Advances in Role and Reference Grammar

A SYNOPSIS OF ROLE AND REFERENCE GRAMMAR 15

b. _

when had she(isi) worked at bridge-building

"When did she work at bridge-building?"



(7) a. Smalinn, eg held ad troll muni taka

the.shepherd(N) I(N) think(lsG) CMPL trolls(N) will take

hann á mor gun.

() tomorrow

"The shepherd, I think that trolls will take him tomorrow."

b. *Smalinn, held eg ad troll muni taka hann á mor gun.

In a WH-question, the WH-word appears in the PCS, and because this is a
clause-internal position, the finite verb would not be in second position if
the subject remained in its unmarked location, as in (6c), leading to a viola­
tion of the V/2 constraint and ungrammaticality. Consequently, the subject
must occur immediately following the finite verb, as in (6b), thereby satisfy­
ing the constraint. The structure of (6b) is given in Figure 5. The subject
remains in core-initial position, just as in (6a), despite the inversion. The
utterance-initial NP in (7a) does not require that the finite verb occur