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The Lexicon–Syntax Interface: Perspectives from South Asian languages
Edited by Pritha Chandra and Richa Srishti
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 209] 2014
► pp. 53–70

Adjective-fronting as evidence for Focus and Topic within the Bangla nominal domain

| University of Southern California
The goal of this paper is twofold. First it talks about the syntax of adjectives in Bangla, and argues in favor of the idea that there is a fixed hierarchy of functional projections where Adjective phrases are manifest as specifiers. It takes the stance that the adjectives are part of the lexicon; they are taken from the lexicon during a computation, and mapped into the syntax, forming an AdjectivePhrase (AdjP). Secondly, the paper argues for Focus and Topic phrases within the nominal domain, thus extending Rizzi’s original proposal of a split CP to DPs (cf. Rizzi 1997). Specifically the paper uses evidence from adjective fronting to claim that there is a fixed FocP immediately above the DP in Bangla, and at least one TopP above the FocP. The constituent bearing such a topic/focus feature needs to move up in a local checking configuration with the relevant functional head that has the matching feature, thus explaining the attested adjective-fronting.
Keywords: adjective-fronting, Bangla, focus, syntax, topic
Published online: 25 March 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/la.209.03sye
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