Prepositions and Islands: Extraction from Dative and Accusative DPs in Psych Verbs

Abstract

In current research on the structure of DPs in Differential Object Marking and Dative Clitic Constructions, there has been an explosion of proposals suggesting that the preposition a present in both accusative and dative objects is not a true P in Spanish, but a morphological marker (Demonte 1995; Cuervo 2003; Ormazabal and Romero 2013a, b; among others). In this paper I analyse subextraction in the form of wh-movement out of both accusative and dative DP objects in psych constructions in Spanish. Experiencers have been held to be lower on the scale of resistance to different phenomena. Subextraction from experiencers introduced by a is a case at issue. Assuming van Riemsdijk’s distinction between lexical and functional prepositions, I claim that a does not project into a PP but rather occupies a Kase position above DP, endowed with an Edge Feature which allows subextraction if other conditions are satisfied.