Microvariation in Catalan and Occitan complementizers: the so-called expletive se

Abstract

The present paper offers further independent evidence for the functional projection INT(errogative) in the left periphery of the sentence (Rizzi 2001) that is needed for an adequate analysis of interrogative clauses in Catalan and Occitan Pyrenees dialects. Since they show a particle se preceding a wh phrase as an instance of the so called “doubly filled complementizer”, according to the central hypothesis of this paper, the INT head is required in order to properly accommodate this element.

Keywords

• complementizer
• interrogative clauses
• left periphery
• Catalan
• Occitan