Repair-driven verb movement in English locative inversion
Martin Salzmann · 2013
This paper argues that the case for English locative inversion (LI) should be re-opened.It is shown that previous accounts in terms of predicate inversion, empty expletive subjects or subject extraposition fail to account for LI with preposed adjuncts and unergative verbs.Instead it will be argued that locative inversion in English requires a rather drastic reassessment of some of the basic assumptions about English grammar.On the one hand, what has been thought of as a subject position should be re-interpreted as a more flexible position, a generalized TP.On the other, it will be argued that there is altruistic movement of the finite verb.This exceptional verb movement is analyzed as repair-driven movement that helps satisfy information structural requirements of the subject: through movement of the verb, the (unergative) subject ends up in clause-final position and can thus occupy the default focus-position.I will take these facts to argue in favor of a model of grammar that makes use of interacting and violable constraints and thus expresses the notion of repair in a very direct way.