Hanging Topic Left Dislocations in seemingly embedded contexts: An English–Spanish asymmetry

Abstract Hanging Topic Left Dislocations are widely deemed to constitute root phenomena, though they occasionally appear in embedded contexts. I submit that the apparent embeddability of left dislocations is merely illusory: they are in actuality matrix phenomena in disguise. A novel cross-linguistic contrast is brought to light: in English, subordinate hanging topics are broadly attested, and they can occur with or without a secondary complementizer. In Spanish, by contrast, embedded hanging topics that are not followed by a secondary complementizer are not part of the grammar, a pattern that extends to Dutch. Left-peripheral analyses assuming an elaborated left periphery fall short of capturing this contrast non-stipulatively. Nevertheless, the recent paratactic approach to recomplementation (i.e. double-complementizer) structures, which assumes that such constructions involve two matrix sentences linked paratactically and that the secondary complementizer flags a restart in discourse, provides a more satisfactory account of the English–Spanish asymmetry: the difference between the two languages ultimately reduces to the possibility of omitting subordinating complementizers in English but not in Spanish. On this view, embedded left dislocations are in fact undercover root constructions, in line with their generally accepted characterization as Main Clause Phenomena.