Algunas consideraciones descriptivas sobre el uso de per part de (‘por parte de’) como introductor de argumentos nominales en catalán

Abstract

This paper aims to provide some information on the use of per part de as a preposition introducing noun phrase external arguments in Catalan. It is assumed that some nouns, like verbs, project an argument structure, i.e. DP is parallel to IP. One of these parallelisms concerns the passivization properties. In fact, authors like Picallo (1991) assumed that nouns can only be analyzed as licensing argument structure and having an event reading when they are passive and their agent is thus introduced by per or per part de. However, these constructions seem to be infrequent in medieval Catalan, which calls into question the preceding assumption. In summary, this paper will provide some evidence to prove that, while passivity is not directly linked to eventivity, a passive/active alternation has expanded in Catalan DP domain.