Hoeksema's Categorial Analysis

Hoeksema [10] proposes a lexicalist, categorial, analysis of Dutch verb clusters in which VR verbs are assigned polymorphic categories of the following type:

The $-symbol in these category-schemata represents a variable which can be instantiated by an arbitrary number of arguments, all of which must be dominated by a \. Thus, the category of willen subsumes VP/VP, (NP\VP)/(NP\VP), and (NP\(NP\VP))/(NP\(NP\VP)). Example (2b), for instance, is derived as follows (VP = NP\S):

Extraposition verbs are simply assigned a category which selects for a VP complement on its right, thus eliminating the need for a special extraposition-operation:

PE verbs, finally, are treated as VR verbs, that is, they also receive a polymorphic category (7). The difference between the two verb types is that for VR verbs, cross-serial word order is obligatory, whereas for PE verbs this constraint does not hold. We will explain below how this difference is accounted for.

The analysis of [10] differs from previous categorial analyses in that it derives the possibility of cross-serial word order as a consequence of the category of certain lexical items. Other categorial analyses have accounted for cross-serial word order either by combining a non-directional flexible categorial grammar with word order constraints [14,11,15] or by introducing disharmonic rules of composition [13,4]. This has the disadvantage that quite detailed and intricate constraints are needed to ensure that cross-serial word order arises only in the context of VR verbs. By using lexically assigned category schemata the latter is achieved naturally.