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The Complexity of the Left Periphery: Evidence from Piedmontese
Author(s) -
Goria Cecilia
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
syntax
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.587
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1467-9612
pISSN - 1368-0005
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9612.00048
Subject(s) - interrogative , interrogative word , clitic , verb , linguistics , inversion (geology) , computer science , complementizer , psychology , philosophy , paleontology , structural basin , biology
Central to this paper is the relation, in Piedmontese, between verb–interrogative clitic inversion and main wh –questions introduced by the complementizer che ( wh+che ). Parry (1998a) takes these structures to be in complementary distribution, claiming that che preempts V–to–C movement in interrogative inversion and destroys the licensing environment for interrogative clitics. In this paper, I argue for the revision of this claim. Building on Chomsky’s (1995) checking theory, I propose an analysis of Piedmontese interrogatives in the spirit of Roberts and Roussou’s (1999) dissociation of features [wh] and [Q]. I maintain that interrogative V–to–C movement and matrix wh+che questions target different CPs, hence the verb in C and che do not compete for the same position. Factors other than syntactic ones are responsible for the rare use of interrogative clitics in wh+che structures. The analysis presented in this paper supports the complexity of the Left Periphery proposed by Rizzi (1997).