The Split VP Hypothesis Revisited

Abstract

In this talk, we review Chang’s (2017) article on the split VP hypothesis that the VP headed by a transitive verb such as read an ebook splits into at least two layers: VP core and v*P shell. In this article, it is argued that the verb-final account for the VP core such as [read [an ebook ]] should be equally valid, compared with the verb-intial standard such as [read [ an ebook]], as long as we pursue the fundamental minimalist assumption that merge is an unordered set operation (Chomsky 1995), that is, if there is no ordering of merged elements in a set such as {α, β}. It is also shown that the former approach may outperform the latter, at the very least within the v*P domain, particularly with regard to the syntactic alternation of English phrasal verbs and their gapping in coordinate clauses. In this regard, we touch on the literature which supports the V-final VP core hypothesis, including Chang (2016), Edelstein (2020), van Gelderen (2013) and Sportiche (2005). In this talk, we also look at another idea of Chang’s (2017) that the V-final VP core is derived from what is called a ‘synthetic noun-verb (N-V) compound verb’ (e.g. [ebook read] for ebook reading and ebook reader ). Then, we discuss what kinds of data could support this hypothesis.