The Syntax of Givenness Ivona Kucerová

functionalist tradition there has been prevailing disagreement on whether the inflected verbal
form can be characterized as given or new (for example, Sgall (1967); Hajičová (1974);
Sgall et al. (1980)) or whether the verb forms a special category which is neither given nor
new (for example, Firbas 1964; Svoboda 1984). I will argue that the finite verb is indeed either
given or new. The reason why it is so difficult to characterize its information structure
status is that the verb is often ambiguous between being given and new. More precisely,
the partition between given and new often either immediately precedes the finite verb or
immediately follows it.
I will argue that this is a side-product of an independent property of G-movement. In
particular, I will argue that G-movement is parasitic on head movement. The idea that
a certain type of movement may be dependent on head movement has been already proposed
in other contexts (see, for example, Holmberg 1986 for Object shift and Heycock
and Kroch 1993; Johnson 2002 for coordination) but it is not well understood. I will provide
a possible motivation of this restriction on G-movement in section 2.3. In this section
I will show that we can find two possible motivations for head movement in connection
with G-movement. Either (i) head movement is an independent instance of G-movement,
and the verb is given, or (ii) the verb is new and head movement facilitates G-movement
of some other element. In both cases head movement is understood as part of the narrow
syntax (contrary to Chomsky (2000, 2001, 2004a)).
In the simple cases we have considered so far, the relative word order of the new part
was the same as the basic word order. Consider (32).
(32) a. And what about the lollipop?
b. #Lízátko malá holčička našla.←− # O || S V
lollipop.Acc little girl.Nom found
c. Lízátko || našla malá holčička. ←− O || V S
lollipop.Acc found little girl.Nom
‘A little girl found the lollipop.’
Our system as it is set up now predicts that the word order of the new elements should not
change, thus, the verb should linearly follow the subject, as in (32-b). This prediction is,
however, incorrect. As we see in (32-c), the verb must precede the subject. I argue that this
is a result of a more general restriction on G-movement that has not been discussed yet. A
first approximation of the restriction is given in (33). I will discuss the restriction in further
detail in section 2.3.
(33) Head movement restriction on G-movement:
α G can G-move out of XP only if X 0 moves out of XP as well.
The restriction is meant to capture the fact that if α G G-moves, the head in which projection
α G was base generated moves as well. We will see only in section 2.3 how exactly
the head movement restriction is motivated and when it applies. For now, let’s stay with
the following claim: there are two cases in which a head moves because of G-movement:
(i) the head itself is given and as such it needs to undergo G-movement; (ii) the head itself
23