Split topicalization as symmetry-breaking predicate fronting

In this paper, I argue against the standard view of split topics as discontinuous noun phrases. Instead, I show that split topics involve two autonomously generated noun phrases that are predicatively related. This predication is syntactically unstable, however: Merge of two XPs within a single argument or adjunct position yields a structure for which no label (‘head’) can be detected by Minimal Search (‘for any {α, β}, α is the head if α is a lexical item’). Therefore, one of the two noun phrases has to move, yielding the ‘split’ in overt form. By providing a principled explanation for the split topicalization in German (and most likely other languages) in these terms, the analysis furnishes empirical evidence for an architecture in which Merge operates freely, and as an asymmetricizing device when applying internally.