The Category P Features, Projections, Interpretation

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.
Passivization is taken to involve the removal of Accusative and suppression of
the external argument of the verb (cf. Jaeggli 1986). I will take the specific similarity
to passive highlighted above (34) to indicate that le- in (30) removes Genitive Case of
the nominal. 22
This may seem as a strange state of affairs, as we are not familiar with
prepositions that remove Case, quite the opposite. Nevertheless, this, I claim, is what
le- functioning as P pred does. As mentioned before, prepositions either have φ-features
enabling them to check Case, or they have an external slot and project property
denoting PPs (e.g. about John). le- realizing P pred has neither; it cannot check Case, so
it removes the Genitive Case feature of the nominal. Consequently, the relevant
arguments of the nominal (Agent and Theme, see (33)) cannot be realized in their
theta-positions; the external one has to be saturated in the lexicon (see below), and the
internal one is externalized. As a result, the nominal has an external slot and denotes a
property. In other words, P pred (le-) creates a constituent ( le NP) that functions similarly
to that of a property denoting PP.
Let us clarify a bit further the status of the external argument (the Agent) of the
nominal. It is well known that this argument can be suppressed, namely not projected
syntactically. Non-projected arguments have to be saturated. Following Chierchia
(1995), there are two types of saturation: ordinary saturation (i.e. “simple” existential
closure) and ARB-saturation (Sat ARB , henceforth). Both bind the variable by
existential closure. However, unlike regular saturation, Arbitrarization (Sat ARB )
introduces a sortal restriction to humans that is both syntactically and semantically
projected in the form of a distinguished index.
It has been noted by Siloni (1997:91) that in Hebrew nominal contexts an Agent
can be implicit only when it is [+human] ((36a) vs. (36b)), which is typical of
Arbitrary (ARB) interpretation (see also Rizzi 1986, Cinque 1988, Szabolcsi 1992,
1994):
(36) a. haka’at ha-yeled (al-yedey axi-v) zi’aze’a otanu
beating the-boy (by brother-his) shocked us
“The beating of the boy (by his brother) shocked us.”
22 Since the ability to check Accusative is contingent in nominals upon the realization of the (Genitive)
Agent (33b), the removal of Genitive will automatically remove Accusative as well.