The Category P Features, Projections, Interpretation

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use (63c), me- (‘from’) defines its complement as a source (in its rather broad sense) of
an entity or an event, with no reference to path or motion. This is illustrated further in
(64):
(64) a. axarey še-nifgašti im ha-rofe mi-yerušala’im, hexlateti lehavri
after that-[I] met with the-doctor from-Jerusalem, [I] decided to+[get] well
“After I met the doctor from Jerusalem, I decided to get well.”
b. dan axal et ha-laxmanya ha-zot mi-carfat
Dan ate Acc the-bun the-this from-France
“Dan ate this bun from France.”
c. *dan axal et ha-laxmanya ha-zot le-carfat
Dan ate Acc the-bun the-this to-France
In (64a), where neither the doctor nor the verb met have a path meaning,
Jerusalem is understood as the place of work of the doctor. In (64b), France either
specifies the origin of the bun, or, according to quite a few speakers of Hebrew, it is the
starting point, the source, of the event of eating. Note that the ungrammaticality of (64c)
indicates that eat is not a path-denoting verb.
Based on the above, it can be concluded that the PP headed by me- (‘from’), unlike
the PP headed by le- (‘to’), is not necessarily Directional. In its non-Directional use it is
not dependent on a particular kind of a lexical head. In other words, as opposed to the
Hebrew Directional P, which is not a fully-fledged P R , the non-Directional Source P is a
regular predicate (P R ). Therefore, it does not have to form a complex predicate with a
lexical head denoting path.
In light of this, the following facts are not surprising (the relevant examples are in
(65a) and (66a), the (b) examples are given for comparison with the Goal P):
(65) a. ?ha-tiyul hu me-hodu
the-trip he from-India
“The trip is from India.”
b. ?ha-tiyul hu le-hodu
the-trip he to-India
“The trip is to India.”