| Titre |
Serial Constructions and Null Arguments in Fon’’ in Object Position in Benue-Kwa |
| Auteurs |
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| Conference: |
Papers from a workshop at Leiden University |
| Lieu Conference: |
Holland Institute of Generative Linguistics (HIL) |
| Volume: |
4 |
| DOI: |
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| Mots clés |
serial verb constructions, argument sharing, left dislocation, instrument/manner |
| Resume |
In this paper, I assume that Fon instrumental constructions contradict Baker’s (1989) hypothesis that sharing of an internal argument is a defining property of serial verb constructions. Two types of evidence are relevant : left dislocation and distributional constraints on na. For the serial verbs discussed here, V2 does not assign an Instrumental or a Manner v-role to the object of V1. An examination of left-dislocated phrases led to the hypothesis that the Instrumental/Manner v-role is assigned by the preposition na to the empty category pro (which is licenced by na). The proposed analysis has the advantage of accounting for Fon serial constructions without having to modify X-bar theory, again pace Baker. |
| Fichier |
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