Binding into right-dislocated categories is generally possible in Italian but fails when the binder is a direct object and the right-dislocated constituent an indirect object or a PP doubled by ci ‘with him/her’, even though it is otherwise perfectly acceptable for a direct object to bind a pronoun or anaphor contained in an indirect object or a PP. These data fall into place once it is recognized that cliticization of an indirect object or a PP gives rise to a scope-freezing effect (on a par with English double object constructions). We develop our account using a biclausal analysis of right-dislocation but explore to what extent monoclausal analyses can capture the data as well.

We argue, following Barros and Vicente (2011) , that right-node raising (RNR) results from either ellipsis or multidominance. Four considerations support this claim. (a) RNR has properties of ellipsis and of multidominance. (b) Where these are combined, the structure results from repeated RNR: a pivot created through ellipsis contains a right-peripheral secondary pivot created through multidominance. (c) In certain circumstances, one or the other derivation is blocked, so that RNR behaves like pure ellipsis or pure multidominance. (d) Linearization of RNR-as-multidominance requires pruning. The same pruning operation delivers RNR-as-ellipsis, which explains why the two derivations must meet the same ordering constraints.

This squib argues that NPI-licensing and variable binding are subject to a precedence constraint. The argument is based on Dutch, which allows extraposition of PPs. There is substantial evidence that when multiple PPs appear after the verb, their order corresponds to reverse c-command (that is, postverbal PPs c-command postverbal PPs to their left). Nonetheless, variable binding and NPI-licensing in the postverbal domain are possible only when the dependent category follows its binder/licenser. We argue that this state of affairs requires (a) Quantifier Raising of the binder/licenser and (b) a precedence constraint on NPI-licensing and variable binding.

In English, adverbials may intervene between the verb and a selected PP. We consider three analyses of this fact: the traditional account, that the PP shifts rightward across a right-adjoined adverbial ( Stowell 1981 ); an alternative account, that the verb moves leftward across a left-adjoined adverbial ( Pesetsky 1989 , Johnson 1991 ); and a hybrid account that assumes both extraposition and verb raising. We argue that the order of postverbal adverbials favors the extraposition analysis, provided this analysis is combined with the hypothesis that certain adverbials can directly modify other adverbials ( Rohrbacher 1994 , Williams 2014 ). We then compare two instantiations of the extraposition analysis: the traditional account and an antisymmetric account that emulates PP-extraposition through a combination of PP-intraposition and roll-up movement. While close to being notational variants, these accounts can be teased apart using the very strict locality requirement that holds of interaction with temporal only . The data then show that the symmetric account has the edge. Finally, we briefly discuss the implications of our findings for the analysis of the English VP, with a focus on the circumstances under which the verb moves.

Attributive APs precede certain other categories (PPs, genitive DPs, etc.), when the noun precedes both ( Giurgea 2009 , Adger 2012 ). This observation may suggest an analysis in terms of X-bar-style “structural layering.” However, such an account faces several problems: (a) in languages with PP-AP-N order, scrambling of the AP is permitted; (b) in languages with AP-N-PP or PP-N-AP order, there is evidence that the AP can c-command the PP, as well as the other way around; and (c) in languages with N-AP-PP order, the AP can take scope over the PP, as well as the other way around, arguably as a consequence of a structural ambiguity. We therefore develop an alternative analysis based on a striking parallel between the syntax of attributive APs and that of objects: while OV languages systematically allow adverbs to intervene between object and verb, VO languages tend to require verb-object-adverb order. This aspect of verbal syntax is familiar and can be captured in terms of a well-known linear constraint: Case Adjacency ( Stowell 1981 , Janke and Neeleman 2012 ). We propose that this constraint has a nominal counterpart that ensures N-AP adjacency in noun-initial structures. Thus, this instance of NP/VP parallelism has its source in parallel constraints, rather than parallel structural layers.

Benmamoun and Lorimor (2006) dispute the claim made in Ackema and Neeleman 2003 that certain agreement alternations in Standard Arabic, and various related phenomena, can successfully be analyzed in terms of postsyntactic spell-out rules that are sensitive to prosodic structure. In this reply, we argue that the data discussed by Benmamoun and Lorimor do not warrant their conclusion, and in fact provide further evidence in favor of our original analysis.

We argue that English allows both rightward-descending VP shell structures and more traditional rightward-ascending VPs. The choice between these depends on case theory and economy. Case theory triggers VP shell formation whenever the verb is merged with a DP object after it has been merged with some other category. The reason is that VP shell formation allows verb and object to surface in adjacent positions, a prerequisite for case licensing in English. Economy has the effect that in all other circumstances, VP shell formation is blocked. Our argument is based on a range of intricate data, many of which involve the distribution of object-oriented floating quantifiers. We end with a discussion of the binding data that are often taken to support a uniformly descending structure—incorrectly, in our view.

We propose a new generalization governing the crosslinguistic distribution of radical pro drop (the type of pro drop found in Chinese). It occurs only in languages whose pronouns are agglutinating for case, number, or some other nominal feature. Other types of languages cannot omit pronouns freely, although they may have agreement-based pro drop. This generalization can for the most part be derived from three assumptions. (a) Spell-out rules for pronouns may target nonterminal categories. (b) Pro drop is zero spell-out (i.e., deletion) of regular pronouns. (c) Competition between spell-out rules is governed by the Elsewhere Principle. A full derivation relies on an acquisitional strategy motivated by the absence of negative evidence. We test our proposal using data from a sample of twenty languages and The World Atlas of Language Structures (Haspelmath et al. 2005).

This article presents a theory of grammatical dependencies that is in accordance with basic assumptions of bare phrase structure theory. It explains Koster's (1987) configurational matrix, the observation that such dependencies share five properties: c-command by the antecedent, obligatoriness, uniqueness of the antecedent, nonuniqueness of the dependent, and locality. The theory is based on two primitive syntactic relations (copying and function application) and a nonatomic view of nodes.