The UTL lectures are crash courses held in Utrecht by international experts at different times of the year.

Mara Frascarelli on Focus Fronting

On 16 and 18 March (11:00-13:00) Mara Frascarelli (University of Roma Tre) will give a crash course entitled Superiority in Fronting: A syntax-semantics interface approach to optionality.

The course is open to everyone. The room is t.b.a.

If you wish to join it online you can use this link

Abstract

The Crash Course deals with the phenomenon of Focus Fronting and addresses the vexed question of its optional realization. A novel path for explanation is thus proposed, based on intervention effects and, in particular, on Superiority at the External Merge of arguments in the vP shell. To this purpose, an original experimental test with open “delayed” answers has been designed for a systematic comparison between Subject and Object Focus in corrective replies, from which evidence is provided for a significant difference between transitive, unaccusative and unergative verbs.

A gradient approach is then advocated for intervention effects, based on the combination of different features. The incidence of alternative Focus constructions is also taken into consideration (i.e., postverbal Subject, cleft sentences and passives) and relevant asymmetries are treated in a comprehensive account.

Subsequently, a comparative analysis is proposed between Italian and Spanish, based on the same experimental test, concentrating on the syntactic strategies used for Information and Corrective Subject Focus in Italian and Spanish. In this respect, major Focus strategies will be taken into consideration, namely: (i) SV(O) constructions, (ii) Postverbal Focus (O)VS(O) & VOS constructions and (iii) Clefting (full/reduced clefts and pseudoclefts).