Romanian că ‘that’ is the Force head of subordinated clauses (Hill 2004). In this paper I point out that the complementizer că ‘that’ may occur in root (vs. subordinated) declarative clauses as well, but only in certain environments, which I identify as being the speech act domain promoting the speaker’s point of view. I argue that in such contexts, main clause că ‘that’ marks the border between various pragmatic sub-fields derived at the left periphery (LP) of clauses, rather than typing the clause, as it does in CP complements to V or N. In particular, main clause că ‘that’ draws the border between the injunction field and the Mood adverbial field (Cinque 1999), and between the latter and the discourse pragmatic field (ForceP-FinP).
Key words:
main clause phenomena, că ‘that’, left periphery, pragmatic features, cartography
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Journal “Diacronia” ISSN: 2393-1140 Frequency: 2 issues / year