The Category P Features, Projections, Interpretation

164
(99) a. ha-sefer (??/*hu) al ha-šulxan Locative PP
the-book (he) on the-table
“The book is on the table.”
b. migdal ayfel *(hu) be-pariz Locative PP
tour Eiffel (he) in-Paris
“The Eiffel tower is in Paris.”
c. ha-sixa *(?hi) im rina non-Locative PP
the-conversation (she) with Rina
d. ha-diyun *(?hu) al ahava non-Locative PP
the-discussion he about love
Pron is very marginal with Locative predicates (99a), unless, based on our world
knowledge, we identify the Locative predicate as a permanent (i.e. individual-level)
location of the subject, as in (99b). It appears, then, that Locative PPs denote present
(stage-level) locations, which, depending on a particular subject, can be interpreted as
the permanent (individual-level) location of the subject.
With non-Locative PPs (99c,d) Pron is obligatory. This can be taken to indicate
that non-Locative PPs, in contrast to the Locative ones, are individual-level predicates.
Note, however, that the obligatory occurrence of Pron does not render the examples in
(99c,d) fully grammatical (compare with (99b), (97b)). This suggests that the
individual/stage-level distinction is not what underlies the contrast between the Locative
and non-Locative PPs.
The marginality of the verbless copular constructions in (99c,d) is reminiscent of
the Directional copular construction repeated in (100a). In 4.3.3 I argued that (100a) is
not an instance of across copula predication by the Directional PP, but rather elliptic
modification (100b) (eliding the nominal has some effect on the grammaticality of the
sentence):
(100) a. ?ha-tiyul hu le-hodu
the-trip he to-India
b. ha-tiyul hu tiyul le-hodu
the-trip he trip to-India