Hidden universal quantification and change of argument structure in particleverb constructions

Abstract

I propose an analysis of verb phrases called Ground Promotion constructions (cf. McIntyre 2007) , or involving ‘unpredicated particles’ (cf. Levin and Sells 2009), at the syntaxsemantics interface. The interface framework combines principles of Minimalist Syntax and Distributed Morphology with Discourse Representation Theory. The analysis follows the hypothesis of a parallelism between the verbal and the prepositional domain, i.e. Split-P Hypothesis, butpresents a different analysis for Ground Promotion constructions than the seminal paper Svenonius (2003): A silent passive p-head houses a hidden universal quantifier (HUQ) in the nucleus of which the implicit figure argument is existentially bound.