LIGHT NP SHIFT AND VERBAL ADJUNCTS IN ENGLISH

The ordering of post-verbal elements in English is somewhat variable, a flexibility manifested in phenomena such as heavy NP shift and split phrasal verbs. This paper argues for a unified approach to these alternations, one that views both as the result of syntactic Object Shift mediated by a phrasal phonology constraint. In section 1, I present reasons why the two alternations should be considered together, and why syntax should play a role in the discussion. Section 2 includes a review of syntactic approaches to these phenomena and my own account, which is primarily a generalization of earlier work. Section 3 provides additional evidence for this account, focusing on the effects of verb raising and the ordering of elements in a SVO language with n