On the notion ‘minor preposition’

Since the introduction of the X-bar principles it is commonly assumed that prepositions are heads of PPs, in the same way as nouns and pronouns are heads of NPs. However, while this is well motivated for a large majority of the pronouns and the prepositions in many languages, there are also exceptions. More specifically, Van Eynde (1999) argues that the reduced or minor pronouns of Dutch—as opposed to their full or tonic counterparts— cannot head an NP, and the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that there are also prepositions which cannot head a PP. The first section introduces the distinction between major and minor categories. The second shows how it can be applied to the prepositions and presents a way of treating minor prepositions in HPSG. The third singles out the Dutch te (to) as a plausible candidate for a minor preposition treatment, and the fourth provides criteria for the identification of other minor prepositions. The concluding section points out the wider significance of these findings. 1 The major/minor distinction 1.1 Two types of personal pronouns Like French and Italian, Dutch has two types of personal pronouns: the full or tonic ones and the reduced ones, see figure 1. The most conspicuous difference between the two types is a phonological one: while the full pronouns can be stressed, the reduced ones cannot. In contrast to the clitic pronouns of French and Italian, which share many properties with affixes and which are in fact analysed as such in resp. Miller (1992) and Monachesi (1995), the reduced pronouns of Dutch are autonomous words. Notice, for instance, that they can be separated from their head by any number of constituents. person full forms reduced forms first ik, mij, wij, ons me, we second jij, jou, gij, u je, ge third hij, zij, hem, hen, hun, haar ze, het, ie Figure 1: The monosyllabic Dutch personal pronouns (1) ... ... dat that ze she me me toen then wat somewhat verlegen shyly om for een a vuurtje light vroeg. asked ‘... that she asked me somewhat shyly for a light then.’ In this respect they are just like the full forms, but—at the same time—there are also some clear syntactic differences. The most salient one is that the full pronouns can head a branching NP, whereas the reduced ones cannot. This accounts for the contrast in the following examples, quoted from Model (1991, 287-8). (2) Wij/*we we allen all hebben have daar there aan on meegewerkt. collaborated ‘We all have contributed to that.’ (3) Wij/we we hebben have allen all daar there aan on meegewerkt. collaborated ‘We have all contributed to that.’ Since verb-second clauses allow at most one constituent before the finite verb, the words which precede hebben (have) must form one constituent. As a consequence, if there is more than one word, the pronoun must be one which can head a branching NP, i.e. a full form.1 If there is only one word, though, as in the sentence with the floated quantifier, the pronoun does not head a branching NP and can hence also be realized by a reduced pronoun. The impossibility of the reduced pronouns to head a branching NP implies that they cannot take any local dependents, such as adjuncts or specifiers. Other differences concern the fact that only the full forms can be conjoined, topicalised and used in isolation, as in short answers and elliptical comparative clauses. (4) Ze they twijfelen hesitate tussen between Mark Mark en and jou/*je. you ‘They hesitate between Mark and you.’ (5) Mij/*me me hebben have ze they niets nothing gevraagd. asked ‘To me they did not ask anything.’ (6) Wie who heeft has dit this gedaan? done? Wij/*we. we