Emphasis as reduplication: Evidence from sì che/no che sentences

In this article we investigate the syntax of Italian emphatic replies in which a polarity particle is followed by an embedded clause introduced by the declarative complementizer che, which we label sì che/no che sentences. We propose that the relation between the polarity particle and the clause introduced by che is mediated by the presence of a null operator, which binds a variable inside the clause, and that this operator is what makes other movement operations impossible (along the lines of Haegeman, 2007, Haegeman, 2009, Haegeman, 2010b and Haegeman, 2010a). We further suggest that sì che/no che sentences contain two copies of the triggering utterance: a null one in the Hanging Topic position and an overt one in the clause introduced by che, thus accounting for the observation that these sentences (a) cannot be embedded and (b) exhibit restrictions on their content. The effect of emphasis is thus seen as stemming from a syntactic configuration that involves reduplication.

► We examine Italian sentences with a polarity particle that are said to be emphatic.
► We discuss their characteristic distributional properties.
► We propose a bi-clausal structure, with the polarity particle in the matrix clause.
► Such bi-clausal structure contains two copies of the triggering utterance.
► Having two copies of the triggering utterance (one null, one overt) yields emphasis.