Aspect and argument structure in resultative passives: a nanosyntactic approach

Abstract

This article describes the main syntactic and semantic properties of resultative passive constructions in Catalan and presents a formal proposal for analysing them within the framework of nanosyntax (Fábregas 2008, Ramchand 2008, Starke 2009; i.a.). A resultative passive always expresses the result of a previous event, that is, a resultative state. However, there are two types of resultative states, reversible and irreversible (Kratzer 2000), each resulting from a different formation process. The proposed analysis argues that the formation of the resultative passive involves two formal operations: reduction of the event and argument structure of the original predicate and stativisation of the event structure. The reduction of the event and argument structure involves excluding the Initiation Phrase (Ramchand 2008) from the lexicalisation process. If the resultative passive lexicalises the event structure up to the Process Phrase, an irreversible state is formed; if it lexicalises only the Result Phrase, a reversible state is formed. The stativisation of the event structure is carried out by incorporating a central coincidence preposition into the verb structure, converting the predicate into a state.