Speaker: Liisa Buelens (Ghent University)
Title: External and Event Possession in Flemish: affected arguments
Venue: Arsenaal 112
Time: 15:15 – 16:30
Abstract
In this talk I look at Flemish External Possession patterns (FEP) such as in (1) (Haegeman, 2011, Haegeman and van Koppen, 2012). These structures seem to be derived from the internal doubling possessor (2), where the possessor is related to the possessee by a possessive pronoun coreferential with the possessor.
(1) twas spijtig da [Emma] toen just [eur velo] kapot was
it.was unfortunate that Emma then just her bike broken was
‘It was unfortunate that Emma’s bike was broken just then.’
(2) [Emma eur velo] was toen just kapot
Emma her bike was then just broken
‘Emma’s bike was broken just then.’
In the FEP the possessor is separated from the possessive DP (possessee and possessive pronoun) by an adjunct with clausal scope. The possessor also gains argument-like properties such as controlling complementizer agreement (when related to a subject possessee), and is restricted to affected contexts.
A restriction to affectedness contexts for a possessor argument is also found in Flemish Event Possessive (FEVP) where an affected (possessor) argument is related to an ‘event’ through possessive have– and be-patterns (3-4).
(3) [Emma] eeft (‘t) nog gehad [da ze nie na de les kon
Emma has it PRT had that she not to the class could
meeda eur velo kapot was]
because her bike broken was
(4) [Emma] eeft *(‘t) nog geweest [da ze nie na de les kon
Emma has it PRT been that she not to the class could
meeda eur velo kapot was]
because her bike broken was
‘Emma’s had it happen to her that she couldn’t go to class because her bike was broken.’
I argue that both the FEP and the FEVP the possessor arguments are in a position external to the possesive elements (DP and small clause, respectively) which carries an affectee interpretation.
Haegeman, Liliane. 2011. Adding positions: External possessors in (West) Flemish. In CASTL – State of the Sequence 2. Tromsø.
Haegeman, Liliane, and van Koppen, Marjo. 2012. Complementizer agreement and the relation between C and T. Linguistic Inquiry 43:441-454.