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A Case of DO-Support in Romance

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Abstract

In this paper we document the existence in a Romance languageof a strategy of do (fa) insertion in main non-subject interrogatives parallel to the well-known English case. As our description illustrates, the set of contexts wheredo-support applies in this language is a proper subset of the English contexts. The syntax of fa-support in a language with typicalRomance features allows us to draw some general conclusions regarding the analysis of Englishdo-support and the interfaces between syntax and morphology, on one side, andsyntax and lexical-semantic structure, on the other. First, we will show how fa-support in this Romancelanguage constitutes evidence in favor of the hypothesis that V to C movement applies alsoin Romance main questions. Second, some aspects of Rizzi's (1991) proposal that subject wh-sentences have a CP structure with the wh- in SpecC is confirmed by thepresence of an overt complementizer in the language we are dealing with.Thirdly, the phenomenon of Romance fa-support will lead us to further develop Pollock'sidea that do-insertion is directly connected with the theta-grid of a verb: a main verbcannot move to a thematically opaque position, while auxiliaries can, as they do not havea theta-grid. In the Romance dialect we analyze some verbs move to C° (or usedo-support) independently of their use as auxiliaries or as main verbs. In order to accountfor this aspect of the phenomenon, we suggest a more detailed description of the process.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di discipline linguistiche, communicative e dello spettacolo, Universitá di Padova - Palazzo Maldura, via B. Pellegrino 1, I-35137, Padova, Italy

    Paola Benincá

  2. CNR-Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione c/o Universitá di Padova -, Palazzo Maldura via B. Pellegrino 1, I-35137, Padova, Italy

    Cecilia Poletto

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Benincá, P., Poletto, C. A Case of DO-Support in Romance. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 22, 51–94 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:NALA.0000005565.12630.c1

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