Directions from the GET-GO. On the syntax of manner-of-motion verbs in directional constructions

Abstract

Directional resultatives show puzzling syntactic restrictions. In Romance, broadly speaking, they do not occur at all with manner-of-motion verbs. In Dutch, directional resultatives with mannerof-motion verbs usually force postpositional order in the directional PP -but prepositional order is grammatical under cir cumstances that have so far defied a unified and insightful account. Focusing primarily on Dutch, this paper presents an analysis of directional resultative constructions and the syntactic representation of manner of motion which is centred around the following main claims: (a) directional resultative construc tions with manner-of-motion verbs can in principle be built on either of two structures, one featuring the light verb GO and the other the light verb GET; (b) while both light verbs take a small-clausal complement, GET takes one that is headed by a particle; (c) the particle in GET-constructions can license a null directional P in the struc ture of directional PPs built on a non-inherently directional adposition, and deliver prepositional order; (d) the absence of a particle in GO-constructions forces the null directional P in directional PPs built on non-inherently directional adpositions to either incorporate into GO or have the locative P embedded in its com plement to raise up to it; (e) manner-of-motion verbs have a MANNER component adjoined to GO/GET; (f) P-incorporation into MANNER-modified GO/GET is inadmissible (due to a ban on multiple adjunction to the same head); (g) in GO+MANNER structures, a null directional P can hence be licensed only by having a loc a tive P raise up to it; (h) raising of a locative P up to a directional P results in postpositional word order in Dutch, whereas the absence of raising of P Loc up to P Dir delivers prepositional surface order.

A microparametric approach on goal of motion constructions: properties of adpositional systems in Romance and Germanic

“…(Italian) The ball AUX.BE bounced behind the table 'The ball bounced behind the table' Moreover, despite what has been argued by Zubizarreta and Oh (2007) or den Dikken (2008), Italian is not a special language in the Romance family. Thus, similar examples can be found in French, Catalan and Spanish.…”

“…This paper pursues a "cartographic approach" to adpositions following a rich tradition of works such as van Riemsdijk (1978Riemsdijk ( , 1990, Koopman (2000), den Dikken (2003Dikken ( , 2006Dikken ( , 2008, or Svenonius (2004Svenonius ( , 2006. The majority of these proposals have explored the inner structure of Germanic PPs: Dutch (van Riemsdijk 1978Riemsdijk , 1990Koopman 2000;den Dikken 2003den Dikken , 2006Gehrke 2008), German (Gehrke, 2008;den Dikken 2003den Dikken , 2006, Norwegian (Tungseth 2006), or English (Svenonius 2004).…”

On the Dutch directional particle heen

“…We assume that the covert Path needs to be licensed by a motion verb in order to do what it does, namely express a path of motion. This could be some sort of semantic incorporation or complex predicate formation (see also Gehrke 2008, Beliën 2008, Den Dikken 2008 for similar considerations in different frameworks). For the sake of concreteness we will assume that the covert Path head has to incorporate into a motion verb, which then gives the restriction that postPPs are only possible in real motion contexts.…”

On the argument structure realization of result verbs: A syntactic approach

“…The availability of this structure-building process in a given language has been related to the typological behavior of the language with respect toTalmy's (2000) typology of change events(Mateu 2002(Mateu , 2008(Mateu , 2012(Mateu , 2017McIntyre 2004;den Dikken 2010; Acedo-Matellán 2016, i.a. ).…”