Date: 28-Sep-2006
From: Blanca Balaciu <ileanablancayahoo.com>
Subject: La estructura léxica de la resultatividad y su expresión en las lenguas germánicas y románicas
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/17/17-355.html
AUTHOR: De Cuyper, GretelTITLE: La estructura léxica de la resultatividad y su expresión en laslenguas germánicas y románicasSERIES: Lincom Studies in Language TypologyPUBLISHER: Lincom GmbHYEAR: 2006
Blanca Croitor Balaciu, Institute of Linguistics, University of Bucharest,Romania, University of Paris 7.
This book is a comparative study of the aspect and argument structure ofresultative constructions in Germanic and Romance languages, within theframe of Lexical Syntax. The examples are taken from four languages: Dutch,English, Catalan and Spanish (Castilian). The author refines the four basicstructural types of lexical argument structure advanced by Hale and Keyser(1998) and points out that these structure types are also relevant for anaspectual analysis (thus following suggestions made by Hale and Keyserthemselves). The author revises the traditional class of telic events andintroduces a distinction between events in which the final state isactually achieved (named 'resultative' events) and events in which thefinal state is potentially present, as a goal (named 'telic' events).Evidence for this distinction comes from structural differences in thelower part of the lexical argument structure. The rest of the book isdedicated to analytical resultative constructions. The author rejectsTalmy's affirmation that analytical resultative constructions are found inGermanic languages, but not in Romance languages (Talmy 1985, 2000). Thereflexive pronoun SE is analysed as a resultative predicate, leading to theconclusion that Romance languages also have analytical resultativeconstructions; the difference between the two families of languages lies inthe frequency of this type of constructions, as there are restrictions dueto the fact that SE is an anaphor. In the last chapter, the author focuseson the upper part of the structure of the analytical resultativeconstruction. She defends the view that the verb does not have a primitivestatus, but a complex one; its complexity comes from the conflation of thelight verb with a root without category which brings in the lexical content.
SUMMARY
In the first chapter, De Cuyper briefly introduces the reader to thenotions of argument structure and aspect and to the principles of LexicalSyntax (Hale and Keyser, 1992, 1997, 1998, 2002, among other works). Shepresents the four basic structural types of lexical argument structure,using the notions of head, specifier and complement, laid down in Hale andKeyser (1997 and following) in order to explain the differences betweenunaccusative, unergative and transitive verbs.
Then, the author discusses four problems that Hale and Keyser's analysisraises, especially when it comes to the structure suggested fordeadjectival verbs. One of them is related to the fact that the capacity toselect the specifier and the complement is said to be due to certainproperties specific to each lexical category, but at the same time theauthors assume that the structural configurations they design areindependent of grammatical category. Another problem relates to therelation between the categorical origin of the verb and its participationin the causative-inchoative alternation, as the examples contradict thesupposition that only deadjectival verbs participate in this alternation.The third problem concerns the predicative status of the adjective. Theauthor adopts Mateu's analysis of the adjective as a prepositional phrasewhich has incorporated its complement (Mateu 2002). Therefore, theadjective is no longer a defective predicate which needs a verb in order toproject a specifier (as proposed by Hale and Keyser), but a complex headwhich can directly project a specifier. The need for an internal verb isthus eliminated. The fourth problem relates to structural position of thesubject of unaccusative deadjectival verbs. De Cuyper assumes that thesubject of all unaccusative verbs is postverbal, regardless of itscategorical origin.
Next, De Cuyper suggests new structural configurations for the unergative,unaccusative and transitive constructions. The complement of the verb is amere lexical nucleus which can be associated to a particle, an adjective, aprepositional phrase or a clitic (this part is subject to parametricvariation). The transitive and the inchoative constructions are no longerin a structural derivative relation. The fact that a verb can(not)participate in the causative-inchoative alternation is due to certainconceptual or semantic factors that are outside the frame of lexicalsyntax. In the remaining part of this chapter, the author turns herattention to conflation and the relation between the lexical argumentstructure and aspect. She presents the various analyses of the technicalaspects of conflation and leaves open the question whether it involves onlymorphological features or morphological and phonological features as well.
De Cuyper then investigates the relation between lexical argument structureand aspect. She follows Hale and Keyser's analysis (2002), involving thesemantic of prepositions and its relation to structural representation:prepositions may express a relation of central coincidence (stativesituations) or terminal coincidence (denoting the progression of an entity,which occupies the specifier position, to a final point, which occupies thecomplement position). Telic events involve a complex preposition,consisting in a preposition of terminal coincidence whose p-signatureconflates with the p-signature of the preposition of central coincidence.Thus, semantic differences are associated with structural differences.
In the second chapter, De Cuyper revises the traditional aspectual classeslaid down since Vendler (1967) and she focuses on the class of telicevents. She considers that the classical distinction between achievementand accomplishments, based on the temporal extension and the presence of acausative subevent, is aspectually irrelevant. Instead, the relevantdistinction is considered to be that between 'real' final states (thosefinal states which have been obtained) and 'potential' final states (whichare merely a goal); 'resultative' events involve real final states and'telic' events involve potential final states. Thus, the author gives a newmeaning to the notion 'telic'. Evidence for this distinction comes fromcertain contextual inferences. For resultative events, the final state isencoded as the 'result' in its aspectual structure. For telic events, theobtaining of the final state is not encoded in its linguistic structure.The author relates this distinction to the semantics of the lexicalnucleus: telic events contain a lexical nucleus of terminal coincidence,while resultative events contain a complex nucleus of both terminal andcentral coincidence (formed by conflation). De Cuyper's analysis involvesthe fact that the primitive (basic) level of aspect is a question of theverb alone, excluding the arguments. The semantic properties of thearguments (associated with determination or quantification) may have aninfluence on the aspectual interpretation of the verb, but only at a levelthat is superior (posterior) to the primitive level and only within thelimitations imposed by the aspectual properties of the primitive lexicalnucleus.
In the third chapter, De Cuyper focuses on analytical resultativeconstructions. In the analytical construction, certain semantic componentsare expressed outside the verb. The author starts from Talmy's typology(1985, 2000), according to which languages differ when it comes to thecombinations of semantic components that the verb may express: in Germaniclanguages, but not in Romance languages, 'movement' can combine with'manner'. In Spanish, however, 'movement' can combine with 'path', while inGermanic languages the 'path' is expressed by a satellite; hence thedistinction between satellite-framed languages (like Germanic languages)and verb-framed languages (like Romance languages). The satellite can be anadjective ('the waiter wiped the dishes dry'), a prepositional phrase ('thebottle floated into the cave') or a particle ('the bottle floated away').Romance analytical resultative constructions have not been discussed verymuch because the resultative lexical nuclei of terminal coincidence andterminal + central coincidence express a 'path', therefore, they wereconsidered to be encoded in the verb, not outside it.
The author shows that Talmy's typology has been embraced by many linguists,although is sometimes contradicted by counterexamples. One of thesecounterexamples is the resultative construction with the reflexive pronoun(SE) found in Catalan, Castilian, Italian, Romanian, and, to a more limitedextent, in French (but not in Portuguese and Galician). Due to its regularextension and productivity, these constructions do not represent just agroup of counterexamples, but a pattern which constitutes a strong argumentagainst Talmy's typology.
In the literature concerning resultative construction with SE, there havebeen several hypotheses regarding the role of this reflexive clitic: (a) ithas been argued to be related to an argument position of the verb (SE wouldallegedly make a transitive verb intransitive); (b) some linguists believedthat it didn't have a grammatical (syntactic or semantic) function, itsfunction being to emphasize the role of the subject (as it is an anaphorrelated to the subject); (c) another analysis treats SE as a benefactiveadjunct; (d) other linguists have suggested that SE has an aspectual role,as it would either convert a atelic event into a telic one or explicitlymark the telic character of the construction. De Cuyper rejects theseanalyses and argues that SE has a resultative role: for the constructionwith SE, the interpretation is that the final state is obtained, while fortheir counterparts without SE, the interpretation is that the event isoriented towards the final state, but we don't know if it is obtained(these are telic events, according to the author's terminology). Therefore,SE is a resultative marker.
Furthermore, De Cuyper investigates its relation to lexical argumentstructure and reaches the conclusion that SE is a resultative predicatewhich has obtained its aspectual value by conflation of the complement ofthe internal complement with the lexical nuclei of central and terminalcoincidence. At the same time, by this conflation, SE obtains itspredicative value and acts as the predicate of the internal argument of theconstruction. Thus, Romance languages also have analytical resultativeconstructions with a satellite (SE) expressing a 'path' (the questionremains why it is the reflexive clitic which undertakes this role). DeCuyper also gives a few examples from other Romance languages – Italian,French and Romanian, although she does not discuss them in detail. Romanianexamples given by her are with the so-called ''possessive dative'' (Mi-ambăut berea. 'I - DAT POS - have drunk my beer'), but this language also hasa resultative construction with an accusative SE which is more relevant forthis discussion: Hârtiile s-au îngălbenit. – 'The papers SE yellowed'.
The last chapter of the book focuses on the upper part of the lexicalstructure of resultatives and the identification of the element that isincorporated in the defective verb of the analytical resultativeconstruction. There are two alternative analyses of analytical resultativeverbs, Event Type Shifting and Lexical Subordination, the differencebetween them lying in the primitive vs. the composed or conflated status ofthe verb. According to the Event Type Shifting analyses, the analyticalresultative construction is derived from a non-resultative constructionwhich contains the same verb. Thus, the verb is considered to have aprimitive status and the resultative predicate is added to it. According toLexical Subordination analyses, the resultative predicate is not anadjunct, but a component of the basic configuration of the resultativeconstruction. In this basic configuration, the light verb obtains itsconceptual content by conflation with an adjunct argument structurecontaining the lexical verb (subordinated to the basic analyticalresultative construction). The author agrees that the verb is composed, butargues that it is not a verb that incorporates, as verbs cannotincorporate; instead, the element that is incorporated into the basicstructure is merely a root which expresses the 'manner' and which obtainsits verbal category by conflation with the light verb.
De Cuyper's analysis eliminates several problems raised by other theories:the Single Delimitation Constraint (Tenny 1994), the fact that somearguments are not subcategorized for or not selected by the verb outsidethe resultative construction (under this analysis, arguments aresubcategorized for and selected by the predicative nucleus of the basicconstruction, not by the conceptual component which incorporates in thelight verb). At the end of the chapter, the author admits that the problemraised by her analysis is the over-generating of constructions. Since thereare no specifications of the aspectual and predicative properties in thelexical entry of the verb, impossible (''unacceptable'') constructions aregenerated. However, until a (convincing) theory concerning the connectionsbetween the presupposed ''lexical'' information of a word and the syntacticstructure in which in can(not) appear, the author rejects the fact thatconceptual limitations may influence the structure.
To conclude, De Cuyper's book, based on her doctoral thesis defended in2004 at the University of Antwerp, uses the principles of Lexical Syntaxfor an analysis of the aspectual structure of delimited events (telics andresultatives). This theoretical framework allows her to investigate theconnection between argument structure an aspect and to identify thecomponent of the argument structure which is responsible for the primitiveaspect. The author attentively discusses the disadvantages of previousanalyses from the literature on resultative constructions, in order toreveal the advantages of the lexical-syntactic analysis and to refine itsprinciples.
REFERENCES
Hale, Ken & Samuel Jay Keyser, 1992, ''The Syntactic Character of ThematicStructure'', in Roca, Iggy (ed.), 'Thematic Structure. Its Role in Grammar'(Linguistic models 16), Berlin, New York, Foris, 107–143.
Hale, Ken & Samuel Jay Keyser, 1997, ''On the Complex Nature of SimplePredicators'', in Alsina, Àlex, Joan Bresnan & Peter Sells (eds.), 'ComplexPredicates', Stanford, CSLI Publications, 29–65.
Hale, Ken & Samuel Jay Keyser, 1998, ''The Basic Elements of ArgumentStructure'', in Harley, Heidi (ed.), 'Papers from the Upenn/MIT Roundtableon Argument Structure and Aspect', Cambridge, MITWPL, 73–118.
Hale, Ken & Samuel Jay Keyser, 2002, ''A Prolegomenon of Argument Structure''(Linguistic Inquiry Monograph 39), Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT.
Mateu, Jaume, 2002, ''Argument Structure: Relational Construal at theSyntax-Semantics Interface'', Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, doctoralthesis.
Talmy, Leonard, 1985, ''Lexicalization Patterns: Semantic Structure inLexical Forms'', in Shopen, Timothy (ed.), 'Language Typology and SyntacticDescription 3. Grammatical Categories and the Lexicon', Cambridge, CUP, 57–149.
Talmy, Leonard, 2000, ''Toward a Cognitive Semantics. Volume II: Typologyand Process in Concept Structuring'', Cambridge, Massachusetts, London,England, MIT.
Tenny, Carol, 1994, ''Aspectual Roles and the Syntax-Semantics Interface''(Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy 52), Dordrecht, Kluwer.
Vendler, Zeno, 1967, ''Verbs and Times'', in Vendler, Zeno (ed.),'Linguistics in Philosophy', Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press,97–121.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Blanca Croitor Balaciu is a researcher at the Institute of Linguistics fromBucharest, and is writing a doctoral thesis about agreement under thesupervision of Carmen Dobrovie Sorin from University of Paris 7 and ValeriaGutu Romalo from University of Bucharest. Her domains of interest aresyntax, semantics, morphology and spoken language (especially vocatives).She is a co-author of the recent Romanian Grammar published by the RomanianAcademy (2005) and is also involved in the project The Essential Grammar ofRomanian.
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