Slavic prefixes inside and outside VP

Abstract

Most Slavic prefixes can be assigned to one of two large categories, lexical and superlexical. The lexical prefixes are like Germanic particles, in having resultative meanings, often spatial, but often idiosyncratic. The superlexical prefixes are like adverbs or auxiliary verbs, having aspectual and quantificational meanings. I present a syntactic account of the two types of prefix, arguing that the lexical ones are to be analyzed essentially like the Germanic particles, and that their VP-internal position accounts for many of their properties, while the superlexical ones originate outside VP.