The Syntax of the Swedish Present Participle

Abstract: Abstract The Syntax of the Swedish Present Participle offers a generative analysis of the Swedish present participle with the central goal of accounting for its distribution and function. The analysis offered rests on three hypotheses: (i) Present participles are verbs, (ii) Present participles can appear in complex predicates, and (iii) Adjunct present participial clauses may be interpreted through Control, where Control is assumed to equal an Agree relation. The analysis mainly assumes a particular approach to the generative enterprise namely Distributed Morphology. Chapter 3 of the thesis focusses the internal syntax of the Swedish present participle. It is shown that the present participle selects for the same arguments as its corresponding verb, such that the participle may merge with internal arguments as well as an external AGENT argument. Furthermore, it is shown that the Swedish present participle carries imperfective aspect, and that it can be attributed to the -ande/-ende morpheme. Chapters 4 and 5 of the dissertation propose analyses of the syntactic constructions in which the present participles appear. Traditional grammar has labelled these constructions bound and free predicative constructions. In chapter 4, a complex predicate analysis is proposed for bound predicative constructions such as Stina blev liggande ‘Stina remained lying’ and Stina kom cyklande ‘Stina came riding her bike’. The analysis assumes the first verb in the above-mentionned constructions is merged as a root directly in a v, yielding a manner reading. The verbs bli ‘become’ and komma ‘come’ can be considered light verbs in the complex predicate. The term light verb is understood as the combination of a root containing nothing but phonological features and the categorial category v. The analysis thus maintains the generalization that a light verb should be represented as v. The complex predicate has the following structure: [vP bli [vP Stina liggande [AspP Asp [√P √]. The structure accounts for the following properties of the complex predicates: (i) The first verb is not an auxiliary, (ii) the present participle carries imperfective aspect, (iii) The two subevents constitute a complex event, (iv) the present participle provides the arguments to the complex predicate, (v) the light verb has manner reading (vi) the construction cannot passivise. In chapter 5, an analysis is proposed for free predicative participial clauses, whether in full clause or in a nominal phrase. The analysis is written within the Pesetsky and Torrego’s (2006, 2007) version of the Minimalist Program. PRO of the adjunct participial clause is interpreted through Control, assuming with Landau (2000) that Control is an Agree relation. The syntactic functions of the present participles as bound and free predicatives and as attributives are parallell to those of adjectives and past participles. This fact predicts similar analyses for adjectives and past participles as well, the distinguishing property being the internal structure of each predicate. Abstract The Syntax of the Swedish Present Participle offers a generative analysis of the Swedish present participle with the central goal of accounting for its distribution and function. The analysis offered rests on three hypotheses: (i) Present participles are verbs, (ii) Present participles can appear in complex predicates, and (iii) Adjunct present participial clauses may be interpreted through Control, where Control is assumed to equal an Agree relation. The analysis mainly assumes a particular approach to the generative enterprise namely Distributed Morphology. Chapter 3 of the thesis focusses the internal syntax of the Swedish present participle. It is shown that the present participle selects for the same arguments as its corresponding verb, such that the participle may merge with internal arguments as well as an external AGENT argument. Furthermore, it is shown that the Swedish present participle carries imperfective aspect, and that it can be attributed to the -ande/-ende morpheme. Chapters 4 and 5 of the dissertation propose analyses of the syntactic constructions in which the present participles appear. Traditional grammar has labelled these constructions bound and free predicative constructions. In chapter 4, a complex predicate analysis is proposed for bound predicative constructions such as Stina blev liggande ‘Stina remained lying’ and Stina kom cyklande ‘Stina came riding her bike’. The analysis assumes the first verb in the above-mentionned constructions is merged as a root directly in a v, yielding a manner reading. The verbs bli ‘become’ and komma ‘come’ can be considered light verbs in the complex predicate. The term light verb is understood as the combination of a root containing nothing but phonological features and the categorial category v. The analysis thus maintains the generalization that a light verb should be represented as v. The complex predicate has the following structure: [vP bli [vP Stina liggande [AspP Asp [√P √]. The structure accounts for the following properties of the complex predicates: (i) The first verb is not an auxiliary, (ii) the present participle carries imperfective aspect, (iii) The two subevents constitute a complex event, (iv) the present participle provides the arguments to the complex predicate, (v) the light verb has manner reading (vi) the construction cannot passivise. In chapter 5, an analysis is proposed for free predicative participial clauses, whether in full clause or in a nominal phrase. The analysis is written within the Pesetsky and Torrego’s (2006, 2007) version of the Minimalist Program. PRO of the adjunct participial clause is interpreted through Control, assuming with Landau (2000) that Control is an Agree relation. The syntactic functions of the present participles as bound and free predicatives and as attributives are parallell to those of adjectives and past participles. This fact predicts similar analyses for adjectives and past participles as well, the distinguishing property being the internal structure of each predicate.