Sentience-based event structure

2020 ◽  
pp. 58-96
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Ritter
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Event Structure ◽  
Primary Determinant ◽  
Transitive Verbs ◽  
Ditransitive Verbs ◽  
Feature Checking

In Blackfoot, a Plains Algonquian language spoken in Alberta, Canada, and Montana, USA, sentience, rather than telicity, is a primary determinant of argument structure. Subjects of transitive verbs, non-core objects of transitive verbs (benefactives, malefactives, sources, etc.), and primary objects of ditransitive verbs are all subject to a strict sentience requirement. This chapter follows Ritter and Wiltschko (2015) in assuming that the strict sentience requirements on argument structure are part of the grammar (i.e. part of the “narrow syntax”) of Blackfoot, and formalizes sentience as a feature that is subject to selection, a feature-checking operation, much like AGREE. This proposal correctly predicts that (a) not only agents but also causers must be sentient in Blackfoot; (b) sentient objects (not bounded ones) serve as both initiators and delimiters of events; (c) like event types, nominal types are distinguished by sentience, rather than boundedness; and (d) eventiveness is correlated with sentience, rather than dynamicity.

Do simple syntactic heuristics to verb meaning hold up? Testing the structure mapping account over spontaneous speech to Spanish-learning children

2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 556-582
Author(s):  
Cynthia Pamela Audisio ◽  
Maia Julieta Migdalek
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Structure Mapping ◽  
Analogical Mapping ◽  
Transitive Verbs ◽  
Mapping Mechanism ◽  
Ditransitive Verbs ◽  
Agreement Morphology ◽  
Verb Meaning

AbstractExperimental research has shown that English-learning children as young as 19 months, as well as children learning other languages (e.g., Mandarin), infer some aspects of verb meanings by mapping the nominal elements in the utterance onto participants in the event expressed by the verb. The present study assessed this structure or analogical mapping mechanism (SAMM) on naturalistic speech in the linguistic environment of 20 Spanish-learning infants from Argentina (average age 19 months). This study showed that the SAMM performs poorly – at chance level – especially when only noun phrases (NPs) included in experimental studies of the SAMM were parsed. If agreement morphology is considered, the performance is slightly above chance but still very poor. In addition, it was found that the SAMM performs better on intransitive and transitive verbs, compared to ditransitives. Agreement morphology has a beneficial effect only on transitive and ditransitive verbs. On the whole, concerns are raised about the role of the SAMM in infants’ interpretation of verb meaning in natural exchanges.

On the Event Structural Properties of the English Get-Passive

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-74
Author(s):  
Alison Biggs ◽  
David Embick
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Structural Properties ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
Event Structure ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Event Structures ◽  
Structural Differences ◽  
Responsible Party

An important ongoing discussion in theories of argument structure concerns the explanatory division of labor between thematic properties and event structure. In this context, the English get-passive provides an interesting test case. Much previous work has analyzed get-passives as differing thematically from be-passives. Yet many get-passive properties remain poorly understood. We present an analysis of the get-passive centered on the proposal that it contains additional event structure (realized as get) relative to its be counterpart. We employ by-adjuncts to identify the event structures in passive types, and demonstrate that the behavior of this and other diagnostics support the conclusion that get- and be-passives differ systematically in ways that accord with our analysis. Further discussion considers the prominent proposal from previous studies that get-passives differ thematically from be-passives in (sometimes) assigning an Agent role to their surface subjects. We show that there is no evidence for such an analysis. Instead, intuitions about the interpretation of the get-passive surface subject arise from how an event’s Responsible Party is identified: contrasts between get and be on this dimension are a consequence of event structural differences between the two. The overall result is a unified analysis of the get-passive, one that has implications for the role of event structure in understanding the syntax and interpretation of arguments.

Changes in the argument and event structure of psych verbs in the history of Spanish

2019 ◽  
pp. 249-270
Author(s):  
Montserrat Batllori ◽  
Elisabeth Gibert-Sotelo ◽  
Isabel Pujol
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Event Structure ◽  
Psych Verbs ◽  
History Of

This chapter offers a detailed study of changes affecting the argument structure of Spanish psych verbs that appear with a dative experiencer (EXP). After proposing a three-way classification of these verbs based on their etymological origin, the chapter traces two parallel, but interconnected, diachronic paths: the first one involves the development from transitive (or pronominal) to unaccusative constructions with a dative EXP, whereas the second one concerns the evolution from dynamic to stative events. The use and decrease of the passive in Classical Spanish is also shown to play a role in this change: to wit, passive and unaccusative structures with a dative EXP are structurally similar, as the prepositional agent phrase and the dative EXP originate in the same position.

scholarly journals Argument Structure of Slide Verb in English

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 327
Author(s):  
Ni Wayan Manik Septianiari Putri
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Structure Functions ◽  
Sentence Structure ◽  
The World ◽  
Transitive Verbs ◽  
Verb Classification

Various languages in the world have their own systems, especially in terms of verb classification. It can determine argument in the structure. This paper is intended to analyze the interaction between syntax and semantics in terms of the argument structure of the slide verb in English. The main theory used in this study was the theory of argument structure proposed by Kim & Sells (2008). The result of analysis showed that two kinds of slide verb: bounce and slide are intransitive and transitive verbs. The specifier (SPR) of the sentence structure functions as the agent; the Complement (COMPS) of the verb bounce serves as the patient and the COMPS of the verb slide functions as the theme.

scholarly journals Argument Structure and Ditransitive Verbs in Japanese

2004 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shigeru Miyagawa ◽  
Takae Tsujioka
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Ditransitive Verbs

scholarly journals Time and the event: The semantics of Russian prefixes

Nordlyd ◽  
10.7557/12.72 ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian Ramchand
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Temporal Structure ◽  
Event Structure ◽  
Temporal Domain ◽  
Structure Level ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Basic Distinction ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The One ◽  
Structure Domain

In this paper, I draw on data from prefixation in Russian to argue for a basic distinction between event structure and temporal struc- ture. I present a linguistic semantics of verb and argument structure interpretation on the one hand, and a formal semantic implementa- tion of 'telicity' on the other, which makes sense of the generalisations apparently common to both domains. I will claim that the temporal domain embeds the event structure domain, and that the latter con- strains the former. At the same time, the different formal primitives that operate at the levels proposed form the basis for a principled linguistic distinction between the two tiers of composition: the event structure level encodes subevental relations and predicational rela- tions within those subevents; the temporal structure level introduces a t variable explicitly and relates it to the structure built up by the event level. Whether the event structure is homogenous or not will have an impact on whether the temporal variable chosen will be 'def- inite' or 'indefinite.' This latter claim then forms the basis for a new conception of the difference between perfective and imperfective verb forms in Russian.

scholarly journals Predicate Argument Structure in Haitian Creole

2009 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diane Massam
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Conceptual Structure ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Theoretical Terms ◽  
Haitian Creole ◽  
Lexical Conceptual Structure ◽  
Ditransitive Verbs ◽  
The Many ◽  
Predicate Argument Structure

AbstractThis paper outlines the argument properties of Haitian Creole verbs, including intransitive, transitive, and ditransitive verbs, within a lexical framework which includes a level of Lexical Conceptual Structure and a level of Predicate Argument Structure. There is assumed to be a relatively free mapping relation between these two levels in order to explain the many possible variations in argument structure that most verbs exhibit. We see that there are at least two detransitivizing operations in Haitian Creole: one which operates freely and one which must be adverb-licensed. Transitive and ditransitive verbs are classified in terms of which of these operations they may undergo. The paper presents a description of Haitian Creole verb-types in Government and Binding theoretical terms and highlights several problems which Haitian Creole poses for future research.

scholarly journals The gradual acquisition of clitic “se” in Spanish L2

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Escobar ◽  
Ismael Teomiro
Keyword(s):  
Adult Learners ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Research Hypothesis ◽  
Grammaticality Judgment ◽  
Linguistic Evidence ◽  
Transitive Verbs ◽  
Reflexive Verbs ◽  
L1 English

AbstractIn this study, we analyse the nature of clitic “se” and low applicatives in Spanish L2 through the study of the non-native acquisition of this clitic by L1 English adult learners. In particular, we are going to discuss the question of how English adults acquire this clitic in the different syntactic configurations where it appears (anticausative inchoative verbs, inherent reflexive verbs, transitive verbs implying an inalienable possession relation, consumption verbs and non-anticausative inchoative verbs). Our main research hypothesis is that the acquisition of clitic “se” with some types of applicatives takes place in the later stages of the learning process, since it requires exposure to certain linguistic evidence to acquire a certain type of argument structure proper to applicatives. This study is going to be based on how our subjects perform using Grammaticality Judgment Tests (GJTs).

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