CP-Recursion in Danish: A cP/CP-analysis

TY - JOUR

T1 - CP-Recursion in Danish

T2 - A cP/CP-analysis

AU - Nyvad, Anne Mette

AU - Christensen, Ken Ramshøj

AU - Vikner, Sten

PY - 2017

Y1 - 2017

N2 - Based on data from extraction, embedded V2, and complementizer stacking, this paper proposes a cP/CP-analysis of CP-recursion in Danish. Because extraction can be shown to be possible from relative clauses, wh-islands, and adverbial clauses, and given that long extraction is successive-cyclic, an extra specifier position has to be available as an escape hatch. Consequently, such extractions require a CP-recursion analysis, as has been argued for embedded V2 and for complementizer stacking.Given that CP-recursion in embedded V2 clauses does not allow extraction, whereas other types of CP-recursion do, we suggest that embedded V2 is fundamentally different, in that main clause V2 and embedded V2 involve a CP (“big CP”), whereas all other clausal projections above IP are instances of cP (“little cP”). The topmost “little” c° has an occurrence feature that enables extraction but bars spell-out of its specifier.

AB - Based on data from extraction, embedded V2, and complementizer stacking, this paper proposes a cP/CP-analysis of CP-recursion in Danish. Because extraction can be shown to be possible from relative clauses, wh-islands, and adverbial clauses, and given that long extraction is successive-cyclic, an extra specifier position has to be available as an escape hatch. Consequently, such extractions require a CP-recursion analysis, as has been argued for embedded V2 and for complementizer stacking.Given that CP-recursion in embedded V2 clauses does not allow extraction, whereas other types of CP-recursion do, we suggest that embedded V2 is fundamentally different, in that main clause V2 and embedded V2 involve a CP (“big CP”), whereas all other clausal projections above IP are instances of cP (“little cP”). The topmost “little” c° has an occurrence feature that enables extraction but bars spell-out of its specifier.

KW - Syntax, Embedding, V2, Long-Distance Extraction, Multiple Complementizers

KW - Syntax

KW - Embedding

KW - V2

KW - Long-Distance Extraction

KW - Multiple Complementizers

KW - Syntactic islands

KW - Generative grammar

KW - Scandinavian languages

KW - Danish

U2 - 10.1515/tlr-2017-0008

DO - 10.1515/tlr-2017-0008

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0167-6318

VL - 34

SP - 449

EP - 477

JO - The Linguistic Review

JF - The Linguistic Review

IS - 3

ER -