The Clausal Structure of Spanish: A Comparative Study (review)

This publication of Francisco Ordóñez’s 1997 CUNY dissertation, Word order and clause structure in Spanish and other Romance languages, deals with clause structure in Romance (particularly, Spanish). It provides a highly stimulating discussion of many issues relating to Romance syntax and contains new provocative analyses. In the ‘Introduction’ (3–23), O introduces the theoretical framework which he employs throughout the study, namely antisymmetry (cf. Kayne, R. S. The antisymmetry of syntax, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994). He emphasizes the bidirectional relation of his work and antisymmetry: The antisymmetry framework makes available the specific analyses presented here which in turn empirically support antisymmetry.

The chapter titles are all very revealing. ‘The VSO/VOS alternation in Spanish’ (25–69) is the topic of Ch. 2. Discussing asymmetries in Spanish between subjects and objects in the VOS- and VSO-orders, O explicitly proposes a scrambling account: VOS is derived by leftward movement of the object. Such an approach arguably explains asymmetries in quantifier binding and Principle C (objects c-command subjects only in the VOS order), the ban on wh-objects in situ in VOS (viz., a generalized ban on scrambling in situ wh-elements), the specific interpretation of indefinite objects in VOS (cf. scrambling of indefinites in ‘real’ scrambling languages, like Korean, Hindi, and German), the restriction on subject pronouns in VSO (which are scrambled to the left), and more.

O then considers ‘Focus and post-verbal subjects in Romance’ (71–118) in Ch. 3, proposing that the wider distribution of postverbal subjects in Spanish (compared to Catalan, French, Italian) follows from an additional inflectional projection, Neut(ral)P, a nonfocused position. In the more restricted languages, NeutP is absent and TP moves over the subject (viz. light predicate raising), rendering the subject in focus position. O also applies this analysis to the Spanish VOS orders discussed in Ch. 2, thus suggesting that Spanish has the full range of options while the other languages considered only make available a subset.

‘Inversion in interrogatives in Spanish and Catalan’ (119–49) is the next chapter. Here, O lays the basis for the final chapter and argues that preverbal subjects in Spanish (and Catalan) are obligatorily topicalized, hence occupy Top(ic)P (part of the Comp-domain in the left periphery of the clause, above TP). He considers traditional accounts of overt verb movement in these languages and the problems these pose to the antisymmetry framework; he concludes that V-to-C movement does not take place (as opposed to the Germanic languages). He also shows that postverbal subjects in interrogatives are not in the canonical subject position but behave more like postverbal subjects in free inversion structures. Turning to interrogatives proper, O proposes that obligatory inversion is a by-product of a recursive CP, where topic and wh-properties clash.

The final chapter, ‘Left dislocated subjects and pro-Drop’ (151–90), extends O’s proposal that lexical subjects in preverbal position are always topicalized (arguably applying to Catalan and Italian as well). Evidence against a single, canonical subject position (‘SpecIP’) in all constructions comes from ellipsis, quantifier extraction, wh-questions, and interpretive restrictions on quantified subjects in this position. O eliminates Agr(eement)S(ubject)P and takes AgrS to be a clitic absorbing theta role and case (making Agr in fact an argument). He offers independent evidence from the similarities between clitic doubling and agreement. In sum, O argues that preverbal subjects and objects have the same syntactic distribution and should hence be analyzed on a par, both involving movement to TopP.

This book is a careful study of a number of phenomena relating to clause structure in Romance. It offers a detailed analysis within the antisymmetry framework but presents an interesting collection of empirical data as well.