Johnson 2004 - CDLI - UCLA

(26) Gil histakel le-Rina al ha-bayit
PN looked.at to-Rina on the-house
Gil looked at Rina’s house
Various hypotheses, taking examples like (24) as exemplary, have argued that the crucial
matter is affectedness: in (23) and (24), the dative possessor is affected by the event,
whereas in (25), it is not, hence the ungrammaticality of (25). Landau himself argued
otherwise, attributing the ungrammaticality to the fact that the perceiver in (25) is non-
agentive, whereas in (26), it is agentive. Landau does comment, in a footnote, that there is
a small class of “to see” verbs which are grammatical such as the following (Landau
1999, 26, fn. 14; Pylkkänen 2002, 48).
(27) Gil ra’a le-Rina et ha-pupik
PN saw to-Rina Acc the-belly.button
Gil saw Rina’s belly button
Landau attributes the grammaticality of (27) to the fact that ha-pupik “the belly button” is
a part of the body and, in Landau’s view, inalienable; this follows from a fairly common
analysis among generativists, namely that inalienable possessors are generated at [Spec,
NP], whereas alienable possessors are generated at [Spec, DP]; the import of such a
structural description has long been recognized in functionalist circles at least since the
53