On left-peripheral particle to in Polish and Czech: A focus, a topic head, or neither?

Abstract

Abstract The article offers a non-cartographic approach to the syntax of the left-peripheral particle to in Polish and Czech. It is claimed here that to is neither a topic nor a focus head. Instead, it has a status of a neutral Relator, a head of Relator Phrase, operative in the formation of the non-directional Structure of Predication. This structure serves the needs of Information Structure in providing a syntactic blueprint for segregating topics from foci, but these notions themselves are solely the interpretations of constituents and not independent syntactic categories. The analysis capitalizes on a clitic status of to in Czech, the lack of special clitics in Polish, and makes use of the ideas of the parametric directionality of Agreement and Labelling Algorithm allowing for merging heads to project.