In:Boundaries, Phases and Interfaces: Case studies in honor of Violeta Demonte
Edited by Olga Fernández-Soriano, Elena Castroviejo Miró and Isabel Pérez-Jiménez
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 239] 2017
► pp. 325–342
Grammatical categories at the Lexicon-Syntax-Semantics interface
The case of prepositions
Published online: 14 June 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.239.15rom
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.239.15rom
Although it is descriptively useful to classify lexical items into grammatical categories, this classification is not theoretically accurate and it requires a more fine-grained analysis.
This is possible by means of a model like the one presented in this article. In it, each node of a universal syntactic structure encodes an indecomposable semantic component (which can be altered by modifiers). Lexical items lexicalize different chunks of the structure. The category to which they are related and the differences between elements belonging to the same category depend on the chunk they lexicalize.
I show that prepositions, for instance, lexicalize different chunks of the structure around the node Rel(ation) (only Rel, Rel and a modifier or only a modifier of Rel). This explains the different behavior of lexical items included under the label preposition (as can be seen, for instance, in their different possibilities of combination).
Keywords: preposition, syntax-semantics interface, modifier, phrasal spell-out, relation
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.The model: A syntactico-semantic structure and a postsyntactic lexicalization
- 3.The lexico-syntactico-semantic structure of prepositions
- 4.Conclusions
Acknowledgements Notes References
References (24)
Amritavalli, Raghavachari & Jayaseelan, Karattuparambil Achutan. 2003. The genesis of syntactic categories and parametric variation. In Generative Grammar in a Broader Perspective: Proceedings of the 4th GLOW in Asia 2003, Huan Jin Yoon (ed.), 19–41. Seoul: Hankook.
Belletti, Adriana (ed.). 2004. Structures and Beyond. The Cartography of Syntactic Structures, Vol. 3. Oxford: OUP.
. 2001. Derivation by phase. In Ken Hale: A Life in Language [Current Studies in Linguistics 36], Michael Kenstowicz (ed.), 1–52. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.
(ed.). 2002. Functional Structure in DP and IP. The Cartography of Syntactic Structures, Vol. 1. Oxford: OUP.
Cinque, Guglielmo & Rizzi, Luigi (eds). 2010. The Cartography of Syntactic Structures, Vol. 6. Oxford: OUP.
den Dikken, Marcel. 2006. Relators and Linkers. The Syntax of Predication, Predicate Inversion, and Copulas. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.
Fábregas, Antonio. 2009. An argument for phrasal spell-out: Indefinites and interrogatives in Spanish. In Nanosyntax special issue of Nordlyd: Tromsø Working Papers in Language and Linguistics 36(1), Peter Svenonius, Gillian Ramchand, Michal Starke & Knut Tarald Taraldsen (eds), 129–168. Tromsø: Universitet i Tromsø. <[URL]>
Mateu, Jaume 2002. Argument Structure: Relational Construal at the Syntax-Semantics Interface. PhD dissertation, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. <[URL]>
McCawley, James D. 1968. Lexical insertion in a transformational grammar without deep structure. In Papers from the Fourth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, Bill J. Darden, Charles-James N. Bailey & Alice Davidson (eds), 71–80. Chicago IL: University of Chicago.
Pantcheva, Marina. 2011. Decomposing Path. The Nanosyntax of Directional Expressions. PhD dissertation, Universitet i Tromsø.
Rizzi, Luigi (ed.). 2004. The Structure of CP and IP. The Cartography of Syntactic Structures, Vol. 2. Oxford: OUP.
Romeu, Juan. 2014. Cartografía Mínima de las Construcciones Espaciales. PhD dissertation, Universidad Complutense de Madrid-CSIC.
. 2015a. More radiographies of grammatical categories. Academia, 13 October 2015. <[URL]>
. 2015b.
Ser, estar and two different modifiers. In New Perspectives on the Study of Ser and Estar [Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 5], Isabel Pérez-Jiménez, Manuel Leonetti & Silvia Gumiel-Molina (eds), 51–84. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Starke, Michael. 2001. Move Reduces to Merge: A Theory of Locality. PhD dissertation, University of Geneva. <[URL]>
. 2009. A short primer to a new approach to language. Nordlyd: Tromsø Working Papers in Language and Linguistics 36(1): 1–6. Special issue on Nanosyntax, Peter Svenonius, Gillian Ramchand, Michal Starke & Knut Tarald Taraldsen (eds), Tromsø: Universitet i Tromsø. <[URL]>.
. 2014. Towards elegant parameters: Language variation reduces to the size of lexically‐stored trees. In Linguistic Variation in the Minimalist Framework, Carme M. Picallo (ed.), 140–154. Oxford: OUP.
Svenonius, Peter. 2006. The Emergence of Axial Parts. In Tromsø Working Papers in Language and Linguistics, Nordlyd, Irene Gil, Héctor Fernández-Alcalde & Raquel González (eds), 33 (1): 153–173. Tromsø: Universitet i Tromsø.[URL]