2024-03-29T10:35:36Z
https://nagoya.repo.nii.ac.jp/oai
oai:nagoya.repo.nii.ac.jp:00028142
2023-01-16T04:20:28Z
326:521:2321:2411
A Smuggling Approach to English Middle Constructions
Feng, Shuang
open access
In previous studies on English middle constructions, both the lexical and syntactic approaches share the same idea that the suppression/ deletion of the external argument correlates with the promotion/externalization of the internal argument in middle formation. Contrary to these approaches, this paper applies the smuggling approach in Collins (2005) to analyze English middle constructions, arguing that though they involve promotion of the internal argument, the external argument is not suppressed but realized in [Spec, vP] like their transitive counterparts. Assuming with Belletti (2004) that movement to the edge of a phase is always associated with interface interpretations, VP movement to [Spec, VoiceP] is triggered by the edge feature of Voice in the sense of Chomsky (2008), and it serves to establish delimitedness which characterizes English middles, thereby capturing their aspectual properties. This movement is also responsible for the fact that manner adverbs, which are merged in the outer specifier position of vP, must appear in sentence-final position in English middles. Moreover, it is argued that, parallel to their counterparts in Greek and Albanian, English middles have a null suffix in Voice which functions as a generic operator, which in turn serves to license the implicit argument merged in [Spec, vP], together with a manner adverb.
名古屋大学英文学会
The society of english literature and linguistics Nagoya University
2013-11-30
eng
departmental bulletin paper
VoR
http://hdl.handle.net/2237/00030339
https://nagoya.repo.nii.ac.jp/records/28142
0914-2266
IVY
46
75
92
https://nagoya.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/28142/files/ivy_46_75.pdf
application/pdf
781.3 kB
2019-05-24