Prepositional “where” in Southern Italian Dialects

This chapter investigates a phenomenon attested in some Southern Italian varieties, where a form identical to the wh-item meaning “where” can be used as a locative preposition. Since most of the dialects considered here only use P-where in cases of quasi-inalienable locative possession, this chapter adopts the recent proposal that the structural configuration of inalienable possession is to be interpreted as a RelatorP whose predicative head functions as the relator between the possessor, located in the specifier position, and the possessee, that is, the locative noun, sitting in the complement position. It also proposes that P-where exploits a sort of reduced relative in which the null classifier-like element PLACE located in the internal structure of the wh-item undergoes raising to the highest functional specifier; the reduced relative clause is taken to occupy the specifier of a bigger small clause, whose complement is represented by the RelatorP containing the actual lexical nouns.

Case Variation in Eastern Polynesian Spatial PPs

This chapter examines variation in terms of case marking within complex spatial prepositions in Hawaiian and Māori. A dialect difference is proposed such that post-revitalization Māori patterns with Hawaiian in the realization of genitive case within spatial prepositions (the cross-linguistically more common pattern), to the exclusion of pre-revitalization Māori. Working within a model in which genitive case within spatial prepositions follows from syntactic structure, the unexpected non-genitive marking in pre-revitalization Māori is linked to the grammar of possession in that language, as contrasted with Hawaiian and post-revitalization Māori. The specific case marking variation is modeled in terms of morphological feature matching in a Distributed Morphology framework. Therefore, independent properties of the grammar of possession accounts for the observed micro-variation.

Locatives in Shona and Luganda

At a general level, Chapter 1 is concerned with the categorization of expressions in natural languages. The authors approach this question with a relatively new tool in hand: phrasal spellout (Starke 2009). If phrasal spellout exists, a single item may correspond to several terminals, where each terminal has a distinct label. As a consequence, the approach predicts the existence of expressions whose behavior corresponds to a mixture of prototypical categorical properties. The chapter applies this relatively new analytical option to locative markers in Shona and Luganda. It contrasts them with more familiar Indo-European adpositions, in order to show that their behavior is distinct from ordinary adpositions and other word classes. The behavior of the new class, however, is not explained by positing a new category in the decomposed projection, but by proposing that it corresponds to a combination of several existing categories.

Comitative P

This chapter investigates the diachronic development of the Italian comitative preposition con “with” and its pronominal complement. The authors verify the predictions of the Directional Asymmetry Principle, an independently motivated developmental universal, in the diachrony of Italian and argue that symmetry breaking reduces the choice between a valued and an unvalued variant of a functional feature associated with a functional head, here comitative P. As predicted by the hypothesis, this choice, which was available in earlier stages of Italian, is gradually reduced in Modern Italian. The authors relate variation in language to variation in evolutionary developmental biology. Because language variation is biologically grounded, and variation is a central concept in biology, a deeper understanding of linguistic diversity can be foreseen, that is, an understanding that goes beyond explanatory adequacy.

Cross-Linguistic Variation in the Layered Structure of PP

This chapter provides a novel observation concerning cross-linguistic variation regarding NP-ellipsis (henceforth NPE) inside articulated PPs and considers its theoretical implications. It first shows that although NPE is equally available in nominals in English, Chinese, and Japanese, the parallel pattern breaks down when NPE takes place within PPs. This study proposes a principled account of the cross-linguistic variation in question on the basis of (i) the layered internal structure of PPs, (ii) the syntactic reflection of fusional/non-fusional case morphology, and (iii) a phase-based analysis of ellipsis. The proposed analysis correctly predicts not only the availability of NPE within PPs but also one without PPs in English, Chinese, and Japanese. This chapter also provides theoretical implications for the role of phases in ellipsis and the cross-linguistic differences in nominal morphology.

Variation in P

This introduction presents a brief overview of the major achievements on the internal syntax of spatial prepositional phrase (PPs) as developed in the generative literature of the past two decades. The most important ingredients of the Split-PP hypothesis identified by the works in Cinque and Rizzi (2010) are described, and integrated with new proposals on the basis of novel macro- and micro-comparative data presented in the chapters collected in the volume.

Mutation in Spatial Deixis (Dx)

Two neighboring Algonquian languages, Blackfoot and Plains Cree, differ as to how spatial expressions are represented structurally. Blackfoot it- is an adpositional element occurring within the verbal complex, radically discontinuous from a location-denoting DP; Plains Cree -ihk is an adpositional suffix to a DP, with which it forms a morphological unit. This chapter argues that the contrasting behavior of those morphemes is a function of two factors: (i) which head of the adpositional extended projection each morpheme realizes; (ii) whether or not they have undergone a transcategorial shift—dubbed “mutation”—in the lexicon. This mutation approach applies, for example, to the [PERSON] nature of Blackfoot INFL and to the [TENSE] use of source-denoting Plains Cree adposition ohci and its occurrence within the verbal complex. The emergent category status of adpositions is implicated, too.

P and the Emergence of the Infinitival Left Periphery

Languages differ with respect to whether they allow for infinitival interrogatives and infinitival relative clauses. In order to explain this variation, this chapter postulates the “Wh-Infinitive-Generalization” that links the (non-)availability of infinitival interrogatives/relatives to morphological properties of the infinitival C-system. Based on synchronic and diachronic evidence, it is shown that wh-infinitives are impossible in languages in which the left periphery of the infinitive cannot be occupied by a phonetically realized prepositional complementizer. In contrast, languages with wh-infinitives do exhibit prepositional complementizers as a result of grammaticalization. In order to derive the “Wh-Infinitive-Generalization,” the author argues that infinitival C0 is “defective” in languages without wh-infinitives (/ infinitival relatives) where “defective” infinitival C0 is understood in analogy to defective T0def, i.e. C0def cannot bear the complete range of features specific for C0 (i.e. [focus]-, [wh]-, [topic]-, and [pred]-features). As a consequence, the specifier of C0def, like the specifier of T0def, may serve only as an intermediate but not as a final landing site of movement.

AxParts and Case in Complex PPs

This chapter considers complex PPs involving a lexical/axial item such as under, over, and a small functional P (e.g., sotto (a)l tavolo “under (to) the table”) in Italian and some Italo-Romance varieties. It investigates in particular the types and the realization conditions of small functional Ps appearing in these structures. Adopting a Split-PP framework and the idea that all spatial PPs embed a null PLACE element, the authors argue that the small Ps are possessive case markers. The microcomparative differences across Italo-Romance varieties are linked to the different strategies to encode possession in the DP, and to different categorization (hence Merge positions) of lexical Ps/Axial items.