Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2011, Page 177

Replies to Elisabet Engdahl’s Questions 175
Reply to question 4:ln my thesis I comment that examples like (3a, b) are fixed
phrases:
(3) a. það veit ég ekki
that know I not
‘I don’t know’
b. þetta vissi ég
this knew I
‘I knew that’
However, I assume that such examples are instances of a productive syntactic pat-
tern, i.e. Topicalization. I considered using examples of this kind in my question-
naires but I decided to construct sentences with heavier topicalized NPs since
such examples are more common in the discussion on ET in the Scandinavian lan-
guages.
Reply to question 5: It could be the case that ‘obligatory’ SF-expressions act as trig-
gers for the use of SF. I have not looked into the use of such expressions in chil-
dren’s literature and schoolbooks, but it would certainly be interesting to investi-
gate this with respect to the inter-age variation found in the questionnaires.
Reply to question 6: The feature [+/— assertive] is a semantic/pragmatic feature.
Unlike uninterpretable morpho-syntactic features, it does not need to be checked/
deleted. According to my analysis, all rfwf-complements allow for fronting of top-
icalized elements, syntactically speaking. However, the result may or may not be
semantically/pragmatically felicitous. The important generalization is that the
emphasis that Topicalization entails is infelicitous in non-assertive contexts.
Reply to question 7: I have argued elsewhere (Angantýsson 2008) that multiple
fronting actually is possible in Icelandic. Some adjustments to the original pro-
posal are needed though:
(4) a. ?*Ég held að í miðri kreppu, SVONA STÓRA BÍLA,
Top Foc
I believe that in the middle of a crisis, such BIG cars,
á þessum óvissutímum, ætti enginn að kaupa
Top IP
during this time of uncertainty, should nobody buy
b. ?*Ég held að í miðri kreppu,
Top
I believe that in the middle of a crisis,
á þessum óvissutímum, SVONA STÓRA BÍLA ætti enginn að kaupa
Top FocP IP
during this time of uncertainty, such BIG cars should nobody buy