Notes on the syntax and the pragmatics of German Left Dislocation

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Abstract

Both German Left Dislocation (GLD) as well as so called Hanging Topic Left Dislocation (HTLD) are commonly considered to be topic marking constructions. This paper demonstrates that while this is in fact true for the former construction, it is not for the latter. Contra the standard assumption it will be shown that the resumptive pronoun (RP) of GLD may be positioned in the middle field of a German clause. However, it cannot appear anywhere in the middle field, but only in the designated topic position. Thus, the RP necessarily has the status of a sentence topic. As regards discourse properties, it is shown that GLD has to respect the condition of recoverability, and that it is a sentence topic promotion device, which, however, maintains the current discourse topic. GLD differs crucially from the HTLD construction and standard V-second clauses with regard to these properties. In addition, the syntax of GLD is considered. After a critical discussion of two recent movement analyses of the dislocated phrase, it is argued that an analysis which base generates the dislocated phrase at the left periphery of the clause containing the RP is more adequate. The paper ends with some reflections about the relationship between the syntactic structure of GLD and its discourse properties.

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