Mahajan, Anoop - Two Types of Complex Predicates and Case in Hindi

Author: Anoop Mahajan

Title: Two Types of Complex Predicates and Case in Hindi

Date: Saturday, April 20, 2019

Location: Tucson, AZ, USA

Abstract: As is well-known, Indo-Iranian languages extensively use complex predicates. There is rich literature on complex predicates of the type illustrated in (1) in Persian, and (2) and (3) in Hindi:

Hindi uses both N-V (as in (2)) and V-V (as in (3)) type complex predicates extensively. The purpose of this talk is to start with a proposal about the structure of (3) that supports the idea that such structures involve two vPs with the higher v playing a role in case assignment (particularly of the ergative case we see in (3)), while the lower little v introduces the external argument. I will then transpose that structural analysis to the N-V complex predicate in (2) and suggest that these involve a light vP shell embedding an nP shell and show how this analysis can account for the case alternations in between (2) above with an ergative subject, and (4) with a dative subject and (5) with a nominative subject: