영어 소유격의 통사구조와 양화적 속성

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to analyze the syntactic structures and quantificational properties associated with English possessives. Firstly, the analysis presented in this paper makes a basic division of possessive interpretations between lexical possessives and extrinsic possession. The relations established between the possessor and the thing possessed come directly from the lexical meaning of the possessee nominal. The possession relation expressed by the man's child can be a kinship relation, but there is no reading of the child's man on which it entails a kinship relation. On the analysis here, the noun child is relational. If the possessee nominal denotes a relation, then the possessive will express the relation directly. Secondly, there are at least two logical possibilities for the constituency of a possessive. One is the spec-of-DP structure (〔most students′〕 papers), and the other is a spec-of-NP structure (most〔students' papers〕). This spec- of-DP analysis is the productive syntactic surface structure for possessives in English. If there had been an alternative surface structure available, this would have led to a potential explanation for the perspective paradox. The spec-of-DP structure would correspond to a reading on which most quantifiers (primarily) over students (the possession- dominant reading), and the spec-of-NP reading would correspond to a reading on which most quantifiers over student/paper pairs.