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In:Inner-sentential Propositional Proforms: Syntactic properties and interpretative effects
Edited by Werner Frey, André Meinunger and Kerstin Schwabe
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 232] 2016
► pp. 105–146

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Some distinctions in the right periphery of the German clause

Published online: 26 July 2016
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https://doi.org/10.1075/la.232.05tru
Right dislocation/afterthought (resuming a pronoun) obeys prosody and information structure restrictions not shared by extraposition (leaving a gap) in German. Right dislocation/afterthought requires that the preceding clause is an intonation phrase carrying sentence stress on its own. It also requires that no focus-background structure is built across the clause and the dislocated element. Neither requirement is present with extraposition. The syntactic analysis derives right dislocation/afterthought from full clauses by deletion. The separate clause is outside of the root sentence of Bruce Downing (1970), which is tentatively identified with the non-integrated clauses of Reis (1997) and Holler (2008). Earlier analyses are confirmed in a related case: What looks like the resumption of es ‘it’ by clauses (Germ. Korrelate) under certain matrix verbs seems to be syntactic extraposition from [DP es CP] instead.
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