Types of secondary predication

This paper focuses on adjectival secondary predicates and argues that they are functional projections of a secondary predicate (SP) category realized as two major varieties: DEP for depictives (and other SPs associated with the depictive) and RES for resultatives. These functional heads are each semantically specified to temporally link the state denoted by the adjective to an event (Pylkkänen 2002, Kratzer 2004). The present analysis assumes that the host NP is base-generated as an argument of the adjective and ends up occupying the specifier position of the secondary predicate phrase (SP- P). Based on Hornstein’s (2001) movement analysis of Control, the specifier of the SP-P moves into a θ-position (see also Grebenyova 2005 and Marušič et al. 2003). The syntactic and semantic distribution of secondary predicates support two configurations: syntactically-dependent SP-Ps (depictives and resultatives) are merged as complements of V; syntactically-independent SP-Ps (circumstantials and absolutes) are adjoined to VP.