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Expressions of Distance and Theory of Theta-roles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2008

Kjell-Åke Gunnarson
Affiliation:
Institut d'études romanes, University of Lund, Sölvegatan 7, S-22362 Lund, Sweden
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Abstract

Expressions of distance, like far (away) from the village and 10km from the village, display various syntactic structures. On the basis of Swedish and French data, it is shown that, when such structures appear as locative predicates, certain properties of their heads become problematic, given the requirements of the GB theory of theta-roles. In order to solve these problems, two essential proposals are made: (a) An external θ-role may be used up in the process of establishing a position by means of a path. (b) The subject argument of NP-(copula)-XP may receive an external θ-role of non-lexical origin. Addressing questions of a contrastive nature, the present paper suggests that directive prepositions may assign an external θ-role in Germanic but not in Romance languages.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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