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In:Left Sentence Peripheries in Spanish: Diachronic, Variationist and Comparative Perspectives
Edited by Andreas Dufter and Álvaro S. Octavio de Toledo y Huerta
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 214] 2014
► pp. 53–76

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Chapter 2. Revisiting stylistic fronting in Old Spanish

 | University of Hamburg
Published online: 31 July 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/la.214.05fis
The aim of this paper is twofold: First, data will be presented showing that Stylistic Fronting, i.e. the movement of a past participle, an adjective or an infinitive in front of the finite verb, was productive in Old Spanish. Second, I will argue that Stylistic Fronting in Old Spanish had a semantic impact, like other left-dislocated or fronted elements in the Old Romance languages. More precisely I will show that in contrast to what has often been claimed with respect to Icelandic (cf. Holmberg 2005, among many others), Stylistic Fronting in Old Spanish is not a mere phonological displacement, but instead represents a movement that takes place in narrow syntax.
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