Multiple Fronting
Harmonic Minimalism - Cumulativity and Serialism in Syntax - Andrew Murphy
Andrew Murphy [+]
University of Leipzig
Description
This chapter presents a detailed case study of multiple fronting constructions in three languages. The most detailed of these involves multiple wh-fronting in Slavic languages such as Serbo-Croatian, Polish and Russian. In particular, it will be argued that the ban on Multiple Left-Branch Extraction identified by Fernandez-Salgueiro (2006) and Grebenyova (2012) is best analyzed as a gang effect generated by violable constraints against multiple fronting and sub-extraction, respectively. It is shown that this view can be unied with a separate ordering restriction found with cases of ‘mixed’ multiple fronting. When combined with a serial approach to syntax, this analysis also correctly predicts the existence of subject/object asymmetries.is is because violations that participate in gang effects must occur in the same derivational step. It is argued that important property of Serial Harmonic GRammar emerges from this analysis, namely derivational amnesia. The analysis developed for multiple fronting in Slavic also extends to parallel data in Korean, where a similar subject/object asymmetry has been reported with multiple scrambling and quantifier stranding (Ko 2007). Additionally, another instance of illicit multiple that will be shown to follow the from a cumulative analysis will be presented from correlative fronting in Hindi (Bhatt 2003).