The Category P Features, Projections, Interpretation

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In the few existing treatments of PP-verbs, the occurrence of the PP is assumed
to be rooted either in a Case deficiency of the relevant verbs (Hestvik 1991), or in
their thematic deficiency (Neeleman 1997, following Marantz 1984). Let us examine
to what extent such approaches to the phenomenon are explanatory.
3.1.1 The verbal angle
Hestvik’s (1991) claim that P in PP-verb constructions is a Case-assigner implies
that PP-verbs cannot assign Accusative Case to their complements, or, in the
Minimalist terminology (Chomsky 1995, 2000, 2001), that these verbs cannot check
and delete the Case-feature of their DP-arguments.
The categorial feature specification of V is [-N, -V] (Chomsky 1970). It reflects
the standard assumption in the GB (Government and Binding) framework (Chomsky
1981), that verbs are canonical Case-assigners. Thus, one does not expect to find
verbs which cannot assign Case by themselves, modulo Burzio’s generalization
(Burzio 1986). 3 In this respect, it is worth noting that the verbs under discussion, as a
group (there may be exceptions), are not unaccusative. Many of them, in addition to
the internal argument, have an Experiencer, Agent or Cause argument, which are
assumed to map externally (Grimshaw 1990, Pesetsky 1995, Reinhart 2000, among
many others).
In the Minimalist framework (cf. Chomsky 1995), (structural) Case is viewed as
a reflex of agreement between the φ-features of a DP and the φ-features of the
relevant (verbal) head. On the standard assumption, Agree with the (uninterpretable)
φ-set of the functional head T results in Nominative. Accusative is assumed to be
checked/deleted upon Agree with the functional head called little v dominating the
lexical verbal projection (Chomsky 1995, 2000, 2001; Kratzer 1996; Doron 2003,
among others). 4 Little v was introduced by Chomsky 1995 (inspired by the work of
Hale and Keyser 1992, 1994) as the verbal functional head which despite its
functional status introduces the external argument of a transitive verb with some
causative force (e.g. break, eat), and arguably the Experiencer argument of subject-
Experiencer verbs such as love or hate. The absence of little v entails the verb’s
3 It has been noted by Burzio (1986) that: A verb Case-marks its internal argument if and only if it
assigns a theta-role to its external one. This is referred to as ‘Burzio’s Generalization’.
4 Recall that I do not adopt the little v hypothesis (see chapter 1.2). However, for the sake of argument,
I consider briefly whether the existence of this head is of any significance for the identification of PPverbs.