To Move or Not to Move: Experimental Evidence for Focus Strategies in Romanian
To Move or Not to Move: Experimental Evidence for Focus Strategies in Romanian

Summary/Abstract: As shown by previous analysis, contrastively focused constituents in Romanian may occupy different positions in the clause structure: a post-verbal position, which may be an “in situ” occurrence or movement to a lower clause periphery, sometimes masked by the movement of other constituents as well, and a left-periphery position, with focused constituents undergoing operator-movement motivated in syntactic theory by feature-checking requirements. The paper uses experimental data to investigate which strategy (fronting or in situ) is preferred by speakers, and any other syntactic effects of the chosen strategy. Furthermore, it tests whether the presence of the focus particles influences the word order preference, given the additional features carried by the particles.

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