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Into adpositions: New formal perspectives on the structure of the PP and its variation
Edited by Víctor Acedo-Matellán, Theresa Biberauer, Jaume Mateu and Anna Pineda
[Linguistic Variation 21:1] 2021
► pp. 46–89

Afrikaans circumpositions

(Mis-)matches at the syntax-interface

| University of the Western Cape
Circumpositions in Afrikaans present several puzzles: (i) they always encode spatial paths, but spatial paths can also be encoded by prepositional phrases; (ii) they can be doubling or non-doubling, and (iii) they exhibit disharmonic word order of the kind that appears to violate the Final-over-Final Condition (FOFC). In this paper, I argue that circumpositions offer support for the existence of a directional head [dir] in the fine structure of the Afrikaans verbal domain, and that this head is lexicalised by adpositional material in circumpositional expressions. I show that Afrikaans grammar distinguishes Route-paths from Goal-/Source-paths, and argue that whereas [dir] selects a [pathP] in the structure underlying Goal-/Source-paths (circumpositional expressions), Route-paths (prepositional expressions) are ‘bare’ [pathP] structures. I argue that since circumpositions identify structural components in different Spellout Domains, double-insertion of adposition-like material is required to exhaustively lexicalise the structure, and the disharmonic word order is understood as a direct consequence of the fact that [dir] is located in Afrikaans’ head-final verbal, which addresses the concern arising around FOFC. Finally, given that the adpositions in circumpositional expressions are shown to occupy structural positions that are distinct from that of de-adpositional V-particles, the paper also addresses the structural relation between circumpositions and particle verbs in which adposition-like material lexicalises a resultative [res] node in the verbal domain.
Keywords: Afrikaans, adpositions, circumpositions, particles, doubling, syntax-interface, lexicalisation, spellout, spatial path, FOFC
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
  • 3.Data
    • 3.1 How to distinguish a bona fide circumposition from a ‘spurious circumposition’
    • 3.2 The case of met…langs (lit.: with…along; “along”)
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Basic tenets
    • 4.2Against a [ pathp path [placep place]] analysis of circumpositions
    • 4.3Prepositional Path-encoding elements
    • 4.4Deriving circumpositions
  • 5.Postpositions vs. V-particles
    • 5.1Analysing V-particles and ‘spurious circumpositions’
    • 5.2Russian prefixes and Afrikaans particles
    • 5.3[res] vs. [dir]
  • 6.Composing Goal-/Source- and Route-paths
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 8 September 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.00033.pre
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