Small Phrase Layers: A Study Of Finnish Manner Adverbials (linguistik Aktuell/linguistics Today)
by Satu Manninen /
2003 / English / PDF
9.7 MB Download
This monograph examines the structure and properties of Finnish
manner adverbials. The central idea is that, instead of AdvPs, DPs,
APs, PPs, NumPs and InfinitivalPs, manner adverbials have the form
of either kPs or pPs, and they are licensed as unique specifiers of
a manner-related small vP. Secondly, because ”obligatory” and
”optional” manner adverbials are merged as specifiers of one and
the same small vP, the computational system of language sees no
difference between them. This is why ”obligatory” and ”optional”
manner adverbials often behave in exactly the same way with regard
to syntactic operations such as movement. Thirdly, the author shows
that, although all arguments and VP-internal adverbials are merged
as specifiers of a unique small vP, this hierarchical structure
need not always be reflected in an unambiguous linear order: in
many languages VP-internal manner, place and time adverbials are
allowed to permute freely because they have no features which would
need checking by the features of a higher functional head, and
because their original Spec,vP positions are ”invisible” to the
Linear Correspondence Axiom. Although the argumentation and
analyses are mainly supported by Finnish data, the author also
shows how they can be applied to other languages. The book also
contains an extensive introduction to Finnish, to help readers
unfamiliar with the language to follow the discussion.
This monograph examines the structure and properties of Finnish
manner adverbials. The central idea is that, instead of AdvPs, DPs,
APs, PPs, NumPs and InfinitivalPs, manner adverbials have the form
of either kPs or pPs, and they are licensed as unique specifiers of
a manner-related small vP. Secondly, because ”obligatory” and
”optional” manner adverbials are merged as specifiers of one and
the same small vP, the computational system of language sees no
difference between them. This is why ”obligatory” and ”optional”
manner adverbials often behave in exactly the same way with regard
to syntactic operations such as movement. Thirdly, the author shows
that, although all arguments and VP-internal adverbials are merged
as specifiers of a unique small vP, this hierarchical structure
need not always be reflected in an unambiguous linear order: in
many languages VP-internal manner, place and time adverbials are
allowed to permute freely because they have no features which would
need checking by the features of a higher functional head, and
because their original Spec,vP positions are ”invisible” to the
Linear Correspondence Axiom. Although the argumentation and
analyses are mainly supported by Finnish data, the author also
shows how they can be applied to other languages. The book also
contains an extensive introduction to Finnish, to help readers
unfamiliar with the language to follow the discussion.
