Published April 29, 2020 | Version v1
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Aspectual datives (and instrumentals)

  • 1. Università di Firenze
  • 2. Istituto Universitario Studi Superiori (IUSS) Pavia

Description

Dative adpositions instantiate part-whole/inclusion (⊆) relations that hold between
the goal and the direct object in the thematic grids of ditransitives. We assume that
the same primitive part-whole relation is found: i) when the dative adposition is
used in locative contexts; ii) with genitive adpositions, as shown by the widespread
genitive/dative syncretism across natural languages. Instrumental inflections/ad-
positions are also an instantiation of the same primitive part-whole relation, but
they denote the reverse with respect to genitives/datives (⊇). We describe progres-
sive aspectual constructions involving adpositions, crosslinguistically. We propose
that the dative adpositions found in progressive periphrases are the lexicalization
of the same basic ‘part-whole/inclusion’ content: the part-whole relation does not
hold between argumental/thematic material but between two events, one event be-
ing the time of reference which is ‘part of’ the time-frame of a second embedded
event/set of events. The variation in the adpositions found with the Italian aspec-
tual periphrases is accounted for in the terms of the ‘direction’ (⊆) vs. (⊇) of the
inclusion primitive predicate that implies different interpretations: progressive vs.
prospective aspect, respectively.

 

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