Locative Inversion, PP Topicalization, and Weak Crossover in English

Abstract

The literature on locative inversion in English currently disputes whether locative inversion differs from PP topicalization in permitting a quantifier in the fronted PP to bind a pronoun in the subject. In order to resolve this dispute, this paper runs two experiments on Amazon Mechanical Turk, one an acceptability judgment task and the other a forced-choice task. Both find that PP topicalization does not differ from locative inversion: both permit variable binding. Locative inversion also does not differ from a minimally different sentence with the overt expletive there. These findings remove an argument against the null expletive analysis of English locative inversion, and they also show that weak crossover is not uniformly triggered by A-bar movement.

The rise and fall of a person-case constraint in Breton

“…from different perspectives, see Barðdal and Eythórsson 2018, Citko et al 2018, Metslang 2013. Of A-dependencies, PRO is the most restrictive (against "EPP", Holmberg 2017, Cardinaletti 2004local anaphora, Metslang 2013, Barðdal andEythórsson 2018;WCO, Postal 1993, Bruening 2022, Paparounas and Salzmann 2022. With PRO go specified subjects when diagnosable (Icelandic, Holmberg 2017, and so Breton, 3.3, contrast Italian with richer left periphery, Cardinaletti 2004).…”