Abstract
This chapter details the main properties of nominal expressions in Spanish and presents a syntactic structure to account for them. The chapter starts with a description of the types of arguments and modifiers allowed in these constructions (namely, adjectives, prepositional phrases (PPs), and genitive pronouns). The analysis of these data enables me to determine the basic design of Spanish nominal constructions and to explain the structural relations available in them. The structure introduced in this chapter follows Abney’s (1987) DP hypothesis, and is based on two main assumptions: first, following Grohmann’s (2003) interpretation of the division of the clause structure into three domains and its extension to the nominal domain proposed in Grohmann and Haegeman (2002), I assume that the nominal domain is split into three domains: a thematic domain, which contains the noun and its arguments; an agreement domain, where the arguments can receive case and phi-features; and a discourse domain, where the discourse information is encoded. Furthermore, I will assume Grohmann’s (2003) implementation of the anti-locality hypothesis, and propose that phrasal movements within nominal expressions cannot cross more than one maximal projection
The chapter ends with a brief appendix where some particular properties of genitive pronouns are discussed.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsAuthor information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ticio, M.E. (2010). On the Structure of Nominal Expressions. In: Locality Domains in the Spanish Determiner Phrase. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, vol 79. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3398-7_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3398-7_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-3397-0
Online ISBN: 978-90-481-3398-7
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)