prepositional adjuncts

[Adam Przepiorkowski]

Hello,

The distinction between prepositions and markers that is based on case
marking is the one I've always assumed for Polish, where the distinction is
even clearer than in German, I think.

It seems to me that the case of the NP in a construction like "P+NP" should
not be visible outside this construction when the P is really a
prepositional head (whether semantically vacuous or not), but it is visible
when the P is really a marker, like "jako" in the examples below, where the
marked NP agrees with another NP in the sentence (pro in (1)).

(1) Przyszedlem [jako przyjaciel].
    I-came       as   friend-NOM
   `I came as a friend.'
(2) Pamietam    go      [jako przyjaciela].
    I-supported him-ACC  as   friend-ACC
   `I supported him as a friend.'
(3) Pomoglem mu      [jako przyjacielowi].
    I-helped him-DAT  as   friend-DAT
   `I helped him as a friend.'

Best,

	Adam

Ulrich Koch writes:
 > Hi everybody,
 >
 > for languages like German, there is a further argument
 > in favor of the head-marker analysis of some "PPs":
 >
 > It is commonly assumed that in a PP, the preposition selects
 > the case of its NP sister.  This actually works for many
 > prepositions, but there are counter-examples:
 >
 > (1) Hans verlaesst sich auf einen Freund.
 >     Jack relies    self on  a-ACC friend
 >     `Jack relies on a friend.'
 > (2) Die Loesung  beruht auf einem neuen Ansatz.
 >     The solution rests  on  a-DAT new   approach
 >     `The solution is based on a new approach.'
 >
 > Both "verlaesst" and "beruht" select "auf" (i.e. you can't
 > use any other preposition instead), but in (1), the sister
 > of "auf" must be in the accusative case, whereas in (2),
 > it must be in the dative.
 >
 > With the head-complement analysis, we have to posit two
 > lexical entries for "auf" that differ in a feature called,
 > say, OBJ-CASE. Then each verb selects the preposition with
 > the correct OBJ-CASE value. This solution seems quite ad hoc.
 >
 > If we adopt a head-marker analysis, however, the data are
 > accounted for naturally: "verlaesst" selects an NP[auf,acc]
 > (where auf is the MARKING value), and "beruht" selects an
 > NP[auf,dat].
 >
 > Greetings,
 > Ulli
 > --
 > Ulrich Koch, comp. science and comp. ling. student
 >

--
           ,
ADAM PRZEPIORKOWSKI
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