Agreement in Maasai and the Syntax of Possessive DPs (I)
نویسنده
چکیده
Possessive DPs are “complex” in the sense that they involve two distinct nominal expressions as components.1 In this paper I address the issue of characterizing the nature of the syntactic relation holding between these two nominal expressions in possessives whose possessum is arguably not a syntactic argument-taking category. This amounts to providing an account of what licenses the insertion of the possessor in the derivation of possessive DPs and in accounting for any further steps in the syntactic derivation which lead to the structure which undergoes Spell-Out. I discuss one existing proposal, that of den Dikken (1998), and argue that it does not provide a proper analysis of the syntax of possessive DPs. In particular, I show that den Dikken’s proposal that DP-internal Predicate Inversion drives the syntactic derivation of possessives after the insertion of possessors leads to a contradiction in his system. However I argue that den Dikken is correct in suggesting that the possessor is inserted in the derivation of possessive DPs as complement of an empty preposition in the PP-predicate of a small clause whose subject is the possessum. I substantiate this claim using agreement data from Maasai, which follow naturally from the assumption of den Dikken’s account for the insertion of possessors in the syntactic derivation of possessive DPs. Finally, I outline two alternative accounts for the derivation of prenominal possessors in English and briefly address the issue whether the postnominal position of possessors in Maasai is the product of further movement operations preceding Spell-Out or reflects the absence of overt syntactic derivation.2
منابع مشابه
Agreement in Maasai and the Syntax of Possessive DPs (II)
Possessives are “complex” DPs: they involve two distinct nominal expressions as components.1 In this paper I address the issue of characterizing the nature of the syntactic relation holding between these two nominal expressions in possessives whose possessum is arguably not a syntactic argument-taking category. This task can be divided into two parts: (i) providing an account of what licenses t...
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Possessives are ``complex'' DPs: they involve two distinct nominal expressions as components. In this paper I address the issue of characterizing the nature of the syntactic relation holding between these two nominal expressions in possessives whose possessum is arguably not a syntactic argument-taking category. This task can be divided into two parts: (i) providing an account of what licenses ...
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تاریخ انتشار 2003