Analysis middle constructions in English, accounting for their key syntactic and semantic properties. The analysis rests on the observation that there are certain similarities between middle, "tough," and recipe-context null-object constructions. (55 references) (VWL)

... null operators) and PF ellipsis/deletion processes when trying to account for a number of elliptical constructions like Right-Node-Raising ... movement which dispense with many of the null categories and ellipsis/deletion operations of ... This volume addresses some of the most important approaches to the following key questions in contemporary generative syntactic theory: What are the operations available for (syntactic) structure-building in natural languages? What are the triggers behind them? and Which constraints are involved in the operations? Internationally recognised scholars and young researchers propose new answers on the basis of detailed discussions of a wide range of phenomena (Gapping, Right-Node-Raising, Comparative Deletion, Across-The-Board movement, Tough-constructions, Nominalizations, Scope interactions, Wh-movement, A-movement, Case and Agreement relations, among others). Their discussions draw on evidence from a rich variety of languages, including Brazilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Croatian, English, Ge

The dissertation was inspired by the question of why subjects cannot undergo tough movement (1). (1) a. Jonathan Franzen is easy for Anneke to criticize b. *Anneke is easy - to criticize Jonathan Franzen. To answer this question, this dissertation proposes that a spec-to-spec anti-locality constraint (in the spirit of Erlewine 2016 and Brillman & Hirsh to appear) limits subject tough movement because the subject tough movement chain is "too short." Brillman & Hirsh's spec-to-spec anti-locality constraint is given in (2). Spec-to-spec anti-locality bans subject tough movement because subject tough movement would need to involve A movement from the embedded spec-TP to the immediately adjacent spec-CP. This movement chain is banned by spec-to-spec anti-locality. (2) Spec-to-Spec Anti-Locality A-movement of a phrase from the specifier of XP must cross a specifier projected by a maximal projection other than XP. Movement from position a to 3 crosses y if and only if y dominates a but does not dominate 3 A spec-to-spec anti-locality analysis of the ban on subject tough movement also provides an explanation for why gapped degree phrases, a syntactic structure that shows many parallels to tough constructions (Lasnik & Fiengo 1974) can license subject movement (3). This dissertation will show that, compared to tough constructions, gapped degree phrases have a structurally "larger" embedded clause, with a DegP layer dominating the CP layer. This DegP layer contains a syntactically and

In this dissertation, I investigate the apparently distinctive syntactic properties associated with the BEI-construction, the BA-construction, and resultative constructions in Mandarin Chinese, which I argue obscure properties that are universal across natural languages. In the case of the Mandarin BEI-construction, it exhibits both passive-like and tough-movementlike properties. I argue for a novel analysis of the BEI-construction as a passive construction, where the passive head/BEI hosts a composite probe [𝜙 + Ā], which triggers composite A/Ā-movement, in the sense of Van Urk (2015). The su