The balance between syntax and morphology: Dutch particles and resultatives (original) (raw)

This paper focuses on Dutch verb-particle constructions and verb-resultative constructions. On the one hand, Dutch particles and resultatives share some properties; for instance, they mutually exclude each other. On the other hand, they show contrastive behavior with respect to, for example, movement. The similarities can be captured if to some extent, the two constructions receive the same analysis. It is argued that both particles and resultatives are base generated in a position adjoined to the verb. The differences between the constructions follow from the assumption that resuttatives are adjoined to the verb at D-structure, while particles are adjoined to the verb in the morphological component. This analysis has several consequences for the syntaxmorphology interface: (i) there has to be a separate morpholoNcal component, (ii) the relation between this component and syntax is determined by generalizing metarules, and (iii) morphological structures are visible to syntactic principles such as the proposed constraint on the complexity of heads.