2020/03/25 by Mélanie Jouitteau · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · #Historical Linguistics and Language Studies #Linguistics and Discourse Analysis #Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
paper · doi:10.1093/oso/9780198844303.003.0019
openalex publication_date 2020/03/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
This chapter is an inquiry into the subcomponent of the Extended Projection Principle (EPP) that is relevant for second position phenomena: the <italic>Left Edge Filling Trigger</italic> (LEFT). LEFT basically amounts to a classical morphological obligatory exponence effect, except that it is instantiated at the sentence level. It cross-linguistically operates in a post-syntactic realizational morphological module. It is shown that LEFT is an active rule of Universal Grammar, providing empirical arguments from Breton, a Celtic VSO language showing an extra conspicuous V2 requirement. A radical reanalysis of language word order typology is proposed. Classic V2 languages are conspicuously V2. SVO is a subtype. So-called V1 languages are either predicate-fronting languages (Tense second), or inconspicuously V2. A cross-linguistic typology of LEFT effects is presented, with great attention paid to inconspicuous satisfiers, among them null expletives, for which evidence is presented. The chapter argues accordingly for a drastic extension of the typology of expletives.