Impersonal middles in German

We develop an analysis of impersonal middles in German which capitalizes on the observed similarities between personal and impersonal middles, and on Lekakou’s (2005) treatment of the former as disposition ascriptions. We argue that the disposition in impersonal middles is ascribed to an event(uality), rather than an event participant. The non-omissible ‘it’ subject pronoun functions as the syntactic and semantic subject. We further propose that the pronoun refers to the event denoted by the verbal predicate by virtue of taking as its associate the vP. The additional modifier is required for pragmatic reasons, namely in order to restrict the generalization made

Two Mechanisms to Derive Partial Control — Evidence from German

In this paper, we discuss the results of the first large-scale experimental investigation of Partial Control (PC) in German. The results show that Partial Control is indeed available in the language, pace claims to the contrary in the literature. Moreover, they support the existence of two different mechanisms to derive Partial Control in German. While one mechanism is licensed by properties of the matrix predicate (True PC; Landau 2000, 2004, 2015, Pearson 2013, 2016, a.o.), the other mechanism is dependent on the ability of the embedded predicate to occur with a comitative PP. A PC-reading is obtained in the latter case when the comitative is not overtly expressed (Fake PC; Hornstein 2003, Sheehan 2012, 2014)

The structural nature of non-structural case: On passivization and case in Lithuanian

Dative case on indirect objects (IO) in Lithuanian is preserved under passivization, which is not the case with dative direct objects (DO) of monotransitive verbs, suggesting that the two datives are not alike. Although DAT-to-NOM conversion is taken as an indicator of structural case, we show that DO datives behave differently from DOs bearing structural accusative in that the former exhibit inherent case properties as well (see also Anderson 2015). We develop an account for the contrast between the two datives by using two types of derivational mechanisms: structure-building features, triggering Merge, and probe features, triggering Agree (Heck & Müller 2007; Müller 2010). This study demonstrates that structural vs. non-structural conversion can be dependent on not only how case is assigned but also on the Voice system of a language (in line with Alexiadou et al. 2014). We argue that the DO dative in Lithuanian is in fact non-structural. Even though the result of DAT-to-NOM conversion is structural nominative case, the derivation is different from that of structural ACC-to-NOM conversion

Nicht-kanonische lassen-Medialkonstruktionen

This dissertation provides an in-depth study of German 'lassen'-middles. It is shown that these middles can be fully derived in the syntax, and no resort to lexical procedures is required. In particular, it is argued that 'lassen'-middles involve a reflexively marked anticausative (sich lassen), embedding a passive argument configuration. The fact that 'lassen'-middles are identical to canonical middles with respect to all the (semantic) core properties of dispositional middles, combined with the observation that they are based on processes that the grammar makes available independently (i.e. the formation of anticausatives and passives), supports the view that the dispositional middle is not a grammatical, but a notional category. Since the occurrence of 'lassen' in this type of middle is not its canonical use, a syntactic analysis of the German analytic causative construction, in which this causative predicate occurs prototypically, is also provided. It is discussed how the analytic causative construction and the 'lassen'-middle are syntactically related. This thesis also shows that 'lassen'-middles do not only provide important insights into the grammatical status of the middle, but have consequences for the theory of restructuring, as well as the theory of passivization. With respect to the former, it is shown that restructuring infinitives involve the external argument introducing projection (Voice). For the latter, it is argued that 'lassen'-middles provide evidence that passives do not necessarily need to be morphologically marked, which entails that in German, passive morphology has to be dissociated from Voice.Diese Dissertation liefert eine detaillierte Untersuchung der 'lassen'-Medialkonstruktion im Deutschen. Es wird gezeigt, dass diese Medialkonstruktion vollständig in der Syntax generiert werden kann - keine lexikalischen Prozesse sind hierfür vonnöten. Insbesondere wird argumentiert, dass 'lassen'-Medialkonstruktionen auf einem reflexiv markiertem Antikausativ (sich lassen) basieren, welches eine passivische Argumentkonfiguration einbettet. Die Tatsache, dass die 'lassen'-Medialkonstruktion hinsichtlich der Kerneigenschaften von dispositionalen Medialkonstruktionen identisch zu kanonischen Medialkonstruktionen sind, kombiniert mit der Beobachtung, dass sie auf Prozessen basiert, welche die Grammatik unabhängig von dieser Konstruktion zur Verfügung stellt (die Bildung von Antikausativen und Passiven), stützt die Ansicht, dass die Medialkonstruktion keine spezifische Konstruktion, sondern eine notationelle Kategorie ist, welche unterschiedliche Morphosyntaxe umfassen kann. Da die Verwendung von 'lassen' in dieser Art der Medialkonstruktion nicht dem kanonischen Gebrauch entspricht, wird ebenfalls eine syntaktische Analyse der deutschen analytischen Kausativkonstruktion entwickelt, in welcher 'lassen' prototypischerweise zu finden ist. Es wird gezeigt, wie die analytische Kausativkonstruktion und die 'lassen'-Medialkonstruktion syntaktisch zusammenhängen. Diese Dissertation stellt auch heraus, dass die 'lassen'-Medialkonstruktion nicht nur wichtige Einblicke in den grammatischen Status des Medials liefert, sondern ebenfalls Konsequenzen für die Theorie der Restrukturierung, als auch die der Passivierung hat. Bezüglich Restrukturierung wird gezeigt, dass Restrukturierungsinfinitive die Projektion miteinschließen, die das externe Argument einführt (Voice). Hinsichtlich der Passivierung wird deutlich, dass Passive nicht notwendigerweise morphologisch markiert sein müssen. Dies bedeutet, dass Passivmorphologie im Deutschen nicht über Voice eingeführt wird

This is personal: Impersonal middles as disposition ascriptions

We develop an analysis of impersonal middles which capitalizes on the observed similarities between personal and impersonal middles, and on Lekakou’s (2004; 2005a) treatment of the former as disposition ascriptions. The following questions are addressed: (i) What is the disposition ascribed to in impersonal middles? (ii) What is the function of the obligatory subject pronoun? (iii) Why is a modifier needed, in addition to the manner/evaluative adverbial? By having a closer look at what types of additional modifiers are acceptable in impersonal middles, it is argued that the disposition in impersonal middles is ascribed to an event(uality), rather than an event participant. This is done via the non-omissible 'it'-type pronoun that functions as the syntactic subject of the clause. We argue that this pronoun in impersonal middles is also the semantic subject, and that it indirectly refers to the event denoted by the verbal predicate, via an association relation with the vP. Impersonal middles, then, are not truly impersonal: they, too, feature a referential subject. The only difference between personal and impersonal middles relates to what the dispositional subject is: an event participant, or the event proper. We also show that the additional modifier is required for pragmatic reasons, namely in order to restrict the generalization made by the generic operator present in impersonal middles