Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T01:42:58.512Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Prepositional Phrases from the Twilight Zone

Review products

WechslerS.1997. Prepositional Phrases from the Twilight Zone. Nordic Journal of Linguistics, 20, 127–154.

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: [email protected]
Get access

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

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baker, M. C. 1988. Incorporation – A Theory of Grammatical Function Changing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Barwise, J. & Perry, J. 1983. Situations and Attitudes. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bresnan, J. 1982. Control and Complementation. Linguistic Inquiry 13, 343–434.Google Scholar
Davis, T. 1996. Linking and the Hierarchical Lexicon. Stanford University, Ph.D. dissertation.Google Scholar
Devlin, K. 1991. Logic and Information. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dowty, D. 1979. Word Meaning and Montague Grammar – The Semantics of Verbs and Times in Generative Semantics and in Montague's PTQ. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gawron, J. M. 1986. Situations and Prepositions. Linguistics and Philosophy 9, 327–382.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackendoff, R. 1990. Semantic Structures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Levin, B. 1993. English Verb Classes – A Preliminary Investigation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Pinker, S. 1989. Learnability and Cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Pollard, C. & Sag, I. 1992. Anaphors in English and the Scope of Binding Theory. Linguistic Inquiry 23, 261–303.Google Scholar
Pollard, C. & Sag, I. 1994. Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Stanford: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Radford, A. 1988. Transformational Grammar – A First Course. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reinhart, T. 1981. Definite NP Anaphora and C-Command Domains. Linguistic Inquiry 12, 605–635.Google Scholar
Reinhart, T. & Reuland, E. 1991. Anaphors and Logophors: an Argument Structure Perspective. In Koster, J. & Reuland, E. (eds), Long-Distance Anaphora. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 283–321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sag, I. & Wasow, T. (forthcoming). Syntactic Theory: A Formal Introduction. Stanford: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Wechsler, S. 1995a. Preposition Selection Outside the Lexicon. In Proceedings of the Thirteenth West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, edited by R., Aranovich, W., Byrne, S., Preuss and M., Senturia, 416–431. Stanford, CA: Stanford Linguistics Association.Google Scholar
Wechsler, S. 1995b. The Semantic Basis of Argument Structure. Stanford: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Williams, E. 1980. Predication. Linguistic Inquiry 11, 203–238.Google Scholar