Johnson 2004 - CDLI - UCLA

constituents, which happens to correspond to the sequence of constituents in an English
existential sentence: “there is an eye on the wheat.”
Koopman and Szabolcsi (2000) have argued on the basis of Kayne’s theoretical
program as well as distributional facts in Hungarian, Dutch and German that SOV
complex verbs form through a process known as “rolling-up”: the rightmost constituent
moves to the left edge of the constituent to its left and forms a single constituent with it;
the process is then repeated.
(100) a. bi-√ igi e [gig 1] there eye at [wheat 1]
b. bi-√ igi [[gig 1] e 2] there eye [[wheat 1] at 2]
c. bi-√ [[[gig 1] e 2] igi 3] there [[[wheat 1] at 2] eye 3]
d. [[[[gig 1] e 2] igi 3] *bi-√ 4] [[[[wheat 1] at 2] eye 3] there 4]
In (100), complex verb formation in its simplest form is applied to our paradigmatic
example: gig.e igi bi 2-√. The underlying order appears in (100a), but in (100b), the
rightmost constituent [gig 1] has moved to the left of the constituent to its left, forming a
new compound: [[gig 1] e 2]. This compound then functions as a unit and moves to the left
of [igi 3] to form a three-term complex: [[[gig 1] e 2] igi 3]. Lastly, the complex made up of
three terms moves to the left of [bi-√ 4], yielding the attested form of the construction in
(100d). The interesting thing, at least in my view, about such a derivational process with
respect to BNBV inal predicates is that at the stage represented in (100c), *bi-√ [[[gig 1] e 2]
igi 3], the purely relational, non-referential quality of [. . . igi 3], particularly in that it is
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