Te puse la mano en el hombro ‘I put my hand on your shoulder’: A solution to a puzzling constraint on multiple external possession relations in Spanish

Grant Armstrong

doi:10.5565/rev/isogloss.146

Te puse la mano en el hombro ‘I put my hand on your shoulder’

A solution to a puzzling constraint on multiple external possession relations in Spanish

Authors

Grant Armstrong University of Wisconsin-Madison

PDF

Abstract

The main goal of this paper is to provide a solution to a puzzle regarding a constraint on multiple external possession relations in Spanish prepositional double object verbs like poner ‘put.’ When both the direct object and prepositional object are body parts with different external possessors, the subject must be the possessor of the direct object body part and a dative clitic the possessor the prepositional object body part, not the other way around. Assuming that possessor movement to theta positions is what gives rise to external possession, I claim that the unacceptable interpretation is due to a locality violation that is incurred when an external possession relation is established between a subject and prepositional object body part that crosses over another external possession relation between a dative clitic and direct object body part.

Keywords

external possession, possessor raising, locality, applicatives

References

Authier, Jean-Marc. 1992. Is French a null subject language in the DP? Probus 4: 1-16.

Armstrong, Grant & Paula Kempchinsky. 2021. Causative SE: A transitive analysis. In G. Armstrong & J.E. MacDonald (eds.) Unraveling the complexity of SE, 219-241. Dordrecht: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57004-0_9

Chomsky, Noam. 1995. The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Cuervo, María Cristina. 2003. Datives at Large. PhD thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Deal, Amy Rose. 2013. Possessor raising. Linguistic Inquiry 37: 391 – 432.

https://doi.org/10.1162/ling_a _00133

Deal, Amy Rose. 2017. External possession and possessor raising. In M. Everaert and H.C. van Riemsdijk (eds.) The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax. Malden, MA: John C. Wiley & Sons. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118358733.wbsyncom047

Demonte, Violeta. 1995. Dative alternation in Spanish. Probus 7: 5-30.

Español Echevarría, Manuel. 1997. Inalienable possession in copulative contexts and the DP structure. Lingua 101: 211–244.

Folli, Raffaella & Heidi Harley. 2008. Teleology and animacy in external arguments. Lingua 118: 190-202. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2007.02.004

Guéron, Jaqueline. 1985. Inalienable possession, PRO-inclusion, and lexical chains. In J. Guéron, H. Obenauer & J-Y. Pollock (eds.) Grammatical representation, 43-86. Dordrecht: Foris.

Guéron, Jaqueline. 2003. Inalienable possession and the interpretation of determiners. In M.Coene & Y. D’Hulst (eds.), From NP to DP (Volume 2). The Expression of Possession in Noun Phrases, 189–220 Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Guéron, Jaqueline. 2006. Inalienable possession. In M. Everaert, H. Van Riemsdijk, R. Goedemans & B. Hollebrandse (eds.) The Blackwell companion to Syntax, 589-638. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Hiraiwa, Ken. 2005. Dimensions of symmetry in syntax: Agreement and clausal architecture. PhD thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Hornstein, Norbert. 1999. Movement and control. Linguistic Inquiry 30: 69-96.

Kempchinsky, Paula. 1992. The Spanish possessive dative construction: θ-role assignment and proper government. In P. Hirschbühler & E. F. K. Koerner (eds.) Romance Languages and Modern Linguistic Theory, 135–149. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Kliffer, Michael D. 1983. Beyond syntax: Spanish inalienable possession. Linguistics 21: 759-794.

Koenig, Jean-Pierre. 1999. French body parts and the semantics of binding. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 17: 219-265.

Landau, Idan. 1999. Possessor raising and the structure of VP. Lingua 107: 1-37.

Lee-Schoenfeld, Vera. 2006. German possessor datives: Raised and affected. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 9:101–142. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10828-006-9001-6

Levin, Beth & Malka Rappaport Hovav. 1995. Unaccusativity: At the syntax-semantics interface. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

MacDonald, Jonathan E. 2017a. An implicit projected argument in Spanish impersonal- and passive-se constructions. Syntax 20: 353-383.

https://doi.org/10.1111/synt.12146

MacDonald, Jonathan E. 2017b. Spanish aspectual se as an indirect object reflexive: The import of atelicity, bare nouns, and leísta PCC repairs. Probus 29: 73-117. https://doi.org/10.1515/probus-2015-0009

Myler, Neil. 2016. Building and interpreting possession sentences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Nakamoto, Takeshi. 2010. Inalienable possession constructions in French. Lingua 120: 74-102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2009.05.003

Nunes, Jairo. 2004. Chain linearization and sideward movement. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Ormazabal, Javier & Juan Romero. 2007. The object agreement constraint. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 25: 315-347. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-006-9010-9

Ormazabal, Javier & Juan Romero. 2013. Object clitics, agreement and dialectal variation. Probus 25: 301-344. https://doi.org/10.1515/probus-2013-0012

Pesetsky, David. 1982. Paths and categories. PhD thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Picallo, Carme & Gemma Rigau. 1999. El posesivo y las relaciones posesivas. In I. Bosque & V. Demonte (eds.) Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española, 973-1023. Madrid: Espasa.

Pineda, Anna. 2020. Double object constructions in Romance: The common denominator. Syntax 23: 203-240. https://doi.org/10.1111/synt.12193

Pylkkänen, Liina. 2008. Introducing arguments. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Richards, Norvin. 1997. What moves where when in which Language? PhD thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Rizzi, Luigi. 1990. Relativized minimality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Rodrigues, Cilene. 2010. Possessor raising through thematic positions. In N. Hornstein & M. Polinsky (eds.) Movement theory of control, 119–146. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/la.154.05rod

Roldán, Mercedes. 1972. Concerning Spanish datives and possessives. Language Sciences 21: 27-32.

Rooryck, Johan & Guido Vanden Wyngaerd. 2011. Dissolving binding theory. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199691326.001.0001.

Schäfer, Florian. 2012. Two types of external argument licensing - the case of causers. Studia Linguistica 66: 128–180. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9582.2012.01192.x.

Szabolsci, Anna. 1983. The possessor that ran away from home. The Linguistic Review 3: 89-102.

Ticio, Emma. 2005. Locality and antilocality in Spanish DPs. Syntax 8: 229-286. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9612.2005.00080.x

Vergnaud, Jean-Roger & María Luisa Zubizarreta. 1992. The definite determiner and the inalienable constructions in French and in English. Linguistic Inquiry 23: 595-652.

Zamparelli, Roberto. 2000. Layers in the determiner phrase. New York: Garland.