Focus structure architecture and P-syntax

In this paper we discuss scrambling type phenomena in Danish [object shift (OS)], and Russian and argue that scrambling is a P(honological)-syntactic rule in the phonology. Our proposal is that Scrambling languages such as Russian employ P-syntactic scrambling to position foci VP-finally. Nonscrambling languages, or Topic-in-situ languages such as Scandinavian, may employ a different strategy: they prosodically incorporate destressed elements. The scrambling effect in Scandinavian is due to the fact that the incorporated constituent moves along with its host. We propose the “I” model architecture to allow for interpretive effects of scrambling.