Complex Predicate Formation via Voice Incorporation

Abstract

This article proposes a new approach to restructuring which unites complex head approaches with a bare VP complementation approach. With the former, I argue that restructuring involves incorporation, however, in contrast to complex head (V-V) approaches, I argue that only the voice head of a restructuring complement undergoes incorporation. With the VP complementation approach, I assume that a restructuring complement contains a syntactically and semantically independent VP. In contrast to the bare VP complementation approach, however, I propose that restructuring complements also involve a voice head (but no embedded subject). Motivation for a voice head in restructuring comes from the subject interpretation of the embedded predicate, German stem allomorphy, and voice marking in several Austronesian languages. This hybrid account has the advantage that argument structure ‘sharing’ only applies to the subject of a restructuring configuration, whereas the remaining argument and event structure properties of the matrix and embedded VPs remain separate, which is supported by cross-linguistic properties pointing to the morphological, syntactic, and semantic independence of the two VPs. The account proposed achieves a larger empirical coverage than previous accounts and also improves in several respects on the theoretical details of previous analyses.