Focus Anti-Pied-Piping in Bangla and Hindi-Urdu

Abstract

Languages attest mismatches between the domain of focus and the constituent that bears a morphosyntactic focus particle. This paper studies cases where the focus particle attaches to a sub-constituent of the domain of focus in Bangla and Hindi-Urdu and examines the relation between focus particle placement and scrambling within and outside the domain of logical focus. In certain cases, scrambling appears to feed the process of particle-placement, and in certain other cases, scrambling seems to follow particleplacement. Given that clause-internal scrambling has semantic effects and has been argued to be syntactic, this creates a paradox regarding the relative timing of scrambling and particle-placement. We claim that the paradox is only apparent and such a pattern is explained with a multi-dominance theory of movement, wherein movement creates multiple occurrences of a syntactic object and a post-syntactic operation performed on any one of them is reflected on both the occurrences.