Some Observations on the Syntax of Adpositions of Movement

This paper discusses the internal structure of adpositional phrases and provides evidence for the view that, even when analyzing one single language, distinct syntactic patterns need to be set up in order to cope adequately with the data. The focus of the paper is on prepositions of movement in French. It is shown that, for a the case at hand, at least six patterns need te be distinguished. Section 1 presents the standard view of prepositions as the lexical head of a PP; in section 2, it is shown that this view is appropriate for handling most instances of prepositions of movement. The remainder of this paper discusses various cases where the standard view does not hold. Section 3 deals with two instances where prepositions of movement do not have the properties of a head, namely, when they function as case markers or as co-heads to the noun. Sections 4–6 treat three additional patterns; they involve the use of prepositions as nonsubordinating interpositions, as particles tightly linked to the higher predicate, and as specifiers of another preposition. The final section (7) will present a number of conclusions that may be drawn from these observations.