A Defective vP Analysis of the Locative Inversion in English

2021 ◽  
Vol 96 ◽  
pp. 37-55
Author(s):  
Soyoung Nam ◽  
Kyungchul Chang
Keyword(s):  
Locative Inversion

scholarly journals The Unaccusative-Unergative Dichotomy of Predicates. Is There an Unaccusative Mismatch in English?

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. p61
Author(s):  
Anna Dabrowska
Keyword(s):  
Resultative Constructions ◽  
Causative Alternation ◽  
Special Analysis ◽  
Auxiliary Selection ◽  
Class Status ◽  
Locative Inversion

The paper addresses the issue of the unaccusative-unergative dichotomy of predicates, providing a special analysis of the class status of the verb “to die” in English. First, the article opens with a view of unaccusativity in the light of the Lexicon-Syntax Interface. Further, the verb “to die” is tested against the six syntactic unaccusativity diagnostics valid for English. The results obtain reveal the fact that the first three diagnostics (auxiliary selection, causative alternation and resultative constructions) do not work for the verb “to die”, while the last three diagnostics (adjectival participle, there-insertion, locative inversion) appear to have been satisfied. This would lead us to a conclusion that the verb “to die” should be considered as a real example of an Unaccusative Mismatch (Levin, 1986).

Optimality-Theoretic Lexical Mapping Theory

2009 ◽  
pp. 2499-2528
Author(s):  
One-Soon Her
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Language Variation ◽  
Grammatical Function ◽  
Potential Explanation ◽  
Relative Ranking ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Locative Inversion ◽  
Mapping Theory ◽  
Lexical Mapping ◽  
Function Assignment

Locative inversion verbs seem to share the same argument structure and grammatical function assignment (i.e., ) cross-linguistically. This article discusses the nature of argument-function linking in LFG and demonstrates how the Lexical Mapping Theory (LMT) rendered in Optimality-Theoretic (OT) terms, where argument-function linking is governed by universal violable constraints that consistently favor the unmarked function, accounts for locative inversion straightforwardly. Within this OT-LMT, locative inversion is due to a universal morphosyntactic constraint, and language variation in locative inversion is due to the difference in its relative ranking. This account also offers a potential explanation for the markedness of the locative inversion construction.

Locative inversion in Germanic and Romance

2021 ◽  
pp. 165-192
Author(s):  
Benjamin L. Sluckin ◽  
Silvio Cruschina ◽  
Fabienne Martin
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Locative Expression ◽  
Locative Inversion

This chapter investigates locative inversion (LI) in Germanic and Romance, a subject inversion involving a preposed locative expression. LI appears in two primary types: overt LI and covert LI, where a locative reading obtains without a preposed locative. Covert LI occurs in null-subject languages, where a covert locative argument satisfies formal subject requirements. English LI is always overt, yet French only allows covert LI with verbs of appearance. Furthermore, Romance permits embedded and matrix LI, but English prohibits the former. This chapter proposes that cross-linguistic variation follows from varying conspiracies of syntactic and pragmatico-semantic factors. Firstly, verbs of appearance select a locative covert experiencer, which satisfies the French EPP. Secondly, multiple formal ingredients interact in different distributions to produce various instantiations of LI: an EPP in TP, and the ability of locatives to check: the EPP (Dutch), Subject of Predication (Italian), EPP and SoP (French), and EPP and Topichood (English).

The relation between aspect and inversion in English

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
ASTRID DE WIT
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Functional Explanation ◽  
Time Inversion ◽  
Progressive Aspect ◽  
Reference Time ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
Locative Inversion ◽  
And Inversion

This article discusses the peculiar use of the simple present/past in full-verb inversion (i.e. locative inversion, directional inversion, quotative inversion, presentational there), and the corresponding scarcity of progressive aspect in these contexts. While it is normally ungrammatical in English to use the simplex tenses to report events that are ongoing at reference time, inversion seems to defy this restriction. Building on a combination of insights from analyses of aspect and of full-verb inversion in English, this study presents a cognitive-functional explanation for this exceptional characteristic of inversion that has gone largely unnoticed in previous accounts. I argue that there exists a canonical relationship between the preposed ground and the postposed figure in full-verb inversion and that this meaning of canonicity ties in perfectly with the perfective value that I deem constitutive of the English simple tenses. In addition, some cases of directional inversion involve a ‘deictic effect’ (Drubig 1988): in these instances, the conceptualizer's vantage point is anchored within the ground and the denoted (dis)appearance of the figure is construed as inevitable. On the basis of a large sample of corpus data and native-speaker elicitations, I demonstrate that the use of the progressive is disallowed in inverted contexts that involve a deictic effect, while its use is dispreferred but not excluded in other cases of inversion. This study thus brings together insights from the domains of information structure and aspect in English, and merges these into a comprehensive cognitive account.

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