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Cross Linguistic Variation in the Realm of Support Verbs

Platzack, Christer LU (2008) Comparative Germanic Syntax Workshop p.1-25
Abstract
In this paper I investigate a particular case of cross-Germanic variation, namely a number of syntactic differences with respect to VP Topicalization, VP Ellipsis and VP Pronomi-nalization. Swedish and English turn out to be the two extremes, with Danish and Norwegaian in between; Icelandic is like Swedish, but lacks the possibility to topicalize VP.

Arguments are given for the analysis that the support verb is a spelled-out little v, and that VP Topicalization is a fronting of a √P. With respect to tense, there are two options for the root: it may lack tense features, or it may have an uninterpretable but valued tense feature; lit-tle v always has an uninterpretable but valued tense featur. The first option is chosen by... (More)
In this paper I investigate a particular case of cross-Germanic variation, namely a number of syntactic differences with respect to VP Topicalization, VP Ellipsis and VP Pronomi-nalization. Swedish and English turn out to be the two extremes, with Danish and Norwegaian in between; Icelandic is like Swedish, but lacks the possibility to topicalize VP.

Arguments are given for the analysis that the support verb is a spelled-out little v, and that VP Topicalization is a fronting of a √P. With respect to tense, there are two options for the root: it may lack tense features, or it may have an uninterpretable but valued tense feature; lit-tle v always has an uninterpretable but valued tense featur. The first option is chosen by Eng-lish, Danish and Norwegian, which among other things has the consequence that the fronted root phrase has a non-finite verb, and that these languages accept VP Ellipsis. The second op-tion is chosen by all the Scandinavian languages, Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish, and is compatible with VP Topicalization with a tensed verb in the fronted part, no VP Ellip-sis but VP Pronominalization. (Less)
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author
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to conference
publication status
submitted
subject
keywords
Support verb, VP topicalization, VP Ellipsis, Scandinavian languages, VP Pronominalization, English
pages
25 pages
conference name
Comparative Germanic Syntax Workshop
conference dates
2008-06-12 - 2008-06-13
project
TEJS
language
English
LU publication?
yes
additional info
The information about affiliations in this record was updated in December 2015. The record was previously connected to the following departments: Swedish (015011001)
id
cb0478b7-852d-401f-8892-7dfdced0c773 (old id 1258912)
date added to LUP
2016-04-04 13:42:06
date last changed
2018-11-21 21:15:42
@misc{cb0478b7-852d-401f-8892-7dfdced0c773,
  abstract     = {{In this paper I investigate a particular case of cross-Germanic variation, namely a number of syntactic differences with respect to VP Topicalization, VP Ellipsis and VP Pronomi-nalization. Swedish and English turn out to be the two extremes, with Danish and Norwegaian in between; Icelandic is like Swedish, but lacks the possibility to topicalize VP.<br/><br>
	Arguments are given for the analysis that the support verb is a spelled-out little v, and that VP Topicalization is a fronting of a √P. With respect to tense, there are two options for the root: it may lack tense features, or it may have an uninterpretable but valued tense feature; lit-tle v always has an uninterpretable but valued tense featur. The first option is chosen by Eng-lish, Danish and Norwegian, which among other things has the consequence that the fronted root phrase has a non-finite verb, and that these languages accept VP Ellipsis. The second op-tion is chosen by all the Scandinavian languages, Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish, and is compatible with VP Topicalization with a tensed verb in the fronted part, no VP Ellip-sis but VP Pronominalization.}},
  author       = {{Platzack, Christer}},
  keywords     = {{Support verb; VP topicalization; VP Ellipsis; Scandinavian languages; VP Pronominalization; English}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{1--25}},
  title        = {{Cross Linguistic Variation in the Realm of Support Verbs}},
  year         = {{2008}},
}