Article published In: Into adpositions: New formal perspectives on the structure of the PP and its variation
Edited by Víctor Acedo-Matellán, Theresa Biberauer, Jaume Mateu and Anna Pineda
[Linguistic Variation 21:1] 2021
► pp. 90–134
A minimalist approach to the syntax of p
A Romance perspective
Published online: 8 September 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.00034.rea
https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.00034.rea
Abstract
This paper proposes a minimalist analysis of locative prepositions in Central Catalan, from a comparative perspective.
Specifically, I claim that certain semantic and syntactic properties that are usually considered part of the field of the extended
projection of PPs in cartographic approaches (categories like Place, Degree, K, and AxPart, for example) are in fact properties of the DP in
the complement of a preposition. This claim takes the view that adpositions are a functional projection that relates two DPs, the Figure and
the Ground, and not a lexical head that projects a functional domain on its own, as Ns, Vs or As (cf. Den Dikken, Marcel. 2010. On the functional structure of locative and directional PPs. In Guglielmo Cinque & Luigi Rizzi (Eds.), Mapping spatial PPs: The cartography of syntactic structures (Volume 61), 74–126. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ; Koopman, Hilda. 2000. Prepositions, postpositions, circumpositions and particles: The structure of Dutch PPs. In The Syntax of Specifiers and Heads: Collected essays of Hilda J. Koopman, 198–255. London: Routledge. ). The final part of the paper proposes a model to account
for the variation that locative prepositions exhibit across Romance languages following the Conjecture of Borer, Hagit. 1984. Parametric syntax: Case studies in Semitic and Romance languages. Foris, Dordrecht. (known as the Borer-Chomsky Conjecture since 2008. The macroparameter in a microparametric world. In Theresa Biberauer (ed.), The limits of syntactic variation, 351–374. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ).
More precisely, I propose a model in which microparametric differences among Romance simple locative prepositions depend on the particular
composition of features in p.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Prepositions in Central Catalan: A comparative perspective
- 2.1Spatial adverbials
- 2.2Simple Ps in Romance: The case of a and en in Central Catalan
- 2.3Complex PPs in Central Catalan: Axial terms as nouns
- 2.4Interim summary
- 3.The structure of pPs
- 3.1Theoretical framework
- 3.2The syntax of DPs
- 3.3Putting DPs in place
- 3.4Understanding Axial Parts
- 3.5The fine structure of adpositions
- 4.Variation in place
- 5.Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
References
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