Pázmány Péter Katolikus Egyetem • Mini-course • 11–12 January ...

Pázmány Péter Katolikus Egyetem • Mini-course • 11–12 January 2013 • Internal structure of xPP (I) 

Q 

what is the internal structure of the xPP such that the word-order properties of Dutch adpositional 

phrases of the type in (1a–c) can be accounted for? 

(1) a. door het huis a. onder het huis (Dutch) 

through the house under the house 

b. het huis door b. het huis onder 

the house through the house under 

c. onder het huis door c. het huis onderdoor 

under the through the house under.through 

c. 

% 

onderdoor het huis 

under.through the house 

• Koopman’s (2010) most elaborate structure: (2), for directional xPPs 

(2) [ PathP Spec [Path [ CP(Place) Spec [+R] [C(Place) [ DegP(Place) Spec [Deg(Place) [ PlaceP Spec [+R] [Place [ PP P DP]]]]]]]]]]] 

 

 

 

 

P has a series of functional categories in its extended projection, two of which accommodate socalled 

r-pronouns (er etc.); whether SpecPathP accommodates r-words as well is a contentious issue 

that I will skirt here 

‘Place’ hosts place modifiers like boven as in boven in de kast ‘up in the closet’; these things tend 

to be particles, so this proposal represents the idea that particles are ‘functional prepositions’ 

‘Deg’ hosts single-word degree modifiers like vlak and pal ‘right’; in its specifier we find phrasal 

modifiers like tien meter ‘ten metre’ 

‘Path’, as its name suggests, is specific to path-denoting adpositional phrases; its specifier can host 

an entire prePP (the CP(Place)), producing a circumposition, or P’s DP complement (with P raising 

to Path, which in this case takes a complement smaller than CP(Place)), producing a postposition 

• Den Dikken (2010): (2) is insufficiently rich (more structure is needed for directional PPs); and 

though Koopman exploits the possibility of variation in the size of the xPP (Path is present only in 

directional PPs; the xPP does not always include a CP(Place); etc.), she does not present a theory 

regarding the allowable and non-allowable types of xPPs 

empirically, the most severe problem with Koopman’s analysis of directional PPs is that it cannot 

account for the fact that postpositional PPs (simple and complex alike) allow degree modifiers (tien 

meter het huis {onder/door/onderdoor}), and that prepositional and circumpositional directional PPs 

even allow two degree modifiers, as in (3) 

(3) het vliegtuig vloog tien meter (lang) tien meter (hoog) boven het strand langs 

the airplane flew ten metre long ten metre high above the beach along 

‘the airplane flew along the beach over a distance of ten metres, at a height of ten metres’ 

 

such examples clearly show the need to have a more elaborate functional structure for the directional 

portion of the xPP 

• Den Dikken (2010) presents (4) (using Koopman’s labelling, and following Koopman in assuming 

that Path is merged directly outside the xPP of the locative P) as the most elaborate xPP 

(4) [ CP(Path) C(Path) [ DegP(Path) Deg(Path) [ PathP Path [ CP(Place) C(Place) [ DegP(Place) Deg(Place) [ PlaceP Place 

[ [P DP]]]]]]]]]]]]] 

PP

Marcel den Dikken — Pázmány Péter Katolikus Egyetem — Mini-course 2013 — The syntax of adpositional phrases 

2 

 

but he rejects (4) immediately: ‘We have now posited two full-blown functional sequences leading 

up to CP, one for Place and one for Path, in the extended projection of just a single lexical head: P. 

This is not right. The structure in [(4)] is ill formed: no single lexical head supports two extended 

projections that are simultaneously present. This entails that, in order to accommodate the full array 

of modification and r-word placement possibilities of directional PPs, the path domain must be an 

extended projection of a lexical P head in its own right. In other words, [(4)] should be revised as 

in [(5)], with a lexical PP in between Path and CP(Place), and with the projections outside PP Dir 

serving as members of the extended projection of P , the directional counterpart to P .’ 

Dir 

Loc 

(5) [ CP(Path) C(Path) [ DegP(Path) Deg(Path) [ PathP Path [ PP P Dir [ CP(Place) C(Place) [ DegP(Place) Deg(Place) 

[ Place [ P DP]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] 

PlaceP PP Loc 

• Den Dikken (2010) goes on to demonstrate that, though (5) can be employed in full, many directional 

xPPs are structurally less elaborate than (5) 

he seeks to provide a principled account for the restrictions on the variation in the size of the locative 

and directional structural layers of the xPP 

he does so by relabelling some of the functional projections in the Koopman-style xPP on the basis 

of cross-categorial parallels with the extended projections of verbs and nouns 

‘Place’ and ‘Path’ are aspectual functional categories, corresponding to event aspect in the verbal 

domain (and number in the nominal domain) — the difference between locative and directional Ps 

is likened to the distinction between stative and dynamic Vs 

‘Deg(Place)’ and ‘Deg(Path)’ are likened to T and Dem, all brought together under the umbrella of 

‘deixis’ — temporal deixis (‘present’ vs ‘past’ vs ‘future’); demonstrative deixis (‘this’ vs ‘that’ vs 

‘yon’); spatial deixis (‘here/at the speaker’ vs ‘there/not at the speaker’ vs ‘yonder/far from the 

speaker’; ‘towards the speaker’ vs ‘away from the speaker’) 

(6) a. [ C [ Dx [ Asp [ V ...]]]] 

b. [ C [ Dx [ Asp [ N ...]]]] 

c. [ C [ Dx [ Asp [ P ...]]]] 

CP 

[FORCE] 

DxP 

[TENSE] 

AspP 

[EVENT] 

VP 

CP 

[DEF] 

DxP 

[PERSON] 

AspP 

[NUM] 

NP 

CP 

[SPACE] 

DxP 

[SPACE] 

AspP 

[SPACE] 

PP 

• V can take a variety of xVP complements, but one logically possible complementation pattern is 

unattested: there is, apparently, a local dependency relationship between Asp and Dx, so (7b) fails 

(7) a. V [ VP V ...] 

b. *V [ AspP Asp 

[EVENT] 

[ VP V ...]] 

c. V [ DxP Dx 

[TENSE] 

[ AspP Asp 

[EVENT] 

[ VP V ...]]] 

d. V [ C [ Dx 

[TENSE] 

[ Asp 

[EVENT] 

[ V ...]]]] 

CP DxP AspP VP 

 

assuming that this restriction carries over to spatial aspect as well, and that no special restrictions 

hold on xPP beyond this general one on the licensing of aspect, we expect that P Dir should be able 

to take three possible xPP complements 

(8) a. P Dir [ PP P Loc DP] 

b. *P Dir [ AspP Asp 

[PLACE] 

[ PP P Loc DP]] 

c. 

[PLACE] 

[PLACE] 

P Dir [ DxP Dx [ AspP Asp [ PP P Loc DP]]] 

d. P [ 

[PLACE] 

C [ 

[PLACE] 

Dx [ 

[PLACE] 

Asp [ P DP]]]] 

Dir CP DxP AspP PP Loc 

P Dir can, in turn, have a variety of extended projections; only some of these can be V-complements


3 

(9) a. V [ PP P Dir ...] 

b. *V [ AspP Asp 

[PATH] 

[ PP P Dir ...]]]] 

c. *V [ DxP Dx 

[PATH] 

[ AspP Asp 

[PATH] 

[ PP P Dir ...]]]] 

d. V [ C 

[PATH] 

[ Dx 

[PATH] 

[ Asp 

[PATH] 

[ P ...]]]] 

CP DxP AspP PP Dir 

(9b) is ungrammatical because Asp is locally dependent on Dx, throughout (cf. *(7b) and *(8b)) 

(9c) is ungrammatical because Dx 

[PATH] 

cannot be anaphorically bound by Dx 

[TENSE]; whenever a Dx 

head is not the immediate complement of C, it must be anaphorically bound by a higher Dx head (cf. 

Guéron & Hoekstra’s 1993 ‘T-chain’), but such binding succeeds only if binder and bindee are of 

the same type (i.e., both temporal, or both numeral, or both spatial) 

• non-directional xPPs serving as V-complements are apparently never smaller than CP 

[PLACE] 

— there 

is no postpositional order in non-directional xPPs; extraction from non-directional xPPs succeeds 

only in the case of r-pronouns; there is no P-incorporation with non-directional xPPs 

[NB: we can relate these properties of non-directional xPPs to the single hypothesis that non-directional 

xPPs serving as V-complements are always as large as CP , but why this is ostensibly the 

[PLACE] 

case is itself not clear at all; perhaps particularly intriguing is the fact that (9a.i), below, is a grammatical 

structure, so P Loc can incorporate into P Dir and, subsequently, into the V cluster, but it cannot 

incorporate into the V cluster directly, without the mediation of P Dir] 

for non-directional xPPs, therefore, we only have (9e) 

(9) e. V [ CP C 

[PLACE] 

[ DxP Dx 

[PLACE] 

[ AspP Asp 

[PLACE] 

[ PP P Loc DP]]]] 

• combining (8) and (9), we obtain (9) as the maximal space of variation in xPPs serving as verbal 

complements 

(9a.ii) is ungrammatical for the same reason (9c) is: Dx 

[PLACE] 

does not have a local C licenser, and 

[TENSE] 

cannot be anaphorically bound by the Dx of the matrix clause 

[PLACE] 

(9a.iii) is subject to speaker variation: only for those speakers who allow a locative CP in the 

complement of a directional verb is this structure grammatical 

(NB: since P Dir in the a–structures does not have an extended projection of its own, it must be 

incorporated into V for its licensing; P–incorporation leads to the ‘government transparency’ effect 

of turning the complement of the incorporated head into a derived complement of the incorporator) 

(9) a.i V [ P [ P DP]] 

a.ii *V [ P [ Dx [ Asp [ P DP]]]] 

% 

a.iii V [ P [ C [ Dx [ Asp [ P DP]]]]] 

b. *V [ Asp [ P ...]]]] 

c. *V [ Dx [ Asp [ P ...]]]] 

d.i V [ C [ Dx [ Asp [ P [ P DP]]]]]] 

d.ii V [ C [ Dx [ Asp [ P [ Dx [ Asp [ P DP]]]]]]] 

d.iii V [ C [ Dx [ Asp [ P [ C [ Dx [ Asp [ P 

DP]]]]]]]] 

e. V [ C 

[PLACE] 

[ Dx 

[PLACE] 

[ Asp 

[PLACE] 

[ P DP]]]] 

PP Dir PP Loc 

[PLACE] 

[PLACE] 

PP Dir DxP AspP PP Loc 

[PLACE] [PLACE] [PLACE] 

PP Dir CP DxP AspP PP Loc 

[PATH] 

AspP PP Dir 

[PATH] 

[PATH] 

DxP AspP PP Dir 

[PATH] [PATH] [PATH] 

CP DxP AspP PP Dir PP Loc 

[PATH] [PATH] [PATH] [PLACE] [PLACE] 

CP DxP AspP PP Dir DxP AspP PP Loc 

[PATH] [PATH] [PATH] [PLACE] [PLACE] [PLACE] 

CP DxP AspP PP Dir CP DxP AspP PP Loc 

CP DxP AspP PP Loc 

 

in total, there are four directional xPPs that can grammatically serve as verbal complements for all 

speakers of — (9a.i) and all versions of (9d); in addition, some speakers allow (9a.iii), which 

correlates three properties that distinguish these speakers’ varieties from others’ (such as mine):


4 

(a) 

(b) 

(c) 

the (in)ability of prePPs to occur in the complement of directional manner-of-motion verbs 

(op de heuvel wandelen ‘on the hill walk’ — grammatical on a locative reading for all 

speakers; ambiguous between a locative and a directional reading only for some speakers) 

the (in)ability of the postP portion of a circumPP to be incorporated into the verbal cluster 

% 

(dat het water onder het huis is < door>gelopen ‘that the water under the house 

is run) 

the (in)ability of the prePP portion of a circumPP to be extracted with stranding of the postP 

% 

portion ( onder welk huis is het water door gelopen? ‘under which house is the water 

through run’) 

• I will not go through the nitty gritty of the Dutch xPP data in any (further) detail here (referring you 

to Koopman’s and Den Dikken’s papers for extensive exemplification and discussion) 

I only draw attention to a major problem with Den Dikken’s analysis of circumPPs, based on (9d.iii) 

the claim is that circumPP order results from raising CP 

[PLACE] 

in (9d.iii), which is prepositional, to 

SpecCP 

[PATH], yielding the ‘P Loc DP P Dir’ order that characterises circumPPs 

the problem is that, as (3) shows, in circumPPs are simultaneously modified by both a path modifier 

and a place modifier, the two modifiers are adjacent, with the former preceding the latter — (3), 

which is the expected word order on Den Dikken’s (2010) analysis of circumPPs, is ungrammatical 

[PLACE] 

[PATH] 

it seems that the landing-site of leftward movement of CP must be lower than SpecCP 

(3) *het vliegtuig vloog [ CP(Path) [ CP(Place) tien meter (hoog) boven het strand] [tien meter (lang) langs]] 

the airplane flew ten metre high above the beach ten metre long along 

Q where is the external argument of a predicative xPP base-generated? 

a question not addressed by either Koopman (2010) or Den Dikken (2010) 

• the subject of a predicative xPP surfaces, of course, outside the entire xPP 

but as is well known, the surface position of a subject is not necessarily its base position: subjects 

have a tendency to raise 

Q-float is generally a good diagnostic for the position(s) harbouring an empty category linked to the 

subject — specifically, a trace; as Baltin notes, PRO behaves differently from raising 

(10) a. the children seemed all to have left 

b. *the children promised Mary all to leave 

c. *all to leave would be difficult for them 

• a floating Q associated with the subject of the xPP is possible inside an xPP 

(11) (wat de tafel betreft), [er allemaal boven op] liggen de boeken 

what the table concerns there all up on lie the books 

‘as for the table, the books are all lying up on top of it’ 

(12) (wat de verdediging betreft), met [de spitsen [er allebei hooguit een halve meter achter]] 

what the defence concerns with the forwards there both at.most a half metre behind 

ziet de scheidsrechter nooit of het buitenspel is 

sees the referee never whether it off.side is 

‘as for the defence, with the forwards both at most half a metre behind it, the referee will 

never be able to see whether they’re off-side or not’


5 

 

 

the topicalisation and with-absolute constructions are ideal testing grounds because they guarantee 

that er, the r-pronoun, is still within the maximal xPP: in these examples, er cannot have scrambled 

(for obvious reasons in the case of (11); and for the with-absolute in Dutch the ungrammaticality of 

placement of er to the immediate right of met ‘with’ (*met er de spitsen...) indicates that scrambling 

is also impossible there) 

note that topicalisation of a predicate along with a FQ belonging to its subject is grammatical only 

if the subject has raised up, not if the subject of the topicalised predicate is a PRO controlled by the 

matrix subject (in line with Baltin’s findings) 

(13) a. [allebei doodziek] zijn we van de verkiezingscampagne 

both dead.sick are we of the election.campaign 

b. *[allebei naakt] stonden ze voor het raam 

both naked stood they in.front.of the window 

c. *[allebei koud] at hij de kroketten 

both cold ate he the croquettes 

 

 

Q 

so in (11) we must be dealing with a trace of the subject, de boeken ‘the books’, somewhere inside 

the fronted constituent headed by op ‘on’ 

similarly, in (12), there must be a trace of de spitsen ‘the forwards’ somewhere inside the xPP of 

achter ‘behind’ 

where is this trace? 

• an investigation of the xVP is helpful for comparison 

in (6a), I presented a reasonably detailed picture of the xVP 

[FORCE] [TENSE] [EVENT] 

(6a) [ CP C [ DxP Dx [ AspP Asp [ VP V...]]]] 

 

 

but (6a) conspicuously does not include the v that Chomsky (1995:Chapter 4) holds responsible for 

introducing the external argument of the VP predicate — the RELATOR of the predicate and its subject, 

in the terminology of Den Dikken (2006) 

there is reason to believe that this RELATOR is introduced outside the projection of Asp — one interesting 

argument to this effect comes from (14): (14a), with a delimited/bounded event, is an idiom 

and provides a different è-role to the subject than does (14b), with a non-idiomatic unbounded event 

(14) a. he kicked the bucket in an hour idiom only (‘he died in an hour’) 

b. he kicked the bucket for an hour literal only (‘his foot hit the bucket for an hour’) 

 

so I situate RP (= Chomsky’s vP; but I will use category-neutral terminology here to facilitate crosscategorial 

comparison) between Dx and Asp 

(15) [ CP C 

[FORCE] 

[ DxP Dx 

[TENSE] 

[ RP SUBJECT [RELATOR [ AspP Asp 

[EVENT] 

[ VP V...]]]]]] 

• transposing this to the xPP leads to the hypothesis that the subject of a predicative xPP originates 

within CP, once again between Dx and Asp, as in (16) 

[SPACE] [SPACE] [SPACE] 

(16) [ CP C [ DxP Dx [ RP SUBJECT [RELATOR [ AspP Asp [ PP P...]]]]]]


6 

 

the fact that a FQ can occur between the r-word er and boven ‘up’ (which Koopman treats as a spellout 

of her Place, my Asp ), as in (11), is now immediately accounted 

[ SPACE] 

for 

(17) [ CP er [C[SPACE] [ DxP Dx 

[SPACE] 

[ RP allemaal t SU [RELATOR [ AspP Asp 

[SPACE] 

=boven [ PP op ...]]]]]]] 

 

to account for (12), we may either part ways with Koopman and treat phrasal een halve meter ‘half 

a metre’ as an adjunct to AspP (which would be more in line with the standard treatment of ‘time 

frame adverbials’ like for/in x amount of time in the literature) or assume that it is adjoined to DxP 

below the ‘structural subject position’ within xPP, SpecDxP, and that allebei is stranded in DxP 

(18) a. [ CP er [C[SPACE] [ DxP Dx 

[SPACE] 

[ RP allebei t SU [RELATOR [ AspP .5m [ AspP Asp 

[SPACE] 

[ PP achter ...]]]]]]]] 

b. [ CP er [C[SPACE] [ DxP allebei t SU [ DxP .5m [ DxP Dx 

[SPACE] 

[ RP t SU [RELATOR [ AspP Asp 

[SPACE] 

[ PP achter 

...]]]]]]]] 

 

there is empirical reason to believe that (18b) is not right: if een halve meter ‘half a metre’ could be 

adjoined as high as DxP, one would expect allebei to freely be able to surface to its right; but as a 

matter of fact, allebei can occur in this position only on a marked focus reading, with emphasis on 

allebei [the ‘#’ diacritic is meant to bring this out: (19b) is bad in a neutral context, but grammatical 

in a special pragmatic context in which focus on the FQ is felicitous] 

(19) a. met [de spitsen [er allebei hooguit een halve meter achter]] 

with the forwards there both at.most a half metre behind 

b. 

# 

met [de spitsen [er hooguit een halve meter allebei achter]] 

 

exactly the same effect is found in the clause, with bare-nominal time-frame adverbials like een 

halve minuut ‘half a minute’ 

(20) a. ze stonden allebei een halve minuut stil 

they stood both a half minute still 

‘they both stood still for half a minute’ 

b. 

# 

ze stonden een halve minuut allebei stil 

 

 

 

this strongly enhances the parallel between spatial modifiers like een halve meter ‘half a metre’ and 

temporal-aspectual time-frame modifiers like een halve minuut ‘half a minute’ 

I conclude that it is AspP, not DxP, that phrasal modifiers like een halve meter ‘half a metre’ are 

attached to — in parallel with time frame adverbials 

this now fully divorces DxP from the role that it has in Koopman’s proposal (recall that Koopman 

labels it ‘DegP’ and uses it specifically to host modifiers like vlak ‘right’ and tien meter ‘ten metre’) 

— the relabelling of DegP as DxP already loosens the link between this projection and modifiers 

(see Den Dikken 2010:103); the conclusion, based on the Q-float data, that even phrasal modifiers 

like een halve meter ‘half a metre’ are not attached to DxP/DegP, weakens that link even further 

• the hypothesis that the RELATOR linking the predicate to its subject is projected outside AspP is 

empirically supported by the fact that FQs cannot show up to the right of things like pal ‘right’ and 

boven ‘up’ 

[NB: Koopman has different positions for boven (Place=Asp) and pal (Deg=Dx); with degree modifiers 

shifted down to AspP, this positional difference is either lost or (preferably) recast in such a 

way that boven appears in the complement of Asp, as a particle (cf. aux verb) between Asp and PP]


7 

(21) a. [er allemaal pal boven op] liggen de boeken [cf. (11)] 

there all right up on lie the books 

b. *[er pal allemaal boven op] liggen de boeken 

c. *[er pal boven allemaal op] liggen de boeken 

(22) *[ CP C 

[SPACE] 

[ DxP Dx 

[SPACE] 

[ RP SUBJECT [RELATOR [ AspP Asp 

[SPACE] 

[ PP allemaal [P...]]]]]]] 

 

Q 

(22) is ungrammatical because, in general, a FQ must not be c-commanded by the trace of the noun 

phrase that it is associated with 

why is (23b) ungrammatical, in stark contrast to (23a)? — put differently, why can the subject of the 

xPP not surface in its base-generation site in these with-absolute constructions? 

(23) a. met [de spitsen er allebei een halve meter achter] 

with the forwards there both a half metre behind 

b. *met [er de spitsen allebei een halve meter achter] 

 

the obvious problem with (23b) is that de spitsen, which is supposed to check Case with met, is prevented 

from doing so by the intervening er — more technically, with er in SpecCP , there is a 

[SPACE] 

phase boundary between met and de spitsen in (23b), which causes the derivation to crash 

Q where, then, is de spitsen in (23a), and how does it manage to get there? 

the answer to the first question must be ‘outside the CP 

[SPACE] 

of achter altogether’ 

the answer to the second question must be ‘via raising’ — after all, de spitsen cannot receive a è-role 

outside CP 

[SPACE] 

(met ‘with’ in absolutive constructions is not a è-role assigner) 

since the xPP of achter is as large as a full CP, and since de spitsen ‘the forwards’ must have 

originated inside this CP and have raised out of it, the conclusion emerges that ‘NP-raising’ can traverse 

CP boundaries; exactly how this is possible is a topic for research 

[NB: in the literature on raising, grammatical cases of ‘superraising’ and ‘hyperraising’ have been 

documented for diverse languages; I have always taken these to be instances of (covert) ‘copy raising’ 

instead (cf. he seems like he’s enjoying himself), which arguably does not involve trans-CP 

movement; possibly, this is what we are dealing with in (23a) as well] 

• back to (3), repeated below: a directional circumPP featuring two space-frame modifiers 

Q where can FQs show up in this string? 

to test this, we need an example in which the subject is plural, as in (24); the topicalisation cases in 

(25a–c) provide the experimental stimuli 

(24) de vliegtuigen vlogen tien meter (lang) tien meter (hoog) boven het strand langs 

the airplanes flew ten metre long ten metre high above the beach along 

‘the airplanes flew along the beach over a distance of ten metres, at a height of ten metres’ 

(25) a. [er allebei tien meter lang tien meter hoog boven langs] vlogen de vliegtuigen 

there both ten metre long ten metre high above along flew the airplanes 

b. 

?[er tien meter lang allebei tien meter hoog boven langs] vlogen de vliegtuigen 

c. 

#[er tien meter lang tien meter hoog allebei boven langs] vlogen de vliegtuigen 

d. 

[er 

allebei tien meter lang allebei tien meter hoog boven langs] vlogen de vliegtuigen


8 

 

 

 

 

 

the judgements for (25a) and (25c) are clear: the former is perfect, and the latter is good only with 

focus on the FQ, as previously 

my judgement for (25b) is not perfectly crisp, but it strikes me as acceptable 

[(25d) sounds pretty horrid, but it is hard to say whether this is due to grammatical or extragrammatical 

causes (so I leave the diacritic for this sentence undecided): (25d) really is pushing the limit; 

it is virtually impossible to find a context that would justify the use of two FQs] 

this suggests that there is a subject-of-predication inside the locative portion of a complex directional 

PP 

it is the directional xPP that is predicated of de vliegtuigen; the locative portion of the directional 

xPP is not (directly) predicated of de vliegtuigen 

so we have two subjects of predication, and we also need a structural subject position inside the 

locative portion of the structure, in order to make it possible for the subject to raise and license a FQ 

(26) [ er [C [ t [Dx [ allebei t [RELATOR [ [tien meter lang [Asp [ langs 

[ t [C [ PRO [Dx [ allebei t [RELATOR [ [tien meter hoog [Asp [ boven 

[DIR] [DIR] [DIR] 

CP DxP SU RP SU AspP PP 

[LOC] [LOC] [LOC] 

CP er DxP RP PRO 

AspP PP 

NB 

though a FQ cannot be locally associated to PRO, it can of course perfectly well be associated to the 

trace of PRO: (10b,c) both have grammatical variants with all to the right of to 

• the FQ facts have thus led us to the conclusion that a complex directional circumPP such as (24) is 

internally a control structure — effectively just the same as what we have in, say, (27) 

(27) the children both tried [PRO to both be successful] 

 

this result, if it holds up to further scrutiny, solidifies the parallel between xPPs and xVPs, and justifies 

Den Dikken’s (2010) decision to relabel Koopman’s functional projections as AspP and DxP 

• at least two empirical questions remain 

Q1 how to deal with word orders in which the FQ appears in front of the r-pronoun, as in (28)? 

? 

(28) [allemaal er pal boven op] lagen de boeken 

all there right up on lie the books 

 

er could potentially be in a lower position here, in particular, SpecAspP (cf. Koopman’s SpecPlaceP) 

Q2 how to deal with the difference between definite er and indefinite ergens in (29)? 

(29) a. [er allemaal pal boven op] liggen de boeken 

there all right up on lie the books 

b. [ergens allemaal pal boven op] liggen de boeken 

somewhere all right up on lie the books 

b. [allemaal ergens pal boven op] liggen de boeken 

 

 

 

while (29b) is grammatical, it forces a [+specific] reading onto indefinite ergens; for a non-specific 

reading, (29b) must be used 

this is probably merely a matter of scope (relative to the universal FQ), but it may be indicative of 

something more profound 

the difference between er and ergens is relevant also in the context of the discussion of P-doubling 

in Flemish

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