A head-movement approach to construct-state noun phrases

This paper proposes an analysis of construct-state noun phrases in Modern Hebrew which argues for a strict parallelism between the internal structure of noun phrases and sentences. Recent proposals to analyze the S(entence) as the maximal projection of INFL(ection) and the noun phrase as the maximal projection of D(eterminer) are exploited to extend the treatment of sentence subjects to subjects of noun phrases. This extension accounts for the relative position of genitives as well as the lack of overt genitive anaphors in the construct-state construction. In addition, the absence of prenominal definite articles in construct-state noun phrases is shown to follow from the assumption that D is the noun-phrase counterpart of INFL.