PÂNĂ-PPs AND COMPLEX EVENT CONSTRUCTIONS IN ROMANIAN
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24193/subbphilo.2022.1.09Keywords:
goal-of-motion structure, resultative construction, VP, până-PP, RomanianAbstract
Până-PPs and Complex Event Constructions in Romanian. This paper examines the syntactic and semantic status of Romanian PPs headed by the morphologically complex prepositions până în/la ʻuntil/as far as/up to in/at’ in VPs of change of location (a pluti până în peșteră ʻfloat up to the caveʼ) and change of state (a munci până la epuizare ʻwork to the point of exhaustionʼ). Contrary to the claims made in the literature (Barbu 2015), the approach taken here argues that these – and other similar – VPs cannot be considered complex event constructions such as goal-of-motion structures and strong resultative constructions, respectively. The discussion revolves around the interpretation of the entire VP, the lack of any type of restriction on the syntactic and semantic classification of the verb, the violation of the Direct Object Restriction, as well as the borderline between these PPs and temporal adjuncts. These properties highlight the fact that the availability of such VPs does not turn Romanian into a satellite-framed language as they are not real counterexamples to the Talmian generalization according to which verb-framed Romanian disallows these two complex event constructions.
Article history: Received 31 August 2021; Revised 15 November 2021; Accepted 30 November 2021; Available online 31 March 2022; Available print 31 March 2022.
REZUMAT. Grupuri prepoziționale cu până și construcții eventive complexe în limba română. Această lucrare analizează statutul sintactic și semantic al grupurilor prepoziționale din limba română construite cu prepoziția compusă până în/la în grupuri verbale de schimbare de locație (a pluti până în peșteră) și schimbare de stare (a munci până la epuizare). Contrar afirmațiilor făcute în literatura de specialitate (Barbu 2015), abordarea propusă aici susține că aceste – și astfel de – grupuri verbale nu pot fi considerate construcții eventive complexe cum ar fi structuri de schimbare de locație, respectiv construcții rezultative tari. Discuția se concentrează pe interpretarea întregului grup verbal, lipsa oricărei restricții asupra clasificării sintactice și semantice a verbului, încălcarea restricției asupra complementului direct, precum și frontiera dintre aceste grupuri prepoziționale și adjuncții temporali. Aceste proprietăți accentuează faptul că datorită prezenței acestor grupuri verbale în limbă, româna nu devine o limbă satelitară deoarece ele nu sunt adevărate excepții la generalizarea talmiană potrivit căreia limba română, ca limbă verbală, nu permite aceste două construcții eventive complexe.
Cuvinte-cheie: structură de schimbare de locație, construcție rezultativă, grup verbal, grup prepozițional cu până, limba română
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