The Category P Features, Projections, Interpretation

141
Although I will discuss the Directional Source P (me- ‘from’) in section 4.3.4, the
following binding facts are relevant here. Consider the behavior of the Source PP in
Hebrew, English and Russian:
(55) a. dan i hirxik et rina mi-meno i /*mi-acmo i
Dan removed Acc Rina from-him/from-himself
b. Dan i removed Rina from him i /*himself i
c. On i otodvinul Rinu ot *evo i /sebya i
He removed Rina-Acc from him/himself
Given the binding facts in (55), in Hebrew (55a) and English (55b), the Source P is
a predicate, but in Russian it is not (55c). Thus in Hebrew and Russian the Directional
prepositions behave alike; in the former they are predicates, in the latter they are not. In
English there is a split, the Goal P is not a predicate, but the Source P is.
4.3.3.1 Case in the Directional construction: It is well known that in some
morphologically rich languages (e.g. German, Russian, Latin, Greek, etc.), the DP
introduced by a (Directional) P in a Directional constriction is Accusative, rather than
Locative (Russian) or Dative (German and Greek), which are the ‘regular’ Cases
assigned by the corresponding Ps (cf. Emonds 1985:224). This is exemplified for
Russian in (56):
(56) a. dan zašol v komnat-u
Dan entered in room-Acc
“Dan entered the room.”
b. dan sidit v komnat-e
Dan sits in room-Loc
“Dan sits in the/a room.”
As mentioned earlier, the binding in the Directional construction in Russian
patterns with English rather than with Hebrew. Thus, there is no reason to believe that
analysis is adopted, it does not solve the problem; it accounts for the extraposition facts, but leaves the
binding facts unaccounted for.