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In:Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2013: Selected papers from 'Going Romance' Amsterdam 2013
Edited by Enoch O. Aboh, Jeannette Schaeffer and Petra Sleeman
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 8] 2015
► pp. 85–102

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The paradigmatic instantiation of TAM

A novel approach to Romance verb-movement

 | University of Cambridge
Published online: 2 December 2015
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https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.8.06sch
The aim of the present article is to explore the placement of the finite lexical verb across Romance and to show that, once a rich clausal structure is adopted, as mapped by the cartography, at least four different typologies of verb-movement can be identified. The novel approach developed here shows that the attested patterns are not accidental choices of these languages, but rather stem from a compensatory mechanism between syntax and morphology in the licensing of the Tense, Aspect and Mood (TAM) interpretation of the verb and can be successfully predicted by looking at the properties of the verb paradigms devoted to the expression of TAM.
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