TOPIC, FOCUS AND ADVERB POSITIONS IN CLAUSE STRUCTURE
K. A. Jayaseelan
The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad

1. Introduction
In §2 we look at the C-system, paying particular attention to Force and Focus ininterrogatives, and the position of Force/Focus vis-à-vis other functional projections. (We also
try to ‘tweak’ the Rizzi picture of the left periphery to make it accommodate some otherprojections.) §3 deals with the evidence for a ‘low’ Focus projection, in the left periphery of
VP; here we also offer an explanation of the seemingly very different positions where this
Focus surfaces (in linear terms) in OV and VO languages. §4 is about IP-internal Topic
positions and scrambling. In the concluding section, §5, we point out that Chomsky’s recent
writings appear to be suggesting that Topic and Focus are the ‘prime movers’ in displacement.
2. Force, Focus and Other Projections in the ‘C-space’
In the early days of transformational grammar it was customary to say that in a language
like English, a wh-phrase moves into COMP; after “Barriers” (Chomsky 1986) we began
saying that it moves into Spec, CP. But evidence was accumulating, even at the time
Chomsky was writing “Barriers”, that there were multiple positions in the space above IP, callit the ‘C-space’. (See, e.g., Reinhart (1981), Bayer (1984).)
Rizzi (1997) made an attempt to actually spell out the positions in the C-space in an
exhaustive way. Rizzi proposed that there was (in this space) an element expressing the Forceof the clause: i.e. whether it is declarative, interrogative, relative, or other. There was anotherelement which expressed the Finiteness status of the clause: i.e. whether it is finite or nonfinite. Rizzi positioned these elements (respectively) in the upper and lower edge of the Cspace. In between, he postulated an optional Focus position and multiple Topic positions. The
tree diagram looked like this (= Rizzi’s (41)):

Nanzan Linguistics 4, 43-68©2008 K. A. Jayaseelan

Nanzan Linguistics 4: Research Results and Activities 2006 ~ 2008

(1)

ForceP

Force0

TopP*

Top0

FocP

Foc0

TopP*

Top0

FinP

Fin0

IP

In Italian, a relative operator occurs to the left of a topicalized element, and a question
operator to its right ((2)-(3) = Rizzi’s (42)-(43)):(2)

a. Un uomo a cui, il premio Nobel, lo daranno senz’altro‘A man to whom, the Nobel Prize, they will give it undoubtedly’b. * Un uomo, il premio Nobel, a cui lo daranno senz’altro‘A man, the Nobel Prize, to whom they will give it undoubtedly’(3)a. * A chi, il premio Nobel, lo daranno?
‘To whom, the Nobel Prize, will they give it?’b.

Il premio Nobel, a chi lo daranno?
‘The Nobel Prize, to whom will they give it?’

These facts are explained, Rizzi pointed out, if the relative operator is in ForceP and thequestion operator is in FocP in a configuration like (1).1
Rizzi suggested that Force and Finiteness can be specified syncretically, on a single head,in a language; thus the English complementizer that can normally express both Force and1

Strictly, according to (1), it should be possible to have a topicalized element even below FocP; so(3a) ought to be fine. But the lower Topic position (Rizzi argues) is possible only when FocP is not
filled by a question operator (for reasons having to do with I-to-C movement, see Rizzi (1997) for
details).
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Topic, Focus and Adverb Positions in Clause Structure (K. A. Jayaseelan)

Finiteness, i.e. is both +Decl and +Fin. But when the Topic-Focus area is activated, it is pure
Force and is realized in the Force head, thereby preceding any topicalized element:(4)

I think that next year, John will win the prize.

In Jayaseelan (2001b), I suggested that interrogative Force is expressed by the
disjunction operator. This is transparent in many languages. In Malayalam the disjunction
marker is -oo; the same -oo shows up at the end of a question clause, as a question particle:(5)a.

John-oo Bill-oo Peter-oo‘John or Bill or Peter’b.

Mary wannu-oo ?
Mary came -Q‘Did Mary come?’

In Sinhala, d∂ is the disjunction marker and also the question particle:(6)a.

mahattea -t∂
tee d∂ koopi d∂ oone ?
mister -DAT tea Q coffee Q necessary‘Does the mister want tea or coffee?’b.

Chitraee pot∂ kieuwa d∂ ?
Chitrathis book read Q‘Did Chitra read this book?’(Gair 1970, cited in Bayer 2004)

In Japanese, ka is the disjunction marker and also a question particle:(7)a.

John-ka Bill-(ka)-ga
hon-o katta
John-Q Bill-Q -NOM books bought‘John or Bill bought books.’b.

(Kuroda 1965, cited in Bayer 2004)

Dare desu ka ?
who isQ‘Who is it?’(Baker 1970)

What about English? On the face of it, English appears to have (only) a null disjunction
operator. But evidence from some West Germanic dialects suggests that the disjunction
operator English employs in its questions is if (Jayaseelan 2005). The if is ‘silent’ when a whphrase moves up next to it, but otherwise surfaces.2 Let us say that in English questions, the2‘Whether …’ could be underlyingly ‘whether if …’; and just in this case, either the wh-phrase or if
can be silent:- 45 -

Nanzan Linguistics 4: Research Results and Activities 2006 ~ 2008

Force and Focus heads are syncretic; and that it is the Focus feature on the head of the ForceP– namely if – that “pulls up” a wh-phrase to the Spec position.
The West Germanic dialect data that I referred to are the following. In “colloquial
substandard Dutch” we get a sentence like (8) (from Bayer (2004), who cites E. Hoekstra(1993)):(8)

Ze weet [wie [ of [ dat [ hij had willen opbellen ]]]]
she knows who ifthat he had wanted call‘She knows who he wanted to call.’

Note the ‘who – if – that’ sequence. We can postulate the following structure:3(9)

Force/FocusP
who
Force/Focus

FinP

if
Fin

IP

that
It has been suggested (Bayer 2004: §8; see also his references) that an embedded clausehas no force layer (ForceP). The argument is that an embedded clause is not an utterance andtherefore cannot have illocutionary force; an embedded question (e.g.) does not denote aquestion, it can only ‘refer’ to a question. (This claim is of course contrary to the position of
Rizzi, who postulates a uniform C-system for every clause.)
However it is perhaps a mistake to identify Rizzi’s notion of Force with the illocutionary
force of speech act theory. In Jayaseelan (2001b) I argued that the “question meaning” of adirect question – namely a request for information – is actually a matter of pragmatics. The(i)a. I don’t know whether if John will come.
b. I don’t know whether if John will come.

3

In Middle English, like in the Dutch dialect illustrated above, that was clearly just the head of FinPand carried no meaning of declarative force, cf. (i) (from Bayer 2004, who cites Schleicher 1858):(i)

Middle English
men shal wel knowe who that I am
‘One shall well know who I am.’

Note that that cooccurs with, and surfaces to the right of, who. We must assume that it has undergone
reanalysis in Modern English, moving up to become the head of ForceP and expressing declarative
force.
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Topic, Focus and Adverb Positions in Clause Structure (K. A. Jayaseelan)

syntax itself only presents a disjunction, a partition of a domain of discourse (if we assume
the partition theory of question semantics (Higginbotham 1993, Higginbotham and May
1981)). And the partition is implemented by a disjunction operator, which we saw isinvariably present in a question clause (whether embedded or matrix). Disjunction (then) is
the force of a question clause; which was indeed our rationale for deciding to generate thedisjunction operator as the head of ForceP. This ForceP must be present in an embedded
clause no less than in a matrix clause.
However there do seem to be differences between the left peripheries of matrix andembedded clauses. One such difference is presented by the so-called “quotative”
complementizer. Consider the following Malayalam sentences:(10) a.

John [ Mary wannu enn∂ ] paRaññu
John Mary came COMP said
‘John said that Mary came.’b.

John [Mary wannu-(w)oo enn∂ ] coodiccu
John Mary came -Q
COMP asked‘John asked whether Mary came.’enn∂, as a complementizer, is indifferent to the force of its complement, i.e. whether its
complement is (e. g.) declarative or interrogative. Therefore it cannot be generated in ForceP.
It cannot be generated in FinP either, for two reasons. Firstly, FinP in Rizzi’s schema is thelowest projection in the C-space, but enn∂ must be generated fairly high: note that in (10b),enn∂ follows the question particle -oo. Which argues – given the OV order of the language –that enn∂ is generated higher than -oo. A second (and more compelling reason) is that enn∂ isindifferent to the finiteness status of its complement; in fact, it does not even require its
complement to be a clause:4(10) c.

meSiin “Grrr …” enn∂ śabdam uNDaakki
machineCOMP sound produced‘(The) machine made (a) sound “Grrr …”.’

So, where do we generate the “quotative”? It must apparently be generated higher thanForceP, if -oo heads ForceP.
In fact the quotative is the highest element in the embedded clause – except for one other4Enn∂ does not occur (however) in a relative clause (as we show directly), nor in an infinitival
complement:
(i)

ñaan
I

awan -ooD∂ [ PRO pook-uwaan (*enn∂ ) ] paRaññu
he -togo -INF
said‘I told him to go.’- 47 -

Nanzan Linguistics 4: Research Results and Activities 2006 ~ 2008

element. There is an affixal element -a in the language, which is treated as a ‘relativizer’,
because it occurs at the end of the relative clause:(11) [John kaND -a ]kuTTi
John saw -RELAT child‘(the) child that John saw’
The relative clause does not allow enn∂ to occur in it, cf. (12a) and (12b) which show thatenn∂ and –a in either order is unacceptable in a relative clause. So one might surmise thatenn∂ and –a are generated in the same slot, for which they compete. But this is not correct;
for in the noun complement clause, enn∂ and –a must occur, in that order, cf. (13):(12) a. * [ John kaND-aenn∂ ] kuTTi
John saw -RELAT COMP childb. * [ John kaNDu enn -a ]kuTTi
John saw
COMP-RELAT child(13) [ John wannu enn-a ]waartta
John came COMP -RELAT news‘(the) news that John came’In (14), we see the relative order of the question particle, the quotative, and the –a affix:(14) [John wannu-oo enn-a ]coodyamJohn came -Q COMP -RELAT question‘(the) question whether John came’So (in effect), it appears that there is structure above ForceP, given our assumption thatthe question particle is in ForceP: there must at least be a position for the quotative, andanother position for the relativizer –a. It seems a reasonable assumption that the Malayalam
relativizer –a occupies the same position as the English or Italian relative pronoun (operator);since both appear to have the same requirement of being adjacent to the ‘head’ of the relative
clause. This in turn suggests that in Rizzi’s Italian example (2a) (repeated here), the relative
operator may not be in ForceP at all:(2)a. Un uomo a cui, il premio Nobel, lo daranno senz’altro‘A man to whom, the Nobel Prize, they will give it undoubtedly’Possibly ForceP only distinguishes between interrogatives and declaratives.
All, or some, of what we said about the quotative element of Malayalam (Dravidian
generally) could also be true of the quotative in Korean (example from Bayer 2004: 64):

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Topic, Focus and Adverb Positions in Clause Structure (K. A. Jayaseelan)(15) a.

akasi -nun [[[ ku-ka
mwues-ul mek-kess ] -nya]-ko]mwulessta
waitress -TOP he-NOM what -ACC eat -want -Q -QUOT asked‘The waitress asked what he wanted to eat.’b.

Bill-um [[[ John-i
wa -ss ] -nya ] -ko ]mwulessta
Bill-TOP
John-NOM come-PAST -Q-QUOT asked‘Bill asked whether John had come.’

Given the universalist claims about the functional hierarchy, should we look for a‘hidden’ quotative in other languages as well? I will leave this question open.
3. A Focus Phrase above vP
An important claim embedded in the Rizzi analysis of the C-system is that a wh-phrasethat moves into COMP, moves into the Spec of a FocP. We can try to generalize this claim
and say that all wh-movement is into a Focus position.
We now look at some languages that do not move their wh-phrases into COMP but
nevertheless do move them into a fixed position. We shall try to show that these languages
too move their wh-phrases into a Focus position, although the Focus position (in this case) is
elsewhere than in COMP.
3.1. Wh-movement in Malayalam
Many languages have a requirement that a wh-phrase should be contiguous to V. In
Malayalam, the natural way to ask a question is by clefting: the wh-phrase is moved into thecleft focus:(16) aar∂ aaN∂ [ ninn-e
talli-(y)at∂ ] ?
who isyou -ACC hit(PAST) -nominalizer‘Who is it that hit you?’But a non-cleft question also is possible under a fairly strict condition: the wh-phrase must beplaced immediately to the left of V.
(17) a.

ninn-eaar∂
talli ?
you -ACC who(NOM) hit(PAST)‘Who hit you?’b. * aar∂ninn-etalli ?
who(NOM) you -ACC hit(PAST)- 49 -

Nanzan Linguistics 4: Research Results and Activities 2006 ~ 2008(18) a.

iwiDe aar∂uND∂ ?
here who(NOM) is (existential)‘Who is here?’b. * aar∂
iwiDe uND∂ ?
who(NOM) here is (existential)(19) a.

awan
ewiDe pooyi ?
he(NOM) where went
‘Where did he go?’b. * ewiDe awan
pooyi ?
where he(NOM) went
The question is: how do we get the wh-phrase next to V? If we assume an underlying headfinal order in the VP, as is traditionally done in South Asian linguistics, the problem becomesvery acute. We have to do two unacceptable things: we have to generate a COMP-likeposition ‘within’ VP; also, in a sentence like (17a) or (18a) in which the wh-phrase is the
subject, we have to lower the subject NP into this position. This is shown in (20):
(20)

vP
SUBJ

v’
VP

DO

v
V’

?

V

But – as argued in Jayaseelan (1996, 1999, 2001a) – these problems can be avoided if we
assume (following Kayne 1994) that the universal underlying order is Specifier-HeadComplement; and that in languages exhibiting a surface OV order, V’s complements have all
moved out of the VP. Now if we postulate a FocP above vP, we get the results we want. In asentence like (17a), the subject NP, being a wh-phrase and so being marked [+ Focus], will
move into Spec, FocP. The verb’s complement, the DO, will move past it by the “VPvacating” movement that is necessary to obtain the surface OV order:- 50 -

Topic, Focus and Adverb Positions in Clause Structure (K. A. Jayaseelan)

(21)

FocP
Foc’
Foc

vP
SUBJ

v’
v

VP
V

DO

This is a strong argument for postulating a FocP immediately above vP, and also for adopting
the Kaynean proposal about an invariant Head-Complement order.
3.2. Word Order in Kirundi
We now look at an interesting word-order phenomenon in a Bantu language, Kirundi,
which has been described in Ndayiragije (1999). Kirundi is an SVO language. But it has twomarked word orders in which the subject follows the verb and the object and acquires acontrastive focus reading. (22a) shows the neutral order, and (22b) and (22c) illustrate themarked orders (Ndayiragije 1999: ex. (1)):5(22) a.

Abâna ba -á -ra-nyôye
amatá
children 3P-PST-F -drink:PERF milk

SVO

‘Children drank milk.’b.

Amatá y -á -nyôye
abânamilk 3S-PST-drink:PERF children

OVS[Lit.: ‘Milk drank children.’]‘Children (not parents) drank milk.’c.

proexp ha -á -nyôye
amatá abâna
LOC -PST -drink:PERF milk children(Exp)VOS[Lit.: ‘There drank milk children.’]‘Children (not parents) drank milk.’
5

Parallel facts have been noted in some other Bantu languages. The OVS order has especiallycaught the attention of linguists; see (e.g.) Ura (2000), who describes it under the name ‘inverse’.
Ura’s account of this structure however fails to note, or at least does not give any importance to, thefocusing effect on the postposed subject.
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Nanzan Linguistics 4: Research Results and Activities 2006 ~ 2008

The interesting question is, how does the postposed subject become contrastively
focused? Is there a Focus position at the end of the clause? If so, how do we generate it?
Ndayiragije’s solution is given in (23):(23) (= Ndayiragije’s (2))
TP
SPEC

T’
T
Vk

FocP
Foc’

Foc
tk ’

SPEC
VP

Subji

Subj
ti

V’
V

Obj

tk
He postulates a FocP above VP, which has its SPEC position to the right of the head; and hemoves the subject into it. Since FocP is the only phrase in the tree which has this peculiar
position of the SPEC, he suggests that “this unique behavior of FocP is related to prosodic
properties of theme-rheme structures, which in many cases (such as English heavy NP shift)
involve rightward extraposition” (p. 400: fn. 1). We shall see that the analogy to English
heavy NP shift is indeed sustainable; but at the same time, we shall show that we do not needa right-of-head SPEC position.
Given (23), two things can happen. The object can move to SPEC, TP, triggering objectverb agreement, to yield (22b); or SPEC, TP can be filled by an expletive pro, triggering
locative agreement, to give us (22c). Although (23) makes the subject the focus, actually any
phrase can be focused. Consider (24): this sentence has apparently the neutral word order but
has the meaning of contrastive focus on the object; we must conclude that the object has been
moved into Spec, FocP.6(24) Abâna ba -á -nyôye
amatá
children 3P -PST -drink:PERF milk

SVO (Focus: Obj)

‘Children drank milk (not water).’

6This “invisible” movement of the object is indicated only by the absence of an “antifocus” marker
ra; contrast (22a) and (24). The absence of ra signals that some phrase is focused.
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Topic, Focus and Adverb Positions in Clause Structure (K. A. Jayaseelan)

In Jayaseelan (2001a: fn. 4), a solution was proposed for the right-edge occurrence ofFocus in Kirundi, that did not involve any non-canonical X’-configuration. Kayne (1998) has
argued for an operation of ‘remnant VP-preposing’ that applies in some SVO languages like
English. If we assume that Kirundi also has this rule, its application after the movement of the
focused phrase into Spec, FocP should give us the order that we want; e.g. if the subject isfocused, we get the movement indicated in (25):
(25)

FocP
SPEC
Subji

Foc’
Foc

VP
ti V ObjThis proposal correctly predicts that the focused phrase will show up to the right of all otherelements in the VP. E.g. a focused object follows a VP-internal adverbial, cf. (26a) (=Ndayiragije’s (49c)); and it follows a clausal complement exhibiting object control, cf. (26b)(= Ndayiragije’s (50b)):(26) a.

Yohani a -á -oógeje
néezá imiduga
John 3S -PST -wash:PERF well cars
‘John washed cars well (not trucks).’b.

Yohani a -á -zanye
John 3S -PST -bring:PERF

ti [CP PROi kurisha ] inkai
INF-graze cows

‘John brought cows (not goats) to graze.’
3.3. A VP-peripheral Focus Position in English
We now go on to show that English too has a FocP above vP. Indeed, if the phase theory
is correct (Chomsky 2000), this FocP could be just the “escape hatch” needed by a wh-phrase
to come out of a vP (Jayaseelan 2004).
3.3.1. Pseudogapping
There is a phenomenon variously known as ‘incomplete VP deletion’ (Jayaseelan 1990),‘VP-subdeletion’ (Kayne 1994) and ‘pseudogapping’ (Lasnik 1995, 1999), in which adeletion rule that looks like VP Deletion leaves behind a remnant (examples from Sag 1976):(27) a.

Mary hasn’t dated Bill, but she has Harry.

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Nanzan Linguistics 4: Research Results and Activities 2006 ~ 2008b.

Speaker A: Gee, I’ve never seen you on campus before.
Speaker B: Yeah! Neither have I you.

The remnant is sometimes in the ‘middle’ of the deleted VP, as in Speaker B’s response in(27b):(27b’) Speaker B: Yeah! Neither have I [VP seen YOU on campus before ]Note that the remnant receives contrastive stress; in fact, if there is no contrastive stress on theremnant, pseudogapping is ungrammatical:(28) Speaker A: Has she dated Bill?
Speaker B: * Yes, she has Bill. (Cf. No, she has Harry.)
There have been several accounts of this phenomenon. In Jayaseelan (1990) I proposedthat the focused phrase is moved out of the VP by a right-adjunction operation, after which
the VP is deleted. Lasnik (1995, 1999) proposed moving the remnant to the left. But Lasnik’s
account ignored the focus requirement on the remnant phrase: he moved the phrase to AGR0 P,
and the motivation for the movement was Case-checking. My second account in Jayaseelan(2001a) – which I still wish to maintain – appealed to a FocP above vP in English. The
contrastively stressed phrase is moved to Spec, FocP; after which the VP is deleted:(29) Neither have I [FocP youi Foc0 [VP seen ti on campus before ]]This account neatly explains the focus requirement on the remnant phrase.
3.3.2. Clause-final Focus Marker
Let us take a quick look at another instance of the VP-peripheral Focus position in
English. Consider a floated focus marker like himself, herself etc., which can occur in all the
positions in which a floated quantifier can occur, and in addition at the end of the clause:(30) a.
b.

John (himself) may (himself) have (himself) done it (himself).
They (all) may (all) have (all) done it (* all).

Sportiche (1988) proposed that a floated quantifier is ‘stranded’ by the raising subject in theSpec of a VP; let us say the same thing about a floated focus marker. But the remaining
problem is: how do we generate the position of the focus marker at the end of the clause?
There is a straightforward solution if we postulate a FocP above VP (as argued in Jayaseelan
2001a): let us say that a subject NP which contains a focus marker can move into the Spec of
FocP, and strand the focus marker there when it moves up further. Combined with remnant
VP-preposing (Kayne 1998), we get the desired word order:- 54 -

Topic, Focus and Adverb Positions in Clause Structure (K. A. Jayaseelan)(31) a.
=>[VP John himself did it ]raising of subject to Spec, FocPb.
=>

[FocP [ John himself]i F0 [VP ti did it ]]remnant VP-preposingc.
=>[XP [VP ti did it ]j X0 [FocP [ John himself]i F0 tj ]]raising of subject to Spec, IP, stranding focus markerd.

Johnk … [XP [VP ti did it ]j X0 [FocP [ tk himself]i F0 tj ]]3.4. The Surface Position of Focus in OV and VO Languages
We have seen that both SOV and SVO languages have a FocP above vP. But a point tonote is that in an SOV language a focused phrase shows up to the immediate left of V (cf. theMalayalam wh-phrase), whereas in an SVO language it shows up at the end of the clause, i.e.
the right periphery of VP (cf. a focused phrase in Kirundi or English). These facts are
currently accounted for (in Kaynean circles) by postulating completely dissimilar types ofoperations: OV languages have “VP-vacating movements” – or a single VP-vacating
movement – which move all elements that are to the right of V out of the VP and to the left of
the Focus position:7
(32)

FocP
Spec

Foc’
Foc0

VP
… V ……..

In a VO language, there is an operation of “remnant VP-preposing” which moves the whole
VP (after focus movement) to the left of the Focus position:

7

This movement was illustrated earlier, in (21).
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(33)

FocP
Spec

Foc’
Foc0

XPi

VP
…… ti ……..

Neither of these movements is (currently) well-motivated. But actually, given theassumption of distributed morphology that verbs – more generally, roots – pick up theirinflections by phrasal movement (Koopman and Szabolcsi 2000, Julien 2003), we are now ina position to motivate these movements, and also unify them.
By common assumption, inflection of V is generated higher than V; cf. the position of IP(or TP) vis-à-vis VP in clause structure. To bring V close to I, two movements are necessary
if only phrasal movement is admissible: First we have to move all the elements which are to
the right of V in the VP – actually, V’s complement (a single constituent), given binarybranching – out of the VP, so that V will be the rightmost lexical element in the VP. We willcall this first movement ‘stacking’, following Koopman and Szabolcsi (2000). The target ofstacking, we shall simply show as XP; it is a phrase whose only function is to host the stacked
material. If a FocP is generated above VP, stacking takes place to the left of FocP:8
(34)

XP
YP

X’
X0

FocP
ZP[+Focus]

Foc’
Foc0

VP
V

tYP

Now Inf(lection) is merged, projecting an InfP. In order to bring about a configuration inwhich V is contiguous to Inf(lection), we have two options. We can move just the VP –‘stranding’ XP and FocP – to Spec, InfP. Alternatively, we can have the VP ‘pied-pipe’ thematerial to its left – XP and FocP – to Spec, InfP. Cf. (35a) and (35b):8

In (34) we have ignored the v/V ‘split’, also the position of Subject, which in an ergative vP will beto the left of v. Showing the full structure will not affect our argument in any way.
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Topic, Focus and Adverb Positions in Clause Structure (K. A. Jayaseelan)(35) a.

InfP
Inf’
Inf0

XP
YP

X’
X0

FocP
ZP[+Focus]

Foc’

Foc0

VP
V

b.

tYP

InfP
Inf’
Inf0

XP
YP

X’
X0

FocP
ZP[+Focus]

Foc’

Foc0

VP
V

tYP

(35a) gives us the string:(35a’)

V – (tYP) – Inf – YP – (X) – ZP[+Focus] – (Foc) – (tVP)(Elements that contain no lexical material are enclosed in brackets.) ‘V – Inf’ (ignoring trace)
will be perceived as an inflected verb. This is followed by the complements of V, ‘YP’; and at
the right edge – after the complements – comes the focused phrase, ‘ZP[+Focus]’. This is theorder of English.
(35b) yields the string:- 57 -

Nanzan Linguistics 4: Research Results and Activities 2006 ~ 2008

(35b’)

YP – (X) – ZP[+Focus] – (Foc) – V – (tYP) – Inf

Again, ‘V – Inf’ will be perceived as an inflected verb; but now it is at the end (or right edge)of the string. It is immediately preceded by the focused phrase, ‘ZP[+Focus]’; which in turn ispreceded by the complements of V, ‘YP’. This is the order of Malayalam.
VO languages are ‘stranding’ languages, and OV languages are ‘pied-piping’ languages.
4. IP-internal Topics and Scrambling
4.1. Adverbs, Stacked Elements, Scrambling
Cinque (1999) postulated a number of adverb positions above the lexical VP. Where arethese adverb positions, one might ask, with respect to the landing sites of the two movementsthat we talked about, namely stacking and remnant VP-preposing?
In Malayalam, stacking takes place before any adverb is merged; so that in the neutral
order, adverbs precede the verb’s complements, cf. (36a). This order is derived as shown in(36b):(36) a.

John innale
Mary-k’k’∂ oru katt∂ ayacc-u
John yesterday Mary-DAT a letter send -PAST‘John sent Mary a letter yesterday.’

b.

IP
AdvP
innaleXP
YP

VP

Mary-k’k’∂ oru katt∂ V

tYPayak’k’However a complement can sometimes be seen preceding an adverb. Thus (36a) has avariant like (37):(37) John Mary-k’k’∂ innale
oru katt∂ ayacc-u
John Mary-DAT yesterday a letter send -PAST
This kind of change in word order is ascribed to a rule called ‘scrambling’. Scrambling used
to be thought of as a purely optional rearrangement of the verb’s arguments and adjuncts in- 58 -

Topic, Focus and Adverb Positions in Clause Structure (K. A. Jayaseelan)

OV languages, which had little or no semantic consequences. But this has been shown to be
not true of scrambling in certain languages, or rather certain families of languages; e.g. it is
not true of Germanic OV languages, or Dravidian languages.
4.2. The Semantics and Syntax of Scrambling
It was work in Germanic linguistics (I believe) that first turned up the fact that acomplement which moved to the left of an adverb showed definiteness/specificity effects.
Consider the following Dutch example (Zwart 1996: 91):(38) a.

… dat Jan gisteren een meisje gekust heftthat John yesterday a girlkissed has‘… that John kissed a girl yesterday.’b… dat Jan een meisje gisteren gekust heftthat John a girlyesterday kissed has‘… that John kissed a (particular) girl yesterday.’In (38a) ‘a girl’ can have an existential reading; but in (38b) it can only be interpreted as
referring to a specific girl.
An interesting example from German is discussed in Diesing (1992: 112):(39) a.

das Otto immer Bucher uber Wombats schreibtthat Otto always books about wombats writes‘Otto always writes books about wombats.’b. # das Otto [ Bucher uber Wombats]i immer ti schreibtthat Otto books about wombats always writes# ‘Books about wombats, Otto always writes.’
In (39), the verb is a verb of creation: the books come into existence only as a result of thewriting. Therefore (39b) is semantically odd, since the scrambled position forces a specific or
generic reading on ‘books’. (I have tried to reproduce this effect in the English translation byusing Topicalization.) The German contrast can be readily replicated in Malayalam:(40) a.

Mohanan eppoozhum aanakaL -epattiyuLLa kaThakaL ezhut-um
Mohanan always
elephants -ACC aboutstories
write -FUT
‘Mohanan always writes stories about elephants.’- 59 -

Nanzan Linguistics 4: Research Results and Activities 2006 ~ 2008b. # Mohanan
Mohanan[ aanakaL -epattiyuLLa kaThakaL]i eppoozhum ti ezhut-um
elephants-ACC aboutstoriesalwayswrite -FUT

# ‘Stories about elephants, Mohanan always writes.’(In Japanese, there is no such contrast (Sauerland 1998).)
Traditional German linguistics assumed an underlying OV order in the VP, and adverbs
were taken to be left-adjoined to the VP; therefore scrambling would have been represented(under this view) as in (41):(41)

VP
AdverbVP… XP ... V

Assuming this structure, Diesing (1992, 1997) offered an explanation of the scrambling facts
in terms of what we may call an “avoidance strategy”. The VP (she claimed) is the domain ofexistential closure. A definite NP must not be existentially interpreted and so must move outof the VP in order to ‘escape’ existential closure. However, an indefinite NP may either
remain in the VP and get an existential interpretation; or it may scramble out of the VP and
get other types of interpretation, e.g. a specific interpretation.
It is unclear how Diesing’s account will work if the verb’s complements in their‘canonical’ positions have already moved out of the VP by stacking, as we have argued is thecase.
But actually, a simple explanation of the scrambling facts is possible (Jayaseelan 1999,
2001a): all we need to do is to postulate a Topic position above the adverb position. Note how,in (39b) and (40b), we have reproduced the semantic oddity of the German and Malayalam
sentences in the English translation by means of (plain) Topicalization in the left periphery of
the clause. So it is a reasonable guess that what is happening in the German or Malayalam
sentence is (just) Topicalization, although the movement (in their case) is to an IP-internal
position.
Assuming (then) a TopP above an adverb position, we can represent scrambling in (37)
as follows:- 60 -

Topic, Focus and Adverb Positions in Clause Structure (K. A. Jayaseelan)

(42)

IP
TopP
Mary-k’k’∂

AdvPinnaleXPYPt oru katt∂

VP
V

tYP

ayak’k’In our examples (37)-(40), the adverb served as a diagnostic of scrambling. But if theadverb position is unfilled, we can still tell when clause-internal scrambling has taken place.
The base order of a ditransitive verb’s complements (in German, Dutch or Malayalam) is ‘IO– DO’; so, if we encounter the inverse order ‘DO – IO’, we can conclude that DO has been
moved to the left (scrambled). And we can expect DO (in this case) to show thedefiniteness/specificity effects of scrambling.
This constraint on the scrambled DO was noticed by German linguists: Lenerz (1977:54), cited in Abraham (1986: 17), stated it as a filter:(43) *DO [ − def ] + IO [ + / − def ]Abraham (1986: 18) provides the following example of this filter; the (a) sentence gives theneutral order, the (b) sentence is acceptable, but the (c) sentence is ungrammatical:(44) a.

ich habe meinem Bruder einen / den Brief geschickt
I have my-DAT brother a/ the letter sent
‘I have sent my brother a / the letter.’b.

ich habe den Brief meinem Bruder geschickt
I have the letter my-DAT brother sentc. * ich habe einen Brief meinem Bruder geschickt
I have aletter my-DAT brother sent
In Malayalam, I shall give just one example of the definiteness/ specificity effect thatobtains in the inverse order ‘DO – IO’:

- 61 -

Nanzan Linguistics 4: Research Results and Activities 2006 ~ 2008(45) a.

ñaan oru maratt -in∂ weLLam ozhiccu
Ia tree -DAT water
poured‘I poured water to a tree.’b.

ñaan weLLam oru maratt -in∂ ozhiccu
Iwater
a tree -DAT poured‘I poured the water to a tree.’In Malayalam, the definite article is null. Therefore a form like weLLam ‘water’ is ambiguous
between a definite and an indefinite reading. In the (a) sentence, which has the canonicalorder, the most natural interpretation of weLLam is as ‘(some) water’, i.e. the NP is indefinite.
But in the (b) sentence, the only permissible interpretation of weLLam is as ‘the water’; i.e.
the NP is obligatorily definite.
4.3. Scrambling and Parasitic Gaps
In support of our claim that the scrambled position is a Topic position, I now give an
argument from the licensing of parasitic gaps. As is well-known, a Topic can license aparasitic gap:(46) a.

I filed these papers without reading *(them).

b.

These papersi I filed ti, without reading ei.

These papers, when it is in its base position, cannot license a parasitic gap; therefore thecoreferential pronoun them is not omissible in the (a) sentence. But when these papers is
topicalized, them is omissible as shown in the (b) sentence.
Now it has been noted in the Germanic OV languages that a scrambled NP can license aparasitic gap. Cf. the following Dutch sentence (Zwart 1996: 50):(47) …

dat Jan Mariei zonder ei aan te kijken ti gekust heftthat John Mary without on to lookkissed has‘… that John kissed Mary without looking at her.’In Modern Persian, a DO which is indefinite and non-specific follows an IO; but adefinite or specific DO precedes an IO and is marked by a special marker râ ((48) and (49)from Karimi 1999):(48) a.

Kimea barâ man (ye) ketâb xarid
Kimea for me (a) book bought‘Kimea bought (a) book for me.’- 62 -

Topic, Focus and Adverb Positions in Clause Structure (K. A. Jayaseelan)b.

Kimea un ketâb ro barâ man xarid
Kimea that book RÂ for me bought‘Kimea bought that book for me.

We can explain this by saying that râ is a topic marker, presumably generated in the head of
TopP; and that a definite or specific DO is obligatorily topicalized (scrambled) in Modern
Persian. Interestingly, a DO can license a parasitic gap just in case it is marked by râ, cf.:(49) a.

Kimea [NP ye kârgar ro]i [CP ghablaz inke pro ei estexdâm be-kon-e]Kimea
a worker RÂ
before thathiringSUBJ -do -3SGbe kâr vâdâshtto work forced‘Kimea forced a (specific) worker to work before hiring (her).’b. * Kimea [NP ye kârgar]i [CP ghablaz inke pro ei estexdâm be-kon-e]Kimea
a worker
before thathiringSUBJ -do -3SGbe kâr vâdâshtto work forced(It is difficult to demonstrate the existence of a parasitic gap in Malayalam or Japanese,
because these languages freely allow an empty pronoun (pro) in all argument positions.)
To conclude this section: There are apparently multiple Topic positions, which moreoverneed not all cluster together but can be ‘distributed’ among the adverb positions:(50) John Mary-k’k’∂ oru pakSe aa katt∂
John Mary-DAT perhaps that letter

innaleayaccu-kaaNum
yesterday sent -may have‘John may have perhaps sent that letter to Mary yesterday.’
The Focus positions (on the other hand) – in languages which allow multiple Focus positions– appear to cluster together, cf.:(51) nin -akk∂ innale
aar∂ ent∂ tannu ?
you-DAT yesterday who what gave
‘Who gave you what yesterday?’
5. Hungarian Quantifier OrderIn this section we shall look at the ordering of quantifiers in languages, in order tosuggest that the ‘Topic-(Adverb)-Focus’ configuration that we postulated above vP is
replicated by quantifier order.
Beghelli and Stowell (1997) proposed particular positions for quantifiers in the clause- 63 -

Nanzan Linguistics 4: Research Results and Activities 2006 ~ 2008

structure, at LF. Interestingly, these positions are testified in the overt syntax in Hungarian.
Hungarian is a language which “wears” its scope relations “on its sleeve”: all scope relations
are made visible in the overt syntax. We can therefore look at Hungarian quantifier order as away of accessing the universal order of quantifiers in languages.
Brody and Szabolcsi (2003) represent Hungarian quantifier order – using Beghelli andStowell’s schema and their terms – as follows ((52) adapted from Brody and Szabolcsi’s (4)):(52)

Ref(erential)P*“topics”

Dist(ributive)P*“distributives”

Count(ing)P*“counters”

AgrsP
finite verb

We can compare this with a representation of Hungarian clause structure in Koopman andSzabolcsi (2000) ((53) adapted from Koopman and Szabolcsi’s ex. (1), p. 7):
(53)

CP
RefP
DistP
NegP
FP
NegP
AgrP

Koopman and Szabolcsi (p. 7) explain their functional projections in the following terms:‘Ref(erential)P is the position of names, definites, and wide scope indefinites; Dist(ributive)Pis the position of universals and a set of other operators. … FP is the position for emphatic orcontrastive focus as well as modified numeral QPs.’ They illustrate these positions with thefollowing sentence (p. 7):- 64 -

Topic, Focus and Adverb Positions in Clause Structure (K. A. Jayaseelan)(54) [RefP Két fiúval [DistP minden problémáról [FP egy lány [AgrP beszélt … ]]]]
two boy-withevery problem-about a girltalked‘There are two boys x such that for every problem y, it was a girl who talked
about y with x.’
The two schemas illustrated above are (of course) compatible and can be collapsed. The‘CountP’ position of (52) is the same as ‘FP’ in (53): Brody and Szabolcsi explicitly state (fn.
3) that ‘what we say about counting quantifiers carries over to focus.’ Negation and Focus
appear to “go together” in Hungarian (as in many languages); let us (tentatively) collapse
them into a single position, and call it ‘Neg/FocP’.
‘RefP’ is obviously the same as what we called ‘TopP’. Interestingly, Brody andSzabolcsi note that ‘quantifiers in RefP can be followed by unfocused adverbs like tegnap‘yesterday’, those in DistP cannot’ (p. 21).
The close correspondence of the Hungarian quantifier order (and clause structure) to our‘Topic-(Adverb)-Focus’ configuration should now be obvious. Of course, we have nothingcorresponding to ‘DistP’ in our schema; so this position must be added. Let us identify‘DistP’ with the position for the disjunction operator postulated in Jayaseelan (2001b), andwith the position for the adverbial particles ‘only’ and ‘even’ in Kayne (1998). The rationale
for this identification is that the distributive quantifier ‘every’, and the adverbial particles‘only/even’, contain a disjunction operator (Jayaseelan 2004).
Brody and Szabolcsi’s diagram (52) shows the quantifier positions ranged above AgrsP;
but they go on to claim that ‘the operator series Ref-Dist-Count reiterates itself above all
inflectional heads and possibly above the verbal heads’ (p. 22). Although they make thisclaim specifically for Hungarian, it would appear that the reiteration that they speak of is wide
spread among languages. From this vantage point, we can now hazard a guess that what Rizzi
discovered as the C-system (the “fine structure of the left periphery”) is just the replication ofthis schema above the inflectional head T0.
6. Conclusion
In the recent writings of Chomsky (Chomsky 2000, 2001, 2004, 2005), what are called“edge properties” have acquired prominence. In “Minimalist Inquiries” (Chomsky 2000) it issuggested that the phase heads C0 and v0 may be optionally assigned an EPP feature, and as areflex of this feature, ‘P-features’ (peripheral features), the latter spelt out as ‘force, topic,
focus, etc.’ (op. cit.: 108; see also fn. 50 and accompanying text). The list ‘force, topic, focus’
is clearly meant to be an echo of Rizzi’s (1997) analysis of the C-system; in fact, in“Derivation by Phase” (Chomsky 2001) it is stated (see fn. 6) that ‘T and C [are] cover terms
for a richer array of functional categories’. This last characterization can be extended to v0 too.
Because later in the same paper, while talking about Object Shift in Scandinavian, Chomsky
suggests that ‘the EPP position of v*P is assigned INT’, INT being ‘new information,- 65 -

Nanzan Linguistics 4: Research Results and Activities 2006 ~ 2008

specificity/ definiteness, focus, etc.’ (see (54i), (57)). Now, ‘specificity/definiteness’ can beinterpreted as topic; so we are in effect saying that there is a Topic/Focus configuration in theleft periphery of the vP phase too, substantially like what there is in the left periphery of theCP phase. (This parallelism between CP and vP is by now a familiar idea; see, among others,
Jayaseelan (2001a, 2004), Belletti (2003).)
Chomsky (more recently) seems to be veering round to the idea that all phrasal
movement (what he calls ‘displacement’) is induced by ‘scopal and discourse-related
properties (new/old information, specificity, etc.)’ (“Beyond Explanatory Adequacy”,
Chomsky 2004). His position is that this ‘displacement’ property is what distinguishes natural
language systems from the artificial languages of Logic, etc. (See also Chomsky (2005).)
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(Received: March, 2006)- 68 -