I investigate the interaction of Ā-movement, long-distance agreement (LDA), and clause type in Passamaquoddy (Eastern Algonquian) as a lens into the structure of the left periphery. I observe that we must distinguish three LDA patterns in the language: (i) LDA into complements of verbs like ’kocicihtun ‘know’ (“epistemic complements”), which is generally free (i.e. not A-local), but is restricted to the wh-DP under long-distance wh-movement; (ii) LDA into direct perception complements, which is always free, even when long-distance wh-moving a DP; and (iii) LDA into complements of verbs like ’pawatomon ‘want’ (“subordinative complements”, featuring verbs inflected in the subordinative verbal paradigm), which is always subject to A-locality, even when long-distance wh-moving a DP. I propose that these three patterns arise from independently-diagnosable differences in clause size: epistemic complements are full, phasal CPs, direct perception complements are reduced, nonphasal CPs, and subordinative complements are (nonphasal) bare TPs.

The left periphery is commonly taken to be the locus of information-structural properties of utterances, hosting the topic and focus field, with the elements occupying left-peripheral positions being endowed with [Topic] and [Focus] features. In this article I show that not all constructions formed in the left periphery have information-structural characteristics of topics and foci, and propose that the relationship between the left periphery and the extended projection of the verb should be re-evaluated. I first explore the left periphery in two typologically distinct languages, Wolof (West Atlantic, Senegal) and Igala (Yoruboid, Nigeria), and show that constructions with topics and A'-extracted elements in the two languages share some typical properties of such structures cross-linguistically. I then turn to clauses with nominal predicates in the two languages, and show that they are formed in the left periphery, with the predicate moving to the syntactic position otherwise reserved for A'-extracted exhaustified elements, and the subject occupying the position of the topic. Crucially, clauses with nominal predicates do not exhibit the information-structural properties otherwise associated with the two left-peripheral positions, meaning that endowing those positions with features such as [Topic] and [Focus] does not yield adequate empirical coverage. However, both positions exhibit formal syntactic properties of left-peripheral elements. I do not propose a new analysis in this article, but lay out the issues which an analysis of the left periphery should capture, and propose avenues for further research.

This article explores patterns of agreement and word order in the Central Algonquian language Border Lakes Ojibwe. This variety of Ojibwe shows alternations between VOS and VSO word orders and complex interactions between probes on Voice, Infl, and C. I show that the behaviour of lower probes feeds and bleeds the possible agreement and movement relations on each subsequent probe. These complex interactions culminate with the peripheral agreement marker on C, which shows a curious pattern that I dub reverse omnivority, where the probe agrees with lower ranked arguments over higher ranked arguments regardless of whether it is a logical subject or object. The core theoretical innovation is an extension of the syntactic operation agree to encode a relativized EPP, which captures variation and restrictions on movement and the possibility of movement and feature copying being independent. The account provides a strong case for Ojibwe as a configurational language, and is shown to capture variation in agreement and word order in various corners of Ojibwe and beyond.

For the Inuit language, it is often claimed that verbal agreement occurs in the CP-domain, as it is sensitive to clause type, and that absolutive case assignment is connected to verbal agreement, because one argument always bears this case in any verbal construction. These claims are strengthened by the fact that absolutive arguments are often assumed to move to the CP-domain, since they obligatorily take wide scope over sentence-level operators like negation, and are interpreted as sentential or aboutness topics. Yet, absolutive case is also assigned in certain nominalized clauses, which lack verbal agreement. In this article, we analyze gerund and participial constructions in Inuktitut to determine the contexts in which absolutive case is assigned. We argue that absolutive case is not assigned through verbal agreement but is nevertheless tied to the CP-domain. More precisely, we claim that absolutive case is assigned in any clause endowed with illocutionary force and hence projecting ForceP bundled with TopP, which we assume is responsible for absolutive case assignment. We conclude that the assignment of absolutive case is a root phenomenon in the language, as it requires the clausal left periphery.

This paper provides a novel description and syntactic analysis of different types of quantifiers in Chuj, an underdocumented Mayan language. We focus on a subset of expressions that quantify over entities, and that have been noted to appear obligatorily in sentence-initial position. We argue that three types of quantifiers should be distinguished: (i) Predicative A-quantifiers, which occur sentence-initially because Chuj is a predicate-initial language; (ii) Focus D-quantifiers, which occur sentence-initially because they are lexically specified for an [A$'$] feature; and (iii) Basic D-quantifiers, which, lacking an [A$'$] feature, have no effects on the syntactic position of their host arguments. We also sketch syntactic analyses of each type of quantifier.

This article discusses the syntactic analysis of V3 patterns in a V2 language in relation to the articulated left periphery familiar from work in the cartographic tradition. V3 patterns in Dutch or in German have been analysed as involving a regular V2 pattern with an initial sentence external constituent. This type of analysis has been invoked, for instance, for CLD patterns in Dutch. This article shows how one distinctive V3 pattern in the Ghent variety of Dutch provides support for a fine-grained structure of the left periphery. In this pattern, an initial adverbial adjunct is followed by an invariant die which is itself followed by the finite verb. We provide evidence that this pattern must not be equated with adverbial CLD in Dutch or the Ghent variety. We show that the constituent preceding die is not main clause-external. Invariant die is analysed as the spell out of a featurally enriched left peripheral head, more specifically an instantiation of a D-enriched Force encoding discourse anchoring.