Neg-raising, IP-internal topic and focus phrases and the structure of the Awing SOV clause

Abstract

Ever since Kayne (1994) which argues that the universal word order in a phrase is Head-Complement, many studies had proliferated in support of the LCA. Basically, at the level of the clause, many languages exhibit the SVO pattern but there are languages which display distorted word order among which the SOV. The Awing language has both orders and there are determined on the basis of the opposition positive versus negative clause. This paper examines the derivation of the Awing SOV structure and argues that this derivation involves basic movements such head and A- movements (Chomsky 1995) in addition to remnant and heavy pied-ping. It also proposes a reanalysis of the landing site of the raised remnant VP and argues (in contradiction to Nyomy (2019) who posits that the position of the raised VP is spec, AgrOP) that the raised remnant VP lands in spec, TopP (an IP-internal left periphery position as posited by Jayaseelan (2001)).