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Selecting roots: the view from compounding

  • Dimitris Michelioudakis EMAIL logo and Nikos Angelopoulos
Published/Copyright: July 6, 2019
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Abstract

We investigate how saturation of different theta-roles by the non-head constituent correlates with derivational suffixes and, in turn, with the event structures compatible with those suffixes. We also investigate XP realisations of themes, causers and instruments in deverbal nominal and participial constructions and which ±agentive and/or ±process/episodic sub-readings allow which type of argument. It turns out that for each theta-role, the contexts that allow an XP realisation are exactly the complement of the contexts that would allow compounding of that same theta-role. We take this complementarity to be an indirect argument in favour of (i) divorcing argument licensing from argument selection and (ii) dissociating argument introduction from event-structure-related heads, which then potentially reaffirms the role of roots in (first phase) syntax.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the audience of Roots V (UCL/QMUL), especially Hagit Borer, Jason Merchant and Gillian Ramchand for their stimulating questions and remarks, and to the editors of the special issue. We are also indebted to Hilda Koopman and two anonymous reviewers for insightful suggestions and comments on the manuscript.

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Published Online: 2019-07-06
Published in Print: 2019-09-25

© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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