A Minimalist Analysis of Participial Constructions: Absolutes and Reduced Relatives

This book proposes that past participial constructions are the expressed complement of vP/CP phases (Chomsky 2001, 2005). If correct, this calls for a minimalist reanalysis of non-finite structures as phases, given the possibility to end a derivation at intermediate Spell-Outs. The analysis is based on an extensive survey of participial constructions across languages and historical periods extracted from diachronic and contemporary corpora as well as the specialized literature. Participial constructions present exceptional characteristics. Absolute participials test for unaccusativity, as they ban unergative verbs (Perlmutter 1978, Rosen 1983, Belletti 1990). Participial relatives also share this peculiarity (Williams 1975, Burzio 1986, Levin & Rappaport 1986). Additionally, they behave in a manner unexpected of relatives. The Accessibility Hierarchy (Keenan & Comrie 1977) predicts that a relative clause should be able to relativize subjects (e.g., present participles). In contrast, past participles relativize passive/unaccusative subjects only. Previous analyses had focused either on absolute participials or participial relatives, but not both.