Constraints on multiple dependencies in the left-periphery in European Portuguese

This paper focuses on intervention effects obtained by embedding a topic constituent (either a displaced topic or a clitic left-dislocated topic) within the domain of wh-movement. We present the results of two acceptability judgment tests carried out in European Portuguese (EP), which indicate that only a subset of the constructions in which a topic intervenes in the path of wh-movement is judged acceptable by native speakers. The pattern that emerges can be described by the following generalization: (1) A wh-movement dependency may contain a topicalized or clitic left-dislocated constituent in its scope iff the full topic-(cl)-gap dependency is contained within the path of wh-movement. This generalization indicates that a version of the no crossing constraint (e.g., Fodor 1978; Pesetsky 1982) holds in these configurations. We discuss the challenges faced by a purely syntactic account of (1) and suggest that a more promising line of an approach is one that attempts to derive (1) from processing constraints.The first, second and third authors were partially supported by the Centre for the Humanities of the University of Minho, financed by national funds through FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under the project "UIDB/00305/2020”. The second author received support from the “Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia” (FCT-CEECIND/04331/2017) for part of this work. The fourth and fifth authors were partially supported by the Research Centre of Mathematics of the University of Minho with the Portuguese Funds from the “Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia” (Project UID/MAT/00013/2013)