'Ei helvetes dame’ : on Scandinavian pseudopossessors

In English In Scandinavian, nominal phrases can contain constituents that look like possessors without having a possessor theta role. These constituents, which I call pseudopossessors, come in three types: swearword pseudopossessors, measure pseudopossessors, and characterising pseudopossessors. I argue in this paper that pseudopossessors are -s-marked constituents that are located in the adjectival field inside DPs. They are also like adjectives semantically, and the suffixed -s is not the marker of a possession relation. Swearword pseudopossessors are also much like adjectives syntactically. However, measure pseudopossessors and characterising pseudopossessors are themselves DPs, and for this reason they may interfere with the realisation of a definite D in their host DP.