Abstract
In this paper, I will show that an account based on the idea of Phrasal Spell-out can elegantly account for some puzzles regarding VN compounds in Romance languages, interpreted here as 'lexicalized modifying clauses'. I advance the hypothesis of a rebooting mechanism in extended projections as an alternative to the postulation of silent items to account for the ambiguous nature of VN words that can appear either as noun or adjectives/adverbials. With such an approach no compounding rules are involved and we do not need to resort to categorial underspecification to account for the ‘VN facts’.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 81-98 |
| Journal | RIvista di Grammatica Generativa |
| Volume | 37 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Publication status | Published - 2015 |
Keywords
- Italian
- idiom
- Phrasal Spell-out
- relative clause
- VN compound