Parameterizing subject-verb inversion across Verb Second languages: on the role of relativized minimality at the vP edge

By discussing novel data from two Dolomitic Ladin languages spoken in Northern Italy, Badiotto and Gardenese, we show that in these Verb-second languages subject-finite verb inversion i) is constrained by the syntactic (adverb or object) and discourse (focus or topic) 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 the IP layer, and that the observed distribution of inversion follows from two universal constraints of movement affecting extraction through the vP edge: 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 to appear).