| his thesis develops an analysis of Reduced Constructions in Spanish. Reduced Constructions include Causative, Perception Verb, and Restructuring Constructions. These constructions are of interest because they exhibit both mono- and bi-clausal characteristics.;Chapter 4 and 5 extend the VP-complement analysis to constructions introduced by causative and perception verbs. Chapter 4 argues that these are best treated as ECM verbs, at least some of the time. Chapter 5 examines the issue of Case assignment in these constructions, as well as faire-par constructions. This chapter provides evidence that both the variable case-marking and the existence of faire-par constructions follows from an ECM analysis of these constructions.;Chapter 6 presents evidence for an agreement account of Spanish clitics. It then argues that the clitic climbing facts (i.e., the phenomenon of clitic pronouns that correspond to arguments of the embedded verb attaching to the matrix verb) follow from the VP-complement analysis and a "relativized minimality" theory of government. Chapter 7 examines two putative bi-clausal characteristics of reduced constructions: the failure of some reflexives and passives. It proposes that these facts follow from the variable statues of the embedded subject argument. In some cases this subject argument can be internalized, allowing for long reflexives and passives; in other cases, the argument projects inside the embedded VP, disallowing these phenomena, and giving the impression of bi-clausality.;This thesis explores what is known as the VP-complement hypothesis. This approach proposes that a characteristic of Reduced Constructions is that they may subcategorize for a VP, rather than a full clausal complement. In this way the mono-clausal characteristics are treated as a consequence of a mono-clausal representation. Chapters 2 and 3 present the details of the VP-complement analysis for Restructuring Constructions. Chapter 2 argues for the constituent structure entailed in a VP-complement analysis and against a verb-raising approach. Chapter 3 works out the details of... |
