Mistaking For: Testing the Theory of Mediated Predication

Abstract

This article investigates the validity of the theory of mediated predication by examining one of the proposed overt realizations of Pred 0 . Taking the law of parsimony as our starting position and using evidence from English, Russian, and Serbo-Croatian, we argue that the element that looks like the preposition 'for' is, in fact, a preposition (not Pred 0 ), and we show how it explains the syntax and the semantics of the relevant 'for' sequences. Cases of apparently predicative interpretation of 'for'-PP result from the interplay between the meaning of the preposition 'for' and the metaphorical reinterpretation of motion and locative verbs that 'for'-PPs combine with.

De-constructing small clauses: The case of Mandarin Chinese

“…are observed in Chinese. Alleged ECM verbs have been demonstrated to either involve clause-selecting verbs or ditransitive verbs, similar to what Marejl &Matushansky (2015) have shown for English, Serbo-Croation and Russian.…”

“…This at first sight radical claim concerning Chinese is not isolated, but can be seen as part of a more general trend which provides alternative analyses for phenomena so far analysed as SCs, thus reducing the scope of this construction (cf. Marelj & Matushansky 2015;Bruening 2018;Matushansky 2019). The universal nature of SCs is therefore challenged and should no longer bias crosslinguistic studies, as is currently still the case; Balazs (2012) for example, despite some initial misgivings, in the end concedes the existence of SC in Chinese.…”

“…In general, as argued for extensively by Matushansky (2019), the theoretical and semantic considerations adduced as arguments in favour of the obligatory presence of Pred° (or other functional head) in SCs do not bear further scrutiny or are amenable to alternative analyses (cf. section 4 below for Marelj & Matushansky's (2015) analysis of 'take NP 1 for NP 2 ' in English, Serbo-Croatian and Russian as ditransitives). The identical distribution predicted by a uniform PredP analysis of SC is not observed, either (cf.…”

vP-fronting with and without remnant movement

“…As with VP-shells, this analysis seems to be undermined by the fact that the small clause/PredP cannot be a target for movement, even though either the subject or the predicate can be moved separately (Marelj & Matushansky 2015).…”

“…Consider 143, where the DP John is clearly interpreted as the subject of the embedded predicate a true friend, and one widely adopted analysis of this kind of structure is one where the two DPs form a small clause, for instance a PredP; the Pred head encodes the predication relation between the two DPs, much like vP does in the bifurcated verbal shell. As with VP-shells, this analysis seems to be undermined by the fact that the small clause/PredP cannot be a target for movement, even though either the subject or the predicate can be moved separately (Marelj & Matushansky 2015).…”