Locality and the Distribution of Main Clause Phenomena

Abstract

Abstract The paper deals with the distribution of main clause phenomena, in particular argument-fronting in English, which is usually said to be restricted to root clauses and to embedded clauses with root-like properties. Accounts of the distribution of MCP have usually tied these to assertive illocutionary force, often adopting a truncation account according to which the left periphery of clauses incompatible with MCP is somehow structurally reduced. This paper proposes an alternative syntactic account according to which the non-availability of argument-fronting in certain embedded domains in English is derived syntactically: it is accounted for in terms of locality constraints on movement. The apparent structural reduction of such domains can be derived as a consequence of a movement derivation of temporal and conditional clauses. The paper will explore to what extent the account can be generalized to capture the restricted distribution of argument-fronting (and MCP in general) in different types of that clauses.

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