VP-shells and the Split Infl Hypothesis

15.04.2008

1 Asymmetries in Double Object construction (Barss and Las-

nik, 1986)
• Reflexives and reciprocals (anaphors) must be c-commanded by their antecedents.

(1) a. I showed Mary herself.

b. *I showed herself Mary.

• A quantifier must c-command a pronoun at S-Structure.

(2) a. I gave every workeri hisi paycheck.

b. *I gave itsi owner every paychecki .

• Weak cross-over effects: a wh-phrase cannot be moved over a pronoun that is co-referential
with it.

(3) a. Which mani did you send hispaycheck ?

b. *Whosei pay did you send hisi mother?

• Negative Polarity Items require licensing by a c-commanding negation or negative quanti-

fiers.

(4) a. I showed no one anything.

b. *I showed anyone nothing.

(5) VP

V NP1 NP2

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(6) VP

V’ NP2

V NP1

1.1 Identical asymmetries in V-NP-PP construction

(7) a. I presented Mary to herself. anaphor binding
b. *I presented herself to Mary.
c. I gave every checki to itsi owner. quant-binding
d. ??I gave his checki to every workeri .
e. Which checki did you send to itsi owner? weak cross-over
f. *Which workeri did you send hisi check to?
g. I sent no presents to any of the children. NPI license
h. *I sent any of the packages to none of the children.

In this case, however, PP effectively blocks c-command out of NPGoal → no need to dispense with
flat structure.

(8) Chomsky (1955/1975) VP

X NP1
give to NP2

Larson (1988) uses idiom argument (from Marantz, 1984) in support of (8): the Θ-role of NP1 is
assigned compositionally by X.

(9) a. Beethoven gave the Fifth Symphony to the world.

b. Beethoven gave the Fifth Symphony to his patron.

but

(10) a. give hell to sb

b. give the boot
c. dać komuś popalić
d. dać czemuś poczatek
֒

Larson assumes (i) strict binary branching; (ii) V-Raising; (iii) two VP-shells, where the lower one
as a ‘small clause’ with NPT heme as ‘inner subject’):

(11) a. John sent a letter to Mary.

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 b. V2 P

Spec,V’ V2 ’

V2 V1 P
e
NPT heme V1 ’
a letter
V1 PP
send to Mary

1.2 Consequences
• Conjunction - Across-the-board Raising of V:

(12) John sent a letter to Mary and a book to Sue.

• Heavy NP shift

(13) I gave to John [everything that he demanded].

(14) a. Rightward movement

I gave t to John [everything that he demanded]
b. Leftward movement of a predicate phrase
I [gave to John] everything that he demanded t

(15) V’ Reanalysis
Let α be a phrase [V’ ...] whose Θ-grid contains one undischarged internal Θ-role.
Then α may be reanalyzed as [V ...].

(15) constitutes a phrase-to-head movement - violation of Structure Preservation: a head can

only move to a head, a phrase to a phrase.

1.3 DOC - ‘Dative shift’ as Passive

(16) Uniformity of Θ-Assignment Hypothesis (UTAH, Baker, 1985)
Identical tematic relationships are represented by identical structural relations betwee the
items at the level of D-structure.

Note: this crucially hinges on the assumption that NP2 receives the same Θ-role in both (17a) and
(17b).

(17) a. John sent the book to Mary. V-NP1 -P-NP2

b. John sent Mary the book. V-NP2 -NP1 .

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(18) Passive IP

NPi I’

I VP
was
VP PP
by a snowball
V NPi
hit e
(19) Argument Demotion
If α is a Θ-role assigned by Xi , then α may be assigned (up to optionality) to an adjunct
of Xi .

Passive absorbs the Case of indirect object → Indirect Object must raise to a nonthematic (empty)
‘inner Subject’ position.

Problems with the ‘passive analogy’:

(i) overt participial morphology vs lack thereof
(ii) adjunct by-phrase is optional, but NPT heme isn’t
(iii) adjunct phrase in pass can be a PP, but it must be a ’bare ACC’ in DOC.

Even if (i) the ‘analogy with passive’ is problematic, and/or (ii) the existence of a derivational
relation between DOC and a V-NP-PP construction faces problems of its own, Larson (1988) con-
stitutes a starting point in explosion of functional projections within the thematic domain of the
clause:

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(20) VoiceP

NPext Voice’

Voice0 ApplP

NPBenef Appl’

Appl0 VP

NPT heme V’

V0 RP

NPResultee R’

R0