Wh-Relative Clauses and Left Periphery from Latin to some Romance Languages

Abstract

The paper is organized as follows: after an introduction of the issue we will examine, in the first section we shall discuss the theory of the antisymmetry of syntax as specifically concerns relative clauses, evidencing also problems linked to the application of this theory to the syntax of relative clauses in Latin and in other Indo-European languages; the second section will present our first attempt at some analysis of the left periphery of the Proto-Indo-European sentence; in the third section we shall discuss the categorial status of the relative pronoun in Latin and we shall produce a model of the left periphery of the Latin subordinate clause, supplying examples taken from literary and epigraphic texts; in the fourth section we shall tentatively extend the analysis of the left periphery of the Latin sentence to the diachronic change that produced the structure of the left periphery in the Romance languages, attempting also to explain the local variations they manifest.