Scrambling to Background Position out of Sentential Subjects in Turkish

Authors : Sinan Çakır

Pages : 171-188

View : 45 | Download : 101

Publication Date : 2025-12-31

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :In this study, the (un)grammaticality observed in the movement of the constituents to the background position of their own clauses and to that of the main clauses was examined. The data of the study were collected through a grammaticality judgment test, a self-paced reading task and a gap-filling task from 250 participants (84 male, 166 female, mean age: 20.7) who are studying at several universities of Turkey. The data obtained for the movements of the elements to the background position of the main clause was assessed with regard to the Freezing Principle. In this respect, it is argued that the relative acceptability observed in the scrambling of the subjects stems from performance-related issues, which does not stand against the functionality of this principle in Turkish. With regard to the ungrammaticality noticed in the movements of the constituents to their own clauses, it is maintained that such cases do not arise out of the c-commanding relations among the constituents in the derivation as the literature indicates. On the other hand, the present paper puts forward that the determiner phrase that exists in the highest layer of noun clauses do not allow any constituents to adjoin itself since it is not a suitable projection for backgrounding.
Keywords : Sentential Subject, Scrambling, Turkish, Freezing Principle.

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