cannot generate all the word orders found in Dutch, or too strong, in that they fail to capture restrictions on scrambling. The alternative we present dispenses with discourse-related functional projections and instead relies on mapping rules that associate syntactic representations with representations in information structure. On this view, scrambling operations derive a syntactic configuration that matches the structural description of a mapping rule that could otherwise not apply. We suggest that it is this interface effect that licenses the marked structures created by scrambling.

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IntroductionAs is well-known, topics and foci have dedicated positions in a variety of languages. This paper is concerned with the question of what this fact can tell us about the typology of information-structural notions and their mapping to the syntax. We argue that the data support two conclusions, both of which can be shown to clash with a cartographic outlook on sentence structure (for a general overview of the cartographic framework, see Cinque 2002, Rizzi 2003, and Belletti 2004. The first is that there are no fixed landing sites for topic and focus movement. The second is that there are cross-cutting generalizations over topics, over foci, and over contrastive elements. These jointly motivate the following four-way typology:

In this paper we explore what primitives of syntax may explain why grammatical relations are obligatory, unique, local and sensitive to c-command. We propose that these properties follow from the way information percolates in syntactic trees (as regulated by compositionality) and the way information in nodes is organized (as regulated by set theory). IntroductionGrammatical relations -binding, movement, predication and the licensing of negative polarity items -display a cluster of properties that Koster (1987) refers to as the configurational matrix. They are obligatory in that a dependent element must have an antecedent. Moreover, the antecedent must be unique, in a c-commanding position and sufficiently close to the dependent.An explanation for the configurational matrix is in order, as it can hardly be accidental that it holds of the four relations mentioned above, which are prima facia very different in nature. Moreover, as Koster points out, the properties of grammatical relations are by no means necessary -non-syntactic relations such as coreference do not display them. It must be the case, then, that the configurational matrix reflects primitives of syntax.In this paper, we explore what the primitives in question could be. We argue that a grammatical relation is established if a function introduced by a dependent is copied upward until it directly dominates a node which satisfies it (section 2). This allows us to capture the properties of c-command (section 3) and obligatoriness (section 4). We further argue that nodes are minimally ordered sets of attributes (section 5). From this, it can be derived that the antecedent in a grammatical relation is unique (section 6), but Neeleman & van de Koot 4741 Throughout this paper we will talk about syntax as if it is a derivational system. It should be noted from the outset that we only do so for presentational purposes and that nothing of substance depends on it.2 Indeed, in many theories sisterhood or a variant thereof is adopted. Government-binding theory and its successors assume that selection and internal ,-role assignment take place under sisterhood (cf. Chomsky 1981(cf. Chomsky , 1986b. Similar statements are made in LFG (cf. Bresnan 1982), GPSG (cf. and HPSG (cf. Pollard & Sag 1987, 1994. In categorial grammar, combinatory rules apply to adjacent entities only (cf. Steedman 1993). Adjacency and sisterhood are of course different notions, but like sisterhood, adjacency can be seen as a minimal sideways relation.

Causal relations are imposed by humans on the input from the world, and the linguist"s task is to understand what it is about language that enables speakers to use it to describe their causal perception.