The Category P Features, Projections, Interpretation

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the Accusative Case in (56) is due to complex predicate formation proposed to take
place in the Hebrew Directional construction. Moreover, the Case of the nominal is
Accusative (rather than Locative (57c)) not only in the Directional verbal constructions,
but also when a Directional PP is combined with an appropriate nominal, as shown in
(57). Importantly, nominals in Russian do not assign Accusative, but rather Genitive
(57b):
(57) a. ekskursiya v les
trip in forest-Acc
“a trip to [the] forest”
b. ekskursiya Mish-i
trip Misha-Gen
“a trip of Misha”
c. ekskursiya v les-u
trip in forest-Loc
“a trip in [the] forest”
Interestingly, this Case variation is reminiscent of the variation discussed in the
previous chapter (3.3.1): A DP introduced by a P-morpheme of the locative variety,
such as v (‘in’) is Accusative, rather than Locative, in PP-verb constructions, as shown
in (58):
(58) dan verit v Sach-u
Dan believes in Sacha-Acc
“Dan believes in Sacha.”
In chapter 3, this Case-variation is attributed to the difference between the function
of the locative small prepositions in Locative constructions and their function with PPverbs.
In the Locative construction P is a predicate (P R ) assigning inherent Case,
whereas in PP-verb constructions it is a Case-checking device, P C . Recall that the
Russian Directional construction indicates that there is no Directional P-predicate (P R )
in the language. Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that the preposition used as