Two Types of Locative Inversion Construction in English

Abstract

This paper provides a syntactic analysis of the locative inversion construction in English, dividing it into two types: one with an unaccusative verb and the other with an unergative verb. It is argued that the former type has the locative PP simultaneously attracted by T and Top by applying the idea of "independent probing" proposed by Chomsky (2008). On the other hand, the latter type has a syntactic structure in which the subject DP undergoes Heavy NP Shift, while the locative PP moves only to SpecTopP, but not to SpecTP. It is shown that the analysis based on these syntactic structures can give a principled explanation to the major syntactic properties of the two types of locative inversion construction within the framework of the Minimalist Program.