the syntax and semantics of relativization and quantification

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must escape the vP before the level of interpretation. A statement of the Mapping
Hypothesis is as follows:
(5.42) Mapping Hypothesis [Diesing, 1992 p.10]:
Material from VP is mapped into the nuclear scope.
Material from IP is mapped into a restrictive clause.
5.3.3.2 Structure of existentials
Let us consider what these assumptions mean for CQ existential sentences like (5.3),
repeated here:
(5.43) Llama-kuna urqu-pi ka-n.
llama-pl mountain-loc be-3sg
‘There are llamas in the mountains.’
Llamakuna is an indefinite which is subject to existential closure and so must be
interpreted within the vP. The question of why llamakuna also does not behave like
an internal argument of the verb (shown in the previous section) will be addressed
below. Since I am not aware of any evidence of inversion of the locative over the DP,
I take it that llamakuna is merged to the verbal projection only after the locative
urqupi ‘in the mountain’ has been merged. (See [Fernández-Soriano 1999] for an
analysis in which the locative is actually the highest argument in Spanish impersonal
constructions.) I take urqupi to be a DP and not a PP (see Lefebvre & Muysken
[1988] for arguments that -pi is an affix and not a clitic). Therefore, -pi is a Case
marker on the nominal and not a postposition. The role of -pi may, however, be to
assign locative case to urqu ‘mountain’. I will therefore assume that kay does not
check the Case of the locative DP.
These observations suggest the following as a starting point for determining the
structure of (5.43).