The syntax and semantics of split NPs in LFG*

In the split NP construction (SNP) in German, the descriptive material contributing information about one participant in a predicate’s argument structure is realized discontinuously as two nominal phrases in different positions—in the sentence-inital topic position and within the Mittelfeld. This is a challenge to syntactic accounts of argument selection and unbounded dependency constructions. I propose an account in LexicalFunctional Grammar making use of unification at the level of functional structure, which allows argument doubling. This mechanism is constrained by the semantic types of the elements involved. The Mittelfeld NP in SNP construction acts like an isolated elliptical NP in that it requires an anaphorical link to the topic of the sentence, which has to be of the semantic type of a property. In SNP, the topic is introduced sentence-internally as an indefinite NP in the sentence-initial position. Thus, the analysis can explain the data without stipulating any construction-specific mechanisms.