UCLA

In this thesis, explore the information structure and syntax of declarative matrix V3 and verb-final clauses in Estonian – a discourse-configurational language that typically adheres to V2 word order (Ehala, 2006; Holmberg, 2015). I apply information structural diagnostics like contrastive ellipsis (Repp, 2009) and pronoun choice (Pajusalu, 1997) to propose my central hypothesis that, in Estonian, multiple preverbal constituents are only licensed in clauses containing a left-peripheral Contrastive Topic (CT). Left-peripheral Contrastive Foci (CF), which are not syntactically distinguished from CTs in the closely related language Finnish (Vallduv� & Vilkuna, 1998), do not license multiple preverbal elements in Estonian. This hypothesis is supported by a naturalness rating experiment in which contrastive ellipsis clauses with CT and CF remnants are evaluated in the context of V2 and V3 antecedent clauses. An additional manipulation of discourse contexts in the experiment shows that V3 clauses structurally constrain the comprehenders’ interpretation of the information structure of the clause, to the extent that biasing cues in the discourse context have little effect. These findings suggest that, rather than being a stylistic anomaly in an otherwise V2 language, non-V2 matrix clauses warrant careful study and promise to provide deep insight to the syntax of discourse-configurational languages. I set the stage for future research into this topic by challenging a previously assumed multiple Topic approach to Estonian left periphery (Lindstr�m, 2005; Henk, 2009).