Splitting a coordination with with

Abstract

By investigating data on Japanese particle to ‘with/and’, this paper provides a unified analysis of three types of construction containing the particle to. We argue that a single to particle coordinating two elements is a conjunction particle (single to construction), while to selecting the coordination phrase (multiple to construction) and to adjoined to a single element (split to construction) are comitative postpositions. Under the proposal, the split to construction and the multiple to construction share the same underlying structure containing the single to construction. We also show that Russian coordinative and discontinuous comitatives are derived in a similar way to Japanese, following Ionin and Matushansky (2003). Our proposal suggests that a discontinuous comitative phrase and its associate universally form a constituent in a base structure.