The Syntax of Past Participles

Book excerpt: This work aims to show, firstly, that a number of problems of the syntax of ancient, literary Italian lend themselves to an analysis in terms of the theory of principles and parameters. Secondly, Italian data, supported by comparative remarks on modern Romance and Germanic, are shown to confirm the essential correctness of the antisymmetry framework of Kayne (1994). The theoretical and empirical problems discussed can be summarized in four general points: functional structure of the principle; word order; agreement patterns; and interpretation. The analysis focuses on the affectedness constraint.