Force Phrase (ForceP)

♦ ForceP: the highest position of the Left Periphery, connected with previous discourse in main clauses; its head is selected by a higher verb in embedded clauses.

♦ The head of ForceP is usually filled by a complementizer, a free functional morpheme, which often resembles "demonstrative pronouns, wh-elements, certain kinds of nouns, etc." (Rizzi 1997: 285); relative operators may occupy its specifier (Rizzi 1997: 289)

♦ Evidence from Italian shows that Topics can only follow Force, corresponding to the declarative complementizer che in (1):

(1) Ho deciso che, la macchina, la comprerò quest'anno

      I decided that, the car, I will buy it this year'

(Italian, Rizzi & Bocci, forthcoming)

Main References :Rizzi L. (1997), Rizzi L. & Bocci G. (2016)