This thesis investigates the contrastive predicate construction in Vietnamese under the Minimalist Program (Chomsky, 1995). As an instance of the predicate doubling constructions, it contains two copies of a predicate built around the topic marker thì, in which the one preceding thì is a contrastive topic. It is shown that the relation between the two copies of the predicate is formed by A-bar movement. On the one hand, the dependency between the topic and the lower predicate is unbounded, and can cross a number of finite clauses. On the other hand, their dependency is island sensitive. In addition, the two copies of the predicate are required to be morphologically identical. These pieces of evidence suggest that the two copies of the predicate are links of a movement chain which exceptionally allows thephonetic realization of more than one chain link. In this construction, the two copies of the predicate are obligatorily pronounced because they are associated with specific phonological requirements. Not pronouncing either one of them would lead to the phonological crash. As for the higher predicate or the topic, its phonetic realization is triggered by the [Top] feature of the TopP whose the head is occupied by the topic marker thì. The lower copy, on the other hand, is forced to be pronounced due to the focus feature that it is associated with. This focus feature is derived from the semantic content that the construction conveys. It is argued that of the two copies of the predicate in this construction, the higher one which is the topic provides given information, while the lower copy, in contrast, expresses new information, not given in the context; thus must receive a focus reading and be spelled out. Accordingly, both the two copies are phonetically realized. This present study is the first to study the contrastive predicate construction, an instance of predicate doubling constructions, in Vietnamese. In the process of analysis, some aspects of Vietnamese grammar are introduced to the readers. Theoretically, this study provides a strong empirical support for the copy theory of movement in which copies of a movement are phonetically realized. To some extent, it has made some contributions to the theory of grammar.

We propose a syntactic approach to apparent blocking effects in the realization of definiteness marking in the Scandinavian languages. The claim is that the differences in definiteness marking can be attributed to a requirement that a definiteness feature ([def], a property of N) must be located at the left edge of the DP phase in order to be PIC-accessible for probes outside of the DP. As a result, [def] can be spelled out on N if N is the only element within DP and [def] is therefore part of DP’s edge domain (giving rise to suffixal marking). In contrast, the presence of an (overt) adjectival modifier (at the left edge of DP) requires feature movement of [def] to D, which is then realized as a prenominal article (with additional spell-out of the lower copy of [def] in Swedish). The paper also addresses the (slightly different) behavior of definiteness marking in the context of relative clauses and certain issues pertaining to the interpretation of the different strategies.