Lingüística comparada: inglés-español

Topic 2
Prof. Gema Chocano

TOPIC 2: CLAUSAL WORD ORDER IN ENGLISH AND SPANISH

1. Clausal word order: a crosslinguistic view.

1.1. Basic vs non-basic clausal word order.
1.2. Clausal word order from a typological perspective.

2. Basic clausal word order in the Germanic languages.

2.1. Verb Second (V2).
2.2. Object positions.

3. Basic clausal word order in the Romance languages.

3.1. SVO / VSO.
3.2. Object positions.

4. Basic and non-basic clausal word order in English and Spanish: a contrastive
overview.
4.1. Information Structure: some core notions.
4.1. Postverbal subjects.
4.1.1. Postverbal subjects in English.
4.1.2. Postverbal subjects in Spanish.
4.2. Preposing and postposing.
4.2.1. Preposing and postposing in English.
4.2.2. Preposing and postposing in Spanish.
4.2.3. A look at some syntactic differences.

Bibliography:
*Arnaiz, Alfredo R. 1998. An overview of the main word order characteristics of
Romance. In Anna Siewierska (ed.) Constituent Order in the Languages of Europe, 47-
73. Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
*Casielles-Suárez, Eugenia. 2004. The Syntax-Information Structure Interface:
Evidence from Spanish and English. New York: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group.
Chapter 3: 3.1- 3.3.
Lahousse, Karen & Béatrice Lamiroy. 2012. Word Order in French, Spanish and
Italian: a grammaticalization account. Folia Linguistica, 2, 387-415.
*Leonetti, Manuel. 2017. Basic constituent orders. In Andreas Dufter &
Elisabeth Stark (eds.) Manual of Romance Morphosyntax and Syntax, 887-932. Berlin /
Boston: Walter de Gruyter. Sections 1 & 2.
Matthew S. Dryer. 2013. Order of Subject, Object and Verb. In: Dryer, Matthew
S. & Martin Haspelmath (eds.). The World Atlas of Language Structures Online.
Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. (Available online at
http://wals.info/chapter/81).
*Holmberg, Anders & Jan Rijkhoff. 1998. Word order in the Germanic
languages. In Anna Siewierska (ed.) Constituent Order in the Languages of Europe, 75-
104. Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
 Lingüística comparada: inglés-español
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Prof. Gema Chocano
*Huddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum. 2002. The Cambridge Grammar
of the English Language (Chapter 16, sections 3 and 8.1). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
*Whaley, Lindsay J. 1997. Introduction to Typology. London: Sage
Publications. Chapters 5 & 6.

1. Clausal word order: a crosslinguistic view.

Clausal word order refers to the relative ordering of subject (S), verb (V) and
(O). Note: S, V, and O are not always single words, as in (1a) below, so S, V, and O
must be taken to also include phrases and even clauses, as in (1b) and (1c) below; and
(ii) O must be taken to include not only nominal complements (2a) but also
complements of other categories, e.g. PPs (2b). (Examples in (1) taken from Whaley
1997: 80).

(1) a. Phil seems strange.

b. The new neighbor seems strange.
c. That the Red Sox won the pennant seems strange.

(2) a. John will meet Mary at five.

b. John will be waiting for Mary.

1.1. Basic vs non-basic clausal word order.

(3) a. Beans, I hate (Declarative OSV)

b. Believe you me. (Declarative VSO)
c. Seymour sliced the salami. (Declarative SVO)
(Whaley 1997: 80)

Basic clausal word order is determined on three bases: (i) frequency; (ii)
markedness; and (iii) appropriateness to pragmatically neutral contexts.

(4) a. *Believe John Mary.

b. *Hit Jane Seymour.
c. *Surrender you your village.
(Whaley 1997: 80).

(5) a. BEAns # # I hate.

(6) What’s new, what’s up, what happened?

a. # Beans, I hate.
b. #Believe you me.
c. Seymour sliced the salami.

(7) I like peas but beans I hate.

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1.2. Clausal word order from a typological perspective.

(8) a. SOV: Japanese.

[John-ga]S [tegami-o]O [yon-da]V
‘John read the letter.’

b. SVO: English, Spanish.

[John]S [read]V [the letter]O.
[Juan]S [leyó]V [la carta]O.

c. VSO: Irish.
[Léann]V [na sagairt]S [na leabhair]O.
‘The priests are reading the books.’

d. VOS: Nias (Austronesian, Sumatra, Indonesia).

[I-rino]V [vakhe]O [ina-gu]S
‘My mother cooked rice.’

e. OVS: Hixkaryana (Carib, Brazil).

[Toto]O [i-ahosi-ye]V [kamara]S
‘The jaguar grabbed the man.’

f. OSV: Nadëb (Nadahup, Brazil).

[Awad]O [kalapéé]S [hapuh]V
‘The child sees the jaguar.’
(All examples, except those in (8b), taken from Dryer &
Haspelmath 2013).

(9) From Whaley (1997: 83).

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(10) From Whaley (1997: 83).

(11) VO / OV adjacency: V and O combine first; it’s not V (or O) but the resulting unit
{V, O} that later combines with S.

a. The tree branch broke the window.

a.’ Peter broke the window.
b. !!The tree branch broke those promises.
b’. Peter broke those promises.

(12) Subject saliency (Comrie, 1989: 93): in a transitive clause the subject is generally
the initiator of the action expressed by the verb and the entity in control of that action,
whereas the object is the entity being acted on. These properties of the subject make it
more salient than the object in human cognition, and the saliency is reflected in the
basic clausal word order of most languages.

2. Basic clausal word order in the Germanic languages.

2.1. Verb Second (V2).

All the Germanic languages except English are V2, i.e. in declarative root
clauses the finite verb, main or auxiliary, appears in the second position of the
clause. In other words, irrespective of the category that occupies the sentence-initial
position, the finite verb immediately follows that category.

(13) German
a. Peter sah einen Vogel.
Peter saw a bird
‘Peter saw a bird.’

b. Gestern hat Peter einen Vogel gesehen.

yesterday has Peter a bird seen
‘Yesterday Peter saw a bird.’

(14) Swedish
a. Jan har sett en fågel.
Jan has seen a bird
‘Jan saw a bird.’

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b. I går såg Jan en fågel.
yesterday saw Jan a bird
‘Yesterday Jan saw a bird.’

(15) a. John saw a bird yesterday.

b. Yesterday John saw a bird.
c. *Yesterday saw John a bird.

(16) a. *Not a soul he saw.

a’. *Never in my life I have seen such a mess.
b. *Not a soul saw he.
b’. Never in my life have I seen such a mess.
c. Not a soul did he see.

In some Germanic languages, for example German, V2 is possible also in

subordinate clauses complement of so-called ‘bridge verbs’, the most basic
representatives of verba dicendi and cogitandi (‘say’, ‘think’, ‘believe’, etc.), only in the
absence of the complementizer (17a)-(17c). Complementizers are, however, compatible
with V2 in other Germanic languages (for example, Icelandic) (17d).

(17) German
a. Ich glaube, gestern hat Peter einen Vogel gesehen.
I think yesterday has Peter a bird seen
‘I think Peter saw a bird yesterday.’

b. *Ich glaube, dass hat gestern Peter einen Vogel gesehen.

I think that has yesterday Peter a bird seen
‘I think that Peter saw a bird yesterday’.

c. Ich glaube, dass Peter gestern einen Vogel gesehen hat.

I think that Peter yesterday a bird seen has
‘I think that Peter saw a bird yesterday.’

d. að í herberginu hefur kyrin staðið.

that in the room has the cow stood
‘that the cow has stood in the room.’

2.2. Object positions.

English, Yiddish, and the Scandinavian languages are strictly VO: O follows
finite and non-finite verbs in both root and subordinate clauses.

(18) Swedish
a. Jag hade läst den här boken.
I had read this here book
‘I had read this book here.’

b. Jan beklagar att jag hade läst den här boken.

Jan regrets that I had read this here book
‘Jan regrets that I had read this book here.’

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In the other Germanic languages there is a contrast between root and subordinate
clauses: O follows finite V but precedes non-finite V in root clauses (19a); O
precedes both finite and non-finite V in subordinate clauses (19b), unless they are
subordinate V2 structures (see (17) above).

(19) German
a. Gestern hat Peter einen Vogel gesehen.
yesterday has Peter a bird seen
‘Yesterday Peter saw a bird’.

b. Ich glaube, dass Peter einen Vogel gesehen hat.

I think that Peter a bird seen has
‘I think that Peter saw a bird.’

With the apparent exception of English, Germanic languages, either of the ‘VO
type’ of Swedish in (18), or of the ‘OV type’ of German in (19) , are also characterized
by exhibiting two alternative patterns for the position of O relative to certain adverbs
and negation: O may follow or precede them.

(20) Icelandic (‘VO type’)

a. Nemandinn las ekki bókina.
student-the read not book-the
‘The student didn’t read the book.’

b. Nemandinn las bókina ekki.

student-the read book-the not
‘The student didn’t read the book.’

(21) German (‘OV type’)

a. Peter hat gestern einen Vogel gesehen.
Peter has yesterday a bird seen
‘Peter saw a bird yesterday.’

b. Peter hat einen Vogel gestern gesehen.

Peter has a bird yesterday seen
‘Peter has a bird seen yesterday.’

The kind of phenomenon illustrated in (20) that allows O to precede certain

adverbs and negation in VO languages is called ‘Object Shift’. It is restricted to nominal
and pronominal objects in Icelandic, and only to pronominal objects in Mainland
Scandinavian (Swedish, Norwegian, Danish) and Faroese. The phenomenon illustrated
in (21) is known as ‘Scrambling’, which may apply to complements other than O (for
instance, PPs). Both ‘Object Shift’ and ‘Scrambling’ obey to syntactic and pragmatic
restrictions that, however, will not be addressed here.

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3. Basic clausal word order in the Romance languages.

3.1. SVO / VSO.

On the basis of the three criteria discussed above, i.e. frequency, markedness,
and appropriateness to pragmatically neutral contexts, there seems to be two basic
patterns in the Romance languages: SVO and VSO.

(i) SVO, a basic pattern in all the Romance languages with no exception.

(22) What’s up?

a. Spanish
María ha comprado el periódico.
b. European Portuguese
O Paulo sabe francés
the Paulo knows French
‘Paulo speaks French.’
c. Brazilian Portuguese
O João comeu o bolo.
the João ate the cake
‘João ate the cake.’
d. Catalan
La Maria ha comprat el diari.
the Maria has bought the newspaper
‘Maria has bought the newspaper.’
e. French
Marie a acheté le journal.
Marie has bought the newspaper
f. Italian
Maria ha comprato il giornale.
Maria has bought the newspaper
g. Romanian
Mama a fácut o prăjitură.
mom has made a cake

(ii) VSO, a basic pattern only in Spanish1 and Romanian, less frequent than SVO in
Spanish but more frequent than SVO in Romanian.

(23) What’s up?

a. Spanish
Ha comprado María el periódico.

1
At least in Peninsular Spanish. According to Gutiérrez Bravo (2007), Mexican Spanish VSO as a basic
pattern requires an XP preceding V as a sentence initial-constituent.

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b. European Portuguese
#Sabe o Paulo francés.2
knows the Paulo French
‘Paulo speaks French.’
c. Brazilian Portuguese
*Comeu o João o bolo.
eat the Joăo the cake
‘João comeu o bolo.’
d. Catalan
*Ha comprat la Maria el diari.
has bought the Maria the newspaper
e. French
*A acheté Marie le journal.
has bought Marie the newspaper
f. Italian
*Ha comprato Maria il giornale.
has bought Maria the newspaper
g. Romanian
A fácut mama o prăjitură.
has made mom a cake
‘Mom has made a cake.’

3.2. Object positions.

Except Brazilian Portuguese, all Romance languages allow for ‘Object Shift’ or
‘Scrambling’3 of O past S, which results in VOS. In contrast to SVO in general, and
VSO in Spanish and Romanian, VOS is pragmatically constrained, as (24) illustrates for
Spanish. Constraints on VOS are much more severe in the rest of the languages,
excluding Romanian, where the facts are similar to the Spanish ones (see Leonetti
2017).

(24) a. What’s up?

#Ha comprado el periódico María.

2
But (i) is completely well-formed in a pragmatically marked context, where o Paulo ‘Paulo’ contrasts
with ninguem ‘nobody’ (Costa 2000, 2004):
Ninguem sabe linguas neste grupo.
nobody speaks languages in this group
(i) Sabe o PAUlo francés.
speaks the Paulo French
3
Although some literature has treated SOV as the result of ‘Object Shift,’ Ordóñez (1998) has shown that
in Spanish, where the phenomenon is less constrained, VOS is rather the result of ‘Scrambling.’ In this
respect, note that complements other than NPs may also precede S.

(i) (Ayer) hablaron con María varios profesores.

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b. Who has bought the newspaper?
Ha comprado el periódico María.

All the Romance languages have clitics, pronouns that are phonologically
dependent on a verbal head (i.e. the verbal head and the clitic constitute a single
minimal phonological unit). Clitics generally precede finite verbal forms, and follow
non-finite ones (particularly, infinitives and imperatives), as shown in (25) for Spanish:

(25) a. María lo compró / Lo compró María.

b. María quiso comprarlo / Quiso comprarlo María.

The clitic complement (DO, IO) of an embedded infinitival verb may precede
the main verb. Such a phenomenon, known as clitic climbing, is shown in the Spanish
examples in (26) (compare to (25b)):

(26) María lo quiso comprar / Lo quiso comprar María.

4. Basic and non-basic clausal word order in English and Spanish: a contrastive
overview.

4.1. Information Structure: some core notions.

(i) Information Structure refers to the packaging of information that meets the
immediate communicative needs of the interlocutor, i.e. the techniques that optimize the
form of the message with the goal that it will be well understood by the addressee in the
current attentional state. (Féry & Krifka 2008: 123).

(27) a. Mary hates chocolate.

b. Chocolate Mary hates.
c. Chocolate Mary loves. (from Vallduví & Engdahl 1996)

(28) a. Mary hates chocolate.

a'. *Mary hate chocolate.

b. There happened an accident.

b'. *There laughed three children.

c. What did you see on the road?

c'. We saw a TIGER on the road.
c''. #We saw a tiger on the ROAD. (from Krifka 2007)

(29) a. The pipes are RUSTY.

b. The PIPES are rusty.
c. The pipes ARE rusty.

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a'. What about the pipes? In what condition are they?
b'. What about the pipes? What's wrong with them?
c'. Why does the water from the tap come out brown?
d'. I have some rust remover. Do you have any rusty thing?
e'. I wonder whether the pipes are rusty. (from Vallduví & Engdahl 1996)

(30) When did Peter wash his car?

a. (He washed it) last week.
b. It was last week that he washed it.
c. #It was his car that Peter washed last week.
d. #It was washed by Peter last week.

(ii) Informational content: the expression of given / old information, and new
information.

• Given / old information: information that is assumed by the speaker to be

known to the addressee at the time of the speaker's utterance, because it is
common knowledge, part of the extralinguistic context, has been mentioned in
the discourse or can be inferred from it. Given /old information tends to precede
new information; therefore it’s generally placed by the beginning of the
sentence. Given / old information never carries main pitch if it has been
mentioned in discourse.

(31) I saw a boy crossing the street. The boy / He waved his hand.

(32) I won't go shopping with you.

(33) Anna was in her flat. The bell rang and she turned on the light.

• New information is information is assumed by the speaker not to be known to

the addressee at the time of the speaker's utterance. New information tends to
follow given / old information, thus appearing by the end of the sentence. New
information carries main pitch.

(34) What did John put on the table?

John put [a BOOK]NEW on the table.

(iii) Unmarked / canonical / neutral word order vs marked / non-canonical / non-neutral

word order.
• Unmarked /canonical/ neutral word order: (i) discourse-initial assertions (i.e.,
thetic statements) (35a), (36a); (ii) answers to an informational discourse-initial
question (i.e., what-happened-type sentences) (35b), (36b); (iii) always possible
in contexts suitable for marked word order in a plastic language like English, if
prosody is adjusted (37). With respect to (iii), the data in Spanish are not as
straightforward as in English. Some researchers consider Spanish a strict non
plastic language, which means that informational focus must be obligatorily
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final (Zubizarreta 1998, 1999; Büring & Gutiérrez-Bravo 2001; Büring 2010;
Revert Sanz 2001; Gutiérrez-Bravo 2002, 2008; Martín Butragueño 2005;
Rodríguez Ramalle 2005; Helfrich & Pöll 2011; Leonetti 2014; Feldhausen &
Vanrell 2015; Fábregas 2016) ((37b), (37b’)). Some other researchers argue that
Spanish is in fact much more flexible in what concerns relocation of main pitch
(i.e. Spanish is not strictly non plastic), which entails that at least SVO is
possible in marked contexts (Gabriel 2007, 2010; Ortiz López 2009; RAE &
ASALE 2009; Hoot 2012, 2016; Olarrea 2012; Heidinger 2013, 2014, 2018,
2022; Mutendam 2013; Vanrell & Fernández-Soriano 2013, 2018; Calhoun et al.
2014; Domínguez & Arche 2014; Uth 2014; Jiménez-Fernández 2015; Leal et
al. 2018; Roggia 2018) ((37c), (37c’), (37c’’)). Native speakers judgments seem
to vary on a dialectal (and even idiolectal) basis.

(35) a. Let me tell you something: [John ate the COOkies]FOCUS SVO
b. What happened?
[John ate the COOkies]FOCUS SVO

(36) a. Deja que te diga algo: [Juan se comió las galletas]FOCUS SVO
Que [se comió Juan las galletas]FOCUS VSO
b. ¿Qué ha pasado?
[Juan se comió las galletas]FOCUS SVO
Que [se comió Juan las galletas]FOCUS VSO

(37) a. Who ate the cookies?

[JOHN]FOCUS [ate the cookies]BACKGROUND SVO
a’. What did John do with the cookies?
[John]BACKGROUND [ATE]FOCUS [the cookies]BACKGROUND SVO

b. ¿Quién se comió las galletas?

[JUAN]FOCUS [se comió las galletas]BACKGROUND #SVO
[Se comió]BACKGROUND [JUAN]FOCUS las galletas]BACKGROUND #VSO
Se comió las galletas JUAN.
VOS
b’. ¿Qué hizo Juan con las galletas?
[Juan]BACKGROUND [se COMIÓ]FOCUS [las galletas]BACKGROUND #SVO
[Se COMIÓ]BACKGROUND [Juan]FOCUS las galletas]BACKGROUND #VSO
Las galletas, Juan se las COMIÓ. OSV

c. ¿Quién se comió las galletas?

[JUAN]FOCUS [se comió las galletas]BACKGROUND SVO
c.’ ¿Qué hizo Juan con las galletas?
[Juan]BACKGROUND [se COMIÓ]FOCUS [las galletas]BACKGROUND SVO

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• Marked / non-canonical / non-neutral word order: infelicitous in discourse-initial

assertions (38a), (38c); infelicitous as an answer to an informational discourse-
initial question (38b), (38d); only possible in certain, pragmatically constrained
contexts (38e), (38f).

(38) a. Let me tell you something: The COOkies, John ate. #OSV
b. What happened?
The COOkies, John ate. #OSV

c. Deja que te diga algo: Se comió las galletas JUAN. #VOS

Ayer se comió las galletas JUAN. #VOS
d. ¿Qué ha pasado?
Se comió las galletas JUAN. #VOS

e. Did John eat the cookies or the muffins?

[The COOkies]FOCUS [John ate]BACKGROUND OSV

f. ¿Quién se comió las galletas?

[Se comió las galletas]BACKGROUND [JUAN]FOCUS VOS

4.2. Postverbal subjects.

4.2.1. Postverbal subjects in English.

4.2.1.1. THERE-INSERTION.

(39) a. There is nothing there.

b. There were several windows open.

c. There arrived several Russian ships.

c’. Several Russian ships arrived.
d. There remain only two further issues to discuss.
d’. ?? Only two further issues to discuss remain.
e. There seems little doubt that the fire was started deliberately.
e’. *Little doubt that the fire was started deliberately seems.

(i) Existential there: the postverbal NP must be hearer-new / discourse-new, or hearer-

new / discourse-old, i.e. inferable.

(40) a. There was a horse in the garden.

b. */#There was Rick the pony in the garden.

(41) Who was at the party last night?

There was Mary, Sue, Fred, Matt, and Susan.
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(42) I had a really great time last night.

#There was Mary, Sue, Fred, Matt, and Sam at this party I went to.

(43) a. What can happen is a hangup such as Rocky Smith ran into, as the
independent hauler was traversing Chicago with a load of machinery that
just had to get to a factory by morning. “There was this truck in front of
me carrying giant steel coils, and potholes all over the place”, he
remembers.
b. What can happen is a hangup such as Rocky Smith ran into, as the
independent hauler was traversing Chicago with a load of machinery that
just had to get to a factory by morning. “I was behind a truck, and #there
was this / the truck in front of me carrying giant steel coils, and potholes
all over the place”, he remembers.

(ii) Presentational there: the postverbal NP must be discourse-new, although it may be

hearer-old.

(44) The volume of engine sound became louder and louder. Motorcycle police, a
whole battalion (or whatever unit they come in) neared –took over the road– there must
have been twenty of them. Behind them there appeared the President of the United
States.

(45) The volume of engine sound became louder and louder. Motorcycle police, a
whole battalion (or whatever unit they come in) neared –took over the road – there
must have been twenty of them. The President of the United States rode in a black
stretch limousine. # Behind the twenty policemen there finally appeared the President
of the United States.

4.2.1.2. STYLISTIC INVERSION

(46) a. An excellent appetizer is the squib ravioli with garlic sauce.

b. They have a big tank in the kitchen, and in the tank are sitting all of these pots.
c. From the lips of a car driver came an enlightened expression that I thought
should be shared.
d. By syntax (the technical term for sentence structure) is meant, for instance, an
operation such as grouping.

(47) The preposed element must represent information that is more familiar than that
encoded in the postverbal NP.

a. We have complimentary soft drinks, coffee, tea, and milk. Also complimentary
is red and white wine.
b. Mom, where is my gym shirt? #In the hall closet is your gym shirt.

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(48) a. They have a big tank in the kitchen and in the tank are sitting a whole bunch
of pots.
b. They have a whole bunch of pots in the kitchen and #in a great big tank are
sitting all the pots.

(49) The focused postverbal NP generally constitutes the topic of the next sentence. The
pre-posed constituent never does.

(49) In a little house lived two rabbits.

a. They / The rabbits were named Flopsy and Mopsy
b. #It / The house was the oldest one in the forest.

(50) Two rabbits lived in a little house.

a. They / The rabbits were named Flopsy and Mopsy.
b. It / The house was the oldest one in the forest.

4.2.2. Postverbal subjects in Spanish.

4.2.2.1. Postverbal subjects with transitive verbs (VSO)

(50) a. Leyó el libro Juan. TRANSITIVE, MARKED

b. Ayer leyó Juan el libro. TRANSITIVE, UNMARKED
c. Juan leyó el libro. TRANSITIVE, UNMARKED

(51) a. A Pedro no le gusta el té. PSYCHOLOGICAL, UNMARKED

b. A Pedro el café le gusta. PSYCHOLOGICAL, MARKED

4.2.2.2. Postverbal subjects with intransitive verbs (VS).

(52) a. Aquí roncan niños y adultos. UNERGATIVE, UNMARKED

b. Ha llamado el abogado. UNERGATIVE, UNMARKED
c. Ha tosido / roncado Juan. UNERGATIVE, MARKED
d. Con la polución tosemos todos. UNERGATIVE, UNMARKED

(53) a. Llegan trenes cada día. UNACCUSATIVE, UNMARKED

b. Los trenes AVE llegan cada día. UNACCUSATIVE, UNMARKED

(54) a. Vive / hay gente en esa comarca. EXISTENTIAL, UNMARKED

b. Esa gente vive en esa comarca. EXISTENTIAL, UNMARKED
c. *Hay esa gente en esa comarca. EXISTENTIAL, *

• POSTVERBAL SUBJECTS IN ENGLISH ARE GENERALLY POSSIBLE ONLY WITH

UNACCUSATIVE VERBS. SUCH A RESTRICTION DOESN’T APPLY TO SPANISH, WHERE VS IS
COMPATIBLE WITH ALL VERB TYPES (ALTHOUGH CONSTRAINED BY INFORMATIONAL
CONTENT). SINCE POSTVERBAL SUBJECTS OF UNACCUSATIVE VERBS ARE, IN FACT,

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OBJECTS, THE CONCLUSION SEEMS TO BE THAT ONLY SPANISH, AND NOT ENGLISH,
ALLOWS FOR ‘TRUE’ POSTVERBAL SUBJECTS.
• POSTVERBAL SUBJECTS IN ENGLISH REQUIRE THE PRESENCE OF A PREVERBAL XP:
THE EXPLETIVE THERE IN EXISTENTIAL AND PRESENTATIONAL STRUCTURES, PREDICATES
AND LOCATIVES IN STYLISTIC INVERSION. ALTHOUGH POSSIBLE, THE PREVERBAL XP IS
NOT OBLIGATORY IN SPANISH. IN THE P&P FRAMEWORK, SUCH A DISTINCTION HAS BEEN
TRADITIONALLY DERIVED FROM THE INTERACTION BETWEEN THE ‘EXTENDED
PROJECTION PRINCIPLE’ (EPP) AND THE ‘NULL OR PRO-DROP PARAMETER’ (CHOMSKY
1981). THE FORMER, A PRINCIPLE OF UG, REQUIRES AN XP AS SPECIFIER OF INFLEXION
(SPEC, INFL) IN ALL LANGUAGES. THE LATTER, A PARAMETER, ALLOWS LANGUAGES TO
CHOOSE BETWEEN THE OPTION OF FILLING SPEC, INFL ONLY WITH OVERT MATERIAL
(ENGLISH) OR WITH BOTH OVERT AND COVERT MATERIAL (THE NULL PRONOMINAL pro).

(55) a. *Mary is very sad. Has lost her favorite watch.

a’. Mary is very sad. She has lost her favorite watch.
b. María está muy triste. Pro ha perdido su reloj preferido.

(56) a. *Has been snowing for five days.

a’. It has been snowing for five days.
b. pro ha estado nevando durante cinco días.

(57) a. *Arrived some Russians ships.

a’. There arrived some Russians ships.
b. pro llegaron algunos barcos rusos.

(58) a. *Lived two rabbits in a little house.

a’. In a little house lived two rabbits.
b. pro vivían dos conejos en una pequeña casa.

• THE MOST RECENT VERSIONS OF P&P HAVE DISPENSED WITH BOTH THE EPP AND
THE ‘PRO-DROP PARAMETER’: THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ENGLISH AND SPANISH IN
(55)-(58) NOW REDUCE TO THE KIND OF VERBAL MORPHOLOGY IN EACH OF THESE
LANGUAGES. THE RICH VERBAL MORPHOLOGY OF SPANISH DOESN’T REQUIRE THE
PRESENCE OF ANY XP IN SPEC, INFL FOR THE ‘VISIBILITY’, ‘IDENTIFICATION’, ETC., OF
PERSON AND NUMBER FEATURES. ENGLISH VERBAL MORPHOLOGY IS, HOWEVER, POOR:
PERSON AND NUMBER FEATURES CAN’T BE ‘VISIBLE’, ‘IDENTIFIED’, IN THE ABSENCE OF AN
OVERT XP IN SPEC, INFL.

4.2. Preposing and postposing.

Preposing: the placement of an XP in sentence initial position for topichood

and/or contrast.
• Topic: in informal terms, topic is what the sentence is about; the rest of the
sentence is the comment.
• Contrast: the alternative to an expression present in discourse.

Postposing: the placement of an XP in or by sentence final position for reasons

related to IS or parsing.

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 Lingüística comparada: inglés-español
Topic 2
Prof. Gema Chocano

4.2.1. Preposing and postposing in English.

4.2.1.1. Topicalization.

(59) a. I didn’t speak to Mary.

b. Mary I didn’t speak to ------

(60) A: Can I have a bagel?

B: Sorry, we're out of bagels. A bran muffin I can give you.

(61) I was in the library last night and #an interesting guy I met.
(examples from Huddleston & Pullum 2002)

4.2.2.2. Left-Dislocation.

(62) a. I didn’t speak to Mary.

b. Mary, I didn’t speak to her.

(63) We went to Florida last summer, and we went to Disney World. The best ride
the whole time was Jurassic Park. It was so scary. My sister Chrissie, her eyes were
poppin' out.
(from Prince 1998)
4.2.2.3. Focalization.

(64) What did they name their dog?

a. They named their dog FIdo.
b. #FIdo they named their dog.

(65) (They weren't sure whether to name their dog Fido or Teddy).
What did they name their dog?
a. They named their dog FIdo.
b. FIdo they named their dog.

4.2.2.4. Right-Dislocation.

(66) a. He’s a nice guy, your brother.

b. They shot him, poor bastard.

4.2.2.5. Heavy NP-Shift.

(67) a. I bought that novel for Maggie.

b. *I bought for Maggie that novel.
c. ?? I bought the novel than won the most important European literary prize
for Maggie.
d. I bought for Maggie the novel that won the most important European literary
prize.

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 Lingüística comparada: inglés-español
Topic 2
Prof. Gema Chocano
4.2.2. Preposing and postposing in Spanish.

4.2.2.1. Clitic-Left-Dislocation.

(68) a. No he visto a tu madre en todo el día.

b. A tu madre no la he visto en todo el día.
c. *A tu madre no he visto en todo el día.

4.2.2.2. Focalization.

(69) a. En primaVEra fueron a París (no en otoño).

b. CaFÉ preferieron los visitantes (no agua).
c. *En primaVEra a París fueron (no en otoño).
d. *CaFÉ los visitantes prefirieron (no agua).

4.2.2.3. Clitic-Right-Dislocation.

(70) a. No la he visto en todo el día, a tu madre.

b. *No he visto en todo el día, a tu madre.

4.2.2.3. Heavy NP-Shift.

(71) a. Compré esa novela para María.

b. Compré para María esa novela.
c. ?? Compré la novela que ganó el premio literario europeo más importante
para María.
d. Compré para María la novela que ganó el premio literario europeo más
importante.

4.2.3. A look at some syntactic differences (Casielles 2004).

(72) a. Listo no lo parece.

a'. *Clever he doesn't seem it.
b. A todos no los hemos visto todavía.
b'. *Everybody I haven't seen them yet.
c. Que fumas lo sabemos todos.
c'. *That you smoke we all know it.

(73) a. Estos libros a Juan nunca se los dejaría.

a’. *These books John I would never lend them to him.
b. Un regalo a Juan jamás se lo ha comprado.
b’.*A gift John he has never bought it for him.

(74) a. La casa la limpia Juan.

b. *The house cleans it John.

(75) a. CaFÉ prefirieron los visitantes (no agua).

b. *CaFÉ los visitantes prefirieron (no agua).
c. FIdo they named their dog.
d. *FIdo named they their dog.

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 Lingüística comparada: inglés-español
Topic 2
Prof. Gema Chocano

But recall
(76) a. *Not a soul he saw.
a’. *Never in my life I have seen such a mess.
b. *Not a soul saw he.
b’. Never in my life have I seen such a mess.
c. Not a soul did he see.

(77) a. A Juan el LIbro le compró María (no el cuaderno).

b. *John the BOOK Mary bought him (not the notebook).
c. *For John the BOOK Mary bought (not the notebook).

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