Adverb position and verb raising

[Yehuda N. Falk]

Aaron,

I think we need to be careful in borrowing arguments for constituency from
constituent-structure-centric theories. In such theories, constituency is
essentially a representation of grammatical functions, and true
constituency argumentation tends to be weak to nonexistent. So, "it's an
adjunct so it must be in adjoined position" becomes something in need of no
additional argument (kind of like "every language must have a VP because
that's how subjects are distinguished from objects").

Joan's proposals for constraints on the structure-function mapping are an
interesting step towards actually understanding this mapping instead of
just stipulating it, as constituent-structure-centric theories do. But, of
course, more empirical study is needed to see just how strictly such
principles are adhered to (or alternatively, whether they are violable).
For example, I argued in my paper at last year's LFG conference that the
Hebrew NP has the following structure:

            NP
           /  \
         /     \
       /         \
     NP          PP (OBL or ADJ) [successive adjunctions possible]
    /| \
  /  |   \
N   NP   AP* (ADJ)

If this is right (and I still think it is), Hebrew NPs don't conform to
Joan's mapping principles.

Which isn't to say that a "V-to-I raising" analysis is wrong for Hebrew. I
actually think it is, but I'm not convinced that adjunct positioning is a
valid argument. (Incidentally, "be-adinut" in your example is a PP, not an
adverb.) Alex's Catalan examples have parallels in Hebrew, btw.

INFINITIVE:
Dani roce  liftoax          be-adinut     et  ha- delet
Dani wants open..INFINITIVE in-gentleness ACC the-door
'Dani wants to open the door gently.'

WITH AUXILIARY:
Dani haya poteax  be-adinut     et  ha- delet.
Dani was  opening in-gentleness ACC the-door
'Dani would open the door gently.'

As Alex suggests, such facts make the adjunction analysis of adjuncts less
attractive.

Regards,
Yehuda


                            Yehuda N. Falk
       Department of English, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
                     Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem, Israel
                        msyfalk at mscc.huji.ac.il
      Personal Web Site    http://pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il/~msyfalk/
     Departmental Web Site    http://atar.mscc.huji.ac.il/~english/

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