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Argues that the polysemy view can not give a unified account of the meanings of can, may, must, and should, whereas the unitary meaning view does not encounter the problem. Unitary meanings are proposed that account both for the range of interpretations these modals can have and for why they get these interpretations. (21 references) (JL)

Margaret Speas'"Phrase Structure in Natural Language" is reviewed. It presents three recent innovations in phrase structure research that offer new tools to explain data and solve old problems: the VP-internal subject hypothesis, the layered VP hypothesis, and the articulated IP hypothesis. (Contains 19 references.) (LB)

The familiar linguistic diagram for language acquisition is held to be theory-neutral. Arguments of Lightfoot to the contrary are refuted, and theories about children's language acquisition are discussed. (Contains 11 references.) (LB)

It is hypothesized that a number of regularities in the distribution of the two types of inchoative constructions with the verbs of change of state in French can be captured by an analysis whereby monovalent verbs of change of state may project the Patient argument to the subject or to the object position. (Contains 68 references.) (LB)

It is argued that the restrictions on "wh"-movement out of negative and factive islands cannot be explained solely by the Empty Category Principle but that embedded properties assigned by matrix verbs also intervene. (Contains 48 references.) (LB)

Responds to counterarguments made by Haile and Mtenje (1988) concerning explicitness, arbitrariness, and complexity as it relates to earlier criticisms of an autosegmental analysis of Arabic verb morphology and the introduction of an alternative analysis presented in Hudson (1986). (eight references) (GLR)

This paper develops Ramchand's first phase syntax theory by investigating the Mandarin directional serial verb construction. Specifically, the position of the theme argument in these constructions is investigated, and two major word order variants are identified: the VOV type and the VVO type. The former are argued to be accomplishments, whereas the latter are achievements. The analysis embraces Ramchand's spirit that three sub-eventive projections (InitP, ProcP, and ResP) exist universally as the basic building blocks in the first-phase syntax, and it proposes that the surface word order alternation and situation type shift is the consequence of the occurrence/absence of the ResP and the different insertion position of the directional morphemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to fill in a long missing piece in the paradigmatic word-formation research: a set of rival affixes whose members are differentiated in meaning. We argue that such a set can be found in English derivational adjectivalization, in the affixal rivalry between the adjectivalizing suffixes -ed and -y. Using the traditional method of doublet comparison (Aronoff 1976, 2020), we reveal that adjectives of the form Xed and those of the form Xy (X standing for the source word) differ in the scale type. Xed adjectives are closed-scale adjectives, but Xy adjectives are totally open-scale adjectives. The scale-type difference explains why Xed adjectives combine with certain degree modifiers, whereas Xy adjectives do not. Furthermore, we show that the rival affixes are doubly differentiated in the deverbal domain in terms of the said output scale type and the input base selection. In this domain, the major sources of the closed-scale -ed adjectives and the open-scale -y adjectives are result and manner verbs, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argues that the imperative construction in English can be given a fairly orthodox syntactic representation assuming current principles in Government Binding Theory. A number of reasons are provided for claiming that the imperative construction contains a case-marked subject. (23 references) (Author/VWL)

A brief overview is presented of previous theoretical treatments of the verb-preposition construction, concentrating on three Government Binding Theory treatments. Arguments are outlined that support a different analysis of this type of construction. (24 references) (Author/VWL)

Examines the use of the neuter form in predicate adjectives, drawing examples from Swedish and French, and working within the framework of nexus constructions. (AM)

Examines the structure of inferentiality in Abkhaz verbs. (AM)

Argues that in an unmarked sentence the verbs will be stressed, and that in determining patterns of sentence stress the vital consideration should be the speaker's point of view. (AM)

Examines reflexivization in Italian and demonstrates that the proposals that (1) reflexive pronouns and their antecedents must be clausemates, and (2) the specified subject and tensed-S conditions, cannot be maintained as universals. (AM)

Examines use of modal auxiliary "should" when used to express probability as a weaker equivalent of "must." Study shows that in order to account for restrictions on use of "must" and "should," a theory must go beyond the syntactic and semantic characteristics and take into account semantic relations between syntactically unrelated sentences. (Author/BK)

Discusses 'rather than' sentences with tensed or untensed verb in second clause as having underlying form of comparative sentences. Concludes 'rather than' preceding a tensed clause represents the truth-functional connective 'and not' which contradicts claim that this connective cannot be represented lexically in natural language and raises challenge for theories that cannot represent linear order in underlying structure. (Author/BK)

This paper argues, utilizing Lexical Mapping Theory (LMT), that there are modern Greek deverbal nominal predicates that take syntactic arguments. A small set of simple unification-based operations is employed to model the relation between the argument structure of verb predicates and that of the corresponding deverbal nominals with an "eventive" reading. Contains 31 references. (MDM)

This paper examines the syntax of imperative sentences in languages in which imperative verbs have distinctive morphology. Imperative verbs with distinctive morphology either have a distinctive syntax (Modern Greek, Spanish) or distribute like other verbs (Serbo-Croatian, Ancient Greek). The contrast follows from properties of the root complementizer. Contains 55 references. (MDM)

This paper investigates postverbal imperative subjects (e.g., get you to school), ungrammatical in standard English but grammatical in certain contexts in dialects of Scottish and Belfast English. Henry (1995) reports that unaccusative verbs generally allow postverbal subjects in Belfast English, but in the Scottish English (ScotE) dialect considered here, only a very restricted subset of verbs allow it. Moreover, in ScotE, the preposition away can appear without an overt verb (I'll away to my bed); this also allows a postverbal subject in imperatives (away you to school). The ScotE data cast doubt on Henry's (1995) proposal that the licensor of postverbal subjects is weak agreement. The paper argues that the subjects in these constructions are actually external arguments of small clauses (of which goal PPs are taken to be a subset following, e.g., Beck & Snyder 2001). The differences between dialects are located in the structure of resultatives; Belfast English allows Case to be assigned to the subject of small clauses in resultative constructions via a functional head endowed with a causation feature, allowing them to remain in situ in imperatives. In standard English, the causation feature is directly merged onto the verb, not allowing for Case assignment and forcing raising of the subject of the small clause. The ScotE data is argued to arise from the availability of a very 'light' verb which is realized as get in some contexts and as silence in others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Persian makes extensive use of light verb constructions (LVCs) consisting of a non-verbal preverb and a semantically light verbal element. The current paper concentrates on LVCs with nominal preverbs (e.g. sedâ dâdan 'produce a sound', lit. 'sound give') which license an attributively used adjective intervening between the two components of the construction. Such LVCs are idiomatically combining expressions, in the sense of Nunberg, Sag & Wasow (1994: 496). The individual components of idiomatically combining expressions have an identifiable meaning and combine in a non-arbitrary way. Thus, they are conceived as being formed compositionally. Evidence for this view can be taken from the fact that the attributively used adjectives function as internal modifiers, targeting only the nominal component of the LVC. As adjectives can also be used adverbially, two modification patterns emerge: The nominal preverb is modified by an attributive modifier, or the same adjective can be used as an adverbial modifier of the whole LVC. Two corresponding interpretation patterns arise: Attributive and adverbial modification either both result in the same, or in different interpretations. The paper makes the following claims: First, only compositionally derived LVCs license attributive modification of their nominal preverb; and second, different interpretations of the two modification patterns only result if the light verb and the preverb each license a suitable property as a target for the modifier. If, on the other hand, such a property is only licensed by the preverb, adverbial and attributive modification result in the same interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the results of two acceptability judgment experiments that examine the effect of PP remnants with mismatching correlates in the antecedent clause (either a PP, with a distinct preposition, or an NP) on the acceptability of pseudogapping as well as non-elliptical controls. Across both experiments, three novel findings emerge: First, utterances with mismatching PPs across the ellipsis clause and its antecedent were consistently degraded relative to their preposition-matched counterparts. Second, this mismatch penalty arose for elliptical and non-elliptical variants alike with only minor differences between the two. Finally, a significant portion of the mismatch penalties was explained away by the degree of semantic similarity between the thematic relations established by the mismatching prepositions with respect to the antecedent verb which was measured in a separate norming experiment. We examine the consequences of these new empirical results for current theories of pseudogapping, namely (i) the remnant-raising analysis, according to which the remnant XP is raised leftward out of the VP prior to VP ellipsis, licensed under identity with its antecedent; and (ii) the direct generation analysis, under which auxiliaries are verbal proforms that recover their referent anaphorically without the need for remnant movement or syntactic identity between the verb and its antecedent. We conclude that the data are more naturally accounted for under the direct generation approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents an account of the (non-)realization of the DP shell in presuppositional clauses within a system where such clauses are uniformly DPs. It is argued that the DP shell is realized by a spanning verb (in languages like Russian) or a spanning complementizer (in languages like English). The analysis is extended to account for the distribution of complementizer drop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the syntactic representation of inner aspect in Hungarian. We contribute to the extant research on inner aspectual markers by providing an analysis of entailed versus implied telicity as well as the (non)maximality effects with which telic predicates are associated. Although we focus on the grammar of Hungarian, we also draw parallels between typologically different languages like Finno-Ugric (e.g. Hungarian and Finnish) and Germanic (e.g. English) regarding their inner aspectual marking strategies, and the interaction of inner aspect and case assignment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been observed that a subset of dative verbs that can express causation of possession such as cwu- 'give', ceykongha- 'offer' and cikupha- 'pay' may be found in the double accusative frame as well as in the DAT(ive)-ACC(usative) frame in Korean. These verbs contrast with transfer of possession verbs such as kennay- 'hand' and phal- 'sell' and verbs of sending and throwing, which are found in the DAT-ACC frame only. This paper presents a meaning-based account of the limited productivity of the dative/accusative alternation in Korean dative verbs. Building on Croft et al. (2001) and Levin (2004, 2008b), I argue that the semantic classes of dative verbs form an implicational hierarchy pure caused possession > transfer of possession > caused motion, which ranks verbs in terms of the degree of the compatibility with a caused possession event type. I suggest three criteria for compatibility between verb meaning and constructional meaning and show that the analysis of verb–construction pairings proposed here, when combined with an account of variation, provides a unified explanation for verb distribution patterns observed for ditransitive constructions within and across languages and the morphosyntactic expression of recipients of dative verbs in Korean. It accounts for the limited productivity of the dative/accusative alternation in dative verbs in Korean as a consequence of choosing the cut-off point at the highest end of this hierarchy, thus explaining why only the verb class that is most compatible with the caused possession event type, i.e. pure caused possession verbs, may be used ditransitively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Responds to criticism of an earlier (1984) paper in which it was argued that the complements of Welsh control and raising verbs should be analyzed as verb phrases (VPs) and not as clauses with empty subjects. The l984 position is defended against the traditional analysis in the three critiqued areas.

Tlapanec (Mè'phàà) is known for its enigmatic tonal alternation in verb forms according to person and aspect-mode categories, in addition to suppletion and other segmental alternations. In this paper, we argue that the tonal alternations observed in Tlapanec regular agentive verbs can be straightforwardly accounted for by phonology, without resorting to any extreme abstractness: the lexical tones of the prefixes and the verb stems, with underspecification and floating tones, and cross-linguistically common tone processes such as tone spreading and floating tone docking. Such a phonological (or a morpheme-based) approach is contrasted with a word-based approach, where tonal alternations are viewed as inflectional classes. We show that the phonological approach is more adequate than a word-based approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a new distinction between expressive and non-expressive particle verbs in German. The basic observation for our proposal is that these two classes behave differently in the domain of particle fronting. In order to explain this difference, we will show that certain particle verbs are extreme degree expressions and that, therefore, a possible contrast across degrees makes fronting acceptable, even when the particle in isolation is non-contrastable. Our claims are supported by a rating study probing German native speakers’ intuitions about the likelihood of the occurrence of an utterance, without relying on acceptability judgments. We connect these new findings to other forms of non-information-structural fronting patterns that endow utterances with an emphatic flavor. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The English auxiliary system exhibits many lexical exceptions and subregularities, and considerable dialectal variation, all of which are frequently omitted from generative analyses and discussions. This paper presents a detailed, movement-free account of the English Auxiliary System within Sign-Based Construction Grammar (Sag 2010, Michaelis 2011, Boas & Sag 2012) that utilizes techniques of lexicalist and construction-based analysis. The resulting conception of linguistic knowledge involves constraints that license hierarchical structures directly (as in context-free grammar), rather than by appeal to mappings over such structures. This allows English auxiliaries to be modeled as a class of verbs whose behavior is governed by general and class-specific constraints. Central to this account is a novel use of the feature aux , which is set both constructionally and lexically, allowing for a complex interplay between various grammatical constraints that captures a wide range of exceptional patterns, most notably the vexing distribution of unstressed do , and the fact that Ellipsis can interact with other aspects of the analysis to produce the feeding and blocking relations that are needed to generate the complex facts of EAS. The present approach, superior both descriptively and theoretically to existing transformational approaches, also serves to undermine views of the biology of language and acquisition such as Berwick et al. (2011), which are centered on mappings that manipulate hierarchical phrase structures in a structure-dependent fashion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In French and Spanish, both parts of the causative–anticausative alternation can be formally encoded in two ways: Depending on the form of the verb, marked and unmarked causatives and marked and unmarked anticausatives can be distinguished. The goal of this paper is to verify whether causalness is a factor in the encoding and whether the two languages differ in this respect (verbs used more often as causatives than as anticausatives have a high degree of causalness, while verbs used more often as anticausatives than as causatives have a low degree of causalness). On the basis of a corpus study of 20 French and 20 Spanish verbs, it will be shown that in both languages a strong correlation between causalness and encoding exists. A high degree of causalness increases the likelihood that a verb’s anticausative is marked and the causative is unmarked, and a low degree of causalness increases the likelihood that a verb’s anticausative is unmarked and the causative is marked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that Danish verb-second clauses have two structural instantiations and that each structure is associated with distinct information-structural properties. Information-structurally undifferentiated V2 clauses are realized as TPs, whereas information-structurally differentiated V2 clauses are CPs. The evidence for this correlation comes from the behavior of the overt VP anaphor det, which exhibits a complex, but principled, positioning pattern in V2 clauses. I develop a feature-driven analysis of V2 clauses that accounts for previously unnoticed restrictions on the initial position in declarative V2 clauses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether and how speakers track the relative frequency of different patterns of alternation in the lexicon, by investigating speakers’ behavior when they are faced with unpredictability in allomorph selection. We conducted a wug test on Seoul Korean verb paradigms, testing whether speakers can generalize reliable lexical patterns. The test was performed in two directions. In forward formation test, the pre-vocalic base and pre-consonantal non-base forms were the stimulus and response, respectively, whereas in backward formation test, the stimulus–response relation was switched. The results show patterns approximating statistical patterns in Seoul Korean verb lexicon, thus confirming the lexical frequency matching reported in many previous studies. However, contrary to the conventional assumption, the results of the backward formation test are consistent with lexical frequencies relevant for the forward formation, not backward formation. This observed asymmetry is broadly consistent with the single base hypothesis (Albright 2002a, b, 2005, 2008), in which forward, as opposed to backward formation rules play a privileged role in speakers’ morphological grammar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze genitive of negation (GN) in Lithuanian. When the verb is negated, GN is realized on an object that would otherwise be realized as accusative. We demonstrate that Lithuanian GN is a syntactic (in line with Arkadiev 2016) and morphological phenomenon in contrast to Russian GN, whose realization is influenced by semantic factors (e.g. Kagan 2013). It differs from Russian (Pesetsky 1982) in that (i) it is always assigned to a DP which would otherwise bear structural accusative regardless of its semantic properties, and (ii) it cannot affect a structural nominative DP regardless of whether it is an external or internal argument. Lithuanian GN, in this respect, is similar to Polish GN (e.g. Przepiórkowski 2000, Witkoś 2008). We offer a three-layered approach to case, arguing that GN is a reflection of structural object case, assigned in syntax, then translated to morphological genitive case at PF and, finally, realized at Vocabulary Insertion (Halle & Marantz 1993). Thus, structural object case has two morphological realizations: as genitive under negation or as accusative in the absence of negation. Lithuanian also exhibits long-distance GN (Arkadiev 2016), showing that case boundaries can cross non-finite clauses without an overt CP element, suggesting these are not phases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on Estonian verb-complement structures, which include oblique (non-canonically marked) complements marked in spatial cases. Not all approaches agree on whether canonical arguments and oblique complements have argument status of the same type, but they do mostly agree that the two types of complement markings are used by different types of verbs. First, oblique case is viewed as always indexing the original semantics of the case (direct semantics), that is osutama 'point at' selecting an allative ('onto') complement. Second, oblique case usage is seen as referring to a restricted set of syntactic relations (indirect semantics), that is Estonian allative and adessive being used for marking Experiencers. In any case, oblique complement verbs are viewed as more semantically restricted than canonical object verbs. This study tests these two hypotheses in a quantitative corpus approach. In a non-semantically extracted sample of verbs (n = 232), it compares the lexical-semantic transitivity of oblique and canonical complement verbs in order to investigate the degree to which indirect semantic effects differentiate between the two types of verbs. In addition, it outlines direct semantic effects between oblique case frames in terms of semantic roles. Finally, it investigates the way these patterns are related to the cases' individual grammaticalisation degrees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the interaction between raising, subject–verb inversion and agreement in Modern Hebrew. It identifies, alongside ‘standard’ (i.e., English-like) subject-to-subject raising, two additional patterns where the embedded subject appears post-verbally. In one, the raising predicate exhibits long-distance agreement with the embedded subject, while in the other, a colloquial variant, it is marked with impersonal (3sm) agreement. The choice between the three raising constructions in the language is shown to be solely dependent on properties of the embedded clause. The data are discussed and analyzed against a background of typological and theoretical work on raising. The analysis, cast in the framework of Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG), builds on research on raising, selectional locality, agreement, subjecthood and information structure, as well as verb-initial constructions in Modern Hebrew. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although word-initial consonants are highly salient cross-linguistically, the process of initial-consonant mutation has nonetheless continued to affect them in the Celtic languages. This paper investigates the use of the mixed mutation (MM) in Breton, following the progressive particle. Like all mutation, it naturally affects the phonology, but also gives (redundant) information for morphosyntax. Mutation is generally presumed to be a regular process, but as there has been a gap in the transmission of Breton, the extent to which this phono-syntactic phenomenon is consistent across generations remains open to discussion. It has been claimed that younger speakers, being strongly French-dominant, do not use mutation correctly. We tested this examining both distribution of usage and acoustic measurements of the consonants in question. Data from original fieldwork indicate that young adults use MM in the same way as older speakers, but children attending Breton-medium schooling are less proficient. Mixed mutation is difficult to acquire, the crucial factor being sustained Breton input beyond the early teenage years. Acoustically, there is no difference in the production of MM cross-generationally. The difference between the two generations is in the use of the progressive particle itself, omitted by the older generation, but retained by younger speakers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One issue in the analysis of degree achievements is whether or not what are called degree achievements are in fact achievements (Hay, Kennedy & Levin 1999, Kearns 2007, Rothstein 2008a). In this paper, we offer evidence from Malay that they are. Our evidence involves findings about the aspectual effect of the verbal prefix meN- in degree achievement sentences, which may receive a natural account under an approach where degree achievements are lexically specified as achievements, but are difficult to explain if they are not. We propose that meN- merges with a verbal projection (VP) that describes eventualities with stages, in the sense of Landman (1992, 2008). This requirement explains meN-'s apparent effect on telicity in degree achievement sentences and the absence of such an effect in non-degree achievement sentences. It also accounts for the restricted distribution of meN- in stative sentences (Soh & Nomoto 2009) and regular achievement sentences. While certain aspectual parallels exist between the verbal prefix meN- and the English progressive, we argue that meN- is not a progressive marker, and that the parallels with the English progressive are due to the subcategorization requirement of meN-, which makes event stages more prominent in sentences with meN- compared to ones without. Our analysis supports the treatment of meN- as a light verb (v) (Aldridge 2008; Nomoto 2008, 2011; Sato 2012), rather than a marker of voice (Voice) (Cole, Hermon & Yanti 2008). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Formal models of syntax typically accord the structural position external to the verb's domain a privileged status in the overall syntactic makeup of a language, either by assuming that external arguments are always S or A, or by linking external argument position to syntactic pivothood. This paper demonstrates that the Oceanic language Äiwoo has an ergative verb phrase – i.e. A as the VP-internal argument and S/O as external arguments – but no corresponding S/O pivot. That is, the ergative structure of the verb phrase in Äiwoo does not entail any syntactically privileged status of the VP-external arguments; rather, it is simply a by-product of various diachronic developments. This situation shows that what has traditionally been perceived as fundamental differences in grammatical organisation – the difference between an accusative and an ergative pattern of VP structure – need not in fact be associated with any broader differences in syntactic or pragmatic structure. More importantly, it goes against the assumption that it is possible to assign universal functions to syntactic configurations. Instead, it can be seen as providing support for the view argued for by Evans & Levinson (2009: 444) that ‘most linguistic diversity is the product of historical cultural evolution operating on relatively independent traits’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper investigates the derivational relationship between adjectives and verbs in Mandarin Chinese describing related state, change of state (COS) and caused COS meanings. Such paradigms have been observed in various languages to fall into two categories: One in which a word naming a property concept state constitutes the derivational base for the related COS verbs, and another in which a COS verb forms the basis from which the stative word – a ‘result state’ predicate – is derived. I show that in Mandarin, the distinction between morphological paradigms based on property-concept words versus eventive verbs is also found, but the actual derivational relations between verbs and adjectives are influenced by language-particular morphological properties of Mandarin. Specifically, I argue that a gradable property concept adjective systematically alternates to a related COS verb. This alternation, which can be tapped by degree modification and negation contexts, distinguishes adjectives from stative verbs, which do not have consistent COS counterparts, and from underived intransitive COS verbs, which do not have systematic stative counterparts. That is, I show that COS verbs do not lend themselves to the systematic derivation of result state adjectives. Rather, I argue that result state adjectives in Mandarin arise from conceptual-pragmatic factors: The nominal modified by such a result state adjective should be understood as describing a culturally or contextually salient class of entities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents an analysis of bare nominals unmarked for number (BNs) occurring in object position in Spanish and Catalan, on which the BN is a syntactic complement to the verb, but not a semantic argument. After describing the properties that distinguish BNs from other indefinite expressions (bare plurals, indefinite singulars preceded by un ‘a’, and bare mass terms), we argue that these BNs occur in a monadic syntactic configuration in the sense of Hale & Keyser (1998), that they denote first-order properties, and that they are combined with the verb via a modified version of Dayal's (2003) semantics for pseudo-incorporation. Specifically, the proposal consists of a lexical rule that generates the class of verbs that productively accept BN objects, plus a composition rule that treats the BN as modifier of the verb. We point out the advantages of this analysis over three other well-known semantic analyses for combining verbs with property-type nominals. Finally, we show how the analysis can be naturally extended to existential sentences, which combine with BNs although, prima facie, they do not appear to meet the lexical conditions for doing so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the difference between connectivity and anti-connectivity effects in specificational copular sentences is heavily influenced by semantics and information structure. It shows that anti-connectivity effects with respect to binding disappear when the influence of information structure is neutralized, whereas anti-connectivity effects with respect to scope result from the semantics of specificational sentences. These data lead to the conclusion that anti-connectivity effects cannot be used as evidence against a syntax-based approach to specificational sentences and binding, that the analysis of specificational sentences should include both a syntactic and a semantic device, and that the syntactic analysis of specificational sentences should rely crucially on their information structure. I present and adopt Heycock & Kroch's (2002) analysis for specificational sentences, in which connectivity effects result from the assembling of ground and focus. The fact that connectivity effects are also exhibited by verb-object-subject word order in French and Spanish, which is marked for the ground-focus partition, is presented as an important piece of independent evidence in favor of this analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates two ways goals of motion events can be expressed in so-called 'verb-framed' languages (Talmy 2000), focusing on the Japanese postpositions -made and -ni. It is typically assamed that these postpositions are both goal-markers, but differ in the exact goal semantics they encode, giving rise to non-overlapping distributions. Based on a range of distributional differences, I argue instead that they are mare radically distinct than this: -made marks the endpoint of event participants (including but not limited to paths of motion I. while -ni is a dative case that marks the goal argument of motion verbs. This suggests that it is possible for two functionally distinct participant markers to converge and give the appearance of being alternate ways of realizing the 'same' participant. Furthermore, adpositions such as -made, an inherently non-motion-encoding resource, represent aim understudied strategy for marking goals across languages, something that has ramifications for how motion typologies are constructed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The packaging of meaning in verbs varies widely across languages since verbs are free to encode different aspects of an event. At the same time, languages tend to display recurrent preferences in lexicalization, e.g. verb-framing vs. satellite-framing in motion. It has been noted, however, that the lexicalization patterns in motion are not carried over to the domain of vision, since gaze trajectory ('visual path') is coded outside the main verb even in verb-framed languages. This 'typological split' (Matsumoto 2001), however, is not universal. This article contains the first extensive report of verb-framing in the domain of vision based on data from Maniq (Austroasiatic, Thailand). The verbs are investigated using a translation questionnaire and a picture-naming task, which tap into subtle semantic detail. Results suggest the meanings of the verbs are shaped by universal constraints linked to earth-based verticality and bodily mechanics, as well as local factors such as the environment and the cultural scenarios of which looking is a salient part. A broader look across the whole Maniq verb lexicon reveals further cases of verbally encoded spatial notions and demonstrates a pervasive cross-domain systematicity, pointing to the language system itself as an important shaping force in lexicalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of subject in human language has a privileged status relative to other arguments. This special status is manifested in the behavior of subjects at the morphological, syntactic, semantic and discourse levels. Here we present evidence that subjects have a privileged status at the lexical level as well, by analyzing lexicalization patterns of verbs in three different sign languages. Our analysis shows that the sub-lexical structure of iconic signs denoting states of affairs in these languages manifests an inherent pattern of form-meaning correspondence: the signer's body consistently represents one argument of the verb, the subject. The hands, moving in relation to the body, represent all other components of the event - including all other arguments. This analysis shows that sign languages provide novel evidence in support of the centrality of the notion of subject in human language. It also solves a typo-logical puzzle about the apparent primacy of object in sign language verb agreement, a primacy not usually found in spoken languages, in which subject agreement generally ranks higher. Our analysis suggests that the subject argument is represented by the body and is part of the lexical structure of the verb. Because it is always inherently represented in the structure of the sign, the subject is more basic than the object, and tolerates the omission of agreement morphology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we will extend Smith's (1997) two-component aspect theory to develop a two-level model of situation aspect in which situation aspect is modeled as verb classes at the lexical level and as situation types at the sentential level. Situation types are the composite result of the rule-based interaction between verb classes and complements, arguments, peripheral adjuncts and viewpoint aspect at the nucleus, core and clause levels. With a framework consisting of a lexicon, a layered clause structure and a set of rules mapping verb classes onto situation types, the model is developed and tested using an English corpus and a Chinese corpus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this paper is to provide experimental evidence that two syntactic reflexes of split intransitivity in German the selection of perfective auxiliaries and the impersonal passive construction — are sensitive to an aspectual/thematic hierarchy of verb classes. We show that there is a split between 'core' verbs that elicit categorical intuitions from native speakers, and 'intermediate' verbs that exhibit gradience. Furthermore, crossdialectal differences between northern and southern German with respect to auxiliary selection tend to occur only with intermediate verbs. We argue that these findings lend support to the view that the unaccusative/unergative distinction is considerably more unstable than often assumed, and suggest that projectionist theories of the lexicon-syntax interface such as those directly derived from the Unaccusative Hypothesis may not be able to account for the systematic variation exhibited by the data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]