Topic, focus and V2: defining the CP sublayers

The work intends to contribute to the cartography of the CP layer and give a more detailed analysis of the portion of the CP structure that encodes theme/rheme distinctions, exploiting data from standard Italian and non standard varieties. The left periphery (CP) is a field to which elements are moved to and, presumably also, within which they are moved. One assumption is that there is a one-to-one relation between position and function, in our case between each pragmatic interpretation and a syntactic position in CP. This means that recursion of a projection is not admitted. The analysis concentrates on the syntactic projections that have been defined as Topic and Focus in Rizzi’s (1997) work on the split CP. We will address two properties of the structure in (1). The first property is CP recursion. Rizzi hypothesizes that Topic is a set of recursive projections (he indicates recursion with a *) occurring both higher and lower than a single Focus projection: (1) Topic* FocusP Topic* The main claim is that recursion is not a possible option. Neither of the two fields examined here is recursive in the sense that there is a virtually infinite set of totally identical Topic phrases or Focus phrases. The claim is that what the stars in (1) indicate is a finite set of distinct FPs each of which can be labeled on the basis of the type of element it can host. We show that each projection has different semantic properties and can host a single XP. Both fields contain a limited set of FPs each selecting a particular type of elements expressing a different semantics. The second property of (1) discussed in the paper is the Topic projection lower than Focus. We will show that the projections lower than Topic all have the syntactic characteristics of focussed elements, namely they behave as operators. This conclusion permits us to identify two different fields in CP, a higher Topic field hosting non-operator elements, and a lower Focus field hosting operator-like elements. The paper is organized as follows: in section 1 and 2 Benincà’s (2001) arguments are illustrated which show that the elements located lower than a contrastively stressed XP are not lower Topics, but Focus themselves; their trace behaves as a variable being sensitive to weak crossover, while the empty category related to Topics do not. Section 3 concentrates on contrastive Focus. On the basis of data from a V2 Romance variety, Rhaeto-Romance, it appears that Focus can be split into: a) at least two contrastive Focus projections depending on the type of elements contrasted (adverbs or DPs) and b) at least one FocusP which is not marked for contrastiveness but just as “relevant information”. Section 4. and 5. deals with the internal make up of the Left Dislocation (LD) positions. It has been repeatedly observed that in Italian an indefinite number of topics can be permutated in the left periphery, apparently without any consequence on the pragmatic interpretation. Following the tradition initiated by Cinque (1977), and developed in Benincà (1988) and Cinque (1990), we provide six empirical tests to distinguish between two types of thematized elements which we will refer to as Hanging Topics and Left Dislocated elements. We will then discuss the position of Scene Setting adverbs and isolate the lowest position inside the Topic field to which a “List Interpretation” is assigned. We then present some hypothesis on the ordering of Left Dislocated elements. The last section includes a speculation of the semantic characterization of these projections and the way they are layered.