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Tipping the Scales: The Syntax of Scalarity in the Complement of SEEM
Author(s) -
Matushansky Ora
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
syntax
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.587
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1467-9612
pISSN - 1368-0005
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9612.00052
Subject(s) - complement (music) , predicate (mathematical logic) , verb , syntax , linguistics , mathematics , noun , argument (complex analysis) , function (biology) , scalar (mathematics) , philosophy , computer science , biochemistry , chemistry , evolutionary biology , complementation , biology , programming language , gene , phenotype , geometry
This paper argues for a syntactic and semantic distinction between the verb seem that takes propositional complements (i.e., CP and IP) and the verb seem that takes nonpropositional complements. The latter takes a smaller sized complement (in terms of the presence of functional structure), has a perceptual rather than epistemic interpretation, and imposes a scalarity–related restriction on its complement, which will be formalized as a selectional requirement of a DegP complement. The notion of scalarity, heretofore applicable only to adjectives, is extended to PPs, such as out of her mind , and nouns, such as fool . DegP is projected either if a predicate is scalar (has a degree argument slot) or to function as a landing site for QR of degree, which will be shown to function as the licensing mechanism for complements of seem