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Peninsular Spanish pre-nominal possessives in ellipsis contexts

A Phase-based account
  • Luis Sáez
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Romance Linguistics 2010
This chapter is in the book Romance Linguistics 2010

Abstract

Peninsular Spanish pre-nominal possessives and definite articles contrast in ellipsis environments (los/*nuestros ___ rojos “the/our red ones”), yet all these words are unstressed and, therefore, should violate what I call the Stress Condition on Remnants (ellipsis remnants must be stressed). I claim articles, being externally merged in D, escape such condition as it only affects the most recently spelled-out NP-Phase Complement (Nissenbaum 2000) containing the ellipsis site; instead, pre-nominal possessives raise from NP to D, thus leaving an offending unstressed copy in NP. Strikingly, the combined presence of a post-nominal modifier and a numeral makes pre-nominal possessives compatible with ellipsis (nuestros seis ___ rojos “our six red ones”). A Kayne 1994-style relative-clause configuration for nominal modifiers explains this: the post-nominal modifier is the predicate of a subject DP-Phase (introduced by the numeral) containing the ellipsis site and excluding the possessive, which thus complies with the Stress Condition on Remnants.

Abstract

Peninsular Spanish pre-nominal possessives and definite articles contrast in ellipsis environments (los/*nuestros ___ rojos “the/our red ones”), yet all these words are unstressed and, therefore, should violate what I call the Stress Condition on Remnants (ellipsis remnants must be stressed). I claim articles, being externally merged in D, escape such condition as it only affects the most recently spelled-out NP-Phase Complement (Nissenbaum 2000) containing the ellipsis site; instead, pre-nominal possessives raise from NP to D, thus leaving an offending unstressed copy in NP. Strikingly, the combined presence of a post-nominal modifier and a numeral makes pre-nominal possessives compatible with ellipsis (nuestros seis ___ rojos “our six red ones”). A Kayne 1994-style relative-clause configuration for nominal modifiers explains this: the post-nominal modifier is the predicate of a subject DP-Phase (introduced by the numeral) containing the ellipsis site and excluding the possessive, which thus complies with the Stress Condition on Remnants.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. Foreword and acknowledgements ix
  4. Editor’s introduction xi
  5. Theory and practice in Romance linguistics today 1
  6. Part I. Morphophonology
  7. On the origins of /ɨ/ in Romanian 17
  8. An acoustic investigation of nasal place neutralization in Spanish 33
  9. An acoustic study of rhotics in onset clusters in La Rioja 49
  10. Mid front vowel lowering before rhotics in Ibero-Romance 63
  11. Plural formation in Galician 79
  12. Part II. Syntax
  13. On bare subject relative clauses in Old French 101
  14. Directed motion in Medieval French 117
  15. An ergative analysis of French valency alternations 137
  16. Peninsular Spanish pre-nominal possessives in ellipsis contexts 155
  17. On the nature of nominal features 177
  18. On the nature of bare nouns in Afro-Bolivian Spanish 191
  19. Negative imperatives in Portuguese and other Romance languages 205
  20. Part III. Semantic interfaces
  21. Another look at Italian generic sentences 223
  22. The agreement of collective DPS in Romanian 239
  23. A multidominance account for conjoined questions in Romanian 257
  24. The Romanian verbal cluster and the theory of head movement 271
  25. New challenges in the area of semantic dependencies 287
  26. Polarity particles in English and Romanian 303
  27. Index 329
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.318.10sae

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. Foreword and acknowledgements ix
  4. Editor’s introduction xi
  5. Theory and practice in Romance linguistics today 1
  6. Part I. Morphophonology
  7. On the origins of /ɨ/ in Romanian 17
  8. An acoustic investigation of nasal place neutralization in Spanish 33
  9. An acoustic study of rhotics in onset clusters in La Rioja 49
  10. Mid front vowel lowering before rhotics in Ibero-Romance 63
  11. Plural formation in Galician 79
  12. Part II. Syntax
  13. On bare subject relative clauses in Old French 101
  14. Directed motion in Medieval French 117
  15. An ergative analysis of French valency alternations 137
  16. Peninsular Spanish pre-nominal possessives in ellipsis contexts 155
  17. On the nature of nominal features 177
  18. On the nature of bare nouns in Afro-Bolivian Spanish 191
  19. Negative imperatives in Portuguese and other Romance languages 205
  20. Part III. Semantic interfaces
  21. Another look at Italian generic sentences 223
  22. The agreement of collective DPS in Romanian 239
  23. A multidominance account for conjoined questions in Romanian 257
  24. The Romanian verbal cluster and the theory of head movement 271
  25. New challenges in the area of semantic dependencies 287
  26. Polarity particles in English and Romanian 303
  27. Index 329
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