Modularity in Thematic versus Aspectual Licensing: Paths and Moved Objects in Motion Verbs

1995 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol L. Tenny
Keyword(s):  
Motion Verbs ◽  
Case Assignment ◽  
Measure Phrases ◽  
Inherent Case

AbstractThis article investigates the nature of argumenthood and adjuncthood, through an examination of the behaviour of the internal arguments of two classes of motion verbs in English. A highly modular view is put forth, in which three separate distinctions influencing argument-like or adjunct- like behaviour must be recognized: aspectual versus thematic licensing, structural versus inherent case assignment, and referentiality versus non-referentiality. Of these three, only referentiality is a graded rather than a binary distinction. The distinction between aspectual and thematic licensing is developed and elucidated. A picture emerges in which aspectual structure may itself be thematically licensed by a verb, and this aspectual structure may have its own arguments, which are then indirectly licensed by the verb. Cognate objects and Romance measure phrases are also discussed in light of these theoretical conclusions.

Talking about MOTION in Middle English

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Huber
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The Other ◽  
Motion Verbs ◽  
Text Type ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Contact Situation ◽  
Analysis Of Motion

Chapter 6 begins with an overview of the language contact situation with (Anglo-) French and Latin, resulting in large-scale borrowing in the Middle English period. The analysis of 465 Middle English verbs used to express intransitive motion shows that there are far more French/Latin loans in the path verbs than in the other motion verbs. The range of (new) manner of motion verbs testifies to the manner salience of Middle English: caused motion verbs are also found in intransitive motion meanings, as are French loans which do not have motion uses in continental French. Their motion uses in Anglo-Norman are discussed in terms of contact influence of Middle English. The analysis of motion expression in different texts yields a picture similar to the situation in Old English, with path typically expressed in satellites, and neutral as well as manner of motion verbs being most frequent, depending on text type.

Theoretical framework

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Huber
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Motion Verbs ◽  
Motion Event ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Constructionist Approach ◽  
Manner Verbs

Chapter 2 provides an introduction to the motion encoding typology as proposed by Talmy, Slobin, and others (manner- and path-conflating languages, different types of framing and their concomitant characteristics). It argues that this typology is highly compatible with a construction grammar framework, points out the differences, and shows that particularly from the diachronic perspective taken in this study, the constructionist approach has advantages over the originally lexicalist approach of the motion typology. The chapter also provides a discussion of the different categories of motion verbs used in this study (manner verbs, path verbs, neutral motion verbs, and verbs that do not evoke a motion event on their own, but can receive a contextual motion reading).

Japanese enter/exit verbs revisited

2002 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 165-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natsuko Tsujimura
Keyword(s):  
Motion Verbs ◽  
Change Of State ◽  
Spatial Expressions ◽  
Semantic Encoding ◽  
Discrete Change

Kita (1999) compares Japanese and English Enter/Exit verbs in spatial expressions, and argues that Japanese Enter/Exit verbs lack semantic encoding of motion. He claims that this runs counter to the view which considers motion and location to be primitives in the semantics of spatial expressions; instead, he proposes that discrete change of state should be included in the set of primitives. In this reply,I will first show that Kita’s evidence does not support lack of motion in Japanese Enter/Exit verbs, but that instead these verbs do pattern with motion verbs in the language, where conflation of motion is not disputable. I finally demonstrate that Kita’s claim about change of state may be well taken, but it should be put in a larger context of regular polysemy.

Long distance Case assignment and intervention

Lingua ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 148 ◽  
pp. 309-336
Author(s):  
Pauli Brattico
Keyword(s):  
Long Distance ◽  
Case Assignment

The role of case in A-bar extraction asymmetries

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Coon ◽  
Pedro Mateo Pedro ◽  
Omer Preminger
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Data ◽  
Case Assignment ◽  
Special Construction ◽  
Agent Focus ◽  
Family Based ◽  
Focus Questions

Many morphologically ergative languages display asymmetries in the extraction of core arguments: while absolutive arguments (transitive objects and intransitive subjects) extract freely, ergative arguments (transitive subjects) cannot. This falls under the label “syntactic ergativity” (see, e.g. Dixon 1972, 1994; Manning 1996; Polinsky to appear(b)). These extraction asymmetries are found in many languages of the Mayan family, where in order to extract transitive subjects (for focus, questions, or relativization), a special construction known as the “Agent Focus” (AF) must be used. These AF constructions have been described as syntactically and semantically transitive because they contain two non-oblique DP arguments, but morphologically intransitive because the verb appears with only a single agreement marker and takes an intransitive status suffix (Aissen 1999; Stiebels 2006). In this paper we offer a proposal for (i) why some morphologically ergative languages exhibit extraction asymmetries, while others do not; and (ii) how the AF construction in Q’anjob’al circumvents this problem. We adopt recent accounts which argue that ergative languages vary in the locus of absolutive case assignment (Aldridge 2004, 2008a; Legate 2002, 2008), and propose that this variation is present within the Mayan family. Based primarily on comparative data from Q’anjob’al and Chol, we argue that the inability to extract ergative arguments does not reflect a problem with properties of the ergative subject itself, but rather reflects locality properties of absolutive case assignment in the clause. We show how the AF morpheme -on circumvents this problem in Q’anjob’al by assigning case to internal arguments.

Lardil “Case Stacking” and the Timing of Case Assignment

Syntax ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norvin Richards
Keyword(s):  
Case Assignment

Simple Monotransitive and Complex Dative Alternation Predicates in Spanish Monolingual Child Acquisition Data

Probus ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Sánchez Calderón
Keyword(s):  
Relative Frequency ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Complex Predicates ◽  
Case Assignment ◽  
Internal Argument ◽  
Complex Predicate ◽  
Link Type ◽  
Dative Alternation ◽  
First Occurrence ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract This work analyzes the acquisition of simple and complex constructions in Spanish monolingual children’s data. It examines the emergence and the role played by adult input in child production of simple monotransitive constructions when compared to two types of complex predicates that undergo dative alternation (DA), namely, a/para-datives and dative-clitic doubled (DCLD) structures. In order to shed light on these issues, we have analyzed data from Spanish monolingual children and from the adults that they interact with, as available in CHILDES (MacWhinney, Brian. 2000. The CHILDES project: Tools for analyzing talk [Dataset], 3rd edn. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum. http://childes.talkbank.org (accessed 20 October 2019)). The results show that there is an order in the onset of simple and complex predicate constructions, as reflected in the earlier emergence of monotransitives when compared to DA constructions. The latter also show a subsequent order of first occurrence, namely, DCLDs before a/para-datives. Thus, the degree of syntactic complexity seems to have played a role in the acquisition of simple and complex constructions, as measured by the number of Case assignment relations between the verb and its internal argument(s). Moreover, the differences in the Spanish monolingual children’s incidence of the three structures under analysis do not appear to be explained by the relative frequency of exposure in the adult input.

‘Sich ausgehen’: On modalizing go constructions in Austrian German

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-50
Author(s):  
Remus Gergel ◽  
Martin Kopf-Giammanco
Keyword(s):  
Motion Verbs ◽  
Semantic Change ◽  
Its Analysis ◽  
Verbal Construction

Abstract The goal of this article is to diagnose a verbal construction which has made it to common use in Austrian German and is typically unknown to many speakers of Federal German who have not been exposed to Austrian German. This construction is based on the verb gehen (‘go’) conjoined by a particle and the reflexive. An argument for its analysis as a degree-based sufficiency construction is developed, which is constructed by extending existing approaches in the literature on enough constructions and suggesting a meaning of the construction at hand, which is presuppositional in multiple respects. The results of diachronic corpus searches as well as the significance of the results of this work for the space of possibilities of the semantic change of motion verbs are discussed.

Dutch manner of motion verbs: Disentangling auxiliary choice, telicity and syntactic function

2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maaike Beliën,
Keyword(s):  
Local Analysis ◽  
Cognitive Grammar ◽  
Motion Verbs ◽  
Prepositional Phrases ◽  
General Consensus ◽  
Motion Event ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Syntactic Function ◽  
Syntactic Status

AbstractDutch manner of motion verbs play a prominent role in the literature on unaccusativity. As these verbs can take both hebben ‘have’ and zijn ‘be’ as their perfective auxiliaries, they are considered to show both unergative and unaccusative behavior. The general consensus is that these verbs normally take hebben, yet occur with zijn if they are ‘telicized’ by an endpoint, and that the auxiliaries are diagnostics for the syntactic status of prepositional phrases (PPs). The paper presents attested data that reveal that this generalization is untenable: there are examples that take the opposite auxiliary from what the generalization predicts. To account for the full set of data, the paper takes a cognitive-grammar perspective, arguing that auxiliary choice, telicity and syntactic status of PPs are independent issues requiring their own explanations. Auxiliary choice is analyzed in terms of alternate construals of a motion event: with hebben as a type of act and with zijn as a change of location. In this manner, the paper adds to a growing body of literature that questions the usefulness of the coarse unergative–unaccusative distinction, advocating a ‘local analysis’ instead.

scholarly journals Word order in Latin locative constructions: a corpus study in Caesar’s De bello gallico

2011 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stavros Skopeteas
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Motion Verbs ◽  
Structural Domains ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
First Order ◽  
Order Language ◽  
Free Word

AbstractClassical Latin is a free word order language, i.e., the order of the constituents is determined by information structure rather than by syntactic rules. This article presents a corpus study on the word order of locative constructions and shows that the choice between a Theme-first and a Locative-first order is influenced by the discourse status of the referents. Furthermore, the corpus findings reveal a striking impact of the syntactic construction: complements of motion verbs do not have the same ordering preferences with complements of static verbs and adjuncts. This finding supports the view that the influence of discourse status on word order is indirect, i.e., it is mediated by information structural domains.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document