Deriving composite roles in syntax

Abstract

As its starting point, this article examines the distribution of dative argument-like dependents in Russian, which often alternate with PPs headed by the preposition u ‘at’. It addresses the question of whether the various interpretations of these phrases instantiate syntactically motivated ambiguity or pragmatically resolved vagueness. We demonstrate that all relevant readings can be derived syntactically in a uniform way that makes use of and corroborates a compositional approach to thematic (semantic) roles. Specifically, a single DP can receive a composite role by matching the semantic features of several functional heads that it c-commands, which results in the apparent ambiguity of datives and u-PPs. We extend the proposal to datives and similar dependents in languages beyond Russian, including Albanian and other languages of the Balkan Sprachbund, as well as German and Romance.