proceedings 2003/9/19 17:30 page 29 #33

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1 proceedings 2003/9/19 17:30 page 29 #33 3 Surprising Specifiers and Cyclic Spellout Gisbert Fanselow University of Potsdam Contents 1 Introduction German main clauses PPT-movement An analysis of PPT-movement Alternative description I: remnant movement Alternative description II: copy-and-deletion approaches Concluding remarks Introduction In the Y-model of grammar, the grammatical architecture underlying GB-theory (Chomsky 1981), phonological and syntactic operations are strictly separated from each other, and phonological rules can apply only after the completion of the syntactic part of the derivation. This view has dominated generative theorizing for two decades, but more recent grammatical models within the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 2000, 2001) or Optimality Theory (see, e.g., Samek-Lodovici 2002) allow a more complex interaction of the two submodules of grammar. In particular, Chomsky (2000, 2001) proposes a cyclic theory of spellout: whenever the syntactic computation is complete in certain syntactic domains ( phases ), these domains are interpreted both phonologically and semantically. Syntactic operations in larger domains may thus refer to results of phonological processes that have applied to smaller units. The purpose of the present paper is to present some evidence from German main clauses that supports such a cyclic concept of spellout. Under certain pragmatic conditions, the choice of the element moved to the Vorfeld (prefield, the specifier of CP) 0 This article summarizes some of the points addressed in the paper presented at GLiP. I would like to thank the organizers for the invitation, and the participants of GLiP for interesting discussions. Thanks also go to Damir Ćavar, Caroline Féry, Hubert Haider, Gereon Müller, Stefan Müller, Matthias Schlesewsky and Ewa Trutkowski for helpful comments in various contexts. The research reported in this paper was partially supported by grant FOR 375 of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft to the Research Group Conflicting Rules. 29

2 proceedings 2003/9/19 17:30 page 30 #34 Page 30 Generative Linguistics in Poland depends on the outcome of the application of the Nuclear Stress Rule (NSR) to VP. Such an array of facts is expected in a cyclic theory of spellout, while it is incompatible with the Y-model of grammar. The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 briefly summarizes some standard assumptions on the derivation of German main clauses. In section 3, we present data that show that the movement of parts of VP to the Vorfeld may serve the function of expressing pragmatic functions borne by the complete VP. Section 4 argues that these data can best be handled by assuming that movement affects the element that bears the tone representing the topichood of VP. This element can, however, only be identified by the NSR. Sections 5 and 6 discuss alternative accounts that assume a global interaction of syntax and phonology. Section 7 briefly sums up our results. 2 German main clauses Thiersch (1978) and den Besten (1989) have laid the ground for our current understanding of German main clause structure. Subordinate clauses are verb-final (1a), while in a main clause, the finite verb or auxiliary moves to second position, viz. Comp. In addition to a feature attracting the finite verb, main clause Comps possess an EPP feature, which is responsible for the obligatory further movement of some constituent to the specifier position of CP. (1) a. dass der Mann das Buch gelesen hat that the man the book read has b. [ CP der Mann [[ Comp hat] das Buch gelesen]] (that) the man has read the book In pragmatically unmarked declarative clauses, the first position can be filled by a subject, a sentence adverb, a temporal adverb, and a few other categories 1, as (2) illustrates. These are exactly the elements that can appear in the highest structural position of IP (apart from weak pronouns). Taking up a suggestion of Bhatt (1999) for Kashmiri, Fanselow (2002a) makes the Minimal Link Condition (MLC) of Chomsky (1995) responsible for the correlation between the set of elements in Spec,CP and those licensed in the highest position of IP. According to the MLC, cannot move to if there is a closer to than that can also move to. Since can always move to Spec,CP in (3) representing the structure of a German main clause (unless it is an unstressed object pronoun), it blocks the attraction of other categories such as to Spec,CP. (2) Was ist geschehen? what happened? a. Ein Zug ist entgleist a train was derailed b. wahrscheinlich ist ein Zug entgleist probably is a train derailed c. heute morgen ist ein Zug eingleist today morning is a train derailed Probably, a train was derailed (this morning) 1 See Fanselow (2002a) for more details.

3 proceedings 2003/9/19 17:30 page 31 #35 Gisbert Fanselow Page 31 (3) [ CP [COMP [ IP [ ]]]] However, Comp may also possess an additional operator feature. In questions, Comp bears a [wh]-feature, in pragmatically marked declarative clauses, it may possess a [focus] or a [topic] feature. These features must be checked by the phrase moved to, the specifier of CP. In other words, when Comp bears an operator feature f, the class of elements that can move to Spec,CP is restricted to those categories that bear an identical operator feature. Therefore, can move to in (4) if possesses the feature f while does not (See Bhatt 1999, Fanselow 2002a). For example, an object may be moved to first position in a wh-question (5a). It can also be placed there if it is focussed, as in examples such as (5b) (5c), or if it is a topic-phrase as in (6). (4) [ CP [ [[COMP, +f] [ IP [ ]]]] (5) a. was hat der Mann gelesen what has the man read what has the man read? b. NICHTS hat er gelesen nothing has he read he hasn t read anything c. einen miesen KRIMI hat er gelesen a bad detective story has he read he has read a bad detective story (6) (Soll ich was über Hans erzählen? Do you want me to say something about Hans? ) Diesen Verbrecher hat man endlich verhaften können this criminal has one finally arrest could One has finally been able to arrest this criminal To sum up, the element occupying Spec,CP in German main clauses is either the highest category in the IP below CP, or it is an operator. There are, however, at least two types of sentences that do not fit this description. First, the category sitting in Spec,CP may dominate an appropriate operator rather than being an operator itself, as the examples in (7) show: (7) a. [Wessen Lied] mag er am meisten whose song likes he at-the most whose song does he like best b. [Senaits Lied] mag er am meisten Senait s song likes he at-the most he likes SENAIT s song best Such sentences can be dealt with easily, however. They merely illustrate the need for a theory of pied piping. When Comp possesses an operator feature f, the category c which Comp attracts must bear f as well, but c is not necessarily the only element that is displaced phonologically. Rather, conditions on pied piping (such as the ban against extracting possessors from DPs in German) may require that a category dominating c is moved.

4 proceedings 2003/9/19 17:30 page 32 #36 Page 32 Generative Linguistics in Poland 3 PPT-movement The second class of exceptions is more surprising. As we will see, it is characterised by the fact that something smaller than the real operator phrase is placed into Spec,CP. Therefore, pars-pro-toto-movement (PPT movement) is an appropriate term for such constructions. In the most spectacular type of example, Spec,CP is filled by a verb prefix. Recall that a large number of German verbs possesses a separable prefix that is stranded when the verb moves to Comp. This is illustrated in (8) for the verb an-fangen (begin, lit. at+catch ). (8) a. dass er damit an-fängt that he there-with at-catches that he begins with that b. er fängt damit an c. *er anfängt damit In most instances, the separation of the verb and the prefix is the result of stranding: the verb moves to Comp, leaving the prefix behind. Separable prefixes themselves are quite immobile. For example, they cannot undergo scrambling within IP. The claim that verb prefixes cannot be placed into Spec,CP either goes back to Bierwisch (1963), and was repeated over and over again in the syntactic literature on German (see S. Müller 2000 for an overview). Nevertheless, under certain pragmatic conditions, prefixes can be placed into Spec, CP, as (9) and (10) illustrate. (9) auf-machen (open, lit. open-make ) auf hat er die Tür gemacht open has he the door made he has opened the door (10) a. vor-haben (intend, lit. before-have ) vor haben wir das schon gehabt before have we that well had we had intended that b. vor-machen (to fool, lit. before-make ) vor kannst du der wirklich nichts machen before can you her really nothing make you cannot really fool her c. an-haben (wear, lit. at-have ) an hatte sie nicht mehr all zuviel at had seh not more too much she did not wear too much any longer d. an-fangen (begin. lit. at-catch ) an haben wir DAMIT gefangen at have we there with caught we have begun with that

5 proceedings 2003/9/19 17:30 page 33 #37 Gisbert Fanselow Page 33 Under our present perspective, data such as (9) are the least interesting: the prefixverb combination has a more or less compositional interpretation. The result state described by auf open can be considered the focus or the topic of the utterance, depending on the context. The syntax-pragmatics correlation of (9) need not differ from standard topic/focus movement at all. Data such as (10) in which the interpretation of the prefix-verb combination is not a compositional one are more problematic for the theory of German syntax sketched in section 2. They are often ignored in the syntactic literature, or claimed to be non-existent, but the careful empirical survey carried out by Stefan Müller (2000) shows that such structures are wellformed, and that they can be found easily in text corpora. Often, such examples come with a certain stylistic flavour (playful language), and it need not be the case that they can be formed with all prefix verbs. See S. Müller (2000) and the references cited there for a discussion of some of the syntactic issues arising in the context of (10) that need not concern us here. In the structures underlying (9) and (10), the verb prefix is part of the predicate, and does not occupy the highest position in IP. Therefore, if our description of German main clauses in section 2 is correct, the prefix cannot move to Spec,CP when Comp has no operator feature (other categories are closer to Spec,CP than the prefix). The prefix can reach Spec,CP only if it is attracted by a Comp checking an operator feature. But the verb prefixes in (10) are meaningless elements they form a meaningful unit in combination with the verb only. It is difficult to accept the idea that a meaningless element can be interpreted as a focus or topic operator phrase in German syntax. Therefore, it appears as if the data in (10) do not at all fit the idea that material in Spec,CP moves there because it is attracted on the basis of operator features. The same problem reappears in constructions that do not involve the special syntax of particle verbs. Parts of idiomatic verb phrases that are again meaningless in isolation (relative to the idiomatic reading) may be placed into Spec,CP as well, as (11) illustrates. (11) a. ins Bockshorn jagen (intimidate, lit. into-the goat horn chase ) ins Bockshorn hat er sich nicht jagen lassen into.the goat horn has he refl not chase let he did not let himself be intimidated b. schöne Augen machen (to make eyes, lit. beautiful eyes make ) schöne Augen hat er ihr keine gemacht beautiful eyes has he here none made he didn t make eyes at her c. den Vogel abschiessen (to surpass everyone, lit. the bird off shoot ) den Vogel hat aber der Vorsitzende abgeschossen the bird has however the chairman shot off however, the chairman surpassed everyone Syntactically, the relevant idiom parts are direct (11b) (11c) and prepositional (11a) objects, so that they cannot have moved to Spec,CP but by being attracted on the basis of an operator features the subject is always closer to Spec,CP. Being part of an

6 proceedings 2003/9/19 17:30 page 34 #38 Page 34 Generative Linguistics in Poland idiom, the material placed into Spec,CP in (11) is itself meaningless, however, and therefore it does not constitute a good candidate for operator status. While the data in (10) and (11) cannot be analyzed as illustrating the movement of an operator to Spec, CP, the pragmatic consequences of fronting a prefix or part of a verbal idiom can be characterized easily: in (10) and (11), the complete predicate constitutes the (contrastive) topic of the clause. Thus, (10a) can be uttered in a context in which the intentions of the group of the speaker are the topic (and in which these may be contrasted with what could be realized). Likewise, in (11a), the topic is the process of being intimidated, i.e., the complete lower VP (ins Bockshorn jagen). Similar observations can be made for the other examples in (10) and (11). The data can therefore be characterized as in (12). They seem to involve something that one may call pars pro toto-movement (PPT-movement). (12) Under certain conditions, the attraction of a [+topic] phrase X to Spec,CP implies the overt movement of part of X only. In the light of (12), a number of further mysteries of German topicalization may find a simple analysis. PPT movement cannot only be found in constructions with a (quasi-) idiomatic interpretation, it applies in fully compositional verb phrases as well. Thus, consider the small texts in (13): (13) a. War er fromm? Was he religious? a. In der Bibel hat er nur selten gelesen. In the Bible has he only rarely read He has only rarely read in the Bible. b. War er Anarchist? Was he an anarchist? b. Häuser hat er jedenfalls nie angezündet. houses gas he in any event never set on fire He has never set houses on fire. In (13a,b ), a prepositional object (in der Bibel) and a direct object (Häuser) have been placed into Spec,CP. (13a,b ) are felicitous continuations of (13a) and (13b), respectively, in spite of the fact that the phrases in Spec,CP are not the topics of the two sentences in a pragmatic sense. The topic of (13a a ) is a religious activity (reading in the Bible), rather than a book. The topic of (13b b ) is a typical action of an anarchist (setting houses in fire), rather than a set of houses. In other words, the topic of the second sentences in (13a) (13b) is their VP, but only part of that VP has been moved to Spec,CP. The data in (13) are thus further instantiations of PPT-movement. From (12), it follows that sentences in which the direct object is placed into Spec,CP allow at least three interpretations in terms of information structure. The direct object might be the focus of the utterance (as in (5)), it may represent the topic of the utterance (as in (6)), and it might be a proper part of the semantic topic of the clause (as in (13)). In (13), the formal topicalization of a DP stands for the semantic topicalization of a predicate phrase containing that DP. A similar effect can be observed for the scope of focus operators such as nur only. Consider (14) in this respect. It is ambiguous between the two interpretations given in (14a) and (14b). In (14a), it is

7 proceedings 2003/9/19 17:30 page 35 #39 Gisbert Fanselow Page 35 the semantic content of the DP that is in the scope of the focus operator nur. In (14b), however, the VP dominating the DP moved to Spec,CP (=read the bible) is affected. (14) Nur die Bibel hat er nie gelesen only the bible has he never read a. Only for x, x = the bible: he has never read x b. Only P, P = bible reading: he has never done P Example (14b) thus illustrates that (12) holds for XPs affected by focus operators, too. Finally, (12) also seems to figure prominently in the analysis of discontinuous noun phrases. The formation of discontinuous noun phrases is a perfect means of expressing contrastive DP topics, as (15b) suggests when it is interpreted as an answer to (15a). (15) a. Wieviele Tiere hat sie? How many pets does she have? b. Katzen hat sie drei, und Hunde (hat sie) zwei. cats has she three and dogs has she two She has three cats and two dogs. In the light of what we have seen so far, it comes as no surprise that the formation of discontinuous noun phrases may serve a second pragmatic function, too: The predicate (reading many books, wearing a tie) is the topic of the second sentences in the texts in (16a) and (16b). (16) a. Ist er gebildet? Is he educated? Bücher hat er jedenfalls viele gelesen. books has he in any event many read At least, he has read many books. b. Ist er ordentlich angezogen? Is he dressed properly? Krawatte trägt er jedenfalls wieder mal keine. tie wears he in any event again once no Again, he does not wear a tie. PPT movement thus appears to be a widespread phenomenon in German syntax. 4 An analysis of PPT-movement The pragmatic effect that comes with the data presented in the preceding section can also be arrived at by moving the complete verb phrase, as the following pairs of examples show. (17) a. vor haben wir das schon gehabt before have we that well had b. vorgehabt haben wir das schon c. das vorgehabt haben wir schon we had intended that (18) a. ins Bockshorn hat er sich nicht jagen lassen into-the goat horn has he refl not chase let

8 proceedings 2003/9/19 17:30 page 36 #40 Page 36 Generative Linguistics in Poland b. ins Bockshorn jagen hat er sich nicht lassen c. sich ins Bockshorn jagen lassen hat er nicht he did not let himself be intimidated (19) War er fromm? Was he religious? a. In der Bibel hat er nur selten gelesen. In the bible has he only rarely read b. In der Bibel gelesen hat er nur selten. He has only rarely read in the bible. (20) Ist er gebildet? Is he educated? a. Bücher hat er jedenfalls viele gelesen. books has he in any event many read b. viele Bücher gelesen hat er jedenfalls At least, he has read many books. In this respect, PPT-movement data are reminiscent of patterns involving whmovement such as the ones in (21) (23). Wh-movement normally involves the displacement of the full wh-dp in German, but some wh-determiners can also be moved alone. (21) a. was für Bücher hast du what for books have you gelesen read b. was hast du für Bücher gelesen what kinds of books have you read (22) a. wen von den Studenten hast du gesehen who of the students have you seen b. wen hast du von den Studenten gesehen which of the students have you seen (23) a. wieviel Geld hast du dabei how much money have you therewith b. wieviel hast du Geld dabei [ok in certain dialects only] how much money do you have with you? The Comp nodes of the questions in (21) (23) possess a [wh] feature that must be checked by the element that moves to Spec,CP. Attraction by Comp may trigger the preposing of the word that bears the attracted feature (was, wen, wieviel), but the (smallest) phrase dominating that word may be pied-piped (and in many circumstances, pied-piping is obligatory). Given that this analysis follows from the fundamental assumptions of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995), one would expect that it characterizes topicalization (and focus movement) as well. In other words, topicalization and focus movement should either prepose the word that bears the topic (focus) feature, or some phrase dominating that word (which is small enough for being pied-piped). But what makes a word bear a topic feature? Unlike what holds for wh-words, the [+topic] feature is not linked to individual words by virtue of a lexical property. Furthermore, [+topic]

9 proceedings 2003/9/19 17:30 page 37 #41 Gisbert Fanselow Page 37 does not correspond to a morphological property of a word in German rather, it is linked to a prosodic property. A word bears a topic feature (more precisely: a topic feature manifests itself on a certain word) if that word bears a particular tone, a particular accent. One therefore expects that topicalization moves the word that realizes the topic accent, or some properly sized phrase dominating that word. How is the word bearing the topic accent identified? The answer to this question has both a pragmatic and a syntactic part. Obviously, the portion of the sentence that is the topic cannot be selected on a purely syntactic basis: it is the context and the communicative intention of the speaker that determines what is a topic or a focus. However, within the part of the sentence that is pragmatically identified as the topic, accent placement is carried in a purely structural fashion: the Nuclear Stress Rule (NSR) determines which word the accent goes to and it places the accent on the lowest word in the structure (see Cinque 1993, Zubizarreta 1998, among many others). When ZP is a semantic topic, syntactic topicalization should thus affect the structurally lowest word in ZP (=PPT movement)- but more material may (have to) be pied-piped (full phrasal movement). The reader will already have noticed that the PPT data presented above neatly bear out the prediction that VP or the lowest element in VP may move to Spec,CP when VP is a topic. Consider first the VP in (24). By the NSR, a tone that is to be linked to VP must be realized on the lowest complement (the DP), and a tone linked to this DP must be realized by the noun embedded in DP, viz. Bücher. Thus, Bücher will bear the topic tone associated with VP, and the movement of Bücher to Spec,CP may serve the function of expressing that VP is the topic (20a). Phrases dominating Bücher (up to VP itself) may be pied-piped in this context (20b). (24) [ VP [ DP viele [ NP Bücher]] gelesen] Determiners such as the definite one that can hardly be stranded in other contexts ( normal discontinuous DPs) have to be pied-piped in PPT-movement as well. Likewise, a noun cannot leave a prepositional object in the context of PPT-movement. Prepositional phrases simply must not be discontinuous in German (there is no preposition stranding). Consequently, the complete PP-object must be pied piped when a noun expressing a topic feature assigned to VP dominating PP is attracted to Spec, CP. Whether the word bearing the tone that represents the topichood of VP has a meaning of its own or not does not matter in this analysis at all. Therefore, we expect that the movement of (parts of) direct objects and prepositional objects may serve the function of signalling the topic status of VP independent of whether VP has an idiomatic or a literal interpretation. Note, finally, that separable prefixes can take up a tone linked to VP. E.g., the structural sentential accent signalling wide focus goes to the verb prefix in (25). (25) a. dass sie die Tür AUF-machte that she the door open-made that she opened the doors

10 proceedings 2003/9/19 17:30 page 38 #42 Page 38 Generative Linguistics in Poland b. dass sie ihm nichts VOR-machte that she him nothing before-made that she did not fool him The prefixes that occupy Spec,CP in (10) (expressing the topicality of the predicate) have therefore moved to that position because they bear the tone that is linked to VP because it is a topic. In the interest of space, we have to leave open a number of important questions here: what is the exact syntactic status of verb prefixes that allows them to appear in a specifier position? How much material must be pied-piped (if at all) when VPtopicalization is carried out as PPT-movement? What forces the obligatory piedpiping of PPs? What are the locality restrictions for PPT-movement? How do we capture stylistic differences between phrasal and PPT-movement? The answers to these questions are important for a complete description of the PPT-movement. For the restricted purposes of the present paper, the sketch given so far is already sufficient, however: When one wants to determine which element undergoes PPT-movement to Spec,CP in constructions involving an attracting operator feature such as [wh] or [topic], one needs to consult a theory of pied piping, and one needs to know which word realizes the feature in question. For [wh], one can obtain the relevant information from the lexical entries but for the topic feature, one must know which word bears the tone coming with topichood. This word, however, is identified by applications of the Nuclear Stress Rule, which belongs to the phonological component of grammar. This is an important result: when one wants to determine whether Z can be moved to in (26) in constellations in which VP is the topic, one must know the result of the application of the NSR to VP. (26) [ CP [[ Comp... + topic] [ IP... [VP... Z... ]]] In other words: phonological rules must have applied to VP before operator movement can apply in CP. The interaction of syntax and phonology must (at least) be a of a cyclic nature, as suggested by Chomsky (2000, 2001). 5 Alternative description I: remnant movement Of course, alternative descriptions can be formulated for the data introduced in section 3, and some of these alternatives may allow to avoid the conclusion that phonology and syntax interact cyclically. One of the alternatives that deserves special attention is remnant movement. PPT- and remnant movement may have the same overt effect: a category C is attracted, but overt displacement affects part of the phonological material of C only. Remnant movement was introduced as a descriptive device for German by Thiersch (1985) and den Besten & Webelhuth (1987,1990), see G. Müller (1998) for a detailed discussion (and Fanselow 2002b for a critique). According to their analyses, phrases may be extracted from VP before the latter category moves to Spec,CP, as sketched in (27). In a model that allows remnant movement, the phonetic content of X is not a good indicator for the category of an element X that has undergone overt move-

11 proceedings 2003/9/19 17:30 page 39 #43 Gisbert Fanselow Page 39 ment. Thus, the verbal participle in (27) is the only visible element that has moved to Spec,CP, in spite of the fact that the category that has really undergone movement is a full VP. (27) a. [ IP er nicht [ VP sie geküsst hat]] he not her kissed has b. [ IP er nicht sie [ VP t geküsst hat]] c. hat [ IP er nicht sie [ VP t geküsst ]] d. [ VP t geküsst] hat er sie nicht kissed has er her not he has not kissed her In a simple tense main clause as exemplified by (28a), the verb moves out of VP to Comp. After this movement, VP no longer contains an overt verbal head. If the objects can also be removed from VP (e.g., because they undergo scrambling), a structure such as (28b) arises in which the prefix is the only element left in VP that has a phonetic matrix. When such a VP is attracted to Spec,CP, structures will be generated in which the verb prefix is the only visible element in Spec,CP (28c). (28) a. er macht [ VP ihr nichts vor t] he makes her nothing before he does not fool her b. er macht ihr nichts [ VP t t [vor t ]] c. [ VP t t t vor] macht er ihr nichts In other words, data such as (9) and (10) also seem to be compatible with an analysis in which a VP goes to Spec,CP out of which all material but the prefix has been removed before topicalization. Similar evacuation analyses suggest themselves for the movement of parts of idioms (11), and the movement of DP- and PP-objects in sentences in which the VP is the topic from a pragmatic point of view. If the data introduced in section 2 involve remnant VP movement instead of PPT-extraction, there also seems to be no need for placing a tone in VP before VP is fronted by remnant movement. As a consequence, PPT-facts would not constitute evidence in favor of a cyclic interaction of syntax and phonology. Closer inspection reveals, however, that reference to the location of the tone linked to VP cannot be avoided in a remnant movement theory either. When the idiomatic part of a VP comprises the direct object, a prepositional object, and the verb, it is often the direct object (rather than the PP) that bears mains stress, as exemplified in (29a) and (30a). When this direct object is placed into Spec,CP, the idiomatic interpretation is available, and the sentence links to an information structure in which predicate is the topic. When the PP is placed into the prefield, it can be interpreted in its literal sense only. (29) a. wir haben ihm den roten HAHN aufs Dach gesetzt we have him the red cock on-the roof put we set his house on fire b. den roten Hahn haben wir ihm aufs Dach gesetzt

12 proceedings 2003/9/19 17:30 page 40 #44 Page 40 Generative Linguistics in Poland Dach haben wir ihm den roten Hahn gesetzt (30) a. ich will dir keine STEINE in den Weg legen I want you no stones in the way put I don t want to place obstacles in your path b. Steine will ich dir keine in den Weg legen den Weg will ich dir keine Steine legen The contrasts in (29) and (30) are immediate consequences of the PPT-approach sketched in section 3, but they require an additional stipulation in the remnant movement approach: a VP remains a VP, irrespective of which categories have been extracted from it. There is a need to distinguish [ VP t aufs Dach t] from [ VP den roten Hahn t t], but this difference does not follow from the syntax of remnant movement at all. In addition to this difficulty, there are three facts that make a remnant movement account of PPT-data unattractive. First, unlike what seems characterize standard remnant movement, the operations evacuating VP cannot always be motivated independently for the data from section 2. Second, the freezing effects that one would expect to observe in a remnant movement theory fail to show up. The latter property constitutes a general problem for the assumption of remnant movement in German (see Fanselow 2002b) and will not be discussed here in the interest of space. When Thiersch, den Besten, and Webelhuth proposed remnant movement as an analysis for (27), their model won widespread support because it allowed to explain an apparently problematic construction (heads appearing in a specifier position) in terms of two independently motivated operations (scrambling of objects, VPmovement to Spec,CP). When one tries to replace PPT-movement by remnant movement, one must postulate movement operations that are not motivated on independent grounds, and that may even be quite problematic from the overall perspective on German syntax. A first problem stems from the fact that the operation removing heads from VP that is crucial in the remnant movement analysis is motivated independently for simple examples such as (28c) only. In constructions such as (31), however, a finite auxiliary appears in second position, so that the prefix cannot have been separated from the lexical verb by verb movement to Comp. In order to account for (31a) in terms of remnant movement, one would have to assume that non-finite verbs (machen) adjoin to the verbal head (können) selecting them in overt syntax, and strand their prefixes in this context. For (31b), one would have to make the additional assumption that the head the lower verb has adjoined to (kannst) may excorporate from the complex machen kannst. (31) a. vor hast du der nichts machen können before have you her nothing make could you have not been able to fool her b. vor kannst du der wirklich nichts machen before can you her really nothing make you really cannot fool her There is little evidence in German syntax that lends independent support to such as-

13 proceedings 2003/9/19 17:30 page 41 #45 Gisbert Fanselow Page 41 sumptions, and there are reasons for doubting that they are correct. Non-finite verbs can always be placed into Spec,CP (see (32)), which shows that the incorporation of lower verbs into higher ones is not overt in German. 2 (32) a. küssen [hat den Fritz niemand kiss has the ACC Fritz nobody nobody has been able to kiss Fritz b. zu küssen [hat den Fritz niemand to kiss has the ACC Fritz nobody nobody has dared to kiss Fritz [t können] could t ] [t gewagt] t ] dared Two further types of contrasts suggest that there is no string-vacuous head movement of verbs in German and Dutch. Haider (1993) and Koopman (1995) draw this conclusion from data such as (33) (and their Dutch counterparts). Certain verbs come with two prefixes rather than one, and they typically must not appear in second position, as the contrast between (33a) and (33b) (33c) suggests. Haider and Koopman derive this and similar contrasts from the assumption that verbs like voranmelden cannot undergo overt movement at all. If correct, the wellformedness of (33d) suggests that non-finite verbs do not adjoin to the heads selecting them in overt syntax. (33) a. dass er sein Kind that he his child voran-meldet pre-at-reports that he pre-registers his child b. *er voranmeldet sein Kind c. *er meldet sein Kind voran d. er wird sein Kind voranmelden können he will his child pre-at-report can he will be able to pre-register his child A detailed discussion of the contrast between (34a) and (34b) can be found in Haider (1997) and Meinunger (2001). Apparently, verbs must not be moved out of the scope of certain adverbial (?) operators such as mehr als more than. (34a) suggests that finite verbs stay in situ in embedded clauses (when there is no overt movement to second position), and by the same logic, (34c) implies that non-finite verbs do not undergo overt head movement either. (34) a. dass er den Gewinn mehr als verdreifachte that he the profit more that tripled that he more than tripled his profit b. *er verdreifachte seinen Gewinn mehr als c. er hat seinen Gewinn mehr als verdreifachen können he has his profit more than triple could he has been able to more than triple his profit Data such as (32) (34) thus corroborate the view that movement to Comp is the 2 See, e.g., Haider (1993) for further arguments against non-finite verb movement in clause union constructions.

14 proceedings 2003/9/19 17:30 page 42 #46 Page 42 Generative Linguistics in Poland only type of overt verb movement found in German. This is in line with the typological generalizations formulated in Julien (2002). If one accepts this view, many PPT-data cannot be reanalyzed as involving remnant movement: there is no process which removes the verb from VP. The postulation of an operation which removes complements and adjuncts from VP in the context of remnant movement leads to the same difficulty. Despite first appearance, the evacuation of VP cannot be the result of scrambling. The scrambling of XPs out of VP always serves an information structure function. An XP may scramble when it is topical, or when it needs to avoid the information structure function it would receive if it stayed in situ. In addition, there is focus scrambling in German 3. This intrinsic connection to information structure implies that meaningless elements cannot undergo scrambling. In particular, parts of idioms do not scramble. Consequently, (35b) does not really allow the idiomatic interpretation that (35a) has. Quite in contrast to what we observe in (35b), the remnant movement analysis of (35c) presupposes that aufs Dach can be extracted from VP after all, the VP [ VP den roten Hahn aufs Dach gesetzt] needs to be transformed into [ VP den roten Hahn t t] in a remnant movement analysis of (35c). (35) a. wir haben ihm den roten HAHN aufs Dach gesetzt we have him the red cock on-the roof put we set his house on fire haben ihm aufs Dach den roten Hahn gesetzt c. den roten Hahn haben wir ihm aufs Dach gesetzt Again, a movement operation necessary for the remnant movement theory cannot be motivated. Consider also (36) in this respect, the construction in which a part of a DPobject signals the topicality of VP. The verb phrase must haven been merged as [ VP [ DP keine Krawatte] getragen]. The noun must then be separated from the determiner in the course of the derivation of (36). Given that German disallows left branch extractions, the separation can only arise by extracting Krawatte from the DP, yielding [ VP Krawatte [ VP [ DP keine t] getragen]. The target remnant VP [ VP Krawatte [ VP ]] can then be generated by extracting the remnant DP and the verb from VP. This derivation of (36) leaves it open why neither [ VP [ DP keine t] getragen] nor [ VP [ DP keine t]] can be found in VP-contexts in German, as (37) illustrates. (36) Krawatte hat er keine getragen tie has he no wear he hasn t worne a tie (37) *keine getragen hat er Krawatte keine hat er Krawatte getragen We conclude that remnant movement does not really constitute an alternative to PPT extraction. See Fanselow (2002b) for further arguments against remnant movement as a process figuring in German syntax. 3 See Haider & Rosengren (1998) for an overview of the functions of scrambling in German.

15 proceedings 2003/9/19 17:30 page 43 #47 Gisbert Fanselow Page 43 6 Alternative description II: copy-and-deletion approaches Let us briefly discuss a further alternative. Fanselow & Ćavar (2001, 2002) have proposed a model for the analysis of discontinuous noun phrases such as (38a) (and related constructions such as wh-copying) that exploits the insight that movement is a two step process: a copy operation followed by deletion. They argue that most of the descriptive problems that arise in the context of discontinuous noun phrases find a straightforward solution if the derivation of (38a) proceeds as indicated in (38b) (38e). The complete object-dp is copied to Spec,CP (38b) (38c). After that operation, part of the phonetic matrix of the upper copy is deleted (38c) (38d), and this step is then followed by a partial deletion in the lower copy (38d) (38e). (38) a. Bücher hat er viele books has he many geschrieben written he has written many books b. hat er viele Bücher geschrieben c. viele Bücher hat er viele Bücher geschrieben d. viele Bücher hat er viele Bücher geschrieben e. viele Bücher hat er viele Bücher geschrieben Partial deletion avoids some of the theoretical problems that arise with remnant movement, so that it is tempting (at least for the present author) to replace PPTmovement by an analysis involving partial deletion of VP. Our standard examples would be analyzed as indicated in (39). (39) a. [das vor gehabt] haben wir before have we we had intended that b. [ihr schöne Augen gemacht] hat beautiful eyes has he has made eyes at her c. [keine Krawatte getragen] hat tie has he has not worn a tie [das vor- gehabt] that had er [ihr schöne Augen gemacht] he her made er [keine Krawatte getragen] he no worn Partial deletion is a very powerful tool, so that it is acceptable in grammatical analyses only if properly restricted. Fanselow & Ćavar (2001, 2002) have identified a number of factors that restrict partial deletion. In their proposal, complete deletion of the lower (=overt movement) or the upper (=covert movement) copy is always the preferred option, that is ignored only under restricted circumstances. There are principles that require that phonetic material be realized in certain positions, and there are principles that constrain phonological complexity in certain positions. Furthermore, their model presupposes that the identification of the optimal form (which material is kept in which position?) applies in a cyclic fashion: when a copy operation has applied, it must be followed by the corresponding (partial) deletion operation before the cycle (phase) it has applied in is completed.

16 proceedings 2003/9/19 17:30 page 44 #48 Page 44 Generative Linguistics in Poland Recall that the identification of the phonological material that appears in Spec,CP in (39) is done on the basis of the Nuclear Stress Rule: at least those words must be placed into Spec, CP that realize the tone linked to topical VPs. The partial deletion operation must be able refer to this phonological information, and it applies within the syntactic cycles. If one wants to analyze the phonetic chains of (39) in terms of partial deletion, the interaction of phonology and syntax must thus be cyclic, as it is in a model assuming PPT-movement. 7 Concluding remarks In the preceding sections, we have discussed a type of German main clause in which a category bearing a certain pragmatic function is only partially moved to the position that corresponds to that pragmatic function. We have proposed a slight revision of the minimalist theory of movement: when a head (such as Comp) overtly attracts a certain feature (say: [topic]), the minimal element that has to move is the (phonological) word that realizes this feature. The wh-feature is a lexical property of certain words, but in languages like German, the topic feature is linked to a certain word if that word bears the tone that expresses topicality. The placement of this tone is partially determined by the Nuclear Stress Rule. Consequently, movement operations can often be applied properly only if they can make reference to the result of phonological computations. Syntax and phonology must interact in a cyclic fashion. There are numerous other constructions that corroborate this conclusion. For example, recall that certain prefixes must be stranded when V is attracted to Comp in German but others (the so-called inseparable prefixes) must always be pied-piped. Whether a particle is strandable or not depends on its phonological properties, viz. the question of whether it is stressed. Likewise, Stylistic Fronting seems to be triggered phonologically (Holmberg 2000). The application of scrambling may have a phonological component, too (Samek-Lodovici 2002, Zubizarreta 1998). The view that phonology and syntax interact in a complex and interesting way is thus strongly supported. References den Besten, Hans Studies in West Germanic Syntax. Amsterdam: Atlanta. den Besten, Hans & Gert Webelhuth Remnant topicalization and the constituent structure of VP in the Germanic SOV languages. Paper, presented at the X. GLOW Colloquium, Venice. den Besten, Hans & Gert Webelhuth Stranding. In Scrambling and Barriers, eds. Günter Grewendorf & Wolfgang Sternefeld Amsterdam: Benjamins. Bierwisch, Manfred Grammatik des deutschen Verbs (=Studia Grammatica II). Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Bhatt, Rakesh Mohan Verb Movement and the Syntax of Kashmiri. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Chomsky, Noam Lectures on Government and Binding. Dordrecht: Foris. Chomsky, Noam Categories and Transformations. In The Minimalist Program, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT-Press.

17 proceedings 2003/9/19 17:30 page 45 #49 Gisbert Fanselow Page 45 Chomsky, Noam Minimalist Inquiries: The Framework. In Step by Step, ed. Roger Martin, David Michaels & Juan Uriagereka, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Chomsky, Noam Derivation by Phase. in Ken Hale. A Life in Language, ed. Michael Kenstowicz, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Cinque, Guglielmo. 1993, A null theory of phrase structure and compound stress. Linguistic Inquiry 24: Fanselow, Gisbert. 2002a. Quirky Subjects and Other Specifiers. In More Than Words eds. Barbara Kaufmann & Barbara Stiebels, Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Fanselow, Gisbert. 2002b. Against Remnant VP Movement. In Dimensions of Movement, eds. Artemis Alexiadou, Elena Anagnostopoulou, Sjef Barbiers, & Hans-Martin Gärtner, Amsterdam: Benjamins. Fanselow, Gisbert & Damir Ćavar Remarks on the Economy of Pronunciation. In Competition in Syntax, eds. Gereon Müller & Wolfgang Sternefeld. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Fanselow, Gisbert & Damir Ćavar Distributed Deletion. In Theoretical Approaches to Universals, ed. Artemis Alexiadou, Amsterdam, Benjamins. Haider, Hubert Deutsche Syntax generativ. Narr, Tübingen. Haider, Hubert Typological Implications of a directionality constraint on projections. In Studies on universal grammar and typological variation, ed. Artemis Alexiadou & Tracy Hall, Amsterdam: Benjamins. Haider, Hubert & Inger Rosengren Scrambling. Sprache und Pragmatik 49. Lund: Germanistisches Institut. Holmberg, Anders Scandinavian Stylistic Fronting: How any category can become an expletive. Linguistic Inquiry 31: Julien, Marit Syntactic Heads and Word Formation. Oxford: OUP. Koopman, Hilda On verbs that fail to undergo Verb-Second. Linguistic Inquiry 26: Meinunger, André Restrictions on verb raising. Ms., ZAS Berlin. Müller, Gereon Incomplete category fronting. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Müller, Stefan Complex Predicates: Verbal Complexes, Resultative Constructions, and Particle Verbs in German. Habilitation thesis, Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken. To be published by CSLI Publications, Stanford. Samek-Lodovici, Vieri Prosody-Syntax Interaction in the Expression of Focus. To appear in NLLT. Thiersch, Craig Topics in German Syntax. Dissertation, MIT, Cambridge, Mass. Thiersch, Craig VP and Scrambling in the German Mittelfeld. Ms., University of Tilburg. Zubizarreta, Maria-Luisa Prosody, focus and word order. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

18 proceedings 2003/9/19 17:30 page 46 #50 Page 46 Generative Linguistics in Poland Gisbert Fanselow Linguistics, University of Potsdam P.O. Box Potsdam Germany!"#%$ '&()$