LUCL Colloquium 27 May 2011

Information

On Friday 27 May Sjef Barbiers (Meertens Instituut and Utrecht University) will give a talk entitled "Imperatives as distals".

Abstract

Fronting in imperatives is possible in German and Middle Dutch but impossible in Modern Dutch (Das Buch lies besser nicht! *Dat boek lees maar niet! lit. that book read just not vs. Lees dat boek maar niet! lit. read that book just not). In previous work (Barbiers 2007) I argued that the possibility of fronting in imperatives can be reduced to the properties of the verbal inflection paradigm in these languages, more specifically to the availability of a unique imperative form. Eastern Brabantish dialects do not have a unique imperative form. Fronting is nevertheless possible, but it is restricted to distal pronouns and the clause must contain certain adverbs, e.g. the focus particle maar 'just'. (e.g. Da doe maar lit. that do just). In this talk I will provide an analysis for these curious conditions and discuss its consequences for the structure of imperatives in general and the licensing of silent arguments (subject and object pro drop) in imperatives.

Date, time and venue

Contact

The LUCL colloquium organising committee consists of:

• Ronny Boogaart

• Marion Elenbaas

• Jessie Nixon

Please email the organisers if you are interested in giving a brief presentation of your ongoing research for one of the future work-in-progress meetings.