On the left periphery of independent subjunctives in Romanian: topics, foci and complementizer deletion

The paper looks at the left periphery of Romanian Independent Subjunctives (ISs) (complements to volitional verbs), taking into account recent discussions on the hierarchy of topic positions and on Focus Fronting (FF) phenomena. We show that the LP of ISs disallows Shifting Topics, but is compatible with both Familiar and Contrastive Topics, which are not liable to the Interface Root Restriction (Bianchi, Frascarelli 2010). As for Focus Fronting, we show that instances of corrective and mirative Focus (or what has been defined for Romanian as ‘plain’ (exhaustive) focus) are also allowed, in spite of the (typically) non-root like behaviour of complements to intensional verbs. An interesting observation that we bring forth is that there is a clear correlation between complementizer deletion and the semantic import of ‘contrast’ entailed by some dislocates: ca-deletion is strongly preferred whenever contrast among (more or less salient) alternatives is at work (contrast among focal alternatives, comparative likelihood, thematic contrast). This, in turn, correlates with the marked prosodic contour of the left dislocated elements, which renders superfluous the lexicalization of the complementizer. FF in our ISs systematically correlates with ca deletion, which could thus be a means of discourse-activation, such that the implicature triggered is grounded to the speaker, not the matrix subject. On the other hand, if FF in Romanian resembles (contrastive) clefts in English, it need not be a root phenomenon after all.