The Category P Features, Projections, Interpretation

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In a variety of languages, among them Hebrew, English and French, the Dative
and Directional (goal) PPs are headed by the same preposition (le-, to, à). Consequently,
the Dative and Directional constructions (1b,c) may appear to be non-distinct, and rather
similar to PP-verb constructions.
The Dative and Directional constructions can indeed be quite similar in some
languages (e.g. English), but in Hebrew, for instance, they are clearly distinguished.
Thus, unlike le- (‘to’), which can be either Dative or Directional, the Hebrew
preposition el (‘to’) is purely Directional, occurring in the Directional construction but
not in the Dative one (3):
(3) a. bart natan et ha-pras le-/*el lisa
Bart gave Acc the-prize to-Lisa
b. ha-pakid hifna et rina el ha-/la-menahel
the-clerk directed Acc Rina to the-/to+the-manager
Consider also the binding facts in (4) which indicate that the Dative and
Directional constructions in Hebrew are not identical:
(4) a. dan i natan et ha-pras le-acmo i /*lo i
Dan gave Acc the-prize to-himself /*to+him
b. be-ta’ut, ha-pakid i hifna et rina el-av i /??el acmo i
By mistake, the-clerk directed Acc Rina to-him/to himself
“By mistake, the clerk directed Rina to *him/himself.”
In light of the above, the goal of this chapter is to establish the function of the
Dative, Locative and Directional Ps. Comparing the constructions in a systematic way I
will show that in Hebrew each of the Ps is distinct (but in English, for instance, the
Dative and Directional Ps will be shown to perform the same function).
The chapter is structured as follows: Based on the binding phenomena, section 4.1
draws a distinction between the Dative P on the one hand, and the Directional and
Locative Ps on the other. In section 4.2 the Dative P is argued to realize the P C function.
Focusing on Hebrew, the Dative le- is shown to be an affix on D, rather than an
independent syntactic P-head. Section 4.3 establishes that the Directional P in Hebrew