Scandinavian Stylistic Fronting: How Any Category Can Become an Expletive

Abstract

The two central theses are (a) the category moved by stylistic fronting (SF) functions as a pure expletive in its derived position, which is [Spec, IP]; (b) what is moved under SF is only the phonological feature matrix of a category. The theory accounts for most of the properties of SF: why it applies only when there is a subject gap; why it affects almost any category, head or phrase; the locality conditions; and the crosslinguistic variation. SF belongs to Narrow Syntax, not the phonological component. Although the features moved by SF are invisible at LF, the specifier position created by SF is visible and is used by other categories that are visible at LF but invisible at PF.

Left peripheral focus: mismatches between syntax and information structure

“…In models in which PF movement and syntactic movement differ only in terms of whether LF has access to their outcome (Holmberg 2000), we would not gain much from analysing SFF movement as a PF process. The special role accentuation plays for SFF movement would not be explained any better than by syntactic movement.…”

“…However, with the exception of the accent-sensitive intervention effect, SFF behaves like a normal A-bar-movement operation. For instance, in contrast to Stylistic Fronting (Holmberg 2000), SFF is not clause-bound but enters long distance dependencies. [Ein TAxi] i hat sie gesagt dass sie sich t i nehmen wird.…”

Clausal architecture in Early Old French

“…The position adopted 08/02/06 31 here is that they differ by the following characteristics (based on Bailyn, 2004;Fisher and Alexiadou 2001;Holmberg, 2000;Jóhnsson 1991;Maling, 1980Maling, /1990 Moreover, given the layered CP analysis of V2 main clauses adopted here, if one wants to maintain that nonfinite verbs can only move to head positions, the above sentences can be accounted for by assuming that the nonfinite verb occupies the head position of ZP rather than Spec,ZP. This analysis, illustrated below, is perfectly compatible with our account of V2 and it does not require postulating an unmotivated distinct account for these main clauses.…”

Warlpiri and the theory of second position clitics

“…I argue that such constructions should be identified with the long head movement construction 40 (Lema and Rivero 1990;Rivero 1991Rivero , 1994Rivero , 1998Rivero , 2000Rivero , 2003Roberts 1993;Borsley et al 1996, and references therein), and Scandinavian stylistic fronting (Platzack 1988;Maling 1990;Rögnvaldsson and Thráinsson 1990;Holmberg and Platzack 1995;Holmberg 2000Holmberg , 2005, and references therein); see Holmberg (2005) for these constituting a single construction (also suggested in Fanselow 2002; Ackema andČamdžić 2003; Poole and Burton-Roberts 2004, among others). The construction under the term long head movement is well attested for example in many Slavic languages, certain Romance languages, and Breton.…”

“…The intuition from Holmberg (2000) is that these elements are insufficiently contentful to undergo stylistic fronting. This strikes me as correct, but I will not dwell on the implementation, i.e.…”