Chapter 7 - Complementiser Phrases(108) CP
C'
C IP
that PP IP
in this town there’s no hiding place
Conditional clauses also have a similar distribution and hence we might claim that
they are CP and IP adjuncts:
(109) a if you had known, what would you have done
b I think that, if I had known, I never would have allowed it
However, conditionals, unlike topics, are not restricted to the preceding position:
(110) a what would you have done, if you had known
b I think that I never would have allowed it, if I had known
Moreover, conditional clauses are not associated with any particular position inside the
main clause, unlike topics. Therefore we can conclude that conditionals are generated
in these positions whereas topics are moved to these positions from various places
within the IP.
5.2 Focus fronting
Compare the following two sentences:
(111) a an Arsenal supporter, I wouldn’t trust
b an Arsenal supporter I wouldn’t trust
(111a) is a case of topicalisation, whereas (111b) is something different. Note that the
comma after the topic indicates an intonational difference between the two sentences:
the topic forms an intonational unit by itself, with its own stress, and the following
sentence also has its own stress. The other construction, however, has the fronted
element within the same intonation unit as the rest of the clause and this element
carries the major stress of the sentence. Interpretationally, there is also a large
difference between these two sentences. In the first, the conversational situation must
be that an Arsenal supporter has already been mentioned, probably as one of a number
of people being discussed. The sentence then offers some new information about this
person: that the speaker wouldn’t trust him. Thus we may classify the topic as ‘old’
information and what follows, usually termed the comment, as ‘new’:
(112) an Arsenal supporter, I wouldn’t trust
old new
The other structure is almost the exact opposite of this. The situation here is that it is
already known that I wouldn’t trust someone and the new information is that an
Arsenal supporter is that person. A typical use of this construction would be to correct
someone asserting that I wouldn’t trust a Liverpool supporter. The reply might be “no,