6533b835fe1ef96bd129ebdb
RESEARCH PRODUCT
Gerunds become prepositional infinitives in Romance Small Clauses: the effects of later Merge to the syntactic spine
Jan CasalicchioLs Linguistics: Syntax & Language VariatIls Variationsubject
Settore L-LIN/09 - Lingua E Traduzione - Lingue Portoghese E BrasilianaLinguistics and LanguageGerundComputer scienceHead (linguistics)subject raisingperception verbVerbSettore L-LIN/07 - Lingua E Traduzione - Lingua SpagnolaSyntaxRaising (linguistics)Language and LinguisticsLinguisticsSettore L-LIN/01 - Glottologia E LinguisticaSubject (grammar)incorporationPredicative expressioncomparative syntaxvariationperception verbsMerge (linguistics)description
This article offers a comparative analysis of ‘predicative’ gerunds (‘PGs’) and prepositional infinitives (‘PIs’), focussing on perception constructions in Spanish (PGs) and European Portuguese (PIs). I demonstrate that these two constructions are diachronically related and that they still have a similar syntax. The evidence discussed suggests that both constructions are Small Clauses headed by a preposition of central coincidence. In PGs, this preposition is merged in a low aspectual projection and incorporates into the verb. In PIs, an evolution of PGs, it is merged later in the structure. This leads to a layering process, i.e. the splitting of a single head into a series of heads and transferring the semantics of one functional head to more heads. Thus, PIs have a more expanded structure than gerunds. Finally, further empirical evidence for this analysis is discussed, such as the insertion of adverbs and the use of sin (‘without’) to negate the perceived event. Keywords: comparative syntax, variation, perception verbs, incorporation, subject raising
| year | journal | country | edition | language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-05-27 |