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Prepositional Phrases from the Twilight Zone

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2010

Stephen Wechsler
Stephen Wechsler
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, Calhoun Hall 501, University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712-1196, U.S.A. Email: wechsler@mail.utexas.edu
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Abstract

This paper proposes a treatment of optional prepositional phrases with a status intermediate between adjuncts and complements. The essential idea is simply that such PPs are semantically but not syntactically selected. It is argued that prepositions often assign an external theta role to a complement of the governing verb, subject to the heretofore unnoticed syntactic condition that such external arguments must be direct rather than oblique. This explains certain binding opacity effects and also greatly simplifies the subcategorization frames of verbs. The analysis is formulated in the framework of Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (Pollard & Sag 1994).

Type
Review Article
Information
Nordic Journal of Linguistics , Volume 20 , Special Issue 2: Special Issue on Adjuncts , December 1997 , pp. 127 - 153
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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