Abstract

This study deals with the problems presented by postverbal subjetcs in constructions with unaccusative verbs, because they apparently are counterexamples to the explanatory power of the Unaccusative Hypothesis. The paper defends the position that such examples do not weaken the hypothesis since it is assumed that such postverbal subjects ought to leave the original object position and move to a position where nominative case is regularly assigned. This account is supported by two kinds of consideration. On the one hand, there exists no inherent partitive case to justify the lack of movement, and on the other, agreement facts and distribution of expletive pronouns in different Romance languages and in German show that the postverbal position of subjects are not but the result of movements compatible with the assignment of nominative case.

Highlights

  • In this article we want to address the question of how to account for postverbal subject NPs in sentences with unaccusative verbs

  • Under the analysis we have proposed, with unaccusative verbs, we attribute the presence of postverbal subjects in German to two factors: first to the fact that expletives in these constructions are inserted in SpecCP without being Case-marked, and second to the verb second property of German which forces the finite verb to move to COMP

  • In this article we have shown that the existence of postverbal subject NPs with unaccusative verbs does not represent a problem for the Unaccusative Hypothesis

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Summary

Introduction

We want to discuss the position of Belletti (1988), according to which the presence of postverbal NPs in these constructions is possible thanks to the assignment of an inherent Case, which she proposes to be partitive. In order to receive Case, the NP has to be raised to an appropriate position where its assignment is possible This position is subject to cross-linguistic variation and, among others things, it depends on both the presence of a lexical expletive and on where the expletive is inserted. We want to defend that this proposal strengthens the explanatory power of the Unaccusative Hypothesis, as it explains why a surface subject is possible in a postverbal position with unaccusative verbs and passive constructions, even though these are not able to assign Case to it. Our proposal accounts for some cross-linguistic differences with respect to the agreement patterns with unaccusative verbs and postverbal subjects which we attribute to differences in the way of how Case is assigned

Some properties of constructions with unaccusative verbs
Some problems with Belletti’s approach
A VO I i: arrivata
An alternative approach
Nominative Case and subject verb agreement
Nominative case without subject verb agreement
Conclusion
Full Text
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