Spanish Bare Plurals, Multiple Specifiers and the Derivation of Focus-Related Features

Abstract

The distribution of Spanish focused and depreciative bare plurals presents a problem for Standard syntactic accounts within the Government & Binding paradigm, either based on the notion of government or on incorporation mechanisms. It is argued that a minimalist account is superior to the previous ones because the licensing of focused and depreciative bare plurals can be integrated in the general theory of feature movement. This Operation takes place in constituent structures allowing multiple specifiers and relating the focus feature with other features of the D and the C Systems. Evidence is provided of the checking of a focus feature in these two domains, a fact that supports the Symmetrie pattern of licensing of focused (and depreciative) bare plurals in matrix and embedded contexts.

Spanish Root Exclamatives at the Syntax/Semantics Interface

“…On the syntactic front -assuming a multi-layered approach to the CP projection-it is argued that a degree feature is checked in the Focus layer and the exclamative feature is checked in the Force layer. The former type of checking provides evidence for Gutiérrez and Silva's (1999) hypothesis on the existence of focus-related features in different phases of the syntactic computation. The apparent diversity of exclamative structures in Spanish corresponds to a tight set of derivational mechanisms and the corresponding interpretive steps.…”

“…5 In minimalist terms, in the CP phase of the syntactic derivation (Chomsky 2001) (8)-(14). 6 In Gutiérrez and Silva (1999), it is shown that Spanish DPs also have a multilayered structure, in which focus and focus-related features are checked. The idea of feature-relatedness applies to features that are checked at the same stage of a syntactic derivation.…”

“…6. Some of the assumptions behind Rizzi's (1997) Gutiérrez and Silva (1999), a multiple-specifiers structure is adopted for DPs, based on derivational considerations. Rizzi's (1997) proposal for the left periphery of the sentence has a representational core and each feature heads its own projection.…”