Contrasting Contrastive
Left-Dislocation Explications
Marcel den Dikken
Bala´zs Sura´nyi
Of the three logically possible approaches to contrastive left-disloca-
tion (CLD) (base-generation cum deep anaphora; movement cum sur-
face anaphora; elliptical clausal juxtaposition cum resumption), two
are represented prominently in the recent literature. Ott’s (2014) ac-
count treats CLD uniformly in terms of clausal juxtaposition, the first
clause being stripped down to its contrastive topic via an ellipsis opera-
tion said to be akin to sluicing. He argues that this analysis is superior
to Grohmann’s (2003) approach, featuring movement within a single
prolific domain and late spell-out of a resumptive element. Using data
mainly from Hungarian and Dutch, we reveal problems for Ott’s
biclausal account that undermine its apparent conceptual appeal and
compromise its descriptive accuracy. We show that the ellipsis oper-
ation required is sui generis, that the approach fails to assimilate
the crosslinguistic variation attested in the availability of multiple
CLD to known cases of parametric variation in the left periphery,
and that it undergenerates in several empirical domains, including
P-stranding and ‘‘floated’’ arguments. Grohmann’s movement-cum-
surface-anaphora analysis as it stands also cannot handle all these data,
but it can be fixed to fit the facts. For Ott’s analysis, no patches seem
available. Some further empirical properties of CLD appear underiva-
ble from either of these approaches. For these, the base-generation-
cum-deep-anaphora analysis can be considered.
Keywords: contrastive left-dislocation, topicalization, right-disloca-
tion, resumption, deep vs. surface anaphora, ellipsis, P-stranding, mor-
phological connectivity, Dutch, Hungarian
1 Contrastive Left-Dislocation within the Landscape of Left-Dislocation Phenomena
1.1 The Empirical Landscape
Contrastive left-dislocation (henceforth CLD1) is a member of a family of left-dislocation phenom-
ena that also includes ‘‘ordinary’’ topicalization (TOP) and hanging-topic left-dislocation (HTLD).
This article grew out of a lively meeting of the syntax reading group at the Research Institute for Linguistics of the
Hungarian Academy of Sciences. An earlier version was presented by the first author at the first Budapest Linguistics
Conference (19 June 2015), under the title ‘‘Contrastive Left Dislocation: Why One Size Does Not Fit All.’’ We would
like to thank the anonymous LI reviewers for their outstanding comments, which led to a complete reorganization of the
text. We also gratefully acknowledge the essential financial support of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (which made
it possible for the first author to spend the 2014–2015 academic year in Budapest as a Distinguished Guest Scientist)
and the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA grant 84217, awarded to the second author). We are grateful to
George Soros.
1 We will follow the literature in using the term contrastive left-dislocation for the construction in focus here. A
reviewer claims that CLD does not have to be contrastive, not even implicitly: in the German example in (i), provided
Linguistic Inquiry, Volume 48, Number 4, Fall 2017
543–584
(cid:2) 2017 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
doi: 10.1162/ling_a_00254
543
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M A R C E L D E N D I K K E N A N D B A L A´ Z S S U R A´ N Y I
In German and Dutch, the three construction types can usually be most easily told apart by verb-
second (V2) and the presence, form, and placement of the element associated with the topic in
clause-initial position. The fronted topic in TOP constructions triggers V2 and is not linked to a
resumptive element. Both CLD and HTLD constructions feature a resumptive element, but its
form and placement usually differ. In CLD, the resumptive is typically a d-pronoun, preferably
(but not necessarily) placed in the left periphery (i.e., (1b) is more natural than (1b(cid:3))). In HTLD,
it is always a personal pronoun, often (but again not invariably) placed in the middle field (i.e.,
(1c) is more marked than (1c(cid:3)); HTLD is fully ungrammatical with weak ’m because the position
to the left of the finite verb in V2 constructions accepts no weak nonsubject material). In neither
CLD nor HTLD constructions is the fronted topic itself followed by the finite verb. When the
resumptive element is fronted into the left periphery, this element triggers V2. (The examples in (1)
are from Dutch. English lacks CLD, but it does have the other two left-dislocation constructions.)
(1) a. Die man ken
ik niet.
that man know I not
‘That man, I don’t know.’
ken
b. Die man, die
ik niet.
that man d-PRON know I not
niet.
that man I know d-PRON not
b(cid:3). Die man, ik ken
die
c. Die man, (cid:2)hem/*’m(cid:3) ken
ik niet.
that man him/’m know I not
(cid:2)hem/’m(cid:3) niet.
that man I know him/’m not
‘That man, I don’t know him/’m.’
c(cid:3). Die man, ik ken
TOP
CLD
HTLD
Apart from the presence and form of the resumptive element, TOP, CLD, and HTLD are
also distinct in that only HTLD can fail to exhibit case connectivity. In ordinary topicalization-
cum-V2 and CLD constructions, the topic must always have the case expected on the basis of
its relationship with the predicate in the clause. As Grohmann (2000:161, (24)) points out, HTLD
does not preclude case connectivity between the topicalized constituent and the proform to which
it is linked; but importantly, HTLD is unique in allowing the topic to surface with default case.
The German examples in (2)–(3) illustrate this.
by the reviewer, there is no obvious sense in which die Anna, the associate of the resumptive d-pronoun die, is a contrastive
topic. We note, however, that much here depends on how contrast is defined. If one adopts an approach to contrast in
the interpretations of contrastive topics in terms of mere delimitation, based on Roothian alternatives (Krifka 2008; see
Bu¨ring 2016), then perhaps even (iB) may turn out to be contrastive in that sense.
(i) A: Max mag Anna.
Max likes Anna
B: Ja, die Anna, die
mag jeder.
yes the Anna d-PRON likes everyone
‘Yes, Anna, everyone likes.’
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(2) Case connectivity
a. Diesem Doktoranden
wird jeder Linguist helfen.
this
b. Diesem Doktoranden,
doctoral.student.DAT will every linguist help
dem
wird jeder Linguist helfen.
545
TOP
CLD
this
doctoral.student.DAT d-PRON.DAT will every linguist help
b(cid:3). Diesem Doktoranden,
jeder Linguist wird dem
helfen.
this
doctoral.student.DAT every linguist will d-PRON.DAT help
c. Diesem Doktoranden,
ihm
wird jeder Linguist helfen.
HTLD
this
doctoral.student.DAT he.DAT will every linguist help
c(cid:3). Diesem Doktoranden,
jeder Linguist wird ihm
helfen.
doctoral.student.DAT every linguist will he.DAT help
this
All: ‘This doctoral student, every linguist will help (him).’
(3) Lack of case connectivity (default nominative)
a. *Dieser Doktorand
wird jeder Linguist helfen.
this
b. *Dieser Doktorand,
doctoral.student.NOM will every linguist help
dem
wird jeder Linguist helfen.
TOP
CLD
this
doctoral.student.NOM d-PRON.DAT will every linguist help
b(cid:3). *Dieser Doktorand,
jeder Linguist wird dem
helfen.
this
doctoral.student.NOM every linguist will d-PRON.DAT help
c. Dieser Doktorand,
ihm
wird jeder Linguist helfen.
HTLD
this
doctoral.student.NOM he.DAT will every linguist help
c(cid:3). Dieser Doktorand,
jeder Linguist wird ihm
helfen.
this
doctoral.student.NOM every linguist will he.DAT help
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1
The sentences in (2), exhibiting dative case connectivity (helfen ‘help’ is a dative case assigner),
are all grammatical (in the case of CLD and HTLD irrespective of where the resumptive element
is placed in the clause); but in (3), with default nominative on the topic, only the HTLD examples
are well-formed.
Even when the topic shows case connectivity, however, HTLD is generally taken not to
allow binding connectivity between a pronominal variable contained in it and a constituent of
the clause. In this regard, too, HTLD behaves differently from TOP and CLD, both of which
exhibit binding connectivity effects. The German examples in (4) illustrate this for bound variable
anaphora. Case connectivity does not guarantee binding connectivity: the HTLD sentences in
(4c–c(cid:3)) are grammatical with seinem ‘his’ interpreted referentially but do not support a bound
variable reading for seinem, despite case connectivity.
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(4) Binding connectivity
a.
b.
wird jeder Linguisti helfen.
TOP
doctoral.student.DAT will every linguist help
first
Seinemi ersten Doktoranden
his
‘His first doctoral student, every linguist will help.’
Seinemi ersten Doktoranden,
his
dem
first
doctoral.student.DAT d-PRON.DAT will every linguist help
wird jeder Linguisti helfen.
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M A R C E L D E N D I K K E N A N D B A L A´ Z S S U R A´ N Y I
b(cid:3). Seinemi ersten Doktoranden,
first
doctoral.student.DAT every linguist will d-PRON.DAT
jeder Linguisti wird dem
CLD
his
helfen.
help
his
c. *Seinemi ersten Doktoranden,
first
c(cid:3). *Seinemi ersten Doktoranden,
first
doctoral.student.DAT he.DAT will every linguist help
jeder Linguisti wird ihm
helfen.
his
*‘His first doctoral student, every linguist will help him.’
doctoral.student.DAT every linguist will he.DAT help
ihm
wird jeder Linguisti helfen.
HTLD
Surveying the empirical landscape of left-dislocation, we discover that CLD and HTLD
cannot be told apart on the basis of the placement of the resumptive element in the linear string,
and that even the form of the resumptive (d-pronoun vs. personal pronoun) is not necessarily a
foolproof discriminator because CLD can in principle also avail itself of personal pronouns as
resumptives (Ott 2014:273n7). But the facts that (a) HTLD but not CLD can fail to show case
connectivity and (b) CLD but not HTLD exhibits binding connectivity are two generally reliable
diagnostics. In any doubtful case, therefore, we should be able to resort to these tests to settle
the matter.
1.2 The Analytical Landscape
For each of the left-dislocation phenomena surveyed in section 1.1, the logical hypothesis space
admits three different approaches to account for their properties. These are listed in (5) (where
‘‘RES’’ marks a resumptive correlate, and ‘‘(cid:4)’’ represents an ellipsis site).
(5) The hypothesis space
a. External Merge
b. Internal Merge
c. Clausal juxtaposition cum ellipsis
[CP TOPICi . . . (RES) . . . ec(cid:2)ti . . . ]
[CP TOPICi . . . (RES) . . . ec(cid:4)ti . . . ]
[CP1 TOPIC (cid:4)] [CP2 . . . (RES) . . . ]
Inside CP1, option (5c) could in principle avail itself of either (5a) or (5b); that is, the topic
could be assumed to be base-generated in the left periphery of CP1 (as in (5a)) or to be moved
there (as in (5b)), binding a trace inside the ellipsis site (cid:4). Therefore, the difference between (5c)
and (5a–b) does not lie primarily in whether or not movement is exploited for the placement of
the topic. Rather, the key difference is that (5c) takes (some) left-dislocation phenomena to involve
a biclausal structure, with the topic occupying the left periphery of a clause (CP1) whose TP is
marked for ellipsis, and with the overt TP surfacing in a separate clause (CP2).
1.3 A Movement Approach to Left-Dislocation: Grohmann 2003
A prominent representative of a movement analysis along the lines of (5b) is that of Grohmann
(2003), whose approach to CLD is schematized in (6). (The notation ‘‘Top(cid:5)Vfin’’ is meant to
abstract away from the internal constitution of the Top-head in V2 constructions.)
(6) a. [TopP XP [Top(cid:5)Vfin [TP . . . XP . . . ]]]
b. [CP XP [C(cid:2) [TopP XP⇒RP [Top(cid:5)Vfin [TP . . . XP . . . ]]]]]
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In Grohmann’s approach, both TOP and CLD involve movement of the topic into the left periph-
ery, as in (6a), but in CLD the topic moves from this topic position into a position even higher
in the left periphery (identified by Grohmann as Spec,CP; see (6b)). This movement operation
takes place entirely within the confines of what Grohmann calls a ‘‘prolific domain’’ (in particular,
the information-structural domain, ‘‘(cid:5)’’). Because movement of the topic is confined to a single
prolific domain, it must be realized in such a way that both the moved copy in Spec,CP and the
copy left behind in the topic position are spelled out separately. This is what gives rise to the
emergence of the resumptive pronoun (‘‘RP’’) in the topic position: the copy of XP in Spec,TopP
in (6b) must be vocalized (via late insertion) in order for movement within a single domain to
be legitimate.2 By contrast, in TOP constructions the fronted constituent moves to the topic
position and stays there (see (6a)); no need for a resumptive element arises.
One might ask (as did one of our reviewers) what motivates movement of the topic within
the single (cid:5)-domain. Contrastiveness seems to us to supply a possible answer: the position in
the (cid:5)-domain that the topic reaches first is an ‘‘aboutness’’-topic position, while the higher one
is a contrastive topic position. This would be in line with Frascarelli and Hinterho¨lzl’s (2007)
analysis of the German and Italian split-CP field. In their analysis, the locus for contrastive topics
(CTopP) is above the position for familiar ‘‘aboutness’’-topics (FamP); in principle, a topic may
move first to FamP to license its [aboutness] property, and then on to CTopP to license its
[contrastive] property. (To our knowledge, it is true that a contrastive topic in a CLD construction
is always discourse-familiar.) If the topic phrase is derivationally related to two A¯ -positions
associated with complementary (rather than conflicting) features, the fact that it is spelled out in
both positions is understandable. This picture meshes well with the case of sentence-medial
resumptives, which are also in a noncontrastive topic position (see the discussion of (18) in section
3.1). It also explains why we cannot have both a sentence-medial and a sentence-initial resumptive:
a blend of Dutch (1b) and (1b(cid:3)) (*Die man, die ken ik die niet ‘that man d-PRON know I d-PRON
not’) would involve syntactically licensing the same noncontrastive topic property (familiarity or
aboutness) twice within the same clause.
The prosody of the Hungarian CLD construction may lend further support to this analysis
of the motivation for movement from Spec,TopP to Spec,CP in (6b). While the contour associated
with the left-dislocated XP may be a rise (L* H), the contour associated with the resumptive
cannot be. If (as seems highly likely) the possibility of being realized with a rising contour is
specifically linked to contrastive topic status in Hungarian, then prosody tells us that the dislocated
phrase is a contrastive topic, while the resumptive is not: it is an ordinary topic.
Because the topic, in both TOP and CLD constructions, originates inside TP and receives
case there, the fact that both TOP and CLD exhibit case connectivity follows straightforwardly
from the analysis in (6). Similarly, the presence of a silent copy of the topic-XP inside TP accounts
for the binding connectivity effects.
Grohmann’s (2003) analysis needs just a small amendment to get HTLD under its purview.
While in CLD constructions the left-dislocated topic arrives in Spec,CP via movement, in HTLD
2 See the discussion in section 1.4 of the possible existence of epithetic resumptives in CLD and the question this
raises for Grohmann’s treatment of the resumptive as a surface anaphor.
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M A R C E L D E N D I K K E N A N D B A L A´ Z S S U R A´ N Y I
constructions it can be taken to be externally merged there, as in (5a). Not binding a trace inside
the clause, the left-dislocate in HTLD generally exhibits no connectivity effects. Because the
topic itself does not perform a role in the argument structure of the predicate of the clause, a
proform is called upon to serve this purpose. The proform can optionally undergo topicalization
to Spec,TopP.
1.4 A Clausal-Juxtaposition-cum-Ellipsis Approach to CLD: Ott 2014
In an interesting contribution to this journal, Ott (2014) argues in detail for an approach to CLD
constructions that treats them as cases of clausal juxtaposition, as in (5c), with the first clause
being stripped down to its contrastive topic via ellipsis.3 For Ott’s (2014:269) German example
in (7a), this analysis is illustrated in (7b), where, as usual, strikethrough marks ellipsis.
(7) a. Den
Peter, den
habe ich gesehen.
the.ACC Peter d-PRON.ACC have I
‘I saw Peter.’
seen
b. [CP1 [den Peter]i [habe ich ti gesehen]] [CP2 denk [habe ich tk gesehen]]
The ellipsis approach handles many of the distinctive properties of CLD very handsomely.
For instance, the case connectivity between the left-dislocate and its correlate follows from the
fact that the left-dislocate originates in CP1 as the complement of the very same verb that takes
the correlate den as its complement in CP2. Another interesting expectation that Ott’s analysis
raises is that the resumptive element should in principle be allowed to be a topic quite different
in form from the left-dislocated constituent. Ott (2014:273n7) mentions in this connection that
epithets can serve as resumptives in CLD constructions, citing examples from German (see (8)),
Dutch, and Icelandic. We could add here that Hungarian also allows epithets to resume a dislocated
constituent (see (9a)).
(8) Den
Peter, den
the.ACC Peter the.ACC idiot
‘Peter, I saw that idiot yesterday.’
Idioten habe ich gestern
have I
noch gesehen.
yesterday still seen
(9) a.
azt a
Ja´nost,
szerencse´tlent
Ja´nos.ACC that the unfortunate.one.ACC sacked.3PL
‘Ja´nos, they sacked the poor guy.’
kiru´gta´k.
b. ?*Ja´nost,
azt a
Ja´nos.ACC sacked.3PL that the unfortunate.one.ACC
szerencse´tlent.
kiru´gta´k
For Hungarian, the fact that the resumptive epithet cannot occupy clause-internal position (see
(9b)) may confirm that we are dealing with CLD here. A reviewer claims that there is no binding
3 For contrastive right-dislocation, the same approach is readily applicable, with ellipsis this time targeting the
second clause. See section 6.3 for brief discussion, and Ott and De Vries 2016 for a detailed analysis of contrastive right-
dislocation in these terms.
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549
connectivity with an epithetic resumptive in German (whereas established cases of CLD, as we
have shown, do display binding connectivity). But we doubt that this is systematic; in both Dutch
(10) and Hungarian (11), bound variable connectivity is easy to get.
(10) Zijni eerstejaarsstudenten, die
sukkels wil
those nitwits wants no
geen enkele taalkundigei Barriers
Barriers
first.year.students
his
uitleggen.
explain
‘His first-year students, no linguist wants to explain Barriers to those nitwits.’
single linguist
(11) Egyma´si
dia´kjait,
a
szerencse´tleneket
mindke´t tana´ri
rendszeresen
each.other students.ACC the unfortunate.ones.ACC both
megbuktatja.
flunk.3SG
‘Each other’s students, both teachers regularly flunk the poor fellows.’
teacher regularly
Left-dislocation constructions with an epithet as the resumptive that admit a CLD derivation
pose a potentially serious question for a Grohmann-style movement approach, which treats the
resumptive as a surface anaphor. Can an epithet be treated as a late spell-out of the feature bundle
left behind in the topic position after the dislocated constituent has vacated this position? We do
not consider it impossible to treat the epithets in (8)–(11) as surface anaphors; but there is no
received wisdom in the late-insertion literature that would allow us to answer this question with
confidence. In Ott’s approach, the existence of CLD with epithetic resumptives is directly ex-
pected. This will only plead in favor of clausal juxtaposition, however, if the analysis can limit
the extent of the divergence between the topic in CP1 and the resumptive element in CP2. It is
reasonable to suspect that there must at least be an interpretive link between the two elements.
A hyponymy relation would a priori seem to be able to create such a link—and indeed, wa-
marked topics in Japanese are famously allowed to be hyperonyms of an associate to their right
(which may itself be wa-marked as well).
(12) Sakana-wa fugu-(cid:2)ga/wa(cid:3)
umai.
blowfish-NOM/ TOP good
fish-TOP
‘As for fish, blowfish is good.’
But hyponymy does not license CLD with a full-nominal ‘‘resumptive’’ in Germanic: Dutch
(13a) is sharply deviant; a hanging topic introduced in an as for–type phrase must be used instead,
as in (13b).4
4 In Hungarian, a hyponymy relation does not seem impossible (at least for some speakers), even with case connectiv-
ity: (i) is acceptable. The fact that the topic in (i) is a bare, article-less noun phrase suggests that it cannot be an ordinary
‘‘aboutness’’ topic; it must be contrastive.
ma´r
(i) Tengeri halat,
lazacot
ettem.
fish.ACC salmon.ACC already ate.1SG
sea
‘(lit.) Sea fish, salmon I’ve eaten already.’
But whatever is going on in (i), the construction still seems distinct from CLD, on four counts, suggesting that the subset
phrase lazacot ‘salmon.ACC’ (i.e., the hyponym) is not a simple counterpart to the resumptive that is found in CLD
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M A R C E L D E N D I K K E N A N D B A L A´ Z S S U R A´ N Y I
(13) a. *Zeevis, zalm heb ik wel eens gegeten.
sea.fish salmon have I AFF once eaten
b. Wat zeevis betreft,
zalm heb ik wel eens gegeten.
what sea.fish concerns salmon have I AFF once eaten
‘As far as sea fish is concerned, I’ve eaten salmon.’
We conclude, therefore, that in CLD constructions, hyponymy cannot license the presence of two
different though related topics in the left peripheries of Ott’s juxtaposed CPs. This subtracts
substantially from the prima facie appeal, in light of the epithet facts in (8)–(11), of the clausal-
juxtaposition analysis.
Ott does not explicitly raise the question of whether TOP and HTLD could be analyzed
along the lines of (5c) as well. The answer, a priori, is that they could—with movement of the
topic being involved in the case of TOP (ensuring connectivity) but not in HTLD constructions,
and with an overt resumptive element surfacing in CP2 in HTLD but not in TOP constructions. It
is not obvious what a biclausal approach along the lines of (5c) could buy us for TOP constructions:
everything we need to derive should be derivable in a single CP. So we will set (5c) aside as a
viable analysis for TOP. But whether Ott’s clausal-juxtaposition-cum-ellipsis analysis could han-
dle HTLD is an interesting question, particularly because HTLD shares with CLD what is perhaps
Ott’s primary motive for developing a biclausal syntax for the latter: ‘‘verb third’’ word order.
We now turn to this matter.
2 Verb Third
Both CLD and HTLD constructions violate the V2 constraint. The finite verb systematically
appears in third position: the left-dislocated topic is followed by some constituent, which in turn
immediately precedes the finite verb. That constituent can be the resumptive element (as in (14a))
or the subject (as in (14b)); it can even be some other major constituent of the clause, as shown
in (14c).
constructions. (a) A resumptive azt ‘DEM.ACC’ can be added after tengeri halat ‘sea fish.ACC’ and/or lazacot ‘salmon.ACC’,
as shown in (ii) (of which (iia) sounds best, (iib) being slightly more marked, and (iic) the least natural, though still
clearly grammatical).
(ii) a. Tengeri halat,
b. Tengeri halat,
azt
ettem.
lazacot
fish.ACC DEM.ACC salmon.ACC already ate.1SG
ettem.
azt
fish.ACC salmon.ACC DEM.ACC already ate.1SG
lazacot
ma´r
ma´r
c. Tengeri halat,
ettem.
fish.ACC DEM.ACC salmon.ACC DEM.ACC already ate.1SG
lazacot
ma´r
azt
azt
sea
sea
sea
(b) The subset nominal lazacot is also contrastive, unlike the resumptive in CLD. (c) The subset nominal does not have
to be interpreted as a topic; it can be interpreted (and accented) as a focus too. If ma´r ‘already’ is placed after the verb
in (i), the sentence becomes ambiguous: lazacot can then be interpreted either as a topic or as a focus. This is different
from examples like (46), below, in which the resumptive is a focus. The difference is that in examples like (46), the
resumptive can be a focus only if the left-dislocated phrase also functions as a focus (‘‘focus left-dislocation’’).
(d) Finally, it may also be relevant that this construction is quite restricted in Hungarian, allowing only for a fraction of
what Japanese and Chinese allow when it comes to the types of the two nominals, as well as their relation. The nominal
in CLD constructions, on the other hand, is rather unrestricted.
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551
(14)
P1
P2
a. Die man, (cid:2)die/hem(cid:3)
P3
zou
ik nooit aan Marie voorstellen.
that man d-PRON/him would I never to Marie introduce
b. Die man, ik
that man I
c. Die man, aan Marie
(cid:2)die/hem(cid:3)
zou
would d-PRON/him never to Marie introduce
zou
nooit aan Marie voorstellen.
nooit voorstellen.
ik (cid:2)die/hem(cid:3)
that man to Marie would I
All: ‘That man, I would never introduce to Marie.’
d-PRON/him never introduce
2.1 Deriving V3 on a Clausal Juxtaposition Approach
Ott capitalizes on the verb-third (V3) problem at several points in his article to motivate the
clausal-juxtaposition approach to CLD. His solution for this problem is clausal juxtaposition.
Consider (15).
(15) [CP1 die man TP], [CP2 XP [C(cid:3) Vfin [TP . . . ]]]
In CP2 in (15), there is just one constituent to the left of the finite verb; the left-dislocated topic
is in an elliptical clause of its own and does not count as the occupant of the initial position in
the V2 construction in CP2.5
HTLD constructions also exhibit a V3 pattern. So if Ott’s biclausal approach to CLD is to
be the solution for V3 word order, it is imperative that it carry over to HTLD. If it turned out
that the V3 problem for HTLD constructions could or even must be dealt with without an appeal
to clausal juxtaposition, this would defeat a major portion of Ott’s rationale for the clausal-
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5 An interesting question is whether Ott’s analysis opens the door in principle to ‘‘verb farther-than-third’’ patterns
in CLD constructions. The TP-ellipsis process involved in the derivation in (15) is structurally similar to sluicing. In a
sluicing construction, the identifier of the elliptical TP does not need to be in an adjacent clause; it can be separated by
an independent clause in cases such as (i), which consists of a sequence of three clauses, and where TP-ellipsis takes
place in the first, under identity with the TP of the last clause. Bearing this in mind, we are led to ask whether the
identifier of the elliptical TP in a clausal-juxtaposition structure of the type that Ott takes to underlie CLD could be
separated from the ellipsis site by one or more independent clauses. If this is allowed, it should be possible to derive
CLD constructions with ‘‘verb farther-than-third’’ word orders. (ii) is an attempt at constructing the relevant kind of
example in Dutch. Interestingly, (ii) is acceptable with ellipsis when the material intervening between hem and die is
pronounced with the prosody typical of a parenthetical. For parentheticals, Ott’s analysis may thus be a useful tool. But
parentheticals of course cannot just occur between a left-dislocate and a resumptive d-pronoun. Clausal juxtaposition
cum ellipsis may very well exist and do good things; but as we argue in this article, it does not seem to be helpful for
the analysis of CLD.
weet
hebben vermoord), ik ben er
volstrekt zeker van: ze
ik niet meer
wie (ze
hebben
(i) Al
though know I not anymore who they have
iemand vermoord.
someone killed
‘Though I don’t remember who, I am totally convinced: they killed someone.’
I am there totally
killed
certain of
they have
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vermoord). Ik ben er
(ii) Hem (hebben ze
him have
die
d-PRON have
‘Him, they killed. I am totally convinced: they killed him. Her, they robbed.’
volstrekt zeker van: die
I am there totally
they robbed
they killed
hebben ze
certain of
beroofd.
d-PRON have
hebben ze
vermoord. Haar,
they killed
her
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M A R C E L D E N D I K K E N A N D B A L A´ Z S S U R A´ N Y I
juxtaposition-cum-ellipsis analysis for CLD constructions. Let us examine, then, whether an ap-
proach along the lines of (5c) could be applied to HTLD.
Recall from section 1.1 that CLD and HTLD differ in that the latter but not the former can
exhibit a lack of case connectivity, and that the former but not the latter is claimed to give rise
to binding connectivity. The absence of binding and case connectivity would be difficult to
reconcile with an analysis in which the left-dislocated topic in an HTLD construction originates
local to its selector; it would follow from base-generation of the topic in its position in the high
left periphery. So within Ott’s approach, one could try to capture the difference between CLD
and HTLD by assuming that the elliptical TP inside CP1 in (15) contains a trace of the topic in
CLD constructions but not in HTLD constructions. That would provide a common solution for
the V3 problem shared by CLD and HTLD while still making the necessary distinctions for case
and binding connectivity.
However, if we allowed the topic of CP1 to bind no trace inside TP, we would expect that
when CP1 stands alone and has a nonelliptical TP, it should be able to contain a topic in the left
periphery that does not bind a trace in TP and hence shows no connectivity. This expectation is
not fulfilled: in ordinary topicalization constructions of the type in (1a), the topic always has the
case that it would also have had if it were in clause-internal position. There is no grammatical
alternative to (2a) (repeated in (16a)) in which the topic has default nominative case: (16b) is
ungrammatical.
(16) a. Diesem Doktoranden
wird jeder Linguist helfen.
((cid:4) (2a))
this
doctoral.student.DAT will every linguist help
‘This doctoral student, every linguist will help (him).’
b. *Dieser Doktorand
wird jeder Linguist helfen.
this
doctoral.student.NOM will every linguist help
It seems impossible, therefore, to treat the left-dislocated constituent of an HTLD construction
without case connectivity as the ordinary topic of an elliptical TP: doing so would massively
overgenerate the lack of case connectivity beyond HTLD.6
2.2 Deriving V3 without Clausal Juxtaposition
The alternative is to analyze HTLD without an appeal to ellipsis. In (17), the left-dislocated topic
is in a very high position in the left periphery of CP, one from which no V2 is triggered: ‘‘XP’’
is the specifier of a lower functional projection within CP (labeled ‘‘TopP’’ in (17), for concrete-
6 Applying Ott’s analysis to HTLD would actually open up even more possibilities than those considered in the
main text: it would allow either movement or base-generation not only in CP1 (the elliptical clause) but also in CP2.
Base-generation of a non-case-connected resumptive in the left periphery of CP2 does not seem to be empirically available;
but it would be unclear, on theoretical grounds, why it should be precluded.
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ness), and the finite verb is raised to the head of that projection.7 The key difference between
CLD and HTLD, on an approach along the lines of (17), lies in whether the topic arrives in
Spec,CP via movement (as in Grohmann’s analysis for CLD constructions) or is base-generated
there (which is what one would want to say for HTLD). The fact that CLD exhibits connectivity
effects but HTLD does not can be directly related to the movement vs. base-generation dichotomy.
(17) [CP [TOPIC] [C [TopP XP Vfin . . . ]]]
For the analysis in (17), solving the V3 problem posed by CLD and HTLD constructions
comes down to ensuring that the C-position between the topic and the resumptive must remain
silent. Ott rejects a Grohmann-style analysis of CLD precisely because it does not explain why
this C must be silent. But it is not tremendously difficult to provide a descriptive perspective on
the silence of C in (17) within a wider context. If highest-subject wh-questions in English are the
result of movement of the subject from Spec,IP to Spec,CP (as is standardly assumed in the
literature, even in Chomsky’s (1986) discussion of the Vacuous Movement Hypothesis), a general-
ization covering both Who left? vs. *Who did leave? and the silence of C in (17) can be couched
in terms of the contiguity of the extraction and landing sites of movement: whenever what moves
to Spec,CP is separated from its lower copy by just the C-head, this head must be silent. This of
course is just a descriptive generalization—and one that would have to be tweaked to carry over
to HTLD (which involves base-generation of the topic in Spec,CP, in light of the absence of
connectivity). But once we establish a link between the silence of C in (17) and the silence of C
in highest-subject root wh-questions, the fact that CLD constructions exhibit V3 word order does
not seem fatal for a Grohmann-style analysis.
If there is indeed at least one position for topics that is not immediately followed by the
finite verb in root contexts in the Germanic V2 languages, the V3 problem no longer compels
us to embrace an Ott-style clausal-juxtaposition approach to CLD.
3 Resumption and Subordination
In Grohmann’s analysis of CLD, the sole purpose of the resumptive element is to salvage the
otherwise illegal domain-internal movement of the topic. In this analysis, the surface anaphor is
a copy of the left-dislocated constituent, its spell-out being tied directly to the very local movement
of the dislocate, within a single prolific domain. Any occurrences of such resumptives in positions
that are not local to the dislocate thus stand out as potential problems for the analysis. There are
two situations in which such nonlocal resumption could arise, in principle. In the first, we are
dealing with a single clause and the resumptive occurs somewhere inside the clause, not in its
7 Another possibility for HTLD would be (i), where, as in (5c), the topic is outside the CP that contains the finite
verb. Unlike the topic in (5c), however, the topic in (i) is not in an elliptical clause: it is paratactically construed, all by
itself, with the CP containing the resumptive pronoun (see Kluck 2011:sec. 7.2 for an argument that paratactic coordina-
tion is immune to the law of coordination of likes).
(i) [TOPIC] [CP XP Vfin . . . ]
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left periphery. In the second, we are dealing with biclausal constructions in which the left-dislocate
is upstairs and the resumptive is in the left periphery of the embedded clause.
3.1 Root CLD
We have already shown cases of the first type: in the Dutch example (1b(cid:3)) (repeated here as
(18)), the d-pronominal resumptive does not obviously appear in the Spec,TopP position in (17).
(18) Die man, ik ken
die
niet.
that man I know d-PRON not
‘That man, I don’t know him.’
((cid:4) (1b(cid:3)))
But although the resumptive seems to be quite a distance away from the topic, it clearly has
scrambled across niet ‘not’. And since the subject of (18) is itself a topic as well, we could devise
an analysis of (18) that is compatible with Grohmann’s idea that the resumptive is spelled out
for ‘‘antilocality’’ reasons, by placing ik and die each in the specifier position of its own TopP
in the left periphery, and pronouncing the finite verb in the higher of the two Top-heads, as in
(19).
(19) [CP XP(cid:4)die man [C(cid:2) [TopP1 ik [Top(cid:5)Vfin(cid:4)ken [TopP2 XP⇒RP [Top
[TP . . . XP . . . ]]]]]]]
Since the copy of XP in Spec,TopP2 is within the same prolific domain as its antecedent, spelling
this XP out as a resumptive element is, by the logic of Grohmann’s analysis, just as obligatory
in (19) as it is in (6b). Linear orders of the type in (18), in which the phrasal material intervening
between the topic and the resumptive is itself topical, can thus be accommodated by Grohmann’s
system.
The trouble with low resumptives becomes more serious, however, when we include sen-
tences of the type in (20) in the discussion.
(20) a. Zo’n auto, die
zou
zelfs JAN niet kopen.
such.a car
d-PRON would even Jan not buy
b. Zo’n auto, zelfs JAN zou
die
niet kopen.
such.a car
Both: ‘Such a car, even JAN wouldn’t buy.’
even Jan would d-PRON not buy
In these examples, the subject is a focus (marked by the focus particle zelfs ‘even’ and by focus
prosody)—and in (20b), this focal subject linearly intervenes between the left-dislocated topic
zo’n auto ‘such a car’ and the resumptive d-pronoun die. Now we cannot avail ourselves of TopP
recursion. We could certainly place the subject of (20b) in a high focus position, and the resumptive
in a relatively low topic position. But the facts from a variety of languages whose information-
structural left peripheries have been studied in detail (especially Hungarian and Italian) have made
it clear that within a single functional domain, FocP is always below TopP (see Puska´s 2000,
Belletti 2004, Beninca` and Poletto 2004, Rizzi 2004, pace Rizzi 1997). Though foci can occur
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to the left of topics, it is standard in the cartographic literature to take the FocP and TopP in such
cases to belong to different structural domains: the FocP occurs outside TP, and the low TopP
belongs to the VP’s left periphery.
(21) [CP
C [TopP
Top [FocP
Foc [TP T ( . . . ) [TopP
Top ( . . . )
[VP V. . . ]]]]]]
The structure in (21) could accommodate the linear order of (20b) by placing the left-
dislocated topic zo’n auto ‘such a car’ in the specifier position to the left of (silent) C, the focused
subject in Spec,FocP, the finite verb in Foc, and the resumptive d-pronoun in the lower Spec,TopP.
The CP whose specifier is occupied by the left-dislocated topic and the FocP whose specifier is
occupied by the focused subject belong to the same functional sequence, and to the same prolific
domain. The question for Grohmann’s analysis would be whether the TopP where the resumptive
is spelled out belongs to this prolific domain as well.
The TopP below T is in a different functional sequence: it belongs to the left periphery of
VP, not to that of TP. But this TopP is of the same nature as the functional projection harboring
the left-dislocated topic (CP): both are discourse-related projections. As long as membership in
a particular prolific domain is based on a projection’s nature and not on its position in the clause,
we can maintain that CP and the lower TopP in (21) belong to the same prolific domain: the
discourse domain (labeled ‘‘(cid:5)’’ by Grohmann) of the root clause.8 If movements linking two
positions included in the same prolific domain for a particular clause require both members of
the chain to be spelled out, even if the positions in question are linearly far apart and do not
belong to the same functional sequence,9 the obligatory pronunciation of the resumptive in (20b)
can be accounted for.
Now, how does Grohmann’s approach to CLD fare in cases of biclausal sentences in which
the left-dislocate appears upstairs and the resumptive is spelled out in the left periphery of the
embedded clause? We will explore this question by juxtaposing Ott’s and Grohmann’s analyses.
8 The suggestion in the main text is a refinement of Grohmann’s (2003) work, not proposed by Grohmann but fully
within the spirit of his approach. It is designed to apply within a single clause, not cross-clausally. Note that assuming
the text approach to the makeup of prolific domains will also allow us to simplify the analysis of (18): we will no longer
be compelled to treat the subject as occupying a Spec,TopP position in the left periphery; it can simply occupy the
structural subject position, Spec,TP, as long as the resumptive is taken to occupy a Spec,TopP position (in the left periphery
of the VP).
An alternative to the approach pursued in the main text would be to assume that movement from the sentence-medial
Spec,TopP position to Spec,CP must proceed via a clause-medial phase-edge position just outside the lower TopP, possibly
Spec,VP (or Spec,AspP), as illustrated in (i). Such an approach features a local movement step from Spec,TopP to the
phase-edge position; if these two positions are in the same prolific domain, spell-out of the lower SpecTopP in the form
of a resumptive will be required. We will not develop this alternative in any detail here because it is unclear to us at this
time whether the lower TopP is indeed local to a clause-medial phase boundary.
v [TopP
(i) [CP
9 For Grohmann (2003), questions regarding discontinuous (cid:5)-domains did not arise because he did not countenance
Top ( . . . ) [VP V . . . ]]]]]]]
Foc [TP T ( . . . ) [vP
Top [FocP
C [TopP
the possibility of discourse-related projections between TP and VP.
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3.2 Embedded and Long-Distance CLD
We begin by constructing an example in which a topicalized element occurs to the left of the
subject in an embedded clause. This is much harder in Dutch and German than it is in English—but
it can be done, via what has been called ‘‘focus scrambling’’ (Neeleman 1994), as in Dutch
constructions of the type in (22). Here the scrambled element is a contrastive topic, just as in
CLD constructions.10
(22) Ik denk dat zo’n
auto zelfs JAN niet zou
kopen.
think that such.a car
I
‘I think that such a car even JAN wouldn’t buy.’
even Jan not would buy
The examples in (20) already showed that zo’n auto ‘such a car’ can undergo CLD in the presence
of a focus. Putting (20) and (22) together, we can now ask (a) whether CLD of zo’n auto within
the embedded clause to a position to the left of the d-pronoun is possible, and (b) whether the
topic can be placed in the matrix clause, leaving behind a resumptive d-pronoun inside the embed-
ded clause.
The answer to the first question is that with the ordinary verb-final word order of subordinate
clauses, the result is ungrammatical, as shown in (23).
(23) *Ik denk dat zo’n
auto, die
I
think that such.a car
zelfs JAN niet zou
d-PRON even Jan not would buy
kopen.
The second question is answered by (24): long-distance left-dislocation of zo’n auto is grammati-
cal as long as V3 order obtains in the root clause, as in (24b).11
(24) a. ??Zo’n auto denk ik dat die
zelfs JAN niet zou
kopen.
b.
such.a car
think I
Zo’n auto, ik denk dat die
such.a car
I
that d-PRON even Jan not would buy
zelfs JAN niet zou
kopen.
think that d-PRON even Jan not would buy
The key contrast is the one between (23) and (24b).
For Ott’s (2014) clausal-juxtaposition-cum-ellipsis analysis, accounting for this contrast is
quite simple. (23) is underivable, as it would have to involve embedding the juxtaposed CPs
10 The focus part of the term focus scrambling thus refers not to the focused nature of the scrambled element but
to the fact that the constituent immediately following the scrambled element (which in (22) is the subject) must be a
focus.
11 To allay potential concerns about the status of (24b) as a CLD construction (rather than a case of HTLD), we
demonstrate in (i) that a pronoun inside the left-dislocated matrix topic can be interpreted as a bound variable linked to
a quantified noun phrase in the embedded clause. Since CLD differs from HTLD precisely in that it exhibits binding
connectivity, the grammaticality of (ia–b) reliably indicates that we are indeed dealing with long-distance CLD here.
(i) a. Zijni eerste vriendin, ik denk dat die
zelfs een verstokte vrijgezeli niet gauw zal vergeten.
first
his
‘His first girlfriend, I think that even a confirmed bachelor won’t easily forget.’
think that d-PRON even a
girlfriend I
confirmed bachelor not soon will forget
b. Zijni babykleertjes, ik denk dat die
his
‘His baby clothes, I think that even the strictest nudist will remember lovingly.’
zelfs de striktste nudisti zich liefdevol zal herinneren.
think that d-PRON even the strictest nudist REFL lovingly will remember
baby.clothes
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below the complementizer dat ‘that’; such ‘‘CP recursion’’ structures are generally impossible
with verb-final order.12 In (24), CP-juxtaposition proceeds in the root clause, with the resumptive
d-pronoun contained in the second CP, as depicted in (25).
(25) [CP1 [zo’n auto]i [denk ik dat zelfs Jan ti niet zou kopen]]
[CP2 ik denk dat diek zelfs Jan tk niet zou kopen]
The well-formedness of CP1 is entirely on a par with that of the long-distance topicalization case
in (26). The fact that the left-dislocate is followed by the subject of the matrix clause (as in (24b))
rather than by the finite verb (as in (24a)) follows from the fact that CP2 is a subject-initial V2
construction. The placement of the d-pronoun to the left of the embedded subject is made possible
by focus scrambling.
(26) Zo’n auto denk ik dat zelfs JAN niet zou
kopen.
such.a car
‘Such a car, I think even JAN wouldn’t buy.’
that even Jan not would buy
think I
12 It is interesting to note in this connection that (23) can be vastly improved by performing V2 (following the d-
pronoun) inside the bridge verb complement, as in (i). For (24), by contrast, embedded V2 (eV2) renders both sentences
fully ungrammatical (see (ii))—not surprisingly, in light of the fact that extraction from an eV2 clause below a bridge
verb is generally impossible in Dutch (*Wat denk je dat zelfs Jan zou niet kopen? ‘(lit.) what think you that even Jan
would not buy’).
(i) ?Ik denk dat zo’n
auto, die
zou
zelfs JAN niet kopen.
I
think that such.a car
(ii) a. *Zo’n auto denk ik dat die
d-PRON would even Jan not buy
zou
zelfs JAN niet kopen.
such.a car
think I
that d-PRON would even Jan not buy
b. *Zo’n auto, ik denk dat die
I
such.a car
think that d-PRON would even Jan not buy
zou
zelfs JAN niet kopen.
Ott (2014:sec. 5.4) credits Frey (2004) with the observation that a left-dislocated topic in German can be linked to
its resumptive d-pronoun across the boundary of an eV2 clause, as in (iii). He argues that his clausal-juxtaposition-cum-
ellipsis approach provides a simple account of the grammaticality of (iii): in the elliptical CP1, the complement of the
verb glaubt ‘thinks’ is a verb-final subordinate clause, from which extraction of seinem Vater ‘his.DAT father’ proceeds
without difficulty; only in the nonelliptical CP2 does glaubt combine with an eV2 clause. The structure in (iv) (cf. Ott’s
(78)) illustrates.
(iii) Seinemi Vater, Maria glaubt [CP jederi
wird dem
Geld
leihen].
his.DAT father Maria thinks
‘Maria thinks that everyone will lend money to his father.’
everyone will d-PRON.DAT money lend
(iv) [CP1 [seinemi Vater]k [glaubt Maria dass jederi tk Geld leihen wird]]
[CP2 Maria glaubt jederi wird dem Geld leihen]
(V-final)
(eV2)
Note, however, that if Ott’s strategy of substituting a V-final clause for an eV2 clause inside the elliptical CP1 were
generally available, Dutch (iib) ought to be as good as (24b), from which it differs only with regard to the V2 word order
in the subordinate clause.
Ott (2014:298–299n42) himself points out that mixing and matching clauses as in (iv) will not account for all contexts
in which long CLD appears to be island-insensitive. Grewendorf (2008) presents cases of CLD featuring the d-pronominal
resumptive inside a conditional clause. For those, the clausal-juxtaposition analysis cannot produce an island-free environ-
ment for fronting of the left-dislocated topic. Ott could capitalize here on the amnestying effect on island violations
exerted by ellipsis more generally (as he notes himself ). It is likely, however, that no dependency across an island is
involved in these cases at all: relevant here is Heck’s (2008:116) discussion of Felix’s (1983) examples of apparent
extraction from clause-initial conditionals in Bavarian varieties of German.
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M A R C E L D E N D I K K E N A N D B A L A´ Z S S U R A´ N Y I
For Grohmann’s movement approach to CLD, a central question posed by (24b) is where
the topic is launched from. Note that (24b) features embedded-clause word order, with the verbs
clustered at the end of the string. CLD within a subordinate clause is not possible with verb-final
order: (23) is ungrammatical. So the embedded clause of (23) cannot underlie that of (24b): we
cannot take the topic to be left-dislocated within the embedded clause prior to its left-dislocation
in the matrix clause. But a topic position is clearly available to the left of the focused subject of
the embedded clause: the resumptive d-pronoun is spelled out right there in (24b). So we could
in principle launch the left-dislocated constituent from the topic position of the subordinate clause.
Movement of the left-dislocate from the topic position of the lower clause should deliver
the pronunciation of a d-pronoun in that lower clause.13 Under Grohmann’s approach, it can do
so only if in the course of the derivation of (24b) the left-dislocate undergoes a movement entirely
confined to one prolific domain within the embedded clause, prior to being extracted from that
clause. On standard assumptions, movement from a finite clause proceeds via the Spec,CP position
of that clause, leaving an intermediate copy behind in that specifier position. Movement from
Spec,TopP to Spec,CP would certainly be very local. But does it take place within a prolific
domain? The answer depends on whether the Spec,CP position in which an intermediate stopover
is standardly taken to be made on the way out of an embedded clause counts as belonging to the
discourse-related (cid:5)-domain of that clause. If it does, the derivation of (24b) can proceed as in
(27), which, by the logic of Grohmann’s work, will deliver the obligatory resumptive d-pronoun
to salvage the movement within a single (cid:5)-domain.14
(27) [DP zo’n auto] . . . [CP DP [C(cid:4)dat [TopP DP⇒RP(cid:4)die [Top [TP . . . DP . . . ]]]]]
While this accounts for the obligatory emergence of the resumptive in (24b), it does not yet
explain the contrast between this example and its close counterpart in (24a). This contrast can
be understood in light of the fact that the information-structural status of a particular constituent
is specified once only in the course of the syntactic derivation. In the derivation in (27), represent-
ing (24b), the DP zo’n auto ‘such a car’ is identified as a topic in virtue of its move to the
Spec,TopP position of the subordinate clause. Onward movement into the matrix clause must not
add information-structural baggage to this DP; so precisely the only position in the matrix clause
where zo’n auto is welcome to be spelled out is a Spec,CP position that is not given information-
structural content, as in (24b). The redundancy of movement of zo’n auto from a Spec,TopP
13 Nonrealization of the d-pronoun turns the contrast in (24a–b) upside down.
(i) a. Zo’n auto denk ik dat zelfs JAN niet zou
kopen.
such.a car
think I
that even Jan not would buy
b. *Zo’n auto, ik denk dat zelfs JAN niet zou
kopen.
such.a car
I
think that even Jan not would buy
((cid:4) (26))
14 Note that in the derivation in (27), the C-head between the copy of zo’n auto in the embedded Spec,CP and the
resumptive in Spec,TopP is pronounced, as dat. In section 2, we noted that Grohmann’s approach can capture the V3
problem by assuming that whenever what moves to Spec,CP is separated from its lower copy by just the C-head, this
head must be silent. This holds only if what occupies Spec,CP is itself pronounced; in (27), the occupant of the embedded
Spec,CP is silent.
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position in the embedded clause to a Spec,TopP position in the root clause (which would result
in subject–finite verb inversion in the root) could deliver the marginality of (24a), compared to
the woefulness of (23). This may reflect well on Grohmann’s analysis of CLD. It is unclear how
Ott’s clausal-juxtaposition approach could capture the relative contrast between (23) and (24a):
the latter seems radically impossible without resorting to scattered deletion in (25) ( preserving
denk ik in CP1 and eliding ik denk in CP2).
To support the idea that prolific-domain-internal movement takes place within the subordinate
clause in CLD constructions in which a clause boundary separates the dislocate and the correlate,
we turn to Hungarian. First, we need to show that Hungarian has CLD. Example (28) shows this:
it features a demonstrative correlate, and connectivity effects for both case and binding, very
much as in Germanic. And just like Germanic, Hungarian allows the dislocate and the correlate
to be separated by a clause boundary. We see this in (29); here, along with case connectivity,
there is also connectivity for definiteness between the left-dislocate (indefinite rossz dia´kot ‘bad
students.ACC’) and the predicate of the embedded clause (vesznek ‘admit’); see section 5.4 for
more discussion.
(28) A legjobb dia´kja´t,
azt
minden tana´r
szereti.
the best
‘Hisi best student, every teacheri loves.’
student.POSS.ACC DEM.ACC every
teacher loves.DEF
(29) Rossz dia´kot
fel.
student.ACC so heard.1SG that DEM.ACC not admit.3PL.INDEF PRT
u´gy hallottam, hogy azt
nem vesznek
bad
‘I heard that they do not admit bad students.’
The fact that the dislocate and the correlate in (29) are not within the same local domain on
the surface can be accommodated within Grohmann’s analysis if in the embedded clause the
dislocate moves from TopP to CP (within the same prolific domain), and if it is the (silent) copy
of the dislocate in the embedded CP that triggers the PF rule that requires the copy in the embedded
TopP to be spelled out. That the dislocate originates within the embedded clause and undergoes
syntactic movement from the lower clause into the higher clause is shown by the emergence of
island effects of the type in (30a), parallel to what we find under long-distance topicalization (as
in (30b)).15
(30) a. *Jo´
b. *Jo´
dia´kot
felmondtam, mert
fel.
good student.ACC resigned.1SG because DEM.ACC not admitted.3PL PRT
fel.
felmondtam, mert
good student.ACC DEM.ACC resigned.1SG because not admitted.3PL PRT
Both (intended): ‘I resigned because they did not admit any good students.’
nem vettek
nem vettek
dia´kot
azt
azt
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15 Though marginally better than (30b), the CLD construction in (30a) is certainly not grammatical. On island effects
in CLD constructions, recall also footnote 12.
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That the dislocate is indeed present at some derivational stage in the lower CP (right above the
demonstrative in the left periphery of the subordinate clause) in sentences like (29) is also shown
by the following pattern in infinitival embedding, where (31b) is the key example:
(31) a. Legala´bb ke´t
jo´
dia´kot
azt
szeretne´k
a
programba
two good student.ACC DEM.ACC would.like.1SG.INDEF the program.into
at.least
felvenni.
PRT.admit.INF
‘I would like to admit at least two good students to the program.’
a
szeretne´k
dia´kot
[azt
jo´
programba
two good student.ACC would.like.1SG.INDEF DEM.ACC the program.into
b. *Legala´bb ke´t
at.least
felvenni].
PRT.admit.INF
(32) A: Mit mondta´l a
gulya´sro´l?
what said.2SG the goulash.about
‘What did you say about goulash?’
B: Hogy szeretne´k
gyakrabban enni].
that would.like.1SG.INDEF DEM.ACC more.often eat.INF
‘That I would like to eat it more often.’
[azt
(33) A: Szeretne´l
Ja´nosnak segı´tse´get nyu´jtani?
would.like.2SG Ja´nos.DAT help.ACC provide.INF
‘Would you like to give Ja´nos help?’
B: Nem, de szeretne´k
[a
felese´ge´nek
no
but would.like.1SG the wife.POSS.DAT
(*annak)
tana´csot
DEM.DAT advice.ACC give.INF
adni].
B(cid:3): Nem, de a
felese´ge´nek
annak
szeretne´k
tana´csot
adni.
but the wife.POSS.DAT DEM.DAT would.like.1SG advice.ACC give.INF
no
‘No, but I’d like to give his wife advice.’
Infinitival complement clauses allow in principle for a topic within their bounds—even an ana-
phoric demonstrative one, as shown in (32). But they do not permit the simultaneous presence
of both a dislocate and a correlate in their left periphery. This is demonstrated by (33B). Against
this background, the ungrammaticality of (31b) suggests that when the dislocate and its correlate
are severed by a clause boundary, the dislocate must topicalize within the lower clause and then
move on to the local Spec,CP—which is possible in the finite clause in (29) but not in the
infinitival one in (31b) (in light of (32B)), nor in (30a), with an adjunct island.
If all apparent cases of a nonlocal relation between the dislocate and its surface-anaphoric
correlate can be accounted for along the lines pursued here, such that the dislocate and the correlate
are in fact in the same prolific domain at the relevant stage in the derivation (sanctioning the
spell-out of the correlate), the ‘‘antilocality’’ approach to surface-anaphoric correlates in CLD
constructions, as in Grohmann 2003, will be upheld. For Ott’s (2014) clausal-juxtaposition ap-
proach, by contrast, it is not clear how the facts canvassed in this section can all be made to fall
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into place. We have already noted the relative contrast between (23) and (24a); the robust contrast
between Hungarian (31b) and (31a)/(32B) seems particularly difficult to fit in with Ott’s analysis.
4 Ellipsis?
Ott likens the ellipsis process whereby the clausal chunk following the fronted topic is rendered
silent to the ellipsis standardly postulated in the analysis of sluicing and fragment answers. For
sluicing and fragment answers, the constituent marked for ellipsis is customarily identified as IP
(or TP). Referring to work in progress, Ott (2014:270n2) suggests that ‘‘‘IP-ellipsis’ is a misnomer
and that what undergoes deletion in all relevant cases is in fact the derived sister of the fronted
operator’’; he chooses to ‘‘use the noncommittal term clausal ellipsis . . . to designate the relevant
ellipsis pattern.’’
4.1 Not Like Sluicing
It is by no means easy to perform clausal ellipsis after a fronted topic, however.16 We will illustrate
this on the basis of data from both Dutch and Hungarian, the latter being famously transparent
when it comes to the syntax of the left periphery. Consider first the examples in (34) and (35),
from Dutch and Hungarian, respectively. Here, clausal ellipsis following the contrastive topic in
the second clause is grammatical—thanks to the fact that the topic here contrasts explicitly with
the topic of the previous clause. The role of explicit contrast is brought out by the contrasts
between the (a)- and (b)-examples in (36) and (37). Here, ellipsis after jou ‘you’ or neked ‘you.DAT’
is impossible. At least one alternative to the contrastive topic must be explicitly provided in the
discourse in order for clausal ellipsis to be licensed; in the absence of explicit contrast, the sentence
must be pronounced in full, as in the (b)-cases.
(34) [CTop Mij] heeft de baas opslag gegeven. [CTop Jou]?
the boss raise
me has
given
you
‘The boss gave me a raise. Did he give you one, too?’
(35) Nekem emele´st
adott a
me.DAT raise.ACC gave the boss
‘The boss gave me a raise. Did he give you one, too?’
fo˝no¨k. [CTop Neked]?
you.DAT
16 If fronted topics (including contrastive ones) are not operators, then what follows the topic in the structure of CP1
is not the derived sister of a fronted operator—which, by Ott’s own assumptions, should then preclude ellipsis of this
constituent. The fronted topic in CP1 in the structure in (5c) is in an A¯ -position, certainly; but material in an A¯ -position
in the left periphery of the clause is not necessarily operator material. As Lasnik and Stowell’s (1991) work on weakest
crossover has shown, topicalization in English fails to give rise to weak crossover effects, in contradistinction to unequivocal
cases of operator fronting—and this absence of weak crossover effects manifests itself regardless of how the fronted
topic is interpreted. Importantly for present purposes, a contrastive reading of the topic (which is brought out by continuing
(ib) with something like Peter, she doesn’t) supports a coreferential interpretation of John and the possessive pronoun
just as well as a noncontrastive one.
(i) a. *Whoi does hisi mother love?
b.
Johni, hisi mother really loves.
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(36) Ik heb gehoord dat de baas wat mensen opslag heeft gegeven.
I have heard
a. *[CTop De concie¨rge]?
that the boss some people raise
has
given
the janitor
b. Heeft hij de concie¨rge opslag gegeven?
he the janitor
has
‘I heard that the boss gave some people a raise. Did he give the janitor a raise?’
given
raise
(37) U´ gy hallottam, hogy a
fo˝no¨k emele´st
raise.ACC gave some
adott ne´ha´ny embernek.
people.DAT
heard.1SG that
so
a. *[CTop A gondnoknak]?
the boss
the janitor.DAT
b. A gondnoknak emele´st
adott?
the janitor.DAT raise.ACC gave
‘I heard that the boss gave some people a raise. Did he give the janitor a raise?’
This requirement of explicit contrast imposed on the licensing of clausal ellipsis in topicaliza-
tion constructions is conspicuously not in effect in CLD constructions. The fronted topic in CLD
does not need to be explicitly contrastive: (1b), for instance (repeated as (38)), does not have to
be preceded or followed in the discourse by a statement in which die man ‘that man’ is contrasted
with some other topic. If CLD is to represent the left-dislocate as the topic of an elliptical clause,
as in Ott’s analysis, the licensing of ellipsis must be more lenient here than in established cases
of clausal ellipsis in contrastive topicalization constructions.
(38) Die man, die
ken
ik niet.
that man d-PRON know I not
‘That man, I don’t know.’
((cid:4) (1b))
The ellipsis problem is compounded by the fact that in (38) there are two topics, each of
which, in Ott’s analysis, is placed in the left periphery of its own clause: die man ‘that man’ in
the elliptical CP1, and die, its correlate, in CP2. But although the two topics are presumably in
the same structural position in their respective clauses, ellipsis is licensed only after the first. In
(39), from Dutch, and (40), from Hungarian, the content of the TP is fully recoverable from
speaker A’s statement. But despite its recoverability, and even though eliding TP after the topic
is possible in a simple topicalization construction (recall (34) and (35)), ellipsis of TP is not
allowed after the correlate in (39B(cid:3),B(cid:6)) and (40B(cid:3),B(cid:6)), regardless of whether there is ellipsis after
the left-dislocate. The ungrammaticality of the utterances by speakers B(cid:3) and B(cid:6) presumably has
the same source. Under Ott’s assumptions, that source remains unclear.
(39) A:
[CTop Zijni zoon], die
leent iedereeni geld.
his
son
d-PRON lends everyone money
B:
‘His son, everyone lends money.’
En [CP [CTop zijni kleinzoon] [leent iedereeni geld]]?
and
‘And his grandson?’
his grandson
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B(cid:3): *En [CP1 [CTop zijni kleinzoon] [leent iedereeni geld]]
and
[CP2 [CTop die]
his grandson
[leent iedereeni geld]]?
d-PRON
B(cid:6): *En [CP1 [CTop zijni kleinzoon] [leent iedereeni geld]]
lends everyone money
his grandson
and
[CP2 [CTop die]
[leent iedereeni geld]]?
d-PRON
(40) A:
[Top A fia´t]
megdicse´ri mindenki.
the son.POSS.ACC DEM.ACC PRT.praises everyone
(azt)
B:
‘His son, everyone praises.’
E´ s [CP [CTop az unoka´ja´t]
and
‘And his grandchild?’
B(cid:3): *E´ s [CP1 [CTop az unoka´ja´t]
the grandchild.POSS.ACC
[megdicse´ri mindenki]]?
[megdicse´ri mindenki]]
and
[CP2 [CTop azt]
the grandchild.POSS.ACC
[megdicse´ri mindenki]]?
DEM.ACC
B(cid:6): *E´ s [CP1 [CTop az unoka´ja´t]
[megdicse´ri mindenki]]
and
[CP2 [CTop azt]
the grandchild.POSS.ACC PRT.praises everyone
[megdicse´ri mindenki]]?
DEM.ACC
Contrasts between the distribution of sluicing (the standard case of TP-ellipsis) and con-
trastive left-dislocation abound. The ungrammaticality of ellipsis in (41B) and (42B) shows that
in these embedded contexts (clauses embedded under factive verbs and ‘if ’-clauses), sluicing is
disallowed—both after contrastive topics (as shown in (41B)) and after foci (the more typical
case of sluicing; see (42B)). But such embedded clauses do allow CLD, as the examples in (43)
(corresponding to (41B) and (42B)) show.17
(41) A: Tudom,
hogy [Top Pe´tert]
elo˝le´ptette´k-e.
know.1SG that
‘I know whether they promoted Pe´ter.’
Pe´ter.ACC PRT.promoted.3PL-Q
B: E´ s azt
is
tudod,
hogy [CTop Marit]
*(elo˝le´ptette´k-e)?
and that.ACC also know.2SG that
‘And do you also know whether they promoted Mari?’
Mari.ACC
PRT.promoted.3PL-Q
17 Hungarian CLD differs in this regard from Germanic CLD. In general, Hungarian is well-known to be more liberal
with regard to topicalization in nonbridge complements than most of the Germanic languages are.
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M A R C E L D E N D I K K E N A N D B A L A´ Z S S U R A´ N Y I
(42) A: Szeretne´d,
ha jo´l
sikeru¨lne
valakinek
a
verseny?
would.like.2SG if well succeed.COND someone.DAT the contest
‘Would you like it if someone did well in the contest?’
ha MARINAK *(sikeru¨lne
B: Szeretne´m,
jo´l).
succeed.COND well
would.like.1SG if Mari.DAT
‘I’d like it if MARI did well.’
(43) a. E´ s azt
is
tudod,
hogy [CTop Marit]
azt
elo˝le´ptette´k-e?
and that.ACC also know.2SG that
Mari.ACC DEM.ACC PRT.promoted.3PL-Q
b. Szeretne´m,
ha [CTop Marinak] annak
jo´l
sikeru¨lne
a
verseny.
would.like.1SG if
Mari.DAT DEM.DAT well succeed.COND the contest
The following examples make the same point in the opposite direction. Infinitival comple-
ments are a structural domain in which a left-dislocated topic cannot occur (as already shown in
(33), repeated as (44)); but sluicing (as in (45)) is fine here.18
(44) A: Szeretne´l
Ja´nosnak segı´tse´get nyu´jtani?
would.like.2SG Ja´nos.DAT help.ACC provide.INF
‘Would you like to give Ja´nos help?’
B: Nem, de szeretne´k
[a
felese´ge´nek
no
but would.like.1SG the wife.POSS.DAT
(*annak)
tana´csot
DEM.DAT advice.ACC give.INF
adni].
B(cid:3): Nem, de a
felese´ge´nek
annak
szeretne´k
tana´csot
adni.
but the wife.POSS.DAT DEM.DAT would.like.1SG advice.ACC give.INF
no
‘No, but I’d like to give his wife advice.’
(45) Ma´r
sok
emberto˝l
pro´ba´ltam tana´csot
ke´rni, e´s most megpro´ba´lok
already many people.from tried.1SG advice.ACC ask.INF and now PRT.try.1SG
Marito´l
Mari.from also
‘I have already asked many people for advice, and now I’ll try to ask Mari as well.’
is.
It is interesting to note in this connection that left-dislocation of foci is grammatical in embedded
infinitivals (and is then on a par with sluicing, as in (45)), as illustrated in (46).
(46) Szeretne´k
csak JA´ NOSNAK, csak ANNAK segı´tse´get nyu´jtani.
would.like.1SG only Ja´nos.DAT
‘I’d like to only give JA´ NOS help.’
only DEM.DAT help.ACC provide.INF
Problematic for Ott’s approach to CLD, therefore, is that it postulates ellipsis in a context
in which ellipsis is ordinarily impossible or restricted in ways that do not match the restrictions
18 Note that embedded infinitivals do license fronted contrastive topics as long as they are not resumed by a correlate
demonstrative, so the fronting of the contrastive topic cannot be the problem: compare (44) with (i).
(i) Elmondtam neki pa´r
dolgot,
de megpro´ba´ltam [mindent
aze´rt nem a´rulni
el].
PRT.told.1SG her a.few thing.ACC but PRT.tried.1SG
‘I told her a few things, but I tried not to give away everything.’
everything.ACC CONTR not give.INF away
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565
imposed on CLD constructions. Explicit contrast is normally a necessary condition for clausal
ellipsis in contrastive topicalization constructions—but no such condition generally holds for
CLD. And even when there is explicit contrast, CLD patterns distinctively differently from con-
trastive topicalization constructions with sluicing. What is needed to make Ott’s analysis fully
operational is some explanation for the fact that contrastive topics that have a correlate in a clause
that is juxtaposed to it sanction ellipsis of the TP that follows them under circumstances that are
systematically different from the circumstances under which clausal ellipsis after contrastive topics
is otherwise licensed. In the absence of such an explanation, the ellipsis approach to CLD becomes
sui generis.
4.2 Ellipsis and Multiple Remnants
Also problematic for an ellipsis approach to left-dislocation is that sluicing and fragment answers
(the clausal ellipsis phenomena that, by Ott’s own admission, are most directly akin to what is
postulated in (2)) behave very differently from CLD when it comes to the possibility of multiple
remnants. Once again, we will illustrate with Dutch and Hungarian data. This time, each language
presents a different pattern—but importantly, in both languages CLD is consistently different
from fragment answers and sluicing constructions, which are the standard cases of clausal ellipsis
in the literature.
4.2.1 Dutch Consider first the contrast in Dutch between the sluicing and fragment answer
examples in (47) (also grammatical in English, as the prose translations show) and the CLD cases
in (48).
(47) a. Ik weet dat er
iemand met
iemand aan het vechten was, maar ik weet
I know
the fight
I know that there someone with someone at
niet wie met wie.
not who with whom
‘I know that someone was fighting with someone, but I don’t know who with whom.’
was but
b. A: Weet je wie met wie aan het vechten was?
know you who with who at
was
‘Do you know who was fighting with whom?’
the fight
B: Ja, Jan met Peter.
yes Jan with Peter
‘Yes, Jan with Peter.’
(48) a. *Jan met Peter, die
met die
was aan het vechten.
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Jan with Peter d-PRON with d-PRON was at
b. *Jan met Peter, die
was met die
Jan with Peter d-PRON was with d-PRON at
the fight
aan het vechten.
the fight
Dutch being a V2 language, (48a) is trivially ungrammatical because, in the clause following the
comma, the finite verb comes in third place, following the two fronted correlates of the dislocates.
But even when we leave the correlate of the PP-dislocate in situ, as in (48b), the result is ungram-
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M A R C E L D E N D I K K E N A N D B A L A´ Z S S U R A´ N Y I
matical. The deviance of (48b) contrasts markedly with the immaculate status of the bona fide
ellipsis constructions in (47), where both the subject and the met-PP are successfully preserved
under ellipsis. The contrast between (47b) and (48) is particularly striking. An ellipsis approach
to CLD as in (5c) could account for this contrast only if it found a way to constrain ellipsis in
the first CP of CLD constructions more stringently than in the case of question-answer pairs like
(47b). It is entirely unclear how this could be achieved.
4.2.2 Hungarian Unlike Dutch, Hungarian does allow multiple CLD—in fact, it has two differ-
ent ways of making multiple CLD constructions, illustrated in (49).
(49) a. Marit
azt
Julival
azzal
me´g nem kevertem o¨ssze.
Mari.ACC DEM.ACC Juli.COMIT DEM.COMIT yet not mixed
up
‘For Mari, it holds that with Juli, I have never yet confused her.’
azzal
me´g nem kevertem o¨ssze.
Julival,
azt
b. Marit
Mari.ACC Juli.COMIT DEM.ACC DEM.COMIT yet not mixed
‘For the particular pair of individuals Mari and Juli, it has never yet been the case
that I mistook one for the other.’
up
The two versions differ with respect to the placement of the demonstrative correlate of the first
topic vis-a`-vis the second topic. The difference in placement of azt goes hand in hand with a
difference in interpretation of the sentence, which we have tried to bring out in the English
paraphrases.19 (49a) features two independent left-dislocated topics and concomitantly gives rise
to a recursive information structure.
(50) [TOP1 [COMMENT1(cid:4)[TOP2 [COMMENT2]]]]
So the sentence cannot mean that among pairs of individuals—say, twins—Mari and Juli are a
pair of individuals who I have never confused with each other (although perhaps I have already
confused another pair of individuals). In (49b), on the other hand, such a nonrecursive information
structure, with a single pair of topics, is precisely what we do get.
Under Ott’s approach, (49b) is not difficult to analyze: Marit Julival ‘Mari.ACC Juli.COMIT’
can be treated as a pair of topics in the left periphery of the elliptical CP1, and azt azzal ‘DEM.ACC
DEM.COMIT’ is the corresponding pair of correlates in the nonelliptical CP2.
(51) [CP1 Mariti Julivalk [me´g nem kevertem o¨ssze ti tk]] [CP2 aztj azzall [me´g nem kevertem
o¨ssze tj tl]]
The question is how the recursive information structure of (49a) can be accounted for, with the
left-dislocated topics in different CPs (as they must be, on Ott’s assumptions). Ott’s analysis
could treat (49a) in either of two ways. In the first, illustrated in (52a), each of the four constituents
19 This difference in interpretation corresponds to a difference in the number of rises in the prosodic contour for the
sentences. While it is natural to realize (49a) prosodically with one rising contour on each of the left-dislocated phrases,
(49b) is produced with only a single rise, realized on the second dislocated phrase.
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567
preceding me´g ‘yet’ is in a CP of its own, with CP1 and CP2 forming one pair of juxtaposed
clauses and CP3 and CP4 another; ellipsis targets the IPs of all but the last of the four CPs. In
the alternative, schematized in (52b), Marit is in an elliptical clause juxtaposed to a second clause
featuring azt and Julival in the topic field and ellipsis following Julival, and that second clause
in turn is juxtaposed to a third that has azzal in its left periphery, followed by the comment me´g
nem kevertem o¨ssze ‘never yet confused’. Neither of these analyses delivers the information
structure that (49a) has (as given in (50)).
(52) a. [PAIR1 [CP1 Mariti [me´g nem kevertem o¨ssze ti Julival]] [CP2 aztj [me´g nem kever-
tem o¨ssze tj Julival]]] [PAIR2 [CP3 Julivalk [me´g nem kevertem o¨ssze Marit tk]]
[CP4 azzall [me´g nem kevertem o¨ssze proi tl]]]
b. [CP1 Mariti [me´g nem kevertem o¨ssze ti Julival]] [CP2 aztj Julivalk [me´g nem kev-
ertem o¨ssze tj tk]] [CP3 azzall [me´g nem kevertem o¨ssze proi tl]]
There are additional problems as well. For (52a), one concern is that the CP1(cid:5)CP2 clausal-
juxtaposition pair features ellipsis of the TP in both clauses, something that is otherwise impossi-
ble, as shown earlier: recall (40B(cid:3)). And as (40B(cid:3)) and (40B(cid:6)) taken together show, TP-ellipsis
following a correlate demonstrative in a CLD construction fails generally. So the fact that azt
‘DEM.ACC’ in (52a) is followed by an ellipsis site is doubly problematic for this analysis. What
hobbles both (52a) and (52b) is that the elliptical clauses are not (all) identical to one another or
to the nonelliptical clause. And the forced postulation of an object-pro (coreferential with the
topic of CP1 and the correlate pronoun in CP2) in the nonelliptical clause is problematic as well:
Hungarian third person object-pro is limited to singulars (see Farkas 1987), but CLD constructions
of the type in (49a) are grammatical with a plural left-dislocated object, as in (53).
(53) Az e´n szu¨leimet
azokat
a
te
szu¨leiddel
azokkal
sosem kevertem
the I parents.ACC DEM.PL.ACC the you parents.COMIT DEM.PL.COMIT never mixed
o¨ssze.
up
‘I have never confused my parents with your parents.’
The contrast between Dutch (48) and Hungarian (49) shows that languages clearly differ
with respect to the availability of multiple CLD. We have not investigated this beyond the Dutch/
Hungarian contrast, but it seems to us likely that this variation is correlated with the availability
of multiple (ordinary) topics: Hungarian allows these; Dutch does not. If indeed multiple CLD
turns out crosslinguistically to imply multiple topicalization, Grohmann’s approach allows us to
understand this: for his analysis to exclude (48) and rule in (49), one only needs to assume
whatever one’s favorite syntactic mechanism is to model single/multiple fronting parameters in
general. But Ott’s approach to CLD harbors little hope of capturing such an implicational relation:
multiple topicalization is multiple fronting to the left periphery within one clause, but multiple
CLD would, in this approach, involve multiple clausal juxtaposition.
The problems with ellipsis we have identified in this section undermine one of the pillars
of Ott’s clausal-juxtaposition-cum-ellipsis analysis of CLD. Though Ott’s approach may very
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well be conceptually attractive, its appeal to clausal ellipsis would have to be fine-tuned very
carefully in order for it to successfully model the syntax of CLD—and we doubt that it can be
fine-tuned entirely satisfactorily.
5 Clausal Juxtaposition? On the Nature of the Resumptive Element
The other pillar that Ott’s analysis rests on is the postulation of clausal juxtaposition. Ott explicitly
seeks a parallel between CLD and clausal coordination: the two CPs that together constitute the
CLD construction are in a relationship of asyndetic coordination ( parataxis). This parallel breaks
down in at least two contexts. The lack of parallelism between CLD and coordination reveals in
mutually reinforcing ways that the d-pronominal resumptive in CLD constructions is a surface
anaphor (in the sense of Hankamer and Sag 1976) while its counterpart in coordination construc-
tions is a deep anaphor.
5.1 Modal Readings
Ott (2014:275) states that CLD of their complements disambiguates modals toward a deontic
reading in German. We doubt that this is a general fact about CLD of the complement of a modal:
in Dutch (54), the epistemic reading (made salient by haast wel ‘pretty much’) is easily available.
But in the coordination examples in (55), involving a d-pronoun in the second conjunct but no
CLD, the epistemic reading is very hard to get. Since the use of haast wel gives the modal a
salient epistemic reading in the first conjunct, the unavailability of that reading in the second
conjunct renders (55a–b) very awkward (regardless of whether the d-pronoun is topicalized in
the second conjunct, as in (55a) (on a par with (54)), or not).
(54) Verliefd op haar zijn, dat
in.love on her be
‘He’s pretty much got to be in love with her.’
moet hij haast wel.
d-PRON must he just AFF
(55) a. ??Jan moet haast wel verliefd op haar zijn, en dat
Jan must just AFF in.love on her be
b. ??Jan moet haast wel verliefd op haar zijn, en Piet moet dat
moet Piet vast ook.
and d-PRON must Piet firm also
vast ook.
and Piet must d-PRON firm also
Jan must just AFF in.love on her be
‘Jan’s pretty much got to be in love with her, and Piet must surely be, too.’
That (55a–b) are awkward is not difficult to understand: dat in the second conjunct can only
be a deep anaphor (in the sense of Hankamer and Sag 1976), and when a deep anaphor represents
the complement of a modal in Dutch, the modal’s interpretation is always deontic. Speaker B’s
responses to A’s statement in (56) are absurd since we cannot plausibly give the weather an order
or attribute a deontic ability to it.
(56) A: Het weeri
gaat denk ik gauw veranderen.
the weather goes think I
‘I think the weather is going to change soon.’
soon change
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569
B: #Ja, dat (cid:2)moet/kan(cid:3) heti inderdaad.
yes that must/can it
indeed
The interesting thing is that (54) is not impossible. This is the first of a number of indications
that the d-pronoun in CLD constructions is a surface anaphor. On Ott’s analysis of CLD, in which
the d-pronoun and its associate are in different conjuncts, the fact that the d-pronoun can be
anything other than a deep anaphor is highly surprising.
5.2 Floating
Ott (2014:292) claims that floating of argumental material under contrastive left-dislocation is
impossible, supporting his case with a German example involving a clausal complement. But
Dutch clearly allows argumental material of the fronted verb to be floated in the matrix clause,
as in (57).20 Hungarian CLD does, too: the Hungarian equivalent of (57a), given in (57a(cid:3)), is
grammatical as well.21
(57) a.
Lezen, dat
read
a(cid:3). Elolvasni,
zal zij dat boek nooit.
d-PRON will she that book never
azt
nem fogja
ko¨nyvet.
PRT.read.INF DEM.ACC not will.3SG the book.ACC
heb ik ’m niet.
d-PRON have I him not
b. Gezien, dat
seen
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20 Example (57e), similar to the German example given by Ott, is not brilliant, probably for prosodic reasons: the
floated argument is heavy and must be extraposed, which gives the left-dislocation construction as a whole a prosodic
contour that renders it hard to produce without an intonation break before the floated clausal complement. But with
nonclausal arguments, which surface in clause-internal position, such floating is unproblematic: all of (57a–d) are fine.
21 Hungarian also presents a type of ‘‘doubling’’ in its CLD constructions: verbal modifiers that belong to the
contrastively topicalized verb may appear in addition in the clause containing the correlate (as seen in (i))—even though
in question-answer pairs, for instance, such association of a verbal modifier with a modal like kell ‘must’ in the absence
of the lexical verb is entirely impossible, as shown in (ii). Note that in this context, there is no parallelism between CLD
and right-dislocation ( just as in the case of P-stranding; see footnote 27): (iii) contrasts with (ia).
(i) a. [Megfelelni neki] azt
PRT.suit.INF her
meg kell.
DEM.ACC PRT must
ra´ kell.
azt
PRT.pick.up.on.INF DEM.ACC PRT must
b. [Ra´e´rezni]
(ii) a. A: Meg kell
felelni neki?
PRT must suit.INF her
B: *Azt
meg kell.
DEM.ACC PRT must
b. A: Ra´ kell e´rezni?
PRT must pick.up.INF
B: *Azt
ra´ kell.
DEM.ACC PRT must
(iii) *Azt
meg kell, megfelelni.
DEM.ACC PRT must PRT.suit.INF
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M A R C E L D E N D I K K E N A N D B A L A´ Z S S U R A´ N Y I
c. Gemogen, dat
liked
heb ik ’m nooit.
d-PRON have I him never
boeken niet.
mag je
away.throw d-PRON may you those books not
die
d. Weggooien, dat
e. ?Toegeven, dat
zal
’ie nooit, dat ’ie gelogen heeft.
admit
d-PRON will he never that he lied
has
As Dutch (58a) and its Hungarian counterpart in (58b) clearly demonstrate, it is entirely impossible
to have internal arguments floating around demonstrative pro-predicate dat/azt in coordination
constructions, which Ott argues throughout his article to be the closest relatives to contrastive
left-dislocation constructions.
(58) a. Jan wilde Piets boeken weggooien en Piet wilde
dat
Jan wanted Piet’s books away.throw and Piet wanted d-PRON
ook.
also
(*Jans boeken)
Jan’s books
b. Ja´nos ki akarta dobni
Pe´ter ko¨nyveit,
e´s azt
akarta Pe´ter is
Ja´nos out wanted throw.INF Pe´ter book.POSS.PL.ACC and DEM.ACC wanted Pe´ter too
(*Ja´nos ko¨nyveit).
Ja´nos book.POSS.PL.ACC
Both: ‘John wanted to throw away Peter’s books and Peter wanted to do so, too.’
In allowing argument float, CLD is very different not just from coordination but also from
both HTLD and right-dislocation (RD): as (59a) and (60a) show, HTLD and RD both resist
floating. (The (b)-examples are included to show that without argument float these HTLD and
RD constructions are fine.)22
(59) a. *Lezen, zij zal het dat boek nooit (doen).
read
she will it
that book never do
b. Dat boek lezen, zij zal het nooit (doen).
that book read she will it never do
‘Read that book, she never will.’
(60) a. *Zij zal het dat boek nooit doen, lezen.
she will it
that book never do
read
b. Zij zal het nooit doen, dat boek lezen.
she will it never do
‘She will never do it, read that book.’
that book read
22 In Dutch, right-dislocation of a verbal constituent requires the use of the dummy verb doen ‘do’ in the main
clause; HTLD prefers this but does not strictly demand it when an auxiliary is present. (CLD of verbal material neither
requires nor prefers the use of dummy doen.) The distribution of doen will not be addressed here. Important in the present
context is that (59a) and (60a) are unacceptable regardless of whether or not doen is supplied.
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Here again, the difference between deep and surface anaphors rears its head. When dat and
azt ‘that’ are used as deep anaphors, they do not allow internal arguments to float around them.
(61) Context: Someone is on the verge of throwing away a pile of books.
a. Dat mag ( je) niet!
that may you not
die
b. *Dat mag je
niet!
a(cid:3).
that may you those not
(Neked) azt nem szabad!
you.DAT that not allowed
b(cid:3). *Azt nem szabad azokat!
that not allowed those
5.3 A Definiteness Mismatch
There is something morphologically peculiar about the demonstrative correlates of indefinite
dislocates in Hungarian CLD constructions that suggests once again that these are surface ana-
phors. In (62a), the inflection on the verb in the clause containing the correlate demonstrative is
indefinite: ismerek rather than ismerem. In the absence of an indefinite left-dislocated topic, the
demonstrative azt always brings about definite inflection on the verb. In the CLD construction
in (62b), whose left-dislocated object is definite, we find definite inflection on the verb in the
correlate clause. And in the simple example in (62c), the definite inflection is again a straightfor-
ward reflection of the demonstrative’s inherent definiteness. So it is precisely in CLD constructions
whose contrastive topic is indefinite that we see azt combine with indefinite inflection. The choice
of inflectional form of the verb in the correlate clause is apparently a function of the definiteness
not of the correlate demonstrative itself but of its associate (i.e., the topic).23
23 The definiteness mismatch in conjugation also obtains with anaphoric azt in some other contexts, as for example
in (i).
(i) A:
Ismersz
know.2SG.INDEF talented
tehetse´ges dia´kokat?
student.PL.ACC
B: Azokat
ismerek.
DEM.PL.ACC know.1SG.INDEF
B(cid:3): *Ismerek
azokat.
know.1SG.INDEF DEM.PL.ACC
(iB) involves left-dislocation, with the demonstrative as a surface anaphor and the dislocate unpronounced—the latter
much as in topic drop constructions, such as Dutch (iiB) (usable alongside (iiB(cid:3)), involving CLD). This analysis is
confirmed by the fact that azokat ‘DEM.PL.ACC’ must be in the left periphery: placing it in postverbal position, as in (iB(cid:3)),
results in ungrammaticality (unlike in cases in which the demonstrative triggers definite inflection: in reply to a question like
Ismered a beı´rando´ jelszavakat? ‘Do you know the passwords to be entered?’, the answer Ismerem azokat ‘know.1SG.DEF
DEM.PL.ACC’ is well-formed).
(ii) A: Mag ik u
dit boek aanbieden?
may I you this book offer
B: Heb ik al
gelezen.
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have I already read
B(cid:3): Dat boek (, dat)
that book
heb ik al
gelezen.
d-PRON have I already read
572
M A R C E L D E N D I K K E N A N D B A L A´ Z S S U R A´ N Y I
(62) a. Tehetse´ges dia´kot,
talented
‘A talented student, I don’t know.’
azt
student.ACC DEM.ACC not know.1SG.INDEF
nem ismerek.
b. Azt a
dia´kot,
azt
nem ismerem.
that the student.ACC DEM.ACC not know.1SG.DEF
‘That student, I don’t know.’
c. Azt
nem ismerem.
DEM.ACC not know.1SG.DEF
‘That/Him/Her, I don’t know.’
For Ott’s analysis of the CLD construction, this presents a conundrum. In this analysis, the
demonstrative correlate is a deep anaphor, just as it is in clausal coordination constructions. But
in coordination constructions, the demonstrative behaves differently: in (63), azt can assert its
definiteness in the familiar way in the form of the verb.24
(63) E´ n ismerek
egy tehetse´ges dia´kot, e´s
a
student and DEM.ACC the colleagues.my also
kolle´ga´im
azt
is
talented
I
know.1SG.INDEF a
(cid:2)ismerik/ismernek(cid:3).
know.3PL.DEF/ INDEF
‘I know a talented student, and my colleagues do, too.’
Ott’s clausal-juxtaposition-cum-ellipsis approach could assign (62a) the structure in (64).
(64) [CP1 tehetse´ges dia´kot nem ismerek] [CP2 azt nem ismerem]
But to get from (64) to the desired surface result in (62a), one would need nothing short of a
miracle: the verb of the sluiced TP in CP1 (ismerek ‘know’) would need to be preserved and
copied over to the right, replacing the verb of CP2. It seems clear that the clausal-juxtaposition-
cum-ellipsis approach cannot handle (62a).
24 In other contexts in which the Hungarian demonstrative azt is anaphoric to a nonspecific indefinite, such as the
conditional in (i), it also does not permit indefinite conjugation (in these cases, it behaves like an ordinary anaphoric
pronoun).
(i) Ha (o˝k)
ismerne´nek
tehetse´ges dia´kot,
(akkor) azt
(o˝k)
felvenne´k/*felvenne´nek.
if
they know.COND.3PL.INDEF talented
student.ACC then
DEM.ACC they PRT.admit.COND.3PL.DEF/*INDEF
Note that (63) actually offers the language user a choice of verb inflections. The choice of definite or indefinite
inflection has interpretive consequences: with definite ismerik we have strict identity, while with indefinite ismernek we
have a sloppy identity reading. If the example is constructed in such a way that the strict identity reading is unavailable
or highly implausible, the indefinite conjugation emerges as the only well-formed option.
(ii) Nem ismerek
(egy) tehetse´ges dia´kot
(sem),
e´s
azt
a
kolle´ga´im
sem
not know.1SG.INDEF a
ismernek/*ismerik.
know.3PL.INDEF/*DEF
talented
student.ACC neither and DEM.ACC the colleagues.my neither
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5.4 Back to Grohmann 2003
The facts reviewed above are understandable if (a) the left-dislocated topic really is a constituent
of the correlate clause at some level of analysis, and (b) the demonstrative proform in CLD
constructions is a surface anaphor—an element that is not part of the numeration of the clause
in which the correlate is spelled out but instead a piece of morphophonological matter that makes
its first appearance in the PF component, after vocabulary insertion. If (a) and (b) are both met,
what we get in the underlying representation of CLD constructions is effectively the same structure
as that underlying topicalization constructions whose topic is moved from a clause-internal posi-
tion into the left periphery.
Grohmann’s analysis of CLD directly embodies the treatment of the demonstrative correlate
as a surface anaphor. On his approach, the difference between CLD and ordinary topicalization
(TOP) lies in the fact that in CLD but not in TOP constructions, the topic moves from the topic
position into a higher position in the left periphery. Floating of arguments, as in (65a), is then
on a par with what has long been known to be possible in VP-topicalization constructions (see
Den Besten and Webelhuth’s (1987, 1990) discussion of remnant topicalization); see (65b).
(65) a. Gelezen, dat
read
heb ik dat boek niet.
that book not
d-PRON have I
b. Gelezen heb ik dat boek niet.
that book not
have I
read
And the facts in section 5.3 fall out because the morphosyntax derivation and its continuation
into LF do not have a demonstrative proform in them at all.
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6 P-Stranding
One property of CLD that stands out as potentially problematic for a movement analysis is P-
stranding. In the present section, we will show that P-stranding actually poses problems for both
of the major approaches to CLD represented by (5b) (instantiated by Grohmann’s proposal) and
(5c) (Ott’s analysis), but that while (5b) stands a decent chance of overcoming this hurdle, the
ellipsis approach has no way out for CLD—although it actually makes exactly the right predictions
for right-dislocation.
6.1 The P-Stranding Generalization
Ott (2014:sec. 4.2) states that the ellipsis-based approach to CLD correctly predicts that Merchant’s
(2001) P-stranding generalization, reproduced in (66), holds also for CLD.
(66) A language L will allow preposition stranding under sluicing if and only if L allows
preposition stranding under regular wh-movement.
But while apparently obeyed by CLD in several other Germanic languages (Ott gives examples
from German, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish), the P-stranding generalization is not obeyed
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M A R C E L D E N D I K K E N A N D B A L A´ Z S S U R A´ N Y I
by Dutch CLD: (67a) is perfectly grammatical even though, in Ott’s ellipsis approach, P-stranding
movement would be involved in the derivation of the first CP (see (67b)).
(67) a. Peter, daar
wil
Peter d-PRON[(cid:5)R] want I not with talk
‘I don’t want to talk to Peter.’
ik niet mee praten.
b. [CP1 [Peter]i [wil ik niet met/mee ti praten]] [CP2 daark wil ik niet mee tk praten]
Ott (2014:286n29) is aware of this, and downplays the problem with a two-pronged approach:
(a) he points out that P-stranding in Dutch, while generally poor with anything other than Van
Riemsdijk’s (1978) R-pronouns (like daar ‘there’ in (67a)), is relatively good with non-R material
in topicalization contexts; and (b) he notes that because proper names do not inflect for case in
Dutch, Peter could, for all we know, be a default nominative, which would make (67a) a case
of HTLD, not CLD.
With respect to the first point, we certainly agree that the ordinary topicalization variant of
(67a), given in (68a), is relatively acceptable. But this misses the point: (67a) is not just relatively
acceptable, it is perfect. So CP1 in (67b), the Ott-style derivation of (67a), still behaves markedly
differently from a case of ordinary topicalization of a proper name with P-stranding. The plot
thickens when we substitute a pronoun for the proper name in (68a), as in (68b): while topicaliza-
tion of a proper name with P-stranding is relatively good, pronouns do not allow this at all. This
makes a derivation of (68c) qua CLD along the lines of (67b) problematic: after all, the nonellipti-
cal version of CP1 for (68c) is ungrammatical (cf. (68b)). Moreover, in (68c), the only option is
the explicitly case-marked form hem; the (default) nominative hij is impossible. This casts doubt
on an alternative analysis of (68c) in terms of HTLD: (68d), an unmistakable case of HTLD
(with the associate in situ), is fine with a nominative topic pronoun.25
(68) a. ?(?)Peter wil
ik niet mee praten.
b.
c.
d.
Peter want I not with talk
*Hem wil
ik niet mee praten.
him want I not with talk
(cid:2)Hem/*Hij(cid:3), daar wil
him/he
Hij, ik wil niet met hem praten.
I want not with him talk
he
there want I not with talk
ik niet mee praten.
For Grohmann’s movement analysis of CLD, deriving (67a) is not strictly speaking impossi-
ble, but doing so will require a PF-based approach to the distribution of R-pronouns: Peter can
25 More generally, trying to identify (67a) as a case of HTLD amounts to an evasion of the problem—one that could
seriously undermine one of Ott’s strongest motives for presenting a clausal-juxtaposition-cum-ellipsis approach to CLD:
his account of the V3 problem. We discussed this in section 2.1.
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extract from PP in syntax as long as, at PF (the earliest point at which the surface anaphor daar
emerges), the immediate antecedent of the PP-internal trace is an R-pronoun. One could herald
as an achievement of a surface-anaphor analysis of CLD the fact that it forces such a PF-centric
account of R-extraction—an account that would fit in well with a late-lexical-insertion approach.26
6.2 R-Words as Ellipsis Remnants
In CLD constructions, R-words can serve as contrastive topics in P-stranding contexts, as shown
in (69).
(69) Daar, daar zit het waarschijnlijk niet in; hier in misschien wel.
there there sits it probably
‘It probably isn’t in there; maybe it’s in here.’
not in here in perhaps
AFF
For a Grohmann-style movement-cum-surface-anaphora approach to CLD, the grammaticality of
(69) is unremarkable. On an Ott-style analysis, by contrast, (69) presents a major conundrum.
Under Ott’s approach, the derivation of (69) would be represented as in (70), with the R-
word daar as an ellipsis remnant in a P-stranding environment.
(70) [CP1 [daar]i [zit het waarschijnlijk niet in ti]] [CP2 daark zit het waarschijnlijk niet
in tk]
But in well-established TP-ellipsis contexts, it is surprisingly difficult to preserve R-words as
remnants when the elliptical constituent contains a stranded P; see (71) and (72).
26 More recalcitrant, for both Grohmann’s and Ott’s approaches, is the Hungarian CLD example in (ia), where Bill
Gateshez ‘to Bill Gates’ would have to subextract from Bill Gateshez ke´pest ‘in comparison to Bill Gates’, stranding the
postposition, which is otherwise completely impossible—not just under regular A¯ -movement (see (ia)) but also under
sluicing (see (ic)). We hasten to add, however, that P-stranding under CLD is by no means unrestricted in Hungarian: it
works with postpositions like ke´pest, which themselves take case-marked complements; but postpositions like elo˝tt ‘before’,
which take a bare, caseless complement, cannot strand even in CLD constructions (see (ii)). This restriction may have
morphosyntactic roots: uncased nominal complements of P cannot be spelled out unless P is locally spelled out as well.
See De´ka´ny 2009 for relevant discussion.
(i) a. Bill Gateshez [PP ahhoz ke´pest]
mindenki szege´ny.
Bill Gates.to
‘Bill Gates, in comparison to him everyone is poor.’
DEM.to in.comparison everyone poor
b. Bill Gateshez (cid:2)ke´pest(cid:3)
mindenki szege´ny (cid:2)*ke´pest(cid:3).
Bill Gates.to
‘In comparison to Bill Gates, everyone is poor.’
in.comparison everyone poor
in.comparison
c. Ja´nos azt mondta, hogy Bill Gates valakihez
ke´pest
szege´ny, de nem emle´kszem,
hogy
said
that Bill Gates someone.to in.comparison poor
Ja´nos it
kihez *(ke´pest).
who.to
‘Ja´nos said that Bill Gates is poor in comparison to someone, but I don’t remember who.’
in.comparison
but not
remember.1SG that
(ii) *A ha´boru´ [PP az
elo˝tt] minden
volt.
DEM before everything different was
the war
‘The war, before that everything was different.’
ma´s
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M A R C E L D E N D I K K E N A N D B A L A´ Z S S U R A´ N Y I
(71) a. Het moet ergens
it must somewhere be
‘It must be somewhere but I don’t know where.’
zijn, maar ik weet niet waar het is.
is
I know not where it
but
b. *Het moet ergens
it must somewhere in sit
c. Het moet ergens
in zitten, maar ik weet niet waar het in zit.
in sits
in het zit.
sits
in zitten, maar ik weet niet waar
I know not where in it
I know not where it
but
but
it must somewhere in sit
‘It must be in something but I don’t know (in) what.’
(72) a. A: Het moet ergens
in zitten.
it must somewhere in sit
‘It must be in something.’
B: Ja, daar *(in). / Ja, maar waar *(in)?
yes there
‘Yes, in that.’ / ‘Yes, but in what?’
yes but where
in
in
b. A: Waar zit het in?
where sits it
in
‘What is it in?’
B: Daar *(in).
in
there
‘In that.’
Locative waar is a legitimate remnant of sluicing in sentences of the type in (71a); but when the
R-word strands a preposition in the elliptical clause, as in (71b) and B’s utterances in (72), the
result is sharply deviant. To make these ellipsis cases grammatical, the preposition must be pied-
piped and thereby spared under clausal ellipsis. The contrast between (71b) and (71c) (for which
the ellipsis literature to date has not found an explanation; see Van Craenenbroeck 2013 for
discussion) is all the more striking because when no ellipsis takes place, P-stranding is preferred
to pied-piping: the nonelliptical version of (71b) is better than that of (71c).
On Ott’s approach to CLD, the left-dislocate in (69) is the R-word remnant of an elliptical
clause that contains a stranded preposition, as in (70). This structure is the same as that of the
ungrammatical sluicing construction in (71b) and of the P-less versions of B’s utterances in (72).
The fact that (69) is good while (71b) and P-less (72) are not is entirely unexpected on an Ott-
style approach to CLD.
6.3 P-Stranding: Left- vs. Right-Dislocation
As Ott (2014:283n25) suggests in passing and as Ott and De Vries (2016) argue explicitly, the
clausal-juxtaposition-cum-ellipsis analysis can be applied to right-dislocation (RD): for a sentence
like (73a), the right-dislocated element can be analyzed as the remnant of clausal ellipsis in a
clause juxtaposed (this time on the right-hand side) to the clause containing the correlate pronoun,
as shown in (73b).
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577
(73) a. Ik mag hem niet, Peter.
I
like him not Peter
‘I don’t like him, Peter.’
b. [CP1 ik mag hem niet] [CP2 [Peter]i [mag ik niet ti]]
Ott and De Vries point out that RD observes the P-stranding generalization in many lan-
guages. Indeed, in Dutch, RD robustly reveals the kinds of restrictions that well-established ellip-
sis cases impose on P-stranding in the language: (74a) (cf. (67a)) and (74b) (cf. (69)) are both
ungrammatical without the preposition repeated in front of the right-dislocated constituent.
(74) a. Ik wil niet met hem praten, *(met) Peter.
with Peter
I want not with him talk
‘I don’t want to talk to him, Peter.’
b. Het zit er
waarschijnlijk niet in, daar *(in).
it
sits there probably
‘It probably isn’t in there.’
not in there
in
In this respect, RD in Dutch is robustly different from both CLD and HTLD: as shown earlier
in this section, neither CLD nor HTLD resists a P-less constituent in sentence-initial position in
the presence of a P-dependent correlate.27
The sharp unacceptability of the P-less versions of (74a–b) and the consistency with which
other languages obey the P-stranding generalization in their RD constructions is a strong selling
point for a clausal-juxtaposition-cum-ellipsis approach to RD, such as that of Ott and De Vries.
This analysis ties RD together with several other constructions involving forward ellipsis (with
the ellipsis site following the antecedent), including sluicing and Den Dikken, Meinunger, and
Wilder’s (2000) Type A specificational pseudoclefts.28
(75) a. He was eating something but I don’t know what he was eating.
b. What nobody was eating was nobody was eating any pasta.
(76) a.
I don’t know what he was eating, but he was eating something.
b. *Nobody was eating any pasta was what nobody was eating.
27 In Hungarian as well, RD is very different from CLD in this regard: stranding ke´pest ‘in comparison’, while fine
under CLD (recall (ia) in footnote 26), is ungrammatical.
(i) Hozza´ ke´pest
mindenki szege´ny, Bill Gateshez *(ke´pest).
to.him in.comparison everyone poor
Bill Gates.to
in.comparison
28 Den Dikken, Meinunger, and Wilder (2000) argue that specificational pseudoclefts such as What nobody ate was
any of the pasta, with an NPI as the postcopular focus, must involve a syntax in which the NPI is licensed within an
elliptical clause. They identify a wide range of restrictions on NPIs as foci of specificational pseudoclefts that follow
from the clausal ellipsis approach.
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M A R C E L D E N D I K K E N A N D B A L A´ Z S S U R A´ N Y I
Some forward ellipsis cases can be reversed (i.e., turned into backward ellipsis constructions):
(76a) is grammatical alongside (75a). But not all of them can. While (76b) may be acceptable
without ellipsis (as a copular amalgam sentence; see O’Neill 2015 for in-depth discussion of these
kinds of sentences), eliding Nobody was eating makes it entirely impossible.
The contrast between (75b) and (76b) is by no means specific to English: as far as we are
aware, in all languages that allow negative-polarity-item (NPI) connectivity in specificational
pseudoclefts, this is subject to a strict word-order restriction. Backward ellipsis of clausal mate-
rial29 thus seems more restricted than forward ellipsis of such material—especially so if the
constituent spared by ellipsis is not [(cid:5)wh]. Since in CLD constructions the left-dislocated constitu-
ent is [(cid:7)wh], a backward clausal-ellipsis approach to CLD would seem difficult to maintain in
light of the problems encountered with backward clausal ellipsis with [(cid:7)wh] remnants elsewhere.
For RD, this discussion has no adverse consequences for an Ott-style analysis because it
involves forward ellipsis. But for CLD it casts significant doubt on the feasibility of an ellipsis
approach. Since RD and CLD (as well as HTLD) also behave sharply differently with respect to
the effects of the P-stranding generalization, this raises the suspicion that CLD presumably is not
optimally analyzed in terms of clausal ellipsis.
7 Concluding Remarks
7.1 The Hypothesis Space Revisited
At this point, let us take stock. We started in section 1 by laying out the hypothesis space (repeated
below) for the syntax of CLD and closely related phenomena. Throughout this article, we have
looked at two detailed analyses of CLD—Grohmann’s (2003) movement-cum-surface-anaphora
analysis along the lines of (5b), and the clausal-juxtaposition-cum-ellipsis approach put forth by
Ott (2014), representing (5c). We have shown that clausal juxtaposition, while quite plausible as
an approach to right-dislocation, faces a variety of challenges, which the movement-cum-surface-
anaphora analysis has little or no trouble with. Are there any empirical or conceptual considerations
that would lead us to conclude that (5c) is necessary, as a member of the spectrum of analyses
for CLD?
(5) The hypothesis space
a. External Merge
b. Internal Merge
c. Clausal juxtaposition cum ellipsis
[CP TOPICi . . . (RES) . . . ec(cid:2)ti . . . ]
[CP TOPICi . . . (RES) . . . ec(cid:4)ti . . . ]
[CP1 TOPIC (cid:4)] [CP2 . . . (RES) . . . ]
29 In Wilder’s (1997) approach to ellipsis of the type in (75b) and (76b), contiguous strings are marked for ellipsis
all the way down to the focus, regardless of whether they correspond to syntactic constituents or not. Since these strings
in (75b) and (76b) include the structural subject and the finite verb. T must minimally be contained in the elliptical
sequence, which is sufficient to make these examples qualify as instances of clausal ellipsis. Alternatively, one could
reanalyze (75b) and (76b) as cases of full TP-ellipsis, in which case any pasta will need to be placed in a position outside
TP. This raises questions concerning the licensing of the NPI—questions we do not go into here for reasons of space.
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579
7.2 A Reassessment of Ott’s Approach to CLD
Empirically, the answer to the previous question seems to us to be negative. For clausal juxtaposi-
tion, we have been unable to find explicit and incontrovertible evidence in CLD. The V3 problem,
which Ott advances prominently as an argument for it, turns out upon closer inspection not to
be a major obstacle for (5b): it is possible, at least on a descriptive level, to account for the silence
of the C-head between the left-dislocate and the demonstrative correlate by capitalizing on the
contiguity of the two referentially linked constituents. The account of the silence of C seems
principled enough, which suggests to us that the fact that CLD constructions exhibit V3 word
order is not a decisive empirical argument for clausal juxtaposition as an ingredient of the syntax
of CLD. As for the ellipsis operation that (5c) would need to resort to, we have shown that it
would have properties that make it (and the analysis employing it) sui generis.
Conceptually, (5c) is eminently sensible as an approach to dislocation phenomena. There is
no doubt that clausal juxtaposition (analyzable as asyndetic coordination) and clausal ellipsis
exist. The general building blocks of Ott’s analysis of CLD are so uncontroversial that it would
seem impossible to radically block a derivation of at least some dislocation constructions along
Ott’s lines. And indeed, clausal juxtaposition cum ellipsis may work for right-dislocation. But
although clausal ellipsis indubitably exists, it has become clear that it is not available precisely
in the context in which Ott’s analysis of CLD needs it to be: after contrastive but not necessarily
explicitly contrastive topics. The circumstances under which clausal ellipsis would have to be
sanctioned in (5c) seem to be systematically different from the circumstances under which clausal
ellipsis after contrastive topics is otherwise licensed.
Nothing in the data seems to unequivocally recommend the approach in (5c). What (5c)
does well can also be handled by (5b); the movement-cum-surface-anaphora approach manages
to handle important facts that (5c) cannot deal with, and it does not make the kinds of incorrect
predictions that (5c) gives rise to.
7.3 External Merge and Connectivity
What is left to discuss is whether the syntax of CLD constructions needs to avail itself in any
way of (5a), an analysis in which the topic is base-generated in the left periphery, linked to a
deep anaphor lower in the structure. An analysis along these lines is the gold standard for HTLD.
It accounts naturally for the absence in this construction of connectivity for morphological features
and binding dependencies. These connectivity effects are commonly taken to define the distinction
between CLD and HTLD: whenever we find obligatory connectivity for morphology and binding,
HTLD cannot be involved. In our view, it remains an open question whether any and all left-
dislocation constructions that fail to exhibit morphological connectivity are necessarily not cases
of CLD, and must instead involve HTLD. We will present one brief case study in closing, to
illustrate why we think it will be good to keep an open mind: the (lack of ) morphological connec-
tivity in CLD constructions involving a left-dislocated verb phrase.
Referring to Danish facts brought to light by Mikkelsen (2011) (which we will not repeat
here for reasons of space), Ott (2014:sec. 4.3) claims that the morphology of a contrastively left-
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M A R C E L D E N D I K K E N A N D B A L A´ Z S S U R A´ N Y I
dislocated VP must show connectivity with the selector of the correlate proform: when the correlate
is selected by an auxiliary of the perfect, the verb heading the dislocated VP must have past-
participial morphology. But it would be false to claim, and therefore wrong to try to derive, a
general morphological connectivity constraint on left-dislocated VPs. In Dutch cases of fronting
of the complement of verbs like proberen ‘try’, which normally select only te-infinitives, the
infinitival marker te can be dropped, as in (77b) (Zwart 1993:263; for some speakers, the first
author of this article included, dropping te is the preferred option). This is true both in ordinary
VP-topicalization and in cases of left-dislocation with a d-word as the correlate.
(77) a. Ik heb nog nooit geprobeerd dat boek *(te) lezen.
I have yet never tried
‘I have never tried to read that book.’
that book
to read
b. Dat boek (te) lezen (, dat)
heb ik nog nooit geprobeerd.
that book to read
‘To read that book, I have never tried.’
d-PRON have I yet never tried
The grammaticality of (77b) without te would be difficult to account for if we took an
approach to it along the lines of (5b) or (5c). The legitimacy of the absence of te in (77b) strongly
suggests that it is possible to base-generate a VP in the left periphery, with the bare infinitive
being the citation form of the verb. The selectional mismatch that would arise if the te-less
infinitive originated clause-internally is averted by base-generation of the bare-infinitival VP in
the left periphery, associated with a d-word proform, which proberen can independently select
(Ik heb dat nog nooit geprobeerd ‘I have never tried that yet’). That no overt correlate pronoun
is necessary when the topicalized verbal constituent lacks the infinitival marker te (i.e., dat in
(77b) is optional) suggests that the proform to which the base-generated topic is linked can itself
be silent.
In the te-less infinitival topicalization/dislocation example in (77b), the proform (silent or
overt) is not a surface anaphor: since the constituent in the high left periphery was base-generated
there (and thanks to this, manages to escape the selectional restrictions imposed by the matrix
verb), it cannot have left a surface anaphor behind further downstream. The proform that the
clause-initial VP is associated with must hence be a deep anaphor—in other words, we must be
dealing here with (5a).30 Does this mean that the te-less version of (77b) must be treated as a
case of HTLD?31
30 Though the deep anaphor (dat or its silent counterpart) can, qua pro-predicate, thematically license the external
argument of (77b), it cannot assign an internal (cid:6)-role, because deep anaphors lack internal structure. It is predicted,
therefore, that Dutch te-less infinitival topicalization/dislocation cases like (77b) should not be amenable to argument
floating of the type discussed in section 5.2: it should not be possible to place an internal argument of the bare infinitive
in the correlate clause because that argument could not be thematically licensed by the deep-anaphoric pro-predicate.
This prediction is roundly confirmed: (ia) (modeled closely on (77b)) is impossible without te, and so are the parallel
cases (ib–c).
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7.4 HTLD vs. CLD, and the Division of Labor between Deep and Surface Anaphora
An HTLD approach would surely be problematic for the te-less version of (77b) that lacks the
proform dat: it would open the door to HTLD derivations for ‘‘ordinary’’ topicalization, which
would have all sorts of undesired consequences. A more cautious approach would be to brand
(77b) as a case of CLD and to treat the proform as a deep anaphor, as in (5a). But this raises the
question of how CLD with deep anaphora can be distinguished from HTLD. Also, if indeed CLD
can avail itself of deep anaphora under certain conditions, the division of labor between (5a) and
(5b) becomes a prominent item on the research agenda.
(i) a. *(Te) lezen (, dat)
d-PRON tries
to read
‘One rarely tries to read these books.’
probeert men deze boeken maar zelden.
seldom
one these books but
b. *(Te) kussen (, dat)
zou
ik haar nooit durven proberen.
to kiss
‘I would never try to kiss her.’
d-PRON would I her never dare
try
c. Rauw *(te) eten (, dat)
kun je
dat vlees maar beter niet proberen.
raw
‘You had better not try to eat that meat raw.’
d-PRON can you that meat but
to eat
better not
try
The presence or absence of the demonstrative correlate dat is immaterial, as before, but the presence or absence of the
infinitival marker te makes an important difference: floating is possible just in case the selectional requirement imposed
by proberen ‘try’ (viz., that it wants a te-infinitive as its complement) is satisfied, that is, just in case te is included. The
argument float facts discussed in section 5.2 showed that the overt demonstrative correlate of a left-dislocate in Dutch
can have surface anaphor traits: it is often possible to use an overt proform in VP-fronting constructions in which the
bearer of the internal (cid:6)-role is ‘‘left behind’’ in clause-internal position. But in the Dutch te-less infinitival topicalization/
dislocation construction in (77b), the proform cannot be a surface anaphor. Since deep anaphors lack internal structure,
they cannot assign an internal (cid:6)-role to the floated objects in (i). This is why, when the topicalized infinitive is ‘‘bare’’
(i.e., lacks the infinitival marker te) in constructions in which the matrix verb’s selectional restrictions demand a te-
infinitive, internal argument float is impossible.
31 On standard assumptions, one should be able to tell by examining the binding connectivity data for (77b). The
problem is that it is extremely difficult to get crisp judgments on the relevant data. The predictions of a theory that takes
all binding connectivity to necessarily involve reconstruction (i.e., the presence of a silent copy of a moved constituent
harboring the bindee in the c-command domain of the binder) are clear: (ia) (which shows morphological connectivity,
and is therefore compatible with a surface anaphor derivation) should be grammatical while (ib) should not; the latter
should be on a par with (ic), which unambiguously involves HTLD. To the first author’s ear, while (ia) is indeed clearly
grammatical and (ic) clearly is not, the status of (ib) is unsettled (whence the ‘
’): it certainly does not seem nearly as
unacceptable as (ic); it might in fact come close to (ia) in acceptability (on the intended bound variable reading). If it
should turn out that (ib), which lacks morphological connectivity, does in fact allow binding connectivity, this would
show (on the assumption that absence of morphological connectivity necessarily diagnoses deep anaphora, in the manner
of (5a)) that binding connectivity can be arrived at in ways that do not involve syntactic reconstruction. Such a result
would jibe with work by Jacobson (1994) and Sharvit (1999) showing that, especially in specificational copular sentences,
binding connectivity effects arise in contexts in which reconstruction of the container of the bindee into a position c-
commanded by the binder is strictly impossible (see, e.g., His car is every man’s pride and joy, which supports a bound
variable construal for his but cannot deliver it via reconstruction of his car below the predicate, every man’s pride and
joy).
(cid:2)
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(i) a. Zijni dissertatie ongewijzigd te publiceren, dat
his
(cid:2)
dissertation unaltered
to publish
d-PRON has
b. Zijni dissertatie ongewijzigd publiceren, dat
his
dissertation unaltered
publish
d-PRON has
heeft vrijwel niemandi gepresteerd.
virtually nobody managed
heeft vrijwel niemandi gepresteerd.
virtually nobody managed
c. *Zijni dissertatie ongewijzigd te publiceren, vrijwel niemandi heeft het gepresteerd.
dissertation unaltered
his
All: ‘Virtually nobody has managed to publish his dissertation unrevised.’
virtually nobody has
to publish
it managed
582
M A R C E L D E N D I K K E N A N D B A L A´ Z S S U R A´ N Y I
Since (5a) and (5b) have different numerations (the former features a deep proform, which
is part of its numeration, while the latter does not), the two derivations will only be competitors
in terms of economy of derivation if the competition is based on interpretive equivalence (as in
Fox 1999, Reinhart 2006). If they are in competition, (5a) might be thought preferable to (5b)
because the latter involves a domain-internal movement step whereas the former eschews this
movement. But there are strong indications that (5b), exploiting only movement, represents the
default option, and that the coindexation/coreference mechanism that (5a) relies on is a last resort.
The second approach would be a less radical departure from the standard view, according
to which what appear to be core cases of CLD are indeed bona fide cases of CLD (involving
movement), and it is only in special cases that a special construal may be unavoidable. The
conceptual appeal of this second possibility is that it would resemble Reinhart’s (1983) Rule I
(‘‘NP A cannot corefer with NP B if replacing A with C, C a variable A-bound by B, yields an
indistinguishable interpretation’’). It would be more closely analogous to Reuland’s (2001) econ-
omy hierarchy, according to which syntactic encoding of coreference takes precedence over vari-
able binding (which in turn takes precedence over discourse coreference). Taking (5b) to be the
default would also be in line with the classic picture of resumptive pronouns in relative clause
islands in English, according to which the resumptive (base-generation) strategy is only available
when the movement strategy is not (see last-resort approaches like those proposed in Shlonsky
1992, Pesetsky 1998 (in the Optimality Theory framework), or Aoun, Choueiri, and Hornstein
2001). Sichel (2014) adds an interpretive dimension to the last-resort type of approach to resump-
tion: a resumptive pronoun can be interpreted like a gap only when a gap (instead of a pronoun)
would be ungrammatical. This goes along with Grohmann’s account of CLD, in which the resump-
tive (as a surface pronoun) apparently allows for reconstruction (the resumptive behaves as if the
dislocated phrase occupied its position). The requirement (noted by Sichel) that this should be
possible only when the gap is ungrammatical is met in Grohmann’s derivation, since the gap
would violate his antilocality restriction on domain-internal movements.
To those whom this line of argument strikes as convincing or even compelling, it will be a
reason to believe that surface anaphora, as in (5b), is the default, and that (5a) is to be resorted
to only when the facts force it upon us: when there are reasons to treat the proform as a deep
anaphor. We present this line of thinking here as a topic for further investigation in the syntax
of left-dislocation phenomena.
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(Den Dikken)
Department of English Linguistics
Eo¨tvo¨s Lora´nd Tudoma´nyegyetem
1088 Budapest
Ra´ko´czi u´t 5
Hungary
&
Research Institute for Linguistics
Hungarian Academy of Sciences
1394 Budapest
P.O. Box 360
Hungary
marcel.den.dikken@nytud.mta.hu
(Sura´nyi)
Research Institute for Linguistics
Hungarian Academy of Sciences
1394 Budapest
P.O. Box 360
Hungary
&
Department of Theoretical Linguistics
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Pa´zma´ny Pe´ter Catholic University
1088 Budapest
Miksza´th Ka´lma´n te´r 1
Hungary
suranyi@nytud.hu
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