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- Title
An Implicit Projected Argument in Spanish Impersonal- and Passive- Se Constructions.
- Authors
MacDonald, Jonathan E.
- Abstract
This article argues for the presence of an implicit projected argument in Spec,Voice in Spanish impersonal- and passive- se constructions. The main empirical support comes from an available inalienable-possession interpretation of the sole overt DP when it is a body part in both constructions. This interpretation is only possible in the presence of a syntactically present c-commanding possessor. I argue that the implicit projected external argument serves as the inalienable possessor of the body part. Neither the periphrastic passive nor the anticausative- se construction in Spanish allows an inalienable-possession interpretation of the sole overt DP when it is a body part. In these instances, I claim, no implicit argument projects in Spec,Voice. I discuss how the presence of a projected argument in Spec,Voice is responsible for by-phrase restrictions in impersonal- and passive- se constructions and person restrictions in passive- se constructions; the lack of a projected implicit argument in Spec,Voice of both the periphrastic passive and the anticausative- se construction is responsible for the lack of the person restrictions in both, and the lack of by-phrase restrictions in the periphrastic passive.
- Subjects
IMPERSONALITY (Literature); PASSIVE voice in the English language; TRANSLATING &; interpreting; PHRASE structure grammar; GENERATIVE grammar
- Publication
Syntax, 2017, Vol 20, Issue 4, p353
- ISSN
1368-0005
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/synt.12146