This article synthesizes the ''alternative projection'' view of the alternation between the DP‫ם‬DP and DP‫ם‬PP complement frames of English double object verbs, according to which the alternants are basegenerated as such, with a transformational account that claims that the DP‫ם‬PP frame may be derived from the DP‫ם‬DP frame. For some verbs allowing multiple complements, the DP‫ם‬PP frame is syntactically ambiguous between a base-generated locative construction and a derivative of the possessive syntax associated with the DP‫ם‬DP frame. Evidence from the distribution of purpose clauses motivates this conclusion, as do asymmetries in restrictions on animacy and idiom formation in the two frames.

Two classes of intensional transitive verbs affect the interpretation of an indefinite object in the same way that stage- and individual-level predicates affect an indefinite subject. The contrast for objects is instantiated inside the scope of intensionality, that is, VP-internally. I claim that the differentiation of subject positions said to underlie the interpretational contrast for subjects recurs in the VP for objects, inside the domain of intensionality. The internal domain of a transitive verb is therefore somewhat syntactically articulated, containing at least two positions for indefinite objects. Quantified objects, however, are VP-external.

This paper defends three interconnected claims: (a) selection is the only licensing procedure available to UG, specifically, checking is an instance of selection; (b) selection obtains in the mutual c-command configuration; and (c) though a head does not mutually c-command its own specifier, it mutually c-commands the specifier of its complement. A head may therefore license the specifier of its complement (as well as its complement) but not its own specifier (it is not local enough). This effectively eliminates the spec-head configuration from the repertoire of syntactic configurations, in favor of a unified notion of locality strictly identifiable with mutual c-command, a symmetric configuration. The discussion shows that a theory that collapses these distinctions remains empirically discriminating. The resulting theory is therefore genuinely reductionist.

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This paper describes superlative constructions in contemporary Syrian (Levantine) Arabic. These have the revealing property that the superlative morpheme may be linearly separated from the term that provides the degree scale it makes reference to. This displacement is syntactically constrained, lending support to theories that postulated movement in the derivation of superlative constructions. The data reported here also document a tight correlation of scopal options for the superlative in Arabic and English, indicating that the languages are uniform at LF, while the surface distribution of the superlative morpheme is wider in Arabic than in English. The remarkable convergence of a variety of interpretational nuances between these two unrelated languages suggests that these uniformities can be traced to Universal Grammar.