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- Title
Alignment in Syntax: Quotative Inversion in English.
- Authors
Bruening, Benjamin
- Abstract
This paper explores the idea that many languages have a phonological Align(ment) constraint that requires alignment between the tensed verb and C. This Align constraint is what is behind verb-second and many types of inversion phenomena generally. Numerous facts about English subject-auxiliary inversion and French stylistic inversion fall out from the way this Align constraint is stated in each language. The paper arrives at the Align constraint by way of a detailed reexamination of English quotative inversion. The syntactic literature has overwhelmingly accepted Collins & Branigan's (1997) conclusion that the subject in quotative inversion is low, within the VP. This paper reexamines the properties of quotative inversion and shows that Collins & Branigan's analysis is incorrect: quotative-inversion subjects are high, in Spec,TP, and what moves is a full phrase, not just the verb. The constraints on quotative inversion, including the famous transitivity constraint, fall out from two independently necessary constraints: (1) a constraint on what can be stranded by phrasal movement like VP fronting, and (2) the aforementioned Align constraint, which requires alignment between V and C. This constraint can then be seen to derive numerous seemingly unrelated facts in a single language, as well as across languages.
- Subjects
SYNTAX (Grammar); ENGLISH phonology; ENGLISH grammar; QUOTATIVES (Grammar); VERBS; PHRASE structure grammar
- Publication
Syntax, 2016, Vol 19, Issue 2, p111
- ISSN
1368-0005
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/synt.12121