Structure removal in complex prefields

Abstract

In the complex prefield construction in German, it looks as though more than one constituent can occupy the position in front of the finite verb in declarative root clauses. Two kinds of analysis can be found in the literature: In one approach, there are indeed multiple constituents in the SpecC domain; in another approach, complex prefields are in fact single VP constituents lacking an overt V head. I argue that there is empirical evidence for both views. I develop a derivational, minimalist analysis based on an independently motivated operation Remove that is the exact counterpart of the operation Merge (Chomsky 2001), and that I take to underlie various constructions that demand conflicting structure assignments. On this view, complex prefields involve both simple VPs (at early stages of the derivation) and multiple constituents (after removal of the VP projection has taken place).

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