The existential use of Dutch posture verbs

Hoekstra & Mulder (1990) describe another combinatorial possibility for Dutch posture verbs with the locative adverbial er as subject, where both the figure and the ground appear post-verbally (78). Interestingly, in this latter order it is possible to find a bare plural or a faded partitive in the internal argument position (cf. Zwarts 1987, De Hoop 1998, van Eynde 2004, Oosterhof 2005).

(78) a. Er lagen dikke boeken op de tafel there lay thick books on the table

b. Er lagen van die dikke boeken op de tafel there lay of those thick books on the table

(De Hoop 1998:194, (37))

I would like to argue that this configuration follows the guidelines of the simple position sense discussed in this chapter in spite of the apparent differences, which stem from the presence of the expletive pronoun er ‘there’, which is the weak form of the distal locative adverb daar ‘there’ and whose presence seems to facilitate the existential meaning of this construction as the event is predicated of a location and, additionally, a new element is introduced in the discourse via the presence of an indefinite argument along with the verb. As shown above (78), the logical subject of the verb, with which it agrees, may be an indefinite expression such as a partitive phrase, which introduces a new element in the domain of discourse. In the example, a special type of partitive called faded partitive is found as the logical subject of the verb (78b). Zwarts (1987) considers faded partitives as a type of partitive phrase equivalent to weak or indefinite nouns inasmuch as they can appear in existential sentences and, just like bare plurals, they can also include a determiner. Zwarts’ intuition regarding the semantics contributed by these elements is that they behave as bare plurals since they can introduce a new element in the domain of discourse. This notwithstanding, while bare plurals are presented as new information, faded partitives introduce information that is known or shared by the participants.⁴⁷ Let us see in more detail the properties of these elements to further confirm the position of the figure in the argument structure of the existential use. According to Oosterhof (2005), faded partitives are usually considered internal arguments of their verbs since they cannot be extraposed (79) and their appearance in (structural) subject position is somewhat degraded unless they are modified by means of an adjective or a prepositional phrase (cf. (80) and (81)).

(79) dat er in Slovenië ook van die fabrieken zijn / *zijn van die fabrieken that there in Slovenia also of those factories are / *are of those factories ‘… that such factories also exist in Slovenia’

(Oosterhof 2005:78, (40))

47 In the same way as Zwarts (1987), Oosterhof considers that this type of partitive phrase denotes a kind in the sense that the whole of whatever is denoted by the noun phrase corresponds to a specific kind, of which only a part is picked, roughly “(of) that well known kind” (2005:83).

(80) a. ^?Van die katten brengen geluk of those cats bring good luck

b. ^?Van die katten hebben gisteren de moestuin vertrappeld of those cats have yesterday the vegetable garden trampled

(81) a. Van die zwarte katten brengen geluk of those black cats bring good luck ‘Black cats bring good luck.’

b. Van die katten met witte pootjes brengen geluk of those cats with white paws bring good luck ‘Cats with white paws bring good luck.’

(Oosterhof 2005:80, (44-45))

To further confirm the argument status of these elements, Van Eynde (2004) provides data supporting the view that faded partitives behave as noun phrases. He notes that van ‘of’ can have two different uses. It can work as an adposition that introduces prepositional adjuncts, which, as such, may be extraposed. On the other hand, van ‘of’

may coappear with a noun phrase with a demonstrative in it and, in this case, it does not behave as an adposition, but rather the whole element works as an object of a verb such as make (82a) or as complement of a true preposition such as aan ‘on’ (82b).

(82) a. Ze maken van die lange wandelingen they make of those long walks

‘They make such long walks’

b. Het ligt vaak aan van die kleine dingen it lies often on of those small things ‘It is often due to such small things’

(van Eynde 2004:44, (71-72))

Accordingly, faded partitives, as an argument of a verb, cannot be extraposed. The contrasts in the following examples show that a true adjunct (83a) may be extraposed, whereas a faded partitive (83b) or a bare plural (83c) may not.

(83) a. Ze heeft de hele dag zitten lezen in dit boek she has the whole day sit read in this book ‘She has been reading in this book for the whole day’

b. *Ze heeft de hele dag zitten lezen van die rare boeken she has the whole day sit read of those strange books c. *Ze heeft de hele dag zitten lezen Duitse boeken

she has the whole day sit read German books

(van Eynde 2004:44, (73-75)) To further confirm the argument status of this element, notice that they may only be conjoined with noun phrases (84).

(84) a. Ze heeft [zwart haar en van die grote helderblauwe ogen]

she has [black hair and of those big pale-blue eyes ‘She has black hair and big pale blue eyes’

b. *Ze heeft de hele dag [in die Duitse boeken en van die she has the whole day [in those German books and of those rare stripverhalen] zitten lezen

strange comic-strips sit read

(van Eynde 2004:44, (76-77)) To summarize, the specific properties of this construction lead to the conclusion that the elements form an unaccusative configuration, where the faded partitive appears in the specifier position of the process head and the locative adverb er ‘there’ assumes the structural subject position in the structure, which later satisfies the EPP requirement of the tense head. Since Dutch complies with the EPP-requirement to have some element occupying Spec,TP, it is assumed that whenever the structural subject position has not been filled due to the absence of a subject or the presence of an indefinite expression, then an expletive element such as er ‘it’ may take up this position and satisfy the EPP-requirement (85) (Van Craenenbroeck to appear). Following Ramchand (2018), the position occupied by this element is Spec,EvtP, from where it raises to Spec,TP (86).

(85) a. Werd *(er) gedanst? variation, which has allowed me to contrast the malleability of these verbs in Romance and Germanic languages. Under the assumptions made at the beginning of this chapter, posture verbs expressing stationary motion behave as non-dynamic process verbs, that is, they consist of a single spatio-temporal stage. A welcome consequence of this view is that posture verbs used in the simple position sense by means of a copula, equivalent to be, and a past participle are also taken to instantiate non-dynamic eventualities containing a spatio-temporal stage. The main difference between these two different strategies to encode locative predication is the presence of a process head with posture verbs only in the former. I have argued that the alleged manner component found with these predicates stems from the type-B meaning associated with the verb root, which specifies the postural configuration of the figure, in conjunction with the eventive

procP

semantics contributed by the presence of a spatio-temporal stage in the denotation of the process head, while the locational phrase provides the spatial coordinates for the figure. In this regard, I have adopted Hoekstra & Mulder’s (1990) embedded small-clause complement structure analysis to account for the locational properties of posture verbs in the co-event sense. In section 4, I will argue that in the ‘light’ verb construction there is no implication of a co-event. The posture verb seems to be a light version of itself. As discussed in the review of Ramchand (2014) in chapter 1, the heavy and light versions share the same type-A meaning but differ in the presence or absence of type-B meaning, respectively. Thus, light verbs instantiate only type-A meaning, that is, a subset of the information contained in the heavy version of the verb. I would like to argue that the ‘light’ verb use of posture verbs would resemble light verbs in their impoverished lexical-semantic content. That is, they would simply consist of a process head, which is the content they have been determined to possess in this chapter. I will use this assumption as starting point for the discussion in the following section on the

‘light’ verb use of posture verbs to discern how these verbs may develop into semantically impoverished items across languages.

4. ‘L

’

This section examines how the ‘light’ verb use of posture verbs compares to copulas, since posture verbs do not only contribute to the meaning of the predicate as linkers between the figure and the ground but also as aspectual markers of unboundedness given that they provide a spatio-temporal unit to the first phase syntax of the verb, which has been argued to consist of a process head and a rhematic prepositional phrase.

Following the analysis laid out in the previous sections, I argue that the ‘light’ verb use of posture verbs is akin to copulas and examine the evolution of posture verbs in Germanic languages into copulas.