Structure Matching and Structure Building in Marathi Complex Predicates

Abstract

This paper presents a descriptive exploration of three distinct types of complex predicates in Marathi with the aim of trying to answer deeper questions about structure building and structure matching in language. In particular, we investigate for each type, the selectional relations between the main and light verbs and the division of labour between them with respect to the lexicalization of the event structure in syntax. We show that a class of complex predicates in a language is not homogenous and that different types of light verbs contribute different kind of information. We analyze the different patterns of Marathi complex predicates using the framework of Ramchand (2008, 2016) which provides an explicit decomposition of the verbal domain required to account for the composition of complex predicates.