1 Towards a model of the relation between prosodic structure and object displacement in Turkish Mine Nakipoğlu Boğaziçi University Abstract This paper looks into the interpretive and focus related properties of the raised and the in-place accusative marked definites and argues that object displacement is not optional in Turkish. It further claims, contrary to the prevailing analyses, that the trigger of displacement is neither a syntactic requirement nor a purely interpretational one. It maintains that a prosodically motivated rearrangement is required to ensure that there is no clash between the PF demand of neutral focus at the left edge of the VP and a potential LF demand of hosting an unaccented accusative definite which by triggering pragmatic presupposition necessitates a hearer-old and discourse-old information status. The paper further proposes that a set of verbs can trigger presupposition and carry sentential stress, thereby restrict the focus domain with the verb in Turkish. 1. Introduction It is a widely observed fact of Turkish that accusative marked definite objects can move out of their canonical position over another DP or an adverb while a similar displacement is blocked in the case of null marked objects (Erguvanlı, 1984, 1987; Kennelly, 1994, 1997; Aygen, 1999, among others). Examples in (1) and (2) illustrate the obligatory in-situness of the null marked DOs and the so-called optional displacement of the accusative objects in ditransitive and transitive frames respectively. (1) a. Çiftçi kamyon-a saman yükle-di. farmer truck-DAT hay load-PAST.3sg ‘The farmer loaded hay onto the truck.’ b. *Çiftçi saman kamyona yükledi. c. Çiftçi kamyon-a saman-ı yükle-di. farmer truck-DAT hay-ACC load-PAST.3sg ‘The farmer loaded the hay onto the truck.’ d. Çiftçi saman-ı kamyona yükledi. ‘The farmer loaded the hay onto the truck.’ (2) a. Biz özenle Türkçe öğret-ti-k. we painstakingly Turkish teach-PAST-1pl ‘We painstakingly taught Turkish.’ b. *Biz Türkçe özenle öğrettik. c. Biz özenle Türkçe-yi öğret-ti-k. we painstakingly Turkish-ACC teach-PAST-1pl ‘We painstakingly taught Turkish.’