Danish in Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar - German ...

. e Phenomenon
.. Raising
e predicative copula is usually analyzed as a raising predicate that does not contribute
semantically, except for tense information in the case of finite forms of the copula (Frege
: p. ; Paul : p. ; Higginbotham : p. ). One property of raising verbs
is that they are not sensitive to the kind and/or number of their arguments, for instance
they allow for expletive subjects, which is – of course – compatible with the fact that
they do not assign semantic roles to their arguments. An example for an adjective that
allows for an expletive subject is laut (‘loud’):
()
In der Mensa ist es laut.
in the commons is it. loud
‘It is loud in the commons.’
e adjective laut also has a non-expletive version, and () is actually ambiguous between
the expletive and the non-expletive reading. With the expletive predicate, ()
means that the people, machines, or whatever, in the commons are loud, whereas in the
non-expletive reading the es (‘it’) could refer to a child.
German is a language that has subjectless verbs and adjectives. Müller (: p. –)
discusses the following examples:
()
a. weil schulfrei ist
because school.free is
‘because there is no school’
b. weil ihm schlecht ist
because him. bad is
‘because he is sick’
c. Für dich ist immer offen.
for you is always open
‘It is always open for you.’
Again such data is consistent with a raising analysis that raises the subject of an embedded
predicate if there is one but does not rule out embedded predicates that do not have
a subject at all.
.. Predicate Complex Formation
Certain verbs form a predicate complex in languages like German, Dutch, Persian, and
Hindi. e arguments of the verbs that are involved in complex formation can be scrambled
according to the general rules of the respective language. In addition parts of the
predicate complex can be fronted while arguments of the fronted heads may be le behind.
Adjuncts in pre-complex position can scope over different elements of the predicate
complex. An industrial-strength overview of the phenomenon in German can be
For a discussion of alternative proposals by ine, Montague, and Van Eynde see Section ...
(c) is quoted from Haider (a: p. ).
Dra of October , , :