A case study In syntactic markedness: The binding nature of prepositional phrases [2nd ed. Reprint 2020] 9783112327760, 9783112327753

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A case study in syntactic marked ness

Studies in Generative Grammar The goal of this series is to publish those texts that are representative of recent advances in the theory of formal grammar. T o o many studies do not reach the public they deserve because of the depth and detail that make them unsuitable for publication in article form. We hope that the present series will make these studies available to a wider audience than has hitherto been possible. Jan Koster Henk van Riemsdijk editors

Henk van Riemsdijk

A case study in syntactic markedness: The binding nature of prepositional phrases

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1982 FORIS PUBLICATIONS Dordrecht - Holland/Cinnaminson - U.S.A.

Published by: Foris Publications Holland P.O. Box 509 3300 A M Dordrecht, The Netherlands Sole distributor for the U.S.A. and Foris Publications U.S.A. P.O. Box C-50 Cinnaminson N.J. 08077 U.S.A.

Canada:

First edition 1978 Second edition 1982 ISBN 90 316 0160 8 © 1981 Foris Publications - Dordrecht No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. Printed in the Netherlands by Intercontinental Graphics, H.I. Ambacht.

for my parents for Doris

Acknowledgements When I went to Paris in 1967 with a romantic desire to study linguistics I had never heard of Noam Chomsky. I have Noam Chomsky and destiny to thank for the fact that when I grew weary of French structuralism there was the Chomskyan approach to the study of language that immediately stimulat-r ed me and has never ceased to give me immense intellectual satisfaction. Destiny didn't manifest itself in the form of Syntactic Structures and Aspects alone, it was helped along a great deal by my first teachers of transformational grammar: Oswald Ducrot, Joe Emonds, Maurice Gross, Richie Kayne, Yuki Kuroda, Jacques Mehler, and Nicolas Ruwet, as well as by my fellow students, especially Hans Obenauer. The Linguistics Department of the University of Amsterdam, where I went after Paris, provided me with very pleasant surroundings and a lively atmosphere in which I have at all times found it a pleasure to work. I have always had a lovehate relationship with the extreme heterogeneity of the approaches to linguistics represented in the department. The ensuing eclecticism often irritates me, but at the same time I have to recognize that this is both a main source of the great intellectual and personal freedom that I enjoy in the department and a constant challenge. I am grateful to all my friends in the department who make it a nice place to be in. My fascination with the syntax of prepositional phrases can easily be traced back to Ray Jackendoff, in particular to his paper on PPs and his classes in Amherst in the summer of 1974. My early work on PPs took place in the context of a research project on Dutch grammar. I gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Netherlands Organization for the Advancement of Pure Scientific Research (grant 30-15) , the stimulating discussions I had with Alied Blom, Saskia Daalder, Peter Nieuwenhuijsen, and, in particular, Frans Zwarts who were with me on the project, and my debt to Simon Dik who made it all possible. Simon Dik it is also who deserves credit for having been a friendly, stimulating, thorough, and astute supervisor of this

thesis. I greatly appreciate his shrewd and patient advice and his efforts to make me clarify what I was trying to convey. Many thanks I also owe to my two advisors Ivonne Bordelois and Wim Klooster. Noam Chomsky, Joe Emonds, and Jan Koster also carefully read a first draft and offered valuable comments. Connie Menting did a beautiful job in preparing the manuscript. Many friends have in one way or another contributed to this thesis. I cannot mention them all, but would like to single out Hans Bennis, Hans den Besten, Anneke Groos, Riny Huybregts, Jan Koster, Pieter Muysken, and Norval Smith. It would be foolish to deny that MIT and the people in and close to it still in many ways constitute a kind of Mekka for me that I just love to pilgrim to every once in a while, not in the last place because of the great intellectual and personal hospitality that the "pilgrim fathers" (and mothers) Noam Chomsky, Bob Freidin, Ken Hale, Morris Halle, MaryLouise Kean, Jay Keyser, Joan Maling, Edwin Williams, and many others - always extend to me. ,1 owe a great deal also to Lyle Jenkins, Richie Kayne, Jean-Yves Pollock, Luigi Rizzi, Alain Rouveret, Nicolas Ruwet, and Jean-Roger Vergnaud for helping to make it a lot of fun to be a Generative Linguist in the Old World. A special word of thanks goes to Alain and Agnès Rouveret for offering me the use of their marvellous appartment in Rome in the summer of 1977 where several chapters of this thesis were written. I owe a deep gratitude to four great friends and confrères who, each in his own way, have had a profound influence on my life and my thinking: Joe Emonds, Jan Koster, Jean-Roger Vergnaud, and Edwin Williams. I am in great debt also to my parents who made it possible for me to dash off to Paris and to indulge in this esoteric enterprise called linguistics. I have benefited a great deal by their liberal encouragement. Last but most I want to thank Doris. Her good-humoured, uncomplicated friendship has been a constant source of support. It is to a large extent her tolerant companionship that has made the strain of getting the whole thing written up quite bearable.

Table of Contents 1. 2.

Introduction 1 Footnotes to chapter 1 8 The study of PPs in transformational grammar 9 2.1. The odyssey of a category 9 2.2. The aspects position: John decided on the boat . . 10 2.3. Ross" position: PP = NP 13 2.4. Fillmore's position: P = case 14 2.5. The 2.6. The 2.7. The Footnotes

3.

generative semantics position: P = V EST position: PP = PP functional status of PPs reconsidered to chapter 2

....

18 21 23 28

The internal syntax of Dutch prepositional phrases . . . 30 3.1. Introducing the X-bar theory 30 3.2. A brief survey of Dutch phrase structure 32 3.2.1. The main rules 32 3.2.2. A feature system for pronouns 36 3.3. The specifier system 45 3.3.1. The structure of the specifier 45 3.3.2. An aside on the movement of specifiers . . 49 3.4. Intransitive prepositions 51

3.5.

3.6.

3.7.

3.4.1. Real intransitive prepositions 3.4.2. Particles The complement system 3.5.1. P - N' ' ' 3.5.2. P - P' ' 1 3.5.3. P - V' ' ' The question of P - N ' " - X ' " 3.6.1. Some dubious cases 3.6.2. Absolute prepositional phrases Postpositions 3.7.1. Two kinds of postpositions 3.7.2. The interaction of postpositions and particles 3.7.3. Prepositions with particles 3.7.4.

Prepositions, postpositions and X-bar theory

51 53 57 57 57 60 61 61 62 86 86 90 108 112

3.8.

4.

Summary 3.8.1. Summary 3.8.2. Summary of rules Footnotes to chapter 3 Prepositional phrases as islands 4.1. Introduction 4.2. Dutch prepositional phrases as islands 4.2.1. Extraction from P' 1 ' 4.2.2. Non-extractability 4.3.

4.4.

4.5.

5.

...

4.2.3. Isolating the cases of extractability English prepositional phrases as islands . . 4.3.1. Preposition stranding 4.3.2. The deceptiveness of stranding . . . The inadequacy of previous proposals . . . . 4.4.1. Ross1 conditions box 4.4.2. Bresnan's relativized A over A principle 4.4.3. Chomsky's constraints P' ' ' as a binding category

4.5.1. Outline of the proposal 4.5.2. The head constraint Footnotes to chapter 4 Extraction out of prepositional phrases in Dutch . 5.1. Extraposition out of prepositional phrases in Dutch 5.1.1. The problem 5.1.2. Extraposition from the specifier of the prepositional phrase 5.1.3. Extraposition of modifying clauses from the complement of the preposition 5.1.4. Extraposition of complement clauses . 5.1.5. Remaining cases 5.1.6. Conclusion 5.2. r-movement out of prepositional phrases in Dutch 5.2.1. The simple cases 5.2.2. The complex cases

121 121 122 124 132 132 134 134 137 143 144 144 145 147 147 150 157 158 158 160 171 176 176 176 177 180 184 187 191 191 191 193

6.

7.

5.3.

r-movement and subjacency 5.3.1. The problem 5.3.2. The evidence Footnotes to chapter 5 Extraction out of prepositional phrases in English 6.1. Preliminary remarks 6.2. N - m o v e m e n t 6.2.1. Reanalysis 6.2.2. A typological prediction 6.3. wh-movement 6.3.1. The COMP of P 1 " 6.3.2. Sluicing 6.4. Concluding remarks

209 209 210 214 216 216 218 218 224 226 226 231 254

Footnotes to chapter 6 Syntactic markedness and escape hatches 7.1. Introductory remarks 7.2. Escape hatches vs. category-particular parameters of bindingness

256 259 259

7.3. Towards an operational evaluation procedure . 7.4. Some diachronic implications 7.5. Concluding remarks Footnotes to chapter 7 Bibliography

276 286 297 298 301

270

1. Introduction The central topic of this study is the status of the categories preposition and prepositional phrase1 in the theory of syntax. Syntactic theory encompasses statements like "X is a lexical category", "Y is a major category", "Z is a cyclic category". The main goal, then, of this investigation will be to determine which ones among these generalizations are significant generalizations, and in particular how the categories P and PP fit into these generalizations about categories. Such a program can only be carried out successfully within a well-elaborated theory of syntax. The extended standard theory (EST) of transformational-generative grammar is such a theory, and it is this theory that is adopted for the purposes of this study. Work within transformational-generative grammar, and within EST in particular, has as its main goal the development of a framework that will permit the formulation of descriptively adequate accounts of linguistic phenomena, and that will determine the formal properties of such accounts in an explanatory way. It is, in my opinion, Chomsky's 'Conditions on Transformations' that constitutes a decisive step towards the attainment of this goal. The most important impact of that article on present-day thinking in EST has been the shift of emphasis from rules to conditions on rules. Progressive limitations on the expressive power of rules of grammar lead to massive overgeneration. But this overgeneration can be effectively compensated for by the postulation of a powerful system of constraints on the functioning of these rules. In subsequent work (Chomsky (1974),

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(1975), (1976), and Chomsky and Lasnik (1977)) this development has been carried further, culminating in the assumption of core grammar. A grammar, in this view, consists of a core and a periphery. The core part of grammar consists of a limited number of transformational rules that have the form "move a", where a is some category. The constraints and other components of the grammar ensure that this optimally constrained core grammar does not yield any unwanted results. Transformations may be formulated with richer structural descriptions, subject to certain limitations, but such transformations are considered peripheral and are marked in terms of the optimality measure that is part of linguistic theory. The organization of grammar as specified by this work takes the following structure 2.

1.

Base

2.

Transformations

3a.

Deletion

3b.

Rules of construal

4a.

Filters

4b.

Quantifier interpre

5a.

Phonology

6a.

Stylistic Rules

tation etc.

The base component consists of a set of unordered context-free phrase structure rules. This rule system is specified by some version of the X-bar theory. The output of the base component, deep structure, serves as input for the transformational component which maps deep structures into surface structures. The core transformations are assumed to be optional and unordered

with respect to each other. Structural descriptions of transfor mations are subject to severe limitations on analyzability and on the number of constant factors appearing in them. Transformational operations are restricted to adjunctions and structure preserving movements. Positions vacated by a (string of) terminal element(s) as a result of a movement transformation are taken to be coindexed with the category dominating these terminal elements in derived structure according to the principles of the trace theory of movement rules. The surface structures thus obtained serve as input to two independent mappings: via 3a through 6a into phonetically interpreted strings and via the various interpretative subcomponents 3b, 4b, into logical forms The constraints on the functioning of transformational rules are statable in the following general format: In the structure ...X....[ l a...Y...] a ...X.... n J

(where. a is a variable .. ranging over certain categories)

no rule may establish a relationship R between Y and X ^

or X_.) if

The pair of brackets labelled a indicates that the constraints only apply when R crosses an ot-boundary, i.e. when a dominates Y but not X. To put it in yet another way: if we want to relate by a transformational rule, a position Y inside a to a position X outside a, we can only do so if none of the conditions (which have been left unspecified in the above schema) apply. Accordingly, we may call a the binding node. What, then, are the binding categories? What are the categories that a ranges over? In 'Conditions on Transformations', Chomsky proposed that the

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binding nodes are NP and S'. In this study I will argue that PPs should be included in the inventory of binding categories. The argument essentially takes the following structure. First it will be shown that PPs behave like syntactic islands in many constructions. Furthermore, it will be suggested that PPs are absolute islands in many languages. But on the other hand there are languages, such as English and Dutch, in which it is possible to "strand" the preposition by moving its object away. On the basis of these observations a hypothesis will be formulated in which PP is included as a binding node and which is based on a system of constraints that specifies that a transformational relationship between positions outside and inside PPs is only possible if the position inside the PP is a special "escape-hatch" position which is outside the scope of the constraints. It will then be demonstrated that "preposition stranding"-type phenomena in Dutch can be explained on the basis of this hypothesis. This theory will also be shown to lead to an interesting account of preposition stranding in English. Since preposition stranding is recognized as an exceptional, marked phenomenon it must be treated as such. Thus the theory I advance will have to meet the additional requirement of explaining why preposition stranding is a marked phenomenon. The theory of core grammar alluded to above is designed to separate the unmarked aspects of the grammars of individual languages from the marked aspects by assigning the former to the core and the latter to the periphery. However, the theory of core grammar is as yet very unspecific as to the amount of variation that is

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allowed in the periphery. I will assume that linguistic theory must define a variation space within which languages may differ from each other, opt for marked or unmarked options. With Emonds (1976b) I believe that this variation space can be quite narrowly limited: it will not do to assume that a given language may deviate in any respect at all and thereby be marked in that respect. If so great and undifferentiated a freedom is accorded to language variation, many generalizations are missed. Even if the principles of core grammar are absolutely universal in the sense that no language may depart from them, linguistic theory as it is generally conceived of today is still liberal enough to express the differences among languages. All that has to be done is to relate the means which are used to account for these differences to a reasonable optimality measure. This is the course that I will be following in this study - without thereby implying that the absolute universality of core grammar must necessarily be maintained. Thus, the analyses of preposition stranding in Dutch and English and the theory in which they are embedded are constructed in such a way as to attribute the marked nature of preposition stranding in these languages to the presence of certain phrase structure positions (escape hatch positions) whose adoption in the grammars of these languages increases their markedness in terms of the optimality measure. The integration of the specific analyses and the theoretical innovations that are proposed to permit them into a more general framework in which they are related to a specific proposal concerning the optimality measure of the phrase structure component will be attempted in the last chapter. But the way there will

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be a long and thorny one because the groundwork must be laid first. Even so the reader is encouraged to attempt to keep this eventual goal in mind and to try to remember that many of the specific proposals offered in the intermediate chapters are often not entirely motivated by considerations directly pertinent to the construction or rule under discussion, but rather receive their ultimate justification in terms of the role they play in the theory of syntactic markedness presented in chapter 7. The intermediate chapters are organized as follows. In the next chapter, a number of basic facts about prepositional phrases will be discussed and the position of PPs in other transformational-generative frameworks will briefly be reviewed In chapter 3, the internal structure of PPs in Dutch is established, with special emphasis on a number of constructions that play a crucial role in later arguments. Chapter 4 presents the main elements of the hypothesis regarding the position of PP in syntactic theory. Chapter 5 shows how the behavior of PPs in Dutch can be explained in terms of this hypothesis. 5.1. demonstrates how the extraposition of sentential elements out of PPs in Dutch can be analyzed in accordance with the escape hatch theory. 5.2. deals with the extraction of a specific subclass of pronominal elements, r-pronouns, out of PPs in Dutch. It is demonstrated that the fact that r-pronouns, but no other complements to prepositions, can be extracted from a PP follows from the escape-hatch theory in connection with a specific constraint: the head constraint. 5.3. argues that PP is not only a binding node with respect to the head constraint, but also with

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7

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respect to the subjacency condition. The conclusion being warranted then that the proposed theory satisfactorily accounts for the behavior of Dutch PPs, chapter 6 is devoted to an analysis of preposition stranding in English. It will be shown that the escape-hatch theory leads to a satisfactory account of the phenomena here as well and in addition finds independent support in the sluicing construction in English.

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8

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Footnotes to chapter 1 1.

Henceforth the abbreviations P for preposition and PP for prepositional phrase will be used until chapter 3, where the X-bar notation for categories^ will be introduced. Further category abbreviations include: S': "S-bar" (=S) S : "S-reduced, bare S" N, V, A, P: noun, verb, adjective, preposition NP, VP, AP, PP: noun phrase, verb phrase, adjective phrase, prepositional phrase COMP: complementizer The label preposition will be used here as the neutral term referring to the head of a prepositional phrase, regardless of whether it is in reality a real preposition or a postposition or neither. Whenever necessary, the distinction will be made clear in the text. Regarding the terminology, complement and specifier are defined here in terms of the X-bar notation. In a.phrase [ x n... [ ...X...] ...] , everything dominated by X , except X, is called complement, everything dominated by X , except X I , is called specifier.

2.

This schema is essentially as in Chomsky (1977). See the references given there for the major studies that have contributed to the overall picture sketched here.

2. The study of PPs in transformational grammar 2.1. The_odyssey_of_a_catec[ory The fate of the categories P and PP in transformational grammar has long been an unhappy one. In Chomsky's Syntactic Structures, PPs appear only very briefly in connection with the passive by-phrase. Since Syntactic Structures, linguists have mostly continued to overlook, split up, or analyze away the category PP. As Jackendoff (1973) puts it, "People seem never to have taken prepositions seriously." Jackendoff also offers an explanation for this fact: "The neglect of prepositions arises from the assumption that prepositional phrases invariably take the form P-NP: if this were the case, prepositions would indeed be dull." In his article, Jackendoff then takes upon himself the task of showing that the internal structure of PPs in English is in fact much more rich and diverse. And his conclusion may well be warranted if the attention is limited to the underlying phrase structure of PPs. However, an invariant P-NP structure would raise interesting questions with respect to preposition stranding-type phenomena, as I hope the present investigation will show. There may, in fact, be other reasons for the long neglect of PPs. A very important factor appears to me to have been until very recently -

the fact that PPs have never played a

crucial role in the arguments for and against the changing conceptions about the theory of syntax within transformational grammar. Fillmore's case grammar may be the sole exception here (cf 2.4.). Another important -

and obviously related -

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factor is the fact that preposition stranding is a rather widespread phenomenon in English (cf chapter 6). This means that many rules operating on NPs are seemingly unaffected by the presence of a preceding preposition. And it is clearly the case that categories that have little or no influence on the operation of transformations are hardly attractive for deeper syntactic investigation. But whatever the reasons for the neglect of prepositions may be, let us briefly highlight a number of landmarks on the odyssey of the PP on its way to the present situation where it has finally been recognized that "prepositions must instead be accorded the right to a small but dignified category of their own" (Jackendoff (1973) p. 355).

2.2. The Aspects position: John decided on the boat In Chomsky's Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, PPs are discussed in connection with verb subcategorization. Chomsky notes that a sentence like (1) is ambiguous between the readings (2a) and (2b): (1)

He decided on the boat

(2)a. He chose the boat b. He made his decision while on the boat On the (2a) reading, the PP is what is traditionally called a prepositional object, while it has the function of place adverbial on the (2b) reading. Furthermore, Chomsky notes that the place adverbial on the (2b) reading occurs independently of the selectional requirements of the verb and, rather, modifies the

whole VP. The prepositional object of the (2a) reading, however, is selected by the verb just like a direct object. Chomsky observes that there is yet a third type of PP: adverbial PPs that nevertheless show a certain amount of cohesion with the verb: verbs can select adverbs of direction, duration, place, frequency etc. and exclude the others. Chomsky gives the following examples to illustrate this point (1965, p. 102 (53-54)J.1 (3)

dash—into the room (V-Direction) remain—in England

(4)

(V-Place)

*dash—in England * remain—into the room

In order to accommodate these three degrees of cohesion between PPs and the main verb, Chomsky proposes the following set of 2 phrase structure rules: (5) a. Pred.Phr. -»• Aux-VP- (Place) - (Time) be—Predicate f (NP) - (Prep.Phr.)-(Prep.Phr.)-(Manner) b. VP +

Adj V-

5' (like)-Predicate-Nominal Direction^ Duration

c. Prep.Phr. ->- Place Frequency ^etc.

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Notice that this system adequately accounts for the three degrees of cohesion that PPs can entertain with the main varb. On the other hand, however, the fact is masked in this rule system that the purely syntactic status of these phrases, whatever their degree of cohesion with the verb, is that of prepositional phrase, i.e. they consist of a preposition plus a noun phrase: on the boat, into the room, in England. The question then arises whether the phrase structure rules should primarily reflect structural properties or functional properties. Notice that the same question might be asked with respect to the difference between subject and object. Take the following examples: (6)a. b.

The Aspects position on PPs is inconsistent We discuss the Aspects position on PPs

The underlined phrases in (6) differ functionally; in (6a) it is the subject, in (6b) it is the object. Yet they are identical structurally. In fact, they both have the structure of a noun phrase. This is not to say that subjects and objects behave in an identical manner, syntactically. Of course, they don't. But the structural likenesses are striking enough to make it necessary to express them in the grammar. And the phrase structure component is the component par excellence in which to express such generalizations. Aspects, in fact, requires this, and generates both subjects and objects as NPs. The problem, therefore, with the Aspects treatment of PPs is that the functional and the structural properties are confused. We will return to the question of the functional aspects of PPs in 2.7. below.

2.3. Ross' position^_PP=NP In his thesis (1967), Ross presents an interesting account of preposition stranding in English. His basic observation is that prepositions can strand quite freely in English, but that in some cases they are "pied-piped", i.e. moved along with the object of the preposition. We will present a more detailed criticism of Ross' analysis in chapters 4 and 6. A curious fact, however, is that Ross, while clearly recognizing that prepositions play an important and unique role in syntax, treats prepositions as a kind of appendix to the NP. He implicitly assumes the following phrase structure rule:^ (7)

NP ->•

P - NP

Undoubtedly, it is the reductionist program that later also characterizes the generative semantics attitude with respect to underlying categories that is responsible for this assumption. Ross doesn't argue for this assumption very explicitly, but the general idea is that the structural description of several transformations, including topicalization and wh-movement, can be greatly simplified if rules like (7) are adopted. Instead of mentioning {NP, AP, PP} as the factor to be moved they can simply mention NP. (Recall that adjective phrases are also analyzed as NPs in Ross' framework.) To the extent that these generalizations are justified, they are expressible in the framework of the X-bar theory, which was not available at the time Ross wrote his dissertation. We will not discuss the merits of this particular proposal in detail, therefore, except to note that what leads to a generalization in some rules leads

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to complications in others. Consider, for example, Ross' formulation of complex NP shift (his (3.26) and (3.34)): (8) X - NP - Y 1 2

opt

= > 1 0

3 3+2

condition:

1: 2 dominates S 2: [ ...] 3: BLOCKS if Y=NP ^, where NP.. f [ P+NP] Np

Condition 3, according to Ross, is needed to rule out (9) while admitting (10): (9)

*I loaned my binoculars a man who was watching the race

(10)

He attributed to a short circuit the fire which destroyed most of my factory (3.15 c)

In (9), the complex NP is moved over an NP, in (10) , over a PP. Notice that the negative subcondition of condition 3 is solely needed because of this identification of NP and PP. If, instead, it is assumed that NP=NP and PP=PP, then this subcondition becomes superfluous. We will return to the relationship between PP and the other categories in 3.7.4. below. See also Culicover (1977) for a more general critique of category-reductionist programs.

2.4. Fillmore^s_gosition^_P=case Fillmore, in his 'The Case for Case1

(1968), is also con-

cerned with the functional structure of sentences. He observes, for example, that the function of the door in sentences like

- 15 (11) (his 40-41) remains the same, even though this phrase appears in different syntactic positions. (11) a. The door 'opened b. John opened the door He then goes on to notice that many functions, such as Instrument, Locative, Dative, etc. are commonly expressed by prepositions in English and many other languages, but that a great number of languages use case-marking instead to express these functions. On the basis of these observations, Fillmore proposes regarding as "superficial" a) the syntactic position in which a function is expressed, and b) the mode (case, preposition, or neither) in which the function is realized. He therefore develops a system of underlying representations with function-phrases that consist of an NP and an abstract case-marker, which is later spelled out as a specific case or preposition, or as zero. For a detailed criticism of Fillmore's proposals, the reader is referred to Dougherty (1970) and Chomsky (1972). We will limit ourselves here to the claim that prepositions and case are closely related syntactically. A first problem to be noted has to do with the functional relationship between prepositions and case. Fillmore equates prepositions with case, but not, e.g.

with verbs despite the

fact that prepositions and verbs are often functionally related as in the pairs use - with, last - during, precede - before, etc. In other words, Fillmore considers the functional relationship between prepositions and case to be a privileged one and disregards other functional equations. But this privileged status of the preposition-case relationship does not appear to be

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supported by fact given verb-preposition pairs such as those cited above. Similarly, it would also be incorrect to claim that there is an exclusive diachronic relationship between prepositions and case. While it is certainly true that case-markers are sometimes derived from prepositions, historically, Fillmore himself notes that case-markers are also known to originate from various other types of elements: adverbs, nouns, several kinds of pronominal elements, verbs, etc. The same fact is true for prepositions. Prepositions may be derived from any other category and can furthermore serve as a base from which to derive any other category. This is shown in the following table (where the arrows are to be interpreted as reflecting historical development or morphological derivation). (12) N

beside despite during notwithstanding past

Adj/Adv

behind beyond within upon besides above Adj/Adv

inner upper overly offish to down to off (to annull, to withdraw) ups & downs behind outing underling

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Turning now to more syntactic matters, it appears that important differences between prepositions and case-markers can be found there, too. A very global and necessarily impressionistic overview leads to at least the following differences: A.

A preposition may select in its complement another prepositional phrase (for example, from behind the door, since after the war), but an NP in a certain case may never be "in the complement of" another case-marker, i.e. there is no cumulative case-marking. For example, a dative NP may never be subjected again to a case-marking process and receive, say, a genetive case-marker. Furthermore, a preposition may govern case on an NP in its complement, but a case-marker may never select a PP as its base (the element it is attached to). In short, 4

we appear to have the following situation: (13)

a.

[P

b.

[P

[P...]] k:ase...]

c.

* [ CASE

[P...]]

d.

•[ CASE [ CASE...] ] 5

This general fact cannot be expressed in a theory which closely identifies prepositions and case-markers. However, it is a fact which automatically follows from the assumption that case is a property of NP and AP (or N and A), but that PP (or P) is an independent category which is structurally defined by the principles of the X-bar theory. B.

Case on one NP, however, may influence or dictate the

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case agreement or case attraction. There simply doesn't exist an equivalent of this type of transformation for prepositions. One consequence of this fact is that prepositions can never be "distributed" inside the NP onto the determiner, the adjective, the noun, etc. the way case is in many languages. We may conclude then, that there is no reason to accept Fillmore's proposal that preposition and case-marker are merely two faces of the same coin.

2.5. The generative semantics position: P=V To the extent that it is possible to speak of a characterizable theoretical framework named generative semantics ® , it appears to be the case that its position with respect to prepositions is that they derive from underlying verbs or predicates . The most well-known example is Lakoff's (1968) argument that the instrumental preposition with derives from the verb use; i.e. Lakoff proposes that the following two sentences should be transformationally related: (14)

a. Seymour sliced the salami with a knife b. Seymour used a knife to slice the salami

Many arguments have been presented against Lakoff's analysis ( cf

Bresnan (1968), Chomsky (1972), Brame (1976)). To give a

small sample of the arguments against Lakoff's proposal, consider the following sentences (from Chomsky (1972), his (23) and (24) ) .

- 19 (15)

a. Seymour used the knife to slice the salami with b. Seymour used this table to lean the ladder against

These sentences would yield ungrammaticai. outputs under Lakoff's analysis as shown in (15'): (15') a. 'Seymour sliced the salami with with a knife b. 'Seymour leant the ladder against with this table Furthermore, (15a) itself would have to be derived from a nonsensical or ill-formed underlying structure. Other arguments for a transformational relationship between verb-preposition pairs appear in Becker and Arms (1969) and in Klooster and Verkuyl (1972). Let us briefly examine the latter proposal, which is made in the context of a Gruberian variety of generative semantics in which, it must be recognized, P is a primitive category. Klooster and Verkuyl propose to relate transformationally the following pairs of sentences (their (1)): (16)

a. Gedurende een week lag Lex plat during

a

week lay Lex flat

Lex lay flat on his back for the duration of a week b. Het platliggen van Lex duurde een week the flat lying of

Lex lasted

a

week

Lex's lying flat on his back lasted a week Of course, the verb duren ('last') and the preposition gedurende ('during', 'for') are morphologically, or at least historically related. But such is not their argument. Instead, they note that

-

20

-

there is a paraphrase relationship between (16a) and (16b), which they feel must be transformationally expressed. All their arguments are based on cooccurrence restrictions of the following sort (roughly their (5) through (7)): (17).r duurde i iets meer dan/ongeveer/ruim , een half uur , gedurende *dat halve uur ..rlastedi during

a little more than/about/a good ^half an hour j that half hour

They conclude from these facts that there are restrictions specific to duren/gedurende to the effect that certain specifiers can only occur with the measure phrase in their complement if that measure phrase is indefinite. These common restrictions, Klooster and Verkuyl argue, motivate a transformational derivation from a common abstract source. Note that the restriction is most likely of a more qeneral semantic nature, so it probably need not be expressed with respect to specific lexical items. Klooster and Verkuyl realize that more general properties of quantification are at stake here. And, in fact, the starred variant of (17) is not ungrammatical, but merely not interpretable as a "duration measuring adverbial". Instead, it has to be interpreted as what they term a "duration dating adverbial". The "restriction" is, in fact, much more general. It appears to be a property of any verbplus-measure-phrase construction. For example: (18) Hij werkte iets meer dan/ongeveer/ruimr een half uur i *dat halve uur He worked (for) a little more than/about/a good rhalf an hour i that half hour In Klooster and Verkuyl's framework, this sentence would

presumably be derived from a source something like Their working lasted ... But such a derivation masks the fact that the real explanation must be sought in highly general properties of quantifying measure phrases and their specifier system. It is difficult to argue in detail against proposals such as the one alluded to here given the differences in theoretical background assumptions between the Gruberian framework and ours. For example, Klooster and Verkuyl's analysis involves a number of "transformations", including at least relative clause reduction, nominalization, adverbialization, and polycategorial lexical attachment. But none of these rules are statable in a theory of transformations such as the one referred to in chapter 1.

2.6. The EST position: PP=PP One might say that Klima (1965), at least as far as the analysis of PPs

is concerned, was a precursor of EST in that

he "realized that prepositions are more than markers on NPs. He showed that many 'adverbs' such as downstairs and afterward can advantageously be identified as 'intransitive prepositions', that is, prepositions that do not take an object." (quoted from Jackendoff (1973), p. 345). In other words, Klima appears to be the first transformational grammarian to have thought of prepositions and prepositional phrases as categories in their own right. As the preceding sections show, his message was long overlooked. And it was Emonds (1970, 1972) who resuscitated Klima's idea and analyzed the particles of verb-particle con-

-

22

-

structions such as show up, hand in, fend off, etc., as intransitive prepositions. In Jackendoff's previously mentioned article (1973), the first coherent and complete account of the phrase structure of prepositional phrases is offered. Jackendoff shows how the phrase structure rules for PPs can be fruitfully integrated into the X-bar theory of phrase^structurei. The present study attempts to integrate Jackendoff's proposals into the theory of syntax by investigating the role that the categories P and PP play with respect to the constraints on transformations that are part of that theory. Let us briefly consider the rules that Jackendoff proposes to describe the structure of the PP in English. In effect, he proposes the following base rules: (19)

a.

PP +

SpeC|j -

b.

P

P

->-

-

P

(NP)

-

(PP)

The specifier (Spec^) stands for such phrases as right, six miles, entirely, etc. as in: (20)

a. The curious sound of a harp could be heard right after the landing of the saucer (Jackendoff's (44b)) b. Six miles down the road Frodo saw an approaching band of grzches (J's (44a)) c. The class of prepositions is made up entirely of verbs (J's (44c))

The rule (19b) allows for the following expansions: P, P - NP, P - PP, P - NP - PP. These structures correspond to the following types of examples:

(

afterward!

{

before [ (J's (lc)) after inside theJ first act before Zeppo walked i inside the Hotel

(J's lie])

4

(23) Harpo rode a horse out of the barn (J's (12a)) (24) Down the street toward the frightened garbage collector lumbered a Martian grzch

(J's (30a))

While there may be a few problems with the details of Jackendoff's proposals, the essentials of his analysis have not been seriously challenged ' . We will consider the general thrust of Jackendoff's article in more detail in chapter 3.

2.7. The_functional status_of_PPs_reconsidered In the preceding sections it was seen that functional properties of PPs have repeatedly led linguists to reanalyze P or PP as a different and sometimes as several different categories. It was also seen that such arguments don't do justice to either the syntactic or the functional properties of PPs

or the

other major categories, for that matter. It must simply be recognized that there does not exist a one-to-one, nor even a one-to-many relationship between syntactic categories and semantic functions. Rather, this relationship appears to be many-tomany . To briefly illustrate

this point, consider a fairly well-

developed system of semantic functions like Jackendoff's theory of thematic relations (cf

Jackendoff (1976a)). In this system,

for example, the category NP can express a multitude of thematic

-

24

-

relations. It can express the agent, as in 'The man hit the ball', the theme, as in 'John wrote a paper', the source (and the agent), as in 'My best friend gave me a copy', and the location, as in 'Joe is the boss'. Furthermore, NP can express several more adverbial functions, such as duration, as in 'He stayed in the house a long time', frequency, as in 'He hit the target seven times', time,as in 'Bill left yesterday', and manner, as in 'We'll do it the right way'. Inversely, a function like manner can be expressed by many different syntactic categories: NP, PP, AP, and possibly even S. Examples are: 'We'll do it the right way' (NP) , 'He should do it in a different manner' (PP), 'John opened the door very carefully' (AP), and 'Jim repaired the watch, being very sloppy about it' (S). Similar arguments can be constructed for other categories and other functions. The conclusion is obvious: while they must be related in some way, representations in terms of syntactic categories and representations in terms of semantic functions are largely independent of each other in that they enter into a many-to-many relationship. The level at which the syntactic representation is mapped onto the functional representation may be a deep structure, as is commonly assumed in EST, or surface structure, a possibility opened by some version of trace theory (cf Chomsky (1975),

(1977b), Jackendoff (1975)),

in which deep structural relations are recoverable in surface structure. To complete the argument, however, it must be shown that prepositional phrases, whatever their functional status, are

- 25 sufficiently alike to justify their assignment to the same syntactic category. To show that this is indeed justified is a fairly straightforward matter. Notice, first, that the class of prepositions that can appear as the head of prepositional objects is a substantial subset of the class of prepositions that can serve as the head of prepositional adverbials. Furthermore, many of the phrase structural properties of PPs that Jackendoff (1973) has established hold for any PP, regardless of what its function is: they may be intransitive, they may take a specifier, etc. Similar conclusions can be reached on the basis of the phrase structure account of Dutch PPs in chapter 3. In fact, evidence for the syntactic identity of the category PP can be found throughout the present study. In particular, there is the fact that PPs, whatever their functional status, but no other categories are the conditioning factor for the occurrence of r-pronouns and serve as a domain for the application of the transformation r-movement

(cf especially chapter

5). Therefore, no further evidence will be adduced here to establish the syntactic unity of the category PP. If we conclude, then, that prepositional objects and adverbial prepositional phrases belong to the same syntactic category, this is not to say that they behave in the same manner in all respects. Rather, there are two major differences, one being that adverbial prepositional phrases can usually have a richer internal structure, a richer array of specifiers and complements, the other being that the extraction possibilities are not the same for all prepositional phrases. Some comments are in order

-

26

-

here on both differences. With regard to the difference in extraction possibilities, there appears to be a parameter that ranges from the most loosely connected sentence (or S') adverbials via several intermediate stages, such as verb phrase adverbials, strictly subcategorized prepositional phrases, idiomatic prepositional phrases to prepositional particles. Extraction possibilities correlate with this parameter: the more closely a prepositional phrase is connected with the verb, the easier it is to extract elements from such a prepositional phrase. I take this parameter to follow from constraints on extractability that interact with semantics and operate independently of the constraints proposed in this study. The theory presented here is minimal in that it specifies the minimal requirements that have to be met in order for extraction to be possible. Thus we will be dealing with necessary, but not with sufficient conditions for extraction. The only claim that is made with respect to any further requirements is that they are independent constraints. Given the effect that this functional parameter has, however, the proposals defended here deal primarily with prepositional phrases out of which extraction is in principle possible, prepositional phrases, that is, that are closely connected with the verb. In other words, the impossibility of extraction out of a sentence adverbial will not be used as evidence one way or another with respect to the constraints proposed here. With respect to the differences in richness of internal structure, however, the more adverbial prepositional phrases

-

27

-

play an important role in the argumentation. For, the richer the internal structure of a prepositional phrase is, the more that goes on syntactically inside it. This increased freadom in internal syntactic behavior will be seen to play an important role in chapter 5, where extraposition inside prepositional phrases must be assumed to apply in the internally poorer ones too, given the categorial unity of all prepositional phrases, even if it cannot be shown directly. With regard to these functional parameters the bulk of the work remains to be done. As a first step the parameters should be made more precise. But eventually, one would hope that an explanatory theory of the category-to-function mapping referred to above will account for the parameters. Unfortunately, even the first step is beyond the scope of this investigation.

-

28

-

Footnotes to chapter 2 1.

Some of Chomsky's examples have been left out here, partly because the frequency adverb three times a week which appears in one of his examples is syntactically an NP rather than a PP.

2.

Chomsky (1965), p. 102; (52ii) through (52iv).

3.

Postal (1971) makes a similar assumption. In his view, prepositions are essentially features on NPs that are spelled out by late syntactic rules. The criticisms levelled at Ross' approach are also valid, mutatis mutandis, for Postal's proposal. A slightly different approach can be found in Van den Toorn (1971) . The author proposes to treat the prepositions of prepositional objects as features on the main verb that are later spelled out as prepositions on the deep direct object. The main argument that Van den Toorn presents is based on the Dutch pseudo-cleft construction (referred to by him as cleft construction). The central observation is that with prepositional objects it is the NP that appears in the focus position, while this is not possible with adverbial PPs. He presents the following type of examples: (i) Waarom de apotheker vroeg was het recept (his (54)) wherefore the chemist asked was the prescription What the chemist asked for was the prescription (ii)*Waarin hij zwemt is erg vervuild water (his (49)) wherein he swims is very polluted water What he swims in is very polluted water However, (ii) becomes much better if the preposition is stranded: (iii)Waar hij in zwemt is erg vervuild water That there is a difference between adverbial PPs and prepositional objects seems clear, but what the explanation is isn't apparent (cf also 2.7.). However, it is difficult to evaluate the claim that prepositional objects "behave" like NPs, but that adverbial PPs don't, in the absence of an explicit formulation of the transformation in question and independently of a theory that predicts how NPs behave under certain transformations in specific contexts.

4.

The arrows are to be interpreted as "selects": X .Y = X selects Y. No ordering relations are implied itr*Tl3). In other words, [ X[ Y . . .] ] is abbreviatory for [ X[ Y ...]], [X [ ...Y]] , [[ Y...]X] , [[ ...Y]X] .

- 29 5.

In languages with elaborate case systems, some of the case markers may be morphologically complex. However, in the cases that I am familiar with, there is no reason to assume either that these complex case markers are of the type represented in (13d), or even that a productive morphological process is involved.

6.

In his Dialogues (1977), Chomsky argues that generative semantics as such has never been defended by anyone. Rather, the term stands for a conglomerate of different positions that have mainly in common, according to Chomsky, the fact that, scientifically, they are virtually empty.

7.

The only criticisms that I am aware of are Hendrick (1976), who argues for a modified conception of the X-bar theory, and Mackenzie (1975), who argues against Jackendoff from a generative semantics point of view.

3. The internal syntax of Dutch prepositional phrases 3.1. Introducing_the_X=bar_theory The X-bar theory was introduced in Chomsky (1970) and constitutes the first serious attempt to construct a coherent and restrictive theory about phrase structure. The main further elaborations are due to Emonds (1976) and Jackendoff (1974, 1976, 1977). The central idea in the X-bar theory is that the phrase structure rules determining the structure of phrases containing as their head a verb, a noun, an adjective, or a preposition can be stated"according to the following general schema:

(1)

X 1 -»•

X1"1

Here, X is a variable ranging over N, V, A, and P. i and i-1 stand for the number of bars, i.e. the hierarchical level which is introduced by the phrase structure rules. In the present study, there will be no occasion to introduce any hierarchical levels higher than 3 bars. In other words: 3>_i>_l. The uniform 3-bar-level hypothesis is presented in Jackendoff (1977). We will justify our adoption of 3 levels for prepositional phrases in chapters 5, 6 and 7. We will adopt the following notation: X' 1 ' (X-triple-bar), X'1 (X-double-bar), X' (X-bar), and X (X). Schema (1) yields structures like (2).

- 31 -

(2)

X" '

We will refer to X as the head.

1

Anything dominated by X 1 ,

except X, we will call the complement of X, anything immediately 2 dominated by X ' e x c e p t X', is the specifier of X 1 .

The

path from X via X' and X'' to X''' we will refer to as the main projection line. With Emonds (1976), it is assumed that all (phrasal) nodes dominated by X' 1 ' are optional, except for the nodes on the main projection line. Therefore, parentheses will be omitted from the formulation of the phrase structure rules for ease of exposition. These rather technical matters and the quite tedious elaboration of the phrase structure rules for prepositional phrases should not conceal an important fact. X-bar theory is an empirical hypothesis about one aspect of the universal theory of categories. But the theory of categories will have to include at least one other crucial cornerstone: the role that categories play with respect to the universal system of constraints on rules of grammar. These constraints have hitherto been stated primarily in terms of the notion "cyclic category", which is defined quite independently of the notions introduced in X-bar theory. (A noteworthy exception here is Bresnan's (1976) Relativized A over A Principle to which we return in 4.4.2.) It is my belief that a successful

theory of categories is

only possible on the basis of a rapprochement between the

- 32 primitives of the theory of constraints and the theory of phrase structure. My investigation of the syntax

of prepositional

phrases is intended as a step towards such a rapprochement.

3.2. A brief survey of Dutch phrase structure 3.2.1. The main rules The following sketch of Dutch phrase structure plus a few important transformations is meant to provide the reader with information that will facilitate the understanding of the succeeding sections of this chapter and of chapter 5 on the syntax of Dutch prepositional phrases. The few rules presented here are far from complete, and many arbitrary decisions have been made that may, in some respects, be controversial. However, it is hoped that this view is correct in its essentials, at least correct enough to guarantee that the validity of the arguments in the following chapters is not affected. No account is presented of the internal structure of N' 1 ', since it is essentially like English, nor of A''', since it is irrelevant here. No AUX position is introduced because Dutch does not appear to have a clearly distinguishable class of modal or otherwise auxiliary verbs. AUX, then, consists essentially of either tense (present or past) or the infinitive marker (te or 0). But since both tense and the infinitive marker are always realized on the verb in surface structure, it is unclear just what the underlying position of AUX is. No predicate phrase is assumed, so we get V' = VP, V'' = S, and V''1 = S1 .

- 33 The rules for the V projection are given in (3). COMP - V' 1

(3) a. V' ' '

N' ' 1 - [ +PRO] ' "ipos} " V '

b. V " c. V

M • » I

-

T> I I I

»

, , }-{£, , , } - X' • • - P- • ' - V

d. [ +PRO ] ' -1- [+PRO, -R] - [ +PRO, -R] - [+PRO, +Rl To start with the last rule, there is a canonical position for unstressed pronouns. This is the position immediately to the right of the subject. There are three positions available: two for non-r-pronouns and the third and rightmost position for 3 r-pronouns.

An example is (4):

(4) Ze geven het je er niet kado They give it you there not for nothing They don't give it to you for nothing there The position following [+PRO]' in (3b) is that of the negation (NEG) or its positive counterpart, the affirmative particle wel which is quite frequent and has a rather intricate semantics of its own. The COMP position functions essentially as in English. Turning to (3c), now, the first position in the complement of the verb is that of the direct object. This position is followed by several positions for more or less strictly subcategorized prepositional phrases and adverbs. The positioning of these adverbials is quite free, ranging from the pre-subject position, via most positions inside V', to the post-verbal position, (cf

Koster (1973)). The X''' position stands for the predica-

tive constituents. X can take all four values:

- 34 (5) a. Ze verven het huis geel

(A'1')

They paint the house yellow b. Ze maken de sekretaris voorzitter

(N'1')

They make the secretary president c. Deze wet is gisteren van kracht geworden

(P * 1 1)

This law has yesterday of power become This law has become effective yesterday 4 d. Dat is te begrijpen

(V*'1)

That is to understand That is understandable The p

11

' position between the predicative position and the

verb is the particle position (cf

3.4.2.).

The V' 1 ' at the bottom of the first pair of braces in (3c) is the position in which sentential complements originate. At this point we direct our attention to some central transformational rules. For one of two things must happen to such a complement sentence (cf

Evers (1975), from which study we

depart in several respects, however).^

The complement senten-

ce's verb either undergoes a rule called verb raising or another rule: extraposition. The local transformation of verb raising has the effect of (Chomsky-)adjoining the complement verb on the right hand side of the matrix verb. Extraposition, on the other hand, inverts the whole complement sentence around the matrix verb. Which of the two rules must apply to the complement sentence

of a given verb is largely lexically deter-

mined. Verb raising is formulated in (6a) and its effect illustrated in (6b).^

Extraposition is given in (6c).

- 35 (6) a.

verb raising X - V - V - Y

b.

1 - e - 3+2 - 4

... [ [

[[ c.

extraposition X - V' 1 ' - Y - V

Z

1

2

3

4

5

1

e

3

4+2

5

There is another important rule concerning the verb that must be mentioned here: verb second. In (3c) the verb is generated at the end of the V'. This is in accordance with Roster's (1975) proposal that Dutch be analyzed as an SOV language. (3c) gives the correct surface position of the verb, except in root sentences, where the verb appears in second position. We will assume that the first position is represented by COMP ^

and stipulate that COMP must be filled in root sen-

tences. This implies that whenever nothing else is fronted the g subject stands in COMP.

The verb second transformation can

be stated as in (7): (7)

verb second: COMP - X - V - Y =• 1+3 - 2 - e - 4

Dutch also has a rule of wh-movement, which is very similar to its English equivalent. In addition, there is a rule of r-movement which Will be discussed in the next section.

- 36 3.2.2. A feature system for pronouns The feature [+R ] plays an important role in the internal syntax of P''' and r-pronouns and the rule of ¿-movement will be seen to be central to the arguments in 5.1. and 5.2. Therefore, we will present a brief survey of the main aspects of the Dutch pronoun system. The main features that we will be concerned with are WH, D, H, and R. [+WH ] characterizes wh-pronouns. These occur in whquestions, in free relatives, and in relative clauses if they have the feature [+R]. [+D] is the feature of demonstrative pronouns. But these d-pronouns are also used as relative pronouns when they are [-R]. H stands for human. [-R] characterizes pronouns of the category N1.[+R] defines pronouns of the category P 1 in a locative meaning. However, [+R] pronouns may also be of the category N 1 under certain conditions. These conditions are met when a [—H] pronoun occurs in the complement of a preposition. Accordingly, we will assume that there is a rule which replaces the form class [-H,-R] by the form class [-H,+R] in the complement of a preposition. Such a rule may properly be called a generalized suppletion rule, since normal suppletion rules operate on single forms rather than on form classes. We will assume that this generalized suppletion rule, which is formulated in (8), operates at the level of complex symbols (cf Chomsky (1965)), prior to lexical insertion. (8)

[ +PRO, -H]

[+R1

/

[P _

]p,

-

37

-

This rule accounts for the following paradigms in combination with the rule of r-movement, which has the effect of inverting the r-pronoun around the P. (9) a.

op hem

'on him'

*op het

'on it'

*op er

'on there'

(by (8))

er op

'there on'

(by r-movement)

op die

'on that one'

b.

([-WH, -D] )

(human)

([-WH, +D] )

* op dat

'on that'

(non-human)

* op daar

'on there'

(by (8))

daar op

'there on'

(by r-movement)

op wie

'on whom'

* op wat

'on what'

* op waar

'on where'

(by (8))

waar op

'where on'

(by r-movement)

c.

([+WH, -D])

Two general conditions hold within the feature system: ^ (10) a.

* [+WH, +D]

b.

* [ +H, +R]

Combined with these conditions, the following system emerges:

-

(11)

38 -

WH D H R

hij/hem he/him

10

het er die dat daar it there that that there

11

19 wie wat waar who what where

For the [-WH, -D ] pronouns, there are in addition some quantified and negated counterparts. For these we introduce the features [+ U] for universal quantification and [+ NEG] for negation. The pronouns listed in (11) are all [-U, -NEG]. Again we have a general condition: (10)

c.

* [+U, +NEG]

These pronouns pattern as in (12): (12)

U

NEG WH D H R ieder(een) alles overal every(one) every- everything where

niemand niets nergens nobody nothing nowhere

- 39 To complete this overview of the Dutch pronoun system, consider the feature [+ DEF] indicating definiteness or indefiniteness. Notice that the [-WH] pronouns in (11) are all [+DEF]. The [+WH] pronouns are [ otDEF] , presumably, because they can be used both as interrogative and as relative pronouns. The [ +U] pronouns in (12) are [+DEF] , but the [ +NEG] pronouns are [-DEF] . The latter series has a [-NEG] counterpart which is the [ -DEF] counterpart of the hij/hem, het, er series. And here again we have a triplet:

(13)

DEF U NEG WH D H R iemand somebody

iets something

ergens somewhere

We ntay now piece together (11), (12), and (13) into the schema (14)

- 40 (14) DEF

NEG

WH

H

R wie (who) wat (what) waar (where) die (that) / [ -PROX] dat (that) / [ -PROX] daar (there) [ -PROX] hij (he) hem (him)

deze (this [ +PROX ] dit (this) [ +PROX] / hier (here) [ +PROX]

/ /

zij (she) haar (her)

het (it) er (there) iemand (somebody) iets (something) ergens (somewhere) niemand (nobody) niets (nothing) nergens (nowhere) iedereen (everybody) alles (everything) overal (everywhere)

This system is, of course, still far from complete. Plural pronouns, reflexive and reciprocal pronouns, and first and second person pronouns have been disregarded here. But the system as established demonstrates the central role that the feature [+R] plays in cross-classifying the pronouns: one form in

every triplet is an r-pronoun. And this class of r-pronouns is exactly the class of elements that a) have a double categorial function as either a locative pro-P*, or, by virtue of the suppletion rule (8), as a pro-N 1 , b) are moved, by the rule of ¿-movement, into pre-prepositional position inside p 1 1 ' and also into the [+R] position specified by rule (3d). We will assume that, in addition to the [+R] position specified by (3d), there is a [+R] position inside P 1 ' 1 to the left of P (cf

3.7.1.). Under this assumption, the rule of r-movement

can be formulated in a very simple, structure-preserving way: (15)

X-Y-Z-I+R]

- 0»

l - 4 - 3 - e - 5

(where Y must be a [ +R] position by virtue of structure-preservingness). Several remarks must be made about this rule. Its highly general formulation suggests that (15) is really an instance of the core transformation schema ("move a", where a is some category, cf

chapter 1 ). But that means that (15) must be

optional. This consequence is desirable, because the movement of r-pronouns from a P''1 to the [+R]-position under V' 1 is indeed optional. However, the first application of r-movement, the one inside P''', appears to be obligatory, as can be concluded from the ungrammaticality of the third members of the quadruples in (9). This fact remains without consequence for the formulation of (15), because the second members of the quadruples in (9) are also ungrammatical. Since the latter forms are base-generated as such,

another mechanism must be appealed to

in order to account for their ungrammaticality. The most straightforward way to handle these cases would seem to be to

-

42

-

introduce a filter. As an approximation, such a filter might be formulated as (16). (16)

*P - [+PRO,-H]

This filter adequately accounts for the third members of the quadruples as well. Notice that we have been assuming here that the generalized suppletion rule (8) is optional. For if it were obligatory, filter (16) would apply to r-pronouns only. The assumption appears to be correct, however, because some [-H,-R]-pronouns are tolerated after a preposition, e.g. met alles (with everything) next to overal mee, or ?van iets (of something) next to nergens van. The conditions under which neither rule (8) nor filter (16) apply are quite idiosyncratic and subject to stylistic variation. We will not go into these conditions and assume that some filter along the lines of (16) is part of the grammar and that, whatever its exact form, it subsumes (161 ) . (16')

*P - [+PRO,+R]

There turns out to be some additional evidence for (16') which we return to in 3.7.1. Another question which must be addressed here is the question of the categorial status of the r-pronouns generated by rule (8) . So far it has been assumed that these r-pronouns retain the category status of the position they originate in. In other words, a kind of null-hypothesis has been assumed to the effect that generalized suppletion rules can neither delete nor change categorial information. It might be objected, however, that as a result of r-movement combined with filter (16')

- 43 the r-pronouns in question never appear in N 111-positions. Thus it may be undesirable to regard them as instances of N' 1 1 . This seems to me to be a potentially valid point. In order to avoid calling these prepositional r-pronouns noun phrases two possibilities present themselves. One possibility is to drop the constraint on generalized suppletion rules and to stipulate that (8) has the effect of deleting the categorial information of the pronoun. The other possibility consists in base-generating the r-pronouns in the [+R]-position under P 1 '. Under this variant a special mechanism would have to be invoked to account for the selection requirements of the preposition and the cooccurrence restrictions between r-pronouns and the other N' 1 ' objects of the preposition (either one or the other, but not both). This mechanism might be a fairly powerful type of redundancy rule, or an interpretive rule relating the r-pronoun to the empty N 11 '-slot to the right of the preposition, comparable to the type of rule proposed in Groos (1978) for (base-generated) Spanish clitics. We will not pursue these matters any further here because none of the later arguments hinges on the choice between the three variants. Since the latter two possibilities both require some extra mechanisms, we will retain the original analysis in terms of rule (8). The question may also be raised whether it is possible to postulate an underlying [+R]-position as a receptacle for £-pronouns. Emonds (1976, p. 153) proposes a condition to the effect that it is inadmissible to postulate a deep structure position if that position is not input to a deep structure projection rule

13

.

Elsewhere (p. 182), he proposes the Sentence Boundary Condition, which serves to make wh-movement into COMP structure-preserving.

- 44 This condition is formulated as follows (Emonds1 (70)). The Sentence Boundary Condition: If A. is a rightmost or a leftmost constitutent if an S, a transformational operation that substitutes B for A. is structure-preserving if B dominates A.,^provided that there is no S such that B = X [YA.Z ] C W. D J O While this condition has the desired effect, since wh-movement moves phrases that dominate the feature [ +WH] , it does not explain why it is possible to postulate the (wh- position in the) COMP. While different types of complementizer elements (that, for, (J) may have a certain semantic influence, as was shown in Bresnan (1970, 1972), it is not clear at all that the semantic interpretation rule interpreting these complementizer elements is of the same nature as the deep structure projection rules that Emonds relies on to motivate underlying positions. Furthermore, it is commonly assumed (Bresnan (1970, 1972); Chomsky (1973); Chomsky and Lasnik (1977)) that COMP contains two positions: one for the complementizer element, and one as a receptacle of wh-phrases. Therefore, we propose to slightly revise Emonds' condition on the postulation of underlying positions. Suppose that the set of syntactic features is made up of two subsets:

a set of

categorial features and a set of morphological features. The syntactic features are [+N ] and [+V], and possibly a few others like Jackendoff's (1977) [ +Complement] . The morphological features are taken from a universal inventory of morphological 14 features

. We will assume that phrase structure rules may only

make use of categorial features and those morphological features that play an active, i.e. non-neutralized, role in the morphology

- 45 of the language in question. Suppose, then, that Emonds1 requirement regarding deep structure projection rules only holds for positions defined in terms of categorial features. However, for all positions we

will simply require that there be well-formed

surface structures in which the position in question is filled. Thus, we weaken Emonds' condition just for those positions that are characterized in terms of morphological features. Notice that this proposal is actually a very natural one, for what could be a simpler learning procedure than inferring deep structure positions directly from surface structure positions and inferring the feature composition of those positions from the morphological properties of the elements occurring in that position? Under these assumptions, then, it is legitimate to postulate a position for wh-pronouns in COMP (wh-pronouns and d-pronouns in Dutch), and to postulate a position for r-pronouns in Dutch. The full justification of this step will be the subject of chapter 7.

3.3. The_specif1er_system 3.3.1. The structure of the specifier Jackendoff (1973) established that the category 'prepositional phrase' also comprises a specifier. With Jackendoff (1977), we will assume that this specifier is at the P'1 level, i.e. we have the following rule: (17)

P"

+

SpeCp, -

P'

- 46 -

Let us now briefly investigate what the structure of Specpl is in Dutch

15

.

P' can be specified by four types of elements: N 1 1 ', A 1 1 1 , P'1', and a fourth not easily classifiable category which we will call M(odifier). Notice that the category 'quantifier phrase' does not figure among these. The N 1 1 ' that occurs as the specifier of P' is invariably a measure phrase: (18) a. Twintig meter naast het schuurtje begint het niemandsland Twenty meters beside the barn begins the no man's land b. Vier uur nadat hij de pil had ingenomen was hij weer gezond Four hours after (that) he the pill had taken was he again healthy Four hours after taking the pill he had recovered Among -the adjectives that can occur as specifiers are kort ('short'), lang ('long'), recht ('straight', 'right'), dicht ('close'), ver ('far'), diep ('deep'), hoog ('high'), laag Clow') (19)

16

.

a. Diep onder het zand vonden zij de schat Deep under the sand found they the treasure Deep under the sand they found the treasure b. Kort voor dat het begon ging er iets mis Shortly before (that) it began went there something wrong Shortly before it started something went wrong

- 47 Prepositional specifiers are boven ('up')/ beneden ('down')/ onder ('under'), etc. (20)

a. Boven in de kast ligt het geld Up (high) in the closet lies the money b. Onder in de la vond ik het Under in the drawer found I it Down in the drawer I found it

We will return to these cases in 3.5.2. and 3.7.1. Consider, finally, the specifiers of category M. These include pal ('right'), pas ('only'), zelfs ('even'), nog ('still', 'even'). (21)

a. Pal boven de deur is het balkon Right above the door is the balcony b. Zelfs zonder te betalen kan hij een auto krijgen Even without to pay can he a car get Even without paying he can get a car

Notice that the phrasal specifiers allow a certain amount of recursion. Due to general limitation on pre-head recursion (cf Emonds 1976, ch. 1), this will be left-branching recursion through the specifier: (22)

a. Een zeer indrukwekkend aantal kilometers onder het A very impressive number

(of) kilometers under the

A very impressive number of kilometers below wateroppervlak werd het wrak gevonden water level

was

the wreck found

sealevel the wreck was found b. We arriveerden zo kort voor het begin We arrived

so shortly before the beginning

We arrived so shortly before the beginning

- 48 -

dat we nog tijdens het tweede bedrijf zaten te hijgen that we still during the second act sat to breathe (heavily) that we were still breathing heavily during the second act c. Diep onder in de kast lagen de motteballen Deeply under in the closet lay the mothballs Deep down in the closet lay the mothballs Notice also that prepositions don't have a real comparative or superlative. However, they can have the 'metalinguistic' comparative as in (23a) or an adverbial kind of superlative as in (23b) . (23)

a. Hij is zo lang dat hij meer naast dan in zijn He is so tall that he more beside than in his He is so tall that he is lying more beside than bed ligt bed lies in his bed b. Het meest onder de indruk was de The most under the impression was the The most impressed was the cardinal's dochter van de kardinaal daughter of the cardinal daughter

We will assume that these are comparatives and superlatives of the measure noun veel ('much'). Furthermore, we will assume that all cases of two specifiers preceding the preposition can be analyzed as cases of specifier recursion. We can then posit the following rule for the specifier of P': (24)

SpeCp, + {N" ' , A " ' , P " ' , M}

-

49

-

3.3.2. An aside on the movement of specifiers

The exposition, in this chapter, of the phrase structure rules for p' 11 is principally meant to prepare the way for the later arguments concerning rules that relate positions inside p' 1 ' to positions outside P' 1 '. Among the relevant cases is the applicability of rules to the specifier of P' across the p 1 ' 1 boundary. To give just one example, a prepositional specifier cannot be moved to the front of the sentence by itself, even though P ^ ' s generally can: (25)

a. Ik vond het geld boven in de kast I found the money up (high) in the closet b. Boven in de kast vond ik het geld Up (high) in the closet found I the money c. Boven vond ik het geld Up(stairs) found I the money d.*Boven vond ik het geld [e

in de kast]

Up (high) found I the money in the closet (where "e" stands for the extraction site.)

However, there will be no discussion of such cases in this study, because a) the conditions under which rules can apply to the specifier across P''1 appear to be exactly the same as those on the applicability of rules to the specifiers of A' and N', and because b) very little is known about the behavior of specifiers under transformations in general. Therefore, we will limit ourselves to a few brief remarks about these considerations .

-

50

-

Ross' theory c o v e r i n g m o s t of the r e l e v a n t cases w a s b a s e d o n the L e f t B r a n c h C o n d i t i o n

(Ross

(1967)) w h i c h says, e s s e n t i a l l y ,

that e l e m e n t s o n a left b r a n c h in a p h r a s e c a n n o t be e x t r a c t e d o u t of that p h r a s e . B u t Ross' a n a l y s i s w a s m u c h c r i t i c i z e d for e x a m p l e , G r o s u

(1974) and B r e s n a n

(1976)). B r e s n a n r e p l a c e d

the L e f t B r a n c h C o n d i t i o n w i t h the R e l a t i v i z e d A over A

Constraint.

H o w e v e r , this c o n s t r a i n t w a s a g a i n shown to be i n a d e q u a t e Obenauer

(1976a),

(1976b); K o s t e r

(cf,

(1977a), V a n R i e m s d i j k

(cf (forth-

coming) ) b o t h o n the level of o b s e r v a t i o n a l adequacy a n d o n the level of d e s c r i p t i v e a d e q u a c y . In a d d i t i o n , the a n a l y s i s

in

terms of the R e l a t i v i z e d A over A C o n s t r a i n t p r e s u p p o s e s a q u i t e u n r e s t r i c t i v e theory a b o u t t r a n s f o r m a t i o n s

(cf B r e s n a n

(1975)).

A n a p p r o a c h that is p e r h a p s m o r e p r o m i s i n g is s u g g e s t e d in Koster

(1977a), w h e r e it is c l a i m e d , e s s e n t i a l l y , that s p e c i f i e r

e l e m e n t s are freely a c c e s s i b l e to t r a n s f o r m a t i o n s , b u t that the cases o r i g i n a l l y h a n d l e d b y the L e f t B r a n c h C o n d i t i o n or the R e l a t i v i z e d A o v e r A C o n s t r a i n t s h o u l d be r u l e d o u t by m e a n s of one or two very simple filters

(cf also

4.4.2.).

P e r h a p s the m o s t c o n v i n c i n g case of a type of s p e c i f i e r

that

is accessible to t r a n s f o r m a t i o n s is the case of the m e a s u r e phrase

(cf V a n R i e m s d i j k

(forthcoming)). F o r e x a m p l e , it is p o s -

sible to r e l a t i v i z e into such a m e a s u r e p h r a s e (26)

a. De 3 c m d i e zijn s c h r i j f t a f e l

[e

specifier: te laag]

T h e 3 c m that his desk too low w a s T h e 3 c m by w h i c h his desk w a s too low r u l n e e r d e n zijn w e r v e l k o l o m ruined his vertebral

column

r u i n e d his v e r t e b r a l

column

was

- 51 Notice that exactly the same "exception" can be observed for the specifiers of P': (26)

b. De 3 cm die ik door de luchtdruk [e The 3 cm that I by the air

naar

pressure to

The 3 cm by which I was pushed to the links] werd geduwd hebben mijn leven gered left was pushed

have my

life saved

left by the air pressure saved my life Consequently, I will assume that whatever explanation accounts for the accessibility conditions of specifiers will handle the specifier of P' as well.

3.4. Jntransitive_£regositions 3.4.1. Real intransitive prepositions By intransitive prepositions we mean prepositions without any object or other complement. In other words, intransitive prepositions are generated by the phrase structure rule P'

P.

That intransitive prepositions have to exist follows from the principle that categories on the main projection line are obligatory and all other positions (complements and specifiers) optional. The argumentation for the existence of intransitive prepositions is due to Emonds (1970, 1972), citing Klima (1965), and Jackendoff (1973) . The arguments can be applied to Dutch in the following way. (i)

Most if not all intransitive prepositions are phonolo-

gically identical to transitive

prepositions.

- 52 (27)

Jan woont

{£ O V e n . . . .} boven de winkel

John lives { U P S t a i " „ ) above the store (28)

(ii)

De auto staat

{»chter } achter het huis

The car stands

{Jf!}^ behind the „ house }

Pal is a specifier that occurs only in P' 1 ', like right

in English. It also has a similar meaning. Pal cannot, however, cooccur indiscriminately with prepositions. But in a significant number of cases the selectional restrictions hold for transitive and intransitive prepositions alike: (29)

(30)

pal tegen

pal tegen de wind

right against

right against the wind

*pal binnen

*pal binnen het huis

right inside

right inside the house

Intransitive prepositions occur in typical p 1 1 ' positions

(iii) like:

[N

(31)

(32)

] N,

cf (31)

#_~p" '#

cf (32)

De kamer

{boven . , .} boven de winkel

is niet verwarmd

The room

{ U P Sta:L f? . } above the store

is not heated

a. Terug naar de gevangenis met de loodgieters! Back to (the) jail with the plumbers! b. Terug met die rommel! Back with that rubbish!

(iv)

Dutch has a rule that moves p' 11 to the end of the senten-

- 53 ce, that is, over the verb (cf Koster (1973)). This rule, call it p 1 '' over V, applies to intransitive prepositions as well: , -.->> (33)

j i_ • m • e t• xerg . .... omdat hij op z'nigemak izit i arcachter ht e r de stal ' , , . . /behind the stable-, .... because he not very comfortable is behind , , . _, . . /behind the stable-, .... because he is not very comfortable ^ g h ^ d '

(v)

Selectional requirements of verbs do not differentiate

between transitive and intransitive prepositions, for example the verb leggen (to put, to lay) obligatorily selects a direct object and a locative P , , , . Intransitive locative prepositions satisfy this requirement. (34)

Ik heb de sokken i

h6t o n d e r

^d}

ge legd

the underwear } put e behind _ .have put . the socks . /behind I i b e h i n d the underwear-, >

I have the socks

Thus it may be concluded that the rule P'-* P is well motivated. Together with the rule for transitive prepositions, this conclusion leads to a first approximation of the rule for P': (35)

P' + P

-

N'•'

(where, by convention, N 1 ' 1 is optional and P obligatory).

3.4.2. Particles Emonds (1972) has argued that the particles of the English verb-particle construction are really intransitive prepositions. Dutch also has a class of particles, although these particles do not undergo any rule comparable to particle movement in

- 54 English (cf Koster (1975)). As was seen in 3.2.1., Dutch parti18 cles are generated immediately to the left of the verb The only rule that a particle can undergo is (optional) incor19 poration into the verb to form a unit:

[P - V] v

. While the

effect of this rule in simple sentences is not visible (because the terminal string is not modified), when the verb undergoes verb raising, pairs like (36 b/c) result: (36)

a. omdat hij [mij op te bellenly,,, probeert (underlying) because he me up to call

tries

because he tries to call me up b. omdat hij [mij op e] probeert te bellen (no incorporation) c. omdat hij [mij e e] probeert op te bellen (incorporation) (where "e", again, stands for the extraction site). Such pairs are the main criterion for (prepositional) particlehood. Intransitive prepositions cannot undergo incorporation into the verb: (37)

a. omdat hij [ tegenwoordig boven te wonen] schijnt (underlying) because he nowadays

upstairs to live

seems

because he seems to live upstairs nowadays b. omdat hij [tegenwoordig boven schijnt te wonen (noe]incorporation) c.*omdat hij [tegenwoordig e e] schijnt boven te wonen (incorporation) In some cases there is ambiguity between an intransitive preposition reading and a particle reading, the former being the semantically more predictable reading, the latter representing the more idiomatic reading. For example:

- 55 (38)

a. omdat hij [voor te staan] schijnt because he (it) in front to stand seems because it seems to stand in front

(underlying)

(intr. prep. reading)

because it (the team) seems to be leading (in the game) (particle reading) b. omdat hij [voor e] schijnt te staan (no incorp.) (both readings) c. omdat hij [e e] schijnt voor te staan (incorp.) (only particle reading) That is, in (38b) hij can refer both to, say, a dustbin and a boxer, but in (38c) it can only refer to the boxer. Incorporability is not the only difference between intransitive prepositions and particles. Another difference is that particles can never undergo the p' 1 ' extraposition rule mentioned under D in 3.4.1., while intransitive prepositions, at least sometimes, can (cf (33)). (39)

a. Ze hebben hem neer geschoten They have him down shot They have shot him b.*Ze hebben hem geschoten neer

In addition, intransitive prepositions can be topicalized while particles usually cannot: (40)

a. Beneden werk ik en boven slaap ik

(intr. prep.)

Downstairs work I and upstairs sleep I Downstairs I work and upstairs I sleep b.*Op heeft hij mij gebeld

(particle)

Up has he me called Up he called me Jackendoff

(1977)

notes that particles in English cannot

-

56

-

take any complements. Therefore, he distinguishes particles from prepositions by the feature [+ complement]. The usefulness of 20

that feature is , in Dutch at least, doubtful, however

. Some

particles are accompanied by a semantically empty r-pronoun: er. Er undergoes r-movement and the particle is incorporable: (41)

a. omdat ze er erg leuk schijnt uit te zien because she there very pretty seems out to look because she seems to look very pretty b. omdat de trein er elk moment kan aan komen because the train there any moment can at come because the train may be approaching any moment

The examples in (41) at the same time provide a conclusive argument that, despite the differences noted above (incorporation, P' 1 ' extraposition, topicalization, limited complement structure), particles belong to the same category as prepositions. But apart from incorporation these differences do not separate particles neatly from intransitive prepositions. Rather, intransitive prepositions are also more limited in their transformational behavior than transitive prepositional phrases. Therefore, assigning particles a special categorial status will hardly help to account for these differences. On the other hand, particles serve as a context in rule (8), section 3.2.2. In other words, they cause the appearance of r-pronouns. We conclude that particles belong to the category P' 1 ', and that any difference between particles and real prepositions must be attributed to other factors. One possibility would be to assume with Jackendoff (1977) that they differ in one (minor) categorial feature. Another possibility would consist of making the lexical proper-

- 57 ties of the particle-verb combinations responsible. We will leave this matter for further research. In conclusion, no new phrase structure rules (apart from (35)) are needed for particles. Some more interesting properties of particles in connection with incorporation will be discussed in 3.7.2.

3.5. The_comglement_system 3.5.1. P

-

N'''

Rule (35) already generates the P - N''1 structure, which, furthermore, is the only expansion of p 1 '' that all linguists agree on. Therefore, nothing more need be said about P - N''' here.

3.5.2. P

-

P" '

Jackendoff argues that sentences like those listed in (42) have the structure P - P' 1 ' (his (12) through (14)). (42)

Harpo rode the horses out of the barn Sam disappeared down into the darkness A great howl of pain emerged from inside the rainbarrel Out of the night appeared the nine black riders Up into the clouds shot a riderless broomstick Back from his successes on the Faroe Islands comes that star of stage and screen, Frodo Marx Up to your bedroom with you, young man Back in the box with you. Jack

Jackendoff notes that there are two possible analyses for strings of the form P - P - N''':

- 58 (43)

a.

V'

b.

V'

Jackendoff correctly rules out (43b) on the basis of the examples in (42) , but he overlooks the fact that there is a 21

third possibility: (43)

V1

c.

piii

pi

P' ' I P' I

N' ' '

P In other words, the first preposition may be the specifier. The question of deciding between (43a) and (43c) then amounts to determining which one of the two prepositions acts as the head of the p' 11 with respect to the selectional requirements of the verb. Waksberg (1977) argues that both structures occur in English. And in Dutch, the same situation obtains. Some cases of type (43a) in Dutch are: (44)

a. De cognac is The cognac is

[voor for

[bij de koffie]] with the coffee

The cognac is to go with the coffee

- 59 b. Deze cognac is [van

[voor de oorlog]]

This cognac is from before the war In both cases the first preposition is the head. The interpretation of the complex p 1 '' in (44a) can be characterized by the meaning that voor has here, namely that of indicating the thing or occasion that the cognac is intended for. Bij, here, indicates accompaniment rather than location ('at'). And on that reading, (44a) is ungrammatical without voor. But if voor were a specifier, one would expect it to be omissible without any major changes of meaning. A similar reasoning can be set up for (44b). Van indicates the temporal source and voor the time. Thus, (44b) can be paraphrased as "This cognac stems from a time which can be characterized as 'before the war'." Without van, voor would have to have a benefactive rather than a temporal meaning. Notice also that with structure (43a), we would expect the lower p 1 1 1 to

be able to have its own specifier. In (44b), for

example, this is possible. (45)

Deze cognac is [van [meerdere jaren voor de oorlog]] This cognac is from several

years before the war

As was noted in 3.3.1., however, some P - P - N''1 strings have the structure (43c). Some examples are: (46)

Je sokken liggen onder in de la Your socks are

(47)

down in the drawer

Het boek ligt boven op de stapel The book is high

on the pile

The book is on top of the pile The first preposition serves to further specify the location expressed by the second preposition. In (46) ,

for example, if

-

60

-

onder were the head, one would expect the sentence to mean that the socks are beneath the drawer, which is not the meaning that it has. We may take it as established, then, that next to structures like (43c) there are also structures like (43a). Therefore, rule (48) can be added to our inventory of phrase structure rules for pi»» (48)

3.5.3. P

-

P' •* P - P' ' '

V' "

There are some quite obvious cases of prepositions followed by a sentential complement. These sentential complements appear in all possible varieties: as finite clauses or as infinitives, with or without a complementizer, with or without an explicit subject. Consider the following examples» (49)

a. [Na [dat zij waren vertrokken]] was alles rustig After that they were left

was everything quiet

After they had left, everything was quiet b. [Voor [hij kwam]] was het nog leuker Before he

came

was it still nicer

Before he came, it was still nicer c. [Zonder [gegeten te hebben] ging ik naar bed Without

eaten

to have

went I

to

bed

Without having eaten, I went to bed These examples lead us to posit the following phrase structure rule: (50)

P' ->- P

-

V' ' '

There may be another class of examples that are generated by the

-

same r u l e . (51)

61

-

Consider:

Ik h a d e r n i e t o £ g e r e k e n d d a t hij z o u k o m e n I had there not on counted that he w o u l d I had not counted on his

come

coming

Here, the sentential complement appears in extraposition,

while

a p r o n o m i n a l c o p y a c t s as a p l a c e h o l d e r in the c o m p l e m e n t of the p r e p o s i t i o n . T h i s p r o n o u n m u s t , of c o u r s e , b e a n r - p r o n o u n , and, t h e r e f o r e , u n d e r g o r - m o v e m e n t . T h e q u e s t i o n w i t h like

examples

(51) is, h o w e v e r , w h e t h e r t h e s e n t e n t i a l c o m p l e m e n t is

rated by

(50) a n d t h e n e x t r a p o s e d , l e a v i n g a p r o n o m i n a l c o p y

h i n d , or w h e t h e r it is g e n e r a t e d in e x t r a p o s e d p o s i t i o n l i n k e d to the p r o n o u n

(or its trace)

• 6 • Tl}S_9ii®gtign_of _P

3.6.1. S o m e d u b i o u s Jackendoff

=

phrase.

5.

N ^

cases

(1973)

lists t h e f o l l o w i n g e x a m p l e s to w h i c h h e

a s s i g n s the s t r u c t u r e P - N 1 ' 1 (52)

be-

and

in t h e p r e p o s i t i o n a l

T h i s q u e s t i o n w i l l b e d i s c u s s e d in c h a p t e r

3

gene-

- p11'

(his

(30)).

a. D o w n t h e s t r e e t t o w a r d t h e f r i g h t e n e d collector lumbered a Martian

garbage

grzch

b. Into t h e smoky r o o m f r o m o u t of t h e c o l d a drunken

staggered

bassoonist

c. F r o m o n e e n d of the p a r k to t h e o t h e r r a c e d the m i c e d. To B i l l in N e w Y o r k , M a x s e n t the

trilogy

W h i l e t h e r e m a y b e s o m e d o u b t s a b o u t the c o n s t i t u e n t

structure

in some of t h e s e c a s e s , it is h a r d to see w h a t e l s e the ture c o u l d b e . In t h e c a s e of

struc-

(52a), d o w n the s t r e e t m i g h t

c e i v a b l y b e the s p e c i f i e r of t o w a r d

.... J a c k e n d o f f ' s

main

con-

-

62

-

argument is that in the string P - N' 1 ' - P - N' ' ' the substring N 1 '' - P - N''1 does not form a constituent, as can be checked with the examples in (52). 22

Similar examples exist for Dutch: (53)

a. [Van [Amsterdam] [naar Rotterdam]] is het een heel eind From

Amsterdam

to Rotterdam is it a whole distance

It's quite a distance from Amsterdam to Rotterdam b. [Bij [ons]

[thuis]] kan dat niet

With/at us (at) home can that not At our place that isn't possible But in both cases it is again hard to determine which one of the two prepositions is the head of the prepositional phrase. Conceivably, there might be an alternative for both sentences with the first P - N' 1 ' pair being the specifier. But there exists a construction which is quite clearly of the structure P - N 1 ' 1 X'''. This is the absolute met ('with') construction, which we will discuss in the next section. 3.6.2. Absolute prepositional phrases In his Modern English Grammar (V, 5.1g.) , Jespersen discusses sentences like the following: (54)

Why should I wash my hands if I am quite comfortable with them dirty (Shaw)

Jespersen also contributes a description of the meaning of the preposition with in this construction:

- 63 "It will be noticed that with has in these combinations a very vague meaning [...]; it serves only to introduce an accessory or collateral circumstance, ..." 23 Notice that without also occurs in a similar construction: (55)

She will relapse into the gutter without me at her elbow

(Shaw)

However, we will limit ourselves here to a discussion of the Dutch equivalent of the construction exemplified in (54) . But most of the arguments we present here carry over to English 24 quite readily

. We call the construction absolute. The reason

for this term is that this construction seems to be the counterpart in many modern Indo-European languages of the old IndoEuropean absolute constructions which were expressed by different case forms. Sanskrit had an absolute locative, Greek an absolute genitive, Latin an absolute ablative, and Gothic an absolute dative. There are still some relics of absolute cases in Dutch, for example, but they are all fossilized, like blootshoofds (bareheaded): an old genitive. Other constructions that have an absolute function are participial ones, but again, in Dutch at least, absolute participles are no longer productive and are mostly grammaticalized into prepositions like gedurende (for the duration of), niettegenstaande (notwithstanding) , hangende (pending). It appears that the prepositional construction with with, Dutch met, is now the productive absolute construction. Turning back to Jespersen's account of prepositional phrases like with them dirty in (54) , we notice that he describes this construction as the combination of the preposition with with a

- 64 "simple nexus". A^simple nexus, in Jespersen's terminology, is a subject-predicate construction. Thereby Jespersen connects the absolute with construction with prepositional constructions of the following type in Latin, English, and (somewhat archaic) Italian respectively: (56)

- post Romam (acc.) conditam (acc.) after Rome

founded

after the foundation of Rome - ante Christum (acc.) natum (acc.) before Christ

born

before the birth of Christ - under the circumstances of a large reward offered ... (Poe) - dopo vuotato il suo bicchiere after emptied the his glass after having emptied his glass - dopo letta guesta risposta after read this

reply

after the reading of this reply The question, then, arises how Jespersen's characterization of the absolute with construction in terms of a simple nexus translates into transformational-generative grammar. For a long time the most common assumption in transformational grammar was that subject-predicate constructions had to be derived from underlying sentential sources. However, since Chomsky's arguments against the transformational derivation of nominalizations (Chomsky (1970)), the situation is changed. We want to show now that the absolute met (with) construction should not be derived from a sentential source, but rather that its surface structure

- 65 is essentially its deep structure. For the absolute prepositional phrases in sentences like (57), there are essentially two possible underlying structures: A and B 25 (57)

a. Met Einstein voor ogen begon hij aan zijn onderzoek With Einstein before eyes began he at his research With Einstein in mind he started his research b. Met voetbal op de TV is er geen kip op straat With soccer on the TV is there no chicken on street With soccer on TV the streets are deserted c. Met de helft van de ploeg dronken kunnen we niet spelen With the half of the team drunk

can

we not

play

With half the team drunk we can't play

(A)

(B)

pill I p. .

I . P' N' met

Under B, the absolute P'''s in (57) would have the structure (58)

a.

[pl

met

IN..i Einstein] [ p ,,, voor ogen]]

b.

[pl

met

[ N ..! voetbal]

c.

[ p , met

[ p ,,, op de TV]]

IN.i. de helft van de ploeg] [ A ,,, dronken]

Under A, however, the structure would be something like (59).

-

(59)

66

-

a. [ p ,met[ v , ,, [e]N, ,, [ v , [ N , , .Einstein] [ p l , ,voor ogen] [yhebbende]]]] (V = 'having') b. [ pl met[ v ,,,[ N ,,.voetbal][ v , [ pl ,,op de TV] [vzijnde]]]] (V = 'being') c. [p,met[v,,,[ M, ,,de helft van de ploeg] [y.[p.i.dronken][yzijnde]]]] (V = 'being')

We will now first discuss a number of problems with hypothesis A. Perhaps some of these problems do not constitute real arguments against A, because complications can be introduced in the transformational derivation of the absolute construction from A to avoid them. But inasmuch as these complications are unnecessary on the B hypothesis, these problems favor B over A. (i)

hebben vs. zijn

As was already seen in (59) , the verb which is assumed to be present underlyingly under hypothesis A must be either hebben (have) or zijn (be), or, in fact, the present participle of these verbs as given in (59). Correspondingly, the N 1 '' is either the direct object (as in (59a)), or the subject (as in (59b/c). Why not have the same verb, say zijn in all cases? The reason for this is to be found in the following contrasts: (60)

a.

Hij heeft Einstein voor ogen He

has

Einstein before eyes

He has Einstein in mind

- 67 b. »Einstein is voor ogen Einstein is before eyes (61) a.

We hebben voetbal op de TV We have soccer on the TV We have soccer on TV 26

b.

Er is voetbal op de TV There is soccer on the TV There is soccer on TV

(62) a. *We hebben de helft van de ploeg dronken We have the half of the team drunk We have half the team drunk b.

De helft van de ploeg is dronken The half of the team is drunk Half the team is drunk

Thus, the sentences corresponding to the absolute constructions in (57) either have only hebben, or only zijn, or both. Notice that this also means that (57b), but not (57a) or (57c), has a dual derivation from two distinct underlying forms. However, (57b) is no more ambiguous than are the other two sentences. Notice, incidentally, that the verbs must be deleted in (59) because the corresponding undeleted surface forms are ungramma.. . 27 tical (ii)

the missing subject with hebben

As was seen in (59a), the sources with hebben have to contain an empty subject. The question, then, arises whether this subject is controlled. Consider (63)

Met Cruyff als libero kan er niets misgaan With Cruyff as libero can there nothing go wrong

-

68

-

With Cruyff as libero, nothing can go wrong Here, evidently, hebben would have to be the underlying verb: (64)

a.

NP heb- Cruyff ais libero

b. *Cruyff is ais libero But (6 3) does not contain a controller. Therefore, the missing subject is unspecified or freely controllable in the discourse. Notice that even when a potential controller is present the missing subject remains free: (65)

Met Cruyff ais libero zijn wij verloren With Cruyff as libero are we lost With Cruyff as libero, we are

lost

(65), on the most obvious reading, receives an interpretation with Cruyff being on our team. However, the interpretation with Cruyff as the libero of the other team is by no means excluded. Notice, first, that the subjects of gerunds, in English for example, normally have to be controlled when a controller is present: (66)

a.

Playing on the national team is quite a responsibility

b.

Playing on the national team puts quite a pressure on the guestworkers

In (66a) the subject is unspecified, but in (66b) the subject of playing cannot be understood as anybody other than the persons that are under pressure. In this respect, there is a difference between unspecified subjects in general and the unspecified subject that is assumed to be present under hypothesis A in an absolute construction like (65). Notice, moreover, that whenever a preposition is followed by a gerundive or infinitival construction, the empty subject of the infinitive is not interpretable as unspecified. Thus, such

- 69 28

sentences are semantically unwellformed. Take, for example (67)

a. 'After sending out Cruyff, the game wasn't enjoyable anymore b. *Without being able to see Cruyff's dribbles, soccer loses much of its attraction

(68)

a. 'Alvorens Cruyff er uit te sturen kwam er Before

Cruyff there out to send came there

Before sending out Cruyff, a yellow card een gele kaart aan te pas a yellow card at to measure had to be applied b. *Door Cruyff goed te dekken is de aanval machteloos By

Cruyff well to cover is the attack powerless

By covering Cruyff well, the attack is powerless Consequently, there is very little reason to assume that anything like real control of an empty subject is involved in the case of the absolute construction. We will return to the nature of "control" in the absolute construction below. (iii)

the feature [+AUX]

Analysis A forces us to make the deletion rule required under that hypothesis sensitive to the feature [-AUX], For auxiliary hebben/zijn cannot be deleted in Dutch: (69)

a.

De wijn is opgedronken The wine is/has been drunk

b.

Wij hebben de wijn opgedronken We have the wine drunk We have drunk the wine

-

70

-

(70) »Met de wijn opgedronken, beginnen wij aan de pils With the wine drunk

begin

we

at the beer

With the wine drunk we start working on the beer (To give a grammatical version of (70) one would have to resort to a sentential construction.) Notice that there appears to be little or no evidence, in Dutch, to the effect that there is a special category of auxiliary verbs. Rather, auxiliary hebben and zijn behave like main verbs, obligatorily select left-hand (verb raising) complements like many other main verbs, and are different only in that they impose certain inflectional constraints on their environments. However, the latter property is not sufficient to make it imperative that the feature [+AUX] be used. Instead of appealing to the feature [+AUX], it appears more fruitful to ask what X 1 ' 1 may be and what it may not be in absolute constructions of the form met - N 1 ' 1 - X'''. Only p' 11 seems to be generally accepted, while N' 1 ' and A' 1 ' are considered to be marginal to various degrees (indicated here by "?"). On 29 the other hand, certain participial constructions (V ,,, )

are

much better than the example in (70) (cf (57c)). Consider (71)

a. ?Met haar ziek, ... With her ill, ... b. ?Met mijn broer burgemeester van Holysloot, ... With my brother mayor of Holysloot, ... c. ?Met de misdadiger achtervolgd door de politie, ... With the criminal pursued by the police, ...

Notice that (71c), if included in the grammar, presumably introduces a third verb into the discussion: the passive "auxiliary" worden:

- 71 (72)

De misdadiger wordt achtervolgd door de politie The criminal becomes (is) pursued by the police

At any rate, the simplest and most straightforward characterization of X 1 " in the absolute construction appears to be a direct one, in terms of base rules, for example, rather than one based on the (non-existent) analogy with the predicative constituent in the context zijn

and/or hebben N'''

. For the more

permissive dialects we may characterize the absolute construction met - N' 11 - X' 1 ', for the less permissive dialects as met - N''' - [-N1''] or met - N'•' - P''', where individual restrictions on the third constituent are tied to the lexical (sub-)entry of the absolute preposition met rather than to the deletion transformation as would be necessary under hypothesis A. We will now briefly consider a few more of these restrictions. (iv)

"gaps" in the absolute construction

We have already seen that the distributional parellelism between zijn - X''1 and/or hebben - N''' - X''' on the one hand and the absolute construction met - N' 11 - X' 1 ' on the other is far from perfect. Let us consider some more cases where the parallelism breaks down: (73)

a.

Ik heb hem te pakken I have him to grip I have got hold of him

b. * Met hem te pakken (74)

a.

Ik heb Jan tuk I have John eager I make fun of John

b. * Met Jan tuk

- 72 (75)

a.

Ik heb het koud I have it cold I am cold

b. "Met het koud (76)

a.

Ik heb jou nodig I have you necessary I need you

b. 'Met jou nodig (77)

a.

Ik heb hem op mijn lijstje staan I have him on my

list

stand

I have him on my list b. »Met hem op mijn lijstje staan (78)

a.

Dit boek is niet te begrijpen This book is not to understand This book is incomprehensible

b. *Mat dit boek niet te begrijpen (79)

a.

Jan is aan het slapen John is at the sleeping John is sleeping

b. 'Met Jan aan het slapen (80)

a.

Piet is de aardappeltjes aan het schillen Pete is the potatoes

at

the peeling

Pete is peeling the potatoes b. 'Met Piet de aardappeltjes aan het schillen This list could easily be extended. We must conclude, therefore, that the initial appeal of hypothesis A derives from an intuition about semantic parallelism ("simple nexus") rather than from any kind of distributional parallelism. The question of how

- 73 this semantic intuition can be captured will be considered below. The distributional dissimilarity, however, quite clearly favors solution B. (v)

P - N 1 '' as absolute P ' "

Jespersen's semantic characterization of the absolute with (or met) as indication of an "accessory or collatoral circumstance", vague though it may be, serves as the basis for another argument that favors B over A. For notice that this definition perfectly fits the interpretation of the prepositional phrases in the following sentences: (81)

a.

Met dit slechte weer kunnen we beter thuis blijven With this bad weather can

we better home stay

With this bad weather, we had better stay home b.

Met dat al zijn we nog niets opgeschoten With that all are we yet nothing progressed With all that, we have not made any progress yet

c.

Met zo'n voetbalwedstrijd is er natuurlijk With such a soccer game

is there naturally

With such a soccer game, there is naturally niemand op straat nobody on street nobody in the streets Under hypothesis B we may simply say that the absolute construction consists of the preposition met with minimally an N 1 ' 1 , optionally expanded with another constituent. These examples cast doubt on the assumption that it is necessary for met to have some sort of a propositional skeleton in its complement in order

- 74 for the absolute reading to obtain. But this assumption is central to hypothesis A. Unless one resorts to some highly implausible derivation of these absolute P - N' 1 ' combinations from some sentential source, a unified account of all absolute prepositional phrases is not possible under hypothesis A. (vi)

a theoretical argument

A last major objection to the deletion hypothesis (A) follows from some theoretical considerations. Notice that the verb deletion rule needed under hypothesis A would have to be formulated essentially as in (82). (82)

[plll

met - Y -

1 2 = » 1 2

]pIII

3 0

The variable is required because the verb stands in final position in Dutch embedded clauses. The N' 11 and the second constituent in the complement of the absolute met (indicated as X 1 ' 1 in B) separate the deleted element from met ^ . Emonds (1976) and Den Besten (1976) argue, however, that specified deletion rules should be restricted to strictly local contexts; specified delations over essential variables should not be considered part of the canon of possible transformational rules. These considerations rule out any transformation of the form (82). After these arguments against A, let us consider the question now whether hypothesis A has any advantages, and if it does, how these advantages can be incorporated into hypothesis B. We will in turn consider the base rules, the transformations, coordination, control (again), semantic interpretation,

and the

- 75 specified subject constraint. (i)

the base rules

In order to directly generate structures of type B we may assume the following modification of the base rule for P'. (83)

P'

•+

P - N " ' - X'1 '

Notice that this rule suffices to generate all the complement structures of P that we have considered so far. (83) , in other words, incorporates the rules (35), (48), and (50). In addition, it provides the structure P - A''', which, albeit rarely, occurs in examples like haar kleur veranderde in vaal groen (her colour changed to pale green). (83), therefore, may be considered to be well motivated. However, under hypothesis B, (83) is not quite rich enough, given examples like (84). (84)

a.

Met Piet nog altijd woedend over zijn nederlaag, ... With Pete still furious about his defeat, ...

b.

Met je moeder niet thuis, ... With your mother not at home, ...

It appears that adverbial elements such as nog (still), altijd (always), and niet (not) can also occur in the complement of the absolute met. In many such examples, however, these adverbs may well be part of the specifier of the X' 1 '. But in addition, such adverbial extensions occur in simple p' 11 structures as well: (85)

a.

Na niet twee maar drie dagen vertrokken zij After not two but three days left they After not two but three days they left

b.

Dit is stof van zonder enige twijfel de allerbeste This is cloth of without doubt the very best

-

76

-

kwaliteit quality c.

Ik geloof van wel/niet

(cf Verkuyl (1977))

I think of yes/no I think so/not Notice, furthermore, that provisions of a similar type must be made for the complement of N, because adverbial elements may also occur here despite the fact that nominalizations cannot be derived from underlying sentences. Cf (86) (86)

De snelle verovering van de stad met slechts een The quick conquest of the city with only a handjevol mensen in de laatste fase van de strijd handful (of) people in the last phase of the battle

Under the assumptions of the X-bar theory, such partial parallelisms are expected and, in fact, predicted. We may conclude, then, that rule (83) must be modified so as to include some adverbial positions. We will not work out this revision in detail here, however. (ii)

the transformations

Another quite expected consequence, under the lexicalist position, is that certain transformations may apply within p 1 '' as well as in the V 1 1 1 domain. Such a rule, r-movement, was already introduced earlier in this chapter. Another rule must be assumed to apply in absolute constructions. Consider, for example, (87)

- 77 (87)

a.

Met de nieuwe buitenlandse aanwinst van Ajax With the new foreign acquisition of Ajax in de defensie, ... in the defense, ...

b.

Met in de defensie de nieuwe buitenlandse aanwinst van Ajax, ...

(87a) is an example of P - N' 1 ' - P 1 ' 1 , which is generable by (83). But (87b) has the form P - P 1 ' 1 - N' 1 '. Notice that a similar inversion occurs in corresponding sentences. (88)

a.

Michels heeft de nieuwe buitenlandse aanwinst Michels has the new foreign acquisition Michels has positioned the new foreign van Ajax in de defensie op gesteld of Ajax in the defense positioned acquisition of Ajax in the defense

b.

Michels heeft in de defensie de nieuwe buitenlandse aanwinst van Ajax opgesteld

However, it is not necessary to assume that (87b) is derived from some sentential source like (88b) to which some inversion rule has applied. Instead, there is no reason why that rule, whatever its exact nature, should not apply to (87a) directly. Similar reasoning can be applied to other potential rules that might apply in the complement of the absolute P. A special problem arises in connection with r-movement. Notice that r-movement cannot apply within an absolute p' 1 ' Consider: (89)

a. 'Met het in orde, ... With it in order

- 78 .„ i-mee, l.n , 32 b. *Er orde, ... met There with in order (90)

a.

Met de tafel er naast, ... With the table there beside With the table next to it, ...

me b. * Er {met ®} de tafel naast, ...

There with the table next to, ... (Notice that there exists no grammatical variant for (89) since (89a) is ungrammatical for reasons discussed in 3.2.2.) We have no

explanation for these facts, except to note that the

absolute met is by no means the only exception in this respect. Some other exceptions are the following: (91)

*er zonder there without * er gedurende there during * er beneden there below * er behalve there except * er benevens there besides * er niettegenstaande there notwithstanding

What must be assumed, then, is that a number of prepositions do not select a [+R] position on the P'' level, and that the absolute met is among these (as opposed to the instrumental and comitative met). Notice, by the way, that this difficulty arises

-

79

-

within hypothesis A as well. Therefore, the facts in (89) and (90), embarrassing though they are, cannot be used against the phrase structure account (B) of absolute constructions. A final rule to be considered here is the transformation that extraposes modifying clauses like relative clauses, comparative clauses, superlative relatives, result clauses and the like. This rule is involved in the following type of examples: (92)

a.

Er zijn meer mensen dan ik had verwacht aangekomen There are more people than I had expected arrived More people than I had expected arrived

(93)

b.

Er zijn meer mensen aangekomen dan ik had verwacht

a.

Wij kregen het zelfde eten dat wij gisteren ook We

got

the same

food that we yesterday too

We got the same food that we ate yesterday too aten op ons bord ate on our plate on our plates b.

Wij kregen het zelfde eten op ons bord dat wij gisteren ook aten

A modifying clause, which first is moved from the specifier of a phrase, which - in Dutch as well as in English - always precedes the head of that phrase,to the end of its own phrase (here an N'' 1 ), is thereupon extraposed to the end of the cycle containing that phrase. It is assumed here that such modifying clauses originate in the specifier, but the argument presented here is independent of that assumption. This same rule applies in absolute constructions:

-

(94)

a.

80

-

Met die das die hij van zijn zusje gekregen heeft With that tie that he from his sister gotten has With that tie that he got from his sister . om zijn nek, ziet hij er vreemd uit around his neck looks he there strange out around his neck, he looks strange

b.

Met die das om zijn nek die hij van zijn zusje gekregen heeft ziet hij er vreemd uit

In (94b) the relative clause has been extraposed inside p' 11 around X' 1 '. This fact will be seen to play a central role in chapter 5. (iii)

coordination

Another apparent problem for the B hypothesis concerns examples like (95). (95)

Met moeder in het ziekenhuis en vader permanent With mother in the hospital and father permanently dronken, ... drunk, ...

The structure of (95), at a superficial level, seems to be p_Ni>
\ into has climbed because he has climbed the tree

Evidently, the postposition is incorporable into the verb and can move along with the verb under verb raising 40

(ii)

r-pronouns

The suppletion rule (8) serves as a diagnostic for P'^-hood. And it is indeed the case that the object of a motional P may be an r-pronoun, even when the preposition is incorporated: (131)

omdat hij er niet probeert in te klimmen because he there not tries into to climb because he doesn't try to climb into it

However, the non-r-pronoun is also possible: (132)

omdat hij hem niet probeert in te klimmen

There are, unfortunately, many stylistic, dialectical, and other factors that influence judgements on the choice of r-pronouns or non-r-pronouns in such examples. For some reason,

- 99 relative clauses show the ambivalent behavior most clearly: (133) Dat is de boom i ^ g ^

hij altijd in klimt

That is the tree

he always into climbs

That is the tree that he always climbs (134) De brug

ik altijd over rijd is ingestort

The bridge { ^hat^

1 a

^-ways

over

drive has foundered

The bridge that I always drive over has foundered Notice that real N 1 1 ' - PRT constructions can only relativize the N''' with d-pronouns, because the N''1 is not in a proper environment to be assigned the feature [+R] by rule (8). (135) Het kadootje

hij in pakte had drie gulden

The present {^¿^jj} he up wrapped had three guilders The present that he wrapped up had cost three guilders gekost cost

(iii)

N' 1 ' separated from the postposition

The object of a motional postposition may be separated from the postposition itself by an adverbial phrase. Notice that such a separation is not possible with the corresponding prepositional structures, as is shown in the c-sentences: (136) a.

omdat zij de boom op blote voeten in klommen because they the tree on bare feet into climbed because they climbed the tree barefoot

-

b.

100

-

omdat zij op blote voeten de boom in klommen

c. * omdat zij in op blote voeten de boom klommen (137) a.

omdat zij het huis na een grote ruzie uit ging because she the house after a big row out went because she went out of the house after a big row

b.

omdat zij na een grote ruzie het huis uit ging

c. 'omdat zij uit na een grote ruzie het huis ging 1

Real N' ' - PRT constructions are separable in this respect, as expected: (138) a.

omdat hij het kadootje met zorg in pakte because he the present with care up wrapped because he wrapped the present up with care

b.

omdat hij met zorg het kadootje in pakte

Let us now try to interpret the above observations and see how we can account for them. Apparently, motional PPs behave like p 1 '' in most respects, but the postposition may behave like a particle with respect to incorporation. Thereby the PP is split up, allowing elements to be interposed between the object of the postposition and the now incorporated postposition itself. Furthermore, the suppletion rule (8) seems to apply after the optional splitting up of the PP, so that both r-pronouns and non-r-pronouns may be the object of motional postpositions. Consider now the question whether the split could already be present in deep structure. This would amount

to assuming that

motional PPs can be realized in deep structure in two different ways: as A, or as B. Quite aside from the fact that such a solution would have to rely on redundancy rules to a considerable extent, this option is unattractive especially in view of the

-

101

-

observations regarding ambiguity (Ii) and subcategorization (Iii) . These problems can be avoided if we assume that motional PPs are generated as A only. In such a way the unitary phenomena, which all except (Iiv) relate to deep structure, can be accounted for in a unitary way. We may assume then, that the postposition optionally leaves its p' 1 ' and starts behaving like a particle. The most straightforward assumption would be to say that particle incorporation applies to motional postpositions as well as to particles. Let us formulate particle incorporation as follows: (139)

particle incorporation

=»

X

-

1

2

1

P

- V 3

e

2+3

-

Y 4 4

This formulation is inadequate in several respects. As the rule stands, it does not distinguish between any kinds of different members of the species P. However, it is only real particles and (some (cf footnote 40)) motional postpositions that can undergo the rule. Other prepositions, even when adjacent to the verb, cannot be incorporated. In particular, real intransitive prepositions (not particles) and prepositions that have become surface postpositions by virtue of r-movement may not undergo incorporation. The latter case presents no difficulty. For observe that r-movement must apply after the suppletion rule (8), which produces r-pronouns. But (8) must follow incorporation (139) , because of the phenomena observed under (Ilii) : incorporation may bleed (8). A consequence of this ordering is that normal (non-motional) prepositional phrases have never undergone r-movement at the point where the incorporation rule (139)

-

102

-

applies, therefore, postpositions produced by r-movement are always still prepositional and non-adjacent to the verb at the relevant stage of the derivation. In this way we can account for the following case: (140) a.

omdat hij er op wilde wachten because he there for wanted t