The Syntax of Givenness Ivona Kucerová

phrases are required to undergo G-movement. 12 Consider the trees in (14).
Taking into account that Czech is an SVO language, there are two basic cases to consider.
Either (i) α G is a head and β (a non-G element) is a phrase, as in (14-a); or (ii) α G is
a phrase and β is a head, as in (14-b).
(14) a.
βP α G
b.
β
α G P
In case of (14-a), the definition of G-movement requires the head α G to move above
the phrase, resulting in (15). I leave open for now what exactly the landing site of such a
movement is. I will address this question in section 2.3.
(15)
α G
βP t αG
An example of such movement is found in unergatives. In Czech, in the basic word
order an unergative subject precedes an unergative verb, as in (16). If the verb is given and
the subject is new, the word order is reversed, as in (17). 13
(16) a. What happened?
b. Marie tancovala.
Marie danced
(17) a. Who danced?
b. Tancovala || Marie.
danced Marie
‘Marie danced.’
In case of (14-b), the definition of G-movement requires the phrase α G to move over the
head β, resulting into (18).
(18)
α G P β tαG
A simple case of such movement can be found with unaccusatives. In contrast to unergatives,
in the basic word order, an unaccusative subject follows an unaccusative verb, as in
(19). If the verb is new and the subject is given, the word order is reversed, as in (20).
12 The proposal predicts that if there were rightward movement, a given element might follow a new element.
Unfortunately, I am not aware of any case of rightward movement in Czech that would allow to test
this prediction.
13 I simplify the derivation here. In the full derivation, V moves to v, resulting into structure that requires
another instance of G-movement. I will go through derivations in more details in the coming chapters. For
now, I leave many details aside.
15