When Particles Won't Part - CUNY Graduate Center

Marcel den Dikken — When Particles Won’t Part
2 Double particles
Particles generally will not combine with other particles — multiple particle constructions of the type in (18c)
are ungrammatical, in Dutch as well as in English.
(18) a. dat Jan de brieven op stuurde (Dutch)
that Jan the letters up (‘out’ ) sent
b. dat Jan de brieven weg stuurde
that Jan the letters away sent
c. *dat Jan de brieven {op weg} stuurde
Jan sent the letters up away sent
This fact receives a natural explanation on the basis of the analysis of verb–particle constructions outlined
in section 1: the particle is the head of the verb’ s complement; the binary branching hypothesis (antisymmetry)
prevents the verb from taking more than one complement, whence the ban on multiple particles. As Hoekstra,
Lansu & Westerduin (1987) point out, this ban extends in an interesting way to Dutch verbs prefixed with be-,
ver- and ont- (cf. (19) for illustration for ver-) — these verbs refuse particles in their complements
altogether. This follows directly from the ban on multiple particles on Hoekstra, Lansu & Westerduin’ s
assumption that be-, ver- and ont- are themselves (prefixal, obligatorily incorporated) particles that assign a
2-role to the object (henceforth, ‘thematic particle’ or ‘2-Prt’ for short). The ungrammaticality of (19c) in
parallel to (18c) thus supports a particle approach to these verbal prefixes; an analysis which treats these
prefixed verbs as garden-variety verbs would leave us empty-handed when it comes to explaining why these
particular verbs, in contrast to other dynamic verbs, resist particles in their complements.
(19) a. dat Jan de brieven verstuurde
that Jan the letters VER-sent
b. dat Jan de brieven op/weg stuurde
that Jan the letters out/away sent
c. *dat Jan de brieven op/weg verstuurde
that Jan the letters out/away VER-sent
Hoekstra, Lansu & Westerduin’ s argument carries over to inseparable particle verbs like overkómen
‘happen’ , as shown in (20) (where the acute accent indicates stress placement; inseparable overkómen
contrasts with óverkomen ‘come over, come to visit’ , which is separable and has compositional semantics).
(20) a. dat dat me weleens zal kómen (Dutch)
that that me sometime over will over-come
b. dat dat me slecht zal komen
that that me badly out will out-come
c. *dat dat me slecht uit zal overkomen
that that me badly out will over-come
There is good reason, therefore, to assume a structure of the type in (12a) (repeated below as (21))
for inseparable prefix verbs like versturen and overkómen. It is with the aid of this structure that we can
understand why these complex verbs resist particles in their complements: they already have a particle in their
complement, the one that is coindexed with the prefixed particle inside the complex V.
8