Ett fall där objektet inte kan stå i fundamentet

Restrictions of what is in first position in a Swedish declarative clause are usually textual or pragmatic, very seldom grammatical. In this paper I discuss one case of this type, the fact that the indirect object cannot be in sentence initial position in passive of ditransitive verbs where the DP corresponding to the direct object has been promoted to subject, as in (i): (1) *Johan har det här jobbet blivit erbjudet. There is no general restriction prohibiting an indirect object to be in first position: (2) Johan hade han erbjudit jobbet. The solution proposed to the question why (1) is out is formulated within a particular implementation of the minimalist program. To be placed in first position, a DP must be visible to the phase-head C. As I show in the paper, the indirect object in a case like (1) is invisible to C, hence there is a grammatical reason why (1) is ungrammatical