Adpositions, particles and the arguments they introduce

Svenonius, Peter

doi:10.1075/la.108.08sve

In:Argument Structure
Edited by Eric J. Reuland, Tanmoy Bhattacharya and Giorgos Spathas
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 108] 2007
► pp. 63–103

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Adpositions, particles and the arguments they introduce

Peter Svenonius | Center for Advanced Study in Theoretical Linguistics, University of Troms ø

Published online: 28 November 2007

https://doi.org/10.1075/la.108.08sve

Spatial relations, and certain other relations among entities and events, are expressed in many languages by caseless, tenseless words that grammarians often call prepositions or postpositions (adpositions). In this article I make some general observations about these words and their role in providing thematic content and licensing to DP arguments. I refer generally to adpositions and related complementless particles as members of category P, and compare the category P to V, suggesting that they share some similarities in argument structure, but that the temporal dimension of V distinguishes it fundamentally from P.

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