No possessor inversion in German PPs

Squibs No possessor inversion in German PPs Authors: Marie-Luise Popp , Leipzig University, DE X close Sören Eggert Tebay Leipzig University, DE X close Abstract There are several options to express possessive relations in German, one of them is the construction using a possessor introduced by the preposition von (‘of’). In non-standard German, these possessive PPs may occur before or after the possessee. However, this is not the case with possessees in dative case or after prepositions. In this case, the possessee obligatorily precedes its possessive PPs. In this paper, we will show that a feature-driven movement approach can derive the restrictions imposed on this construction by assuming a [•P•] on D. This feature can be checked either by merging a higher P or by moving a lower PP. The general constraint Merge-over-Move prefers the former whenever possible. Thus, the construction becomes sensitive to PPs as well as dative DPs, which both block movement to SpecDP. Keywords: German, possession, movement, syntax, constraint How to Cite: Popp, M.-L., & Tebay, S. E. (2019). No possessor inversion in German PPs. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 4(1), 16. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.697 183 Views 74 Downloads 2 Twitter   Published on 29 Jan 2019 Peer Reviewed  CC BY 4.0  Accepted on 26 Oct 2018            Submitted on 15 May 2018 1 Introduction German allows the inversion of possessive PPs, as seen in (1a). It has previously been observed by Gallmann & Lindauer (1994) that this inversion is banned inside the complement of PPs (see (1b)). We collected reliable data that show that this inversion is ungrammatical in dative contexts, too (see (2)). These restrictions contrast prepositional possessors with other kinds of possessors in German which can be inversed in these contexts (see (1c) or (2c)). (1) a.   Von   of Conny Conny der the.NOM Hund dog heißt is.named Motte. Motte    ‘Conny’s dog is called Motte.’   b. *Ohne   without von of Conny Conny den the.ACC Hund dog ist is es it langweilig. boring    intended: ‘It is boring without Conny’s dog.’   c.   Ohne   without Conny-s Conny-GEN Hund dog ist is es it langweilig.’ boring    ‘It is boring without Conny’s dog.’ (2) a. *Von   of Conny Conny dem the.DAT Hund dog gefällt is.pleased das that nicht. not    intended: ‘Conny’s dog is not pleased about that.’   b.   Dem   the.DAT Hund dog von of Conny Conny gefällt is.pleased das that nicht. not    ‘Conny’s dog is not pleased about that.’   c.   Conny-s   Conny-GEN Hund dog.DAT gefällt is.pleased das that nicht.’ not    ‘Conny’s dog is not pleased about that.’ In the following paper, we will show that this restriction follows directly in an analysis based on feature-driven Merge in a Minimalist framework. As the wide-spread constraint Merge-before-Move (Castillo et al. 1999; Frampton & Gutmann 1999; Chomsky 2000; Müller & Sternefeld; Hornstein 2001; 2009; Boeckx et al. 2010; Drummond 2011; Weisser 2015) enforces the higher P head to check the structure-buildung [•P•] feature, movement of the possessive PP is blocked. This paper is structured as follows. The relevant data is presented in Section 2. In Section 3, we propose a new analysis. Before concluding in Section 5, we discuss further issues of our proposal in Section 4. 2 Prepositional possession in German In German, there are four different constructions that encode possession (Georgi & Salzmann 2011): The possessor may appear in genitive case, as in (3a). Furthermore, there is the prenominal genitive construction in (3b) and the double possessive construction in (3c). In this paper, however, we will focus on the construction in (3d) including a possessor preceded by the preposition von (‘of’). (3) a. das the Auto car meines my.GEN Vater-s father-GEN ‘the car of my father’   b. Peter-s Peter-GEN Auto car ‘Peter’s car’   c. mein-em my-DAT Vater father sein his Auto car ‘my father’s car’   d. das the Auto car von of meinem my Vater father ‘the car of my father’ In non-standard German, the construction allows possessee and possessive PP to swap their positions, as seen in (4). The order of possessee and von-possessor in (4a) is the standard word order, which is widely accepted among German native speakers. In (4b), however, the constituents appear in reverse order. (4) a. Die the.NOM Frau wife von of Max Max hat has einen a Film movie gesehen. seen   b. Von of Max Max die the.NOM Frau wife hat has einen a Film movie gesehen. seen ‘Max’ wife has seen a movie.’ Gallmann & Lindauer (1994) observed that the inversion cannot take place if the DP is inside a PP, as seen in (5b).1 (5) a.   Ohne   without die the.ACC Frau wife von of Max Max bin am ich I ins to Kino cinema gegangen. gone   b. *Ohne   without von of Max Max die the.ACC Frau wife bin am ich I ins to Kino cinema gegangen. gone    intended: ‘I went to the cinema without Max’ wife.’ A small-scale grammaticality judgment task in which we asked 49 native speakers of German to rate sentences from 1 (perfectly grammatical) to 6 (ungrammatical) showed that the inverse order is ungrammatical in dative contexts, too. While the construction allows the possessee to bear accusative case (see (6a)), dative possessees lead to ungrammaticality, as seen in (6b)–(6d). Note that this restriction is independent of the position of the constituent (prefield in (6c) vs. midfield in (6d)) or the status of the dative (lexical dative in (6b) vs. structural dative in (6c)).23 (6) a.   Ich   I habe have von of Maria Mary den the.ACC Freund friend im in Kino cinema getroffen. met    ‘I met Mary’s boyfriend in cinema.’   b. *Von   of Hans Hans der the.DAT Frau wife habe have ich I geholfen. helped    intended: ‘I helped Hans’ wife.’   c. *Von   of Hans Hans der the.DAT Frau wife habe have ich I mein my Auto car geliehen. lent    intended: ‘I have lent my car to Hans’ wife.’   d. *Ich   I habe have von of Hans Hans der the.DAT Frau wife mein my Auto car geliehen. lent    intended: ‘I have lent my car to Hans’ wife.’ An anonymous reviewer pointed out that the grammaticality of (6b) increases when Hans is heavily stressed. Assuming that stress correlates with focus, we follow Fanselow (2002); Frey (2006) and Frey (2010) that the stressed PP has been moved to a designated f (...truncated)