The Category P Features, Projections, Interpretation

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lexical, of course) (see the discussion in 2.1.1). For instance, every, some belong to
the functional domain (arguably D), but they are undoubtedly meaningful. The Ps
under discussion differ from the mentioned functional Ds in that the semantic relation
of the former is logically interpreted as a two-place argument-predicate relation,
rather than as the operator-variable relation associated with the latter.
At this point one may note that the claim that Ps are not theta-assigners seems
inconsistent with the common assumption that (semantically contentful) locative Ps
assign inherent (i.e. theta-related) Case to their DP complement (7) (cf. Chomsky
1986). I believe that the notion ‘theta-assignment’ in the standard definition of
inherent Case is an unnecessary historical relic, namely it reflects the early GB
(Government and Binding) assumption (Chomsky 1981) that all arguments are
necessarily theta-marked by the selecting head (Julia Horvath p.c.). In fact, inherent
Case differs from the structural one in that only the former is necessarily assigned to
the argument of the Case-assigning predicate (rather than to an argument of another
predicate). On the assumption that inherent Case is assigned to the argument of the
Case-assigning head, whether theta-argument or not, locative Ps can be viewed as
inherent Case-assigners, without being theta-assigners. 21
To summarize, I have shown that the relation between a semantically contentful
P and its complement is not a theta-relation. The function of P is to specify the
semantic relation of its complement to another entity. The misidentification of this
relation as theta-assignment probably stems form the fact that both relations are
predicate-argument relations. The discussed relations, however, are not identical.
Thus while theta-relation entails argument-predicate relation, the opposite is not true.
Viewing the relation between a semantically contentful P and its complement
this way removes the only potential obstacle for the hypothesis that P is a functional
category (1). In other words, there is no reason to view the category P as lexical. On
the contrary, most of the properties of P are clearly functional, and even the one
property which may seem lexical, namely the relation between P and its complement,
has been shown to be fundamentally different from the corresponding lexical
property. In the following subsection further support is provided for the functional
nature of P.
21 For further discussion of prepositional Case see 2.2.1.