CASE MARKING OF PATIENT IN THE PARTICIPIAL PASSIVE CONSTRUCTION IN HILL MARI

В статье рассматриваются две пассивные конструкции в горномарийском языке. В обеих из них используется причастная форма на -mə̑; основное различие между конструкциями состоит в падежном оформлении пациентивного участника. В одной из конструкций сохраняется исходное аккузативное маркирование пациенса, тогда как в другой конструкции пациентивный участник получает номинативное оформление. Цель исследования — сравнительный анализ двух разновидностей пассива и выявление закономерностей, лежащих в основе выбора падежного оформления пациенса. В литературе по пассивным конструкциям во многих языках отмечается наличие двух пассивных конструкций: адъективного пассива со стативной семантикой и глагольного пассива с динамической семантикой. Это же различие ожидалось увидеть и применительно к горномарийскому причастному пассиву. Для проверки этого предположения были изучены: а) синтаксические особенности конструкций, соотношение в них именных и глагольных свойств, б) аспектуальная семантика конструкций, а именно противопоставление стативной и динамической семантики, в) особенности кодирования участников и контексты с различным референциальным статусом пациенса. Было установлено, что пассив с номинативным кодированием пациенса в целом характеризуется именным синтаксисом, стативной семантикой и обязательной определенностью пациенса, тогда как пассив с аккузативным кодированием имеет глагольный синтаксис, динамическую семантику и не ограничен с точки зрения референциальных свойств пациенса. Единственным наблюдаемым отклонением от данных закономерностей является одинаковая допустимость обеих разновидностей пассива в хабитуальных контекстах, что подлежит дальнейшему выяснению. На основе выявленных закономерностей было сделано обобщение, что пассив с номинативным кодированием пациенса описывает состояние, возникшее в результате некоторого события, тогда как пассив с аккузативным кодированием описывает само событие. В качестве итога исследования предложена интерпретация семантического различия между конструкциями в теоретической парадигме синтаксиса первой фазы Дж. Рэмчанд: аккузативную конструкцию можно рассматривать как конструкцию с озвучиванием каузирующего и процессуального подсобытия, а номинативную — как конструкцию с озвучиванием результирующего подсобытия. The article provides an account of two participial passive constructions employing the -mə̑- participle in Hill Mari. The data was collected in 2017 and 2019 in the villages of Kuznetsovo and Mikryakovo of the Gornomarijskij district, Republic of Mari El. The two constructions with the -mə̑- participle differ in the first place in how the patient is marked: in one of them the patient is marked for nominative, whereas in the other construction the accusative marking is inherited from the transitive verb. The aim of this study is to compare the two constructions in terms of their syntax and semantics and explore the rules that govern the choice between them. In the existing literature two kinds of passive constructions are described: adjectival passive constructions with stative interpretation and verbal passive constructions with dynamic interpretation. The two Hill Mari -mə̑- constructions were expected to demonstrate the same distinction. In order to test this hypothesis, we considered a) the syntactic properties of the constructions, and the nominal or verbal behavior of the -mə̑- form in both cases; b) the aspectual semantics of the two constructions, i.e. the possibility of stative and dynamic interpretation in both constructions; c) the marking of the arguments in the constrictions, i.e. the possibility of overt expression of the agent and the referential properties of the patient. Syntactically, the passive construction with the nominative marking of the patient turned out to be an adjectival predication. This construction is stative, and the nominative patient NP is always definite. The construction with accusative patient marking is a verbal clause with a dynamic interpretation. The accusative patient NP may have any referential properties. However, both constructions can refer to habitual events, which needs further investigation. The observed properties of the two constructions lead to the following generalization: the construction with nominative patient marking denotes a resultant state of an event, whereas the construction with accusative patient marking denotes the event itself. This difference may be interpreted in the first phase syntax framework developed by G. Ramchand: in the nominative construction the patient is the Resultee, whereas in the accusative construction the patient is the Undergoer.

Suffixal Adjectives and Adjectival Participles in the Slang of Lithuanian Language

The article analyses 199 suffixal hybrid adjectives and 34 adjectival participles from the Lithuanian slang and non-standard dictionary. The study reveals that borrows with affixal adaptation are adapted to the language system and the adaptive features are determined by regularities: hybrids replicate word formation models from the Standard Lithuanian language. It was found that the most common suffix of affixal adaptation of borrowings from English is suffix -inis. Distribution of hybrids with suffix -iškas is different: there are almost twice less English originated hybrid adjectives with this suffix than originated from Russian language. Adjectival passive participants are most commonly used in the Lithuanian slang.

Idioms: The type-sensitive storage model

Idiom surveys conducted on both English and Hebrew motivate a distinction between phrasal idioms, which are headed by a lexical head, and clausal idioms, which involve sentential functional material. The surveys show that these two types of idioms have different patterns of distribution across diathesis alternations. A verbal passive phrasal idiom necessarily shares its idiomatic meaning with the corresponding transitive, while the unaccusative, adjectival passive and transitive can head their own phrasal idioms. This behavior of phrasal idioms contrasts with the strong tendency of clausal idioms to be specific to a single diathesis. The Type-Sensitive Storage (TSS) model, which we propose, accounts for these findings, by motivating a different storage (lexical listing) strategy for each idiom-type. Phrasal idioms are argued to be stored as subentries, while clausal idioms are independent entries. Assuming the verbal passive is derived post-lexically, thus lacking its own lexical entry, the model explains why it cannot host idiomatic meanings specific to it. In contrast, the adjectival passive, unaccusative and transitive have their own lexical entries under the model, and thus can have their own idiomatic meanings. Clausal idioms are stored as independent entries, and therefore their storage does not depend on the existence of other lexical entries.

Ser and estar from the Cognitive Grammar perspective

This article explores the various uses of ser and estar in Spanish based on the assumptions of Cognitive Grammar (CG). The application of certain concepts of this model to the description of the attributive and non-attributive values of ser and estar allows us to identify a unifying thread that facilitates an integrated description of each use. These concepts and theoretical instruments include grammaticalization through attenuation, active zone, profile/base distinction, and dependency relation through correspondences, among others. In accordance with the symbolic conception of grammar characteristic of CG, we defend the idea that in their attributive and non-attributive uses both ser and estar are signs in which a basic semantic structure present in all the values can be recognized, although with different emergent nuances in specific constructions facilitated by different processes of metonymic extension. The main argument of this paper is that, in the ser/estar opposition, the marked element is estar as it contains a stative-episodic component that, be it in the foreground of the profile or the background of the base presupposed by this verb, is present in all its uses, locative, attributive, as an auxiliary in progressive periphrasis and in adjectival passive constructions. Ser, however, is a copulative verb by default, and may be associated with the notion of identification or correspondence in all its attributive uses and takes on predicative nuances both in its use in locations of event nouns and as an auxiliary in passives.

Passivep and The Distinction Between Eventive, Resultative, and Statitive Passives 1¨

Tis paper focuses the distinction between verbal and adjectival passive sentences. For that differentiation to be accounted for, a previous proposal considering a specifc functional node for eventive passives - passiveP (LIMA JÚNIOR; AUGUSTO, 2015) is retrieved. It is arguably assumed that the approach based on passiveP, besides maintaining a uniform analysis to active and passive sentences (as VoiceP in Collins (2005)), deals well with intervention issues, and is prosperous in addressing parametric variation and language acquisition facts. As far as the tripartite distinction among the different types of passives is concerned (EMBICK, 2004; DUARTE; OLIVEIRA, 2010), it is proposed that a main bipartite distinction between eventive and adjectival passives may be retained, which is here attributed to the presence of passiveP. Concerning stative and resultative passives, an agreement operation between the auxiliary verbs and the participle (LUNGUINHO, 2011) is assumed to allow for different readings to be obtained. A fourth group of passive-like sentences, involving participles, which have lost their connection with their original verbs, is also syntactically distinguished and treated as actual copular constructions.

Idiom storage and the lexicon

Using a new methodology, the paper reports experimental work that sheds light on the organization of the lexicon, the storage technique of phrasal idioms, and the derivation of various diatheses. We conducted an experiment to examine the pattern of distribution of phrasal idioms across several diatheses. Native speakers of Hebrew were taught invented Hebrew idioms inspired by French idioms. The idioms were headed by predicates of three diatheses: a verbal passive, an adjectival passive, and an unaccusative verb. After learning the idioms, the participants evaluated for each idiom how likely it was that it shared its idiomatic meaning with its transitive version. The results show that the distribution of phrasal idioms depends on the diathesis of their head. Subjects perceived the likelihood of the verbal passive to share idiomatic meanings with its transitive counterpart as significantly higher than that of both the adjectival passive and the unaccusative. The findings provide support for the claim that phrasal idioms are stored in the lexicon, not in an extra-grammatical component, since their perception by speakers turned out to be dependent on a grammatical property, the diathesis. This dependency can be explained if phrasal idioms are stored as subentries of their head. The findings also reinforce the view that adjectival passives and unaccusatives are listed in the lexicon, but not verbal passives. Finally, they support the existence of an active lexicon, where thematic operations can apply.

Acquisition of English reflexive verb constructions: roles of syntactical indeterminacy and token frequency

This study draws on usage-based approach to language learning and investigates the role of syntactical indeterminacy and token frequency in constructional acquisition, for which reflexive verb constructions were selected as the testing field. Syntactic structures of reflexive verbs are either by reflexive constructions or adjectival passive, which have a polysemous interrelationship within the verb. To examine whether syntactic indeterminacy and token frequency play a role in the acquisition of reflexive verb constructions, a test of reflexive verb constructions and a baseline test formed with transitive verbs were developed and administered to L2 learners of an intermediate proficiency level. The findings show: (1) L2 reflexive verb constructions were less acquired than transitive constructions, suggesting that syntactic indeterminacy had an impact upon sentence production; (2) no significant difference was found between the productions of reflexive constructions and adjectival passives, but descriptive statistics showed that learners were attracted to the adjectival passive for production; (3) production of both syntactic structures reflected token frequency trend from COCA, indicating the important role of frequency in complex constructional acquisition.

I’m done my homework—Case assignment in a stative passive

We present an analysis of an understudied construction found in Philadelphian and Canadian English, and also in certain Vermont varieties. In this construction, the participle of certain verbs can appear along with a form of the verb be and a DP complement, producing strings like I’m done my homework, I’m finished my fries, and (in Vermont) I’m started the project. We show that the participle in the construction is an adjectival passive, not a perfect construction. We further argue that the internal argument DP in the construction is receiving Case from the adjectival head a, similar to what happens in all English dialects with the adjective worth, and that the internal argument is interpreted via a mechanism of complement coercion. The microparametric variation we find across English dialects with respect to the availability of this construction is accounted for by variation in the selectional restrictions on the a head.

A constructional analysis of English un-participle constructions

The present paper reports on an investigation into an English un-participle pattern that is called unpassive, or is described as an adjectival passive. The main characteristic of the pattern is an (adjectival) past participle prefixed by un-, which is used as a predicative complement to a verb. Besides the different terms used for the pattern, there is also some indeterminacy with respect to its particular form. All of the descriptions focus on the verb be, but mention is also made of go and remain. That is, the specifications of the pattern’s formal side differ to some extent. To provide information on this issue and to get hold of potential (verb-related) differences in the pattern’s function, we conducted an empirical analysis from a usage-based construction grammar perspective. Our focus is on the form-function interplay of the pattern in order to gain information about its constructional status and its exact formal and semantic make-up. The database selected for this study is the BNC, from which all occurrences of ‘verb plus un-participle’ were extracted. The data were submitted to collexeme and covarying collexeme analyses to identify the spectrum of meanings/functions associated with these forms, and distinctive collexeme analyses were carried out to see whether the un-participles found pattern differently with the individual verbs. The results indicate that, on closer examination, the un-participle construction does not represent a homogeneous category, but must be seen as a schematic template of related, though different, usage events that may have expanded analogously from a prototype construction. On the basis of our analyses and informed by findings from developmental studies, we suggest that the related constructions form a network.