ABSTRACT
The previous chapter introduced the idea that a predicate consists of three ingredients: (i) argument-taking ability, (ii) temporality, and (iii) conceptual content. This further implies that a predicate is not a lexical primitive, but a syntactic construct. Specifically, I hypothesize that the three defining properties of a predicate are not localized in a single syntactic head, but are distributed in syntactic structure in the manner described by the following double-layered νP structure:
(1)
Each of ν1 and ν2 has the ability to introduce an argument expression in its specifier position. This is indicated by θ on ν. Temporality τ is a property of ν1. Neither of these properties belongs to ROOT, but only conceptual content π. (More precisely, ROOT itself is the syntactic realization of conceptual content π.) Here, I single out the claim that ROOT lacks temporality, and advance it as an independent hypothesis:
(2) The Zero Eventuality Hypothesis (ZEH) A root (i.e., ROOT) is devoid of temporality.
