Abstract
In this paper, I argue that Spanish prenominal and postnominal possessives target different external merge positions focusing on alienable possessive constructions. The analysis is developed alongside a proposal on the organization of DPs, according to which articles are merged as a DP-internal category between the domains assigned to direct and indirect modifiers. Prenominal possessives are determiners reanalyzed from direct modification adjectives whereas postnominal possessives are indirect modification adjectives that arise as predicates of reduced relative clauses. This analysis provides a principled explanation on the behavior of Spanish possessives that is lacking in the generalized idea that they are pronouns with a unique merge position. Arguments are also presented showing that syntax-driven phonological restrictions condition the derivation of DPs. The account successfully derives the core properties of word order variation and related issues within possessive constructions.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Luis Sáez, Ignacio Bosque, Luis Eguren, María Jesús Fernández Leborans, Isabel Oltra-Massuet, Carlos Piera, Fransesc Roca, and Cristina Sánchez for making this work possible, and the audience of GLOW 39 in Göttingen — in particular, Carmen Dobrovie-Sorin — for helpful comments. I am also indebted to two anonymous reviewers who helped improve this paper immensely. All remaining errors are my own. Part of the ideas in this paper was first explored in chapter 4 of my doctoral dissertation (Kim 2014).
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