ABSTRACT

One of many open questions in linguistic theory is the proper syntactic characterization of structures with left-peripheral dislocates that are considered to be, in some sense, ‘outside the sentential domain’ (Ziv 1994: 632). In this chapter, I shall be concerned chiefly with one such class of structures in German and English, as illustrated in(1), a class widely known as hanging topic left dislocation structures. I shall be distinguishing these from certain other structures whose dislocates are considered to be integrated into their host sentences and thus within the sentential domain. The latter structures, illustrated in(2), are those in German containing weak d-pronoun resumptives, dubbed weak pronoun left dislocation in Shaer and Frey (2004), and English topicalization. In this chapter, I shall be referring to these two basic classes of structures, again following Shaer and Frey (2004), as N-class and I-class structures, respectively, which serve as a mnemonic for ‘non-integrated’ and ‘integrated.’

N-class structures: hanging topic left dislocation

Den/Der Hans, jeder mag ihn.

the-ACC/NOM Hans everyone likes him

‘Hans, everyone likes him.’

Hans, everyone likes him.

I-class structures: weak pronoun left dislocation and topicalization

Den Hans, den jeder mag.

the-ACC Hans him everyone likes

‘Hans, everyone likes him.’

Hans, everyone likes. 2