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Focus, checking theory and fronting strategies in Romanian
Author(s) -
Motapanyane Virginia
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
studia linguistica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.187
H-Index - 28
eISSN - 1467-9582
pISSN - 0039-3193
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9582.00035
Subject(s) - focus (optics) , interrogative , linguistics , romanian , syntax , interrogative word , variation (astronomy) , clitic , computer science , optimality theory , minimalist program , artificial intelligence , phonology , philosophy , physics , astrophysics , optics
Checking theory allows only formal features to have syntactic relevance. Focus has an impact on syntax although it is semantic. This paper argues that [focus] features enter the grammar in conjunction with [wh] and [tense]. Complex [wh/focus] and [tense/focus] features induce contrastive configurations and crosslinguistic variation. Romanian constructions with preverbal focus are compared with English clefts, and point to a parametric approach: languages display different strategies for overt movement to focus according to their parametric setting for [wh/focus] or [tense/focus]. The analysis of [focus] as syntactically dependent on [wh]/[tense] provides a uniform treatment for important variation in focus constructions (e.g. preposing through clitic doubling chains versus clefting) and in interrogative clauses (e.g. presence versus absence of V2 effects in embedded interrogatives).