Abstract

This thesis examines the syntactic structures within which a theory of predication may operate. The range of investigation includes saturation in adjectival structures, predicate nominal structures, genitive structures, and superlative nominal structures. ;A theory of adjectival structure and predication forms the basis for the remaining structures proposed in the thesis. It is assumed that when in construction with nouns adjectives are generated in either of two positions: as transitive heads of adjectival phrases, selecting noun phrase complements, or as intransitive heads of adjectival phrases, adjoined to noun phrases. How saturation becomes complete in either of these two possible configurations is demonstrated via a theory of thematic role percolation and discharge in which thematic attributes of adjectives found in one position are distinct from the thematic attributes of adjectives found in the other position. ;The theory of syntactic structure and predication is extended to simple predicate nominals introduced by "indefinite" determiners . It is shown that the configurations for intransitive adjectives and the nouns they modify generalize to the appropriate structures for predicate nominals. This partially relies on analyses proposing a similarity in logical form between adjectival modification and the behavior of the indefinite determiners. ;A look at the class of predicate nominals introduced by a genitive reveals that their distribution is the same as that of simple predicate nominals. Similar structures to those of the predicate nominals introduced by determiners are proposed for the genitive variety of predicate nominal. The theory of saturation is shown to support the proposed structures for genitive constructions, and evidence from Swedish, Finnish and Greek provides some cross-linguistic support for the structural claims. ;Superlative nominals may occur in the same distribution as other predicate nominals . As an expansion on proposals made earlier in the thesis about adjectival structure and the structure of predicate nominals, predication structures are provided for these superlative nominals. The superlative complement is argued to be sister to the superlative morpheme in these structures, following several proposals in the recent literature