Predicate formation: The case of Participial Relatives

Abstract

The Participial Relative in Modern Hebrew and Standard Arabic is a mixed verboadjectival construction. Internally a verbal construction, its external distribution and function is that of an adjectival predicate. The discussion in this paper focuses on the mechanism of predicate formation at work in this construction. It is shown that this mechanism never involves a binding relationship between a null operator and a syntactic variable. Rather, predicate formation in participial relatives is achieved either by the binding of a resumptive pronoun or else by the operation of a certain theta-theoretic mechanism. The variation between Hebrew and Standard Arabic participial relatives, regarding the binding of resumptive pronouns and the admissibility of an overt subject, is derived from the attribution of a certain feature specification to a particular functional head.