Parameterizing subject-verb inversion across Verb Second languages. On the role of Relativized Minimality at the vP edge.

In this paper we discuss novel data from two Dolomitic Ladin languages spoken in Northern Italy, Badiotto and Gardenese, and show that in these V2 languages subject-finite verb inversion is constrained by the syntactic (adverb or object) and discourse (given or focussed) nature of the sentence-initial constituent, and by the discourse status of the DP subject. We demonstrate that in both varieties subjects in inversion either appear in a FocusP of the vP periphery (Belletti 2004, Poletto 2010) or in an A position in TP, and that the observed distribution of inversion follows from two universal constraints of movement: a) cyclicity (extraction through the edge of the vP phase, Chomsky 2001) and b) locality/RM (Rizzi 1990, 2004). By comparing the distribution of DP subjects in Ladin with that observed in other V2 languages, such as Mòcheno and Mainland Scandinavian, we propose a novel typology of V2 languages and of subject-finite verb inversion to be captured in terms of parametric variation (see Biberauer & Roberts 2012, Biberauer, Holmberg, Roberts & Sheehan 2014 and Biberauer & Roberts 2016, Biberauer 2018).