Salzmann - Reconstruction and Resumption in Indirect A‘-Dependencies : On the Syntax of Prolepsis and Relativization in (Swiss) German and Beyond

Martin Salzmann

Reconstruction and Resumption in Indirect A'-Dependencies

Studies in
Generative Grammar

Editors

Norbert Corver

Harry van der Hulst

Roumyana Pancheva

Founding editors

Jan Koster

Henk van Riemsdijk

Volume 117

ISBN 978-1-61451-291-2

e-ISBN (PDF) 978-1-61451-220-2

e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-1-5015-0082-4

ISSN 0167-4331

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress.

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.

2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

www.degruyter.com

to my mother

This book has a long history. The first crucial observation goes back to a tutorial I gave at the University of Zurich around 2000 when we noticed that there was a matching effect in Swiss German resumptive relativization. At that time this was just a curious (but surprisingly clear) fact whose theoretical implications I wouldnt be able to grasp until much later. I returned to relative clauses during my time as a PhD student at the University of Leiden. After finishing the first year without having found a PhD topic and starting to feel a bit uncomfortable, I fortunately recalled the observation I had made on matching in resumption back as an MA student and started working on Swiss German relatives. Over time, further aspects of relativization came into focus, including what I termed resumptive prolepsis (a term that so far has had, well, moderate success) and finally reconstruction effects more generally. To my big surprise, what had started out as work on isolated puzzles suddenly formed a (largely) coherent story about aspects of relativization in (Swiss) German. The thesis appeared as Salzmann (2006a). Mastering the challenging topics and finishing the thesis on time would not have been possible without the stimulating environment provided by the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics. I am particularly indebted to my supervisors Lisa Cheng and Johan Rooryck whose input greatly shaped and advanced my ideas and who helped me become a proper theoretical linguist. Their support and supervision was exceptional and exemplary. I still happily (and nostalgically) recall the numberless inspiring discussions we had. In addition, I was lucky to be part of a socially as well as intellectually extremely vivid department. Working door to door with people you could always discuss your pressing syntax problems with was a great privilege. The dynamic linguistic community in the Netherlands and the national graduate school of linguistics (LOT), finally, provided further welcome opportunities to interact with exciting syntacticians from all over the world.

Several of the topics addressed in my 2006 book were inspired by Henk van Riemsdijks work, who was also the external reviewer of my dissertation. I have enormously profited from his vast knowledge of syntax as well as his incredibly subtle insights into the grammar of Swiss German. He has always been very generous in sharing his time and ideas with me way beyond the call of duty and it was also Henk, who offered me to publish my dissertation in revised form in the SGG series. I am immensely grateful for his support over these many years, and I am sure that his work will continue to be a rich source of inspiration for the rest of my career.

Since my life became somewhat unsteady after my PhD with many different jobs in different places, the plan to revise the dissertation had to be postponed. It was only after I came to the University of Leipzig with the perspective of finally spending several years at the same place that I managed to return to relative clauses. However, since so many years had passed, simply updating my 2006-dissertation was not a realistic option. The field had advanced significantly in the meantime, and the literature on relative clauses had grown at such a fast pace that it quickly became clear that large parts of the book would have to be completely new. An important motivation to finally tackle the book was exciting joint work with Doreen Georgi on Case attraction that started around 2013 and provided the fresh ideas that one needs when returning to a topic one has already spent so much energy and time on. While the phenomena discussed in this book are still largely the same as in 2006, my theoretical perspective on them has been refined and significantly developed in several areas; furthermore, the book has become empirically richer. This is most visible in chapters two, three, and five. The first draft of the book was mainly written in 2015, partly in Leipzig, and partly in Paris, where I spent the academic year 2015/2016. Not having to teach for an entire year was surely instrumental in allowing me to write a first version within relatively little time. After positive evaluation, I completed the final manuscript in the winter semester 2016/2017 in Leipzig. Being part of Gereon Mllers vibrant group is one of the most exquisite intellectual privileges our field has to offer, and the many incredibly sharp people around me have crucially pushed me to develop more formal and explicit analyses.

Since this book partly discusses phenomena that had not been addressed in much detail before and generally involve a high degree of complexity and subtlety, it was crucial to be able to rely on a large number of patient informants whose help is hereby gratefully acknowledged: Boban Arsenijevi, Barbara Bchli, Silvio Br, Janneke ter Beek, Hans den Besten, Anne Breitbarth, Hans Broekhuis, Kathrin Bchler, Petrea Brgin, Martin Businger, Liesbeth De Clerk, Jeroen van Craenenbroeck, Peter Gallmann, Berit Gehrke, Martin Graf, Beatrice Hartmann, Jutta Hartmann, Andreas Henrici, Maja Hermann, Holger Hopp, Riny Huybregts, Irene Jacobi, Katarina Klein, Alies MacLean, Marjo van Koppen, Joost Kremers, Roland Litscher, Michael Mente, Nataa Milievi, Heinz Moser, Marlys Moser, Franziska Nf-Vosnjak, Roland Pfau, Mika Poss, Christian Rapold, Hilke Reckmann, Mirjam Rigterink, Didier Ruedin, Etienne Ruedin, Marianne Ruedin, Michel Ruedin, Claudia Schmellentin, Manuela Schnenberger, Eric Schoorlemmer, Charlotte Schweri, Guido Seiler, Roman Sigg, Benjamin Stckelberger, Rafael Suter, Mark de Vries, Ton van der Wouden, Kathrin Wrth, Martina Wrth, Lukas Zaugg, Silvia Zaugg-Coretti, Hedde Zeijlstra, Tobias Zimmermann, Regula Zimmermann-Etter, Hans-Jrg Zollinger, Serena Zweimller.

Different versions of parts of this work were presented at the following occasions: At the GGS in Mannheim (2004), at the TABU-dag in Groningen (2004), at the Bilbao-Deusto Conference in Linguistics in Bilbao (2004), at the Tage der Schweizer Linguistik in Bern (2004), at the first Syntax Aio Meeting in Leiden (2004), at CONSOLE 13 in Troms (2004), at the TIN-dag in Utrecht (2005), at GLOW 28 in Geneva (2005), at the GGS in Tbingen (2005), at CGSW 20 in Tilburg (2005), at the second Syntax Aio Meeting in Utrecht (2005), at the TIN-dag in Utrecht (2006), at the Workshop on Formal Approaches to Variation in Syntax in York (2007), at the GGS in Constance (2007), at the Workshop on Short Wh-Words in Constance (2007), at the University of Geneva (2007), at the Workshop on Descriptive and Explanatory Adequacy in Leiden (2008), at the University of Leipzig (2008), at the TIN-dag in Utrecht (2009), at the University of Gttingen (2010), at the Resumptive Pronoun Workshop in Jerusalem (2012), at the University of Leipzig (2013 and 2014), at the EGG Summer School in Debrecen (2014), at CGSW 29 in York (2014), at the University College London (2015), at the Workshop on Obligatoriness at TbiLLC in Tbilisi (2015), at the Syntax and Semantics Colloquiumin Paris (2015), at the Sminaire LaGraM at Paris 8 (2016), and at GLOW 39 in Gttingen (2016).