Syntax Seminar

Discourse at the Edge: Cross-linguistically, clauses exhibit systematic organisation, with a verbal core that is dominated by higher tense/aspect/mood layer, which is, in turn, dominated by what is traditionally referred to as the C-domain, where information relating the clause in question to the discourse of utterance is encoded/introduced. In this class, I will lead an investigation of the C-domain in particular, focussing on proposals which have sought to illuminate the inner workings of the left periphery, such as the Cartographic enterprise (cf. Rizzi 1997), as well as Wiltschko's (2014) Universal Spine Hypothesis. Some other topics that will also be discussed include Speas and Tenny's (2003) proposal that there are dedicated Speech Act and Sentience Projections which collectively form what they identify as the Sentience Domain, Deal's (2020) related proposal that there are semantically active operators which are syntactically present in the C-domain that can affect the interpretation of elements lower in the clause, as well as how these proposals may interact with other contemporary syntactic proposals such as Anti-Locality (cf. Erlewine 2016).