Search

This paper uncovers how metaphor forces argument overtness – across languages and parts of speech. It addresses the relationship between semantically unsaturated terms, functors, and the argument terms that complete them. When the component terms' default senses clash semantically, a metaphor arises. In such cases, the argument must be overt, in contrast to literal uses. It is possible to say Everyone was waiting at the hotel. Finally, Kim arrived. By contrast, people do not use arrived metaphorically without a goal argument: Everything had been pointing to that conclusion all along. *Finally, Kim arrived. What they say is Finally, Kim arrived at it. We illustrate the phenomenon with powerful and diverse evidence: three corpus studies (Indo-Aryan languages, British English, Vera'a) and a sentence-completion experiment with around 250 native speakers of English. Both the corpus studies and the experiment show no or almost no exceptions to metaphor-driven argument overtness. The strength of the effect contrasts with a complete lack of speaker awareness. We propose that metaphor-driven argument overtness – as well as the lack of speaker consciousness – is a universal phenomenon that can be accounted for in terms of human language processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate over the relation between grammatically relevant (specifically, what we term event referential) and idiosyncratic aspects of verb meaning has produced a considerable literature. Some authors, such as Levin and Rappaport Hovav, have appealed to figurative uses of verbs as a source of data when the analysis of their literal uses has been controversial, a move that has sometimes been criticized. However, the question of whether figurative uses of verbs preserve the event referential properties of their literal counterparts and are therefore a valid source of data has not, to our knowledge, been systematically explored. We offer two detailed cross-linguistic case studies of Spanish and English verbs to provide an argument that figurative verb uses indeed are a reliable source of evidence for identifying event referential components of meaning: In each case study we find clear evidence for the preservation of these components across uses, indicating that these aspects of meaning both constrain and facilitate figurative uses of verbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The syntactic status of numeral classifiers with respect to NP-ellipsis in classifier languages has been a controversial subject in many recent discussions. Addressing this issue, this article argues that Korean numeral classifiers can serve as functional heads that license NP-ellipsis via PF-deletion. A null NP appearing in a numeral classifier context cannot be identified with any other null categories, such as a pro or a null NP pro-form. This null NP induces a different reading from a pro, especially when a possessor argument is stacked with a numeral classifier construction. Unlike an NP pro-form, it allows the extraction of an internal argument and exhibits a complementary distribution with kes 'one', a visible counterpart of a Korean NP pro-form. This article's claim gains additional support from the asymmetries in NP-ellipsis of a uy-marked numeral classifier, contingent on its ambiguity, such as a 'quantity' or 'property' interpretation. In addition, the distribution of bare numerals in relation to the NP pro-form kes offers further evidence, reinforcing the claim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the article is to expand the crosslinguistic scope of the study of the expression of habituality in language, and to provide further support for the claim that the expression of habituality is basically independent from that of tense and aspect, although it closely interacts with it. The argument for this independence is based on the following findings: First, habituality in Biblical Hebrew is not marked morphologically: any verbal form of the verb system can serve as a basis to express habituality irrespective of its aspectual and temporal qualities. In this respect, the periphrastic form hāyā qōṭēl receives special attention, since although it does not appear in episodic occurrences, it nevertheless patterns with non-recurring positional predicates (e.g., stand, live as in She used to live here), illustrating that it selects statives that can hold over prolonged periods of time, subsuming habituals, rather than being exclusively dedicated to the expression of habituality. Second, and most importantly, this pattern is diachronically stable. When observing Early and Late Biblical Hebrew, nothing alters in the way verbal forms pattern in clauses expressing habituality, even though the make-up of the verbal systems has changed over time. Additionally, the findings confirm the importance of paying attention to the availability of habitual interpretation with and without a modifying quantificational expression, by lending support to the correlation established between the bareness of habituals and their aspectual properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 300 years, the into-causative (he talked his father into giving him money) increased in frequency and lexical diversity. Changes of this kind are often taken as evidence of functional expansion. From a Construction Grammar (CxG) perspective, this paper argues that what appears to be a loss of restrictions on the verbal slot results from changes in argument mapping links. As the construction provides the argument roles by mapping semantics (causer, causee, result) onto syntax (subject, object, oblique), stronger mapping links increasingly facilitated the use of verbs that are semantically and syntactically atypical for the expression of causation. Data from the Corpus of Historical American English confirm three predictions of this hypothesis with respect to shifts in (i) the semantic classes of matrix verbs, (ii) their general argument structure preferences, and (iii) voice-marking. The results provide evidence for a subtle semantic change from movement into action to manner of causation. The increase in frequency and productivity are hence explained as the consequence of the syntactic form becoming a more reliable cue for causative meaning. We discuss implications for models of language change against the background of current issues in Diachronic Construction Grammar (DCxG) pertaining to constructionalization vs. constructional change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argument coding splits such as differential (= split) object marking and split ergative marking have long been known to be universal tendencies, but the generalizations have not been formulated in their full generality before. In particular, ditransitive constructions have rarely been taken into account, and scenario splits have often been treated separately. Here I argue that all these patterns can be understood in terms of the usual association of role rank (highly ranked A and R, low-ranked P and T) and referential prominence (locuphoric person, animacy, definiteness, etc.). At the most general level, the role-reference association universal says that deviations from usual associations of role rank and referential prominence tend to be coded by longer grammatical forms. In other words, A and R tend to be referentially prominent in language use, while P and T are less prominent, and when less usual associations need to be expressed, languages often require special coding by means of additional flags (case-markers and adpositions) or additional verbal voice coding (e.g., inverse or passive markers). I argue that role-reference associations are an instance of the even more general pattern of form-frequency correspondences, and that the resulting coding asymmetries can all be explained by frequency-based predictability and coding efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We discuss a potential case of borrowing in this paper: Breton a- 'of', 'from' marking of (internal) verbal arguments, unique in Insular Celtic languages, and reminiscent of Gallo-Romance de/du- (and en-) arguments. Looking at potential Gallo-Romance parallels of three Middle Breton constructions analyzed in some detail (a with indefinite mass nominals in direct object position, a-marking of internal arguments under the scope of negation, a [allomorphs an(ez)-/ahan-] with personal pronouns for internal arguments, subjects (mainly of predicative constructions) and as expletive subjects of existential constructions), we demonstrate that even if there are some semantic parallels and one strong structural overlap (a and de under the scope of negation), the amount of divergences in morphology, syntax and semantics and the only partially fitting relative chronology of the different constructions do not allow to conclude with certainty that language-contact is an explanation of the Breton facts, which might have come into being also because of internal change (bound to restructuring of the pronominal system in Breton). More research is necessary to complete our knowledge of a-marking in Middle Breton and Modern Breton varieties and on the precise history of French en, in order to decide for one or the other explanation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I present an account of the interplay between quantifiers and the partitive–accusative case alternation in Finnish object marking, with special reference to the aspectual and quantificational semantics of the clause. The case alternation expresses two oppositions (in affirmative clauses): (a) bounded (accusative) vs. unbounded (partitive) quantity, (b) culminating (accusative) vs. non-culminating (partitive) aspect. The quantifiers analyzed are of two main types: (i) mass quantifiers (e. g., paljon 'a lot of', vähän '(a) little'), which quantify a mass expressed by a mass noun or a plural form, (ii) number quantifiers (e. g., moni 'many', usea 'a number of'), which quantify a multiplicity of discrete entities expressed by a count noun in the singular or plural. Finnish mass quantifiers only quantify nominals in the partitive, while number quantifiers agree with the quantified nominal in number and case and are used throughout the case paradigm. With a mass quantifier, the partitive form of the quantified nominal expresses unbounded quantity, which the quantifier then renders bounded (quantized). This is why object phrases with mass quantifiers behave like accusative objects: they express a bounded quantity together with culminating aspect. Number quantifiers quantify both accusative and partitive objects, in the singular and plural. Such objects are able to express aspect and quantity at two levels: (i) that of the individual component events which concern one entity each; (ii) that of the higher-order event which concerns the whole quantity expressed. I argue that the case marking of the object relates primarily to level (i), while the meaning of the number quantifier relates to level (ii). This is why a number quantifier typically renders the quantity bounded and the aspect culminating at level (ii), even when the partitive case expresses unboundedness or lack of culmination at level (i). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predicate nouns in German, as well as in other languages, may occur bare or with an indefinite article. This alternation is possible with role nouns, which refer to well-established aspects of individuals such as professions and nationalities. Bare NPs differ from indefinite NPs in that they have restricted meaning, are number neutral and are restricted in modifiability. In the literature, these peculiarities received different explanations. The new account combines previous analyses and is based on the following assumptions: the noun that projects an indefinite NP denotes a kind, while the noun projecting a bare NP denotes a capacity. This difference corresponds to the difference in predication: indefinite NPs predicate about the whole individual assigning it membership in a certain kind, while bare NPs predicate only about one social aspect of the individual, identifying it with a certain capacity. Since bare predication concerns only one aspect of the individual, it is partial. Bare predication can now be considered under a broader view of partial predication, a phenomenon very common in argument alternations, and can be analyzed with the tools that have proved effective in this domain. The approach to bare predication taken here thus has a larger empirical coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ingush (Nakh-Daghestanian, Caucasus) offers a variety of contexts with contrast, variation, or speaker choice between agreement and non-agreement and between overt and null arguments, which provide speakers many opportunities to manipulate agreement and argument marking. Ingush discourse is therefore a good test case for the plausible hypothesis that agreement and overt arguments are in complementary distribution. I survey referential density in a corpus of about 5000 words and find no evidence of either straightforward complementarity or expected incidental effects of such complementarity, and some evidence going against it. Some additional, orthogonal distributions were evident, showing that the corpus is large enough to reveal discourse effects if they were present. Ingush agreement is in gender, not person, and there is an arbitrary and strictly lexical bifurcation of verbs into those that do and those that do not have gender agreement; these typological points raise comparative and theoretical issues of interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the characteristics of unaccusative 'give' constructions in Chinese, and additionally identify the pathways for their emergence in some Chinese dialects, in particular Southern Min and Mandarin varieties.1 We distinguish between Type 1 and Type 2 unaccusative 'give' constructions, the former involving reversible 'escape'-type intransitive predicates, and the latter irreversible 'die'-type intransitive predicates. Type 1 constructions are attested in many Chinese varieties, such as Mandarin, Min, Wu, Hui, Hakka and Cantonese, whereas Type 2 constructions are more rare and thus far are mainly attested in Southern Min and some Mandarin varieties. Two major pathways in the development of unaccusative 'give' constructions are identified in this paper, namely, the causative pathway and the passive-mediated pathway. Our analysis also traces how the unaccusative 'give' construction develops into a marker of adversity and speaker affectedness. The findings of this study have implications for understanding the relationship between changes in valence (i.e., the number of core arguments that are profiled in a given construction) and speaker's subjective stance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the phenomenon of lability (ambitransitivity), in other words, the ability of a verb to be either transitive or intransitive. I analyze the historical development of verbs which are currently labile in modern Russian. The main group of Russian labile verbs includes verbs of motion. On the basis of corpus and dictionary data, I conclude that the behavior of the lexemes under analysis is far from being uniform. However, interestingly, for most of them, e.g., lit' 'flow/pour', gonjat' 'run, drive/chase, pursue', and kružit' 'go round, turn, roll', the proportion of the intransitive use grows throughout the period under analysis, though for the verb kapat'/kapnut' 'drop, pour in drips', in contrast, the transitive use becomes more and more frequent. In the cases when the intransitive use becomes more frequent, the semantic change matches the statistical one. In the beginning, verbs of this subtype were only used intransitively in a restricted type of contexts (e.g., for gonjat' 'run, drive/chase, pursue', hunting contexts represent this restricted class), where the intransitive use might be a result of object omission. Later on, the semantic range of the intransitive use became wider and the lability was no longer semantically related to object omission. I conclude that the emergence of an intransitive use of a strictly transitive verb or the increase of the number of intransitive uses is often accompanied by semantic changes: first, a verb is used intransitively in a very restricted range of contexts (for the verb gonjat' these include hunting contexts). Then, the range of contexts and the semantics of the intransitive use becomes wider, the number of intransitive uses grows and the verb becomes canonically labile with both uses being equally or almost equally frequent. Importantly, the borderline between A- and P-lability is not as strict as it is put sometimes: P-lability (the causative/non-causative alternation) can in some cases be traced back to A-lability (object omission). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I examine an animacy-related encoding alternation in Dutch generally observed with verbs denoting physical contact. This largely unnoticed pattern in Dutch is reminiscent of the phenomenon of Differential Object Marking (DOM) as attested in a large number of languages. I will argue that the Dutch pattern should indeed be interpreted as DOM albeit of a specific type. I claim Dutch DOM to be an instance of paradigmatic DOM used to signal a thematic difference between two groups of objects, that of animate and inanimate ones. Crucially, animate, but not inanimate, undergoers exhibit the property of sentience, a predicate entailment shown to be associated with the undergoer argument of physical contact verbs in Dutch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses differential argument realization in Abui, a Papuan language (Eastern Indonesia) with semantic alignment (in terms of Donohue and Wichmann 2008; Kratochvíl 2011). The paper examines the roles of volitionality, referential hierarchy, and specificity in differential argument realization (employing light verbs and verbal agreement) and shows that their effects are observable throughout the argument realization system and can be therefore considered the counterpart of differential case marking (DOM/DSM) reported for syntactically aligned, case-marking languages (Bossong 1983; Aissen 2003; Malchukov 2005; Kittilä 2006; de Swart 2007; and others). Although Abui differential argument realization correlates with the referential hierarchy (Bickel 2008), verbal subclasses (in terms of Tsunoda's 1985: 388 affectedness hierarchy) determine whether differential argument realization appears or not (cf. von Heusinger and Kaiser 2011). The paper also considers the diachronic origins of differential argument realization in Abui. Most constructions are argued to originate from two-clause constructions, such as topic/focus constructions gradually merging into singleclause structures. Information-structure related morphemes (light verbs in Abui) serialize with lexical verbs. The process starts with 1st and 2nd person participants (interlocutors) and may extend to human or human-like third persons. Grammaticalization ends in the fusion of the light verb and person prefix, creating new verbal agreement paradigms, as manifested in several central Alor-Pantar languages (Kratochvíl et al. 2011). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the processing correlates of core verb features used to generate verb typologies. The aim was to contrast the effects of verb inter-nal structure (as in semantic/conceptual features e.g., Jackendoff [1991]; Levin and Rappaport Hovav [2005]) with argument structure and argument realization in sentence processing. To this end, we designed a self-paced reading task with internal structure and argument realization as variables in verb processing. Re-sults showed that absence of a prototypical Agent or mismatch between thematic hierarchies and argument realization yields longer processing times possibly due to some form of thematic reanalysis or as a reaction to a "surprise" effect by the human processor while detecting a non-expected thematic assignment. No ef-fects of verb internal structure were found. We take this result as an indication that argument structure and argument realization play an important role in verb recognition during sentence processing. We further propose that this reflects their prominent role in verb representation and we suggest that this finding could give additional support to verb classifications based on verb argument structure features compared to those based on internal structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1966, Paul Postal claimed that it is impossible to find grammatical sentences in which there is partial overlap between subject and object, i.e., in sentences like I like us. This observation lead, in direct scholarly descent, to the infamous Binding Principle B (Chomsky 1981). In this article we argue against Postal's original observation, as we claim that sentences with partial argument overlap are perfectly possible in English and sundry languages, although such expressions are conversationally constrained. The real-world situations that are described in such utterances are unusual, and thus the constructions are used infrequently, leading to uncertainty on the part of the speaker whether such expressions are well-formed or not. In the process of grammaticalization of pronouns into person-marking inflection this disprefer-ence appears to turn into real impossibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]