On Interpreting Construction Schemas: From Action and Motion to Transitivity and Causality (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs)

On Interpreting Construction Schemas

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Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs 198

Editors

Walter Bisang (main editor for this volume)

Hans Henrich Hock Werner Winter

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

On Interpreting Construction Schemas From Action and Motion to Transitivity and Causality edited by

Nicole Delbecque Bert Cornillie

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data On interpreting construction schemas : from action and motion to transitivity and causality / edited by Nicole Delbecque, Bert Cornillie. p. cm. ⫺ (Trends in linguistics. Studies and monographs ; 198) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-3-11-019865-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Grammar, Comparative and general ⫺ Verb phrase. I. Delbecque, Nicole. II. Cornillie, Bert, 1975⫺ P281.O49 2007 4151.6⫺dc22 2007042935

ISBN 978-3-11-019865-2 ISSN 1861-4302 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. ” Copyright 2007 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover design: Christopher Schneider, Berlin. Printed in Germany.

Table of contents

List of contributors Introduction Nicole Delbecque, and Bert Cornillie

vii 1

A usage-based approach to prototypical transitivity Victoria Vázquez Rozas

17

Transitivity and referentiality in Spanish and Rumanian Eugeen Roegiest

39

Transitive verbs with non-accusative alternation in Hebrew: Cross-language comparison with English, German and Spanish Rivka Halevy

61

Unsubcategorized objects in English resultative constructions Cristiano Broccias

103

Complex predicates in Basque Cathryn Donohue

125

An adversative passive in English: in search of origins Junichi Toyota

143

Verbs of letting: Some cognitive and historical aspects Augusto Soares da Silva

171

Syntactic and semantic integration in the Spanish causative-reflexive construction José M. García-Miguel

201

Soft causatives in Spanish Ricardo Maldonado

229

Two causal alternatives: carry vs. push type constructions in English Natalya Schmidt

261

vi Table of contents Grammar of “manner of motion” verbs in English and Spanish: between lexicon and syntax Yuko Morimoto

287

On the nature of lexicalization patterns: a cross-linguistic inquiry Luna Filipoviü

307

The semantics of space: A study of the prefix pro- in Serbian Dejan Stosic

331

Subject index

359

Author index

365

List of contributors

Cristiano Broccias Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures University of Genova Italy e-mail: [email protected] Bert Cornillie Department of Linguistics University of Leuven Belgium e-mail: [email protected] Nicole Delbecque Department of Linguistics University of Leuven Belgium e-mail: [email protected] Cathryn Donohue Department of English University of Nevada, Reno USA e-mail: [email protected] Luna Filipović Department of Psychology University College London UK e-mail: [email protected]

viii List of contributors José-María García-Miguel Department of Translation and Linguistics University of Vigo Spain e-mail: [email protected] Rivka Halevy Department of Hebrew language The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Israël e-mail: [email protected] Ricardo Maldonado Soto Institute of Philological research Universities of Mexico and Quéretaro Mexico e-mail: [email protected] Yuko Morimoto Department of Humanities Carlos III University, Madrid Spain e-mail: [email protected] Eugeen Roegiest Faculty of Arts University of Ghent Belgium e-mail: [email protected] Natalya Schmidt Department of Linguistics University of Trier Germany

List of contributors

Augusto Soares da Silva Faculty of Philosophy Catholic Portuguese University, Braga Portugal e-mail: [email protected] Dejan Stosic Faculty of Arts University of Artois, Arras France e-mail: [email protected] Junichi Toyota Department of Linguistics Lund University Sweden e-mail: [email protected] Victoria Vázquez Rozas Faculty of Philology University of Santiago de Compostela Spain e-mail: [email protected]

ix

Introduction Nicole Delbecque, and Bert Cornillie In recent years, linguistic thinking from various orientations has come to realize that meaning pervades all levels of grammar. In Cognitive Linguistics, the broad framework in which the present volume is situated, linguistic structures – both lexical and syntactic – are defined as inherently meaningful, in the sense that they provide the structuring and symbolization of conceptual content. The main purpose is to present a series of case studies which account for constructional variability with transitive and causative verbs in various languages. Drawing on the theoretical advances registered in cognitive approaches to language (Cognitive Grammar, Construction Grammar and space semantics), these studies substantiate new interpretations and adduce empirical evidence to refine or adjust existing analyses of transitivity and causation. How do concrete and abstract notions of human behavior drive linguistic expressions? This is the main question addressed by the different contributions in this book. The issue at stake is whether the meaning of a construction is construed as an extension of the basic lexical semantics of its constituents or as the conceptualization of the construal as a whole. Cognitive linguists such as Langacker (1987, 1991), Croft (1991, 2001) and Goldberg (1995) defend the latter option, considering that linguistic competence functions in terms of complex conceptual units: the native speaker knows and manipulates conceptual blocks without paying further attention to their constitutive parts or their internal organization. If the proper subroutines are spontaneously applied in order to build a coherent meaning, i.e. if the meaning construction does not require any conscious effort, this reveals that the conceptual network corresponding to the grammatical uses, is rooted in the embodied mind. It remains a question, however, whether the role of the constitutive parts and their internal organization can simply be reduced to zero. Since language allows people to gather and store information about the world, it functions as a knowledge acquisition device. And as it structures thoughts, it is also a knowledge building device, enabling reasoning and the communication of it. Since Language and Conceptualization, edited by Nuyts and Pederson in 1997, the debate on linguistic representation and its subjacent conceptual structure has taken a more concrete direction. Leaving aside the remaining black-box problem of the human mind (Nuyts 1992),

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the analyst tackles linguistic information to detect paths of conceptualization, i.e. linguistic form is acknowledged to encode and transmit conceptual information, even if it is not clear to which extent the conceptual level of language influences the linguistic representation. Regarding this question, Levinson (1997) argues that the conceptual representation and the linguistic representation must be separate and that cultural differences yield different conceptual representations in languages. Rather than approaching this question from an exclusively theoretical point of view, the present contributions are concerned with how similar conceptual representations lead to different linguistic representations (in European languages). They especially highlight some of the specific themes and issues that surround the study of the interrelated notions of control, causation and motion, thus yielding new insights into the grammar of transitivity and causation. These include topics such as transitivity and prominence of participants, a variety of patterns in causative constructions, and verb-internal mechanisms and particles that orient the conceptualization of motivated action and motion. Causative and transitive relations in general have become central topics in linguistic research since the publication of The Grammar of Causative Constructions (Shibatani 1976) and Studies in Transitivity (Hopper and Thompson 1982). The theory of semantic transitivity, as proposed by Hopper and Thompson (1980) paved the way for typological approaches of causativity in terms of transitivity increase, e.g. various contributions in Comrie and Polinsky (1993). Control and Transitivity The theory of control has for a long time been syntax-oriented: it was only concerned with the argument structure of the sentence. Since the success of functionally oriented linguistics, conceptualization behind syntactic realization has been gaining in importance. In their landmark book on the ubiquity of metaphor in everyday language, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) analyze how metaphors for causation grow out of a prototype for direct manipulation which is, not surprisingly, similar to the transitive prototype for physical world interaction. The need for a holistic approach to controlled and moved complements has broadly been emphasized in several publications in the framework of Cognitive Linguistics (e.g. Rice 1987, Kemmer and Verhagen 1994, Goldberg 1995, Talmy 2000a and 2000b). The interest for this topic is not limited to this framework, however. Control and motion have recently become a real point of interest for a broad

Introduction

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group of linguists and in order to study them appropriately, the integration of both formal and functional analyses is quite commonly advocated for nowadays. The attention paid to idioms, formulas and construction schemas by authors such as Jackendoff (1995) is an example of the wide-spread choice for integration. “Control” is a key notion in several contributions of this volume. The conceptual content at stake is mainly situated at clause level and uses to be categorized in terms of “action” or “event” types. The latter are subdivided along various partially intersecting parameters, such as the contrasts between accidental vs non-accidental, or controlled vs uncontrolled. Transitive structures depict accidental as well as non-accidental events, and controlled as well as uncontrolled ones. Causative structures, however, typically convey a non-accidental and, more particularly, a controlled reading of an event, the coming about of which is made dependent on the – often but not always coextensive – intervention of an instigating or initiating instance. In the present book various papers dwell on problems related to the representation of the syntactic and semantic network of control and motion. The main point under investigation is the specific relation between the verbal kernel and its object, causee, satellites, etc. The analyses are based upon attested examples; some draw on quite extensive corpuses, thus taking into account the diversity in language use. Prototypical transitivity is not only determined by the presence of two participants, but also by the asymmetrical configuration of its participants (Langacker 1987: 231, 1991: 321; Blume 2000: 159). The prototypical transitive event finds its starting point in the (Proto-)Agent, the most central participant, and usually opens up to include the participant affected by the action, generally called the Goal or the Patient. The latter does not coparticipate in the process, but is merely affected by it. Whereas the (Proto-)Agent is essentially defined in terms of control, causation, activity, sentence independent existence, the (Proto-)Patient appears as controlled, causally affected by the activity, undergoing a change of state or a movement (Dowty 1991; Primus 1999: 36). Yet, alternating patterns and special markings exist next to the prototypical transitive configuration. Many well entrenched two-participant relations do not conform to the force-dynamics model but rather instantiate an abstract, psycho-social, intentional concept of causation. Victoria Vázquez Rozas adduces evidence from language acquisition data, from text corpora and from experimental psychology to point out the existence of an alternative transitivity prototype which is at the core of human cognition and communication.

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In addition to the Agent-oriented event structures, various languages have developed structures which are rather centered around the affected entity, thus departing from the prototypical transitive profile and conveying a more complex schematic meaning of the subject-object relationship. This is particularly clear in languages such as Rumanian, Spanish and Hebrew, the languages dealt with in the contributions of Eugeen Roegiest and Rivka Halevy. Crosslinguistic comparison of the preposition alternations affecting the object's semantic Case Role interpretation, allows them to postulate language-specific profiles involving Dative- and Locative-like interpretations, next to the classical Accusative ones. Control and Causation An extension of the notion of control is the kind of control exerted on causees in order to make them perform an activity. The grounding of causation in basic prototypical causative, force-dynamic and/or locomotion schemas is by now widely recognized and put to use in cognitive-linguistic analyses (e.g. Lakoff 1980, 1987; Talmy 1985a; Goldberg 1995). Furthermore, space semantics provides the analyst with specific evidence for the underlying patterns in change-of-state verbs (cf. Vandeloise 1986; Borillo 1998). As a matter of fact, space semantics is inspiring for the analysis of both causation and motion. The majority of the proposals take the finite verb as the starting point of the analysis, aiming at gaining insight into the verb’s lexical meaning and into the participant structure of the whole construction. The papers by Cristiano Broccias, Cathryn Donohue, Junichi Toyota, Augusto Soares da Silva, José M. García-Miguel, Ricardo Maldonado, Natalya Schmidt and Yuko Morimoto are conceived from that point of view. Other authors like Luna Filipoviü and Dejan Stosic stress the importance of particles or satellites as basis for the conceptualization of the construction. Cristiano Broccias is also concerned with the prominence of satellites and their effect on the subcategorized objects. In resultative constructions as “he washed the eyes clean” these objects have a transitive relation with the agent which is different from the prototypical patient-agent transitive relation. The force dimension in the construction schema is divided between the subcategorized object and the resultative complement. There has been much disagreement in the literature on the representation of causative constructions. In essence, this dispute boils down to whether or not the construction has a flat structure, like a simple clause with an additional argument (e.g. Wunderlich 1997), or whether it is a ‘complex predicate’, which is multi-headed, whose structure reflects that the pre-

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causative clause is distinct at some level (e.g. Alsina 1993). Cognitive linguists such as Achard (1998) use, amongst other factors, the initial salience of the causee located between the infinitive and the finite verb as a criterion for considering that there are two verbal contructions instead of one complex one. Whether the causative finite verb and the infinitive are perceived as a unified complex construal also depends on other factors, such as the type of transitivity and control, the degree of entrenchment of the causative verb, clitic alternation, etc. Cathryn Donohue proposes to interpret case-marking in Basque complex causatives on the ground of two basic clauses. This is an alternative for the control-argument for case assignment, in which ergative is a means to express that the causee retains control over its action, while absolutive is used when the causee is seen as not having control. Still, according to Joppen-Hellwig (2001), inherent control properties of the argument (animacy, etc.) play a role in the argument linking. Junichi Toyota shows that in get- and other passives, the subject has lost the control over the event. The subject’s loss of prominence allows for new readings in which the traditional participant structure fades away. This explains that adversative or benefactive readings can emerge, as in the English get-passive, for instance. This is not the case when there is inalienable possession, since control by the subject is incompatible with these readings. In addition to traditional causation, essentially conceived of as a predominantly interpersonal force relation between a causer and a causee, in the late 1970’s the idea of an omnipresent general autonomous causation pattern became in vogue. Since Talmy’s (1976, 1985a) work on causation, the Gestalt-based force dynamics is considered as a constituent part of whatever position or relation an empirical element is referred to. Even in constellations in which there is no specific force from outside, the position of the Agonist and the one of the Antagonist determine the final direction (Talmy 2000a: 413–451). Natalya Schmidt recalls that the idea of alternate causation patterns tracks back to Michotte’s (1963) observations on the division of labour in human behavior between ‘pushing’ and ‘launching’ movements, and to his conception of Gestalts as human prototypes for general patterns of motion and causation. Given the usual awareness of the animate performer, human locomotion tends to be conceived of as intentional action, aiming at attaining some definite point (cf. Lakoff 1987: 275). Yet, the subject’s control varies. In ‘launching’ it tends to be perceived as direct; in ‘pushing’, however, it becomes indirect: by releasing the object, the subject entity still directs and controls the object’s action but does so “from a distance”.

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Augusto Soares da Silva describes how other important notions in the study of language and logic such as enablement, permission and negation, can also be approached in terms of force dynamics. Causation usually is a kind of extended motion with a differentiation of domains. While the physical domain of ‘causing’ and ‘letting’ includes simple caused motion, the intersubjective domain yields an interactive schema that goes beyond mere motion. José M. García-Miguel shows that the study of transitivity can be supplemented with that of projection and causation. In the Spanish causative-reflexive construction, the combination of the weak transitivity of the middle voice (cf. Kemmer 1993, Maldonado 1999) and the controlling function of the causative verb yields conflicting forces inside the subject entity. Yet, in the overall construal, each part is contributing with its meaning into a coherent whole. This explanation is in line with Kemmer and Verhagen’s (1994: 116) view that causative structures are “built up from simpler structural conceptual units, in the sense that they relate (nonderivationally) to more basic clause types”. Yet, there are limits on the suitability of the transivity model for analyzing complex structures. There are indeed cases in which the basic clause type is susceptible of undergoing reduction and bleaching, e.g., into an addressee-oriented causative discourse connector. A case in point is the “soft-causative” introduced by deja ‘let-imperative’ in informal Mexican Spanish analyzed by Ricardo Maldonado. Several papers do not only study the origin of motion and causation in terms of contained or unlashed forces, but also take into account the end and effect of the process. Yuko Morimoto, Luna Filipoviü and Dejan Stosic tackle the question of the boundaries of the motion and the change of state. With intransitive verbs, control is exerted on the basis of the boundaries the motion faces. For analyzing trajects and boundaries, space semantics provides the analyst with specific evidence for the underlying direction patterns (cf Vandeloise 1986; Borillo 1998). Yuko Morimoto and Luna Filipoviü start off from the distinction between directed motion and manner of motion verbs. As is well known, Talmy (1985a) established a typological differentiation between English and Spanish, among other languages, with regard to the different lexicalization of the semantic components of the motion event. Yuko Morimoto points out the similarity between resultative and manner of motion constructions, thus arguing that motion cannot be seen apart from causation and control. Furthermore, Luna Filipoviü argues that the morphological marking (prefixing) and the combinatorial restrictions that characterize motion verbs in Serbian/Croatian call for a refinement of the

Introduction

7

typological distinction between satellite-framed and verb-framed languages. Her observations suggest that the Slavonic languages occupy an intermediary position between Romance and Germanic languages. In his analysis of the Serbian/Croatian pro-prefix, Dejan Stosic links up spatial insights with the imperfective or perfective character of the verb. On the one hand, the prefix imposes limits to otherwise imperfective processes, on the other, action delimited both in space and time becomes a segment which is localized in the entire motion event. With perfectives the proprefix thus introduces a transitional dimension in the realization of the process. Beyond the diversity of languages studied and the relative heterogeneity in the analytic strategies adopted, there is a great unity in the way the authors deal with linguistic form and meaning. All analyses try to shed light on the subjacent conceptual patterns of linguistic representation. The summaries given below come in the same order as the papers in the volume. Summaries Victoria Vázquez Rozas discusses the notion of prototypical transitivity. It is usually defined in terms of physical action by an agent on a patient, while transitive clauses that do not profile an event characterized by energy transfer are generally explained by metaphorical extension. However, socalled ‘low transitivity’ clauses significantly outrank ‘high transitivity’ ones in early acquisition stages as well as in text corpora. This leads the author to postulate the existence of an alternative prototype of transitivity, viz., one that is in line with recent findings in experimental psychology that acknowledge the priority of psychological or intentional causality in human cognition over physical causality. This concept also fits in with the eminently (inter)subjective nature of linguistic interaction. Eugeen Roegiest concentrates on the characterization of the objects of transitive activity in Spanish and in Rumanian. In Rumanian, an object with a high degree of agentivity tends to take precedence over an object with a low degree of agentivity. The fact that Rumanian appears to refuse the status of direct object to an inanimate and non-referential controlled participant, lends support to the multifactorial approach of transitivity advocated by Hopper and Thompson (1980). In Spanish, on the contrary, the semantic role arrangement prevails. The tendency to formally mark the human object as an indirect object, thus favoring ditransitive constructions, shows that it is rather the agentivity principle which is at work in this

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language. In view of the divergencies between the two languages, the author concludes that both the referentiality and the agentivity principle should be integrated in a global typological approach of transitivity. Rivka Halevy analyzes the accusative / locative alternation in Hebrew at the light of the non-prepositional / prepositional alternation in Spanish (cf. Delbecque 1999, 2002). She argues that also in Hebrew the prepositional construction is the marked counterpart of the non-prepositional one. Her analysis involves the classification of the Hebrew verbs affected by the alternation, the characterization of the central participant roles, and the characterization of the event in terms of aspect, viewpoint and actuality. She further discusses the relevance of the notion of 'contact' for the transitivity alternation and a number of lexical correlates of it. Finally, she compares the restricted prototypical transitivity of Hebrew, a verb-framed language, with that of German, a satellite-framed language (cf. Talmy 1985b), where the transitive construction has undergone a wide extension (cf. Hawkins 1987). Cristiano Broccias’s linguistic data show that unsubcategorized objects of transitive verbs in English resultative constructions are more complex than suggested in Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995). Examples with verbs like beat and frighten warrant the hypothesis that the licensing of unsubcategorized objects in resultative constructions depends on the "emission scenario" rather than on transitivity. In this scenario, the constructional object referent is conceptualized as moving into/out of the constructional prepositional object referent. Examples without subcategorized object (e.g. Poyet headed Chelsea in front) and without emission scenario at the constructional level, either, further suggest that it is sufficient that the verb be "construed" as a verb of emission. Thus, the verb denotes the movement of an entity out of another entity as if the former originated from the latter by virtue of a part-whole relation. Cathryn Donohue's paper is concerned with the expression of causation in Basque. This morphologically rich language, marking both heads and dependents, does not only have a syntactic – periphrastic – causative, but also a morphological one. In the latter case, a causative morpheme is added to the verb, thus licensing the extra argument in the clause. She argues that, in order to properly account for the observed case marking phenomena, this morphological causative is best analyzed as a complex predicate. Whereas the causer is always realized in the ergative case, case marking is not so neatly predictable for the rest of the arguments, in particular for the ‘middle’ two arguments: both the subject and indirect object of the original clause can bear either the structural dative or the oblique case. The author attempts at palliating the shortcomings of a former account (Joppen and

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Wunderlich 1995) by incorporating semantic information into the Lexical Decomposition Grammar framework (cf. Kiparsky 1992) which determines how case is to be assigned and thus how the arguments are to be ‘realized’. Junichi Toyota analyzes the English get-passive construction. Building on synchronic evidence (cf. Downing 1996), he especially focuses on its adversative reading and aims at reaching a comprehensive account as to its origin and evolution. To underpin the actual threefold typology, distinguishing (i) the get-passive (e.g. She got hurt in the accident), (ii) the get-middle (e.g., He gets dressed up early), (iii) the adversative get (e.g. He got fired from his job), he invokes various grammaticalization processes, situated in different periods, and involving purposive case, coreference between causer and causee and subject’s control. The three different constructions are thus derived from the reflexive/middle construction, which originates from the causative construction. This type of change involves the so-called localism hypothesis and is not unique to the getpassive, as a similar case can be found in other languages, e.g., the se fairepassive in French. Augusto Soares da Silva takes the perspective of cognitive semantics to examine some aspects of the complex conceptual category of 'letting' in the Romance languages. The array of parameters considered includes the activity of the subject, presuppositions concerning the power or authority of the subject, restrictions imposed on the objects, performative uses. This leads to the identification of three groups of 'letting' verbs: verbs of nonpreventing, freeing-exemptive verbs and verbs of permission. The author further investigates the causal relations that these verbs categorize, the semantic associations between causation and negation, causation and permission/enablement, the oppositions between negated restriction and positive enablement and between causal letting and normative letting. Finally, the overlap of all these concepts in the 'letting' verbs is traced back to conceptual and experiential motivations, and attention is drawn to the incorporation of the 'letting' concepts in other groups of verbs, e.g. the verbs of granting or, more generically, the verbs of giving. José M. García-Miguel analyzes the corresponding causative-reflexive construction in Spanish. Drawing on the cognitive interpretation of the causatives as extensions of the simple clause (Kemmer and Verhagen 1994) and on the notion of 'blending' (cf. Fauconnier and Turner 1996), he proposes to replace the traditional derivative interpretations by a more natural one, based on the integration – and mutual enhancement – of the schematic meanings of the principal components of the construction. The basic elements of the construction are the reflexive clitic se as middle voice marker, the respective force dynamics expressed by hacer 'make' and dejar

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'let', the lexical meaning of the infinitive verb, and, subsidiarily, the contribution of yet other clausal elements. Ricardo Maldonado explores the emergence of a soft-causative construction in informal Spanish that runs counter to normal patterns of causative formation: instead of taking subjunctive or infinitive marking, the complement takes no complementizer, is finite and takes indicative mood, as if it were an independent clause. It thus challenges the functional and cognitive notion of “integration” by which complex sentences derive from a basic verbal form. The author argues that the soft-causative involves a high degree of subjectification (Langacker 2000) in the sense that the causative verb dejar ‘let’ undergoes a process of attenuation to exhibit a high degree of transparency. Causation is thus reduced to its minimal expression and the asymmetry characteristic of subordination is not attested. The almost completed bleaching process of dejar ‘let’ is controlled by pragmatic needs and goes beyond general tendencies of weakening processes, as the causative verb is reduced to keeping the hearer “connected” to the communicative line as the speaker performs some alternative action. Natalya Schmidt's paper discusses the English carry vs push type constructions (e.g. He carried the box to the place vs He pushed /threw the stick into the river). The point of departure is the idea that causal understanding of a scene is performed by reference to one of the two fundamental types of causal effect as identified by the psychologist A. Michotte (1963), viz., “entraining” or “launching”. It is argued that the role of the basic causal constructions in language is to support decoding (i) by providing direct access to (the ‘image’ of) one of the basic scenes, and (ii) by serving as a basis for derived causal constructions through metaphorical projections. The author further discusses various possible correspondences between derived scene and basic scene. For the resultative constructions, she postulates a hierarchical system in which each construction is characterized in relation both to a basic construction and to the construction on the previous (more basic) level in the hierarchy of causal processing. Yuko Morimoto examines the typological distinction between satelliteframed and verb-framed languages (cf. Talmy 1985a) as it applies to the manner of motion verbs in English vs. Spanish. The fact that the English ‘walk’, ‘swim’, ... verbs license a goal argument, whereas their Spanish counterparts do not, raises problems for a hypothesis which is central to various syntactic theories, not in the least for Lexical Semantics, viz., that the lexical meaning of the verb strongly determines their grammatical properties (Aske 1989; Jackendoff 1990, 1997; Mateu and Rigau 2000). From a Construction Grammar perspective (cf. Goldberg 1995), the author adduces arguments to consider the English “He swam to the boat”-

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construction as idiomatic. She argues that beyond the expression of manner of motion, the issue also involves the expression of resultative change. Luna Filipoviü tackles the question of alternating lexicalization patterns for expressing motion events from yet another viewpoint. Starting from experiential categories, she examines the ways languages such as French, English and Serbian/Croatian tend to segment the events, e.g. whether they render change of state and boundary-crossing/reaching (cf. Slobin 1997). From the comparison between the functional and morphological categories – especially those involving deixis – as used in Serbian/Croatian and English, there appear to be still quite a few points of parting beyond the reputed similarities between the use of manner verb + directional particle in Slavonic and Germanic languages (cf. Talmy 1985b). Dejan Stosic offers a detailed syntactico-semantic analysis of the verbal prefix pro- in Serbian/Croatian. He shows that its space semantics is doubled by an aspectual function. In interaction with a direct object entity or with an oblique – usually introduced by means of the preposition kroz 'through' –, it conveys the image of 'working one's way through the spatial entity'. With intransitive motion verbs, the partitioning of the spatial domain operates as a reference point relationship, by default coinciding with the speaker's viewpoint. To fully understand the deictic, "carving" value of pro-, however, the author suggests that it should also be analyzed in aspectual terms. He shows that pro- is apt at introducing temporal boundaries in an otherwise unbound or imperfectively conceived process. The editors thank the authors for their confidence and their patience. A special word of thanks is also due to Michel Achard, Frank Brisard, Hubert Cuyckens, Ángela Di Tullio, Koldo J. Garai, Laura Janda, Karen Lahousse, Béatrice Lamiroy, Augusto Soares da Silva, Eve Sweetser, David Tuggy, Willy Van Langendonck, Marjolijn Verspoor and Margaret Winters, for their generous participation in the reviewing process. And last but not least, this project would never have been completed without the unfailing assistance of Barbara De Cock, who took care of the technical editing. References Achard, Michel 1998 Representation of Cognitive Structures. Syntax and Semantics of French Sentential Complements. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

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Alsina, Alex 1993 Predicate composition. Doctoral dissertation, Stanford University. 1996 The Role of Argument Structure in Grammar. Evidence from Romance. Stanford: CSLI. Aske, Jon 1989. Path and predicates in English and Spanish. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 10: 1–14. Blume, Kerstin 2000 Markierte Valenzen im Sprachvergleich : Lizenzierungs- und Linkingbedingungen. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Borillo, Andrée 1998 L’expression de l’espace en français. Paris: Ophrys. Comrie, Bernard, and Maria Polinsky (eds.) 1993 Causatives and Transitivity. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Croft, William 1991 Syntactic Categories and Grammatical Relations: The Cognitive Organization of Information. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. 2001 Radical Construction Grammar: Syntactic Theory in Typological Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Delbecque, Nicole 1999 Two transitive construction frames in Spanish: The prepositional and non-prepositional accusative. In Issues in Cognitive Linguistics. Leon de Stadler, and Christoph Eyrich (eds.), 407–424. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter 2002 A construction grammar approach to transitivity in Spanish. In The Nominative/Accusative. Case and Grammatical Relations across Language Boundaries, Kristin Davidse, and Béatrice Lamiroy (eds.), 273–322. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Downing, Angela 1996 The semantics of get-passive. In Functional Descriptions, Ruquiya Hasan, Carmel Cloran, and David Butt (eds.), 179–205. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Dowty, David 1991 Thematic Proto-Roles and Argument Selection. Language 67 (3) : 547–619. Fauconnier, Gilles, and Mark Turner 1996 Blending as a central process of grammar. In Conceptual Structure, Discourse and Language, Adèle Goldberg (ed.), 113–129. Stanford: CSLI.

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Goldberg, Adele 1995 Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Hawkins, John A. 1987 A Comparative Typology of English and German: Unifying the Contrasts. London: Croom Helm. Hopper, Paul J., and Sandra A. Thompson 1980. Transitivity in Grammar and Discourse. Language 56 (1): 251–299. Hopper, Paul J., and Sandra A. Thompson (eds.) 1982 Studies in Transitivity (Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 15). New York: Academic Press. Jackendoff, Ray 1990 Semantic Structures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 1994 Patterns in the mind. Language and Human Nature. New York: BasicBooks. 1995 Languages of the Mind, Essays on Mental Representation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 1997 Twistin’ the night away. Language 73 (3): 534–559. Joppen-Hellwig, Sandra 2001 Structural arguments with semantic case: The case of causees and recipients in 4-place verbs. In Theorie des Lexikons Nr 112, Dieter Wunderlich (ed.),1–35. Düsseldorf: Heinrich-Heine Universität. Joppen, Sandra, and Dieter Wunderlich 1995 Argument linking in Basque. Lingua 97: 123–169. Kiparsky, Paul 1992 Structural case. ms. Berlin: Wissenschaftskolleg. Kemmer, Suzanne 1993 The Middle Voice. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Kemmer, Suzanne, and Arie Verhagen 1994. The grammar of causatives and the conceptual structure of events. Cognitive Linguistics 5 (2): 115–156. Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson 1980 Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, George 1987 Women, fire, and dangerous things. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Langacker, Ronald W. 1987 Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. I. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. 1991 Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. II. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. 2000 Subjectification and Grammaticalization. In Grammar and conceptualization, 297–316. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter

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Levin, Beth, and Malka Rappaport Hovav 1995 Unaccusativity. At the Syntax-Lexical Semantics Interface. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Levinson, Stephen C. 1997 From Outer Space to Inner Space: Linguistic Categories and Nonlinguistic Thinking. In Language and Conceptualization, Jan Nuyts, and Eric Pederson (eds.), 13–45. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Maldonado, Ricardo 1999 A media voz. Problemas conceptuales del clítico se. Mexico: UNAM. Mateu, Jaume, and Gemma Rigau 2000 A Minimalist Account of Conflation Processes: Parametric Variation at the Lexicon-Syntax Interface. GGT-00-1, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona. Michotte, Albert 1963 The Perception of Causality. London. Primus, Beatrice 1999 Cases and Thematic Roles. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Rice, Sally 1987 Towards a Cognitive Model of Transitivity. San Diego: UCSD doctoral dissertation. Shibatani, Masayoshi (ed.) 1976 The Grammar of Causative Constructions. New York: Academic Press. Slobin, Dan 1997 Mind, code, and text. In Essays on Language Function and Language Type, Joan Bybee, John Haiman, and Sandra Thompson (eds.), 437–467. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Talmy, Leonard 1975 Semantics and Syntax of Motion. In Syntax and Semantics 4, John Kimball (ed.), 181–238. New York: Academic Press. 1976 Semantic Causative Types. In The Grammar of Causative Constructions, M. Shibatani (ed.), 43–116. New York: Academic Press. [also in L. Talmy (2000, I): 471–549] 1978 Figure and Ground in Complex Sentences. In Universals of Human Language, vol. 4 Joseph H. Greenberg et al. (eds.), 627–649. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1985a Force Dynamics in Language and Thought. In Papers from the Parasession on the Causatives and Agentivity. William H. Eilfort et al. (eds.), 293–337. Chicago: Chicago Linguistics Society 21.2. 1985b Lexicalization Patterns: Semantic Structure in Lexical Forms. In Language Typology and Syntactic Description 3: Grammatical

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Categories and the Lexicon, Timothy Shopen (ed.), 57–149. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1988 Force Dynamics in Language and Cognition. Cognitive Science 12: 49–100. [also in Talmy (2000, I): 409–470] 2000a Toward a Cognitive Semantics. Volume I. Concept Structuring Systems. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press. 2000b Toward a Cognitive Semantics. Volume II. Typology and Process in Concept Structuring. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs 1982 From propositional to textual and expressive meanings: Some semantic-pragmatic aspects of grammaticalization. In Perspectives on Historical Linguistics, Winfred P. Lehmann, and Yakov Malkiel (eds.), 245–271. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 1988 Pragmatic strengthening and grammaticalization. Berkeley Linguistics Society 14. 406–415. 1999 The rhetoric of counter-expectation in semantic change. In Historical semantics and cognition, Andreas Blank, and Peter Koch (eds.), 177–196. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Vandeloise, Claude 1986 L’espace en français : sémantique des prépositions spatiales. Paris: Le Seuil. White, Peter A 1995 The Understanding of Causation and the Production of Action. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Wunderlich, Dieter 1997 Cause and structure of verbs. Linguistic Inquiry 28: 27–68.

A usage-based approach to prototypical transitivity Victoria Vázquez Rozas 1. Introduction1 In this paper, the notion of prototypical transitivity will be re-examined. Taking as point of departure its traditional characterization, particular attention will be paid to the identification of transitivity with physical causation. Adopting a usage-based view of transitivity, data on first language acquisition and textual frequency will be put forward. This leads to a new prototype in which intentional causation prevails over physical causation, thus ruling out the assumed cognitive and communicative prominence of highly transitive clauses. 2. The transitive prototype: state of the art As is well known, prototype theory was originally applied to the description of the referential potential of lexical elements. The research of Eleanor Rosch (1975) on the categories of ‘bird’, ‘furniture’, ‘fruit’ or ‘vehicle’ counts as a classical reference. Soon the interest of the model was extended to the description of structural linguistic categories, and particularly to the semantic description of the transitive construction. There is a striking convergence between the different definitions proposed in the literature regarding the properties of prototypical transitivity (cf. Lakoff 1977: 244; Hopper and Thompson 1980; Delancey 1987; Langacker 1991: 301–302; Kemmer 2003: 96, etc.).2 According to Taylor (1995: 206–207), the following are the prototypical semantic properties of the canonical transitive construction: a) b) c) d) e)

The event involves two participants –subject and direct object– . The two participants are highly individuated. The agent (subject) initiates the event. The agent acts consciously and volitionally, and controls the event. The agent is human. The patient experiences the effects of the action performed by the agent.

Victoria Vázquez Rozas

18 f) g) h) i) j) k)

The patient suffers a perceptible change of state as a consequence of the event. The event is construed as punctual. There is direct physical contact between the agent and the patient. The event is causative. The agent and the patient are contrasting entities. The event is real.

The properties listed by Taylor describe the meaning of transitive constructions considered to be prototypical. Still, one can wonder which is the basis for the prototypical character of the construction, or how this kind of construction relates to others that are also transitive but do not exhibit (all) of the aforementioned properties. In general, the coinage of certain transitive constructions as prototypical does not appear to rest on the parameters habitually invoked for defining syntactic prototypicality, viz. frequency, productivity, salience, transparency, autonomy and naturalness (cf. Winters 1990). Rather, the canonical notion of transitivity seems to rely on the traditional definition stating that in a transitive clause ‘the action passes from an agent onto a patient’. This yields a particular profile. Indeed, the predicates considered to be typical belong to a specific subtype of action verbs, viz. violent action directed toward a goal. This is corroborated by the examples usually adduced. Lakoff (1977: 244) offers examples with kill, hit and break. Tsunoda (1985: 387) includes kill, destroy, break and bend among the prototypical transitive verbs. Andrews (1985: 68), who defines “primary transitive verbs” as “the class of two-argument verbs taking an Agent and a Patient”, gives as examples kill, eat, smash. Croft (1990: 60) considers as prototypical the verbs of “ingestion, manipulation, creation of objects, and force-motion, location” and the verbs of destruction (Croft 1990: 61). Levin (1999) distinguishes the ‘core transitive verbs’ from the ‘noncore transitive verbs’, and among the first ones she includes kill, cut, destroy, break, open. And García-Miguel (forthcoming) cites the verbs kill, break, move and kick. Some authors handle an even more strict delimitation: Tsunoda (1985) and Levin (1999), for instance, exclude verbs like hit, kick, move or eat from the prototypical core. They justify this more restricted interpretation of prototypical transitivity by typological cross-linguistic considerations relative to the syntactic coding of canonical transitive clauses. The idea of taking coding homogeneity as criterial – both interlinguistically and intralinguistically – for identifying the prototypical transitive predicates can be summarized as follows: “ideal events are expressed in basically the same

A usage-based approach to prototypical transitivity 19

way across languages, while the non-ideal events are expressed in different ways across languages and even within languages.” (Croft 1990: 53). However, different languages do not necessarily behave alike. The information gathered by Tsunoda (1985: 388) for English, Japanese and Basque, leads us to consider not only kill, break and bend, but also see, hear and find as prototypically transitive. In those languages, hit, shoot, kick and eat, would be non-prototypical, since they present alternative nontransitive patterns in addition to the canonical transitive construction. However, if we take into account data from Avar, Tongan and Samoan, then hit, shoot, kick and eat appear to be prototypical transitives, whereas see, hear and find are not. This shows that the conclusions attained vary notably depending on which languages are considered. Moreover, as the number of languages compared increases, the group of verbs considered prototypically transitive decreases, and, as a consequence, the examples adduced in the literature are few and always the same. Interlinguistic comparison permits to identify a small group of verbs that function as predicates in prototypically transitive clauses. Nevertheless, typological research does not explain why the candidates which are universally preferred for the transitive coding are predicates like ‘kill’ or ‘break’. Therefore, it is necessary to take a new perspective on the matter in order to grasp the concept of the human experience that underlies the transitive coding. Drawing on human experience, causation seems to be at the heart of the matter (cf. Delancey 1987: 60; Croft 1990: 50; Goldberg 1995: 118).3 Insofar as the transitive construction symbolically represents direct causation, it paradigmatically conveys such notions as control, volition and responsibility of the agent, change of physical state perceptible in the patient, physical contact between the agent and the patient, etc. (cf. Lakoff 1970: 244). There are reasons for considering causation as basic to human cognition from birth on: Piaget has hypothesized that infants first learn about causation by realizing that they can directly manipulate objects around them – pull off their blankets, throw their bottles, drop toys. There is, in fact, a stage in which infants seem to ‘practice’ these manipulations, e.g., they repeatedly drop their spoons. Such direct manipulations, even on the part of infants, involve certain shared features that characterize the notion of direct causation that is so integral a part of our constant everyday functioning in our environment – as when we flip light switches, button our shirts, open doors, etc. (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 70).

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In cognitive grammar, different compatible models have been designed to represent the causal event coded through the transitive construction (cf. García-Miguel, forthcoming). Langacker (1999: 24), for instance, refers to the “billiard-ball model” as one of the components of the conceptual archetype corresponding to the “canonical event model”. According to this ‘billiard-ball model’, the moving objects that compose the world interact with others and transfer their kinetic energy to them.4 Talmy (2000) proposes the notional category of ‘Force dynamics’, that is, a generalization over the traditional notion of causation. From Croft’s point of view, the most adequate way to represent the clausal structure is in terms of “individuals acting on individuals, with some notion of transmission of force determining which participant comes ‘first’ in the causal order or causal chain” (Croft 1991: 162). Although these models are shaped on the basis of purely physical causation, their authors note that not all the transitive constructions profile an event that is characterized by a transfer of physical energy between an agent and a patient. That is, the transitive pattern yields non-paradigmatic cases of causation, including events without any transfer of energy, even in an abstract sense, as Langacker (1990: 222–223) recognizes. This is the case of transitive predicates like see, remember or consider. The solution consist in allowing for various degrees of ‘metaphorical extension’ of the transitive construction to non-archetypical situations, i.e., from physical interactions to psychological and social ones, thus “physicalizing” the domain of psychosocial reference. This explains the fact that psychosocial events adopt a syntactic structure that is similar to that of physical events, since grammatical form is taken to reflect the conceptual analogy (cf. Talmy 2000: 460). Slobin offers acquisition data that support the view that the physical causation constitutes the transitive prototype. He sustains that the infant’s grammatical development arises from pairing prototypical situations in the world of reference and canonical forms in the linguistic world. In line with previously mentioned authors, Slobin defines the prototypical transitive event “as one in which an animate agent willfully brings about a physical and perceptible change of state or location in a patient by means of direct body contact” (1981: 411). He points out that this type of events are codified in a regular way around the second birthday. Slobin gives examples of languages in which the canonical transitive construction schema is associated with a positive marking, either in the ergative (Kaluli) or in the accusative (Russian). He observes that these case affixes first appear in verbs that fit the definition of prototypical transitivity – ‘give’,

A usage-based approach to prototypical transitivity 21

‘grab’, ‘take’, ‘hit’, etc. –, and only later on in less transitive verbs, as ‘say’, ‘read’ or ‘see’. To sum up, we can state that both typological data and data related to the acquisition of transitive structures seem to support the notion of a transitive prototype based on the relation of physical causation between an agent and a patient. 3. The usage-based model and the transitive construction After reviewing the most widely accepted ideas about the transitive prototype, we will now focus on certain aspects of the configuration of transitive clauses which have not been taken into account in the preceding section. We will adopt a language usage-based model that views the linguistic system internalized by the users as the result of successive processes of abstraction drawn from concrete uses (cf. Barlow and Kemmer 2000). On the one hand, the usage-based models attach a great importance to the role of learning from use in the child’s language acquisition. On the other, these models attribute primordial relevance to frequency, since this factor determines the degree of ‘entrenchment’ – as Langacker puts it – of a unit or a linguistic construction. Both aspects will be dwelled on in the two following sections. 3.1. The acquisition of the transitive construction As seen in section 2, Dan Slobin sets the hypothesis that the acquisition of transitivity by the child is based on the association of the prototypical transitive event with the canonical transitive construction – “Growth proceeds from this initial pairing of prototypical event and canonical form” (Slobin 1981: 410). If Slobin’s proposal is to be accepted, the ‘canonical form’, in this case the transitive pattern, has to be assumed to be shaped in the child’s mind prior to the first actual uses. However, Slobin attributes to the child a knowledge of the language abstract patterns which does not fit in with the research carried out on grammar acquisition in the last few years (cf. Tomasello 1992; Lieven, Pine and Baldwin 1997; Pine, Lieven and Rowland 1998). These investigations show that the beginning of the child’s multiword language use is founded on specific constructions of particular lexical items:

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Victoria Vázquez Rozas In other words, children do not utilize schematic categories such as [VERB] or schematic constructions such as the transitive construction [SBJ VERB OBJ] in their early acquisition, whether these schematic structures are innate or not. Instead, children begin with very low level generalizations based around a single predicate and a single construction in which that predicate occurs, and only later in acquisition learn more schematic categories and constructions (Croft and Cruse 2004: 323).

From this perspective, it will be interesting to study the development of the transitive construction in the children’s language. If we accept that prototypical constructions are “the most thoroughly entrenched in the cognitive system” (Winters 1990: 288), and also that “Such maximally entrenched constructions will be those which were learned better (and even, perhaps, earlier) than the less prototypical” (Winters 1990: 228), we have to acknowledge the relevance of the research on the acquisition of transitivity by children for the definition of the transitive prototype. Ninio (1999) represents a valuable contribution to our knowledge regarding the acquisition of the transitive construction. The author draws on previous investigations (Bowerman 1976, 1978; Braine 1976; Lieven, Pine and Baldwin 1997), which show that the first verbs used by children in the V-O pattern are not prototypically transitive in the sense summarized in section 1. In any case, they do not express an action realized by a volitional agent that affects a patient, as they are stative verbs like want and see. Ninio (1999) observes the linguistic activity of sixteen Hebrew children and an English one at the beginning of the multiword stage; her data confirm the less-transitive character of the first verbs used in the V-O construction. These verbs codify meanings that are pragmatically important for the children, like the wish of obtaining an object (want, get, give, take, bring, find), the creation of an object (make, do), the perception of an object (see, hear) or the ingestion of an object (eat, drink). However they cannot be considered as prototypical examples of the category of the transitive predicates, since they do not display the characteristic of prototypical transitivity. The first transitive verbs convey a basic meaning and are frequently used in the language. They can best be defined as ‘generic’ transitive verbs that represent “in the purest way the core notion of syntactic transitivity” (Ninio 1999: 639). Interestingly, there is a high degree of coincidence between these first transitive verbs and the verbal items that have been grammaticalized in different languages to give rise to transitivizing morphemes, e.g. take, carry, put, get, have, give, want, etc. (cf. Ninio 1999: 634–349). None of these verbs represents a highly transitive event, since

A usage-based approach to prototypical transitivity 23

they can never express an action that may cause a change of state in a patient.5 Some of these verbs are semi-grammaticalized in Indoeuropean languages. A clear example is the English auxiliary do, which also functions as a proverb. The same holds for the Spanish hacer ‘make/do’. Another case worth mentioning is that of the Spanish haber ‘have’, which originally had the posessive value of tener ‘have/possess’ and functioned as a transitive verb; historically, it has undergone a process of grammaticalization, being converted first into an aspectual auxiliary before developing into a temporal one, while being substituted by tener as verb of possession. Interestingly, in contemporary Spanish tener can also be used as (semi)auxiliary with a terminative value similar to the English to have got (Tengo hechos todos los deberes ‘I’ve got all my homework done’) (cf. Butt and Benjamin 1994: 222).6 Portuguese, which does not have periphrastic uses of haver ‘have’, has gone further than Spanish in the grammaticalization of ter ‘have/posses’ + participle periphrasis, since it nowadays also combines with intransitive verbs. In the same vein, verbs which usually take part in complex VERBOBJECT predicates, as illustrated in (1)–(5), are low transitive verbs with generic meaning7: (1) (2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

Siempre hay que tener cuidado con ellos (Sonrisa: 278, 35) Always there-is that have.INF care with them ‘You always have to be careful with them’ Para ser boticario no hace falta saber leer (Coartada: 11, 11) To be.INF apothecary not do.3SG lack know.INF read.INF ‘To be an apothecary there is no need to know how to read’ Con estas memeces yo no me he dado cuenta (Hotel: 31, 6) With these absurdities I not 1SG.REFL have.1SG given account ‘With these absurdities, I haven’t noticed’ Pasé revista acelerada a sus respectivos historiales (Laberinto: 59, 9) Passed.1SG review accelerated to their respective records ‘I fastly reviewed their respective records’ En este tipo de relaciones no hay que tomar partido (Hotel: 76 , 14) In this type of relationships not there-is that take.INF side ‘We shouldn’t take sides in this type of relationship’

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So, both the processes of acquisition and grammaticalization point to the same group of verbs as representative of the core concept of transitivity. As Ninio remarks, this group of verbs do not fit into Hopper and Thompson’s (1980) high transitivity notion and, hence, put into question the generally assumed equation between high transitivivity and prototypical transitivity. Ninio points out that high transitivity is nothing more than ‘marked transitivity’ (i.e., with morphological coding in the verb and/or the participants), whereas prototypical transitivity is non-marked transitivity, which would result in low rather than in high transitivity. The key to prototypical transitivity would be the concept of ‘valence’, particularly in the type of relationship between verb and object, which is qualified by Ninio as ‘inalienable’. The traditional interpretation of prototypical transitivity implies a change of physical state in the patient. Instead, in this new conception of prototypical transitivity the human, subjective perspective of the event becomes the central aspect, since it is the change of status of the object in relation to the person represented by the subject which is salient. As Ninio says, “The concept underlying prototypical transitivity both crosslinguistically and developmentally is thus inclusion in, and exclusion of objects from the personal domain” (1999: 647). 3.2. Transitivity and frequency Besides the acquisition data exposed in the last section, frequency of use is also a very relevant factor in a usage-based approach to transitivity. No doubt transitive constructions play a central role in the syntax of a language. As for Spanish, we can rely on the information provided by a syntactic database (BDS) drawn from a corpus of contemporary oral and written texts (cf. supra footnote 6). According to the data of the BDS offered by Rojo (2003), the active biactant transitive pattern is the most frequent one, covering 39,06% of the cases. Moreover, 70,44% of the verbs in the corpus admit to a higher or lower extent, the pattern SUBJECTPREDICATE-DIRECT OBJECT. This fact appears to be all the more relevant that the next pattern admitted by an important number of verbs – the active SUBJECT-PREDICATE pattern – concerns 34,22% of the verbs in the corpus, and accounts for only 12,26% of the cases. All the other patterns have a frequency below 7%. Rojo (2003) compares the Spanish data with the quantitative analysis of English clauses made by Oostijk and de Haan (1994) on the Nijmegen

A usage-based approach to prototypical transitivity 25

corpus. The frequency data offered by these linguists are translated by Rojo into percentages: Table 1. Distribution of the clauses that make up the Nijmegen Corpus in the constructions considered. Source: Oostdijk and de Haan (1994: 48). Rojo’s (2003) elaboration. Construction Intransitive Intensive Transitive Ditransitive Complex Other Total

Percentage over total of clauses 34,93 20,96 27,79 1,00 1,41 13,92 100,01 (N = 15125)

From this distribution it appears that transitive clauses do not play such a main part in English as in Spanish, even though they represent 27,79% of the total of clausal patterns. As for the Spanish language, the quantitative data that we have just evoked confirm the leading role that transitive constructions play in the shaping of Spanish syntax. Yet, they say nothing about which transitive clauses should be considered prototypical and which should not. In this respect, the information contained in the BDS again proves to be very illustrative, as it permits to verify which verbs are used more frequently in the biactant transitive pattern. Table 2 groups the 20 most frequently used verbs in the SUBJECT-PREDICATE-DIRECT OBJECT construction: Table 2. Most frequent verbs in the transitive pattern with pattern percentages over the total of the verb. Verb

Frequency

Tener ‘have’ Hacer ‘do/make’ Saber ‘know’ Ver ‘see’ Creer ‘believe’ Querer ‘want’ Mirar ‘look’ Decir ‘say’

4810 2806 2404 2285 1551 1165 871 883

Relative frequency of the transitive pattern 83.52% 51.34% 78.41% 62.93% 81.03% 90.38% 67.89% 31.01%

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Table 2 continued Pensar ‘think’ Conocer ‘know’ Dar ‘give’ Recordar ‘remember’ Oír ‘hear’ Buscar ‘look for’ Esperar ‘wait’ Encontrar ‘find’ Llevar ‘take’ Tomar ‘take’ Sentir ‘feel’ Leer ‘read’

792 782 745 644 565 549 523 469 463 453 445 404

54.10% 92.98% 23.51% 77.78% 60.95% 88.69% 70.11% 42.52% 32.74% 59.68% 39.45% 75.51%

As can be seen, the verbs involved are far from corresponding to the transitive prototype as defined in section 2. Rather surprisingly, none of the verbs usually mentioned in the descriptions of archetypical transitivity figures among these twenty most frequent verbs, and the first of the verbs habitually considered “prototypically transitive” – the verb matar ‘kill’– is not found until the 39th position. Our Spanish corpus data thus challenge the pervasiveness of high transitive clauses in discourse. Thompson and Hopper’s (2001) findings corroborate the marginal role of the high transitive clauses in discourse. These linguists analyzed a conversational corpus made up by 446 clauses. In this corpus of informal American English, not a single clause can be characterized as transitive according to the ten parameters that compose Hopper and Thompson’s (1980) scalar notion of transitivity. To start with, the majority of the clauses has only one participant (73%), for 27% with two or more participants. And among the two-participant clauses, only 14% contain an action predicate, i.e., the vast majority are stative predicates. Other categories like aspect, punctuality and object affectedness show very low indexes in transitivity, as well: 86% of the clauses are atelic, 98% are non-punctual and 84% include a non-affected object. Conversational data from different languages further corroborate Thompson and Hopper’s findings (cf. 2001: 39, and references therein) and warrant the conclusion that “the most frequent kind of clause used by speakers in everyday conversational interactions is one that is low in Transitivity”.

A usage-based approach to prototypical transitivity 27

3.3. Summary The above presented usage data challenge the prototypical status of high transitive clauses (in Hopper and Thompson’s terms). Both acquisition data and data from corpora lead to an interpretation of the transitive prototype that is different from the one discussed in section 2. We don’t mean to say, however, that prototypicality emerges from frequency of use. Even though Rosch (1975) formulated a ‘statistical hypothesis’ of the phenomenon of prototypicality, we agree with Geeraerts (1988: 211-222) when he states that “We can use linguistic frequencies to determine what instances of a concept are prototypical [...], but explaining prototypicality on the basis of linguistic frequency is putting the cart before the horse. Some kinds of usage are not prototypical because they are more frequent; they are more frequent because they are prototypical.” At any rate, the information regarding the frequency of use makes it necessary to revise the definition of what counts as a prototypical transitive event.8 4. Towards an alternative transitive prototype At this stage, prototypical transitivity seems to be synonymous with low transitivity rather than with high transitivity, at least for some components of the notion, as sustained by Ninio (1999). Yet, the acquisition and usage data adduced above are only clues for distinguishing prototypical from nonprototypical clauses, they cannot constitute by themselves the foundation of prototypicality. In this last section we will propose a cognitive and communicative basis for the alternative transitive prototype defended here. 4.1. The cognitive basis of transitivity As commented on in section 2, the notion of physical causation underlies the classical interpretation of the transitive prototype, on the understanding that the model of transitive action necessarily implies a physical or mechanical relationship between two participants A and O. A carries out a physical action (that must include some type of movement), comes in contact with O and as a consequence produces a perceptible change in the latter participant. This mechanical view of causality does not make any difference between the way of acting of animate and inanimate entities. In fact, in Langacker’s

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‘billiard-ball model’ and Croft’s ‘causal chains’ physical causality prevails over psychological interactions. Both justify the latter as ‘metaphorical extensions’ of the physical transitive prototype. It is worth recalling that the psychological conception of transitivity goes back to the traditional approaches in developmental psychology, represented by authors like Piaget (1927) and Michotte (1946), who defended the idea that the child starts having a purely physical perception of the causal relation (cf. also the quote Lakoff and Johnson (1980) given in section 2). Lately, however, various authors adopt a different view on the child’s conceptualization of causality. This new interpretation relies on a large number of experiments which yield clear evidence that the animate/inanimate distinction is there from the first year of birth. Its conceptual basis seems to be kinetic, as motion autonomy appears to be the determinig factor for an entity to be classified as animate (cf. Golinkoff et al. 1984; Mandler and Bauer 1988; Smith 1989). Moreover, the child can recognize the members of his/her own species from the moment of birth on. Taking as a starting point the experiments reviewed in Johnson and Morton (1991), Karmiloff-Smith (1992: 149) states that the new-born is endowed with some sort of innate structural information about human faces. Even if we are not willing to admit the thesis of innateness, we cannot deny the existence in the child of a mechanism parallel to the chicks’ imprinting. The child’s continuous exposure to human faces acts as a stimulator and triggers a quick specialization. Babies are, indeed, very much attracted by people, and to a large extent by animals as well. They focus their minds on every aspect of human behavior (speech, gestures, movements). This attention is essential for the development of the so-called ‘Theory of Mind’ in the child. As a matter of fact, autistic children, who cannot develop a theory of mind properly, do preferentially not direct their attention to human behavior. As a consequence of the attentional bias, and contrary to Piaget and Michotte’s theory, babies process the information proceeding from the human environment in another way than the one that comes from the physical content. They are very sensitive to the differences between the way people act and the way inanimate objects do. Spelke et al. (1995) try to determine if the perception of human actions (in contrast to the movement of material objects) can rely exclusively on mechanical considerations. Drawing on earlier studies, they observe that one of the first notions of knowledge the baby has about the inanimate object’s physics of movement is the ‘contact principle’: “objects act upon each other if and only if they touch” (Spelke et al. 1995: 49)9. However, the

A usage-based approach to prototypical transitivity 29

contact principle does not equally apply to all perceptible entities, since animate entities can transcend it. Both humans and animals have perception mechanisms that allow them to detect and respond to other entities at a distance. People manifest intentions, make plans and pursue goals. They can influence other people’s actions and cognitive states simply through verbal and non verbal communication. There is no need for immediate physical contact. According to Spelke et al. (1995), the contact principle is already restricted to inanimate objects in seven-month-old babies. Ninio (1999: 645), for her part, refers to Budwig (1989, 1995). This author interprets the conception of prototypical agentivity in children not only in terms of direct physical action but also as an attempt to persuade others to act in favor of the subject and an attempt to communicate the control over the objects. In the same vein, Premack and Premack (1995: 191) defend two conceptions of causality, one physical, the other intentional. Physical causality occurs “when an object launches another by contacting it”, whereas intentional or psychological causality takes place “when one object either moves by itself or affects the movement of another without contacting it”10. These authors clearly argue against the piagetian theory of causality when they state that “the infants earliest encounter with cause is in the psychological domain and occurs the moment that an infant attributes intention to a goal-directed object” (Premack and Premack 1995: 191). There is a conclusion to be drawn from the aforementioned studies. The causality principle can be psychologically interpreted as having an intentional nature, different from the physical dimension on which most approaches to prototypical transitivity are based. The claim defended by Premack and Premack, that psychological causality is prior to physical causality in the child’s development provides a cognitive basis that sheds light on the linguistic production data reported in section 3.1. At the same time it seems to be consistent with the information on the most frequently used transitive verbs in textual corpora (cf. section 3.2.). 4.2. The communicative basis of transitivity From the functional perspective adopted in the present research, it is natural to also invoke the communicative basis of the transitivity notion. Hopper and Thompson (1980) situate the communicative basis in the textual distinction between background and foreground, which is mainly recognizable in narrative discourse. The background is incidental or marginal with respect to the foreground. The latter includes the core aspects

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of the discourse and provides the text with structural coherence. A highly transitive expression corresponds to the foreground. This way high transitivity would be the grammatical sign of a higher discursive prominence, which at the same time would reflect the cognitive salience of the codified event (cf. Delancey 1987: 56). Nevertheless, there are no sound arguments that support the attribution of a greater cognitive importance to the events expressed through highly transitive clauses as opposed to low ones. On the contrary, both the acquisition and the textual frequency data lead us to think that the clauses that configurate the most relevant cognitive model are those characterized by rather low transitivity. As Goldberg (1998: 207) indicates in regard to verbs like put, get, do and make, “the fact that these ‘light’ verbs, which are drawn from a small set of semantic meanings cross-linguistically, are learned earliest and used most frequently is evidence that this small class of meanings is cognitively privileged”. Yet, as already said before, the idea is not to derive the prototypical character of a category from frequency counts. Rather, the production rate is to be interpreted as an index of experience rate, a factor closely related to prototypicality. Geeraerts (1988: 222) illustrates the point with fruit terms: “The apple is not a prototypical fruit because we talk more about apples than about mangoes, but because we experience apples more often than we encounter mangoes”. At this point, we should turn our attention towards the type of discourse that constitutes the original manifestation of linguistic activity: spontaneous conversation. As seen in 3.2., Thompson and Hopper observe that English conversational discourse shows very low indexes of transitivity. The reason for this bias towards low transitivity lies in the clauses’ communicative function. Thompson and Hopper (2001: 52) acknowledge that “Clauses of low Transitivity are far more useful in the intersubjective interpersonal contexts that make up most of our talking lives”. Colloquial conversation indeed has as main objective the expression of the speakers’ subjectivity, not the impartial report of the physical interaction between the world’s entities. Conversation is a mechanism for self-expression rather than for the objective description of the surrounding physical reality. Obviously, human beings are interested in the actions and the processes that take place in the world, at least – or especially – insofar as they are affected by them. And we have to bear in mind that this occurs more frequently in the psychosocial than in the material realm. The prevalence of the indirect and subjective perspective, a low transitivity feature, is not exclusive to spontaneous conversation, it can also be found in the narrative genre. Hopper (1995), e.g., signals the lack of

A usage-based approach to prototypical transitivity 31

prominence of prototypical events in the “vernacular written narrative” (his example is “Mary broke the window”). The personal, subjective reconstruction performed by the narrator while elaborating his discourse is typical of this genre. Likewise, to illustrate the difference between externally accessible (objective) and internally accessible (subjective) information, Givón (2002: 265) comments on the preponderance of the latter in the historical novel Cold Mountain: “What is extraordinary about the text is how difficult it is to find even short passages without massive intrusion of perspective”. 5. Conclusion and perspectives In this paper we have reviewed the concept of prototypical transitivity from the point of view of linguistic usage. We have put forward arguments based on the acquisition and the usage frequency of the transitive construction. These data lead to a new interpretation of prototypicality. The prototype matches the characteristics of the clauses that are relatively low in transitivity. This view is also supported by the most recent studies on the perception of causality. They put aside the classical idea of exclusively physical causality by incorporating the psychological or intentional causality to the human cognitive model. The discourse prevalence of the new usage-based prototype is further reinforced by the communicative perspective. More specific research will undoubtedly be necessary to corroborate the proposal defended here. Firstly, new explorations into the acquisition of the transitive construction by children will be particularly useful in order to obtain data relating to a wider variety of languages. Secondly, more detailed investigations are also needed concerning the textual frequency of the different predicates in various discourse genres. Finally, adopting a cognitive perspective on language also requires to pay attention to the advances that are being made in the fascinating field of developmental psychology. Notes 1. I would like to thank Miguel Pérez Pereira, Elena Rivas, and Guillermo Rojo, who supplied me with some interesting data, and Teresa Fanego, Sandra A. Thompson, and Ángela Di Tullio, who made useful comments after reading a first version of the paper. I also want to express my particular thanks to

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Asunción Dubra, who helped me with the English, and Barbara De Cock, who did the text’s final editing. Lastly, and above all, I am especially indebted to Nicole Delbecque, for her encouragement and advice in the revision of the manuscript. Of course, any remaining errors and inaccuracies are my responsibility. This research has received financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Education (project nr. BFF2003-02866). 2. This does not imply that the points of view are in all respects identical. For instance, there is no full agreement on the individuating character of the prototypical object (e.g. Hopper and Thompson 1980 vs. Aristar forthcoming). Delancey (1984) and Tsunoda (1985) disagree on the relevance of the ‘volitional’ parameter in the syntactic coding of the clauses. Moreover, Hopper and Thompson (1980) do not situate their proposal within the prototype theory, as they refer to “high (vs. low) transitivity” and to “cardinal transitivity”, not to the “prototypical” one. 3. Croft (1991: 160) mentions an article by D. Davidson (1980), first published in 1969, in which the causal structure of events is defended, above the spatiotemporal characterization. 4. A philosophical antecedent of the wording of Langacker’s billiard-ball model is found in Hume: “Here is a billiard ball lying on the table, and another ball moving toward it with rapidity. They strike, and the ball which was formally at rest now acquires a motion. This is as perfect an instance of the relation of a cause and effect as any which we know either by sensation or reflection” (Hume 1740: 292, apud Leslie 1995: 123). 5. We don’t obviously share Slobin’s interpretation (1981: 414) when he considers as highly transitive the verbs of certain Chinese and western African languages whose original meanings were ‘take’ or ‘hold’ and originated morphemes that coded the direct object. 6. Butt and Benjamin (ibid.) also refer to the use of llevar as an auxiliary that expresses accumulative action in a similar construction: Llevo tomadas tres aspirinas, pero todavía me duele la cabeza ‘I have taken three aspirins and my head still aches’. 7. The textual examples are from the corpus called ARTHUS (Archivo de Textos Hispánicos de la Universidad de Santiago ‘Archive of Hispanic Texts of the University of Santiago). The information on the most frequent verbs in fixed VERB-OBJECT constructions comes from the Syntactic DataBase (BDS, “Base de Datos Sintácticos) drawn from the analysis of the cited corpus under the direction of Prof. Guillermo Rojo. For further information vid. http://www.bds.usc.es. 8. The relationship between early acquisition, frequency of use and prototypicality is also pointed out by Goldberg (1998: 209): “it would be natural for the meaning of the most frequent and early verbs occurring in a particular pattern to form the prototype category”.

A usage-based approach to prototypical transitivity 33 9. The visual representation of the contact principle offered by Spelke et al. (1995: 46) is almost identical to the type of diagrams with which Croft illustrates his ‘causal chains’. Such a similarity strengthens the interpretation of causality in exclusively mechanical terms. 10. Meltzoff (1995) and Gergely et al. (1995) corroborate the existence of an intentional causal frame, besides the physical one, in the infant’s conceptualization of the events.

References Andrews, Avery 1985 The major functions of the noun phrase. In Language typology and syntactic description. Vol. I: Clause structure, Timothy Shopen (ed.), 62–154. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Aristar, Anthony forthc. Transitivity: a reconsideration. Journal of Linguistics. http://linguistlist.org/aristar/transitivity.html Barlow, Michael, and Suzanne Kemmer (eds.) 2000 Usage-based models of language. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information. Bowerman, Melissa 1976 Semantic factors in the acquisition of rules for word use and sentence construction. In Directions in normal and deficient child language, Donald Morehead, and Ann Morehead (eds.). Baltimore: University Park Press. 1978 Words and sentences: uniformity, individual variation, and shifts over time in patterns of acquisition. In Communicative and cognitive abilities – early behavioral assessment, Fred D. Minifie, and Lyle L. Lloyd (eds.). Baltimore: University Park Press. Braine, Martin D. S. 1976 Children’s first word combinations. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 41, no. 164. Budwig, Nancy 1989 The linguistic marking of agentivity and control in child language. Journal of Child Language 16: 263–284. 1995 A developmental-functionalist approach to child language. Mahwah, N.J.: Erlbaum. Butt, John, and Carmen Benjamin 1994 A new reference grammar of modern Spanish. 2d ed. London: Arnold. Croft, William 1990 Possible verbs and the structure of events. In Meanings and prototypes: Studies in linguistic categorization, Savas L. Tsohatzidis (ed.), 48–73. London: Routledge.

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Syntactic Categories and Grammatical Relations: The Cognitive Organization of Information. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Croft, William, and Alan Cruse 2004 Cognitive linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davidson, Donald 1980 Reprint. The individuation of events. In Essays on actions and events, 163–180. Oxford: Clarendon. Original edition, Essays in honor of Carl G. Hempel, N. Rescher (ed.), 216–124. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1969. Delancey, Scott 1987 Transitivity in grammar and cognition. In Discourse Relations and Cognitive Units, Russ Tomlin (ed.), 53–68. Amsterdam /Philadelphia: John Benjamins. García-Miguel, José Mª forthc. Clause structure and transitivity. In Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics, Dirk Geeraerts and Hubert Cuykens (eds.). Geeraerts, Dirk 1988 Where does prototypicality come from. In Topics in Cognitive Linguistics, Brygida Rudzka-Ostyn (ed.), 207–229. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Gergely, György, Zoltan Nádasdy, Gergely Csibra, and Szilvia Bíró 1995 Taking the intentional stance at 12 months of age. Cognition 56 (2): 165–193. Givón, Talmy 2002 Bio-linguistics. The Santa Barbara Lectures. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Goldberg, Adele E. 1995 Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1998 Patterns of experience in patterns of language. In The New Psychology of Language. Cognitive and Functional Approaches to Language Structure, Michael Tomasello (ed.), 203–219. Mahwah, N.J: Erlbaum. Golinkoff, Roberta M., Carol G. Harding, Vicki Carlson, and Miriam Sexton 1984 The infant’s perception of causal events: The distinction between animate and inanimate objects. In Advances in infancy, vol. 3, Lewis Paeff Lipsitt, and Carolyn Roove-Collier (eds.), 145–151. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. Hopper, Paul J. 1995 Dispersed verbal predicates in vernacular written narrative. In Directions in functional linguistics, Akio Kamio (ed.), 1–18. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Hopper, Paul J., and Sandra A. Thompson 1980 Transitivity in grammar and discourse. Language 56: 252–299.

A usage-based approach to prototypical transitivity 35 Hume, David 1740. An abstract of a treatise of human nature. Reprint in David Hume: on human nature and the understanding, A. Flew (ed.). New York: Collier-Macmillan, 1962. Johnson, Mark H., and John Morton 1991 Biology and Cognitive Development: The Case of Face Recognition. Oxford: Blackwell. Karmiloff-Smith, Annette 1992 Beyond Modularity. A Developmental Perspective on Cognitive Science. Massachusetts: MIT Press. Kemmer, Suzanne 2003 Human Cognition and the Elaboration of Events: Some Universal Conceptual Categories. In The New Psychology of Language 2, Michael Tomasello (ed.), 89–118. Mahwah, N. J.: Lawrence Erlbaum. Kemmer, Suzanne, and Michael Barlow 2000 Introduction. A usage-based conception of language. In Usage-based Models of Language, Michael Barlow, and Suzanne Kemmer (eds.), vii–xxviii. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information. Lakoff, George 1977 Linguistic Gestalts. Papers form the Thirteenth Regional Meeting, Chicago Linguistic Society, 236–287. Chicago: Linguistic Society. Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson 1980 Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Langacker, Ronald W. 1990 Settings, participants, and grammatical relations. In Meanings and prototypes: Studies in Linguistic Categorization, Savas L. Tsohatzidis (ed.), 213–238. London: Routledge. 1991 Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, Vol II: Descriptive Application. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1999 Grammar and Conceptualization. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Leslie, Alan M. 1995 A theory of agency. In Causal Cognition. A Multidisciplinary Debate, Dan Sperber, David Premack, and Ann James Premack (eds.), 121–141. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Levin, Beth 1999 Objecthood: An event structure perspective. Proceedings of CLS 35, volume 1: The Main Session, 223–247. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago. Lieven, Elena V. M., Julian M. Pine, and Gillian Baldwin

1997

Lexically-based learning and early grammatical development. Journal of Child Language 24: 187–219.

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Mandler, Jean M., and Patricia J. Bauer 1988 The cradle of categorization: Is the basic level basic?. Cognitive Development 3: 247–264. Meltzoff, Andrew N. 1995 Understanding the intentions of others: re-enactment of intended acts by 18-month-old children. Developmental Psychology 31: 838–850. Michotte, Albert 1946 La perception de la causalité. Louvain: Institut Supérieur de Philosophie. Ninio, Anat 1999 Pathbreaking verbs in syntactic development and the question of prototypical transitivity. Journal of Child Language 26: 619–653. Oostdijk, Nelleke, and Pieter de Haan 1994 Clause patterns in Modern British English: A corpus-based (quantitative) study. ICAME Journal 18 : 41–79. Piaget, Jean 1927 La Causalité Physique chez l’Enfant. Paris: Librairie Félix Alcan. Pine, Julian, Elena V. M. Lieven, and Caroline Rowland 1998 Comparing different models of the development of the English verb category. Linguistics 36 (4): 807–830. Premack, David, and Ann James Premack 1995 Intention as psychological cause. In Causal cognition. A multidisciplinary debate, Dan Sperber, David Premack and Ann James Premack (eds.), 185–199. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rojo, Guillermo 2003 La frecuencia de los esquemas sintácticos clausales en español. Homenaje a Humberto López Morales, 413–424. Madrid: Arco/Libros. Rosch, Eleanor 1975 Cognitive representations of semantic categories. Journal of Experimental Psychology. General 104: 192–233. Slobin, Dan 1982 Reprint The origin of grammatical encoding of events. In Syntax and Semantics 15. Studies in Transitivity, Paul Hopper and Sandra Thompson (eds.), 409–422. New York: Academic Press. Original edition in The Child’s Construction of Language, Werner Deutsch (ed.). New York: Academic Press, 1981. Smith, Linda B. 1989 In defense of perceptual similarity. Paper read at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Kansas City. Spelke, Elizabeth S., Ann Phillips, and Amanda L Woodward 1995 Infants’knowledge of object motion and human action. In In Causal cognition. A multidisciplinary debate, Dan Sperber, David Premack

A usage-based approach to prototypical transitivity 37 and Ann James Premack (eds.), 44–78. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Talmy, Leonard 2000 Force dynamics in language and cognition. In Toward a Cognitive Semantics I, Leonard Talmy (ed.), 409–470. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. [Revised version of “Force dynamics in language and cognition”. Cognitive Science 12: 49–100, 1988]. Taylor, John R. 1995 Linguistic Categorization. Prototypes in Linguistic Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thompson, Sandra A., and Paul J. Hopper 2001 Transitivity, clause structure, and argument structure: Evidence from conversation. In Frequency and the Emergence of Linguistic Structure, Joan L. Bybee, and Paul J. Hopper (eds.), 27–60. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Tomasello, Michael 1992 First verbs: A Case Study of Early Grammatical Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tsunoda, Tasaku 1985 Remarks on transitivity. Journal of Linguistics 21 (2): 385–396. Winters, Margaret E. 1990 Toward a theory of syntactic prototypes. In Meanings and Prototypes: Studies in Linguistic Categorization, Savas L. Tsohatzidis (ed.), 285–306. London: Routledge.

Transitivity and referentiality in Spanish and Rumanian Eugeen Roegiest

1. Since the famous article of Hopper and Thompson (1980) on transitivity, linguistic interest has increasingly been oriented towards a multifactorial approach of prototypical transitivity conceived as a scalar semantic notion. In my contribution I shall concentrate on the characterisation of the direct object of a transitive action. Given the biactantial pattern of a transitive construction, Hopper and Thompson (1980: 253) claim that there is a correlation between the degree of semantic transitivity and the degree of individuation of both participants. Among the properties of individuation the authors include not only definiteness or referentiality but also animacy (according to the individuation features proposed by Timberlake 1975). As an illustration of their thesis, they refer to the use of a prepositional marker before the Spanish direct object: “Under INDIVIDUATION are subsumed several different but related features. Thus Spanish shows an extreme restriction in requiring that O’s marked with a must be not merely animate, but also either human or human-like” (Hopper and Thompson 1980: 256). Lazard (1994, 1995, 1998), relying on empirical data, is even more explicit. A human or an animate object is more salient than a non human object, and a definite object more than an indefinite one. The more an object is individuated, the more it is able to function as a “pole” of the sentence. Thus constructions with a marked direct object are tripolar1: “la transitivité croît quand on passe de l’objet ‘proche’ à l’objet ‘distant’” [transitivity increases when one passes from the ‘near’ object to the ‘distant’ object] (Lazard 1995: 143). In other words, while the presence of a human object supposes a prototypical transitive construction, a construction with an indefinite or non human object is similar to a uniactantial construction. A non human or indefinite object does not constitute a “pole”, it loses its autonomous existence, tends to form a unit with the verb and to coalesce with it, or it can be “marginalisé comme un terme oblique : dans les deux cas une construction “bipolaire” s’oppose à la construction “tripolaire” [marginalised as an oblique object: in both cases a “bipolar” construction is opposed to a tripolar construction] (Lazard 1998: 67).

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This takes the author to the apparently contradictory statement that a construction with a formally marked object is either more or less transitive. Indeed whereas according to Lazard the special marking of the human DO increases transitivity, the transformation of an object into an oblique supposes a more “distant” argument, less affected by the action, thus reducing transitivity. Lazard recognises the existence of an “objectal zone” where the marked object increases transitivity, but once across this objectal zone the oblique object conversely marks a reduced degree of transitivity. In fact, Lazard confirms the complexity of the object in comparison with the subject, as it has been frequently mentioned by other authors. Van Valin and LaPolla (1997: 145) e.g. oppose the homogeneity of the subject “actor”, easily identifiable as the only entity responsible of an action, to the object, the most affected participant or “undergoer” which represents various candidates and thus appears as an objectal zone.2 On the other hand, whereas the agentive argument is typically animate and human, the status of the patient argument is definitely less clear : “PATIENT-like arguments may, but need not, be animate/human” (Van Valin and LaPolla 1997: 305). Precisely the hypothesis whether the human feature of the object contributes or not to the semantic transitivity gives rise to controversy. In a cognitive approach such as Langacker’s (1987: 231; 1991: 321) a transitive construction is considered as fundamentally asymmetrical (cf. also Blume 2000: 159, 186). Semantic transitivity is defined as a transfer of activity, a transmission of energy between two different arguments, an active participant which is the source of the flow of energy, and an inactive participant which undergoes the effect of the performed action. This implies a bipolar relational structure – a variation on the more general trajector/landmark asymmetry – where the Agent is prototypically the first argument and the Patient the second one.3 As semantic transitivity is a scalar notion, it is more adequate to define the two arguments in a transitive construction as proto-roles, according to Dowty (1991): they can indeed be defined in a multifactorial manner and can be decomposed into more elementary notions, which are not necessarily linked to one specific thematic role. Thus Primus (1999: 36–39), inspired by Dowty, defines the proto-Agent in terms of control (or intention), causation, activity (or dynamicity), sentience and independent existence, whereas the proto-Patient always depends on an other participant. The proto-Patient appears as controlled, causally affected by the activity, undergoing a change of state or a movement; it does not exist independently of the event and can be the argument perceived by an experiencer, the argument possessed by a possessor, etc.

Transitivity and referentiality in Spanish and Rumanian 41

Hence prototypical transitivity is not only determined by the presence of two participants, but also by the asymmetrical configuration of its participants : the presence of a proto-Patient, dependent on the properties of an Agent, increases the degree of semantic transitivity of the V. On the other hand, the less the second participant bears the properties of a protoPatient, the less the V will be interpreted as transitive (cf. Blume 2000: 159). This argumental asymmetry entails that a human Patient is not prototypical at all, because the human feature actually is a property of the Agent. Primus (1999: 57–58) writes about the thesis of Hopper and Thompson (1980) mentioned above : “The weakness of their [= Hopper and Thompson] assumption is that it treats the animacy of the thematically independent participant (i.e. the proto-Agent) on a par with the animacy of the thematically dependent participant (i.e. the proto-Patient)... Animate patients are usually coded by cases that are lower on the Case Hierarchy than the cases used for inanimate patients, as shown by the examples in Hopper and Thompson… This means that in these languages, animate patients decrease the formal transitivity of a clause.” The position of Blume (2000 : 182), based on Dowty and Primus, is very similar : “Nun gilt aber Belebtheit als typische Agens-Eigenschaft und in keiner mir bekannten Theorie als Eigenschaft eines typischen Patiens. Unbelebte PatiensArgumente sind besonders bei kausativen Verben … normaler und häufiger als belebte (vgl. rauben, essen, verderben, etc.). Viele dieser Verben können kein belebtes Patiens haben.” [Animateness is considered as a typical Agent feature but in no theory as far as I know as a characteristic of a typical Patient. Especially with causative verbs Inanimate Patient arguments are … more normal and frequent than animate ones (cf. ‘steal’, ‘eat’, ‘damage’, etc.). Many of these verbs do not admit any animate Patient]. 2. In order to investigate these two diametrically opposed claims, this contribution will examine the syntactic behaviour of the two Romance languages that most intensively develop the actance variation of the direct object: Spanish and Rumanian. Among these two languages, Rumanian has some syntactic peculiarities that corroborate the correlations between high transitivity and a human direct object as suggested by Lazard and by Hopper and Thompson, although the modalities are rather different. In Rumanian, an object with a high degree of agentivity tends to take precedence over an object with a low degree of agentivity : the latter remains beyond the transitive scope of the

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verb. More precisely, Rumanian tends to refuse the status of direct object to an inanimate and non referentially controlled participant. This thesis is clearly illustrated by some trivalent verbs, in particular verbs of telling such as a învăĠa ‘to teach’, a întreba ‘to ask’, a ruga ‘to ask’, a anunĠa ‘to announce’, a sfătui ‘to advise’, a asigura ‘to assure’, a ierta ‘to forgive’, a înútiinĠa ‘to inform’, a vesti ‘to announce’. According to traditional Rumanian grammar, these verbs have two DO’s : the communicated message as well as the receiver of the message are marked as an accusative. Yet, only the human argument conforms to the morphosyntactic rules of the DO. It can be passivised and pronominalised, while the received message cannot, as is shown in the following sentences : (1)

La examen elevul a fost întrebat materia parcurs΁ At examination pupil-the has been asked subject-the taught ‘At the examination the pupil has been examined on the taught subjects’ *La examen materia parcursӽ a fost întrebat pe elev At examination subject-the taught has been asked on pupil

(2)

Îl întreab΁ pe elev materia parcurs΁ Him-ACC ask-PRES-3P.SG. on pupil subject-the taught ‘He asks the pupil the taught subjects’ *Materia o întreabӽ pe elev subject-the it-ACC ask-PRES-3P.SG. on pupil *He examined the subject the pupil

(3)

L-a înv΁Ġat Eftimie Murgu metoda de a studia temeinic method-the of to study diligent Him-ACC has taught E.M. ‘E.M. taught him the method of studying in a diligent way’ *Metoda a învӽĠat-o pe copil Method-the has taught it-ACC on child *’He has taught the method the pupil’

The inanimate argument that does not behave as a DO can be an abstract NP (ex. 1–3), but is almost always a sentence, a quotation or a neuter pronoun (ce, ceva, asta, aceasta, nimic), as shown in the examples (4–11). In these transitive constructions with a human DO and an inanimate oblique object, Rumanian seems to focus on the effect of the communication act on the receiver rather than on the transmission of the communicated object. Actually, the syntactic behaviour in Rumanian

Transitivity and referentiality in Spanish and Rumanian 43

cannot be explained exclusively by the lexico-semantic contents of the verb. Rumanian favours a transitive construction with a /+human/ DO and an inanimate oblique object (type B) rather than a bitransitive construction with a /-animate/ DO and a /+human/ IO (type A), once the inanimate argument is a proposition or a propositional substitute (pro-Prop), as shown by the contrast between the following examples taken from some Rumanian novels and their French or Spanish translations4: (4)

Moromete, intrigat, o întreb΁ pe mam΁, M. intrigued her-ACC ask-SIMPLE PERFECT-3P.SG. on mother, în úoapt΁, ce vrea b΁iatul acela (Pre 296) in a whisper, what want-PRES-3P.SG boy-the that Moromete, intrigué, demanda à la mère, à mi-voix, ce qu’il voulait ce garçon-là ‘Intrigued, M asked the mother in a whisper what that boy wanted’

(5)

S΁ m΁ îndrepte unde s΁-l g΁sesc (Sad 206) That me show-SUBJ-3P.PL. where that him-ACC find-SUBJ-1P.SG. Que me indiquen dónde encontrarlo (Sad 207) ‘Show me where to find him’

(6)

ei d΁dur΁ de înĠeles tat΁lui they give-SIMPLE PERFECT-3P.PL. of understood father-the-DAT lor c΁ n-ar fi o afacere rea, their-DAT that not-be-PAST COND-3P.Sg. a deal bad-FEM, îndemnîndul s΁ se intereseze la al lui advising-him-ACC that REFL. interest-SUBJ-3P.SG. to POSS. the-GEN C΁t΁noiu úi s΁ se conving΁ singur ce bine Cӽtӽnoiu and that REFL. persuade-SUBJ-3P.SG. alone what good s-ar putea cîútiga la Bucureúti. (Pre 65) have-COND-3P.SG. can benefit in Bucharest ils firent entendre à leur père que ce n’était pas une mauvaise affaire et lui conseillèrent de s’informer auprès de Cӽtӽnoiu […]. (Pre 90) ‘they explained to their father that it wasn’t a bad deal and advised him to inquire of C΁t΁noiu in order to persuade himself that they would substantially benefit from going to Bucharest'

(7)

prostindu-l úi d΁sc΁lindu-l c΁ vine fooling-him-ACC and blaming-him-ACC that come-PRES-3P.SG. între oameni úi nu útie s΁ se

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among men and not know-PRES-3P.SG. that REFL poarte. (Pre 126) behave-SUBJ-3P.SG. le traita de bête et lui reprocha de ne pas savoir se comporter entre les hommes. (Pre 154) ‘fooling him and blaming him that he does not know how to behave among people’. (8)

B΁losu îl asigur΁ c΁ în satul B. him-ACC assure-SIMPLE PERFECT-3P.SG. that in village-the urm΁tor vor obĠine sigur zece lei. (Pre 60) next will-3P.PL. get certain ten lei B. lui assura que dans le village suivant ils obtiendraient certes dix lei. ‘B. assured him that they certainly would get ten lei in the next village’

(9)

Luînd aceast΁ hot΁rîre el se gr΁bi Taking the decision he REFL. hurry-SIMPLEPERFECT-3P.SG. s΁ anunĠe familia : […] (Pre 216) that announce-SUBJ-3P.SG. family-the En prenant cette décision, il ne tarda pas à l’annoncer à sa famille. (Pre 244) ‘Taking this decision, he hurried to announce it to his family’

(10) În cas΁, mama tremura úi o and her-ACC In house, mother-the tremble-IMPFT-3P.SG. strig΁ pe Tita s΁ nu shout-SIMPLE PERFECT-3P.SG. on Tita that not r΁spund΁, s΁ intre în΁untru. (Pre 90) inside answer-SUBJ-3P.SG. and enter-SUBJ-3P.SG. Dans la maison, la mère tremblait et criait à Tita d’entrer dans la tinda et de ne pas lui répondre. (Pre 117) ‘In the house, the mother was trembling and shouted to Tita not to answer and to come inside’. (11) O femeie tîn΁r΁ de tot […] îi strig΁ A woman young of all him-DAT call-SIMPLEPERFECT-3P.SG. s΁ opreasc΁. (Pre 60) that stop-SUBJ-3P.SG.

Transitivity and referentiality in Spanish and Rumanian 45

Une jeune femme leur cria qu’ils s’arrêtent. ‘A very young woman called them to stop’ The A type construction only appears with NPs (a anunĠa cuiva sosirea lui ‘to announce to somebody his departure’), but even then in competition with the B type construction (a întreba pe cineva de preĠ to ask on somebody of price, ‘to ask somebody the price’). In other words, the syntactic construction in Rumanian is determined by the inherent features of the controlled arguments. When one of the objects represents an /-animate, abstract/ argument, it is not considered as a participant, given its minimal degree of referentiality. Rumanian indeed displays a longstanding predilection for the B type construction with the recipient as DO, in contrast with the two other Romance languages : a întreba pe cineva demander qc à qn ‘to ask to somebody’ a anunĠa pe cineva annoncer qc à qn ‘to announce to somebody’ a asigura pe cineva assurer qc à qn ‘to assure to somebody’ a ierta pe cineva pardonner qc à qn ‘to forgive to somebody’ a lӽmuri pe cineva expliquer qc à qn ‘to explain to somebody’ a striga pe cineva crier qc à qn ‘to shout to somebody’ a dӽscӽli pe cineva reprocher qc à qn ‘to reprove to somebody’

preguntar algo a alguien anunciar algo a alguien asegurar algo a alguien perdonar algo a alguien explicar algo a alguien gritar algo a alguien reprochar algo a alguien

The Rumanian substitutes for these arguments independently confirm that Rumanian tends to treat a proposition or its substitute not as a DO, but rather as an adverbial oblique complement beyond the scope of transitivity. This is corroborated by the fact that a propositional object is frequently pronominalised either by an adverb (aúa, atât, cum) or by a ø anaphora: (12)

Aúa zice lumea ! So tell-PRES-3P.SG. people-the ! Spuse tat΁l. (Pre 162) say-SIMPLE PERFECT-3P.SG. father-the Les gens le disent ! Dit le père ‘that’s what people tell ! said the father’

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(13)

Nu puteai s΁ întrebi aúa dinainte (Pre 337) not can-IMPFT-2P.SG. that ask-SUBJ-2P.SG. so before Vous auriez bien fait de me le demander avant tout ça ‘You could have asked it before’

(14)

Il le prétend. (Sim 181) El aúa pretinde. (Sim 120) He-NOM so claim-PRES-3P.SG. ‘He is claiming it’

(15)

Atîta s΁ útiĠi, s΁ nu ziceĠi So that know-SUBJ-2P.PL. that not tell-SUBJ-2P.PL. c΁ nu v-am spus ! Bun΁ seara ! (Pre 173) that not you-DAT have-PRES-1P.SG. said ! Good evening Sachez-le bien, qu’on dise pas ensuite que je vous l’ai pas dit ! Bonsoir ! (Pre 200) ‘Just realise it, don’t tell afterwards I did not say so ! Good evening !’

(16)

- C’est bien ce que je pensais… finit-il par grommeler (Sim 25) - E tocmai cum gîndeam … mormӽi el în sfîrúit (Sim 20) ‘That’s what I thought … he finally muttered’

Example (15) shows that the corresponding pronoun o, the adequate DO morpheme in this case, often remains unexpressed, when it does not refer to a referential NP, especially with VV of communication a spune,’to tell’, a zice, ‘to say’ VV of opinion a crede ‘to believe’, a úti, ‘to know’, a afla ‘to find’ and VV of perception a vedea’ to see’, a auzi5 ‘to hear’: (17) - Je vous le dirai dans un instant (Sim 58) -O să vă spun imediat (Sim 46) you-DAT tell-SUBJ-1P.SG. immediate AUX-FUT that ‘I’ll tell you immediately’ (18) Mie parcă tot nu mi-ar Me-DAT as if not me-DAT veni a crede (Sad 70) AUX-COND-3P.SG. come to believe No puedo llegar a creerlo (Sad 71) ‘I could not get to believe it’

Transitivity and referentiality in Spanish and Rumanian 47

The absence of pronominalisation conforms these sentences to uniactantial constructions rather than to transitive ones. It can be expected that communication Vs are not isolated in Rumanian syntax. A similar analysis can indeed be applied to a set of Vs that select a subordinate direct object clause, more particularly the perception Vs a vedea ‘to see’, a auzi ‘to hear’ but also a privi ‘to look at’, a asculta ‘to listen’, a simĠi ‘to feel’, a urmări ‘to follow (with the eyes)’, a aútepta ‘to wait’ and – possibly – the causative Vs a face ‘to make’, a lăsa ‘to let’. As in the other Romance languages (French Je vois que Jean travaille Æ Je vois Jean travailler; Spanish Veo que Juan trabaja Æ Veo a Juan trabajar ‘I see that John works’ Æ ‘I see John work’) , the subject of the embedded clause can climb to DO of the matrix V. Yet it is peculiar to Rumanian (a) that the embedded sentence remains unmodified6 instead of changing into an infinitive and (b) that subject climbing is extended to various other constructions. It applies to the complete range of embedded clauses: (19) V΁zîndu-l pe fratele ei c΁ Seeing-him-ACC on brother-the her-GEN that rîde, se simĠi mai bine more good laugh-PRES-3P.SG. REFL. feel-SIMPLE PERFECT-3P.SG. (Pre 301) En voyant son frère rire [lit. qu’il rit], elle se sentit mieux (Pre 330) ‘When she saw her brother laughing, she felt better’ (20) de cîte ori îl văd cum se see-PRES-1P.SG. how REFL. each time him-ACC uită la mine cu ochii, mi se look-PRES-3P.SG. to me-ACC with eyes-the, me-DAT REFL. face rău (Pre 349) do-PRES-3P.SG bad chaque fois que je le vois maintenant me regarder [litt. comment il me regarde] de ses yeux, ça me fait mal (Pre 379) ‘each time I see him looking at me with his eyes, it hurts me’ (21) Cînd copilul veni de la úcoală úi When child-she came-SIMPLE PERFECT-3P.SG. from school and îl văzu ce vesel him-ACC saw-SIMPLE PERFECT-3P.SG . what cheerful era (Pre 134) was-IMPFT-3P.SG.

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Quand l’enfant rentra de l’école et elle le vit si gai [litt. ce qu’il était gai] (Pre 161)7 ‘When the child came from school and she saw how cheerful he was’ and it affects a larger number of V : (22) Niculae o urmări cum N. her-ACC followed-SIMPLE PERFECT-3P.SG. how sare (Pre 261) jump-PRES-3P.SG. lit. Niculae la suivit comment elle saute ‘N. watched her jumping’ (23) toĠi îl aúteptau să All-MASC.PL. him-ACC expected-IMPFT-3P.PL. that se însoare (Pre 160) REFL. marry-SUBJ-3P.SG. tous attendaient qu’il se marie (Pre 187) ‘They were all expecting him to get married’ (24) Polina stătea lîngă el úi îl Polina stand-IMPFT-3P.SG. next him and him-ACC asculta cum cîntă (Pre 217) listened-IMPFT-3P.SG. how sing-SIMPLE PERFECT-3P.SG. P se tenait à côté de lui et l’écoutait chanter [lit. comment il chante] ‘Polina stood next to him and heard him singing’ Once more, these facts confirm that Rumanian tends to eliminate embedded clauses as DO in favour of a NP provided it is human and definite (or individuated). Similar modalities characterise the expression of the relationship between possessor and inalienable possessed object (more specifically body parts). As with the above-mentioned communication Vs, it is known that the human possessor can be encoded as a DO instead of an IO and thus the inanimate possessed object retreats to the background as an oblique object (lui blesser la main/le blesser à la main ‘to hurt his hand’). Wierzbicka (1988: 198–204) observes that this construction type characterises those Vs that stress the interpersonal aspect of the action (baiser qn au front,’to kiss on his forehead’, blesser qn au bras ‘to hurt sb. on his arm’ , frapper qn ‘to beat sb.’, prendre qn par la main ‘take sb. by his hand’) and prefer to interpret the affected possessor as central, as more salient. The same facts

Transitivity and referentiality in Spanish and Rumanian 49

are found in Rumanian focus on the possessor entails that the body part assumes a marginal (adverbial) relation with the predicate, under the same conditions as those observed in the other Romance languages : (25) El o apucase de mînă crezînd of hand thinking He-NOM her-ACC take-PAST PERFECT-3P.SG. că glumeúte (Pre 27) that joke-PRES-3P.SG. Il l’avait prise par la main convaincu qu’elle avait blagué (Pre 52) ‘He had taken her by the hand, thinking that she was joking’ Moreover, as observed by Sandfeld and Olsen (1962: III 87), the construction with human DO “est extrêmement fréquente aussi quand c’est sur la partie (ou essentiellement) que porte l’action.” [is extremely frequent even when the action bears (mainly) on the body part]. Rumanian marginalises the possessed object as an Oblique Object even when the human possessor is not totally affected by the action, e.g. with Vs such as a spăla ‘to wash’, a úterge ‘to wipe’, a scărpina ‘to scratch’, etc. : (26) începu să se Begin-SIMPLE PERFECT-3P.SG. that REFL.-ACC spele îndelung pe picioare (Pre 219) wash-SUBJ-3P.SG. long on feet il se mit à se laver longuement les pieds [lit. aux pieds] (Pre 247) ‘He began washing his feet carefully’ (27) Femeia se úterse cu Woman-the REFL-ACC wipe-SIMPLE PERFECT-3P.SG. with desnădejde pe frunte (Pre 7) despair on forehead Désespérée la femme s’essuya le front [lit. au front] (Pre 30) ‘The woman desperately wiped her forehead’ (28) vă ung la inimă lăutarii cînd at heart musicians-the when You-ACC grease-PRES-3P.PL. cîntă cîte-un valĠ nemĠesc (Sad 36) play-PRES-3P.PL. a waltz german les musiciens vous adoucissent le cœur [lit. au cœur] quand ils jouent une valse allemande ‘The musicians soften your heart when they play some German waltz’

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Yet demotion is only possible if the possessed object stands in an inalienable relationship with the possessor.8 Since it is an integral part of the possessor, the inalienable possessed object cannot be considered as a full participant. Its low degree of individuation and referentiality easily excludes it from the transitive object domain. Again the inherent or referential features rather than the semantic nature of the V determine the selected syntactic structure. 3. In spite of the parallelism in actance variation, the hypothesis of Hopper and Thompson confirmed by the Rumanian data seems more difficult to support for Spanish, which behaves quite differently with respect to transitivity. It is widely known that Spanish uses the same formal markers for a definite human DO as for an IO : the preposition a and the dative pronoun le(s). I have repeatedly claimed that a formal similarity supposes a functional similarity in accordance with the iconicity principle.9 According to this thesis the more the DO manifests functional features characteristic of an IO the more frequently the prepositional marker a and the dative pronoun le occur and the less frequently they will be used in the opposite situation. This means that, in contrast with Rumanian, Spanish prefers syntactic constructions of type A, which combine an inanimate argument (directly marked as DO) with a human argument marked as an IO. Among the facts that corroborate this tendency, I retain the following. In the diachronic evolution of Spanish, VV like rogar ‘to ask’, impedir ‘to prevent’ adopt a bitransitive pattern with a human IO, in contrast with the lexically equivalent VV in the other Romance languages (French prier qn., empêcher qn. ; Rumanian a ruga pe cineva, a opri pe cineva) : (29) Le impidió Him-DAT prevent Il l’a empêché He him-ACC has prevented L-a oprit să Him-ACC has prevented that ‘He prevented him from leaving’

partir leave de partir of leave plece leave-SUBJ-3P.SG.

(30) Le rogó que viniese Him-DAT ask-SIMPLE PERFECT-3P.SG. that come-SUBJ IMPFT-3P.SG. Il l’a prié de venir He him-ACC has asked of come

Transitivity and referentiality in Spanish and Rumanian 51

L-a rugat să Him-ACC has asked that ‘He asked him to come’

vină come-SUBJ-3P.SG.

In contrast with Rumanian, the construction with the subordinate clause has contributed to the interpretation of the human argument as an IO. A similar syntactic organisation characterises llamar when it is used with a predicative modifier. The generalisation of the preposition a and the high frequency of the dative pronoun le, even with an inanimate NP are conditioned by the presence of the predicative modifier: (31)

(32)

Por eso, sólo por eso, prefiero llamar « historia » y no « novela » a esta obra mía (Bal 12)10 ‘therefore, only therefore, I prefer to call this work of mine “history” and not “novel”’ a la fuerza se le suele llamar suerte y viceversa (Umb 178) at the power REFL it-DAT use-PRES-3P.SG. call luck and viceversa ‘People use to call power luck and vice versa’

Sometimes the predicative modifier can be pronominalised by the accusative pronoun lo instead of an adverb (which is always the substitute in French and Rumanian) : (33) También te llaman “boca de pez”. Yo no te llamo ninguna de las dos cosas…. Pero comprendo que te lo llamen (Gai 112) ‘They call you “fish mouth” too. I do not call you either of both things. But I understand they call you so’ (34) - Por qué te llama tu padre de esa manera tan rara : efebo ? - …Me lo ha empezado a llamar este invierno y me lo seguirá llamando hasta que se le quite la costumbre… (Laf 125) ‘- Why does your father address you in this strange way : youth - He started addressing me this way last winter and he will go on calling me so until he kicks the habit.’ Hence llamar appears as a trivalent V. Some scholars11 explain this constructional variant by analogy with the V decir sometimes used with a similar meaning :

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(35) Como a la madre le llamaban la Liliana, As to the mother her-DAT call-IMPFT-3P.PL. the Liliana, al hijo le dijimos Lilianín (Pav C 147) to-the son him-DAT say-SIMPLE PERFECT-1P.PL. Lilianín. ‘As they called the mother Liliana, we called her son Lilianin’. (36) Nos instalamos junto a los siete chopos […] que en el pueblo les dicen, no sé por qué, los Siete Sacramentos (Del 49) ‘We settled near the seven poplars which in the village they call, I don’t know why, the Seven Sacraments’. In Rumanian too the Vs of telling, a zice and a spune, are often used with the meaning of “give a name to someone” and mark the person named as an IO. Yet, it is consistent with the actantial scheme of the V12 the human argument of a chema, equivalent to the Spanish llamar, always appears as an accusative DO : (37) Era odată un rus, pe care îl Be-IMPFT-3P.SG. once a Russian, on which him-ACC chema Ivan call-IMPFT-3P.SG. Ivan ‘There was once a Russian they named Ivan’ Similarly, the Spanish Vs followed by direct speech and thus expressing a communication act, uniformly mark the receiver of the message with a dative pronoun, as if these VV were trivalent, even when the human argument normally functions as a DO and can be passivised : (38) -¡Pare usted esa música ! - le [fém] interrumpí (Gai 274) ‘-Stop that music ! - I interrupted her’ (39) Cuando don Juan le hablaba, el rey alzaba la mano en el aire atajándole : -Cada cosa a su tiempo, que aún no ha llegado el cabo de año (Sen CR 26) ‘When don Juan was talking to her, the king raised his hand in the air, interrupting him : - All in good time, because the end of the year is not there yet’ This observation also holds for llamar when the V denotes a communication act :

Transitivity and referentiality in Spanish and Rumanian 53

(40) Lo vimos […] pasar por el camino de Ermitaños. Le llamamos: ¡Dito! ¡Dito! (Mat 182) ‘We saw him pass by the road of Ermitaños. We called him : Dito! Dito!’ More generally even communication Vs of type B like informar ‘to inform’, avisar ‘to advise’, advertir ‘to warn’, enterar ‘to inform’ preguntar ‘to ask’13, which mark the transferred message as an oblique object, generalise the use of a and of the dative pronoun le for the receiver of the message. This happens even when the features of the NP are not propitious for their use, e.g. in sentence (41) where the pronoun le denotes a non-human referent, which normally (with other verbal lexemes) requires the accusative pronoun lo : (41) Parece imposible que su instinto no le [= el perro] avisase de que los cristales estaban escondidos dentro de la comida. Si encuentro al tipo que lo ha matado (Laf 193) Seems impossible that his instinct not to-him [= the dog] adviseSUBJ.IMPF of that the crystals were hidden within of the food. If find1P.SG to-the guy who him has killed ‘It seems impossible that his instinct did not warn him that the fragments of glass were hidden in his food. When I meet the bloke who killed him.’ The presence of the oblique object (sometimes implicit)14, which refers to the transferred message and thus assumes the semantic role of Patient, seems to contribute to the dative marking of the human Receiver. In this respect the contrast between the Vs of perception ver and oír is particularly meaningful. Normally the DO marked by a and the pronominalisation by le should reach the same frequency rate, since these Vs belong to the same lexical category. However, the use of a and le is much more frequent with oír than with ver (cf. Roegiest forthcoming). Actually, the argument structure of oír differs from the argument structure of ver to the extent that oír can be associated with the lexical class of communication Vs. The human DO can be interpreted as the source of the communicated message and so it manifests features of a Benefactive. This fact justifies the use of the same marking as for an IO. Compare (42), where oír followed by a is related to a communication act, with (43), where the same V expresses a mere perception act and the DO – semantically a typical Patient – has no special marker :

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(42) La comunicación global a través de los satélites está abierta y todos los países están oyendo ahora al gorila (Sen vl 203) The communication global through the satellites is open and all the countries are hearing now to-the gorilla ‘The global communication through the satellites is open and all the countries are hearing the gorilla now.’ (43) “Oí tu caballo junto a mi ventana” (Pav g 122) Heard-1P.SG. SIMPLE PAST your horse near to my window ‘I heard your horse near my window’ Hence it is no surprise to find oír also in trivalent constructions : (44) cuando when le

se

me

REFL.CLIT.3P

DATIVE CLIT-1P

acaban las historias que end the stories that he oído a mi abuelo (MM 188) DATIVE CLIT.3P have-1P.SG heard to my grandfather ‘When the stories I heard from my grandfather come to an end’

If our hypothesis is correct, a human object that in a trivalent structure holds the lowest position on the agentivity scale – contrary to the cases we just analysed – should be marked less frequently by the preposition a, even when the inherent features of the NP might justify its occurrence. Indeed when the human argument undergoes a movement or transfer from an Agent subject towards a Recipient, goal of the movement or transfer, and thus actually functions as a Patient, the DO is often not marked. This happens e.g. with the DO of VV of attribution such as dar ‘to give’, ofrecer ‘to offer’, quitar ‘to take away’, robar ‘to steal’150: (45) Tal vez ella esperaba que yo salvara a su hijito. […] La verdad es que la pobre Adela, desde que le robaron su hijo, parece más frágil que nunca (Sen A 127) ‘Perhaps she hoped that I should save her little son. The truth is that poor Adela seems more fragile than ever, since they have stolen her son.’ (46) Mi padre mismo fue […] para ofrecer su hija al fuego de Dios (Sen CR 169) ‘My father went to offer his daughter to the fire of God’ The contrast between (45) – (46) and the preceding examples shows to what extent in Spanish the organisation of the “objectal zone” is determined by the participant relations in the argument structure of the V.

Transitivity and referentiality in Spanish and Rumanian 55

The syntactic behaviour of the Spanish objects is in perfect agreement with the thesis developed by Primus (1999) among others. The argument asymmetry of a transitive structure supported by these authors predicts the presence of a special formal marker for a human DO, since it is not prototypical. Moreover, the theory suggests that a human Patient is virtually close to a proto-Recipient. The proto-Recipient combines Agent and Patient features and thus takes an intermediate position between the Agent and the Patient on the thematic hierarchy (cf. Dowty 1991: 576; Primus 1999: 54; Blume 2000: 133–134) : though controlled, the Recipient is dynamic, takes initiative in the event to a certain extent and so controls another argument (cf. also Langacker 1991: II, 324–329). It is usually represented by an IO. That is exactly what happens to the Spanish human object. Under certain syntactic and semantic conditions, Spanish approximates the human object to the position of an IO, formally marks it as an IO and thus favours ditransitive constructions. Rumanian on the contrary prefers the DO position for the human object and so it largely matches the theses of Hopper and Thompson and of Lazard. How could we explain the differences between Spanish and Rumanian? Whereas Spanish constructions are primarily determined by semantic (or thematic) relations, more particularly by the Agentivity hierarchy, Rumanian is much more sensitive to the degree of referentiality of the argument: it tends to eliminate non-referential or weakly referential arguments (sentences or propositions, inalienable objects) from the objectal zone. This entails that in Rumanian the DO is not interpreted as the least dynamic argument of the event, but as the “second topic”. Hence in the two languages transitivity is organised differently according to different predominant underlying principles: agentivity is conclusive in Spanish, referentiality or topicality in Rumanian. Thus Rumanian reminds us of Givón’s (1984: 170–171) thesis which defines the subject as the primary topic and the object as the secundary topic. Similarly Dryer quoted by Van Valin and LaPolla (1997: 272) states that “the function of PO [= primary object] marking is to distinguish a more topical object from a less topical object.” The sensitivity of Rumanian to the referentiality scale has been amply corroborated in Roegiest (1996: 82–85) who compares the factors conditioning the actance variation of the DO, i.e. the presence or absence of a prepositional marker before the DO. I briefly repeat some salient facts that clearly characterise Rumanian in contrast with Spanish16: (a) the anaphoric object pronouns (demonstratives, possessives, etc.) always require the pe marker, even when their referents are inanimate;

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(b) if the human DO is indefinite or plural, pe is scarcely used; (c) the DO marked by pe is usually reduplicated by a clitic pronoun attached to the V.17 These facts corroborate the important impact of referential features on Rumanian syntax. I conclude from the above analysed Romance data that the theoretical controversy regarding the scope of semantic transitivity results from the fact that the previous analyses focused on two different parameters as basic factors: referentiality and agentivity. The former parameter guarantees the biactantial pattern as an essential condition of transitivity; the latter takes into account the asymmetric character of a transitive action. The individuation of the DO proposed by Hopper and Thompson and by Lazard takes into account the referential features, not the inherent human or animate features of the object. More detailed typological studies should examine if our conclusions can be corroborated and adequately generalised. Notes 1. This term recalls the analysis proposed by Givón (1990: 565–566). According to Givón semantic transitivity is characterized by the presence of three elements: an agent, a predicate and a patient. 2. Cf. the comment of Andrews (1985: 125) : “the typology of grammatical relations must provide for a family of direct-object-like relations which may behave more or less like a direct object.” 3. As Van Valin and LaPolla (1997: 146) formulate it, the Agent is the non marked choice of the dynamic participant named actor, the Patient is the non marked choice of the passive participant undergoer. The same notions reappear in the prototypical definition of a primary transitive verb by Andrews (1985: 98). 4. The novels are : Pre = M. Preda, MoromeĠi, Bucharest, Cartea româneascӽ, 1975. Les Moromete, Bucharest, Minerva, 1986. Sad = M. Sadoveanu, Baltagul. El hacha, Bucharest, Minerva, 1981. Sim = G. Simenon, Le voleur de Maigret, Paris, Presses de la Cité, 1967. Comisarul Maigret a fost pr΁dat , Bucharest, Ed. literatur΁ universal΁, 1969. 5. According to Sandfeld and Olsen (1962 III 43) and Iliescu (1988). 6. In those contexts where a subordinate phrase is compulsory or preferred, since with Vs of perception the perceived event is mostly expressed by a gerund in Rumanian : Am auzit-o cîntînd, dar n-am văzut-o (Sad 212) “Je l’ai entendue chanter, mais je ne l’ai pas vue” ‘I heard her singing, but did not see her’

Transitivity and referentiality in Spanish and Rumanian 57 7. As can be stated in examples (20) and (21), in French clause reduction eliminates the copula of the embedded clause. 8. Rumanian considers the relationship between the owner and his clothes also as an inalienable relation; consequently it enters the same syntactic structures: M-am descheiat la cămaúă unbuttoned on shirt Me-ACC have-PRES1P.SG. ‘I unbuttoned my shirt’ 9. Cf. Roegiest (1990, 1998, 1999). 10. The examples are taken from the following texts : Bal = G. Torrente Ballester : Filomeno a mi pesar, Barcelona, Planeta, 1988. Del = M. Delibes : Viejas historias de Castilla la Vieja, Madrid, Alianza, 1969. Gai = C. Martín Gaite : Ritmo lento , Barcelona, Destino, 1974. Laf = C. Laforet : La insolación , Barcelona, Planeta, 51972. Mat = A.M. Matute : El río, Barcelona, Destino, 51972. MM= A. Muñoz Molina : El jinete polaco, Barcelona, Planeta, 1991. Pav c = F. García Pavón : Cuentos republicanos, Barcelona, Destino, 21970. Pav g = F. García Pavón : La guerra de dos mil años, Barcelona : Destino, 2 1971. Sen A = R. Sender : Adela y yo , Barcelona, Destino, 1978. Sen CR = R. Sender : Carolus Rex , Barcelona, Destino, 21971. Sen vl = R. Sender : Una virgen llama a tu puerta , Barcelona, Destino, 1973. Umb = F. Umbral : Las ninfas , Barcelona, Destino, 101976. 11. Cf. Cano Aguilar (1981: 70). 12. Cf. Sandfeld and Olsen (1967: III 33), as well as the corpus examples: Te superi că îĠi zice plăvan ? (Pre 49) get-PRES2P.SG. that you-DAT say-PRES-3P.SG. blockhead ? You-ACC ‘Do you get angry when they call you blockhead ?’ In sat i-se spunea Guica (Pre 44) In village her-DAT REFL. tell-IMPFT-3P.SG. Guica ‘In the village they call her Guica’ 13. According to Gómez Torrego (1995: 78–79) the use of lo instead of le is doubtful with preguntar in Al presidente le / ?lo preguntaron sobre el atentado To-the president him-DAT / ? him-ACC asked-PAST PERFECT-3P.PL. about the attempt ‘They interrogated the president about the attempt’ 14. The preposition of this Oblique Object bears no precise semantic value. Actually, the preposition often remains unexpressed before a subordinate clause : El mismo recadero le informó que unos días antes había hecho un viaje hasta la estación de Murcia (Laf 102) ‘the same messenger informed him that a few days before he had made a trip to the station of Murcia

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Eugeen Roegiest

Le [=Ursula] advertí que no era Filomelo, sino Filomeno (Bal 173) ‘I pointed out to her that it was not Filomelo, but Filomeno’ 15. Cf. Roegiest (1998: 474) for a more detailed analysis. 16. In the same line of argument, Primus (1993 : 689) states that the basic sentence order in Rumanian is Topic -V-X and that the SVO order only occurs when the S is topic. 17. Ulrich (1985: 220–223) exaggerates the parallelism between the prepositional DO in Spanish and Rumanian, more particularly regarding pronominal reduplication.

References Andrews, Avery 1985 The major functions of the noun phrase. In Language Typology and Syntactic Description. Vol.1, Timothy Shopen (ed .), 62–154. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Blume, Kerstin 2000 Markierte Valenzen im Sprachvergleich: Lizenzierungs- und Linkingbedingungen. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Cano Aguilar, Rafael 1981 Estructuras Sintácticas Transitivas en el Español Actual. Madrid: Gredos. Croft, William 1991 Syntactic Categories and Grammatical Relations. The Cognitive Organization of Information. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Dowty, David 1991 Thematic Proto-Roles and Argument Selection. Language 67 (3): 547–619. Givón, Talmy 1984 Syntax. A Functional Typological Introduction. Vol.1. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 1990 Syntax. A Functional Typological Introduction. Vol.2. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Gómez Torrego, Leonardo 1995 Manual de Español Correcto. Vol. 2. Madrid: ArcoLibros. Hopper, Paul J., and Sandra A. Thompson 1980 Transitivity in grammar and discourse. Language 56 (1): 251– 299. Iliescu, Maria 1988 Reprise et non reprise pronominale d’un complément d’objet direct à valeur neutre. International journal of Rumanian studies 6 (2): 69– 80. Langacker, Ronald W. 1987 Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Volume I. Stanford: University Press.

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Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Volume II. Stanford: University Press. Lazard, Gilbert 1994 L’actance. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. 1995 La notion de distance actancielle. In Langues et langage. Mélanges offerts à A. Culioli, Janine Bouscaren, Jean-Jacques Franckel, and Stéphane Robert (eds.), 135–146. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. 1998 De la transitivité restreinte à la transitivité généralisée. In La transitivité, André Rousseau (ed.), 55–84. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion. Primus, Beatrice 1993 Syntactic relations. In Syntax. An international handbook of contemporary research, Joachim Jacobs, Arnim von Stechow, Wolfgang Sternefeld, and Theo Vennemann (eds.), 686–705. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 1999 Cases and Thematic Roles. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Roegiest, Eugeen 1999 La tipología sintáctica del objeto transitivo en español. Verba 17, 239–248. 1996 El régimen directo preposicional del rumano y del portugués en contraste con el español. In Lingüística contrastiva, Josse De Kock, Nicole Delbecque, Ludo Melis, Luis Rodríguez Gómez, and Eugeen Roegiest (eds.), 63–96. Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca. 1998 Variación del objeto directo español y dinamicidad verbal. In Estudios en honor de J. De Kock. Nicole Delbecque, and Chris De Paepe (eds.), 469–488. Leuven: University Press. 1999 Objet direct prépositionnel ou objet indirect en espagnol. Verbum 21: 68–80. forthc. Argument structure of perception verbs and actance variation of the Spanish direct object. In Empirical approaches to language typology, Georg Bossong, and Bernard Comrie (eds.). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Sandfeld, Kristian, and Hedvig Olsen 1962 Syntaxe roumaine. Copenhague: Munksgaard. Ulrich, Miorita 1985 Thetisch und Kategorisch. Tübingen: Narr. Van Valin, Robert, and Randy LaPolla 1997 Syntax. Structure, meaning and function. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wierzbicka, Anna 1988 The semantics of grammar. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Transitive verbs with non-accusative alternation in Hebrew: Cross-language comparison with English, German and Spanish Rivka Halevy 0. Introduction1 Modern as well as ancient Hebrew have transitive verbs, mainly verbs of contact by motion, which can be construed either with a direct object marked by the definite accusative marker (henceforth OM) ’et or with an indirect object marked by the preposition be- (a bound morpheme in Hebrew).2 These two grammatical structures can be thought of as occurring in complementary distribution. In the literature of Hebrew grammar, this transitivity alternation is either ignored or traditionally understood as stylistic, that is, as an optional grammatical selection with no explicit different semantic content. The present study is guided by the assumption that two things different in form can never be the same in meaning and in how they function in discourse environments. This principle, which has been explained at length by Bolinger (1968) and adopted by other linguists (cf. Haiman 1985; MacWhinney 1989; Goldberg 1995), is commonly known as The Principle of No Synonymy.3 It therefore seems necessary to examine not only the syntactic construction, but also the semantic properties of these constructions. Studies of the nature of lexical knowledge confirm that various aspects of verbs’ syntactic behavior are tied to their meaning. Moreover, verbs that fall into classes according to shared behavior would be expected to share meaning components. Presumably, predictions about verb behavior are feasible because particular syntactic properties are associated with verbs of a certain type.4 Hence, I shall first introduce the verbs which are involved in the ‘et/bealternation by classifying them into the semantic domains to which they belong (Section 1). However, following the assumption of cognitive linguistics, this study maintains that the distinction between the two constructions under discussion is a result not only of the interaction between the syntax and semantics of the verb and the participants, but also

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of the meaning of the construction frame as a holistic cognitive unit (cf. Goldberg 1995). In this view, the construction, with its specific meaning – as will be described – exists independently of the individual verbs that may occur in it. The general claim is that the accusative construction is in many respects the unmarked construction or default form, while the prepositional construction, with an indirect object which is not part of the valency of the verb, is the marked construction. In order to maintain this claim, the analysis will consider the pertinent semantic properties of the central participants, viz., the actor (A) and the object (O), (Section 2), and the verbal action (V) (Section 3). Each of the components of the transitive event that will be discussed involves a different facet of the effectiveness or intensity with which the action is transferred from one participant to another, as well as a different viewpoint on the event structure. Triggering a more specific focus on the speaker’s or observer’s viewpoint, the present study offers a new cognitive approach to the phenomenon of transitivity alternation in Hebrew (Section 4). This view corresponds to a great extent to the construction grammar approach to the Ø/a transitivity alternation in Spanish as advocated by Delbecque (1999a, 1999b, 2002). A close examination of the syntactic behavior of the set of verbs to be classified below (Section 1) can probe for linguistically relevant aspects of their meaning. In Section 5 I shall discuss the relevance of the notion of ‘contact’ to the syntactic behavior of the transitive verbs in question. It will be argued that the notion of ‘contact’ is relevant not only to the syntactic behavior of the transitive verbs participating in the ‘et/be- alternation, but is also compatible with the viewpoint on the event. With regard to the lexical dimension, I will suggest that the prepositional construction plays a crucial role in creating metaphorization, and that in languages with a formal mechanism of transitivity alternation – such as Hebrew and Spanish – it is a device denoting verbal polysemy (Section 6). As indicated above, a similar type of syntactic mechanism, traditionally known as the ‘prepositional and the non-prepositional accusative alternation’, is available in Spanish, but lacking in English. Consider the following Spanish and Hebrew examples (1a,b), and their English equivalent (1c): (1) a. mataron { Ø/a} moros y judíos killed-3PL {Ø/to} Moors and Jews (history books; taken from Delbecque 2002) b. hem hargu {Ø/be-} maurim ve-yehudim

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they killed {Ø/in-} Moors and-Jews c. They killed Moors and Jews There are also some significant correspondences between Hebrew and German alternation patterns, e.g. (2a,b), in contrast with English (2c): (2) a. German Der Mann hat {mich/mir} ins Gesicht geschlagen (taken from Draye 1996: 198) the man AUX {me/to-me} on-the face hit b. Hebrew ha’iš hika {‘oti/bi} ba-panim the-man hit {me/in-me} in-the-face c. The man hit me in the face Below, I shall present cross-language evidence from Spanish and German and compare it to Hebrew (Section 7). However, typological comparisons of languages are not the concern of this study. The corpus data are basically of Modern Hebrew, and are taken from narrative discourse, mainly from literary and journalistic writing. For some typical cases, I shall also provide elicited examples.5 1. Classification of Hebrew transitive verbs involved in the ‘et/bealternation The Hebrew verbs that enter into the transitivity alternation 'et/ be- can be classified into eleven sets: eight sets of action verbs (henceforth ‘actual’ verbs), and three of non-action verbs (henceforth ‘virtual’ verbs). A. ‘Actual’ verbs 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6)

HIT VERBS:

e.g. hika ‘hit’, halam ‘et ‘strike’ (in biblical Hebrew) / halam be‘strike’ (in Modern Hebrew), nagax ‘gore’/ ‘butt’, xavat ‘beat’/‘swat’, dafaq ‘knock’/ ‘beat’, harag ‘kill’; VERBS OF PUNCTURING AND SCRATCHING: e.g. daqar ‘stab’, naqav / niqev ‘puncture’, niqer ‘gouge’/ ‘peck’, sarat ‘scratch’, gered ‘scrape’, šiyef ‘polish’/ ‘smooth’, xarac ‘whittle’/‘score'; POKE VERBS: e.g. xafar ‘dig’, qadax ‘drill’, xaras ‘plough’, ‘adar ‘hoe’; CUT VERBS: e.g. xatax ‘cut’, qitsets ‘clip’, niser ‘saw’, gilef ‘carve’; PUSH/PULL VERBS: e.g. daxaq ‘push’, mašax ‘pull’; CHEW AND NIBBLE VERBS: e.g. kirsem ‘nibble’/’gnaw’, nagas ‘bite’;

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7)

GESTURE VERBS:

8)

e.g. henid ‘move head, eyes etc.’, heni’a / ni’ane’a ‘move body’, gilgel ‘roll (eyes)’, xaxax ‘rub hands’, šifšef ‘rub body parts’; HOLD/SEIZE AND SUPPORT VERBS: e.g. ‘axaz / hexziq ‘hold’, tafas ‘grab’, tamax ‘support’.

B. ‘Virtual’ verbs 9)

PERCEPTION AND VOLITION VERBS: e.g. hirgiš / xaš ‘feel’, ‘sense’, ratsa ‘want’, baxar ‘choose’; 10) ‘QUALIFYING’ VERBS: e.g. qitser ‘shorten’, he’erix ‘lengthen’, heqel ‘lighten’6; 11) ‘ASPECTUAL’ VERBS: e.g. hexel / hitxil ‘start’, himšix ‘continue’7.

The ‘actual’ verbs in class 1–8 share the semantic properties of ‘motion’ and ‘contact’. It will be argued (cf. Section 5) that these properties are the meaning components related to the syntactic behavior of these verbs, particularly to the ‘et/be- diathesis alternation. The verbs at issue are dynamic verbs – most of them telic and punctual, except for the holdsupport verbs (Class 8) and the pull verb mašax (Class 5), which have two readings: next to the typical durative and atelic meaning, they also have a telic and punctual one. ‘Virtual’ verbs, on the other hand, do not denote contact through motion. They are rather characterized by expressing the intention to go on with an action (e.g. with hitxil ‘begin’, Section 2.1.2.1), by indicating a mental activity with a partitive-locative effect (Section 3.2), and by contrasting factuality with virtuality (Section 3.3). Hebrew conveys these properties by using the non-accusative alternation encoded with the preposition be-, whose prototypical meaning is locative-tangential. 2. Characterization of the central participant roles According to the parameters of transitivity suggested by Hopper and Thompson (1980: 252–253), the two crucial components related to participant A (here for Actor) are Agency and Volitionality (viz., A acting purposefully), and the two components which refer to participant O (Object) are Affectedness and Individuation. ACTOR is now broadly used in linguistics to denote “the participant which performs, effects, instigates, or controls the situation denoted by the thematic predicate” (Foley and Van Valin 1984: 29). It means that every Agent is an Actor, but not the other way around. Dowty (1991) suggests two general macro-role types: ProtoAgent and Proto-Patient (cf. Foley and Van Valin’s ‘Actor’ and

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‘Undergoer’). Proto-Agent properties are: (1) volitional involvement in the event; (2) sentience (and/or perception); (3) causing an event or change of state in another participant; (4) movement (relative to the position of another participant); and (5) exists independently of the event. Proto-Patient properties are: (1) undergoes change of state; (2) incremental theme; (3) causally affected by another participant; (4) stationary relative to movement of another participant; and (5) does not exist independently of the event, or not at all. Below, I shall discuss the relevance of the Agency (Section 2.1.1) and Intentionality (Sections 2.1.2, 2.1.3) components of the A to the two alternating ways of encoding the scene. With regard to participant role O, I shall discuss the relevance of Individuation of the O (2.2.1) and its Affectedness and Involvement in the event (2.2.2) to the transitivity diathesis alternation in question. 2.1. Participant role: A 2.1.1. Agency of the A entity In the accusative construction of the transitive verbs at issue, the A is a prototypical agent, viz., animate and usually human. Thus, when the A is not agentive, and therefore not operative, the accusative construction is regularly excluded. Consider, for example, (3) where the be- construction is preferred in Hebrew: (3)

ba' lefeta gal 'adir šel ruax ve-hika {??’oti/bi} came suddenly wave strong of wind and-hit {??OM-me/in-me} be-xozqa (Biyalik, p. 1 ) (class 1) strongly ‘Suddenly a strong wave of wind came and hit me powerfully’

Or consider the preferred be- construction in the following examples, in which the A is an abstract entity and the predicates have a metaphorical reading: (4)

ha-batsoret hikta kašot {??’et/be-} ha-xaqla'ut (class 1) the-drought hit severely {??OM/in-} the-agriculture ‘The drought hit agriculture severely’

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(5)

be-’eynav ha-’aforot ra’a hary hištaqfut šel ‘ota In-his-eyes the-grey saw Harry a-reflection of OM-that ‘eima še-’axaza {??’oto/bo} (Harry Potter, p. 314) (class 8) terror that-held {??OM-him/in-him} ‘In his gray eyes Harry saw a reflection of that terrible fear that took hold of him’

(6)

ha-kibuš mexarsem {??’et/be-} yexolta šel the-occupation gnaws {??OM/in-} the-ability-her of ha-medina lehagen ‘al ‘emdata ha-musarit klapei the-country to-defend on position-her the-moral towards ha-’olam (Haaretz 15.2.02) (class 6) the-world ‘The occupation gradually reduces the country’s ability to defend its moral position to the world’

As we shall see in some detail below (Section 6), in Hebrew it is almost predictable that the be- construction influences the verbal meaning and often triggers a metaphorical reading. 2.1.2. Intentionality The prepositional construction is marked for intentionality. This is especially noticeable in verbs of perception and volition (Class 9). In (7), e.g., ratsa be- means ‘wanted something very much, purposefully’. (7)

tahalix 'oslo haya mivxan še-yisra'el yaxla leharšot the-process(of) Oslo was a-test that-Israel could to-permit le-'atsma, še-rov ha-yisra'elim ratsu bo to-herself, that-most of-the-Israelis wanted in-3SG.MASC. (Haaretz 21.2.01)(class 9) ‘The Oslo (peace) process was a test that Israel could afford and that most Israelis desired’

In (8), the nominal form derived from baxar ‘choose’, namely bexira ‘choice’, is not construed with the accusative (baxar ‘et) but with prepositional (baxar be), to denote ‘an intentional, not random choice’, as corroborated by the context (‘this one and not another’).8

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(8)

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ha-bexira be-mašal ze ve-lo' 'axer yeš la ' erex the-choice in-proverb this and-not another has to-her a-value simboli ba-tarbut (Haaretz 5.1.00) (class 9) symbolic in-the-culture ‘The choice of this fable and not another has symbolic value in the culture’

With verbs denoting inception (Class 11), the accusative construal conveys a merely ingressive aspect, e.g. (9a): (9)

a. ha-menahel patax ‘et ha-diyun ba-nose’ (class 11) the-director opened OM the-discussion on-the subject ‘The director opened the discussion on the issue’

The prepositional construal, by contrast, may be regarded as expressing what Brugmann (1917) termed as Streckung (‘stretching’) of ingressive into durative,9 that is, suggesting the A’s intention to continue with the action, e.g. (9b): (9)

b. ha-menahel patax be-diyun ba-še’ela ha-kakalit the-director opened in-discussion on-the-question the-economic ‘The director started with / began a discussion on the economic question’

While (9a) is not marked for the intention to pursue the activity begun, (9b) implies that A is actually participating in the event and will continue to do so. The same is true for (10) and (11): (10)

tamid ratsiti qaryera tsva'it, ve-xašavti še-ze always I-wanted a-career military, and-I-thought that-this(is) ha-maqom lehatxil {??’ota/ba} (Haaretz 20.12.99) (class 11) the-place to-start {??OM-her/in-her} ‘I always wanted a military career and I thought that this was the place to start’

(11)

ha-mafginim qar’u le-sar ha-’otsar lehatxil the-demonstrators called to-the-minister (of) the-treasury to-begin miyad {??’et/be-} ha-masa’ u-matan ‘im ha-studentim (Haaretz 20.11.01) (class 11) immediately {??OM/in-} the-negotiation with the-students

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‘The demonstrators called on the Minister of Treasury to immediately begin negotiations with the students’ Like many other properties of the event, the intention to realize the action is discourse-determined, it is not just a property of one of the elements of the clause. In (10), e.g., the intention is to realize the dream that the A had always had, and in (11), it is to negotiate immediately with the students. The English paraphrase of hitxil be- would then be ‘actually start with’ or ‘start with a clear intention to fulfill the mission’. 2.2. Participant role: O 2.2.1. Individuation of the O entity According to Hopper and Thompson’s (1980: 286) definition, individuation is “the degree to which the entity referred to by the NP is discrete, bounded and separated from its environment”. The properties of individuated objects, according to their parameterized theory of transitivity are: proper, human/animate, concrete, singular, count, and referential/definite (Hopper and Thompson 1980: 253). In the accusative construal of the scene, the distinctness of O from A and its distinctness from its background environment are unmarked, not only in terms of its individuality as a particular and discrete entity, but also in terms of assigning prominence to it as a figure in the scene. Thus, the O is susceptible of being a non-individuated entity, as expressed, e.g. by an indefinite noun, as in (12), or a generic noun, as in (13) and in (14), where it has a metaphorical reading. (12)

kulam lehaxziq {Ø/??be-} yadayim (class 8) everybody to-hold {Ø/??in-} hands ‘Everybody hold hands’

(13)

‘axbarim mexarsemim {0/??be-} bad (class 6) mice gnaw {Ø/??in-} cloth ‘Mice gnaw cloth’

(14)

mi še-mider ‘et ha-sarim ve-qitsets lahem he-who compartmentalized OM the-ministers and-cut-off to-them {Ø/??be-} knafayim ba-šana va-xetsi ha-'axrona (Haaretz 21.2.01) (class 4)

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{Ø/??in-} wings at-the-year and-a-half the-last ‘The one who has constricted the ministers and clipped their wings over the last year and a half’ The accusative construction frame is also used when the O expresses a propositional content or denotes a process conceived as an abstract entity, i.e. a third-order entity in the sense of Lyons (1977: 443) e.g. (15): (15)

ha-xasifa the-exposure hitpatxut development ‘The exposure disease’

la-qrina he’itsa {‘et/??be-} to-the-radiation accelerated{OM/??in-} ha-maxala (class 10) of-the-disease to radiation accelerated the development of the

The accusative is also the only possible frame when the O nominals functions as the predicative component of a complex verbal predicate with a lexically depleted verb e.g., in (16), the compound verbal predicate is split into the secondary verb tafas (‘caught’) and the nominal complement šalva (‘tranquillity’). (16)

hu’ šaxav lo’ ‘al ha-xof ve-tafas he lay to-him on the-beach and-caught ‘He lay on the beach finding tranquility’

šalva tranquility

The same holds for 'effected objects' integrated in the verbal concept: in (17), e.g., the DO xor ‘hole’ is a non-discrete kind of reference established by the verbal predicate niqev ‘pierce’. Hence, it is implied by the verb, and cognitively part of its domain. (17)

hi’ niqva la xor she pierced to-her hole ‘She pierced her ear’

ba-’ozen in-the-ear

Examples (12) through (17) show that when the O is a non-individuated or non-discrete entity only the accusative construal is available. In contrast, all Os introduced by the be-preposition in our corpus data are definite or highly individuated.10 The condition for the prepositional alternation to be possible seems to be that the O has to denote an individuated entity (18, 19).

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(18)

ba-tmuna ro’im ‘oto maxziq {‘et/be-} yada in-the-picture see-3 MASC.PL him holding {OM/in-} her-hand ‘In the picture you can see him holding her hand’

(19)

ha-’axbarim kirsemu {'et/be-} mexitsat ha-'ets be-mešex šana the-mice gnawed {OM/in-} the-screen of-wood during year ‘The mice gnawed {Ø/at} the wood screen over the course of a year’

Finally, it is relevant to note that the dative morpheme is in many languages a marker of definite and animate O’s, as for example the Spanish a and the Semitic dative le- which has become in Neo-Aramaic a marker of the definite accusative, e.g. qatlƗ le – kills 3 FEM.SG to-him ‘she kills him’. On this account Hopper and Thompson (1980: 259) suggest that the arguments known to grammar as ‘Indirect Objects’ (as opposed to ‘obliques’ such as instrumentals or locatives), whether dative marked or not, should in fact be transitive O’s rather than what might be called ‘accusative’ O’s, since they tend to be definite or highly individuated.11 2.2.2. Involvement and affectedness of the O entity In the prepositional alternation of the transitive verbs at issue, the O is marked in terms of affectedness. The affected object represents an independent entity, whose existence is not stipulated by the action; however the action has an impact upon it. The be-preposition marks the realization of the contact between the A and the O. The action is focused intentionally and intensively on the O. In the accusative construction, on the other hand, the object is unmarked in terms of affectedness, and is susceptible of denoting an effected object, viz., a nominal entity constituting the last element of the verbal process, as shown above in (17) and in (20) below. (20)

hi’ qar’a {Ø/??be-} pisa mi-nismato šel ‘avigdor (Kerrett, p.61) she tore {Ø/??in-} piece of-his-soul of Avigdor ‘She tore off a piece of Avigdor's soul’

The DO pisa (‘piece’) is inseparable from the concept of the verb. It functions as an incremental theme (in the sense of Dowty 1991), i.e. it does not exist independently of the event, and, as advocated by Delbecque (1999a, 1999b, 2002), it cognitively acts as an internally bounded domain.

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An even better illustration can be found in (21), since here the effected object is also lexically (viz., collocationally) restricted to the verbal domain. (21)

bor kara va-yaxperehu (Ps. 7:16) pit dug-he and-hollowed-it ‘He dug a pit and hollowed it out’ Modern Hebrew: kara + {bor, šuxa, qever} dig + {pit, cistern, grave}

The verbal head kara (‘dig a pit’) is lexically ‘pregnant’,12 – since it encapsulates (in the sense of Lyons 1977: 618) objects from the semantic domain of ‘pit’ (e.g. bor, qever, šuxa). Hence it is more felicitously associated with the direct, non-prepositional, construction. On the other hand, a less specified verb like xafar (‘dig’) fits both the accusative (22) and the prepositional construction (23). (22)

hem xafru ‘et ha-te’ala they dug OM the-tunnel ‘They dug the tunnel’

(23)

hem himšixu laxpor ba-te’ala they continued to-dig in-the-tunnel ‘They continued digging the tunnel’

In (22), te’ala ‘tunnel’ is an ‘effected object’, i.e. an incremental effect of the transitive event, while in (23) it is an ‘affected object’, i.e. a discrete entity which is affected by the verbal process but which exists from the beginning, independently of the event. The distinction between effected and affected objects does not seem to be pertinent for the non-prepositional construction frame. Verbs which can be construed with affected objects in the accusative construction can also be construed prepositionally, as in (18) above. However, the prepositional frame only takes affected entities as objects. Up to this point, I have discussed the relevant properties of the core participant roles A and O in the two construction frames of the transitive verbs participating in the ‘et/be- alternation. In the following section I shall discuss the semantics of the event in terms of viewpoint, type of situation, and aspect (Aktionsart) of the verb and the entire predication.

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3. Characterization of the event in terms of aspect, scope, and instantiation It is presumably no accident that inherent features of a verb’s meaning fit in with the meaning of certain tense and aspect forms, but not with others. The ‘actual’ transitive verbs of contact through motion which participate in the diathesis alternation under discussion (cf. list in Section 1) refer to dynamic situations. Most of these verbs are inherently telic and punctual; however, the component of ‘contact’, which is part of their lexical semantics, makes them susceptible of being viewed as atelic and durative. It will be argued that turning to the prepositional frame (often in combination with other lexical and grammatical elements) corresponds to the choice to focus on the internal structure of the event, thus viewing it rather as a process than as an action. Whether the clause receives a perfective or imperfective reading crucially hinges on the construction frame used (3.1.). Since the imperfective Aktionsart (mode d’action) is, in general, associated with activity, volition/intentionality and intensity, it usually yields a more vivid and accurate image than the perfective (cf. 2.1.2.). As a corollary of the aspectual distinction, the ‘et/be alternation also involves a scope difference: while completion uses to involve the whole O entity, internal viewing rather favors a part-centered conceptualization of the effect. The alternation therefore also deserves to be analyzed in terms of holistic vs. partitive scope (3.2.). An imperfective, partitive view further tends to imply the instantiation of an individuated, specific event, whereas a perfective, holistic approach gives way to a type reading, i.e. an unspecified, generically portrayed predication (3.3.). 3.1. Perfective vs. imperfective aspect The accusative construction of the ‘actual’ verbs which admit the ‘et/bealternation expresses prototypical transitivity. In this construction frame, the speaker chooses to view the accomplishment of the activity – that is, he views it as perfective. The event is viewed externally, in terms of its completion, i.e. the effect of the action is effectively transferred from A entity to O entity, with no reference to its internal temporal structure. On the other hand, the prepositional construction frame, which exhibits reduced transitivity, permits viewing the contact by motion from within, making explicit reference to the internal temporal structure of the event – in

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particular, to the real process of actualization – leaving the end in particular unspecified; for example, hu’ qara’ 'et hasefer ‘he read the book’ in contrast to kšenixnasti hu’ qara’ ba-sefer ‘when I entered he was reading the book’. The combination of the accusative construction with telic verbs yields the implication of completion, while the combination of the prepositional construction with such verbs does not. This means that the O is marked with the oblique case-marker be- when the action of the predicate does not reach, or is not considered to reach, any determinate point or phase. It thus yields an imperfective or atelic reading. In (24) below, the action of cutting is viewed as an ongoing process, which may continue indefinitely. (24)

yišarti 'et retsu'at ha-tarmil še-xatxa be-gabi I straightened OM the-strap(of) the-bag that-cut in-my-back (Kerrett, p. 101) (class 4) ‘I smoothed the strap of the bag that was cutting into my back’

Viewing a situation from within, namely as imperfective, correlates with real situations, both in terms of dynamicity and atelicity. A transitive activity is viewed as “carried over” from one participant to another, methodically and intensively. So it is no accident that in the beconstruction we find adverbials which 'overdetermine' the meaning imposed by the construction, e.g. adverbials which express deliberateness and intensity, as in (25) bexavana (‘deliberately’) and xazaq (‘strongly’): (25)

hu’ 'amar se-gabi mašax ba-guf šel ha-xatul he said that-Gabi pulled in-the-body of the-cat xazaq be-xavana (Kerrett, p. 71) (class 5) strongly deliberately ‘He said that Gabi deliberately pulled the cat hard’

Although aspect is a clausal property, it is generally expected in IndoEuropean languages to be marked on verbs. Hebrew, however, lacks such a systematic morpho-syntactic mechanism for expressing aspectuality. The preposition be-, which in its spatial-tangential meaning signifies ‘being in a place’ or ‘being in contact with’, appears to be one of the devices used in Hebrew to give aspectual information, namely of imperfectivity. It is also worth noting that the coreferential dative construction, which marks the affectee, plays a similar role in Modern Hebrew: It triggers an imperfective interpretation, when it is combined with certain types of motion verbs, whether transitive or intransitive. With telic verbs, it yields

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an atelic reading. Compare, e.g. the canonical accusative construction of the telic verb tsavat ‘pinch’ (26a) with the imperfective and atelic interpretation of (26b) that contains the coreferential dative clitic le-.13 (26) a. ziser tsavat me’at min ha-lexem, hispig ‘oto Zisser pinched a-little from the-bread, dipped OM-3 MASC.SG ba-šemen ... ve-hibi’a ‘et haš’arato (elicited example) in-the-oil … and-expressed OM hypothesis-his ‘Zisser pinched off a bit of the bread, dipped it in the oil, and expressed his hypothesis’ (26) b. ziser tsavat lo me’at min ha-lexem, Zisser pinched to-him (DAT.CLIT) a-little from the-bread, hispig ‘oto ba-šemen… ve-hibi’a ‘et dipped OM– 3 MASC.SG in-the-oil … and-expressed OM haš’arato (Beer 1987: 29) hypothesis-his ‘Zisser pinched himself off a bite of the bread, dipped it in the oil …and then expressed his hypothesis’ However, aspectual meaning cannot be accounted for solely by the verb and its construal. Other clausal elements play a role, too. In (27), the aspectual reading hinges on the secondary verbs himšix (‘continued’), and in (28) on the presence of adjuncts in combination with an ingressive verb, e.g. qam kedey ‘rose to/with an intention to’: (27)

(28)

ha-'ilem himšix laxbot ba-na'ar še-haya the-mute continued to-beat in-the-boy who-was 'axšav saru'a 'al ha-'arets (Kerrett, p. 16) (class 1) now stretched-out on the-ground ‘The mute went on beating the boy who was now stretched out on the ground’

sinen li'or ve-qam mi-mqomo kedey lingos muttered Lior and-rose from-place-his in-order to-bite ba-šezif (Kerrett, p. 28) (class 6) in-the-plum ‘Muttered Lior and rose to bite the plum’ Imperfect forms, such as the present participle, e.g. maxziq ‘being in a position of holding’ in (29) below, and mexatex ‘was cutting’ in (30), constitute yet another grammatical device in Hebrew for portraying a vivid

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dynamic situation viewed as imperfective. They also pattern with the beconstruction. (29)

ha-tšerqesi herim 'oto me-'axor, maxziq bo the-Circassian lifted him from-behind, holding in-him kedei še-lo’ yitmotet (Kerrett, p. 16) (class 8) so that-he-not would-collapse ‘The Circassian lifted him from behind, holding him so that he wouldn't collapse’

(30)

ve-haya rofe' kofto u-mexatex be-raglo and-was a-physician tidying-him-up and-cutting in-his-leg (Rabbinical Hebrew: Tosefta, Sheqalim, A: 6) (class 4) ‘And a physician was tidying him up and cutting his leg’

In all these examples, the imperfective aspect is largely triggered by the prepositional construction frame. The preposition be- overtly marks the actualisation of contact between the A and the O. The accusative/prepositional alternation thus counts as a coding device for the aspectual perfective/imperfective distinction at clause level. 3.2. Holistic vs. partitive scope The choice of the accusative or non-accusative construal is also determined by the scope and effect attributed to the event. The completion of the action naturally involves the whole O. When the action is viewed as an ongoing process, it encroaches upon the O entity and affects only part of it. Hebrew reveals more clearly than English the difference in transitivity of the total, as opposed to partial transitivity, by using the ‘et/be- alternation. The DO construction frame represents a whole centered view, it conveys a ‘holistic effect’.14 In the et- frame, the action is viewed as encompassing and the object is conceptualized as totally affected. The be-construction frame, on the other hand, represents a part-centered conceptualization. The action is viewed from within, marking the intentional and intensive contact between the entity of A and the entity of O. Such action is displayed as local action, specifically focused on a discrete O or a particular part of it. It thus triggers ‘reduced operativity’ or the conceptualization of a ‘partitive effect’. In (31), e.g., the accusative construction implies that O1 tiq ‘bag’ is completely affected, while the be- construction in the second part of the sentence suggests that only part of O2 retsu‘a ‘strap’ is affected.

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ha-te'uran mašax 'et ha-tiq mi-yerexa, hi’ nista the-lighting-man pulled OM the-bag from-her-hip, she tried litpos ba-retsu'a (Shimoni, p. 38) (class 8) to-seize in-the-strap ‘The lighting man pulled the bag from her hip; she tried to seize the strap’

Compare also the difference of aspectual meaning with the verb tavax ‘slaughter’ in (32) and (33). In (32), the image conveyed by the accusative construal is one of ‘full operativity’ with a ‘holistic effect’, that is, the action is viewed as accomplished and thus involves the whole O (viz., all 7,000 men and children). In contrast, the prepositional construal in (33) triggers ‘reduced operativity’, signalling the ‘partitive effect’ of an ongoing process, where only part of the O is affected (viz., not all Christians have been slaughtered). (32)

ba-’ayara ha-muslmit tavxu xayalav ke-7,000 in-the-village the-muslim slaughtered his-soldiers about-7,000 gvarim ve-yeladim (Haaretz 1.3.02) (class 1) men and-children ‘His soldiers slaughtered some 7,000 men and children in the Muslim village’

(33)

ha-’olam ha-notsri ro’e keytsad tovxim the-world Christian sees how (they)-slaughter ba-notsrim be-nigeria, be-sudan u-bi-še’ar meqomot in-the-Christians in-Nigeria, in-Sudan and-in-other places ba-‘olam ve-lo’ noqef ‘etsba’ (Haaretz 24.9.01)(class 1) in-the-world and-does-not lift a-finger ‘The Christian world sees how they slaughter Christians in Nigeria, Sudan, and other places in the world and does not lift a finger’

This viewpoint distinction also holds with ‘virtual’ verbs, such as verbs of sensation. Compare the holistic effect of the ‘et-construal in (34) with the partitive one in (35), where the action is not viewed as completed. (34)

qafa'ti mi-qor ve-lo' hirgašti 'et ha-yadayim I-was-freezing of-cold and-didn’t feel OM the-hands (class 9) ‘I was freezing and couldn’t feel my hands’

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naxum xaš ba-ye'uš ha-mištalet 'al gufo Nahum felt in-the-despair that-is-taking over his-body (Kerrett, p. 36) (class 9) ‘Nahum felt despair overwhelming his body’

The same holds for ‘qualifying’ verbs: the whole centered view expressed in (36) contrasts with the part-centered view given in (37), where only part of the O (viz., ‘onša ‘her sentence’) is conceived as susceptible of being affected (i.e. only part of her sentence might be reduced). (36)

‘iraq tuxal leqatser ‘et ha-zman ha-daruš OM the-time necessary Iraq will-be-able to-shorten leyitsur uraniyum mo’ošar (Haaretz 27.2.01) (class 10) for-production of-uranium enriched ‘Iraq would be able to reduce the time necessary to produce enriched uranium’

(37)

šoftey beyit ha-mišpat ha-'elyon daxu 'et judges of-the-court the-supreme rejected OM ha-baqaša leqatser be-'onša (class 10) the-appeal to-shorten in-punishment-of-her ‘The Supreme Court judges rejected the appeal to reduce her sentence’

3.3. Factuality vs. virtuality Next to imperfectivity (3.1.) and partitivity (3.2.), a third notion typically applies to the be-construal, viz. the epistemic modality of factuality. Factuality is used here as a cover term for epistemic modality. It refers to various judgments of factuality of a proposition and to various devices allowing the speakers to depict a projected or hypothetical action rather than an actual one. The ‘et/be- alternation counts as one of the devices to compare the real, factual world with hypothetical versions of it. While the ‘et-construal can depict a generic view, the be-construal requires the actuality of the situation to be specified and implies that at least one individual reference of the O entity is operative (3.3.1.). Put otherwise: unlike the be-construal, the ‘et-construal does not only depict something actually done, but also enables an event to be envisaged as hypothetical and even counterfactual (3.3.2.).

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3.3.1. Instantiation vs. genericity From a logico-semantic point of view, every situation is unique and unrepeatable. Therefore no sharp distinction can be drawn between the individual and the generic level. However, if we adopt a less inclusive view of the notions of individuality and actuality, we may differentiate between individually instantiated events and generically conceived ones. Just like there can be assumed to be a correlation between individuation, i.e. specific instantiation, and imperfectivity, I shall suggest that there is also a correlation between individuation and foregrounding, understood as “high” profiling of the reference domain of the O entity. The accusative frame is particularly suited for conveying a typereading: in a perfectively construed event, the scope of the effect on the O easily remains unspecified. This is illustrated in (38) where the OM ‘et is normally used to depict a typical or generic action. It would be awkward to turn to be- ‘in’ to mark the contact between the A and the O, since then a discrete kind of reference would implicitly be recognized to be operative for the O entity. (38)

gam ha-yom yeš ‘adayin horim še-makim {‘et/??be-} even today there-are still parents who-beat {OM/??in-} yaldeyhem the-children-of them ‘Even today, there are still parents who beat their children’

Conversely, since the prepositional configuration invokes a view from within, as an ongoing process, it tends to denote only individual and specific events. A predicational relationship, in which the focus is on the genericity of the action, as in (38) above, is therefore semantically incompatible with the be- construction frame. In contrast, in (39) both constructions are available. (39)

ha-šotrim še-to’adu be-video ve-zuku the-policemen who-were-documented in-video and-acquitted nir’u ke-še-hem makim {‘oto/bo} makot were-seen while-they were-beating {OM-him/in-him} blows retsax (the be- version is taken from Haaretz 29.2.02) murderous ‘The policemen documented by video and acquitted were seen beating him murderously’

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This observation can be stated in more general terms: the realization of the alternating be- construal is excluded when the referentiality of the situation is not specified and in particular when the contact between the A and the O is not specified. 3.3.2. Projection and counterfactuality The distinction between something projected, imaginary, hypothetical or counterfactual, and something actually done concerns judgments regarding the factuality of the predication, in terms of its truth value at the moment t of speech. The different modes in which the speaker encodes the propositional content of his utterance, which in many languages are grammaticalized in the category of mood, mark the different degrees of actualization of the process signified by the verb.15 The accusative construction, which is the unmarked construction, can depict something actually done, or the opposite, viz., something projected or hypothetical that may end up having truth value in a ‘possible world’. Hence, the OM ‘et easily combines with a modal auxiliary (40) or an imperative (41). (40)

‘ani yaxol lešayef {‘et/??be-} ha-‘ets maher I can to-polish {OM/??in-} the-wood quickly ‘I can sand the wood quickly’

(41)

haxzeq {’et/??be-} ha-kos yašar! hold-3 MASC.SG.IMP {OM/??in-} the-glass straight! ‘Hold the glass straight!’

The be-construal, on the other hand, tends to appear only in the indicative.16 Since the events depicted are typically not counterfactual, the central instantiations are realis. Non-factual predications, such as those in (40) and (41) therefore preclude be- insertion before the O. 4. Towards a global cognitive approach So far we have concentrated on the semantics of the verb and the central participant roles and I have argued that the Hebrew ‘et/be-alternation functions as a compensating mechanism for the absence of a regular system of morpho-syntactic aspectuality markers on the verb.

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Yet, it is my contention that the above discussed properties of transitivity have to be understood relative to a prior understanding of the two alternative construals as holistic units, the Gestalt of which does not simply emerge from the summation of their constituent parts. My working hypothesis – in line with a basic assumption of cognitive linguistics, and of construction grammar in particular – is that the availability of the alternating ways of envisaging the scene does not depend on the referential category of the NP, nor on the semantic class of the verb, but hinges upon the abstract, schematic meaning of the construction frame, very much as is the case for the Ø/a transitivity alternation in Spanish (Delbecque 1999a, 1999b, 2002). In other words, the Hebrew ‘et/bealternation also corresponds to two different construction frames, each one representing a different grounding of the O in a cognitive domain. The accusative, ‘et-construal depicts a unidirectional relationship. In this prototypically transitive configuration, the A plays the role of a typical agent, while the O plays the converse role, namely that of a typical patient or causee. The event is viewed as an effective transfer of energy from the A (Source) to the O (Goal), in terms of reaching a goal, viz., of causing a change of state in the O by transferring energy to it. While the focus of the scene is on the A, the O, being semantically and syntactically bounded to the domain of the verb, is conceptualized as part of the background. In Langackerian terms, it thus maintains a low profile. On the other hand, along the lines suggested by Delbecque (2002), the prepositional configuration marks the causal relationship between the A entity and the O entity as “bilateral”: viz., the two participants play a salient and non-arbitrary role in the scene, there is more to them than just the overt prototypical roles of Source and Goal. The preposition signals the relevance of the reference domain of the O entity, which represents an independent argument not bounded by the verbal predication. In other words, be- insertion highlights the conceptual autonomy of the O entity with respect to the predicate; in terms of setting up the participants of the scene, it gives the O a high profile and turns the spotlight on it. To quote Delbecque (2002: 87) on the ‘prepositional accusative a alternation’ in Spanish: “a functions as a compensating mechanism for a form-meaning contradiction, viz., it restores the equilibrium between the S entity and the DO entity by re-enhancing the DO’s actantial value.” The prepositional frame yields the conceptualization of an oriented and progressive event, in which both the A entity and the O entity are “actively” and simultaneously involved. There is no implication of an accidental event here. The presence of be- suggests concern on the part of the O entity. Unlike what happens in “blind” action, the O role is not reduced to that of a

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passive and arbitrary patient. The contrast can be illustrated by means of a minimal pair: with hikir be- ‘acknowledge’ (42a), the O role is that of an interestee vs. (42b) hikir ‘et ‘know smb.’, it is just that of a typical patient or causee: (42) a. hem hikiru be-dan ki-netsigam they acknowledged in-Dan as-representative-of-them ‘They acknowledged Dan as their representative’ b. hem hikiru ‘et dan they knew OM Dan ‘They knew Dan’ With certain types of verbs, the O entity can be even thought of as responsible for the action. For instance, massacres and pogroms are not usually accidental killings but voluntarily initiated acts fueled by deep religious or national motives. Thus, in a historiographer’s view, not only the killers but the victims as well may be considered “responsible”.17 With harag ‘kill’, e.g., be- marks the relevance of the O entity and thus prevents it from being seen as an occasional or accidental patient. The speaker who utters (43) depicts a non-accidental and methodical killing on national grounds (in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict). In contrast, to evoke a scene with victims involved by accident, i.e., not because of their nationality, or the like, but just because they happen to be there, one would turn to the accusatively construed harag ‘et ‘kill’. (43)

'ilu hayinu yots'im ... hayu mašmidim if we-would-have gone-out ... they-would-have destroyed ve-horgim banu ‘ad ha-'iš ha-'axaron (Haaretz 18.9.98) and-killed in-us until the-man the-last ‘If we had gone out ... they would have destroyed us and killed us all (to the last man)’

Similarly, the image conveyed by the biblical expression 'asa šefatim ‘execute severe punishments’, e.g. (44), is that of an oriented and motivated action. It therefore comes in the be- construal. (44)

u-be-kol 'elohey mitsrayim 'e'ese šefatim (Ex. 11: 8) and-in-all gods(of) Egypt I-shall-make judgements ‘And against all gods of Egypt I shall execute judgements (= severe punishments)’

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With tavax ‘slaughter’, another ‘actual’ verb, the same meaning-pattern distinction is illustrated in (32) and (33) above. With ‘virtual’ verbs (Classes 9–11), the bilateral view of the virtual predicational relationship, triggered by the be- construal, is not only associated with the high profiling of the O, but also with the A’s high motivation to be involved in the event. In such cases, the O is perceived as the stimulator, e.g. (7) above with ratsa ‘want’, (8) with baxar ‘choose’, and (10) and (11) with hitxil ‘begin’. In (11) high profiling of the third order O entity is associated with the intention to go on with an action that just begun. By “restoring” the asymmetrical causal relationship between the core participants of the transitive event, the prepositional construal evokes a more complex and vivid scene than the one depicted in the plain accusative construction. The difference in event structuring manifested by the ‘et/bealternation can be expected to be backed up by other paradigmatic correlates. 5. The relevance of the notion of ‘contact’ for the transitivity alternation As argued above, the ‘et/be- alternation corresponds to the distinction between a unilaterally conceived causal relationship (‘et) vs. a bilaterally oriented and motivated one (be-). The repercussion of the construal choice on the interpretation of the verbal predicate is particularly visible in central meaning components such as ‘motion’, ‘causation’, ‘change of state’ and, especially, ‘contact’ (5.1). Moreover, my hypothesis is that the difference in conceptualization has a paradigmatic value that reaches beyond the transitivity alternation. To verify whether the behavior of individual verbs in other diathesis alternations follows the same rationale, I shall therefore dwell on particular (in)compatibilities of contact-by-motion verbs with body-part possessor ascension, causative/inchoative alternation, middle-passive alternation and passivization (5.2). 5.1. General principles There is nothing new in the acknowledgment that various aspects of the syntactic behavior of verbs are tied to their meaning. Common syntactic behavior is revealing for shared semantics. Pinker (1989) observes that syntactically relevant aspects of verb meaning resemble the meanings of

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closed-class elements: the semantic features that are used to predict overt syntactic structure (via linking rules) are of the same types as those associated with closed-class items, for instance motion, causation, contact, and change of state.17 According to Goldberg (1995: Ch. 1), however, what Pinker takes to be “syntactically relevant” aspects of verbal meaning are aspects of constructional meaning. I agree with Goldberg that constructions are closed-class elements and therefore are predicted to have the semantics of closed-class elements. This point can be clearly demonstrated with the subclasses of transitive verbs at issue that share the semantic features ‘motion’ and ‘contact’ and participate in the ‘et/be- alternation.18 Verbs of contact through motion denote a dynamic action initiated by one entity for the purpose of coming into contact by impact with another entity. Construing a scene in the prepositional frame reflects the conceptualization of an interdependent contact between the A entity and the O entity – or, to put it otherwise, a focus on the process which anticipates the desired outcome. Any event structure that does not fit in with such a view is incompatible with the be- construal. Thus, transitive verbs denoting motion (in Langacker’s term “transfer of energy”) without the implication of effective contact between the A and the O are confined to the accusative construal, e.g. heziz ‘move’ and zaraq ‘throw.’ Furthermore, pure changeof-state verbs which have no “criterial trait” (in the sense of Cruse 1986: 16–17) of direct contact between the A and the O also preclude the prepositional construal. Take, for example, verbs that denote changing the O's state or shape, such as matax ‘stretch’, kivets ‘squeeze’, saraf ‘burn’, šavar ‘break’, and haras ‘destroy’, only enter the accusative construal. Conversely, class 4 verbs, e.g. xatax ‘cut’, which denote bringing an object into contact with an instrument that causes breakage of its unity and cohesiveness, admit the prepositional frame. However, a pure change of state verb like šavar ‘break’ does not necessarily entail contact between the A and the O, since one can break a window from afar, for instance with a rock, without coming into contact with the Target (the O). On the other hand, pure verbs of contact, such as naga’ ‘touch’ and nitqal ‘bumped into’, which do not denote motion, preclude the accusative construal and are encoded only in the be- construal, at the exclusion of the accusative construal. The same holds for contact verbs denoting physical assault such as paga’ ‘hit + cause harm’, xibel ‘sabotage’ or mental assault such as ga'ar ‘scold’, hitel ‘tease’, šita ‘fool’ and zilzel ‘scorn’/ ‘underestimate’, which are construed only in the be- configuration. With ‘aspectual’ verbs expressing the notions of beginning or continuing (Class 11), e.g. hitxil ‘begin’ and himšix ‘continue’, the alternate coding with be- represents the abstract contact between the A and the third-order

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entity O, described above as signifying intention to go on with the action or, in aspectual terms, extension of the ingressive into the durative (cf. Section 2.1.2). Finally, the focus on the contact (viz., giving the O a high profile) may also become lexicalized. For instance, besides hika ‘hit’, which can alternatively be construed in the accusative and in the prepositional, Hebrew also has lexicalized verbs that incorporate the notion of contact between the core participants in their lexical structure and are, therefore, confined to the be- construction, e.g. paga’ ‘hit + cause harm’ and halam ‘strike with an heavy instrument’. In (45), hika be- can be replaced by the nearly synonymous paga’ be- and halam be-, since all reflect the same event structure and the same meaning-pattern, viz., imperfectivity, partcentered view, intentionality, and so on. (45)

ha-de’a ha-kelalit hi’ še-hateroristim hiku bahem mipney še-hem amerika’im (Haaretz, 13.9.01) the-opinion the-general is that-the-terrorists struck in-them because that-they-are Americans ‘The general opinion is that the terrorists struck them because they were Americans’

5.2. Further syntactic properties of verbs of contact by motion Further examination of the relation between the notions of ‘motion’ and ‘contact’ and the syntactic behavior of the transitive verbs at issue reveals that, apart from the ‘et/be- alternation that is sensitive both to motion and contact, other transitivity alternations are sensitive either to the notion of ‘contact’ or to the notions of ‘motion’ and ‘change of state’.19 In what follows, I shall examine four types of transitivity alternations: (1) body-part possessor ascension; (2) inchoative alternation; (3) middle-passive alternation; and (4) passivization. 5.2.1. Body-part possessor ascension The construction of body-part possessor ascension is realized by ascension of the body-part possessor to the position of a direct or indirect object (usually encoded in the possessive dative le-) while moving the possessed body-part to a tertiary position (in the sense of O. Jespersen), namely an adverbial position. From the cognitive viewpoint it represents a whole-

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centered perspective, namely, a strategic choice of the speaker or observer to assign prominence to the possessor, which is evidently the coreferential affectee, while “low” profiling the possessed body-part. This alternation is sensitive to the notion of ‘contact’ and is therefore basically found with pure contact verbs, such as naga’ ‘touch’ (cf. Section 5.1), e.g. (46), where the ascendant possessor is introduced by the dative marker le- ‘to’ or alternately by be- ‘in’, while the body-part regel ‘leg’ is moved to the right (in Hebrew to the left), viz., to the adverbial position (46)

hu’ naga' {lo/bo} ba-regel he touched {to-him/in-him} on-the-leg ‘He touched his leg’

The body-part possessor ascension alternation is also found with transitive verbs of contact by motion, prototypically hit and cut verbs and their paradigmatic associates (cf. Section 5.1). In, for example, (47) and (48), this is illustrated with hika ‘hit’ and daqar ‘stab’, where the possessor is introduced as the DO, in the accusative (viz., OM ‘et-3 MASC.SG = ‘oto), and the body-part is introduced indirectly, namely by the prepositional phrase headed by be-. (47) (48)

ha-mit'agref hika ‘oto ba-xaze the-wrestler hit OM-him on-the-chest ‘The wrestler hit him in the chest’ ha-rotseax daqar 'oto ba-tsavar the-murderer stabbed OM -him on-the-neck ‘The murderer stabbed him in the neck’

This kind of alternation is prevalent also in pull and seize verbs (Class 5 and 8), e.g. (49) and (50): (49) hi’ 'axaza ‘oto ba-yad she held OM -him on-the-hand ‘She held him by the hand’ (50)

hu’ mašax la ba-se'ar he pulled to-her on-the-hair ‘He pulled her by the hair’

On the other hand, this alternation seems to be precluded with change of state verbs, which do not incorporate a “criterial” feature of direct contact

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between the A and the O, e.g. šavar ‘break’ in (51), haras ‘ruin’ in (52) and ‘iqem ‘distort’ in (53): (51)

??hu’ šavar ‘ota ba-'etsba' he broke OM-her on-the-finger

(52) ??hu’ haras 'ota ba-gav he ruined OM-her on-the-back (53) ??hu’ 'iqem he bent

'oti ba-'etsba’ OM-me on-the-finger

5.2.2. Causative/inchoative alternation The transitivity causative/inchoative alternation is available for pure change of state verbs but not for transitive verbs that incorporate a feature of ‘contact’. Compare, for instance, the causative interpretation triggered by (54a) and the passive sense rendered by (54b), which are realized in the verb-form of NIF’AL20 (e.g. nextax ‘cut/was cut’) as opposed to the minimal pair (55a) and (55b), where the alternation with the passive verbform can trigger both a passive and an inchoative interpretation, depending on the contextual environment. (54) a. rut xatxa 'et ha-basar Ruth cut OM the-meat ‘Ruth cut the meat’ b. ha-basar nextax the-meat was-cut ‘The meat was cut’ (55) a. dani šavar 'et ha-kos Dani broke OM the-glass ‘Dani broke the glass’ b. ha-kos nišbera the-glass {was-broken/broke} ‘The glass {has been broken/broke}’ In (55), the verb šavar ‘break’ is a pure change of state verb; therefore it can basically be realized with a one-place predicate construction, i.e. with a single argument denoting the entity undergoing a change of state, as shown

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by the inchoative construction. The transitive construal, which includes two core participants, is merely meant to add the notion of ‘cause’ to the action. On the other hand, xatax ‘cut’ (54) is a contact by motion verb; it requires an A that uses an instrument to cause a change of state in the O. Hence it can only be realized in a two-place predicate construction, and cannot be found in the inchoative construction. 5.2.3. Middle-passive alternation The feature of ‘change of state’ inherent in šavar ‘break’ and xatax ‘cut’ enables them both to be construed in the NIF’AL form, which is one of the morphological devices Hebrew uses to express a middle-passive meaning – as illustrated in (56) and (57) with the verb-forms nišbar ‘break’ and nextax ‘cut’ (cf. note 18). (56) (57)

‘adašot zexuxit nišbarot be-qalut lenses(of) glass break easily ‘Glass lenses are {easily broken/easy to break}’ ‘uga kazo't 'eina nextexet be-qalut cake such is-not cut easily ‘A cake like this is not {easily cut/ easy to cut}’

On the other hand, this kind of middle-passive alternation cannot occur with verbs of contact by motion that need not entail a change of state, e.g. hika ‘hit’, and pure contact verbs, e.g. naga' ‘touch’. 5.2.4. Passivization The passive alternation is commonly excluded with hit verbs whose meaning does not imply direct contact between the A and the O, e.g. (58) – (60): hilqa ‘hit with an instrument (usually with a lash)’, halam ‘hit on the head with a heavy instrument’, and hitslif ‘whip’ are hit verbs; they involve three basic semantic roles: Actor - Manipulator (or Instrument) Target (viz., the Undergoer). That is, they refer to a Manipulator being swung through the air to impact on the Target. Hence, passivisation is awkward. (58)

??be-yalduto hu’ hulqa biydey 'aviv in-his-childhood he was-flogged by- hands-(of) his-father

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(59)

??hu’ nehelam biydey šoded he was-struck (on the head) by-hands(of) robber

(60)

??hu’ hutslaf biydey 'adono he was-whipped by-hands(of) his-master

In contrast, passivization characterizes verbs that do not imply a Manipulator. The verb hika ‘hit’ does not imply a Manipulator because one can hit somebody by direct “transfer of energy” from A to O; it can therefore be passivized, as shown in (61): (61)

hu’ ‘amar še-huka kašot bi-zman ha-xaqira he said that-he-was-beaten severely during the-interrogation ‘He said that he was severely beaten during the interrogation’

The fact that passivization is excluded with hit verbs that do not exhibit a high degree of transitivity suggests that passivization obeys a constraint on the aspect of the entire expression rather than directly on the Aktionsart of the verb alone. 5.3. Summary The notions at stake in the ‘et/bealternation, viz. ‘motion’, ‘contact’, ‘causation’ and ‘change of state’, are also involved in the above discussed diathesis alternations. The body-part possessor ascension alternation is sensitive to the notion of contact: it is available for contact by motion verbs, e.g. hika ‘hit’, and pure contact verbs, e.g. naga’ ‘touch’. The causative/inchoative alternation is found only with pure change of state verbs, such as šavar ‘break’, but is excluded with transitive verbs that specify how the change of state occurs, i.e. verbs that refer to the realization of contact or to the actual process from within. The middlepassive alternation is found with verbs whose meaning involves causing a change of state, such as šavar ‘break’ and xatax ‘cut’, but is excluded with verbs of contact by motion which does not include the change-of-state feature, such as hika ‘hit’. Passivization is excluded with hit verbs which do not entail direct transfer of energy from the A to the O but which involve three semantic roles, two core participants and a Manipulator. The ‘et/be- alternation, for its part, is sensitive to both contact and motion, hence it is typically found with hit and cut verbs and their paradigmatic associates (Classes 1–6). The existence of links between verb

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behavior and verb meaning is not language specific. Analogues of several of these alternations can be found across languages using verbs with the same semantics, as mentioned by Levin (1993) and others with regard to English, for instance. However, according to the construction grammar approach, it has to be recognized that what are taken to be the syntactically relevant aspects of verbal meaning are in fact aspects of constructional meaning. By entering a construction, the verbs inherits its schematic structure. 6. Lexical correlates of the ‘et/be- alternation Given the impact of the construal choice on the reading of the verbal predicate, there is a relation between the transitivity alternation and verbal polysemy. The latter can be traced by means of various heuristics: one is translation, another is the possibility of obtaining a metaphorical interpretation. The value of translation as heuristic device is, of course, limited to languages without an equally grammaticalized counterpart for the ‘et/bealternation. Since English, e.g., lacks such a formal mechanism, it turns to different lexemes to express the conceptual difference. This is especially clear with the ‘virtual’ verbs (class B, cf. section 1): e.g. baxar ‘et ‘choose’ vs. baxar be- ‘select’, ‘elect’ and he’its ‘et ‘accelerate’, ‘speed up’ vs. he’its be- ‘urge’. With ‘actual’ verbs (class A), both construals can convey a literal meaning, e.g. (63a), (64a), (65a). However, when the notion of contact gets metaphorized, the prepositional construal is largely preferred over the accusative one. In (62), e.g., kasas (lit. ‘bite nails’) receives a metaphorical reading: (62) ‘axar kax siper ‘al … metsuqat ha-bdidut ha-koseset after that he-told about … agony of-the-loneliness which-gnaws {??’oto/bo} me’az hit’almen (Beer 1998: 150) {??OM-him/in-him} since he-was-widowed ‘Then he told about… the agony of loneliness gnawing at him since he was widowed’ Metaphorization of the contact typically arises in the following configurations: a [+HUMAN] A with a [-CONCRETE] O, as in (63b) and (64b), or a [-CONCRETE] A with a [+CONCRETE] O, as in (62) and (65b). The presence of a [-CONCRETE] participant excludes the literal

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interpretation, and renders the use of ‘et anomalous. The logico-semantic paradox (contact normally occurs between two concrete entities) can only be overcome by appealing to semantic glides that allow a richer background frame to come in, including elements of encyclopaedic knowledge. The required extensions naturally follow from the basic meaning structure of the be- construal, since it is inherently endowed with a broader scope and motivation than the ‘et-construal. (63) a. Dan xaxax {'et/be-} yadav be-hana'a Dan rubbed {OM/in-} his-hands in-pleasure ‘Dan rubbed his hands with pleasure’ b. Dan’ xaxax {??‘et/be-} da'ato 'im leqabel 'et ha-hatsa'a Dan rubbed {?? OM/in-} his-mind if to-accept OM the-offer ‘Dan hesitated regarding whether he should accept the offer’ (64) a. David tamax {‘et/be-} ro’šo šel ha-patsua David supported { OM/in-} his-head of the-wounded ‘David supported the wounded man’s head ’ b. hu’ tamax {??’et/be-} da’ato he supported {?? OM/in-} his-opinion ‘He supported his opinion’ (65) a. ha-'orvim niqru {'et/be-} the-ravens pecked/gouged {OM/in-} 'The ravens gouged out his eyes’ b. niqer {??’et/be-} moxo ra'ayon pecked {?? OM/in-}his-mind idea ‘An idea recurred in his brain’

'eyinav his-eyes

Noteworthy is the fact that a similar complementary distribution can be found in Hebrew with regard to the possessive dative/genitive alternation; that is, often the possessive dative triggers a metaphorical reading (66a), while the genitive construal triggers only the literal meaning (66b): (66) a. hotseti li ‘et ha-’eynaim I-took-out to-me OM the-eyes ‘I strained my eyes’ b. hotseti ‘et ha-’eynayim šeli I-took-out OM the-eyes of-mine ‘I took out my eyes’ (for instance, I took out the eyes I got to make a doll)

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Indeed, constructions are typically associated with a family of closely related senses rather than a single, fixed sense. We have seen here that the meaning conveyed by the preposition be-, as part of the construction frame as a whole, yields a conceptualization that differs from the one conveyed by the prototypical accusative construction. This formal transitivity alternation, which is pervasive in Hebrew, enables the speaker to handle verbal polysemy and metaphorization. Languages lacking a parallel alternation normally have recourse to lexical devices. However, given the fact than no strict division between syntax and lexicon can be assumed, constructional polysemy is expected to be found in other languages as well, even when alternations are specific to only some languages. 7. Cross-language comparisons In the following I shall point out a number of similarities between the transitivity alternation in Hebrew and some transitive diathesis alternations in German and, particularly, Spanish, as opposed to English. 7.1. A comparison with English and German German is similar to Hebrew in the way it assigns participants to basic grammatical relations (i.e. subject, direct object, indirect object). With regard to the semantics of transitivity, German and Hebrew have remained fairly close to prototypical transitivity. This is in contrast with the considerable extension transitivity has undergone in English.21 A transitive clause in German requires for its nominative case subject an NP with fairly typical agent properties. Similarly, the accusative-case DO must be a fairly typical patient, while the verb must denote a fairly typical action (high transitivity requires a telic, dynamic, and punctual predicate).22 Hebrew is much closer to German than to English. Thus, while in English pure contact verbs fit the transitive construction, in Hebrew they are always encoded in the prepositional be- construction, e.g. hu’ naga' bo ‘he touched him’. In general, Hebrew and German, unlike English, do not permit instruments to function as subjects within a transitive construction, e.g. (67):

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(67) a. English My guitar broke a string mid-song b. German ??Mitten im Lied (zer)riss meine Gitarre eine Saite middle in-song toren my guitar a string c. Hebrew ??be-’emtsa ha-šir ha-gitara seli qar’a meitar in-middle of-the-song the guitar mine tore string Or, in Hebrew, the instrument may be expressed as subject in combination with another verbal lexeme which rejects the accusative construal: in (68), e.g., paga’ be- (a pure contact verb) is used instead of hika ‘et/be- ‘hit’ (a contact through motion verb) which is confined in its most literal meaning to proto-agents (viz., human ones): (68) a. The stick hit the vase b. ha-maqel paga’ ba-'agartal (??hika 'et/be-) the-sick hit/touched in-the-vase In both Hebrew and German, transitivity alternation, i.e. ‘et/be- in Hebrew and ACC/DAT in German, is available only with proto-agents, as was illustrated at the outset of this paper by reference to example (2). Otherwise, unlike in English, the oblique case is used (i.e. the DAT construction in German and the be- construction in Hebrew), e.g. (69): (69) a. Der Regen hat {??mich/mir} ins Gesicht geschlagen (from Draye 1996: 198) The rain AUX {??me/to-me} on-the face hit ‘The rain hit me in the face’ b. ha-gešem hika {??’oti/bi} ba-panim the-rain hit {??OM-me/ in-me} in-the-face ‘The rain hit me in the face’ Metaphorized readings also appear to require the presence of the preposition or the oblique case, e.g. (70): (70) a. Die Fragen schnieten ins Herz The questions cut in-the heart ‘The acute questions engage the attention’ b. ha-še'elot menasrot be-xalal ha-'avir the-questions cut in-space(of) the-air

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‘The (unanswered) questions engage the attention’

ʘ The historical expansion of the transitive category in English provides fertile ground for a conative alternation (by using the preposition at). This alternation is an intransitive variant of the accusative construction, which describes an attempted action without specifying whether the action was carried out, e.g. Ruth struck at Adam. The semantics of this construction can be represented roughly as 'X DIRECTS ACTION AT Y’ – that is, X does not necessarily strike Y, but striking him is the intended result of the directed action. In Hebrew, German, and also in Spanish (see below), the prepositional or non-accusative alternation does not have a conative meaning. Rather, it serves to specify the carrying out of a transitive action, viz., by viewing the internal structure of the event and the realization of an effective contact between the core participants, e.g. (71a–c): (71)

a. Der Bauer schniet das Holz vs. Der Bauer schniet ins Holz b. ha'ikar xotex 'et ha'ets vs. ha’ikar xotex ba-‘ets c. The farmer cut the wood vs. the farmer cut at the wood (conative alternation)

7.2. A comparison with Spanish Modern Hebrew and Modern Spanish display an increasingly ‘dative orientation’ – or preference for the oblique case in general, as with the preposition be- in Hebrew – to signify affected participants.23 The diathesis alternation of 'et/be- in Hebrew transitive verbs parallels, in many cases, the transitivity alternation of the bare accusative and what is called in Spanish grammar “the prepositional accusative”,24 e.g. (1a, b) above the Ø/a alternation in Spanish with the verbal predicate matar ‘kill’ and the corresponding alternation of ‘et/be- with harag ‘kill’ in Hebrew. Consider also the following (72a, b) – (75a, b): (72)

a. El pueblo eligen {Ø/a} sus representantes the people choose Ø/to} of-their representatives ‘The people choose/elect their representatives’ b. ha-’am boxer {‘et/be-} ha-netsigim šelo the-people choose {OM/in-} the-representatives of-his ‘The people choose/ elect their representatives’

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(73)

a. El toro furioso corneó {Ø/a} toreros the bull furious gored {Ø/to} bull-fighters ‘the furious bull gored bull-fighters’ b. ha-šor ha-zo'em nagax {'et/be-} loxamey ha-švarim the-bull the-furious gored {OM/in-} fighters (of) the-bulls ‘the furious bull gored the bull-fighters’

(74)

a. Cyrano perforaba con su estoque {Ø/a} los nobles y Cyrano stabbed with his sword {Ø/to) the nobles and plebeyos que burlaban su figura plebeians which laughed-at his shape ‘Cyrano stabbed with his sword the nobles and plebeians which laughed at his shape’ b. Cyrano daqar be-xarbo {'et/be-} ha-'atsilim Cyrano stabbed with-his-sword { OM/in-} the-nobles ve-ha-flebeyim še-la’agu le-mar’e panav and-the-plebeians which-laughed-at view of his shape ‘Cyrano stabbed with his sword the nobles and the plebeians which laughed at his shape’

(75)

a.

(76)

a. ‘kill’ – matar Ø : harag 'et b. ‘slaughter’, ‘execute massive killing’ – matar a : harag be-

El campesino aserró {el/al} madero con facilidad The farmer cut {the/to-the} wood with easiness ‘The farmer cut the wood easily’ b. ha-'ikar niser {'et/be-} ha-'ets be-qalut the-farmer cut { OM/in-} the-wood easily ‘The farmer cut the wood easily’ Furthermore, Hebrew and Spanish are also similar in that the alternating construals often yield a similar kind of verbal polysemy (cf. Section 6), e.g. (76a, b):

In Hebrew, this kind of verbal polysemy may also sometimes be related to the usage of different verb-forms of the same lexeme, e.g. (77a, b) and 25 (78a, b): (77)

a. ‘remember’ – recordar Ø: zaxar 'et b. ‘recall, remind of ‘ – recordar a : nizkar be-

(78)

a. ‘examine’, ‘study’ – examinar Ø: baxan ‘et

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b. ‘take a close look at’ – examinar a : hivxin beYet, it should be noted that while in Spanish the transitivity alternation is part and parcel of grammar – for certain verbs, Spanish has indeed developed a double paradigm of transitivity – in Hebrew it is in many cases a matter of stylistic choice prevalent in formal language. We should therefore take care not to draw any definite and general conclusion from such a typological comparison, and avoid a trap many linguists fell into especially at the beginning of the 20th century.26 The above adduced evidence, however, points to the existence of similar – if not the same – cognitive mechanisms underlying the choice between competing constructions in different kinds of languages. The semantic conditioning operates at clause level, thus yielding distinct clausal meanings, irrespective of the specific meaning structure of the verb. 8. Conclusion The primary aim of this study has been to shed light on the phenomenon of transitivity alternation in Hebrew, which did not receive much attention in Hebrew linguistics. The novelty of the present study lies in treating this alternation as motivated. On the micro level, the alternation has been analyzed in association with semantic properties of the verb and of the event participants. Approaching the constructions as closed-class elements has proven particularly enlightening for the hit and cut verbs: the conceptualization of central meaning components, such as motion, causation, contact and change of state, have been shown to crucially hinge on the construal chosen (‘et vs. be-). On the macro level, as assumed in Construction Grammar, the construal alternation affects the abstract, schematic clausal meaning. On the one hand, the be- marked alternative is semasiologically motivated, since the conceptualization of the predication in terms of actual contact and bilateral relationship between the core participants is rooted in the locativetangential meaning of the preposition. On this account, several metaphorical uses were exemplified and shown to license further extension of the be- construal. On the other hand, however, the two alternating construals do not generalize broadly. As shown above, they remain, instead, conventionally associated with particular, narrowly defined classes of verbs. The following table summarizes the relevant properties of the core participants and the predicate, the kind of predicational relationship

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expressed by each of the alternating construals, the corresponding situation types, and the different viewpoints on the transitive event, including the factuality dimension. ‘et Construction A agentive

be- Construction A may be non-agentive, e.g. in metaphorical reading

2. Individuation of O

Unmarked O may refer to a generic or non-discrete entity

Marked O is highly individuated

3. Involvement of O in the event

O occasional and passive patient

O non-arbitrary participant actively involved in the event Bilateral relationship between A and O

1. Categoriality of A

Unilateral relationship between A and O 4. Contact between A and O

Unmarked

Marked: intentional intensive contact

and

5. Affectedness of O

Unmarked (‘holistic effect’) O is part of the verbal predication, tends to indicate an ‘effected object’

Marked (‘partitive effect’) O is an independent argument, existing from the beginning, i.e. an ‘affected object’

May indicate accidental or situation

typical, generic

Indicates individual and specific situation, nonaccidental

Prototypically telic, dynamic event; Action viewed externally, with no reference to its internal temporal structure (i.e. perfectively) ‘Holistic view’

Atelic, progressive process Action viewed imperfectively ‘Partitive-local view’

6. Character of V and the global predication a. Situation type:

b. Aktionsart and Viewpoint

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Table continued c. Factuality

May depict something projected or hypothetical

Tends to be restricted to actual and individual events, i.e. activities of truth value at moment t of speech.

Obviously, not all languages, even closely related languages, have the same inventory of verbs nor the same transitivity alternations. Yet, the similarity between unrelated languages such as Hebrew and Spanish, and to a certain extent German, may provide evidence of common conventional conceptualizations of language and common cognitive processes that are not language specific. Notes 1. I am greatly indebted to Nicole Delbecque for her comments on earlier versions of this paper and for her willingness to read the manuscript and point out some stylistic problems. 2. The canonic dative or ‘indirect object’ (IO) in Hebrew bears a Recipient relation to the event, and occurs with verbs meaning ‘give’, ‘show’, ‘tell’, and so on, where some entity is volitionally transferred by an agent to a recipient. The Recipient argument must take the case-marker le- meaning ‘to’ or ‘for’, while other IO’s, with non-Recipient semantic content, may be marked either by leor by other prepositions such as be- (‘in’/’at’/'with'). 3. It was M. Bréal in his Essai de sémantique (1924: 26) who first introduced this principle, which he called ‘loi de distribution’. 4. Cf. especially Fillmore (1967), Hale and Keyser (1986), Levin (1993) on the nature of lexical knowledge of the verbs break, cut, hit and touch. 5. Hebrew verbs throughout this essay are given in 3rd-masc-sg. past-tense form, as is traditional in discussions of Semitic grammars. The transliteration used throughout is intended as surface reflection of spoken Modern Hebrew. No phonological claim is intended. 6. By ‘qualifying’ verbs we mean verbs which can pass into adjectives to form the alternative construction with an inner object of the verb-form as a predicational complex (which may be defined, according to the theory developed by Goldenberg 1998, as Person + Nexus + Attribute/Inner Object), e.g. qitser bidvarav (lit. ‘shortened his words’): diber dvarim qtsarim (lit. ‘spoke in short words’). This fits the general distinction which some make in Russian grammar between ‘qualitative’ adverbs and ‘circumstantial’, e.g. Akhmanova-Mikael’an (mentioned by Goldenberg 1998: 186).

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7. The ‘aspectual’ verbs to be discussed function as indicators of the Aktionsart of the ‘main’ verb . Although they usually modify a predicative nominal complement in an infinitival or gerundive form, they are not true auxiliaries. 8. Contextual clues often contribute to enhance the meaning imposed by the prepositional construction frame, e.g., bexavana (‘deliberately’) in (25) below. 9. Cf. Havers (1931: 168): “ Die nomina ingressiven Sinnes können zu Durativa ‘gestreckt’ werden. Der Vorgand besteht nach Brugmann darin, ‘daȕ der eigentliche Wortsinn nur auf einen Beginn, ein erstes Stadium geht, während in mehr oder minder bestimmter Weise das mit vorgestellt und gemeint ist, was auf den Anfang folgt’(S. 28)”. For more bibliographical references on this phenomenon in Indo-European languages, see Havers (1931: 259 n. 148). 10. This is similar to Spanish, as demonstrated, amongst others, by Delbecque (1999a, 1999b, 2002). 11. See also Roegiest (this volume). 12. On lexical impregnation, see Halevy (1996: 26). 13. In Modern Hebrew, the coreferential dative does not necessarily yield a reflexive interpretation. Here it reflects the typical expanded use of the expressive dative (viz., which is not part of the verb valency) added in colloquial speech to verbs of movement viewed imperfectively as being performed in a casual manner (cf. Halevy in print). 14. For a discussion of the ‘holistic effect’ vs. ‘partitive effect’ associated with certain verb classes, see Levin (1993). 15. Cf. Arrivé, Gadet and Galmiche (1986: 391): “les modes personnelles permettent de marquer les différents degrés d’actualisation du procès signifié par le verbe”. 16. Cf. Delbecque (1999a: 417) regarding Ø/a transitivity alternation in Spanish. 17. Cf. Delbecque (2002) for a similar alternation in Spanish with matar ‘kill’, and cf. section 7.2 below. 17. Cf. Talmy 1985; Bybee 1985; Levin 1993, amongst others. 18. Cf. Levin 1993:9 and 42) for the relevance of the notions of both ‘contact’ and ‘motion’ to conative alternation in English. 19. For syntactic properties of verbs of contact by motion in English see Levin (1993: 6–7). 20. Passive meaning is realized in Hebrew in the morphological system of the verb, e.g. in the verb-form of NIF’AL. Yet, passive forms, such as NIF’AL, may as well be employed to express other meanings besides passive, such as inchoative and middle-passive as demonstrated in (56)–(57) (cf. 5.2.3). 21. Cf. Rice (1987), amongst others. 22. For ample documentation of transitivity in German vs. English, see for example Hawkins (1986: Ch. 4). 23. For a discussion of the expansion of the dative le- marking the affectee role in Modern Hebrew see Berman (1982). 24. For an extensive study of the dative and its roles in Spanish vs. English and some other European languages, see Delbecque and Lamiroy (1996), and Lamiroy and Delbecque (1998).

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25. The phoneme [K] is performed in Hebrew by the allophones /k/, /x/, e.g. zaxar/ nizkar; [B] is performed by the allophones /b/, /v/, respectively, e.g. baxan/ hivxin. 26. Cf. Polotsky, a distinguished scholar of Hamito-Semitic languages, in his article (1960: 121) on the similarity between syntactic mechanisms found in Amharic and Turkish: “Dans la mesure où une comparaison typologique de l’amharique avec le turc offre un intérêt réel, elle ne le fait que par rapport à des questions de détail, où elle peut servir à mettre en relief les caractères propres de chacune des deux langues. Si l’on me demande, dans une formule qui était chère à Meillet, si la comparaison donne des résultats généraux concrets et précis, je dois répondre que non.”

References Arrivé, Michel, Françoise Gadet, and Michel Galmiche 1986 La grammaire d’Aujourd’hui: Guide Alphabétique de Linguistique Française. Paris: Flammarion Berman, Ruth A. 1982 Dative marking of the affectee role: data from modern Hebrew. Hebrew Annual Review 6: 35–59 Bolinger, Dwight 1968 Entailment and the meaning of structures. Glossa 2: 119–127. Brugmann, Karl 1917 Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Königlich-Sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, Philologisch-Historische Klasse 69 (1). Leipzig. Bybee, Joan 1985 Morphology: A Study of the Relation between Meaning and Form. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Cruse, D. Alan 1986 Lexical Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Delbecque, Nicole 1999a Two transitive construction frames in Spanish: The prepositional and non-prepositional accusative. In Issues in Cognitive Linguistics, Leon de Stadler, and Christoph Eyrich (eds.). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter 1999b La transitivité en espagnol: deux constructions plutôt qu’une. Verbum XXI 1: 49–65. 2002 A construction grammar approach to transitivity in Spanish. In The Nominative/Accusative. Case and Grammatical Relations across Language Boundaries, Kristin Davidse, and Béatrice Lamiroy (eds.), 273–322. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

100 Rivka Halevy Delbecque, Nicole, and Béatrice Lamiroy 1996 Towards a typology of the Spanish dative. In The Dative. Vol. 1, William Van Belle, and Willy Van Langendonck (eds.), 73–117. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Dowty, David 1991 Thematic proto-roles and argument selection. Language 67 (3): 547– 619. Draye, Luk 1996 The German Dative. In The Dative vol. I, William Van Belle, and Willy Van Langendonck (eds.), 155–215. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Fillmore, Charles J. 1967 The grammar of Hitting and Breaking. In Reading in English Transformational Grammar, Roderick A. Jacobs, and Peter S. Rosenbaum (eds.), 120–133. Waltham, MA: Ginn. Foley, William, and Robert Van Valin 1984 Functional Syntax and Universal Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goldberg, Adele 1995 A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure (Cognitive Theory of Language and Culture). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Goldenberg, Gideon 1998 On verbal structure and the Hebrew verb. Studies in Semitic Linguistics. 148–196. Jerusalem: Magnes Press. Haiman, John 1985 Natural Syntax: Iconicity and Erosion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hale, Ken, and Samuel Keyser 1986 Some transitivity alternations in English. Lexicon Project Working Papers 7, Center for Cognitive Science. Cambridge MA: MIT Halevy, Rivka 1996 Contextual modulation of lexical meaning. In Lexical Structure and Language Use, vol. 1, Edda Weigand, and Franz Hundsnurscher (eds.), 223–231. Tübingen: M. Niemeyer. 2007 The subject coreferential le-pronoun in Hebrew. In Studies in Semitic and General Linguistics in Honor of Gideon Goldenberg, Tali Bar, and Eran Cohen (eds.), 299–231. Münster: Ugarit Verlag. Havers, Wilhelm 1931 Handbuch der erklärenden Syntax. Heidelberg: C. Winter. Hawkins, John A. 1987 A Comparative Typology of English and German: Unifying the Contrasts. London: Croom Helm. Hopper, Paul J., and Sandra A. Thompson 1980 Transitivity in grammar and discourse. Language 56: 251–299.

Transitive verbs with non-accusative alternation in Hebrew 101 Langacker, Ronald 1987, 1991Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. 2 vols. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Lamiroy, Béatrice, and Nicole Delbecque 1998 The possessive dative in Romance and Germanic languages. In The Dative. Vol. 2, Willy Van Langendonck, and William Van Belle (eds.), 29–74. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Levin, Beth 1993 English Verb Classes and Alternations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lyons, John 1977 Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MacWhinney, Brian 1989 Competition and lexical categorization. In Linguistic Categorization, Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 61, Roberta L. Corigan, Fred R. Eckman, and Michael Noonan (eds.), 195–241. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Pinker, Steven 1989 Learnability and Cognition: the Acquisition of Argument Structure. Cambridge. MA: MIT Press Polotsky, Hans J. 1960 Syntaxe amharique et syntaxe turque. In Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi Etiopici, 117–121. Rome: Acc. Naz. Dei Lincei. Rice, Sally.A. 1987 Participants and Non-Participants: Towards a Cognitive Model of Transitivity. Ph.D. Diss., University of California San Diego.

Narrative Contexts from Modern Hebrew Beer, Haim 1987 ‘Et Hazamir [The Time of the Nightingale]. Tel Aviv: Am Oved. 1998 Xavalim [Ropes]. Tel Aviv: Am Oved. Biyalik, Haim Nahman 1959 The woman and her trial with the wind. In Baxatsi Hayom. Tel Aviv: Dvir. Haaretz, daily newspaper Kerrett, Etgar 1992 Tsinorot [Pipelines]. Tel Aviv: Am Oved. Rowling, J. K. 2001 Hary Poter Ugvi‘a Ha’eš [Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire]. Translated by Gili Bar-Hillel. Tel Aviv: Yediot Ahronoth. Shimoni, Yuval 1999 Xeder [A Room]. Tel Aviv: Am Oved.

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0. Introduction Building on Rivière (1995), I will show that resultative constructions (§1) are not always obtained by adding some material to a simpler structure, e.g. an adjective/preposition phrase to a transitive structure (§2). This means that unsubcategorized objects of transitive verbs are possible in resultative constructions (contra Levin and Rappaport Hovav 1995). In particular, unsubcategorised objects appear in resultative constructions when the verb’s subcategorized object either corresponds to the landmark of the change complex (§3 and §4) or can be construed as an entity emitted by the subject referent (§5). I will conclude the paper speculating on transitivity (§6.1) and the linking of events (§6.2). 1. Definition of resultative constructions Resultative constructions are sentences such as (1): (1)

John hammered the metal flat.

The adjective flat in (1) describes the state achieved by the metal as a result of the action of hammering performed by the subject referent (i.e. John). Hence, flat is referred to as a resultative phrase and the construction in which it appears as a resultative construction. In sum, (1) codes two events: the event of John’s hammering the metal and the event of the metal’s becoming flat. Such two events are related causally: the former event causes the latter event (i.e. the change of state event). A detailed definition of what counts as a resultative phrase is given by Levin (1993: 101): “[a resultative phrase] is an XP which describes the state achieved by the referent of the noun phrase it is predicated of as a result of the action performed by the verb.”

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Levin’s (1993) definition implies that phrases referring to positions such as out of the room in (2) are not categorized as resultative phrases. (2)

Sally kicked Sam out of the room.

This is so despite the fact that a causal link can be detected in (2) between the event of Sally’s kicking Sam and Sam’s going out of the room. In fact, analysts disagree on how to analyze sentences like (2). Tortora (1998) and Levin herself in a paper co-authored with Rappaport Hovav (Rappaport Hovav and Levin 1999), for example, view (2) as a resultative construction although the prepositional phrase out of the room refers to a position and not a state (i.e. a non-physical position). In what follows, I take resultative phrases as referring indifferently to either states or positions, provided that they can be linked causally to the event designated by the verb. It must be noted that this formulation is independent of the “direction” of causation. (3)

The car screeched to a halt.

In other words, sentences such as (3) are analyzed as resultative constructions (see Broccias 2001a for details), although (3) differs from (1) (and [2]) in that it is the event associated with the prepositional phrase (i.e. the car’s movement to a halt) that caused the screeching sound, not the other way round as is required by Levin’s (1993) definition. 2. Resultativity as addition If we go back to (1), we might be tempted to regard it as the “output” of an operation of addition. We take the structure John hammered the metal and add the adjective flat at the end. In this section, I will argue that such a view, as is put forward by Levin and Rappaport Hovav 1995 (see §2.1), is not correct. Rather, the lack of inheritance of transitive objects at the constructional level (i.e. their appearance as transitive objects in the resultative construction) seems to be a pervasive phenomenon and is not restricted to any particular verb class, see §2.2. 2.1. Transitivity At first sight, the view of resultative sentences as “expansions” of simpler structures seems to be correct. In order to show this, let us consider in more

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detail the behavior of the various types of verbs (transitive, optionally transitive, unergative, unaccusative).1 For the transitive verb frighten the following paradigm can be designed: (4)

a. b. c. d.

The bears frightened *(the hikers). * The bears frightened the campground. The bears frightened the hikers away / out of the campground. *The bears frightened the campground empty.

In (4a) frighten is construed transitively: its object, the hikers, cannot be left out. Frighten takes an animate entity for its object referent; hence, the inanimate noun the campground is not a permissible object, (4b). In keeping with current linguistic usage, I will say that the direct object the campground is not subcategorized by the verb frighten, without subscribing, however, to the theoretical paradigm behind the use of such a term (i.e. the generative paradigm in any of its variants). The contrast in acceptability between the resultative constructions (4c) and (4d) seems to depend on the use of a subcategorized versus unsubcategorised object (i.e. the hikers vs. the campground). The use of the former results in an acceptable sentence (4c), whereas the choice of the latter does not (4d). We may conclude that subcategorized objects of transitive verbs must be “inherited” at the constructional level. In other words, if we use a transitive verb in a resultative construction, then we must also use its subcategorized object as the constructional object (i.e. the object in the resultative construction). The behavior of optionally transitive verbs can be illustrated by means of drink (5) and that of unergative ones by means of shout (6). The latter are intransitive verbs whose subject does not (necessarily) undergo a change of state or position (unlike that of unaccusative verbs, see further): (5)

a. b. c.

They drank (beer). * They drank the pub. They drank the pub dry.

(6)

a. b. c. d.

Sally shouted. * Sally shouted hoarse. (intended meaning as in [6c]) Sally shouted herself hoarse. * Sally shouted herself.

The optionally transitive verb drink (5a) allows the unsubcategorized object the pub (5b) to be used in a resultative construction (5c), which roughly

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means “We drank so much that the pub virtually had no more drinks (i.e. it was “dry”)”. The operation of addition involves here both an unsubcategorized object (i.e. the pub) and an adjective phrase (i.e. dry). Let us consider (6). If we want to say that “Sally shouted and, as a result, she became hoarse”, we must combine the intransitive verb shout (6a) with a reflexive pronoun (herself [6c]), which is not subcategorized by the verb (6d). We cannot simply add the adjective hoarse to the structure in (6a), as shown in (6b).2 Both an unsubcategorized object (i.e. the reflexive pronoun) and an adjective are added to the intransitive structure in (6a). The last group of verbs we have to take into account is that of unaccusative verbs, i.e. verbs whose subject referents undergo a change of state or position, e.g. dry (7). (7)

a. The clothes dried. b. The clothes dried wrinkled.

In order to convey the meaning “The clothes dried and, as a result, they became wrinkled”, we simply add the adjective wrinkled to the structure in (7a), as shown in (7b). No unsubcategorized object (e.g. a reflexive pronoun as in [6c]) is needed. These distributional facts are captured by saying that the resultative phrase must be predicated of a theme, that is of an entity which undergoes a change of state or position.3 In John hammered the metal flat, flat is predicated of the metal, which is an affected entity. Similarly, in (6a) a reflexive is needed because the subject Sally is not a theme, but rather what we may call a doer. In sum, subcategorized objects of transitive verbs seem to be inherited at the constructional level (i.e. they cannot be replaced with unsubcategorized objects in the resultative construction) and unsubcategorized objects seem to be possible only with unergative and optionally transitive verbs. 2.2. Verbs of removal In this subsection, I will argue that data are more complex than Levin and Rappaport Hovav’s (1995) analysis suggests since unsubcategorized objects do occur with so-called (obligatorily) transitive verbs. To be fair with Levin and Rappaport Hovav, they themselves note (Levin and Rappaport Hovav 1995: 65) that verbs such as wash, shave, and rub behave in a peculiar fashion:

Unsubcategorized objects in English resultative constructions

(8)

a. He washed his eyes. b. *He washed the soap. c. He washed the soap out of his eyes.

(9)

a. He shaved his head. b. *He shaved his hair. c. He shaved his hair off.

(10)

a. He rubbed his eyes. b. *He rubbed the tiredness. c. He rubbed the tiredness out of his eyes.

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Although the soap (8b), his hair (9), and the tiredness (10) are not subcategorized by their respective verbs, they can appear in resultative constructions, as shown by (8c), (9c), and (10c). The subcategorized object (i.e. his eyes and his head) is either realized as the prepositional complement, as in (8c) and (10c), or is understood as such, see (9c). If wash, shave, and rub are optionally transitive verbs, then we expect the use of an unsubcategorised object to be possible (see the paradigm in [5]). Yet, rub cannot be construed without object: *He rubbed is not acceptable. As for wash and shave, we note that the sentences He washed and He shaved imply that the subject referent’s whole body was affected. In other words, the objectless versions of (8a) and (9a) have a different interpretation. We therefore conclude that wash, shave, and rub must be analyzed as transitive verbs in the examples under scrutiny, which seems to fly in the face of the abovementioned generalization concerning the use of subcategorized objects in resultative constructions. Subcategorized objects of the transitive verbs wash, shave, and rub may not be inherited as constructional objects. To obviate this problem, Levin and Rappaport Hovav claim that (8c), (9c), and (10c) should not be considered as instances of the resultative construction. “Rather, they involve an alternate projection of the arguments of certain verbs into the syntax that comes about because verbs from a variety of semantic classes (usually, but not exclusively, verbs of contact through motion such as wipe and rub) can also become verbs of removal…” (Levin and Rappaport Hovav 1995: 66). This line of reasoning, however, does not seem to be correct. If the notion of position is excluded from the definition of resultative phrase, as is the case with Levin (1993)’s definition, then (8c), (9c), and (10c) are not resultative constructions since they contain prepositional phrases referring to positions, and not states. Hence, their claim with regard to the special status of the verbs wash, shave, and rub is unnecessary (as far as the notion

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of resultative construction is concerned). On the other hand, if the definition of what counts as a resultative phrase is compatible with the notion of position (as I assumed above), then (8c), (9c), and (10c) must be classified as resultative constructions since there exists a causal link between the verbal event and the event alluded to by the prepositional phrase. For instance, (8c) can be paraphrased as “He washed his eyes and, as a result, the soap came out of them”. But let us now leave aside definitions and turn to Levin and Rappaport Hovav’s claim that verbs such as wash, shave, and rub can become verbs of removal (see the quotation above). First, it seems that verbs such as wash, shave, and rub must always be classified as verbs of (expected) removal. If one washes clothes, for example, one does so because one wants or expects dirt, for instance, to be removed from them. Second, even if the verbs under scrutiny were not verbs of removal per se, we might object to posit a novel sense for them because their “removal” meaning might derive from the construction in which they are used (see Goldberg 1995: 154 for a similar point). Consider the examples in (11) with the verb tear. (11)

a. I had to tear [the photo out of the newspaper] because I couldn’t find the scissors. b. She tore [a hole in(to) her dress] when she climbed over the wall.

In (11a) tear is used in a context where separation is implied: the photo ended up out of the newspaper because I cut the newspaper. On the other hand, (11b) signifies that a hole came about in the subject referent’s dress as a result of the fact that the dress was torn. If we adopted Levin and Rappaport Hovav’s stance, we would paradoxically be forced to conclude that tear is to be classified as both a verb of separation, as in (11a), and a verb of creation, as in (11b). The two different interpretations clearly stem from the (possible) semantics associated with the complex made up of the constructional object plus the constructional prepositional phrase and do not depend on the verbs alone. I have put such a complex in square brackets in (11a) and (11b) and will refer to it as the change complex. The change complex contains an entity which undergoes a change of state/position (e.g. the photo in [11a] and [metaphorically] the hole in [11b]), thus ending up in the state/position specified by the resultative phrase (e.g. out of the newspaper in [11a] and in the dress in [11b]).4 Be that as it may, one might want to argue that tear, like wash, implies a change of state of an inanimate entity (versus frighten) and that this might somehow be a determining factor for the possible use of an

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unsubcategorized object in a resultative construction based on transitive verbs. However, this line of reasoning is not correct either. Consider the following examples from Rivière (1995): (12)

a. She beat *(her children). b. *She beat the Ten Commandments. c. *She beat her children into the Ten Commandments. d. She beat the Ten Commandments into her children.

(13)

a. They frightened *(him). b. *They frightened an admission. c. They frightened him into an admission. d. They frightened an admission out of him.

Beat is not an optionally transitive verb, as shown by (12a). Nor can it be taken as a verb of removal. Yet, the unsubcategorized object the Ten Commandments (12b) must be used at the constructional level if we want to convey the meaning “She beat her children so as to make them follow the Ten Commandments” (12d), since the option with the subcategorized object does not exist (12c). The verb frighten itself, for its part, has already served to illustrate the apparent impossibility of using unsubcategorized objects with transitive verbs (cf. [46]). Yet, in a resultative construction, it can be combined with the unsubcategorised object an admission so as to convey the meaning “They frightened him and, as a result, he made an admission” (13d). It also remains possible to use the subcategorized object him as the constructional object of the resultative construction (13c). We thus conclude that unsubcategorized objects do appear with transitive verbs and that such a possibility is not restricted to any particular verbal class. This implies that resultative constructions do not always result from an operation of addition of a nonverbal phrase at the end of a simpler structure. 3. The subcategorized object as the landmark of the change complex Rivière (1995) argues that the (im)possibility of having (12c–d) and (13c– d), as observed for the examples in (11), depends on the conceptual relation existing between the constructional object and the prepositional complement as hinted at by the selected preposition: (12c) is impossible because the children cannot be thought of as going into the Ten Commandments (i.e. a piece of knowledge is not conceptualized as a

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container),5 whereas (12d) is acceptable because the Ten Commandments can be conceptualized as moving into the children (i.e. a person can be conceptualized as a container). Similarly, we conceptualize abstract conditions (e.g. difficulties, as in get into difficulties) and circumstances (e.g. fight, as in get into a fight) as locations (see Quirk et al. 1985: 686) insofar as an admission can refer to a circumstance, (13c) is acceptable. Alternatively, we can construe processes as coming out of a person,6 which motivates the acceptability of (13d). In sum, the subcategorized object of a transitive verb is realized either in the resultative construction’s object slot or in the resultative construction’s prepositional complement slot. The choice depends on the conceptual relation which we can establish between the constructional object and the prepositional complement. The subcategorized object can be inherited at the constructional level if it can be conceptualized as a moving entity relative to the constructional preposition’s complement, e.g. (13c) vs. (12c). Otherwise (or in addition, e.g. [13d]), the subcategorized object is expressed as the constructional preposition’s complement if a suitable scenario involving the constructional object can be envisaged, as in (12d). We can now expand on Rivière’s intuition by considering example (14). The expression to kiss the anxiety away shows that the subcategorized object of kiss (i.e. John, as the context makes it clear) need not be explicitly mentioned (e.g. away from him / John), although it is understood as the complement of the reduced predicate away (cf. also [9c] above). (14) John walked into the house with a thousand worries written across his face. His wife helped him off with his coat and tried to kiss the anxiety away. (Oxford Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs) In order to describe this fact adequately, I introduce the fundamental distinction between trajector and landmark proposed in Cognitive Grammar (see Langacker 1987, 1991). Verbal and prepositional predicates (such as beat and into) express relations between entities (e.g. beat expresses a relation between a “beater” and a “beatee”; into expresses a relation between an entity in motion and a location). Within such relations, one entity “stands out”, that is, it has prominence over the other(s). The former is called trajector and the latter landmark(s). For example, an entity in motion seems to be perceptually more prominent than a reference point. Hence, the subject of a prepositional predicate is analyzed as the trajector, whereas the prepositional complement, which expresses a reference point

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or location, is regarded as the landmark. This is shown diagrammatically in Figure 1, which represents the change complex for (12d). (Ten Commandments)

(into)

(her children)

trajector path landmark

Figure 1. The change complex in (12d) Adopting the Cognitive Grammar notions of trajector and landmark and considering data such as (14), we can conclude that in a resultative construction the subcategorized object of a transitive verb is realized as either the trajector or the landmark within the change complex. This formulation includes those cases where the subcategorized object is understood as the landmark of the change complex, e.g. (14). Consider now the following data: (15) a. A knife was passed by the pilot to the passenger so that he might cut himself free from the seatbelt. (www.canadianseaplane.com/safety/drowned/drowned.htm) b. Is there a small particle of rope left on the blade of the pocket knife to indicate that Mallory cut himself free from Irvine? (www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/everest/lost/dispatches/990525n2.html) c. He decided to cut himself free from his family. (digilander.iol.it/Leolor/Spaziotempo/Joyce.htm) The subcategorized object of the transitive verb cut in (15a) (i.e. the seatbelt) is the landmark of the resultative construction prepositional predicate free from.7 Interestingly, the preposition’s complement Irvine in (15b) is not a possible object for cut under the same interpretation. Mallory cut the rope tying him to Irvine, not Irvine himself, of course. Similarly, his family in (15c) does not correspond to the subcategorized object of cut, which might be the ties with his family. In sum, examples (15b) and (15c) demonstrate that a metonymic object can be substituted for the subcategorized object (i.e. Irvine for the rope tying him to Irvine) when the latter corresponds to the landmark of the resultative construction change complex.

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To conclude, taking the notion of inheritance in a wider sense, it seems correct to state that subcategorized objects of transitive verbs must be inherited at the constructional level. In other words, subcategorized objects of transitive verbs are not always realized as constructional objects in the resultative construction. They may correspond to either the trajector or the landmark of the resultative construction’s prepositional complement, depending on how we conceptualize things and processes. Finally, if the subcategorized object corresponds to the landmark, then a metonymic object can be substituted for it.8 4. The change complex evokes a motion scenario The previous section has shown that (the lack of) inheritance of subcategorized objects as constructional objects is not a matter of transitivity but rests on the interpretation assigned to the change complex (with respect to the verb’s meaning): a motion scenario must be evoked. I contest that a similar line of reasoning also applies to the starred example (4d), repeated here as (16): (16)

* The bears frightened the campground empty.

It could be argued that (16) should be possible since the subcategorized object the hikers (cf. [4a]) can be analyzed as the landmark of the change complex the campground empty of hikers. Moreover, insofar as the campground can be conceived of as standing in a metonymic relation with the hikers by expressing the location where the hikers were, the metonymic object could perhaps be susceptible of becoming the trajector of the change complex. Yet, before going into further intricacies, we first note that (16) differs from the examples considered above in that the change complex does not refer to (either physical or metaphorical) motion. The campground cannot be conceptualized as an entity in motion. Hence, we may conclude that The change complex must evoke a motion scenario: If an unsubcategorized object of a transitive verb appears as the constructional object in a resultative construction, then the change complex codes a motion scenario relative to the subcategorized object (i.e. the subcategorized object is the landmark of the change event).

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In (16), the change complex does not code a motion scenario relative to the subcategorized object. The landmark within the change complex can be conceived of as a region along a scale of “fullness” (i.e. the region corresponding to an empty set). Alternately, the related expression empty of hikers can be said to contain the subcategorized object the hikers for its landmark. No matter the interpretation chosen, no notion of motion is activated (i.e. the campground is not a [metaphorically] moving entity)9. Hence, (16) is correctly ruled out. 5. The verb evokes an emission scenario Subcategorized objects of transitive verbs do not seem to “disappear” in the resultative construction. When an unsubcategorized object appears in the resultative construction, the fact that the subcategorized object is the landmark of the change event ties the latter to the verbal event. On the basis of data which to the best of my knowledge have never been taken into consideration so far, I will now proceed to show that the subcategorized object may not be inherited at all, i.e. it may not correspond to the landmark of the change complex either (5.1). I will further propose that, when this is the case, the relevant verb is construed as a verb of emission (5.2). 5.1. A paradox Example (17a)10 reads as follows: Zola, a Chelsea player, headed the ball into the net (i.e. scored a goal), thus either bringing Chelsea, say, one goal up (i.e. in front) against their opponents or equalizing the numbers of goals scored by Chelsea’s opponents (i.e. level). (17) a. Zola headed Chelsea {in front/level}. b. Zola headed *(the ball). The subcategorized object of head (ball, as indicated in [17b]) neither is the constructional object (which is Chelsea) nor corresponds to the landmark within the change complex. The landmark of both in front and level is Chelsea’s opponents. Therefore, (17a) contradicts the conclusion arrived at in the previous section. An unsubcategorized object is used, but the change complex does not code a motion scenario relative to the subcategorized object the ball. This puts into question the validity of the motivation adduced for the impossibility of (16), that it is not associated with a motion

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scenario: like (17a), (16) does not contain the verb’s subcategorized object and is not associated with an emission scenario relative to the subcategorized object either. Yet, (16) resembles (17a) in that both the campground and Chelsea might be taken as standing in a metonymic relation with the subcategorized objects the hikers and the ball, respectively. Chelsea stands for the team that profited from the movement of the ball into the net. 5.2. Verbs of emission In order to solve the paradox illustrated in the previous subsection, we could argue that, despite the impossibility of deleting the subcategorized object the ball in (17b), head is an optionally transitive verb. Optionally transitive verbs such as drink allow for the use of an unsubcategorized object in a resultative construction and do not need to code the subcategorized object as a landmark (cf. He ate himself to death). Consider example (18): (18) … Yorke rising unopposed to head Ø over the line from eight yards. It means that Yorke scored a goal by heading the ball, which is what the empty set symbol Ø stands for.11 Therefore, head in (18) behaves like an optionally transitive verb, the only difference with a verb such as drink being that a null object can be used only if a prepositional phrase accompanies head. Further, if head is classifiable as an optionally transitive verb, then, on the basis of the data regarding other optionally transitive verbs like drink, we might expect an unsubcategorized object such as Chelsea to be possible in a resultative construction (cf. 17a). But now consider (19): (19) a. Bill put *(the book) on the table. b. Zola [a Chelsea’s player] puts {the ball/Ø} over the bar. It is impossible to leave out the object the book in (19a) even if it is clear from the context that Bill intended to move a book. On the other hand, (19b) allows a null object to be used. It seems odd, however, to classify put as an unspecified object verb, as (19b) might suggest. Rather, the contrast in (19) rests on the fact that null objects depend not only on their being pragmatically inferable from the context but also on the construal of the verb in question as a verb of emission,12 that is, a verb which implies that an

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entity coming out of (some part of) the subject referent moves through space on its own, as in (20): (20) a. The man was sobbing into his hands. (Ian McEwan, The Child in Time, p.133) b. Bunty […] was looking forward to sobbing out her misery into a familiar pair of arms. (Kate Atkinson, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, p.196) While (20a) shows that the emission verb sob can be combined with a prepositional phrase headed by the motion preposition into, (20b) illustrates that an unsubcategorized object like her misery (cf. *She sobbed her misery) can be used if sob appears with a prepositional phrase. In my view, cases such as (20) evoke an emission scenario. Head can be categorized as a verb of emission because the ball “originates” from the subject referent; head denotes the “emission location” rather then the “emitted substance”. Similarly, provided the right context (e.g. a football match, where we are concerned with the movement of the ball), put can be conceptualized as a verb of emission. Put in (19b) implies that the ball was “emitted” from Zola (cf. the possible expression a ball from Zola) to the location indicated as over the bar. In (19a), on the other hand, the book was not emitted; it did not move through space on its own. In sum, head seems to be able to take an unsubcategorized object in (17a) because it is construed as a verb of emission. Verbs of emission (i.e. verbs like sob, laugh, snivel, etc.) are in fact a subclass of optionally transitive verbs. We conclude that the motion scenario can be evoked by either the verb employed in the resultative construction or the change complex of the resultative construction (see §4). In other words: The motion/emission scenario implication (MESI): If an unsubcategorised object of a transitive verb appears as the constructional object in a resultative construction, then the resultative construction codes either 1) a motion scenario relative to the subcategorized object by way of the change complex (i.e. the subcategorized object is the landmark of the change event) or 2) an emission scenario involving the subcategorized object by way of the verb (e.g. the subcategorized object is an emitted entity).

In She kissed the anxiety away (14), the change complex (i.e. the anxiety away [from him]) evokes a motion scenario relative to the subcategorized (but implicit) object him. In Zola headed Chelsea in front (17a), the verb head evokes an emission scenario involving the subcategorized object the ball. Cases like (8c), He washed the soap out of his eyes, lie in between

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(17a) and (14). The change complex (i.e. the soap out of the eyes) evokes a motion scenario relative to the subcategorized object his eyes. At the same time, the verb evokes an emission scenario involving the subcategorized object. He washed his eyes implies that something was removed out of the subject referent’s eyes.13 Finally, (16), *The bears frightened the campground empty, is not acceptable because the verb frighten is not a verb of emission involving the subcategorized object the hikers (i.e. the hikers are not conceptualized as moving out of the bears). Nor does the change complex, as was pointed out above, code a motion event relative to the subcategorized object. 6. Some speculations The motion/emission scenario implication, if correct, is descriptively adequate, i.e. it captures the distribution of unsubcategorized objects of transitive verbs in resultative constructions. Nevertheless, one might argue that the notion of transitivity is a complex one (see Rice 1987) and hence one might wonder what counts as a transitive verb in the definition above. Further, one may want to try to show that the motion/emission scenario implication derives from some “basic principles” operating in the linguistic system. Why can we combine an unergative verb (admitting that such a notion can be defined in an unambiguous way) with an apparently arbitrary change complex (as in Tom drank the pub dry) while we must evoke either a motion scenario or an emission scenario if we want to use an unsubcategorized object in a resultative construction based on a transitive verb? I will now sketch some ideas that might contribute to answering both questions. I will discuss the notion of transitivity (6.1) and propose (6.2) that the importance of the notion of motion (for unsubcategorized object cases) may correlate with the creation of tight links between the subevents that make up a resultative construction (see §1). This, in turn, might be explainable by the need to facilitate information retrieval. 6.1. What counts as a transitive verb in the MESI? I would like to suggest that the notion of transitive verb in the motion/emission scenario implication includes any kind of verb which can take a postverbal noun phrase. To put it differently, the label subcategorized object in the motion/emission scenario implication refers to any postverbal noun phrase that a given verb can take in isolation (i.e.

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independently of the resultative construction). Let us analyze the following examples; (22) and (23a) are based on Felser and Wanner (2001): (21) a. Sally drank (beer). b. Sally drank herself to death. (22)

a. Sally smiled (her radiant smile (at Tom)). b. Sally smiled herself tired.

(23)

a. Sally danced a piece from Swan Lake. b. Sally danced her feet sore.

Drink is an optionally transitive verb (21). Interestingly, we can view it as satisfying the motion/emission scenario implication if we interpret the notion of emission scenario in a more general sense. The emission scenario describes the motion of an entity out of another (which is either the subject referent as in (17a) or a part of the subject referent as in Sally washed the soap out of her eyes). Now, drink describes the motion of an entity (i.e. the drinkable substance, beer in [21a]) into another (i.e. the drinker). Hence, the motion/emission scenario implication is satisfied if the emission scenario is interpreted more generally as implying a motion scenario, irrespective of its ingressive or egressive nature (i.e. movement into an entity or movement out of an entity), provided that it involves the subject referent and the subcategorized object referent. The verb smile can take a cognate object as in (22a). This example shows that smile can be construed as a verb of emission. The full version of (22a) (i.e. considering all the material in parentheses) means that Sally “produced” smiles (i.e. smiles “came out of” her) and that they were directed at Tom. Hence, an emission scenario is evoked relative to the subcategorized object smile. Finally, the object of the verb dance in (23a), a piece from Swan Lake (which is a hyponym of the cognate object dance), can be described as a product of Sally’s performance, hence as an emitted entity. We conclude that (23a) also implies an emission scenario relative to the subcategorized object a piece from Swan Lake. Now consider the following examples including verbs of motion: (24) a. Cindy ran ten miles. b. Cindy ran the soles off her shoes. (25) a. Bill drove his new car.

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b. Bill drove his engine clean. (based on an advertisement cited in Levin and Rappaport Hovav 1995) (26) a. Alice surfed the net. b. Alice surfed herself silly. The noun ten miles in (24a) describes the path along which Cindy moved (i.e. run subcategorizes for a path which can be expressed, for example, by way of a quantified noun). Bill in (25a) moved driving his car, that is, together with it. Finally, the net in (26a) stands for the metaphorical surface along which Alice moved. Therefore, a motion relation obtains in sentences (24)–(26) between the subject referent and the subcategorized object as expected on the basis of the (revised) motion/emission scenario implication (see the discussion of [21]). Let us now turn to verbs designating intellectual activities. (27) a. Milton read (a book). b. Milton read himself blind. (28) a. Milton thought great thoughts. b. Milton thought himself into a frenzy. Reading a book, see (27), can be easily conceptualized as a journey through it (e.g. I’m halfway through this novel). As for (28), thoughts can be construed as moving entities relative to the thinker (e.g. The thought had crossed my mind). Hence, we can say that the verbs read and think in (27) and (28) evoke a motion scenario connecting the subject referent and the subcategorized object referent. Finally, consider the following example: (29) a. Penny hammered the metal. b. Penny hammered herself silly. (29b) can mean that Penny hammered the metal so much that she became silly. Quite interestingly, one might be tempted to say that hammer is a transitive verb (cf. Penny hammered *[the metal]). The question of transitivity, however, is probably best understood in semantic/discourse rather than syntactic terms (cf. Stop hammering!). Be that as it may, does (29b) contravene the motion/emission scenario implication? I would like to argue that it does not. The interpretation of (29b) is that Penny ended up silly, for example, because of the noise caused by the hammering event. In

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other words, a motion scenario can be envisaged between Penny and the metal: the metal “emitted” noises which “went into” Sally. To sum up, we can (descriptively) account for the use of unsubcategorized objects in resultative constructions with verbs that can take a postverbal noun phrase when used in isolation (i.e. what I call transitive verbs) by adopting the following implication (i.e. the revised MESI): The motion scenario implication: If an unsubcategorised object of a transitive verb appears as the constructional object in a resultative construction, then the resultative construction codes either 1) a motion scenario relative to the subcategorized object by way of the change complex or 2) a motion scenario involving the subject and the subcategorized object by way of the verb.

6.2. Linking events Why is the motion scenario so important in the licensing of resultative constructions? The motion scenario, both in case 1) and 2) of the motion scenario implication makes it easy to link the subcategorized object to its subcategorizing verb in a resultative construction containing an unsubcategorized object; in other words, the subcategorized object is easy to retrieve. In case 1), the verbal event and the change event (i.e. the event alluded to by the change complex) are linked by sharing one participant. In Sally kissed the anxiety away from Chris, Chris is shared: Sally kissed Chris and, as a result, the anxiety went away from Chris. In Zola headed Chelsea in front, the subcategorized object the ball is linked to Zola because, in a sense, it comes out of him, but is also more generally linked to Chelsea because they are the team which profited from the goal. This is summed up diagrammatically in Figure 2 (which also contains a twoheaded arrow linking Zola to his team, Chelsea):

SUBEVENT1: Zola headed ball into the net Ÿ front/level}

SUBEVENT2:

Chelsea went {in

Figure 2. Tight links between the two subevents making up Zola headed Chelsea in front

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The finding concerning the existence of tight links between subevents in resultative constructions brings to the fore an important, although often neglected, observation regarding the types of unsubcategorized objects used in case 2) of the motion scenario implication. Felser and Wanner (2001: 106) note that “resultative constructions [of intransitive verbs] typically involve a reflexive anaphor that is bound by the matrix subject.” Even if we consider sentences such as (30), which do not contain a reflexive anaphor (30) a. They drank me under the table. b. Alice cooked Tom and Bill to death. c. Penny surfed the night away. (i.e. Penny surfed the internet all night long) we note that the verbal events and the change events coded by the change complexes are tightly linked. In (30a), I was drinking together with the subject referent; in (30b), Alice prepared the food that Tom and Bill (who we interpret as her guests, for example) ate. The night in (30c) expresses the metaphorical location that Penny traversed (cf. the locative value of the pub in Tom drank the pub dry). If we now reconsider the impossible sentence *The bears frightened the campground empty, we note that the hikers who got frightened cannot be retrieved through the verb (i.e. they are not an emitted entity). Moreover, the campground is not necessarily the location where the bears were when they frightened the hikers (versus Tom drank the pub empty, which implies that Tom was in the pub); nor is it necessarily the location where the hikers were when they got frightened. Rather, it is simply the location where the non-retrievable hikers were based. The existence of loose links between the two subevents is represented in Figure 3, which must be contrasted with Figure 2 above. SUBEVENT1:

became empty

the bears frightened the hikers Ÿ

SUBEVENT2:

the campground

Figure 3. Loose links between the two subevents making up the impossible sentence *They frightened the campground empty.

To conclude, the motion scenario in case 1) of the motion scenario implication allows the subcategorized object to be retrieved and creates a link between the two events coded by the resultative construction. As for case 2) of the motion scenario implication, object retrievability also seems to be involved. More in general, case 2) resultative constructions involve

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tight links between the verbal event and the change event, which does not seem to be the case with *The bears frightened the campground empty. 7. Conclusion Subcategorized objects of transitive verbs are inherited at the constructional level in the sense that they correspond to either the landmark of the change complex (such a landmark being substituable by a metonymic object as in [15b] and [15c]) or the trajector/landmark of the verbal event (i.e. the verb is construed as an emission verb). I have speculated that the latter case also includes what are called optional transitive verbs and unergative verbs if we interpret the notion of emission in a more general sense. That is, a motion scenario obtains between the subject referent and what is usually either called the optional object or referred to as an unselected object. Finally, the importance of the notion of motion for the use of unsubcategorized objects in resultative constructions might point at the need to create tight links between the verbal event and the change event in the resultative construction. Further research is of course needed to detail the exact nature of such links. The present paper has been mainly devoted to the descriptive generalization of the motion scenario implication (see end of §6.1). Notes 1. This analysis is based on Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995). 2. There are some apparent exceptions to this claim, e.g. the colloquial sentence We laughed silly (for We laughed ourselves silly). I will not discuss such variants in this paper (see Broccias 2002 for some observations). 3. Such a restriction is known as the Direct Object Restriction (see Levin and Rappaport Hovav 1995 inter alia). 4. If one adopts the framework of Cognitive Grammar (Langacker 1987, 1991), there is no reason not to take the change complex as a unit of grammar. Although the structure a hole into the dress may be acceptable only in special contexts, this does not mean that it is not interpretable or that it must be excluded from “grammar”. 5. If we wanted the children to precede the Ten Commandments in the syntax, then we should use a structure like She beat her children into following the Ten Commandments. In other words, the preposition’s complement must be construed as a process (see below in the text for details). 6. The construal of actions as emitted entities manifests itself clearly, for example, in Football English (i.e. the variety of the English language employed, among other things, for football commentaries and reports, see Broccias 2001b for

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details). We have expressions like a {cross/header/pass/goal/save} from X, where X stands for an arbitrary player. 7. For simplicity’s sake, I refer to the complex predicate free from as prepositional because it contains the preposition from and the adjective free has a spatial meaning. A detailed analysis of its structure is beyond the scope of this paper. More in general, the change complex can be viewed as being made up of a theme plus any (potential) resultative phrase independently of the syntactic categorization of the latter. 8. Still, for simplicity’s sake, I will say that the subcategorized object is the landmark of the change complex. 9. I am implicitly suggesting that the notion of metaphorical motion is activated if and only if the resultative phrase is headed by a spatial preposition. 10. This and the following examples related to Football English are from a corpus of newspaper reports used in Broccias (2001b). 11. Over the line means into the net, the line being the white line separating the inside of the net from the pitch. 12. I am not saying that all verbs that can be used with a null object in a resultative construction are verbs of emission. For example, an article in the magazine National Geographic (July 2001) shows the picture of a bear with its mouth wide open. The caption (pag.3) reads: “Don’t be afraid. Brody the trained bear opens wide on command.” Open is difficult to categorize here as a verb of emission; rather, it describes an action performed on one’s own body. 13. Note that in this case the subcategorized object is not the trajector in the motion scenario evoked by the verb (as with the subcategorized object the ball of the verb head), but is the landmark.

References Atkinson, Kate. 1996 (1995) Behind the Scenes at the Museum. London: Black Swan. Broccias, Cristiano. 2001a The Need for the Resultative Network. Berkeley Linguistic Society 26: 41–52. 2001b Grammatica e Football English. Linguistica e Filologia 13:151–183. 2002 The English Change Network. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Pavia. Felser, Claudia, and Anja Wanner 2001 The Syntax of Cognate and Other Unselected Objects. In Structural Aspects of Semantically Complex Verbs, Nicole Dehé, and Anja Wanner (eds.), 105–130. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Goldberg, Adèle 1995 Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

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Langacker, Ronald 1987 Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. 1: Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1991 Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. 2: Descriptive Application. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Levin, Beth 1993 English Verb Classes and Alternations. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Levin, Beth, and Malka Rappaport Hovav 1995 Unaccusativity. At the Syntax-Lexical Semantics Interface. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. McEwan, Ian 1992 [1987] The Child in Time. London: Vintage. Napoli, Donna 1992 Secondary Resultative Predicates in Italian. Journal of Linguistics 28: 53–90. Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik 1995 A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman. Rappaport Hovav, Malka, and Beth Levin 1999 Two Types of Compositionally Derived Events. Ms., Bar Ilan University/Northwestern University. (available at http://wwwcsli.stanford.edu/~beth/pubs.html) Rice, Sally 1987 Towards a Cognitive Model of Transitivity. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California at San Diego. Rivière, Claude 1981 Résultatifs anglais et transitivité. Modèles linguistiques III: 162–180. 1995 Résultatifs anglais : un conflit entre la syntaxe et la sémantique. In Langues et langage, Mèlanges Culioli, Jean-Jacques Franckel, and Stéphane Robert (eds.), 359–372. Paris : Presses Universitaires de France. Tortora, Christina 1998 Verbs of inherently directed motion are compatible with resultative phrases. Linguistic Inquiry 29: 338–345.

Complex predicates in Basque Cathryn Donohue

1. Introduction Modern theories of case marking and agreement phenomena aim to correctly account for the case arrays in a given language, but seldom explore beyond the basic canonical paradigms. One area which can shed light on how to properly model the data is that of causativization and its effects on the case arrays. Joppen and Wunderlich (1995) present data on four-place predicates resulting from causativization of ditransitive verbs in Basque. In Basque, there are three structural cases, but no case doubling is allowed. Thus, the question arises as to which of the four arguments will be realized by structural case and which will be rendered oblique. Joppen-Hellwig (2001) addresses this problem and proposes a solution which involves stipulating a feature and its importance in morphologically different languages. I propose an alternative solution which follows naturally if one considers causatives to be an instance of predicate argument composition. In this paper I first provide an overview of the basic Basque data. Following, I discuss two previous analyses of these data, before presenting my own analysis. 2. Basque case marking and agreement This section will outline the relevant aspects of nominal case marking and verbal agreement in Basque before discussing the causative construction. 2.1. Nominal case marking While syntactically accusative, Basque has ergative case marking morphology. Consider the examples in (1) below (please see Appendix A for a list of abbreviations and Appendix B for a list of all data sources).

126 Cathryn Donohue (1) a. Mutil-a etorri da. boy-sA come TNS.be ‘The boy has arrived.’ b. Gizon-a etorri da. man-sA come TNS.be ‘The man has arrived.’ c. Gizon-ak mutil-a ikusi du. TNS.have man-E boy-sA see ‘The man saw the boy.’ The case markers occur at the right edge of the noun phrases. In (1) we can see that the transitive object in (1c), mutila, has the same morphological case marker as the intransitive subjects in (1a,b), while the transitive subject, gizonak, is case marked differently. Thus, Basque is morphologically ergative. The structural cases are given in table 1.1 Table 1. Nominal case suffixes in Basque. Nominal Cases Absolutive Ergative Dative

Definite

Indefinite

Singular

Plural

-a -ak -ari

-ak -ek -ei

Ø -(e)k -(r)i

The dative is included in the case paradigm above as it can be a structural case in Basque. The structural datives are distinguished from the oblique dative NPs in that they are obligatory and are cross-referenced on the verb. In the sentence in (2) we see that the well-formed sentence must crossreference the dative argument on the verb as well as the absolutive and ergative arguments. (2) Zuek lagun-ei opari polit-ak ema-ten dizkiezue. you.pE friend-pD present nice-pA give-impf 3A.have.D.pA.3pD.2pE *dituzue/ *zaizkie/ *dira. PA.have.2pE/ 3A.be.D.pA.3pD/ 3A.be.pA ‘You (pl) always give nice presents to your friends.’ In (2), all the structural cases (whose morphological expression is shown in table 1) must be cross-referenced on the verb. Now, the canonical case arrays consist of the following:

Complex predicates in Basque

Intransitive verbs: Transitive verbs: Ditransitive verbs:

127

ABS ERG ABS ERG DAT ABS

2.2. Causativized canonical cases A good way to expand our understanding of the principles behind case assignment is to see how case is assigned with causative constructions. Causatives add an argument, a causer, to the event. Morphological case marking typically follows the usual principles, such that a causativized intransitive verb will be marked as though it were a regular transitive verb. The case arrays of causativized transitive verbs typically mirror those of regular ditransitive verbs (if the language has a way to express the recipient argument with a structural case). However, there are no naturally occurring four-place predicates, so investigating causativized ditransitives pushes a theory of case to its limits. How languages respond to having more arguments than available structural cases can be very revealing of the principles of case licensing. Basque has two kinds of causative constructions: a morphological causative which is indicated by some verbal morphology and results in an essentially monoclausal structure, and a syntactic causative, which comes from using a ‘causative’ verb and results in a biclausal structure. I will consider only the morphological causatives here, which can result in fourplace predicates. To form a morphological causative in Basque, the morpheme -araz/eraz is suffixed to the stem of the verb and the causer always receives ergative case. Consider the plain and causativized example sentences below. (3) a. Haurr-ak zopa jan du. child-sE soup.A eat-PRF TNS-have ‘The child has eaten the soup.’ b. Ama-k haurr-ari zopa jan-eraz-i mother-E child-sD soup.A eat-CAUS-PRF ‘Mother has made the child eat the soup.’

dio. TNS.have.3sD

The causee bears the dative case, and zopa ‘the soup’ bears the absolutive case in both the plain and causativized sentences. The canonical case arrays, along with their causativized counterparts, are presented in table 3.2

128 Cathryn Donohue Table 2. Causativized case arrays in Basque. Verb type 1. Intransitive verbs 2. Transitive verbs 3 Ditransitive verbs

Base verb – case ABSi ERGi–ABS ERGi–DATj–ABS

Causative verb – case ERG–ABSi or ERG–DATi ERG–DATi–ABS ERG–DATi–SEMj–ABS

The subscript letters identify the referent arguments between constructions. The intransitive case array and its causativized counterpart are illustrated as follows: (4) a. b.

Mikel joan da. Mikel.A go-PRF TNS.be ‘Mikel is gone.’ Ama-k Mikel joan-araz-i du. mother-E Mikel.A go-CAUS-PRF TNS.have ‘Mother has made Mikel go.’

However, in some of the western dialects, the causee may also be linked to the dative argument. Deustoko Hizkuntzalaritza Mintegia (1989, quoted in Joppen and Wunderlich 1994) states that this is a means to express that the causee retains control over its action, while absolutive is used when the causee is seen as having no control.3 In the example below, the causee bears dative case in (5a) and (5b). This is because, regardless of apparent volition (see (5b)), they are human causees and thus capable of control. In (5c) however, the causee is problemak ‘problems’, and thus incapable of control, hence it is marked with the absolutive case.

Complex predicates in Basque

(5) a. b.

c.

129

Ama-k Mikel-i etxe-ra joan-eraz-i dio. mother-E Mikel-D house-ALL go-CAUS-PERF TNS.have.3sD ‘Mother has made Mikel go home.’ Preso-ei gartzela-ko patio-tik ibil-eraz-i convict-pD prison-GEN.LOC court-ABL walk-CAUS-PRF diete. TNS.have.3pD.3pE ‘They have made the convicts walk around/away from the prison court.’ Galdera horr-ek problem-ak/*ei sortu-eraz-i question this-E problem-pA/*pD come.up-CAUS-PRF zituen/ *zien. TNS.3pA.have.PST TNS.have.3pD.PST ‘This question made problems come up.’

Just as the case marking for a causativized intransitive works like that of a regular transitive verb (with the added possibility of absolutive/dative alternation), the case marking for a causativized transitive verb works like that of a regular ditransitive verb: the causer is marked ergatively, the causee, with the dative and the lowest role is marked with the absolutive.4 (6) a. b.

Soldadu-ek haur guzti-ak hil zituzten. Soldier-pE child whole-pA kill.PRF TNS.pA.have.pA.3pE.PST ‘The soldiers killed all the children.’ Herodes-ek soldadu-ei haur guzti-ak hil-araz-i Herod-E soldier-pD child whole-pA kill-CAUS-PRF zizkien. TNS.pA.3pD.PST ‘Herod made the soldiers kill all the children.’

Given that there are only three structural cases in Basque, it is not immediately predictable what the resulting case array for a causativized ditransitive will be. Consider the following:

130 Cathryn Donohue

(7) a.

Ni-k pobre-ei diru-a eman-ten I-E poor-pD money-Det.A give-IMPF

diet. TNS.have.3pD.1sE

‘I give money to the poor.’

b.

Apaiza-k pobre-ei diru-a eman-araz-i priest-E poor-pD money-A give-CAUS-PRF zidan ni-ri. TNS.have.1sD.PST I-D ‘The priest made me give money to the poor.’

In (7b) the causee bears dative case, and the argument (pobre-ei) which was marked with the dative in (7a) is now realized as an oblique. As a non-core argument, the NP may still bear dative case, but it will not be a structural dative, only a semantic dative and as such will no longer be able to be cross-referenced on the verb (8a). Moreover, the oblique argument also has the option of appearing in the destinative case (8b) or as an attributive phrase (8c). When the oblique is realized with the dative case, there is a strong dispreference for sentences in which the two dative NPs have identical agreement features as shown in (8d). (8) a.

Eliza-k pobre-ei diru-a eman-araz-ten du/(*die). church-E poor-D money-A give-CAUS-IMPF TNS.have(*3pD) ‘The church makes money be given to the poor.’ b. Ama-k Miren-i pobre-entzat diru-a eman-araz-ten mother-E Miren-D poor- DEST money-A give-CAUS-IMPF dio. TNS.have.3sD ‘Mother makes Miren given money for the poor.’ c. Ama-k Miren-i [pobre-entza-ko diru]-a mother-E Miren-D [poor-DEST-GEN.LOCmoney]-A eman-araz-ten dio. give-CAUS-IMPF TNS.have.3sD ‘Mother makes Miren give (the) [money to the poor].’ d. ? Alta-ri liburu-a eman araz-i diote Joxe-ri. father-D book-A give CAUS-PRF TNS.have.3sD.3pE Joxe-D ‘They have made father give the book to Joxe.’ ‘They have made Joxe give the book to father.’

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2.3.

131

Summary

In this section I have presented data illustrating the canonical case arrays in Basque and their behavior under causativization. The main reason for investigating causative constructions is to illuminate aspects of the case marking not immediately apparent in plain clauses. Indeed these data have illustrated a regular pattern in four-place predicates in Basque: the causee will bear structural dative case, while the original ‘recipient’ will be rendered oblique and marked by a semantic case. I will outline two previous studies which address the question of the correct modeling of these data before presenting a new proposal within the same general theoretical framework. First I briefly sketch the fundamentals of this particular case theory. 3. Theoretical assumptions The case theory used throughout this paper is Lexical Decomposition Grammar (LDG; Kiparsky 1997 and elsewhere; Wunderlich 1997 and elsewhere). Unlike most case theories which focus on the mapping between grammatical functions and thematic roles, LDG is a theory of case licensing, capturing the ternary relation between thematic roles (arguments), grammatical functions or ‘abstract case’ and morphosyntactic (and morphological) case. LDG has constrained principles for relating levels of abstract case and morphosyntactic case by defining them both with the same two relational features [±H(ighest) R(ole)] and [±L(owest) R(ole)]. The theory captures generalizations and predications both about typologically diverse languages and highly complex phenomena within a specific language. 3.1. Semantic form Following Bierwisch (1986 and elsewhere), LDG assumes a level of structure called semantic form (SF) which represents the grammatically relevant parts of a verbs conceptual structure. It consists of minimally decomposed expressions formulated in predicate logic and expressed using lambda-categorial expressions. SF representations are thus constrained to two basic types: propositions, or constants and individuals, or variables. Consider the verb ‘show’.

132 Cathryn Donohue (9) show: Oz Oy Ox [x CAUSE [CAN [y SEE z]]] In (9), the constants are the units of meaning into which the predicate is decomposed, and the variables are x, y, z, representing the participants. The variables are lambda-abstracted out of the SF, and the resulting lambdas are equivalent to thematic roles, where the (inside out) depth of embedding represents the thematic hierarchy for a given verb. 3.2. Abstract case Abstract case is defined using the same two given relational features. These are assigned to the ‘thematic roles’ according to their relative position in the semantic form. Once [+HR] and [+LR] have been assigned, the rest can be assigned implicationally. (10) show: Oz

ª–HR º ¬+LR¼

Oy

ª–HR º ¬–LR ¼

Ox

[x CAUSE [CAN [y SEE z]]]

ª+HR º ¬–LR ¼

With the highest and lowest roles identified, all other roles must be marked as non-highest role and non-lowest role to complete the feature specification. Once the abstract case is defined, the morphosyntactic case is assigned through simple unification. The relational case features crossclassify to define four abstract cases: (11) i.

A:

ª+HRº ¬–LR ¼

ii.

S:

ª+HRº ¬+LR ¼

iii.

O:

ª–HR º ¬+LR ¼

iv.

D:

ª–HR º ¬–LR ¼



3.3. Morphosyntactic case These features ([±HR], [±LR]) are also used to specify the morphosyntactic structural case (note that semantic case is not defined in this way). Typically the unmarked case nominative/absolutive is characterized by not having any specified features. The accusative is usually characterized as [– HR] and the ergative [–LR], while the dative is the most highly specified

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133

with a negative instance of both features. In Basque, as suggested above, the structural case inventory is taken to be: Abs:

[

]

Erg:

[–LR]

Dat:

ª–HR ¬–LR

º ¼

There are two conditions which govern the association of morphosyntactic case with abstract case. These are given in (12). (12) i. Unification: Associated feature matrices must be non-distinct. ii. Specificity: Specific rules and morphemes block general rules and morphemes in the same context. Thus, feature matrices will only unify if they are non-distinct. For example, typically the dative is defined as [–HR, –LR] and will unify with the middle role in a ditransitive verb: (13) show:

Oz

ª–HR º ¬+LR ¼

Oy

ª–HRº ¬–LR ¼

Ox

[x CAUSE [CAN [y SEE z]]]

ª+HRº ¬–LR¼

Dative morphosyntactic case [–HR, –LR] thus unifies with Oy [–HR, –LR]. The less specific nominative case ([ ])5 and ergative case ([–LR]) will not unify with this abstract case due to specificity: the more highly specified case available in the inventory [–HR, –LR] will block the use of a more general morpheme in the same context. 4. Previous analyses of causatives in Basque This section will outline an approach to the Basque causatives in a related framework and show how incorporating a key assumption about the way in which causatives are formed can make for a much more elegant analysis. 4.1. Joppen and Wunderlich Joppen and Wunderlich (1995) examine Basque causatives in great detail within the LDG.6 They view causatives as flat structures which add an

134 Cathryn Donohue argument, but which have no internal structure. Thus, the argument structure of the following two clauses would be considered the same: (14) a. make eat: Oy Ox Oq [q CAUSE [x EAT y]] b. give:

Oz Oy Ox [x CAUSE [y HAVE z]]

The causer argument is identified by a ‘q’, but the label of the variables in the semantic form is irrelevant. The two structures in (14) have the same basic SF and three arguments. In Joppen and Wunderlich’s view the two structures are equivalent. These can capture the nominal case facts in Basque as I will show below, recalling the Basque examples from §2. (15) make go:

Ox

Oq

[ ]

[–LR]

ABS

ERG

[q CAUSE [x GO]]

ª–HR º ª+HR º ¬+LR ¼ ¬–LR ¼

ms.caseĺ

Ama-k Mikel joan-araz-i du. mother-E Mikel.A go-CAUS-PERF TNS.have ‘Mother has made Mikel go.’ (16) make kill:

Oy

ª–HR º ¬+LR ¼

ms.caseĺ

Ox

Oq

ª–HR º ¬–LR ¼

[q CAUSE [x CAUSE [y DIE]]]

ª+HR º ¬–LR ¼

[ ]

[-HR,-LR]

[–LR]

ABS

DAT

ERG

Herodes-ek soldadu-ei haur guzti-ak hil-araz-i . Herod-E soldier-pD child whole-pA kill-CAUS-PERF zizkien TNS-pA-3pD-PST ‘Herod made the soldiers kill all the children.’ (17) make give: Oz

Oy

Ox

ª–HR º ª–HR º ª–HR º ¬+LR ¼ ¬–LR ¼ ¬–LR ¼

ms.caseĺ

[ ] ABS

Oq [q CAUSE [x CAUSE [y HAVE z]]]

ª+HRº ¬–LR ¼

[-HR,-LR] [-HR,-LR] [–LR] DAT

DAT

ERG

Complex predicates in Basque

135

Apaiza-k pobre-ei diru-a eman-araz-i priest-E poor-pD money-Det.A give-CAUS-PERF zidan ni-ri. TNS-have-1sD-ps I-D ‘The priest made me give money to the poor.’ The examples in (15–17) show that the same principles of unification between abstract case and morphosyntactic case apply, resulting in the indicated morphological cases. Joppen and Wunderlich’s approach has many virtues. Thematic roles are derived from a semantic form and there is no need to refer to a thematic hierarchy directly. Moreover, simple unification underlies the entire linking theory. LDG correctly generates the morphological case patterns in Basque. However, there is a problem in that this approach does not distinguish between the two datives in the causativized ditransitive (17) and we have seen that it is Ox that receives structural case, while Oy is rendered oblique: it can no longer govern verbal agreement and may optionally appear in the destinative case. This problem is addressed in further work by JoppenHellwig (2001) that I will discuss next. 4.2. Joppen-Hellwig Joppen-Hellwig (2001) is a cross-linguistic study which provides a typology of case arrays in four-place predicates (that are causativized ditransitives). Specifically, if a language allows four-place predicates through morphological causativization and does not allow case doubling, one of the arguments must be realized as an oblique. The chief observation is that which argument becomes an oblique is predictable based on whether or not the language is ergative or accusative, as illustrated below.7 (18) a. If the language is ergative, the lower middle role (Oy, Recipient) will be realized as an oblique. b. If the language is accusative, the upper middle role (Ox, Causee) will be realized as an oblique. Languages with split ergativity pattern consistently with either accusative or ergative languages, regardless of the split in the case marking system. Joppen-Hellwig accounts for this by suggesting that inherent control properties of the argument (animacy, etc.) play a role in the argument linking. For this she posits a feature [±C]. This is assigned cyclically to the arguments in the semantic form. For example:

136 Cathryn Donohue (19) make go:

Ox

Oq

[q CAUSE [x GO]] [+C] [–C]

The assignment of [±C] starts in the innermost predicate and then extends outwards, such that the highest role typically has the most control in a clause, indicated by a its lack of [–C] features. Consider the causativized ditransitive: (20) make give: Oz

Oy

Ox

Oq

[q CAUSE [x CAUSE [y HAVE z]]] [+C]

[+C] [–C]

[+C] [–C] [–C]

[–C] [–C] [–C]

The ‘best’ controller corresponds to the highest role, Oq, as q has no [–C] features, and the ‘worst’ controller is the lowest role, which has only [–C] features. From this, Joppen-Hellwig claims that the “relevant” feature for ergative languages is [+C]. In this way, Ox, having only one [–C] feature, in some sense ‘outranks’ Oy and is thus deemed more of a controller. The structural dative is then assigned to the causee. Conversely, in accusative languages [–C] is said to be the relevant feature, and similar results in the recipient (Oy) being assigned the structural dative case, while the causee is rendered oblique. This does capture the facts. However, it is stipulative and the definitions of control are vague. It is my goal to find an alternative way to predict the dative/oblique case assignment for Basque without having to refer to any stipulative features such as [±C].

5. An alternative proposal The alternative I am proposing is situated within the same general framework of Joppen and Wunderlich (1995) and Joppen-Hellwig (2001), and consists of only a minor alteration to the proposals just presented. Instead of assuming the argument structures resulting from causativization are flat and monoclausal as in (21), I will instead adopt the relatively noncontroversial view that causatives are complex predicates, resulting from predicate argument composition (Alsina 1993). That is, the resulting structure recognizes that the causee is the subject of an embedded clause as in (22).

Complex predicates in Basque

(21) ¢B_, B_, B_, B_²

(or, more mnemonically ¢ q x y z ²

(22) ¢B_, B_i ¢B_ i, B_, B_²²

(or, more mnemonically ¢ q B_i¢ x i y z ²²

137

In (22) we see that the causative has its own argument structure that consists of a causer and a causee and a following predicate, of which the causee is the subject. Although the causer is the subject of the sentence, the causee is recognized as a subject – an a-subject – and as such must receive structural case. Let us return to the original examples from section 2. In (4), repeated here as (23), we see examples of an intransitive verb ‘go’, and its causativized counterpart ‘make go’. (23) a. Mikel joan da. Mikel.A go-PRF TNS.be ‘Mikel is gone.’ b. Ama-k Mikel joan-araz-i du. mother-E Mikel.A go-CAUS-PRF TNS.have ‘Mother has made Mikel go.’ The examples in (23) do not pose a problem to case assignment as there are fewer arguments than there are structural cases. The case assignment would proceed just as it did for Joppen and Wunderlich: (24) make go:

Ox

Oq

[ ]

[–LR]

ABS

ERG

[q CAUSE [x GO]]

ª–HR º ª+HR º ¬+LR ¼ ¬–LR ¼

ms.caseĺ

Ama-k Mikel joan-araz-i du. mother-E Mikel.A go-CAUS-PERF TNS.have ‘Mother has made Mikel go.’ The same is true for the example of a causativized transitive verb given in (6), repeated here as (25). As the resulting number of arguments is the same as the number of available structural cases, case assignment proceeds as normal (26).

138 Cathryn Donohue (25) a. Soldadu-ek haur guzti-ak hil zituzten. Soldier-pE child whole-pA kill.PRF TNS.pA.have.pA.3pE.PST ‘The soldiers killed all the children.’ b. Herodes-ek soldadu-ei haur guzti-ak hil-araz-i Herod-E soldier-pD child whole-pA kill-CAUS-PRF zizkien. TNS.pA.3pD.PST ‘Herod made the soldiers kill all the children.’ (26) make kill:

Oy

ª–HR º ¬+LR ¼

ms.caseĺ

Ox

Oq

ª–HR º ¬–LR ¼

[q CAUSE [x CAUSE [y DIE]]]

ª+HR º ¬–LR ¼

[ ]

[-HR,-LR]

[–LR]

ABS

DAT

ERG

However, the key difference between my proposal and previous analyses is illustrated when considering the causativized ditransitive, as shown in (7) (now (27). (27) a. Ni-k pobre-ei diru-a eman-ten diet. I-E poor-pD money-Det.A give-IMPF TNS.have.3pD.1sE ‘I give money to the poor.’ b. Apaiza-k pobre-eidiru-a eman-araz-i zidan ni-ri. priest-E poor-pD money-A give-CAUS-PRF TNS.have.1sD.PST I-D ‘The priest made me give money to the poor.’ (28) make give: Oz

Oy

Ox

ª–HR º ª–HR º ª–HR º ¬+LR ¼ ¬–LR ¼ ¬–LR ¼

ms.caseĺ

[ ] ABS

Oq [q CAUSE [x CAUSE [y HAVE z]]]

ª+HRº ¬–LR ¼

[-HR,-LR] [-HR,-LR] [–LR] DAT

DAT

ERG

In (28), we can identify the causee as Ox and see that the case features predict the same case as for the recipient (Oy). However, as the causee is an a-subject, it will necessarily receive the structural dative – the last structural case available that unifies with the given features. This proposal improves on previous analyses by generating the observed case markers, including the semantic vs. structural dative cases on the two ‘middle’ arguments. The proposal also makes a couple of predictions. The first is that creating a four-place predicate through multiple causatives would be ungrammatical. If resulting from two applications of the

Complex predicates in Basque

139

causative, we would have two a-subjects in addition to the causer, and the theme as shown in (29). (29) make make kill: Oy

Ox

Op

ª–HR º ª–HR º ª–HR º ¬+LR ¼ ¬–LR ¼ ¬–LR ¼

ms.caseĺ

[ ] ABS

Oq [q CAUSE [p CAUSE [x KILL y]]]

ª+HRº ¬–LR ¼

[-HR,-LR] [-HR,-LR] [–LR] DAT

DAT

ERG

In preliminary investigations with my consultants, multiply embedded causatives were not acceptable for transitive verbs. Rather, they opted to paraphrase with the syntactic causative. A second prediction is that there may be some preferences for languages to recognize the causer as a special kind of subject and allocate a special case to the case of the causer, regardless of the resulting number of arguments in the causativized predicate. We see evidence of this in varieties of Western Basque which consistently mark the causee with the (structural) dative case, even in causastivized intransitives (the only situation where the causee would be marked with an absolutive in standard Basque): (30) Asarre bixi-bixitt-an jarri erazo fury alive-alive-LOC get CAUS ‘They have made me get very furious.’

dauste ni-ri. AUX 1SG.DAT

This approach shares the virtues of Joppen-Hellwig (2001) and Joppen and Wunderlich (1995) that come from using LDG. Moreover by assuming a little structure to the causatives in Basque, as is usually done for causatives in other languages, this approach captures the case marking facts in Basque without the need for stipulations, and makes predictions about other case marking possibilities that appear to be borne out.

6. Summary The goal of this paper was to correctly account for the morphological case arrays in Basque complex clauses, focussing particularly on the problem of the causativized ditransitives. I have presented an analysis which captures the data by incorporating a simple assumption about the structure of causatives which has already been shown to be the correct way to model causatives in other languages. However, this assumption enables the

140 Cathryn Donohue analysis to correctly predict the structural case assignment in Basque without being stipulative, and thus appears to be an improvement on earlier work. Appendix A This appendix lists the abbreviations used throughout this paper. 1, 2, 3 A, ABS ABL ALL AUX CAUS D, DAT DEST DET

first, second, third person absolutive ablative Allative Auxiliary causative Dative Destinative Determiner

E, ERG GEN.LOC IMPF p, PL PERF, PRF PST s, SG TNS

ergative genetive locative imperfect plural perfect past singular tense

Appendix B This appendix lists the sources for the Basque data. (1) Donohue: own fieldwork (5) Joppen and Wunderlich 1994: 25 (2) Joppen and Wunderlich 1994: 6 (6) Joppen and Wunderlich 1994: 27–28 (3) Joppen and Wunderlich 1994: 20 (7) Joppen and Wunderlich 1994: 27–28 (4) Joppen and Wunderlich 1994: 24 (8) Joppen and Wunderlich 1994: 28 Table 1 Ortiz de Urbina 1989:6/Saltarelli 1988: 240–243 Table 2 Joppen and Wunderlich 1994: 24

Notes 1. Following Trask (1997) and others, I assume that the putative ‘third person’ absolutive prefixes are in fact markers of tense/aspect and not of third person. 2. I exclude Basque’s non-canonical case arrays as they do not bear on the issues arising from the four-place predicates that are the focus of this paper. 3. This phenomenon has been observed in other languages, like Japanese and Hungarian. My own investigations have not been able to reproduce conditioned dative marking of the causee. Rather, it appears that western Basque marks causees consistently with dative case. However, as it does not bear on the point

Complex predicates in Basque

141

of this paper, I present Joppen and Wunderlich’s data and do not discuss this further. 4. Note that the case marker appears at the right edge of the NP to which it is attached, hence the plural absolutive marker -ak is attached to guzti and not haur. 5. The featureless [ ] is used for the nominative/absolutive case, capturing the fact that this case is usually the unmarked case. 6. The HR and LR features that Wunderlich uses are written in lower case and are in fact reversed, such that (their) [+hr] reads “there is a higher role”and [+lr] reads “there is a lower role”. However, for consistency’s sake I maintain the use of Kiparsky’s features throughout the paper. 7. I take this to refer more properly to the morphological ergativity or accusativity of a given language, as Basque is listed as an ergative language (yet it is syntactically accusative).

References Bierwisch, Manfred 1986 On the nature of semantic form in natural language. In Human Memory and Cognitive Capabilities, Part B, Friedhart Klix, and Herbert Hangendorf (eds.), 765–783. Amsterdam: Elsevier (North Holland). Bierwisch, Manfred, and Robert Schreuder 1992 From concepts to lexical items. Cognition 42: 23–60. Joppen-Hellwig, Sandra 2001 Structural arguments with semantic case: The case of causees and recipients in 4-place verbs. In Theorie des Lexikons Nr 112, Dieter Wunderlich (ed.), 1–35. Düsseldorf: Heinrich-Heine Universität. Joppen, Sandra, and Dieter Wunderlich 1995 Argument linking in Basque. Lingua 97: 123–69. Kiparsky, Paul 1997 The rise of positional licensing. In Parameters of Morphosyntactic Change, Ans Kemenade, and Nigel Vincent (eds.), 460–494. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2001 Structural case in Finnish. Lingua 111: 315–76. Ortiz de Urbina, Jon 1989 Some parameters in the grammar of Basque: A GB approach to Basque syntax. Dordrecht: Foris Publications Saltarelli, Mario Basque. Kent, England: Croom Helm 1988 Trask, Robert Lawrence 1997 The history of Basque. London: Routledge Wunderlich, Dieter 1997 Cause and the structure of verbs. Linguistic Inquiry 28: 27–68.

An adversative passive in English: in search of origins Junichi Toyota 1. Introduction1 The English passive, at least at the synchronic level, involves two auxiliaries, i.e. be and get, and synchronic studies of the so-called getpassive include Hatcher (1949), Lakoff (1971), Barber (1975), Chappell (1980), Vanrespaille (1991), Collins (1996), to name some. However, whether the get-passive is a true passive or not is questioned by several linguists (e.g. Haegeman 1985: 54–56, Downing 1996: 183); Haegeman considers it as a type of middle construction. Interestingly when it comes to its historical development, little work has been done: Miller (1985), Givón and Yang (1994) and more recently, Gronemeyer (1999) are probably the only works on diachronic principles, apart from Jespersen (1909–49), Visser (1963–73) and Denison (1993), who provide data for earlier periods. The aims of this paper are two-fold: offer a detailed synchronic analysis of the construction ‘get + past participle’, involving a typological sketch of the adversative passive, and a diachronic analysis of the get-passive with adversative reading. The statistical results are drawn from the Helsinki corpus (Helsinki) for early Modern English (eModE), ARCHER corpus for late Modern English (lModE), Lancaster-Oslo/Bergen corpus (LOB) for Present-day English (PDE, written data) and London-Lund corpus (LL) for Present-day English (spoken data). The organisation of the paper is as follows: we start with a synchronic analysis of various adversative constructions from a typological perspective. This will serve as a basis for the study of the English getpassive. We analyse its synchronic characteristics and provide a taxonomic generalisation. This leads to the diachronic study of the get-passive, with special attention for auxiliaryhood and the source of adversity. We start, then, with the synchronic typological characteristics of adversative passives.

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2. Synchronic characteristics 2.1. Typological analysis of the adversative passive The passive voice is often used to express such extra meanings as potentiality, spontaneity, obligation, etc. (see, for example, Shibatani 1985: 827–828 for examples). One such reading is adversity. The adversative passive is commonly found in restricted areas of the world, i.e. east and south-east Asia and in a restricted number of language families, viz., Altaic (Even, Japanese, Korean, etc.), Sino-Tibetan (Burmese, Chinese, Thai, etc.), Austric (Indonesian, Javanese, Vietnamese, etc.). However, there are some exceptions, such as Yup’ik (Eskimo-Aleut), which is spoken on the west coast of Alaska. Some of these languages form the passive morphologically, others, periphrastically: (1)

Periphrastic

: Burmese, Cambodian, Chinese, Lao, Palaung, Thai, Vietnamese Morphological : Even, Evenki, Indonesian, Japanese, Javanese, Korean, Yup’ik

Languages of the periphrastic type use submissive verbs or so-called inbound transitive verbs (Chen 1994), sometimes known as verbs of experience (Keenan 1985: 257–261). What is characteristic of this type of verb is that the action is directed toward the subject, which automatically makes the subject a recipient, as in I fear him, where the subject is the recipient of fear, as opposed to out-bound transitive verbs, as in I beat him, where the direct object is the recipient of the action. In this type of construction, the adversative or benefactive meaning depends on the auxiliary, e.g. suffer yields an adversative reading, enjoy a benefactive reading. Consider the following examples: (2)

(3)

Chinese (Tiee 1986: 297) Nèipíng jiu bèi tƗ hnjwánle that-M wine suffer him drink-finish-ASP ‘That bottle of wine was finished by him.’ (adversative) Vietnamese (Keenan 1985: 260–261) Quang bi (bao) ghet Quang suffer (Bao) detest ‘Quang is detested (by Bao).’ (adversative)

An adversative passive in English

(4)

145

Quang duoc bao thuong Quang enjoy Bao love ‘Quang is loved by Bao.’ (benefactive)

In the periphrastic construction, we can still observe the valency change commonly found in the passive, which is a valency reducing operation. The morphological type involves the addition of passive morphemes, as shown below: (5)

(6)

(7)

Indonesian (Kana 1986: 184) Orang itu ke-curi-an sepeda person that AFFECT-steal bicycle ‘That person had a bicycle stolen.’ Javanese (Davies 1993: 105) Siti isa ke-kancing-an lawang-e Siti can AD-lock door-DEF ‘Siti can get the door locked on her.’ Yup’ik (Eskimo-Aleut, Payne 1997: 207) tuntuva nere-sciu-llru-u-q moose-ABS eat-PASS-PAST-INTRNS-3SG ‘The moose was eaten (by a bear).’

(carayag-mun) bear-OBL

What is noticeable syntactically is an increase in either cognate or grammatical argument structure, i.e. from two arguments to three. The added argument is a sufferer or beneficiary. Since the passive is known to be a valency decreasing operation in general, and so the morphological adversative passive is rather unusual among passives. An increase in valence is known to be a characteristic of the causative, and indeed, in some languages, adversative or benefactive passive constructions are often considered a type of causative. See, for example, Comrie (1976: 271), Babby (1981, 1993), Shibatani (1976, 1977). Consider the following examples, where the distinction between the passive and the causative is not clear: (8)

Russian (Babby 1993: 343) Ona šila sebe novoe plat´e dress-ACC she-NOM sewed herself-DAT new ‘She made a new dress (by herself).’ (Benefactive passive) ‘She had someone make her a new dress.’ (Causative)

146 (9)

(10)

Junichi Toyota

Korean (Kim 1994: 333–334) John-un Mary-eykey son-ul John-TOP Mary-DAT hand-ACC cap-hi-ess-ta hold-PASS/CAUS-PAST-DEC ‘John had his hand grabbed by Mary.’ (Adversative Passive) ‘John made Mary grab his hand.’ (Causative) Indonesian Adversative passive (Kana 1986: 184) Anak itu ke-tinggal-an di hutan child that AFFECT-stay in forest ‘The child got left in the forest.’

(11)

Causative (Sneddon 1996: 73) Ibu mem-bangun-kan Siti mother TRANS-wake up-CAUS Siti ‘Mother woke Siti up.’

(12)

Causative with interpretation of emotion (Sneddon 1996: 73) kami men-gkhawatir-kan munculnya appearance we TRANS-worry about-CAUS monopoli baru monopoly new ‘We are worried about the appearance of new monopolies.’

Kim (1994: 332–336), for example, shows that there is an equivocal boundary between the passive morpheme and the causative one in a restricted set of verbs in Korean, as exemplified in (9). This depends on the choice of verb. In the case of Indonesian as shown in (10) to (12), there is a group of verbs which can express the subject’s emotion once the causative suffix is added. It is not so rare for the passive to develop from the causative-reflexive construction in world languages, as noted by Keenan (1985: 262), Haspelmath (1990: 46–49) and others. The general change can be expressed in terms of the subject’s control over the event/action. As claimed in Croft, Shyldkrot and Kemmer (1987), reflexive verbs often evolve and start to express a passive reading, triggered by the loss of a subject’s control. The presence of alienable possession can be an indicator of the adversative reading. As shown in Shibatani (1994: 461–465), when inalienable possession is present, the whole clause cannot produce the

An adversative passive in English

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adversative passive, and the reading is just the basic verbal passive. One such pair of examples taken from Japanese are shown below in (13): (13)

Japanese a. Kare-wa shiranaihito-ni atama-wo nagur-are-ta stranger-DAT head-ACC hit-PASS-PST he-FOC ‘He was hit on the head by a stranger.’ (Verbal passive) ‘*He was adversely affected by stranger’s hitting him on the head.’ (Adversative passive) b. Kare-wa shiranaihito-ni musko-wo nagur-are-ta he-FOC stranger-DAT son-ACC hit-PASS-PST ‘He was adversely affected by stranger’s hitting his son.’ (Adversative passive)

The presence of the inalienable noun atama ‘head’ in (13a) prevents the passive clause from triggering an adversative reading, while in (13b), the adversative reading is the only possible one, since the NP musko ‘son’ is not an inalienable noun. We may note that this relationship is also common in dative adversative constructions with possessive or ethical dative (Berman 1982) or datif étendu ‘extended dative’ in French (Leclère 1976, 1978), as shown below: (14)

French Je lui ai brisé son vase I to.him have broken his vase ‘I broke his vase to his detriment.’

Russian (Wierzbicka 1988: 279) (15) Oni ubili emu they kill.PAST.PL he.DAT ‘They killed his wife.’ (16)

ženu wife.ACC.SG.FEM

Hebrew (Berman 1982: 38) rak še hi lo taxle li šuv axšav just that she not will sicken to me again now ‘Just so she doesn’t go and get sick on me again now.’

2.2. The English get-passive The get-passive looks superficially similar to the passive with auxiliary be. In fact, this construction is treated as passive in the majority of works and

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more typically, as the dynamic counterpart of the be-passive. However, the status of get as auxiliary is questioned by several linguists (i.e. Haegeman 1985: 54–56, Downing 1996: 183). It has been suggested that the getpassive should be treated as a construction ‘verb + past participle as a complement’ like go + past participle or fall + past participle. However, unlike the latter constructions, the get-construction always involves some outer cause, and the subject entity is always a recipient of this cause. In this section, we use the term get-passive in a broad sense and later on we further subdivide it into three different constructions. Our purpose in this section is to see into what category the construction falls synchronically. We hypothesize that it consists of several varieties of middle voice, thus creating a continuum in the grammatical voice system in English. This point is extended in the following section, where we will analyse it diachronically. There are at least three different types of get-passive in Present-day English in terms of syntactic and semantic characteristics. Examples belonging to each type are given in (17). Beyond the differences, there is one common denominator, viz. subject’s responsibility: (17a) signifies that the event happened due to the subject’s carelessness, bravery, etc., (17b), due to the subject’s excellence in politics, etc. and (17c), due to the subject’s lack of driving skill, etc. Thus, we consider that the subject’s responsibility is the basic characteristic of the get-passive. (17) a. He got shot by the riot police. b. Bush got elected president. c. He got accused of the pedestrian’s death. Also, it is known that the get-passive tends to create a subjective viewpoint of the speaker/writer. This does not normally happen with be-passive. The first distinction hinges on the subject’s control over the action (for details, see Lakoff 1971, Vanrespaille 1991, Collins 1996, Downing 1996). In (17a), the subject is still in control, but not in (17b) and (17c). This can be proven by adding adverbs which express volitionality, such as deliberately, on purpose, willingly, etc., as demonstrated below: (18) a. He deliberately got shot by the riot police. b. *Bush deliberately got elected president. c. *He deliberately got accused of the pedestrian’s death.

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We can replace (18a) with be instead of get, i.e. He was deliberately shot by the riot police, which means that the riot police shot him deliberately, while (18a) could mean that the subject he intended to be shot. Another distinction relates to the extra meaning dimension, known as adversative or benefactive reading. This semantic import is exemplified in (17c) above, and some additional examples are shown below in (19): (19) a. He got arrested by the police. b. The bag of cocaine got found by a police dog. Although these examples do not read exactly as (17a) and (17b) above, we can still trace the subject’s responsibility, i.e. the subject’s previous deed in (19a), the legal status of the substance in (19b), etc. The adversity dimension present in (19) can be highlighted in paraphrases like the following: (20) a. He was adversely affected by the police’s arresting him. b. I was adversely affected by a police dog’s finding the bag of cocaine. What is noticeable is that the sufferer tends to be the speaker or writer. This suggest that one of the common characteristics of the get-passive is to introduce a subjective viewpoint, as shown in (20b). Interestingly, this holds true regardless of the animacy of the subject. What is characteristic about this type, apart from the adversative reading, is the increase in valence. In this case, however, it is not a syntactic valency increase but a semantic/cognate valence, since the speaker/writer is not involved in the argument structure of the active counterpart. Thus far, we have shown that three different constructions are involved in the so-called get-passive. We now propose to assign a proper label to each type, viz., get-middle (17a , i.e. a clause with subject’s control), getpassive (17b, i.e. a clause without subject’s control) and adversative-get (17c, i.e. a clause without subject’s control, but with adversative reading and increase in cognate valence). We will treat them as basic taxonomic patterns and henceforth we use the term GET-passive to refer to the construction ‘get + past participle’ collectively, regardless of semantic differences. The following schema summarises the relationship among the three basic constructions:

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Junichi Toyota

(subject’s control)

(present)

get-middle

(absent)

get-passive (cognate valence increase)

adversative-get

Figure 1. Basic taxonomy of GET-passive

Note that we exclude ‘get + adjectival participle’, as in get fed up, get accustomed to, etc., since we concentrate on the verbal construction. However, these adjectival participles have a role in the formation of verbal gradience. The subject’s control functions merely as one of the characteristics which help us to distinguish one construction from the others. In fact, the boundary among them is not so clear, since, as we will see below, there are other factors involved. This distinction, however, yields a differentiation along the lines of the agentivity gradience proposed by Vanrespaille (1991: 107), as shown below: [least agentive] class 1 He got arrested

[most agentive] class 2 He got worried

class 3 He got dressed

Figure 2. Gradience based on agentivity, adopted from Vanrespaille (1991: 107)

Her work is unique in that it focuses on the range of agentivity attributed to the subject going from “a mere hint of responsibility with a human subject over reflexive activity to causation of the part of the subject” (1991: 104). Her class 3 corresponds to our get-middle and class 1 and 2 to our getpassive. She does not, however, have a category adversative-get. The adversative-get tends to belong to class 1, where the agentivity is lowest. Now that our taxonomy of GET-passive is established, we can proceed to take a closer look at some further semantic characteristics susceptible of clarifying the difference between the three subtypes. We will especially be concerned with the reflexive causative (2.2.1), animacy (2.2.2) and the presence of an actor (2.2.3). 2.2.1. Reflexive causative The GET-passive, as we have seen so far, differs in some basic characteristics from the prototypical passive: One of its main characteristics

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hinges on the responsibility or genericity of the subject. In English, this characteristic is shared with the so-called medio-passive, sometimes known as the middle verb construction. There seem to be two different types of medio-passive, viz. the unaccusative and the unergative. They differ in stativity, the subject’s genericity and spontaneity. This can be summarised as follows: Table 1. Distinction between unaccusative and unergative i. time reference ii. imperative/progressive iii. adverbials iv. subject control v. subject genericity

Unaccusative – – + – +

Unergative + + – + –

For details of these characteristics, see, for example, Erades (1950: 156), Rosta (1995), Fellbaum (1985) and Toyota (2003a: 158–181). This distinction can be applied to the GET-passive as well: Some examples from my data seem to show the same pattern as in unaccusative and unergative constructions. (21)

Unergative They started courting at 14, and at 15 decided to get married as soon as they were of age. [LOB F14 184–185]

Unaccusative (22) Having lost the chairmanship of the Technical Education Board, Sidney failed to get re-elected. [LOB J39 154–155] Following the criteria given in table 1 above, (21), for example, can be considered unergative, while (22) fits the pattern of the unaccusative. However, there are a number of examples which do not consistently correspond to either pattern, e.g. (23) and (24). (time reference +, imperative/progressive +, adverbs +, subject control –) (23) “You needn’t high-hat me! I’m trying to tell you something for your own good – if you ever want to get paid for what you’re doing here!” [LOB L05 137-139]

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(time reference +, imperative/progressive –, adverbs –, subject control –) (24) It was one of the reasons why Stalin got left on the engine a long time after he was visibly unfit to run the train. [G14 11–13] The distribution of each type in our data of PDE is reflected in table 2. Table 2. Distribution of unaccusative and unergative pattern in GET-passives Unaccusative

Unergative

Others

Total

23 (11.0%)

30 (14.4%)

156 (74.6%)

209

Lexical restrictions seem to play an important role in the semantic characteristics of the GET-passive. For example, Granger (1983) and Siewierska (1984: 136), claim that there is no active counterpart for some examples, such as get started, get lost, etc. against the common notion that the get-passive has an active counterpart. Examples like He got dressed, They got married do not seem to have an active counterpart either. There seem to be two different tendencies in this type of exception: middle verbs (as shown above) and reflexive verbs such as dress, wash, shave, etc. As for the latter, about half of the GET-passives in my data have a reflexive reading. We may note that the presence of a reflexive marker is not obligatory for a reflexive reading to be obtained. As shown in table 3, more than half of the cases admit a reflexive reading. Table 3. Distribution of clauses that admit a reflexive reading Written Spoken Total

reflexive possible

reflexive impossible

47 (46.5%) 60 (55.6%) 107 (51.2%)

54 (53.5%) 48 (44.4%) 102 (48.8%)

These results indicate that synchronically the GET-passive is closely associated with the reflexive or the middle constructions. This also coincides with the subject’s responsibility, which is considered as a typical characteristic of both the GET-passive and the medio-passive in English. Thus, in terms of semantic characteristics, the GET-passive can be considered as a type of reflexive or of medio-passive construction.

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2.2.2. Animacy It is well-known that degrees of animacy can be arranged in hierarchical order. The animacy hierarchy indicates that people tend to look at an event from the viewpoint of the more animate, more human-like entity that occupies the subject slot, since we human beings tend to conceive the action denoted by verbs from the viewpoint of an entity higher in the hierarchy (Saeed 2003: 170). Thus, if the construction in question can behave like the passive, the subject’s animacy has to be lower in the hierarchy. However, the animacy of the subject entity in the GET-passive shows somewhat different characteristics from the passive. Consider the following table: Table 4. Animacy of the subject entity in GET-passive Human

Animate

Inanimate

Total

177 (84.7%)

2 (1.0%)

30 (14.3%)

209

The active voice tends to view the action from a human viewpoint, while the passive reverses the viewpoint and allows us to see the event or action form the viewpoint of a non-human animate or inanimate. In the getpassive and get-adversative, this reversal does not seem to happen. Thus, as far as the animacy hierarchy is concerned, it is more like the active or the middle. Get itself does not seem to have been much grammaticalised as auxiliary of the passive (see the introduction of 2.2.). This lower degree of grammaticalisation may perhaps be explained by its human-based animacy. 2.2.3. Presence of an actor The middle or reflexive does not require the presence of an actor in an oblique phrase, commonly headed by the preposition by. In the GETpassive construction, the presence of an actor phrase is quite rare, as noted in Vanrespaille (1991: 99), Leech and Svartvik (1994: 330). The occurrences of an agent phrase in our data are listed in table 5, and exemplified in (25)–(28):

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Table 5. Presence of agent phrase in GET-passive lModE PDE

(25)

(26)

(written) (spoken) (total)

Present

Absent

1 (1.6%)

61 (98.4%)

1 (1.0%) 2 (1.9%) 3 (1.4%)

100 (99.0%) 106 (98.1%) 306 (98.6%)

lModE the only attention which it subsequently requires is to renew the oil of vitriol when it gets weakened by absorption of aqueous vapour. [1875 CROO.S6 1:1] PDE ‘Well, we’re not going to bother to train anybody in our industry because they’ll promptly get snapped up by another industry,’ the Duke added. [LOB A12 107–108]

(27)

she gets flatly contradicted by Bernard every time she opens her mouth [LL 1 3 7212310 1 2 A 11 - 1 3 7212310 1 1 A 11]

(28)

I was getting quite impressed by this [orderliness and uniformly new paintings of flats] [LL 4 4 12613200 1 1 D 11]

In these marginal examples, it is clear that the subject in each example has no control over the event. The presence of an actor indicates that these examples are get-passives. Low frequency may indicate that the GETpassive is still undergoing grammaticalisation and we predict that it will become more frequent in due course. 3. Diachronic Characteristics: emergence of get-adversative The construction ‘get + past participle’ has received a lot of attention, but mainly at the synchronic level. When it comes to the diachronic approach, it has been studied by only a few scholars as mentioned earlier, who have provided very valuable insights. Our own argument is similar to the reasoning developed in Givón and Yang (1994), and very sympathetic to Miller’s (1985) localist approach. The causative use of get in Givón and Yang (1994) and Gronemeyer (1999) can, in my view, be classified as what Song (1996: 49–67) calls a

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purposive type. The purposive type is a type of causative derived by insertion of a recipient of benefit or adversity, as in He got her a book, where the recipient of book (beneficiary) is often expressed with a purposive case. In English there is no purposive case, and the recipient is normally expressed by a dative, reflexive pronoun or later a nominal preceded by to or for. The construction with dative beneficiary/reflexive pronoun started to appear around 1300, according to OED (get v. I 18a, 18b), as shown below: (29) Ay was he bone, To gete [Cott. Fete]his fadir venisun always was he ready to get his father venison ‘He was always ready to get his father venison.’ [a1300 Cursor M. 3502 (Cott.)] (30) Melior .. preide hire priueli .. to gete hire þat Melior .. asked her in private .. to fetch her the gode gras as sone as sche miZt good grass as soon as she could ‘Melior asked her in private to fetch her the good grass as soon as she could.’ [c1350 Will. Palerne 644] In our view, following Givón and Yang (1994), Gronemeyer (1999), the locativeness in the purposive case contributed to the development of the causative construction with get. Examples (29) and (30) express the causation of possession, they can be paraphrased as ‘cause someone to possess something’. Thus, the causative construction He gets her to help him can be considered to have been derived from the causation of possession. This change can be represented as follows: He gets a present for her. He gets her to help him. canonical[get benefit[present] for GOAL[her]] Ÿ causative[get causee[her] to GOAL[help him]]

Figure 3. Schematic representation of development of causative get, from Toyota (2003b)

In the causative, help him on its own does not function as GOAL, but it can be metaphorically understood as the entity to which the action is directed. Notice that the preposition to functions as an indicator of direction as well as infinitive marker. This explains that the get-causative takes a toinfinitive, but not bare-infinitive, when it takes a verbal phrase as object, e.g. He got his brother to clean the room, but not *He got his brother clean the room. This to can be considered as a case of hypoanalysis (Croft 2000:

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126–130) or exaptation (Lass 1990) or regrammaticalisation (Greenberg 1991), i.e. a contextual semantic and functional property of the locative use of to is reanalysed as an inherent property of the syntactic unit (infinitive marker). For a similar argument, see Miller (1985: 178–179), Duffley (1992), Español-Echevarría and Mahajan (1995, cited in Gronemeyer 1999: 24), Toyota (2003b). The first example with to-infinitive attested in Visser (1963–73: § 2068) dates back to 1386, (31), and the next example is from 1410, (32). In OED (get v. III 30a), the first example is dated 1460, (33). (31) Non gete me … to glent out of ryZt none made me … to swerve out of justice ‘No one got me to deviate from rightness.’ [c1386 St. Erkenwald 242] (32) Abideth a litell, and I schal gete wait a little and I shall get ‘Wait a little longer and I shall make it [c1410 Nicholas Love, Mirrour Blessed 106]

Zow to haue more you to have more that you will have more.’ Lijf of Chr. (ed. Powell)

(33) And so myght we gett hym som word for to say. [c1460 Towneley Myst. Xxi. 218] The get-causative with past participle, another construction related to the GET-passive, started to appear around 1500 (OED get v. III. 28), although there are some earlier isolated examples in Visser (1963–73: § 2115), as exemplified below: (34) Thow getest fable noon ytold for me you get fables none told for me ‘You won’t hear any fables told from me.’ [c1386 Chaucer, C. T .I 31] (35) I can get no such some [= sum] confessed. [1548 Invent. Ch. Goods (Surtees) 119] Compare examples (31) to (33) with (34) and (35). Visser (1963–73) notes that examples like (33) and (34) are frequent from late Middle English (lME) to the present (§ 2068), while the constructions in (31) to (33), date from Middle English (ME) to the present (§ 2115). This seems to suggest that to-infinitive and past participle both started to appear in the get-

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causative and gained in frequency around 1500. This may indicate that as long as the indirect object NP retains the purposive sense, the verb phrase in the subordinate clause can take the form of a to-infinitive or participle clause. Among get-causatives with past participle, the direct object is sometimes the reflexive pronoun in -self. Some of the earlier occurrences are shown below: (36) La Fleur .. had got himself so gallantly array’d, I scare knew him. [1768 STERNE Sent. Journ. (1778) II. 120 (Le Dimanche)] (37) Poor Barty .. had applied, and got himself appointed a writer to the .. East India Company. [1779 R. GRAVES Columella I. 184] In our view, examples like (36) and (37) are the source of various GETpassive constructions. The development can be explained as follows: the reflexive pronoun makes the clause more like the middle construction, whether unaccusative or unergative. In these examples, the lower clause has a subject, which is still in control of an action or at least responsible for it. As we have seen earlier, the loss of subject’s control in the reflexive construction often turns into the passive reading. This is closely related to the animacy of the subject, i.e. when it is inanimate, it is less likely to be in control. In the following example, for instance, the subject is not in control, but still responsible for the event denoted by the past participle. (38) One of the most costly, splendid, and elaborate structures in the world .. got itself built. [1877 MRS. OLIPHANT Makers Flor. Intro. 12] The first attested example of GET-passive known to us dates back to 1652 (s.v. OED get v. 34b), as shown in (39) below. Some authors, such as Gronemeyer (1999: 29), suggest that example (40) should be considered as the first example and should replace (39). The next example (41) is from 1731 (Jespersen 1909–49: IV 108–9). (39) A certain Spanish pretending Alchymist … got acquainted with foure rich Spanish merchants. [1652 Gaule, Magastrom. 361] (40) I am resolv’d to get introduced to Mrs Annabella. [1693 Powell, A very good wife, II.i. p.10]

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(41) so you may not only save your life, but get rewarded for your roguery. [1731 Fielding, Letter Writers II.ix.20] The GET-passive construction seems to be rare at the earlier period, and the earlier examples do not seem to be able to demonstrate the grammaticalisation of get as an auxiliary. The period of grammaticalisation is claimed to come much later: Strang (1970: 151) claims that it is late 18th century and Denison (1993: 440) suggests that it is 19th or 20th century. Indeed, examples cited in OED (s.v. get v. 34b), Jespersen (1909–49: IV 108–9), Visser (1963–73: §1893) clearly show that the frequency increases after the middle/late 1800s. Denison (1993: 433) also points out that the earlier examples often involve idiomatic phrases, such as get rid of, and the past participle may have more adjectival characteristics than verbal. Examples like (40) and (41) above precede the examples of ‘get oneself past participle’ construction shown in (36) and (37). This seems to contradict the claim that the reflexive-causative is the source of the getpassive construction. However, the reflexive pronoun itself is not normally obligatory, except for certain verbs such as avail oneself, absent oneself, pride oneself in, etc. and examples (40) and (41) can imply the reflexive reading. Also, examples prior to the mid/late 1800s tend to have a subject which is still in control of the action. Thus, even if we consider the first occurrence of the source of GET-passive to be example (39) (considered as causative reflexive), it is not until the mid/late 1800s that the frequency increases and the loss of subject’s control occurs. If the GET-passive is derived from the inchoative construction ‘get + adjective’ illustrated by (42), as claimed by Gronemeyer (1999: 29), then why wasn’t the passive formed with other verbs: grow, become, come, etc.? See Visser (1963–73: § 1893) for a list of such verbs. These verbs can take an adjective as complement, as shown in (43) to (45) below. The emergence of an inchoative construction with these verbs is not simultaneous: some appeared as early as Old English (OE), others in late Modern English. (42) How to get cleere of all the debts I owe. [1596 SHAKS. Merch. V. 1.i. 134] (43) þa com Gallicanus eac to gode geborgen then came Gallicanus also by God saved ‘Then Gallicanus also came to be saved by God.’ [Ælfric, Saints’ Lives (Skeat) 7, 336]

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(44) The gazer grows enamoured. [1735-6 James Thomson, Liberty IV, 181] (45) It means playing ducks and drakes with things all round and letting the whole business go thoroughly rotten. [1893 Punch 11 March 109] These other choices normally cannot take reflexive pronouns as indirect object. Also, the hypothesis that the inchoative construction evolved into GET-passive does not explain why the subject in GET-passive expresses so-called subject’s responsibility. This responsibility is often found in the medio-passive, as in This book sells very well, where the quality of the book generates sales. This also supports the case for a relationship with the reflexive construction, which often functions as the middle in English. 3.1. Auxiliarity Linguists such as Givón (1975, 1979, 1984, 1989), Bolinger (1980), Heine (1993) incorporate factors from diachronic change in their treatments of the auxiliary. For example, Givón (1984: 270–271) describes auxiliaries as an intermediate stage between full lexical verbs and clitics. Thus, this diachronic approach supports the idea of a gradience or continuum of auxiliarity. The choice of auxiliary varies according to the language in question. However, we can taxonomise them into some general groups. Keenan (1985: 257–261) suggests that there are four different types of auxiliary verbs in the periphrastic passive, which are: (i) verb of being or becoming, (ii) verb of reception, (iii) verb of motion and (iv) verb of experience. The auxiliary in question, get, is primarily a type of verb of reception, but is now also seen as a verb of becoming. Verbs of being seem to be the most common choice for the passive auxiliary across languages, although there are some languages which do not use be as auxiliary at all, such as Hindi or Urdu. The degree of grammaticalisation varies according to the type of auxiliary. We need some objective method to judge it. For this, we use some of the numerous properties proposed in Heine (1993: 22–24), who lists 22 different auxiliary properties. On the basis of these properties, we can judge how auxiliary-like one verb is, i.e. when two or more verbs are compared, the one which has the most such properties is considered as the best candidate for auxiliarihood and thus, as the most grammaticalised type. The result can be visualized in the following continuum (the number in

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brackets indicates the number of auxiliary properties applicable to each type): being (18) > becoming (16) > motion (15) > reception (12) > experience (11) more auxiliary-like +

degree of grammaticalisation

more lexical verb-like –

Figure 4. Degree of grammaticalisation of passive auxiliaries None of them seems to have been fully grammaticalised, and even the verb of being is yet to be cliticised to complete the process of grammaticalisation. We may note that this completion can be found in some morphological passives like the Japanese passive, where the suffix -(r)are originates historically from a verb aru ‘exist’ but now fully functions as the passive suffix. There is a general tendency for auxiliaries to be derived from copula verbs and if not, from motion verbs. Less frequent, but still possible, other complement-taking verbs (often known as quasi-copula) can be a source of auxiliaries (Foley and Van Valin 1984, Payne 1997: 84). In this list of possible lexical sources there is no mention of verbs of reception. Language-specifically, get in English possesses only 12 of the properties proposed by Heine (1993: 22–24) as shown above, and it is placed at the lower end of the continuum. Auxiliaries in English in general are known to possess certain characteristics known as the NICE properties. According to the NICE properties, get does not behave as auxiliary. For details, see Haegeman (1985: 54–56) and Downing (1996: 183). However, some instances of the GET-passive can be considered to be passives. Thus, judging from the result shown above, get itself is less grammaticalised than be, but we suspect that it is in transition. We may also note that the get-adversative is typologically rather unusual. As we have seen in the previous section, the periphrastic adversative passive generally has in-bound transitive verbs, but get itself is not an in-bound transitive. It also fails to express adversity or benefactiveness based on the lexical meaning of the auxiliary. Equivalents of get can be found in other languages as apparent passive auxiliary (verb of reception, Keenan 1985: 257–261), as shown below: (45)

Welsh (Celtic, Awbery 1976: 47) Cafodd y bachgen ei rybuddio gan got the boy his warning by ‘The boy was warned by the man.’

y dyn the man

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(46)

161

Tzeltal (Mayan, Keenan 1985: 259) La y-ich’ ’utel (yu’un s-tat) te PAST he-receive bawling out (because his-father) ART Ziak-e Ziak-ART ‘Ziak got a bawling out (from his father).’

Example (46) above does not involve the verb in PAST PART, but instead as noun phrase ei rybuddio ‘his warning’, which functions as complement of cael ‘have, get’. Constructions like (46) and (47) may be better considered as active voice with passive reading. On the other hand, the reason for considering the English get-construction as passive, is the involvement of the verb in past participle. However, the use of get in the periphrastic passive is a particular case, since it can express benefactiveness or adversity, while the auxiliary itself cannot be qualified as an in-bound transitive verb. This may cast doubt on whether verbs of reception can be a candidate for the passive auxiliary. 3.2. Adversity In (48), a typical get-adversative, we observe the addition of cognate subject, the recipient of adversity. This recipient is often the speaker/writer, one of the characteristics of the GET-passive, i.e. subjective viewpoint (see, for example, Lakoff 1970, Chappel 1980, Vanrespaille 1991: 97–99, Downing 1996: 200–202). This creates an increase in semantic valence. Thus, example (48) can be paraphrased as (49). (48) ‘Well, we’re not going to bother to train anybody in our industry because they’ll promptly get snapped up by another industry,’ the Duke added. [LOB A12 107–108] (49) ‘We would be adversely affected by another industry’s snapping up people in our industry.’ Earlier in 2.1, we have seen that the increase in syntactic and semantic valence is a common characteristic of the morphological adversative passive. We have also seen that this type of construction also has a lot of characteristics in common with the causative. The characteristics of getadversative seem to be those of the morphological passive, rather than the

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periphrastic ones, although it is a periphrastic construction. This confusion can be cleared up by taking into account the origin of the construction, viz., the reflexive causative: the get-adversative is a type of causative (reflexive causative) in origin and this explains why it shows characteristics of the causative in spite of its construction. Thus, the increase in semantic valency is triggered by the causative construction. However, while the object of the causative get is reflexive in origin with regard to GET-passive, the cognate subject in the get-adversative is normally the speaker or writer, and the reflexive pronoun is not co-referential with the speaker/writer. This is where alienable possession becomes crucial. As shown in (13) above, inalienable possession does not allow an adversative reading. In the case of the get-adversative, the reflexive pronoun, whether overtly expressed or simply inferable, corefers to the subject entity, but the link between the subject entity and the speaker or writer is one of alienable possession. Thus, in example (48) above, the subject entity is the workers in the industry which belongs to the Duke. In a loose sense of possession, the Duke owns workers or the workers work under the ownership of the Duke. This fact also contributes to the subjective view of the speaker or writer in the get-adversative. This adversative reading can be strengthened from two sources: the first one is a lexical source, and the second, as we have just seen, alienability. By lexical source, we mean that a verb in the past participle form on its own can express some sort of adversity. These verbs include beat, arrest, break, steal, etc. (see Downing 1996: 195–96 for a list of such verbs) as shown in (50) to (52) below: (50) so I should just add I meant to send you a postcard signed by Julius and myself but you know the way it is, yes you get chased around like a scalded cat and you haven’t got time for any of [dhi:] courtesies in this world. [LL 9 2l 11 7000 1 1 A 1212 - 9 2l 11 7070 1 1 A 1112] (51) “And who asked you to do the thinking around here?” Gaffer’s lip curled in disgust. “Go on, beat it, and if you get nicked, I’ll paper the walls with you.” [LOB L10 52-54] (52) You envy your girl friend who embarks on adventures with the necessary precautions - the crash helmets. This explains her ability to get out of events in which other girls might get hurt. [LOB F12 108-111]

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In this way, the adversity is a carry-over from the lexical meaning of the participle and if the auxiliary is replaced with be, adversity is often retained. The second source is alienability. As we have seen, adversity can be expressed when alienable possession is involved, even if the verb does not express adversity on its own. Example (48) is one such case. We add some more examples below in (53) and (54). (53) What do you mean a couple of hundred tiles? Why do you have a couple of hundred tiles? Oh I don’t know. You just get left with these things. [LL 210 28 2250 1 2 c 20 - 210 29 2270 1 1 B 11] (54) I mean but they can do something fairly minor and get sent there. [LL 4 7 15 1380 1 2 c 12 - 4 7 16 1400 1 1(c 11] Notice that the examples with adversative reading in always involve a human subject. Inanimate subjects without inalienable possession are rare (see table 4 above on the subject’s animacy). In those cases, it is harder to decide whether a clause is adversative or not. Consider the following example: (55) Now the hoodlums don’t run liquor. They run governments. State governments like Nevada. Articles get written about it. [ARCHER 1956Fleming.F9 1:1] A first ambiguous point is the recipient of the adversity or benefit: it can be either the speaker/writer, i.e. ‘speaker/writer is adversely/positively affected by articles’ being written’ or the people concerned, i.e. ‘the hoodlums are adversely/positively affected by articles’ being written’. When the subject is inanimate and an adversative/benefactive reading is possible, the recipient of adversity/benefit seems to be the people concerned, not the speaker/hearer. This reveals an interesting relationship between the adversative or benefactive passive and the causative. Under the adversative reading of (55), the people concerned, i.e. the hoodlums, do not expect the event and have no control over it. Under the benefactive reading, on the contrary, they normally expect the event and can sometimes (but not necessarily) have some control or influence. This difference might suggest that the adversative reading is derived from the passive, while the benefactive can come from either the passive or the causative. This can be schematised as follows:

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Table 6. Different readings with inanimate subject and the passive/causative Adversative reading Benefactive reading

• subject has no control over the event o similar to the passive, i.e. Articles are written about it on the hoodlums. • subject has no control over the event o similar to the passive, i.e. Articles are written about it for the benefit of the hoodlums. • subject has control over the event o similar to the causative, i.e. The hoodlums get articles written about it.

Thus, when we compare (55) above with its source construction, the getmiddle, we observe two main semantic differences: loss of subject control and loss of subjective view point. In our view, this suggests that the adversity-get came after the get-passive, i.e. after the late 1800s, especially the one formed without lexical influence, since the adversative without lexical influence seems to be less frequent earlier. This indicates some internal semantic change in the get-passive. In the following table, we summarize the frequency difference of the get-adversative between late Modern English and Present-day English: Table 7. Frequency of get-adversative lModE PDE

(written) (spoken) (total)

Adversative 13 (21.0%) (non-lexical 1 (7.7%), lexical 12 (92.3%))

Non-advers. 49 (79.0%)

Total 62

28 (27.7%) (non-lexical 7 (25.0%), lexical 21 (75.0%)) 27 (25.0%) (non-lexical 5 (18.5%), lexical 22 (81.5%)) 55 (26.3%) (non-lexical 12 (18.5%), lexical 53 (81.5%))

73 (72.3%)

101

81 (75.0%)

108

154 (73.7%)

209

Earlier, we identified three different constructions, viz. get-middle, getpassive and get-adversative, which seem to appear at different periods of time. Considering the period when the frequency increased, i.e. not the date of first recorded appearance, the chronological order of appearance can be summarised as follows. Get oneself PAST PART o get-middle o get-passive (mid 1700) (mid/late 1800)

o adversative-get (late 1800/early 1900)

Figure 5. Chronological order of change in the ‘get PAST PART’ construction

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The occurrence of earlier examples of GET-passive is too sporadic to really contribute to the process of grammaticalisation. The frequency increased after the emergence of the get-passive, i.e. the mid/late 1800s. This fits in the sequence of occurrence, since the causative reflexive ‘get oneself past participle’ appeared in the mid 1700s, thus leaving about a century for the get-passive to develop from the get-middle. 4. Conclusion We have suggested that the English GET-passive is derived from the causative-reflexive/middle construction. The first major change happened when the clause subject lost the control over the event. The adversative/benefactive reading from the GET-passive, i.e. our getadversative, evolved from a complex internal structure. The addition of an extra cognate argument is achieved in terms of alienable possession, i.e. the subject entity is in a loose sense under the possession or ownership of the recipient of adversity or beneficiary. This recipient is typically the speaker or writer. The GET-adversative thus reflects the subjective view of the speaker or writer. The adversative meaning is further enhanced by two factors: lexical source and alienability. Some verbs can convey an adversative/benefactive reading by their own, e.g. beat, hit, lose, etc. (adversative) and donate, succeed, etc. (benefactive). And while inalienable possession is incompatible with the adversative/benefactive reading, alienable possession licenses it. Notes 1. I would like to thank Prof. John I. Saeed and Prof. David Denison for discussing some aspects of this paper with me, Dr. Gregory Anderson for valuable suggestions on the typological data, David Mulrooney for discussing the English examples, Nick Mulloy and Melisa Mustafoviü for various suggestions. Any shortcomings are, needless to say, my own.

References Awbery, Gwenllian M. 1976 The Syntax of Welsh: a Transformational Study of the Passive. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Babby, Leonard H. 1981 A compositional analysis of voice in Turkish: passive, derived intransitive, impersonal, and causative. In Cornell Working Papers in Linguistics, (No. 1), Wayne Harbert, and Julia Herschensohn (eds.), 1–31. Ithaca: Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, Cornell University. 1993 Hybrid causative constructions: benefactive causative and adversative passive. In Causative and Transitivity, Bernard Comrie, and Maria Polinsky (eds.), 343–367. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Barber, Elizabeth J. W. 1975 Voice – beyond the passive. Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 1: 16–24. Berman, Ruth 1982 Dative marking of the affectee role: data from modern Hebrew. Hebrew Annual Review 6: 35–59. Bolinger, Dwight 1980 Wanna and the gradience of auxiliaries. In Wege zur Universalienforschung: Sprachwissenschaftliche Beriträge zum 60. Geburtstag von Hansjakob Seiler, Gunter Brettschneider, and Christian Lehmann (eds.), 292–299. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. Chappell, Hilary 1980 Is the get-passive adversative? Papers in Linguistics 13: 411–452. Chen, Lilly Lee 1994 The origin of the adversative passive. In Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: general session dedicated to the contributions of Charles J. Fillmore, Susanne Gahl, Andy Dolbey, and Christopher Johnson (eds.), 113– 124. Berkeley: Berkley Linguistics Society. Collins, Peter C. 1996 Get passive in English. World Englishes 15: 43–56. Comrie, Bernard 1976 Aspect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Croft, William 2000 Explaining Language Change: an evolutionary approach. London: Longman. Croft, William, Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot, and Suzanne Kemmer 1987 Diachronic semantic processes in the middle voice. In Papers from the 7th ICHL, Anna Giacalone Ramat et al. (eds.), 179–192. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Davies, William D. 1993 Javanese adversative passives, the 1-advancement exclusiveness law and mapping theory. Proceedings of Berkeley Linguistics Society 19: 101–111.

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Denison, David 1993 English Historical Syntax. London: Longman. Downing, Angela 1996 The semantics of get-passive. In Functional Descriptions, Ruqayia Hasan, Carmel Cloran, and David Butt (eds.), 179–205. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Duffley, Patrick J. 1992 The English Infinitive. London: Longman. Erades, Peter 1950 Points of modern English syntax XII. English Studies 31: 153–157. Español-Echevarria, Manuel, and Anoop Mahajan 1995 Infinitive as datives. Workshop on Clausal Architecture: temporal, aspectual and verbal projections. University of Bergamo, Italy. Fellbaum, Christiane 1985 Adverbs in agentless actives and passives. Chicago Linguistics Society 21: 21–31. Foley, William A., and Robert D. jr. Van Valin 1984 Functional Syntax and Universal Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Givón, Talmy 1975 Cause and control: on the semantics of interpersonal manipulation. In Syntax and Semantics (vol. 4), John Kimball (ed.), 59–89. New York: Academic Press. 1979 On Understanding Grammar. New York: Academic Press. 1984 Syntax: a Functional-typological Introduction (vol. 1). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 1989 Mind, Code, and Context. Essays in Pragmatics. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Givón, Talmy, and Lynne Yang 1994 The rise of the English get-passive. In Voice: Form and Function. Barbara Fox, and Paul J. Hopper (eds.), 119–149. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Granger, Sylviane 1983 The ‘Be + Past Participle’ Construction in Spoken English: with special emphasis on English. Amsterdam: North Holland. Greenberg, Joseph 1991 The last stages of grammatical elements: contractive and expansive desemanticization. In Approaches to Grammaticalisation, Elizabeth Traugott, and Bernd Heine (eds.), 301–314. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Gronemeyer, Claire 1999 On deriving complex polysemy: the grammaticalization of get. English Language and Linguistics 3: 1–39.

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Harris, Alice C. 1981 Georgian Syntax: a Study in Relational Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haegeman, Lilian 1985 The get-passive and Bruzio generalization. Lingua 66: 53–77. Haspelmath, Martin 1990 Grammaticalization of passive morphology. Studies in Language 14: 25–72. Hatcher, Anna Granville 1949 To get/be invited. Modern Language Notes 7: 433–446. Heine, Bernd 1993 Auxiliaries. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jespersen, Otto 1909–49 A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles. London: Allen and Unwin Ltd. Kana, Marit Ann 1986 Grammatical Relations in Bahasa Indonesian. Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University. Keenan, Edward L. 1985 Passive in the world languages. In Language Typology and Syntactic Description: Clause Structure (vol.1), Timothy Shopen (ed.), 243– 281. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kim, Kyunghwan 1994 Adversity and retained object passive construction. In Japanese/Korean Linguistics (vol. 4), Noriko Akatsuka (ed.), 331– 346. Stanford: Center for Language & Information. Lakoff, Robin 1971 Passive resistance. Proceedings of Chicago Linguistic Society 7: 146–162. Lass, Roger 1990 How to do things with junk: exaptation in language evolution. Journal of Linguistics 26: 79–102. Leclère, Christian 1976 Datif syntaxiques et datif éthique. In Méthodes en Grammaire Française, Jean-Claude Chevalier, and Maurice Gross (eds.), 73–96. Paris: Klincksieck. 1978 Sur une classe de verbes datifs. Langue Française 39. Leech, Geoffrey, and Jan Svartvik 1994 A Communicative Grammar of English (2nd ed.). London: Longman. Miller, Jim 1985 Semantics and Syntax: Parallels and Connections. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. O. E. D. = Simpson, J. A., and E. S. C. Weiner 1989 The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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Payne, Thomas E. 1997 Describing Morphosyntax: a Guide to Field Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rosta, Andrew 1995 How does this sentence interpret? The semantics of English mediopassive. In The Verbs in Contemporary English Theory and Description, Bas Aarts, and Charles F. Meyer (eds.), 123–144. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Saeed, John I. 2003 Semantics (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell. Shibatani, Masayoshi 1976 The grammar of causative constructions: a conspectus. In Syntax and Semantics (vol. 6): the grammar of causative constructions, Masayoshi Shibatani (ed.), 5–61. New York: Academic Press. 1977 Grammatical relations and surface cases. Language 53: 789–809. 1985 Passive and related constructions: a prototype analysis. Language 61: 821–848. 1994 An integrational approach to possessor raising, ethical datives, and adversative passives. Proceedings of Berkeley Linguistics Society 28: 461–486. Siewierska, Anna 1984 Passive: A Comparative Linguistic Analysis. London: Croom Helm. Sneddon, James Neil 1996 Indonesian: a comprehensive grammar. London: Routledge. Song, Jae Jung 1996 Causative and Causation. London: Longman. Strang, Barbara 1970 A History of English. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd. Tiee, Henry Hung-Yeh 1986 A Reference Grammar of Chinese Sentences. Tucson: Arizona. Toyota, Junichi 2003a Diachronic change in the passive: conceptual development and gradience. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Manchester. 2003b Locativisation in Hiberno-English: simple or complex adaptation? In Language Development in Europe, Helle Metslang, and Tiina Rüütmaa (eds.), 133–148. München: Lincom Europa. Vanrespaille, Mia 1991 A semantic analysis of the English get-passive. Journal of Applied Linguistics 5: 95–112. Visser, F. Th. 1963–1973 A Historical Syntax of the English Language. (4 vols). Leiden: E. J. Brill. Wierzbicka, Anna 1988 The Semantics of Grammar. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Verbs of letting: Some cognitive and historical aspects Augusto Soares da Silva

1. Introduction1 “Letting” is not an unanalyzable concept or a “semantic primitive”, but rather a complex conceptual category. The various concepts of “letting” are semasiologically gathered in a single verb, as in the English let and equivalent verbs in Romance languages, such as the Portuguese deixar or French laisser (the Romance verbs also include the concept of “leaving”), onomasiologically distinguished by means of different groups of verbs and also incorporated into or related to other concepts. The expression “verbs of letting” can be applied to either pure verbs of letting, such as let, permit, allow, or those which include “let” along with another function, such as release “let go out/away”. In this paper, we analyze some aspects of the conceptualization and historical development of concepts and verbs of letting within the framework of cognitive semantics; this follows some cognitive studies into the category of letting, such as those carried out by Talmy (1988, 2000) and Soares da Silva (1999, 2000, 2003a, b). Although other languages are referred to, our analysis will focus on English and Romance languages, particularly Portuguese. We begin, in sections 2 and 3, by identifying three concepts of “letting” and three correspondent groups of verbs of letting (respectively non-preventing, freeing-exemptive and permissive verbs). After this first step, we focus on important notions in the study of language and logic categorized by the verbs of letting, such as causation, enablement, permission and negation (section 4). Finally (section 5), we analyze the diachronic relations among all these concepts. We would like to mention that underlying this paper is a previous study into the semantics of the Portuguese verb deixar (Soares da Silva 1999, 2003b). 2. The concept(s) of “letting” Let us thus start with the meaning of “letting”. If we compare the examples from (1) to (3), we can distinguish three major senses, expressed by the

172 Augusto Soares da Silva verb let: respectively “not to prevent”, “to let go, to release” and “to allow, to permit”. (1) a. John started playing games (fooling around, acting silly) and I let him do it. b. John let the chicken burn. c. The plug’s staying loose let the water drain from the tank. (2) a. b. c. d.

John let the bird fly out (by opening the birdcage). John let the glass fall. He (finally) let her present her opinion. The plug’s coming loose let the water flow from the tank.

(3) John asked me if he could go to the cinema, and I let him go. The subject in (1) has done nothing to prevent an already existing or ongoing event: he has not prevented John from fooling around; he has not prevented a natural cause (fire) from producing the respective effect (burning), or the water from draining from the tank. On the other hand, the subject in (2) and (3) has done something not to prevent (and thus positively allow) the object from following its intrinsic tendency (the flight of the bird, the fall of the glass, the flow of the water, John’s desire to go to the cinema). In these examples, the subject creates the conditions for the fulfillment of a future event. That is to say, in (2) and (3), the subject takes on an “active” attitude, while in (1) the subject adopts a “passive” attitude. The action of the subject, in (2), occurs after a previous one, namely the blockage of the object (either by the subject or any other entity), and effectively becomes a removal of this blockage, which may be of either a physical or social/moral nature. In (3), in its turn, the subject’s action belongs to the deontic interpersonal domain, such as a speech act. In comparative terms, the senses of letting in (1) and (2) can refer both to the physical level (1b and 1c; 2a, 2b and 2d) and the interpersonal level (1a and 2c). Unlike in (1), the act of letting in (2), and especially in (3), does not imply the occurrence of the event designated by the complement. The examples (1’), (2’) and (3’) confirm this by including an adversative clause which denies the expectations implied in the verb let.2 (1’)

* I let John do/say foolish things, but he didn’t say/do them. * John let the chicken burn, but it didn’t burn.

(2’)

O João deixou o pássaro voar John let the bird fly out mas ele não voou.

(abrindo a gaiola), (by opening the birdcage),

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but it didn’t fly out ‘John opened the cage for the bird to fly out, but it didn’t.’ He (finally) let her present her opinion, but she didn’t present it. [in another possible world] John let the book fall, but it didn’t fall. (3’)

O pai do João deixou-o ir ao cinema, mas o João não foi. John’s father let him go to the cinema, but John didn’t go ‘John’s father gave John permission to go to the cinema, but he didn’t. ’

In a network representation: not to intervene

actively

passively

without previous intervention

not to prevent

to allow, to permit

let1

Figure 1. The senses of letting

let3

with previous intervention

to let go, to release let2

174 Augusto Soares da Silva The first sense (“not to prevent”), particularly when it involves an agent, such as in (1a, b), is the prototypical meaning of “let” in the Romance verb deixar/laisser (with a verbal complement; cf. Soares da Silva 1999, 2003b) and probably also of the English verb let. The second sense (“to let go”) is the diachronic prototype of the Romance verb, as we shall see further on. The third meaning, in English and the Romance languages, clearly involves the normative notion of giving permission and may even be used in the sense of “to authorize”. In terms of Talmy’s (1988, 2000) theory of force dynamics, these three meanings of “letting” involve a dynamics between two (physical or nonphysical) opposing forces. This opposition is between a stronger entity, encoded by the subject of let, and a force-exerting entity (therefore, a focal entity). Talmy (1988: 53) calls these two entities Antagonist and Agonist respectively. Using Talmy’s diagrams, we present in Figure 2 the corresponding force-dynamic patterns.3 I. ‘not prevent’

+

II. ‘let go, release’

+

III. ‘allow, authorize’

+

Figure 2. Three force-dynamic patterns of “letting”

The first pattern (I) conveys the image of the non-occurrence of a potential barrier (absence of barrier): the Antagonist keeps away, refraining from preventing the Agonist’s already ongoing movement. The second pattern (II) yields the image of the forceful removal of the barrier: the Antagonist disengages, ceases the blockage, moves away and releases the Agonist so that it can manifest its tendency towards motion. There is thus a clear difference between (I) and (II): the first involves a steady-state opposition consisting of the non-occurrence of impingement, while the second is a shifting opposition implying the cessation of impingement. The third pattern (III) may either correspond to the image of the removal of a barrier, although without focusing on the previous blockage, or the image of the non-occurrence of barrier: the Antagonist moves away or keeps away, in each case creating the deontic possibility (permissibility) for the Agonist to perform the action. The opposing force is now a socially acknowledged authority with the moral power to forbid/permit, and the focal force is an

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individual’s desire or request to perform a future and controllable action4 (therefore the Agonist’s force tendency is contingent [it is indicated in the third diagram with a dotted line] and the result of the force interaction is not expressed). One might argue that there is no “release, let go” sense per se for verbs/concepts of letting (including the English let and Romance deixar/laisser), since this sense emerges from the combination (through collocation or lexicalization) of a meaning of “let” and some notion of physical motion. “Release, let go” would instead be an instantiation of the “not prevent” schema, specifiable as “not to prevent from going/flying etc.”, whereby the accompanying motion sense is not provided by the verb of letting but by the verbal complement. For example, the contrast between (1c) and (2d) would not reside in the concept of “let” itself, but only in the fact of the plug’s “staying/coming” loose. Let us examine whether this hypothesis in favor of the absence of distinction between the first two senses of “letting” (“not prevent” and “release, let go”) is totally motivated. We can begin by observing that these two readings of “let” can occur in the same environment: (4)

I let the bird fly.

Example (4) is interpretable either in the sense that (i) the bird was already flying, and I did not interfere with its tendency to follow its course, or as that (ii) the bird was locked up or tied down, and I freed it. Clearly, this only shows that if there are two senses, then they are not automatically disambiguated on the basis of the syntagmatic context. Still, it could be the case that are not two senses involved at all, i.e. that the semantic relationship between the two readings is one of vagueness rather than polysemy. However, the two readings involved in example (4) can be shown to be distinct senses according to one of the traditional polysemy tests, namely the “p and not p” test (see Geeraerts 1993 for an overview). In fact, one can say, as in sentence (5): (5)

Even though it was not me that actually let the bird fly by opening its cage, I let it fly when I saw that it was free.

This means then that, while we should recognize a fundamental opposition in the category of “letting” between a causative and a normative meaning (as we shall see below), there are no good reasons for not accepting the distinction between the two (causative) meanings of “not to prevent” and “to release, to let go”. Besides, these three meanings are not always clearly

176 Augusto Soares da Silva distinguished: there are cases of overlap and vagueness. In fact, the “letting” category covers a continuum of non-opposition and agent involvement in the event, which goes from non-reflected passivity (due to indifference, carelessness or negligence) through a strong committed sense of granting permission to a voluntary ceasing of opposition and even to cases of affectedness (imposition of force). These three senses share a same force-dynamic schema: a stronger force entity, the Antagonist, fails to exert a force that might interfere with the natural disposition of a second entity, the Agonist. In other words, the schematic meaning of “letting” is non-intervention in or non-interference with the natural disposition of the Agonist. This negative option may be manifested in one of two force-dynamic forms: the non-occurrence of a potential impingement and the removal of an actual impingement.5 The Antagonist, encoded by the subject of the verb, and typically human (though also possibly non-animate, as in 1c and 2d), must be stronger than the Agonist in some way, i.e. it has to be a controller. The Agonist (necessarily a human controller in the normative sense of “letting”) must be conceived as showing an inevitable tendency towards motion (or, more generally, change), a tendency which must be seen as “natural” in some way, such as a natural tendency which cannot be resisted (2a, b, d), a conscious and voluntary tendency (3, 2c) or as an ongoing event (1). The non-interference of the Antagonist results in the Agonist being left free to follow its own natural course. It is important to note that the Agonist may be conceived not only dynamically, as in the previous examples, but also statically, as in (6). (6) a. John left Mary alone. b. John left the seat free. In this case the English verb is no longer let but leave. Yet, in Romance languages the verb is the same; only the syntactical construction of its complement differs: a verbal complement when the verb has the meaning of “let” – deixar P2 V (or deixar V P2), as in deixar o pássaro voar/voar o pássaro ‘to let the bird fly’ – and a nominal complement when the verb has the meaning of “leave” – deixar P2, or deixar P2 in a place/in a state/to P3, as in deixar a sala/a sua mulher ‘to leave the room/his wife’ and deixar a Maria no colégio/em paz/-lhe uma fortuna ‘to leave Mary at the school/alone/her a fortune’. What is interesting is that the schematic meaning of “letting” continues: not interfering with the natural disposition of the Agonist (in example 6, with its “natural state”). In fact, the natural state of a person is being at ease/at peace, just as the natural state of a seat

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can be construed as being free, i.e. as not occupied. Beyond that, the three meanings of “letting” are also possible.6 The fundamental difference between the two groups of meanings of the Romance verb (like the difference between the categories “let” and “leave”) is therefore that, in the first case (“let”), the Agonist is disposed to motion (or, more generally, change), while in the second (“leave”), it is disposed to rest (see Soares da Silva 2003b for the Portuguese verb deixar). Both categories nevertheless share the same force-dynamic schema, mentioned above. 3. Verbs of letting The three concepts of “letting” that we have just analyzed are onomasiologically distributed over three groups of verbs. The first group includes the verbs of non-preventing. These express the first force-dynamic pattern of letting cited above and comprise verbs like let1, tolerate, suffer, support, abstain, and the German verbs zulassen, dulden. These verbs show the subject’s passive attitude of not interfering, of keeping away (which is precisely the etymology of abstain) and of “letting/leaving things as they were”. They describe an event that is not posterior to the act of letting but concomitant with it, and imply the occurrence of that event. Some of these verbs, like tolerate, suffer, support and dulden presume a negative evaluation of the unprevented event, and the non-interventive attitude is one of condescension, indulgence or patience (therefore also showing a concessive force dynamics).7 The second group of verbs of letting includes the freeing-exemptive verbs. These express the second force-dynamic pattern of letting cited above and include verbs like let2, release, loosen, free, G. loslassen, entlassen, Du. loslaten, Fr. lâcher, Port. and Sp. soltar, largar, Russ. pustit’; and the exemptives like forgive, exempt, excuse. All these verbs presume a previous blockage (of either physical, social or moral nature) and express precisely the removal of this blockage. The third group of verbs of letting includes the strictly permissive verbs, used to grant permission, such as let3, permit, allow, Port./Fr. permitir/permettre, G. erlauben, gestatten, Du. veroorloven, toelaten, Russ. pozvolit’. These establish the deontic status of permissibility of an act.8 These verbs reveal the following characteristics (well described by Shannon 1987 for the permissive verbs in Modern German): they can be used performatively and belong to the class of directives; they presume the subject’s authority to permit or forbid, defined as a moral rule or a socially accepted norm, and presume at least an implicit request or desire for permission on the part of the other person; they commit the subject not to

178 Augusto Soares da Silva interfere with, punish or rebuke someone for performing the action; they concern a future and controllable event, and they do not imply the permitted event’s occurrence. None of these semantic features applies to the non-preventing or freeing-exemptive verbs. These two groups of verbs can nevertheless be considered permissive in a broad sense, i.e. in the sense of a non-interfering attitude towards a certain action or situation. The verbs of non-prevention join the truly permissive verbs because of the positive effects of the negative notion of non-interference. In addition, “permit” implies “not prevent” because the person who grants permission to someone to undertake a proposed action is thereby committed to the non-prevention of that action.9 And the freeing-exemptive verbs relate to the permissive verbs in that they express the dissolution of a previous impediment/hindrance (sometimes even of a previous prohibition), as Bach and Harnish (1979: 47) point out. We would like to add a brief reference to two strictly permissive Romance verbs, viz. the Portuguese verbs permitir and deixar, an observation which also applies to the English equivalents permit and let3. The verb deixar/let3 reveals a closer relationship between both participants and a more familiar or personal authority; in other words, it expresses a subjective (subjectified) authority, in the sense that Traugott (1989) uses the term (but also in the sense that Langacker 1990 uses the same term subjectification). Therefore, in formal registers, permitir is more often chosen, whereas deixar occurs more frequently in a colloquial and familiar register. Moreover, there are advantages to deixar/let3 resulting from its grammaticalization, as regards the force-dynamic and causative construal of the two events. This accounts for the syntactical consequence that the object of deixar/let3 cannot have the form of a pronoun like the object of permitir/permit, and that the verbal complement of deixar/let3 is selected as a whole, unlike those of permitir/permit (both the subject and the predicate of the permitted event are separately selected by the latter). Close to the verbs of granting permission we find the verbs of authorizing and the verbs of consent and also, less close, the verbs of agreement and approval (Shannon 1987: 27–34, 46–55). Verbs like authorize share the features of the truly permissive verbs, but imply an institutional and formal authority. More than granting permission, these verbs mean giving someone the “right” to perform something, in such a way that this act not only becomes permissible but may no longer be refused. Moreover, verbs like consent are commissive verbs, obliging the subject to something, which also implies the subject’s authority. The favorable attitude they denote does not entail that one is expressly in favor

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or desires what one consents, like the verbs of agreement and approval, but only that one tends to accept (to comply with) it. Therefore, consent can presuppose that the proposed event is in some way objectionable or contrary to the will of the one who consents; i.e. consent, like tolerate or admit, can introduce a force-dynamics of concession. Finally, the verbs of agreement, like agree, accept, assent, concur, admit, and those of approval, like approve, ratify: they all are constative verbs (Kiparsky and Kiparsky 1970), i.e. they express a belief, and they all express a force dynamics which can be described as “acting in concert” or “concurring” (the Antagonist initiates a force in tandem with the Agonist’s; see Dirven 1991 on agree), but the first verbs state that one is of the same (positive) opinion on a certain matter, whereas the latter denote a positive evaluation of something at stake, with some even describing official approval from an institutional authority (Shannon 1987: 46–50). Though the verbs of agreement (more than those of official approval) lack some typical features of permissive verbs, the positive opinion or evaluation expressed, especially if coming from an authority, can be interpreted by the addressee as a way of granting permission. Even if distinct, all these concepts are perfectly associated. The normative concepts of permission, authorization, consent and approval imply the action concept of non-preventing. This concept of action and the constative concepts of positive opinion and evaluation, in turn, may have the same effect, even if they do not entail the granting of permission. 4. Causation, enablement, permission, and negation The semantics of the verbs of letting involves important notions. One of these is “causation”. These verbs categorize causal relations between two events A and B, in such a way that B is conceptualized as causally dependent upon A. They categorize a conceptual schema of “letting” causation, which was mentioned above as non-interference with the somewhat natural disposition of the Agonist. It is precisely because of this non-interference that the Agonist is “left free” to follow its own natural course. They also categorize three specific types of letting causation. (I) A non-interventive or non-preventive causation, expressed by let1 and other verbs of non-preventing, which ascribes to the agent, who does nothing to stop or prevent an already ongoing event, total responsibility for that event. In other words, and adapting the Wierzbicka’s (1988: 237–255) formula, «Y did (kept doing) V» or «Y happened» because «X didn’t do

180 Augusto Soares da Silva something» and only because of that. Applying this formula to examples (1) above, and thus replacing the causative verb by a causal clause, we have: (7) a. John went on saying foolish things because I did nothing to stop him / I didn’t care / I wasn’t concerned about it.10 b. The chicken burnt because John was distracted. c. The water drains because the plug was loose. (II) An unblocking causation, expressed by let2 and other freeing-exemptive verbs, which ascribes to the agent (the one who removes the blockage) primary and total responsibility for the subsequent event: «Y does (will do) V» or «Y happens (will happen)» because «X no longer does something (i.e. no longer prevent)». Returning to examples (2):11 (8) a. The bird flew out (was able to fly out) because John opened the birdcage. b. The glass fell because John dropped it. c. She (finally) gave her opinion because he stopped preventing her from doing so. d. The water flows because the plug came loose. (III) A strictly permissive causation, expressed by let3 and other strictly permissive verbs, which ascribes to the agent that makes permissible a future event the primary responsibility for that event, as well as for its social and moral legitimization. Furthermore, this causation also stresses the causee’s will to perform the action: “Y does (will do) V”, because “X doesn’t do (does not oppose to) or does/says (permits, authorizes) something to Y” and because “Y wants to do that”. Applying this formula to example (3): (9)

John goes (will go) to the cinema because his father permits/authorizes him to go and because (for some reason) he wants to go to the cinema.

John could have done something else despite his father’s permission, and therefore the real cause for his going to the cinema has to be found in other circumstances, such as that he likes science fiction movies. Therefore, in this third case, the causal relationship between the two events is more indirect and complex than in the previous examples, or rather, it involves something else other than the notion of causation. In fact, what the Antagonist (the permitter) does, in exerting its authority, is not so much

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cause the action as legitimize it socially and morally. It is therefore on the normative plane that these things come to pass. In contrast, what the Antagonist does (stops preventing) or does not do (refrains from preventing) in the other two cases is viewed as the cause of the action taking place. In these cases, things happen on the causal plane, around a possible action by the Antagonist who is perceived as a factor in a causal chain. This means that the verbs of letting and above all the verb let itself and its equivalents in other languages elaborate a fundamental distinction between “let” as a codification of “cause” (causal let) and “let” as a codification of “norm” (normative or deontic let). We will see in section 5 that these two meanings are metaphorically connected. It is also important to recognize that the normative or deontic let is itself a specific kind of causation, precisely because the permitter is conceived as the responsible entity for the outcoming event. It is convenient at this point to clarify two points. First, the strictly causal interpretation of examples (1) and (2) and of the paraphrases (7) and (8) – and thus of the causal let – is obviously more evident in the physical domain, as in (1b, 1c, 2a, 2b, 2d) or in a sentence like “John let the stone fall” in the same non-preventing and unblocking senses. Even so, we may still distinguish between cases which involve purely physical forces, as in Talmy’s (1988) examples (1c) and (2d), and others. In (1c) and (2d), the causal relation is more direct; for this reason, (7c) and (8d) are perfect paraphrases of (1c) and (2d). In the other examples, there may be another reason or cause for the production of the effect: for example, the fall of the glass or stone is due to gravity (in folk believe, to the weight of things), but the naturalness of this cause leads to the external agent (the Antagonist) being attributed responsibility for the inevitable effect. What is interesting, therefore, is that the causal interpretation that is applied to examples (1b, 1c, 2a, 2b, 2d) is also possible in an interaction between two agents, e.g. in (1a, 2c) (compare with [3]) or in “John let the thief run away” (also in the non-preventing and unblocking senses). Surely there are qualitative differences, as Østergaard (1998: 801) points out, between physical letting and intentional letting. Similarly, there are differences between causation in the physical domain and causation in the mental and social domains: causal relations within the mental world, as Croft (1991: 167) and Verhagen and Kemmer (1997, Kemmer and Verhagen 1994) have pointed out, are viewed as complex and indirect, “in that the absence of immediate (telepathic) connections between minds only allows relations between minds via the ‘detour’ of the physical world” (Verhagen and Kemmer 1997).12 But it is also true that there are differences between human interaction of the nonpreventing type and human interaction that is strictly permissive, and that

182 Augusto Soares da Silva permissive causation is more indirect and complex than interpersonal nonpreventive causation. This suggests that, more important than the distinction between physical and non-physical letting causation (Østergaard 1998), is the distinction between causal (on both the physical and intentional levels) and normative letting. Secondly, “let” involves not only (physical) causes but also reasons; rather, it involves reasons more than it involves causes. In fact, what is featured in many of the because clauses of (7–9) are not really causes but reasons. Moreover, the cases in which the subject (the Antagonist) is not the agent, such as (1c, 2d) or “The curtain lets the light pass through”, are, in the Romance languages at least, peripheral (and interpreted as metaphoric extensions of constructions with a human subject). But, as Davidson (1963) argues, the reason for an action is also its cause (at least, under certain specifications). In other words, reasons are metaphorically conceptualized as causes (see Lakoff and Johnson 1999: 216 for an explanation of the metaphor “reasons are causes”). In addition, the differentiation between causality and (moral) responsibility – although these two notions are connected and the second may be taken as a feature of the first (cf. Pederson 1991) – is more useful than the rather vague traditional distinction between direct and indirect causation. Another important schematic notion involved in the verbs of letting is that of “enablement”. This notion is closely related to causation and both are expressed by let and its equivalents (Talmy 1976 had already asserted that let expresses “enabling causation”). As Newman (1996: 171) points out, these two notions have in common the idea that some entity/event A is a decisive factor for some later event B. However, while in “causation” A is identified as the sole or most salient factor contributing towards B, in “enablement” A creates the possibility for B, with other factors also contributing to making B a reality. “Enablement” is “like the causation of a potential for some event rather than the causation of the necessity of some event” (Newman 1996: 181). The same applies to the closely related concept of permission. Like enabling, to grant permission also expresses making something possible, but has the particular meaning of making something deontically possible, i.e. permissible. Permission is thus social normative enablement. Both enablement and permission can be conceived as weak causation, i.e. causation without the actual realization of the event, just as causation can be construed as a stronger kind of enabling, i.e. enabling plus the realization of an event (Newman 1996: 171). However there are differences in the enablement and permission meanings. The verbs of letting illustrate well the distinction between positive enablement and negated restriction. Sweetser (1990: 53) makes a

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distinction between these two types of enablement, in order to distinguish the modal verbs can and may, through two suggestive images: a positive enablement is like a full gas tank in a car which allows a driver to start on a journey (this is the case of can); negated restriction is like an open garage door which also, though in a different way, allows the driver to start on a journey (this is the case of may). Negated restriction is the prototypical type of enablement of let and other verbs of letting. As we saw above, the schematic act of letting removes a potential or existing barrier, thereby allowing some event to happen. But the removal of a barrier, especially the removal of an already existing barrier, may be seen as an act that imparts some capability or force to an entity, i. e., as an act of positive enablement. This interpretation is allowed by the two “active” senses of letting (let2 and other freeing-exemptive verbs, let3 and other strictly permissive verbs), but not by the “passive” sense of letting, i.e. let1 and other verbs of nonpreventing. Therefore, the active senses of letting admit a by-clause specifying the enabling event, as in (10) and (11). The non-preventive sense of letting cannot in turn admit a by-clause specifying the enabling event or the mode of non-preventing. Hence the unacceptability of (12). (10) I let the bird fly out (set it free) by opening the birdcage. I let the water drain from the tank by pulling the plug loose. (11) I let John (allowed/authorized John to) go to the cinema by finishing off his work myself. The teacher let the pupils pass (allowed the pupils to pass) by doing an easy test. (12) I let the chicken burn * by not lowering the flame on the stove. I let the water drain from the tank * by not putting the plug back in. It should also be pointed out that the strictly permissive sense allows the two kinds of enablement; in other words, within the deontic permissive meaning one can distinguish between positive permission (giving permission, making something permissible) and negated restriction (refraining from forbidding or restricting, refraining from making something not permissible). However, it is more often the case that the communicative act of granting permission is interpreted in the sense of positive enablement, because, according to Sweetser (1990: 53), “it is politer to (cooperatively) enable than to invoke your restrictive powers by overtly refraining from exercising them”. Therefore, the strictly permissive sense (of let3, permit, allow, etc.) is closer to enablement than causation. For the same reason, the verb permit and its equivalent in many languages

184 Augusto Soares da Silva develop the secondary meaning of “to make something (physically, actually) possible”, either in the sense of root (sociophysical) possibility or in the sense of epistemic possibility (a development opposed to that of the modal verbs). Another notion expressed by the verbs of letting and which overlaps with the previous ones is negation. Letting causation is negative (and like causation, negation is also construed in force dynamic terms). That is, the Antagonist does not exert a force that may impinge, or exerts a force in order to stop impingement, on the natural disposition of the Agonist. It is precisely because of this non-interference, this negative act, that the Agonist may follow its own natural course. We conceive that someone is made a “causer” and “responsible” not only through what he does, but also through what he does not do or allows to be done; not only through actions, but also through omissions or abstentions. Negation is in fact an essential feature of the semantics of let and its equivalents. Both the English verb and, more comprehensively, the Romance verb (deixar, laisser etc.) categorize the negative option (of simple causality): either opting for acting no more – a value implied in the “active” senses (negative version of the durative aspect) –, or choosing not to act – a value implied in the “passive” uses (negative version of the inchoative aspect). Note that the active and passive options for negative causation are grammaticalized by the Iberian periphrasis deixar de/dejar de + infinitive: (13) a. Ele deixou de fumar. ‘He quit smoking.’ b. Ele deixou de ir ao cinema para me ajudar. ‘He refrained from going to the cinema in order to help me.’ The concepts of letting thus permit the creation of another world comprising negative “realities” (in the real world there are no negative situations). In addition, the negation of a proposition presupposes its positive assertion (Givón 1979, ch. 3), or, in the terminology of cognitive grammar, negation is “conceptually dependent”, for it makes salient internal reference to the situation whose existence it denies (Langacker 1991: 132). It is in this sense that the verbs of letting, and particularly the Romance verb deixar/laisser, lexicalize negation (‘no longer’ in “active” uses and ‘not’ in “passive” uses) of the positive meaning (the event schema) of each of the constructions in which they participate. Indeed it is in this way that the meaning of the verb with negative import is related to the meaning of the construction, as Goldberg (1997: 393) points out.

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Still on the question of causation, the letting category suggests the same cognitive and cultural interventionist model of causation that we can find in other causative concepts. As Von Wright (1971) pointed out, the concept of causation presupposes intervention in the “natural course of events”. This intervention determines an alteration in the natural course, thus enabling a situation in the world to either persist or to change. The letting category (and not only “let” but also “leave”) expresses precisely the negation of intervention in the natural course of events: things continue as they were (the Agonist continues to exist in the same way as it did before) as a result of the non-interference of the Antagonist. As Bernárdez (2000) points out, the letting (and leaving) category involves an ideology that may be described by the folk postulate “things are as they are unless someone interferes”.13 5. Historical aspects Let us now consider the historical construction of these concepts. The semantic development of the Romance verb is quite illustrative. Figure 3 shows in a schematic way the semantic evolution of the Portuguese verb deixar (the circles in bold type indicate prototypical centers). The same could be said of the cognates of deixar (leixar in Old Portuguese), such as the Spanish dejar, French laisser, Italian lasciare, and Romanian a lăsa, since they present practically the same development (cf. Soares da Silva 2003a). The Latin etymon laxare ‘to loosen, to slacken’ (bonds, fastenings, bolts, ropes, cables, attachments; body, mind) and originally also ‘to widen, to enlarge’ (derivative of laxus ‘slack, loose’) developed the sense ‘to let go’ (‘to release’) and this metonymic sense became prototypical around the second century AD. A corpus of more than 5,000 occurrences suggests that it was probably on the basis of this new prototype that the two groups of senses (‘leave’ and ‘let’) of deixar (and of the other Romance verbs) were formed. This formation started in Post-Classical and Late Latin, and comprised at first the following two groups of senses: (i) ‘to grant (peace, truce, leave, and rights)’ and ‘to forgive (sins, debts)’ – senses formed mainly within the language of the Church but which were to disappear in the Romance verb – and also ‘to allow, to consent, to authorize’, formed with the infinitive from the sixth century onwards as laxare + infinitive then replaced sinere (‘to let, to allow’); (ii) in competition with relinquere ‘to leave’ and finally substituting for it, the senses ‘to go away, to abandon’ (from the third or fourth century, or maybe earlier, as a nuance of ‘to let

186 Augusto Soares da Silva go’: when somebody drops, lets go, or releases an object, they also become separated from it), ‘to leave somewhere or in a state (to move away afterwards/without having moved or altered the object)’, ‘to abandon (to renounce, to cede) possession of’, and, with clear evidence only from the eighth or ninth century, ‘to transfer due to death, to bequeath, to donate’.

loosen

Classical Latin laxare

A: let go

A

II

III-IV VI

B: LET allow, permit, authorize, not oppose, not prevent; grant (peace, right), forgive [non-existent in Portuguese], etc. C: LEAVE go away, abandon, leave somewhere or in a state, not approach, transfer possession (bequeath, donate), etc.

A

B

VIII-IX

A

B

allow

Old Portuguese B

C

A

C

abandon

C

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B Modern Portuguese

not intervene

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abandon

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Figure 3. Schematic representation of the semantic development of the Portuguese verb deixar

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From Late Latin to Romance languages, there followed a process of deprototypicalization of ‘to let go’, which led to the consolidation of the two groups (‘leave’ expressed by deixar, laisser, etc. plus a nominal complement, and ‘let’ expressed by deixar, laisser, etc. plus a verbal complement) into two prototypical semasiological restructurings, and to a homonymic tension between them (a homonymic split that is not yet consummated today, given that deixar and its cognates keep a certain internal semantic coherence). In the period from Late Latin to Old Portuguese, the disappearance of the original meaning ‘to loosen, to slacken’ and, above all, the deprototypicalization of ‘to let go’ caused the deixar prototype(s) to shift from the spatial domain to the psycho-social and moral domains, giving rise, on the one hand, to the prototypicalization of ‘to allow, to permit, to authorize’ and, on the other, to the prototypicalization of ‘to abandon’. From Old to Modern Portuguese, the strengthening of the passive attitude of the subject of deixar (i.e. a process of de-agentivization) gave rise to the prototypicalization of “not to intervene, not to prevent” and, consequently, to a structural asymmetry of prototypical centers: whereas in Old Portuguese the two prototypical senses (i.e. ‘to allow’ and ‘to abandon’) were both “active” (agentive), from Classical Portuguese onwards, the prototypical reading of one group (‘let’) has become “passive” or non-agentive (‘not to prevent, not to intervene’), while the “active” prototype (‘to abandon’) in the other group (‘leave’) has been retained. 14 The physical unblocking dynamics (‘to let go’) was thus the primary letting, from which the two other kinds of letting (and letting causation) emerged. The historical de-agentivization and the consequent prototypical restructuring from the strictly permissive (‘to allow, to permit’) to nonpreventive causation made the Romance verb more of a causative than a permissive verb, and also onomasiologically more salient for the expression of “letting” causation. The prototypical domain of letting in Portuguese and other Romance languages (and, probably, in many other languages, at least European ones) is not that of physical interaction but of psycho-social interaction, as the result of the first prototype shift mentioned. Both the history of the Romance verb and the history of the equivalent verb in other Indo-European and Non-Indo-European languages show the 15 association of three concepts: “release”, “leave” and “let/permit”.

Edited by Foxit Reader Copyright(C) by Foxit Corporation,2005-2009 Silva For da Evaluation Only. 188 Augusto Soares RELEASE

LEAVE

LET/PERMIT

Figure 4. An evolutionary triangle

The main diachronic relations between these concepts configure the evolutionary triangle represented in Figure 4. Let us now consider some examples of these evolutionary courses (the following list is necessarily a short one): x RELEASE ĺ LEAVE + LET/PERMIT: the evolution from ‘let go, let free, release’ (derived from ‘loosen’) to ‘leave’ and to ‘let, permit’, typical of the Romance languages (cf. Latin laxare), can also be found in a Non-Indo-European language: Kannada bid̙u ‘let loose’ ĺ ‘quit’ (as work), ‘allow’, ‘permit’; ‘go away’ (Haser 2000: 185). x LOOSEN ĺ RELEASE: Latin verbs laxare (from laxus ‘slack, loose’), seen above, and solvere (from which derives the Portuguese and Spanish verb soltar ‘release’), the Greek verb Į˸ʌȠȜȪȦ (compound of Į˸ʌȩ ‘away, from’ and ȜȪȦ ‘loosen, unbind’), the French verb lâcher (< lâche ‘loose, slack’ < *lascus = Latin laxus), Swedish verb lösgiva (compound of lös ‘loose, free’ and giva ‘give’). A later development leads to the social and moral exemptive concept: this is the case of the Latin laxare in the expression peccata laxare ‘to forgive the sins’ and the expression of Old Portuguese desatar os pecados, literally ‘to unbind/untie the sins,’ and it is also the case of the Romance verb and its English cognate absolve, derived from the Latin solvere. Other origins of Indo-European words for ‘release’: ‘let slip’, ‘send, throw’, ‘lose’ (Buck 1949: 768). x RELEASE ĺ LEAVE: Latin laxare, considered above, Greek Į˸ijȓȘȝȚ (compound of ‘ϟȘȝȚ ‘let go, throw’), which replaced the verb ȜİȓʌȦ ‘leave’, French quitter (‘to free from a duty’ and then ‘to stop doing something and leave’, adj. quitte ‘freed from a juridical duty’, from Middle Latin quitus and Classical Latin quietus ‘quiet’) and the English cognate quit.

Edited by Foxit Reader Copyright(C) by Foxit Corporation,2005-2009 Verbs of letting For Evaluation Only. x

x

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ĺ LET/PERMIT: an interesting case is the development of the strictly permissive sense in a group of Latin verbs. The semantic evolution from ‘let go, release’ to ‘allow, permit’ which, as we saw, took place in laxare, occurs in other Latin verbs, previous to laxare and which were replaced by this one. Firstly, the verbs sinere and permittere. Sinere was at first a motion verb with the sense of ‘let go’. Still in the pre-literary period the verb’s meaning changed to ‘allow, permit’, with infinitive. Permittere (the etymon of the Portuguese verb permitir and their Romance cognates and the English permit) ‘send through’ [per + mitto] meant ‘let go, release’ and still was used in Classical and PostClassical Latin with this sense. It was from this meaning that the sense of ‘permit, authorize’ (in a juridical context) was formed. Other Latin verbs with the permissive use: remittere (‘send back, return’, ‘forgive’, etc.), dimittere (‘send to all over, disperse’, ‘forgive’) and, despite not having exactly the meaning ‘let go’, also desinere (‘cease, end’) and relinquere (‘leave behind’, see below). LEAVE ĺ LET/PERMIT Indo-European languages: Latin relinquere ‘leave’ (more usual than linquere), the verb which was replaced by laxare in this sense of ‘go away, abandon, leave as a heritage’, Modern Greek Į˸ʌȓȞȦ ‘leave’ and popular word for ‘let, permit’, Gothic lƝtan and the Germanic cognates lassen, let, laten, etc., the colloquial verb leave in U.S. ‘let, permit’, the English noun leave ‘permission’, Church Slavic ostaviti (‘leave’ ĺ ‘permit’). Non-Indo-European Languages (quoted from Haser 2000: 184– 185): Hausa bari, bar (‘leave’; ‘let’, ‘allow’), Ge‘ez [Classical Ethiopic] xadaga (‘leave’, ‘abandon’; ‘allow’, ‘permit’), Kannada bid̙u (‘let loose’; ‘quit’ (as work), ‘allow’, ‘permit’; ‘go away’ – bid̙uhu ‘leaving’, etc.), Hungarian hagy- (‘let’; ‘leave’, ‘allow’, ‘permit’; ‘leave/bequeath something someone’ – from an etymon meaning ‘let’, ‘leave’, ‘remain’), Dami i-tor-ne#-ya (‘let’, ‘permit’, literally ‘third-leave-third sing-INF’), Lango wèkkò (‘leave’; ‘let’, ‘allow’), Swahili acha (‘leave’, ‘go (part, depart) from’; ‘abandon’; ‘allow’, ‘permit’), Proto-Bantu *-dèk- (‘allow’; ‘leave’), Yoruba fisílè̙ (‘leave’; ‘allow’), Miskitu swi (‘leave’, ‘let, permit’, quoted from Pederson 1991: 261).16 RELEASE

Let us now take a brief look at the motivations for the evolutionary lines presented in the triangle of Figure 4. The main semantic change from “let go, release” to “leave” and “let/permit” and, more directly, from “leave” to

190 Augusto Soares da Silva “let/permit” consists of a particular phenomenon of image-schema transformations,17 namely of an inversion of the dynamic participant (the one who carries out the movement), i.e. the object in “let go” and “let/permit” and the subject in “leave”: from the image of the object’s movement in “let go” to the image of the subject’s movement in “leave”, and from the image of the subject’s movement in “leave” to the image of the object’s movement in “let, permit”. But the central inversion transformation (the simplest and the most easily explainable) is between “let go” and “go away”. In fact, “to let go” implies “to allow x to go away” which develops, owing to an inversion of the dynamic participant, into “to go away”. Conversely, “to move away from” develops through the inversion of the dynamic participant into “to allow x to go away”, and the latter, in turn, develops by implication into “to let go”. The examples given show that this inversion is more frequently realized from the image of the object’s dynamism (“let go”) to the image of the subject’s dynamism (“go away”). In the Romance verbs deixar, laisser, etc., it is on the level of the semasiological realization of these image schemas, and due to the grammaticalization of the category with the object dynamic (deixar, laisser with verbal complement), that this inversion shifts from “go away” to “let go” (see Soares da Silva 2003b: 289–295, 309–311 for a detailed description). It is, therefore, the inversion transformation involving the dynamic participant that is behind the diverging development and incomplete homonymization of the two groups of meanings of the Romance verb deixar, laisser, etc. (‘leave’ and ‘let’). As we saw above, this homonymic tension results from a historical process of deprototypicalization of “to let go”, which may thus constitute the first step towards a homonymic split, and manifests itself in the existence of two categories (“leave” and “let”), which exhibit different prototypical structures.18 But the homonymization of deixar and its cognates is not yet complete, as evidenced by the fact that the Romance verb still presents some internal coherence. And the principal factor lending internal cohesion to deixar, laisser, etc. is the image-schema transformations of inversion that bind the two groups of senses together. The symmetry of an inversion relationship allows developments opposed to those represented in Figure 4 (i.e. from “let/permit” to “leave” or to “release”, or from “leave” to “release”). It is highly possible to find examples of these contradictory paths. Accounting for this hypothesis there is also the fact that there are letting verbs which extend their meaning in opposite directions across the wide semantic space of causation: for example, the German verb lassen is an example of an extension that goes from a letting/permissive causation to a coercive causation (also the Dutch

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cognate laten; cf. Verhagen and Kemmer 1997). The Tamil equivalent cey shows the opposite extension (Pederson 1991: 274). The extensions portrayed in Figure 4 are however more natural and frequent than the opposite ones. This is due to the unidirectional metaphorical extension involved in them, especially the tendency to metaphorically conceptualize abstract domains, in this case social interaction (“let/permit”), in terms of concrete domains, in this case physical force interaction (“let go, release” and “leave = go away”). Let us look now at the genesis of the strictly permissive meaning. In various Indo-European and non-Indo-European languages, it is formed from “to leave” and, more precisely, from “to go away” by inversion of the dynamic participant and by metaphorization. In the Latin etymon laxare and other Latin permissive verbs, it results from a metonymic-metaphoric extension of “to let go”. The metonymic extension occurs by perspectivization of an implication (strictly, an implicature) of “to release, to let go” and, in the case of laxare, also indirectly of “to loosen, to slacken”. This perspectivization is prepared for and facilitated by the already non-spatial meaning of “to grant (peace, right), to forgive”. The metaphoric development consists of the projection of the physical-motor image of removal of a barrier (and of the consequent movement of the previously blocked object) onto the social-moral domain of granting permission (the condition for which the object may realize the desired act) by means of a primary metaphoric elaboration of the same image in the moral sense too “to pardon, to exempt”. This, and other diachronic data, shows that permission is conceptualized as the absence or elimination of barriers (potential or actual) in the way of the movement of an agent towards a goal (and prohibition as an obstruction to that movement). More generally, permissive and prohibitive concepts are inscribed in the systems of metaphors underlying our moral conceptions and in a cultural model of morality, understood as a system of fixed restrictive laws that determine what we should, should not and may do (Johnson 1993, Lakoff 1996). The same diachronic data also shows that the normative meaning of letting is the result of a metaphorization of the causal meaning. This means that the causal/natural world serves in this case as a model for the intentional/social world. This fact is even more significant, since historically, as Von Wright (1971, ch. 2, sections 8 and 9) points out, the most common case is precisely the opposite: for example, the original sense of , the Greek name for cause, ĮȚ˸IJȓĮ, is ‘accusation, imputation, guilt’ (ĮȓIJȚȠȢ ‘responsible, guilty’, ĮȚ˸IJȑȦ ‘to argue’), and the Latin word causa was originally also a juridical term, with the meaning of “process, dispute, litigation”, a sense that the Romance word still keeps today. Another semantic change, well represented in the history of the Portuguese verb deixar and its Romance cognates, is the de-agentivization

192 Augusto Soares da Silva of the grammatical subject. This weakening of agentivity occurs both within the category of leave, as “not to approach”, and within the category of let, in the sense of “not to intervene, not to prevent”, but it is in this last category that it acquires greater prominence, in Romance and Germanic languages. This semantic change involves another image-schema transformation of inversion: from an active attitude on the part of the subject and an initial situation of contact with the object to a passive attitude on the part of the subject and an initial situation of non-contact. This same semantic change is an interesting example of what Langacker (1999a, 1999b: ch. 10) describes as attenuation in subject control (a pervasive phenomenon that plays a major role in certain kinds of grammaticalization): an agentive subject gradually losing control over the activity encoded in the complement verb. This loss of control and the deagentivization mentioned above are identical. Other semantic changes and other cognitive mechanisms can be analyzed in the development of the letting concepts. However, these will not be considered here.19 6. Conclusion The “letting” category and the so-called “verbs of letting” present, at least in English and the Romance languages, a vast and diverse conceptual and semantic space. They involve key notions such as causation, enablement, permission, negation and these notions overlap in different ways. All these notions are complex and involve more primitive experientially grounded notions of force dynamics. We point out the following results including some remarks on Talmy’s (1988, 2000) explanation of the letting category. Firstly, although the letting category may be analyzed in terms of purely physical force dynamics, as Talmy (1988) does, the prototypical domain of “letting” in Romance languages (deixar, laisser etc.) and, we believe, in many other languages, at least European ones, is not that of physical interaction but of psycho-social interaction, as a result of a shift of prototypes: the forces and barriers of letting dynamics are prototypically human agents. The concept of “let” (rather, the English verb let and the Romance verb deixar, laisser with verbal complement) exhibit a cluster of senses. We can distinguish three main senses, namely “not prevent”, “release” and “permit” (the first two operating in both the domain of physical force and in the psycho-social domain, and the third only in the latter). The prototypical meaning of the Romance verb (and probably also of let) is “not prevent” involving agency. Naturally, the dynamics of letting

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on the level of agency and even more on the interpersonal level is different from that which can be found on the physical level. However, and this is the second result, the concept of “let” and the verbs of letting reveal another distinction, namely between causal letting (including the two meanings of “not prevent” and “release, let go”, in both the physical and interpersonal domains) and deontic (permissive-normative) letting. The diachronic data show that strictly permissive concepts are a metaphorization of those causal concepts. Integrating these two results, with attention to the crucial question of the meanings of “let”, it is important to point out that this dichotomy does not contradict the trichotomic division; that is, the causal/normative opposition and the opposition between “not prevent”, “release” and “permit” (and also the opposition between the activity and passivity of the subject or Antagonist) are complementary. Indeed, this is in accordance with the typically multidimensional nature of a polysemic structure. Thirdly, two other observations may be made about Talmy’s analysis. In first place, although the non-occurrence of impingement (the nonpreventive letting) may be considered as conceptually derivative or extended in the context of physical forces (Talmy 1988: 59–60), the Romance languages clearly show that this is the prototypical dynamics of “let”. As to the Agonist’s intrinsic force tendency, the opposition between “towards motion” and “towards rest” is clearly (and semasiologically) elaborated by the two groups of meanings of the Romance verb corresponding to let and leave. Fourthly, there exists a conceptual schema of letting causation and instantiations and elaborations in domains that are more or less causal. The letting category encodes negative causation, in the sense that the Antagonist fails to exert a force that might interfere with the natural disposition of the Agonist. As Lakoff and Johnson (1999: ch. 11) point out, causation is conceptualized in terms of the forced motion metaphor, at least in Western culture. Although the “letting” causation corresponds to this metaphor as well, there is another, probably more interesting, aspect on the idea of causation that it reveals, namely the idea of intervention in the “natural course of events”. Fifthly and methodologically, the cognitive and diachronic perspective allows us to figure out the semantic and conceptual complexity of the (schematic) notion of “letting” (including the letting+leaving Romance verb) and also its experiential motivations and internal coherence. Finally, we would like to leave behind a challenge: could it be that there exists a universal category of “letting” and of “verbs of letting”? Only typological studies will be able to respond to this.

194 Augusto Soares da Silva Notes 1. I would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their most valuable comments and suggestions. I am also grateful to Dirk Geeraerts, Per Aage Brandt, Gary Palmer, and Ricardo Maldonado for their comments upon earlier versions of this paper. Needless to say, the remaining errors and unclarities are for my account. This research was partially supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Camões Institute. 2. Two examples in Portuguese are given for both (2a) and (3). The corresponding examples in English are not natural. For that reason both a word-for-word translation and an equivalent sentence are given. 3. The circle represents the Agonist and the concave figure the Antagonist; + : : the stronger entity, > : intrinsic force tendency toward motion-action, : resultant of the force resultant of the force interaction is motion, interaction is rest. Note that (1c) and (2d) are examples from Talmy (1988: 59, 57). 4. An action not only future but also controllable, as may be proved by the oddness and even unacceptability of the following example: * He allowed/permitted John to unintentionally kill the thief. In this sense of “letting”, the object participant must therefore be a controller. In the two other senses of “letting”, on the other hand, it is irrelevant whether the object participant is or not a controller. 5. It is interesting to see that the definition of the conceptual scheme of “letting” proposed by several authors within cognitive semantics is somewhat ambiguous: “cessation or non-occurrence of impingement” (Talmy 1988: 59), “taking away (or keeping away) a potentially present barrier” (Sweetser 1990: 51), “absence or forceful removal of an impediment to action” (Lakoff and Johnson 1999: 221). 6. Particularly in (6a), though, the immediate reading of (6a) corresponds to (1): not interfering (to refrain oneself from interfering) in a pre-existing situation. And in (6b) the meaning of “letting” intersects with the meaning of “making”, but the latter is previous to the event and thus seen as the result. Note that cases of conceptual overlap between “leave” and “let” (semasiologically between deixar with nominal complement and deixar with verbal complement) occur when the verbal complement (V2) of deixar/let designates a state; in this case, the difference becomes subtle, or even disappears (in contrast, a V2 designating a dynamic process maximizes the contrast). For instance, deixar estar/ficar a porta aberta ‘to let the door be/remain open’ and deixar a porta aberta ‘to leave the door open’ are no doubt truth conditionally equivalent, and the first example may even be genuinely indeterminate as far as its membership in either one of the two deixar categories is concerned. However, it is possible that the circumstances in which the two constructions are used are not exactly the same. Given the door’s disposition to close, deixar estar/ficar a porta aberta may be preferred in a context in which something has to be done to prevent the door from closing (Soares da Silva 2003b: 292).

Verbs of letting 7.

8.

9.

10. 11.

12.

13.

14.

195

The Romance cognate for tolerate/tolerance expresses an active and even positive attitude of respect towards the beliefs and different behaviors of others. This use of the verb is the result of a historical and linguistic development. From the 19th century onwards, the Romance verb, of religious origin, started to be applied to other kinds of beliefs and opinions of the social and political spheres and to the free thought and expression, in general. Either in the sense of determining the permission of a deontically undetermined action, or in the sense of removing some antecedent restriction or prohibition, or even in the sense of making an action permissible, which was neither explicitly forbidden nor undetermined; in each case, to grant permission is equivalent to “let someone free” to do what s/he wants. Likewise, “forbid” implies “prevent”, in that prohibition is an instruction not to perform an action, but precisely to stop an action from being performed (Lyons 1977: 745). However, “not prevent” does not imply “permit” (just as “prevent” does not imply “forbid”): that which does not prevent an action from being realized does not mean (though it could be interpreted so) that it makes it permissible (deontically possible) but only that it does not make it actually impossible. On the commissive sense implied by the strictly permissive verbs, Shannon (1987: 9) clarifies it thus: “Having granted permission, the speaker is committed to a positive stance toward the proposed action: his permission entails something of a promise that he will not attempt to prevent the action”. John’s action is certainly also due to his own will or eventually other circumstances, but the speaker is ignorant of this here. In cases like (8a) there is an apparent conflict between the negative formulation and the positive value of the causal subclause. Obviously, opening a birdcage is not “no longer doing something”, but is surely a way of “no longer preventing” the natural tendency of the bird to fly. Mental causation involves situations in which mental events such as perceiving, remembering, making decisions etc. play a causal role in the physical world. According to Davidson (1963), Østergaard (2000) develops the idea that mental causation involves a desire to bring something about and a belief that this or that action will bring it about. Brandt (1998) points out that distinct causal schemas are involved in the basic domains (of experience): while the physical domain has simple “caused motion” (or “billiard-ball” causation), the intersubjective domain has an interactive “letting” schema (or intentional causation). The categories “let-leave” and “keep” express two opposed force-dynamic modes of non-alteration of a particular situation (or of non-alteration of the “natural course of things”). For a detailed analysis of the opposition between “leave things as they are” and “keep things as they are”, see Soares da Silva (2004). Despite the semantic similarity, both diachronic and synchronic, between the cognate Romance verbs, there is an interesting structural difference between French laisser and Romanian a lăsa, on the one hand, and Portuguese deixar, Spanish dejar, and Italian lasciare, on the other. The French and Romanian

196 Augusto Soares da Silva

15.

16.

17.

18.

verbs (laisser more than a lăsa) were affected by onomasiological changes in symmetrical points of the initial structure: they lost the senses “to let go” and “to go away” (laisser in particular also lost the sense of “to abandon, to sever a relation”) giving rise to French lâcher (cognate with laisser) and Romanian a da drumul (literally ‘to give way to’) on the one hand, and French quitter/abandonner and Romanian a părăsi on the other. This means that laisser and a lăsa lost their more spatial senses on both sides of the Latin and proto-Romance structure (senses which, despite being demoted, are maintained in deixar, dejar, and lasciare). As we will see below, these two spatial meanings (semasiologically demoted in deixar, dejar and lasciare and onomasiologically promoted in French and Romanian) are precisely the two poles of the semantic inversion of the dynamic participant. For a detailed analysis of the semantic development of the Portuguese verb deixar, see Soares da Silva (1999, 2003b: 307–314). For a detailed comparison of the semantic history and structure of the Romance cognate verbs, see Soares da Silva (2003a). In A Dictionary of selected synonyms in the principal Indo-European languages, Buck (1949: 1340) notes that “many of the words for ‘let, permit’ coincide, or are cognate with those for ‘leave’ or ‘let go, release’, that is, meant originally ‘leave free to do’”. Another important origin of the permissive sense is the concept of “give”. The permissive sense of Latin laxare derives from “let go, release” through “concede, grant (peace, rights)”, but other languages account for further more direct examples (Newman 1996: 181–201; Haser 2000: 184), among which Russian dat’ (‘give’, ‘let, permit’, ‘enable’), Mandarin gČi (‘give’, ‘let, permit’, ‘enable’, ‘make’), Finnish antaa (‘give’, ‘let’, ‘grant, permit’), Hebrew [natan] (‘give’, ‘allow’), Tamil kotu (‘give’, ‘allow’), Japanese ataeru (‘give’, ‘allow, permit’), Egyptian (dj ‘give’, ‘let, allow’), Indonesian (beri, memberi(kan) ‘give’, ‘permit’). Other examples include expressions like give way, Portuguese dar/ter luz verde [‘to give/have green light’], and constructions like give permission, give opportunity, give the right(s). Clearly, in these constructions, give behaves as a “light verb” and accordingly the notion of permission is contributed more by the noun than by the verb. Nevertheless, the collocation of “give” with such nouns is itself indicative of a “close semantic association between GIVE and permission/enablement” (Newman 1996: 183). Another origin is “suffer, endure”: for instance, tolerate, from Latin tolerare ‘take, support, hold up (a weight, a physical or moral burden)’. In cognitive semantics, image schemas are imaginative, non-propositional, and dynamic patterns of our bodily movements through space, manipulations of objects, and perceptual interactions (Johnson 1987; Lakoff 1987). They have an internal structure and can be metaphorically elaborated to provide for our understanding of abstract concepts. It is important to note that “let go, release”, the prototype of the Latin verb laxare, unites (rather than separates) the two image schemas through the relation of inversion that exists between the object’s dynamism and that of the

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subject. In fact, laxare is originally neutral in relation to the two images: “to let someone free” can occur by leaving a person (image of the subject’s dynamism, i.e. “leave”), or by allowing them to go away (image of the object’s dynamism, i.e. “let”). Although the latter image predominates, the two image schemas are compatible with the “let go” sense of laxare, without any ambiguity being present. The polysemy of laxare arises later, when the two instantiations of “let go” developed different uses. 19. This is the case of the syntactical-semantic reanalysis of the bivalent structure (‘to release or to let go, somewhere’) into the trivalent construction of the verbs “to leave” (‘to leave the object in a new place’): the locative element (where the subject “left” the object, the place where the object remained and from where the subject later withdrew) is thus reinterpreted as a verb complement. Another example is the metonymic association between “not intervening” (let) and “transferring the right of intervention, of possession; to bequeath” (leave): “to transfer the right to intervene” leads, by implication (strictly, an implicature), to “not to intervene”. The person who transfers the right of possession, use, or responsibility (or any other right of intervention) to another person can no longer intervene (at least not directly) and, thus, allows or does not prevent someone else from intervening. Conversely, “not to intervene” leads, by implicature, to “to transfer the right of intervention”, for the person who does not intervene gives someone else the possibility of intervening.

References Bach, Kent, and Robert M. Harnish 1979 Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. Bernárdez, Enrique 2000 Cultural determination of cause-effect. On a possible folk model of causation. Paper presented at the Winter Symposium “Structures of Causal Meaning”, Center for Semiotic Research, Aarhus, 27–29 January 2000. Brandt, Per Aage 1998 Domains and the grounding of meaning. In Estudios de Lingüística Cognitiva, José L. Cifuentes Honrubia (ed.), 467–478. Alicante: Universidad de Alicante. Buck, Carl D. 1949 A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages. Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press. Croft, William 1991 Syntactic Categories and Grammatical Relations: The Cognitive Organization of Information. Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press.

198 Augusto Soares da Silva Davidson, Donald 1963 Actions, reasons, and causes. Journal of Philosophy 60: 685–700. Dirven, René 1991 Schema and subschemata in the lexical structure of the verb agree. Cahiers de l’Institut de Linguistique de Louvain 17: 25–42. Geeraerts, Dirk 1993 Vagueness’s puzzles, polysemy’s vagaries. Cognitive Linguistics 4: 223–272. Givón, Talmy 1979 On Understanding Grammar. New York: Academic Press. Goldberg, Adele E. 1997 The relationships between verbs and constructions. In Lexical and Syntactical Constructions and the Construction of Meaning, Marjolijn Verspoor, Kee Dong Lee, and Eve Sweetser (eds.), 383– 398. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Haser, Verena 2000 Metaphor in semantic change. In Metaphor and Metonymy at the Crossroads: A Cognitive Perspective, Antonio Barcelona (ed.), 171– 194. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Johnson, Mark 1987 The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 1993 Moral Imagination: Implications of Cognitive Science for Ethics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Kemmer, Suzanne, and Arie Verhagen 1994 The grammar of causatives and the conceptual structure of events. Cognitive Linguistics 5: 115–156. Kiparsky, Paul, and Carol Kiparsky 1970 Fact. In Progress in Linguistics, Manfred Bierwisch, and Karl E. Heidolph (eds.), 143–173. The Hague: Mouton. Lakoff, George 1987 Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 1996 Moral Politics: What Conservatives Know that Liberals Don’t. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson 1999 Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books. Langacker, Ronald W. 1990 Subjectification. Cognitive Linguistics 1: 5–38. 1991 Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, Volume 2: Descriptive Application. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1999 a Losing control: grammaticization, subjectification, and transparency. In Historical Semantics and Cognition, Andreas Blank, and Peter Koch (eds.), 147–175. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Verbs of letting 1999 b

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Grammar and Conceptualization. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Lyons, John 1977 Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Newman, John 1996 GIVE: A Cognitive Linguistic Study. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Østergaard, Svend 1998 Verbal coding of dynamic processes. In Estudios de Lingüística Cognitiva, José L. Cifuentes Honrubia (ed.), 789–803. Alicante: Universidad de Alicante. 2000 Mental causation. Paper presented at the Winter Symposium “Structures of Causal Meaning”, Center for Semiotic Research, Aarhus, 27–29 January 2000. Pederson, Eric W. 1991 Subtle Semantics: Universals in the Polysemy of Reflexive and Causative Constructions. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Berkeley. Shannon, Thomas F. 1987 Aspects of Complementation and Control in Modern German: The Syntax and Semantics of Permissive Verbs. Göppingen: Verlag Alfred Kümmerle. Soares da Silva, Augusto 1999 A Semântica de DEIXAR: Uma Contribuição para a Abordagem Cognitiva em Semântica Lexical [The Semantics of the Portuguese Verb Deixar: Towards a Cognitive Approach in Lexical Semantics]. Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian and Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. 2000 The “letting” causation: Evidence from Portuguese. Paper presented at the Winter Symposium “Structures of Causal Meaning”, Center for Semiotic Research, Aarhus, 27–29 January 2000. http://www.hum.au.dk/semiotics 2003 a La structure sémantique de “laisser” dans les langues romanes. In: Fernando Sánchez Miret (ed.), Actas del XXIII Congreso Internacional de Lingüística y Filología Románica, vol. III, 441– 456. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. 2003 b Image schemas and category coherence: The case of the Portuguese verb deixar. In Cognitive Approaches to Lexical Semantics, Hubert Cuyckens, René Dirven, and John R. Taylor (eds.), 281–322. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 2004 ‘Leave vs. keep things as they are’ from a force dynamic perspective. In Towards a Dynamic Theory of Language. A Festschrift for Wolfgang Wildgen on occasion of his 60th birthday, Andrea Graumann, Peter Holz, and Martina Plümacher (eds.), 211-225. Bochum: Universitätsverlag Dr. N. Brockmann.

200 Augusto Soares da Silva Sweetser, Eve 1990 From Etymology to Pragmatics: Metaphorical and Cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Talmy, Leonard 1976 Semantic causative types. In Syntax and Semantics 6: The Grammar of Causative Constructions, Masayoshi Shibatani (ed.), 43–116. New York: Academic Press. 1988 Force dynamics in language and cognition. Cognitive Science 12: 49–100. 2000 Toward a Cognitive Semantics, Vol. I: Concept Structuring Systems. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs 1989 On the rise of epistemic meanings in English: An example of subjectification in semantic change. Language 65: 31–55. Verhagen, Arie, and Suzanne Kemmer 1997 Interaction and causation: Causative constructions in modern Standard Dutch. Journal of Pragmatics 27: 61–82. Von Wright, Georg H. 1971 Explanation and Understanding. London: Routledge. Wierzbicka, Anna 1988 The Semantics of Grammar. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Syntactic and semantic integration in the Spanish causative-reflexive construction José M. García-Miguel

Introduction Analytic causatives, which add a causative verb to the basic construction, constitute a classic problem in linguistic theory because the presence of two verbs in a clause complicates its argument structure. Two further issues arise in this type of construction, namely, which participants are coded explicitly and how the participants are syntactically and semantically related to the verbs. Adding diathesis variation to a causative construction makes the issue even more complex, as illustrated by Spanish seconstructions, se being a reflexive and/or a marker of middle voice.1 In the following pages I will analyze the Spanish analytic reflexive causative construction, which includes the reflexive (or, better, middle) form of the verbs hacer or dejar followed by an infinitive. The construction is illustrated in (1) and (2): (1)

a.

Se

dejó vencer por la desesperación let beat by the despair ‘She could not avoid being beaten by despair’ b. Las consecuencias se dejaron sentir en toda Europa The consequences REF let feel in all Europe ‘The consequences were felt all around Europe’ a. Necesita hacerse respetar needs make- REF respect ‘(S)he must feel respected (by everyone).’ b. La respuesta no se hizo esperar. The answer not REF made wait ‘The answer arrived soon.’ REF

(2)

In Spanish, this syntactic constructional schema is restricted to the causative verbs dejar “let” and hacer “make”. Its syntactic structure can be represented as follows:

202 (3)

Edited by Foxit Reader Copyright(C) by Foxit Corporation,2005-2009 José M. García-Miguel For Evaluation Only. Causative-reflexive constructional schema SUBJ se Vcaus Vinf X (por NP)

Purely lexicalist explanations, based on the argument structure assigned to verbs in the lexicon, are not in keeping with the problems which arise in the interpretation of the constructions under investigation, since the latter’s syntactic and semantic properties do not derive straightforwardly from those of the lexical elements which are combined. In order to account for these, I will therefore turn to the Cognitive Grammar (Langacker 1987– 1991) and Construction Grammar (Goldberg 1995) approach to constructions as conventionalized form-meaning pairings linked in a network of related constructions. When one considers constructions as complex symbols, the problem of semantic integration has two sides, which motivate the title of this paper: on the one hand, the process which allows the use of a syntactic structure for the conceptualization of novel events; on the other, the process of integration of the parts into a coherent whole. The first side of the problem of semantic integration can be addressed through the notion of blending, that is, the conceptual integration of two mental spaces into a third – the blend. The application of blending to grammar (by Fauconnier and Turner 1996; Mandelblit 2000; Mandelblit and Fauconnier 2000) takes as inputs an integrating syntactic construction and a novel conceived event, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Blending between syntactic constructions and novel events (Mandelblit 2000: 199)

Spanish causative-reflexive constructions 203

So, they focus on the linguistic construal of complex events. The central idea is that simple clause structures can be used linguistically to express complex novel events by blending together elements from the event sequence with the simple clause structure (Mandelblit 2000: 198–199).2 The other face of the problem is the semantic integration of the components of a construction into a coherent whole. In the case of the causative reflexive construction schematized in (3), this means that the analysis has to dwell on: - The causative verbs (hacer, dejar) and the semantics of causation and force-dynamics - The syntactic structure both of analytic causatives and of reflexive causatives and the semantics of grammatical relations - The meaning of se and the semantics of the middle voice - The meaning of the infinitive verb included in the construction and the typology of events. In the following pages, I shall sketch the relevance which the issues just mentioned have for the causative-reflexive construction. I will deal, first, with the causative constructions with hacer and dejar, and, second, with the interaction of middle voice with the hacer / dejar plus infinitive construction. 1. Causative constructions in Spanish As is commonly accepted, “an analytic causative is a two-verb structure that expresses a predicate of causation and a predicate of effect” (Kemmer and Verhagen 1994: 117), as in Mary let him leave. The subject of the predicate of causation is commonly known as the Causer, whereas the Causee is the semantic subject of the predicate of effect. From a typological point of view, the two main problems with causative constructions are the degree of grammatical integration of causation and effect (from analytical complex structures to morphological and lexical causatives), and the syntactic functions adopted by the Causee. Both hacer “make” and dejar “let”, as predicates of causation, accept three main constructions in Spanish, with different degrees of syntactic and conceptual conflation between causing and effect. These constructions are exemplified in (4–6), - Subj Vcaus [que … Vsubjunctive …] (4) a. María hace/deja que Pedro salga lit. ‘Mary makes/lets that Peter goes-out’

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b.

María hace/deja que Pedro peine a Susana lit. ‘Mary makes/lets that Peter combs Susan’

- Subj Vcaus Vinf X (Causee) (5) a. María le/lo hace/deja salir. lit. ‘Mary makes/lets him go-out’ b. María (le) hace/deja peinar a Susana lit. ‘Mary makes (him) comb Susan - Subj se Vcaus Vinf X (6) a. María se dejó caer sobre el sofá lit. ‘Mary let herself fall-down on the sofa’ b. María no se hizo repetir la invitación lit. ‘Mary did-not make herself repeat the invitation’ = ‘The invitation was accepted by Mary at once’. The frequency of each of these constructions in our corpus is shown in Table 1. The infinitive construction is more frequent than the finite one both with hacer and dejar, but there are some differences in the frequency of the causative-reflexive construction. Table 1. Frequency of main causative constructions with hacer and dejar in Arthus3

S – Vcaus – que + Vsubjunctive S – Vcaus – Infinitive S – se +Vcaus – Infinitive TOTAL

HACER 65 11.2% 473 81.3% 44 7.5% 582 100 %

DEJAR 38 271 165 474

8% 57.2% 34.8% 100 %

Leaving aside for the moment the causative-reflexive, the first two constructions (the finite and the infinitival ones) may sometimes refer to the very same situation, but there is a clear difference in meaning, which correlates with syntactic differences. According to Langacker (1995), the construction with a complement clause profiles a relation between a person or thing and the whole event encoded by the complement clause. By contrast, infinitive constructions make use of a special case of metonymy to profile a direct relation between the participants. Something similar takes place in the Spanish causative plus infinitive construction with the Causer and the Causee.

Spanish causative-reflexive constructions 205

Following Givón (1980), the form of the verb-plus-complement constructions correlates strongly with the relative independence of the event coded by the subordinate verb with respect to the main event. The syntactic and semantic parameters considered by Givón place the implicative manipulative verbs (make, cause) at the top of the ‘binding’ scale and the cognition-utterance verbs (say, tell, know) at the bottom. Among the implicative-manipulative verbs, controlled and direct causation verbs are higher on the binding scale than uncontrolled or mediated causation verbs. Givón’s account is intended to explain the relation between the meaning of main verbs and complement constructions, but it can be extended to the cases where the same verb (like hacer and dejar) can enter more than one constructional schema. From a syntactic point of view, the Vcaus + que construction contains two clauses, and each of these clauses contains arguments bearing grammatical relations to it. By contrast, it has been discussed up to what point causatives with infinitive in Romance languages are biclausal o monoclausal. The classical Relational Grammar approach (for example, Gibson and Raposo 1986) appeals to the concept of “clause union”, a collapsing of two clauses into a single clause, so that at a derived level of structure all the dependents of the subordinate verb bear grammatical relations in the main clause. Kemmer and Verhagen (1994: 116) take the view that causative structures are “built up from simpler structural conceptual units, in the sense that they relate (non-derivationally) to more basic clause types”. Following the essential aspects of their proposal, the causatives of intransitive verbs (IC clauses) are based on simple transitive clauses, whereas the causatives of transitive verbs (TC clauses) are based on simple three-participant clauses: Table 2. Correspondence between simple and causative clauses (Kemmer and Verhagen 1994: 126) Simple Transitive Clause IC Clause

Agent Causer

Patient Causee

Simple 3-Participant Clause TC Clause

Agent Dative/Instrumental Causer Causee

Vt [Vcaus Vi] Patient V3 Affectee [Vcaus Vt]

A similar approach is adopted by Fauconnier and Turner (1996) for French. They propose a blend which takes as its input, on the one hand, a conceptual causal sequence of events and, on the other, some basic clausal

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constructions, as exemplified in (7) (Fauconnier and Turner 1996: 123– 127) (7)

a. b. c.

Pierre fait manger Paul [transitive blend] Pierre fait envoyer le paquet (à Marie) (par Paul) [optional transfer blend] Pierre fait manger la soupe à Paul [transfer blend]

As one can observe in (7), the Causee (Paul) enters a different syntactic relation depending on the number of participants in the resulting construction. E.g., it is only in (7a) that the Causee fulfills the function of direct object. However, there is a considerable variation in the coding of causative constructions in Spanish, and this points to the existence of several construction variants or even a continuum of integration. Soares da Silva (1998, 1999) and Achard (1998) distinguish between a VOV causative construction and a VV construction. In the VOV construction, the Causee participant is the object of the causative verb, whereas the infinitive has its own arguments, as in (8). In this case, the causative verb and the infinitive are not contiguous and cannot form a periphrastic predicate. This construction combines in French with laisser and perception verbs, but not with faire. In Spanish, it is admitted both by hacer and dejar. VOV construction: (8)

a. b.

Causer Vcaus Causee [Vinf (Obj)]

Hizo a Miguel sentarse frente a sí (Arthus/Ternura: 126) ‘He made Miguel sit in front of him’. No dejaré a mi yerno chuparlo todo en Roccasera. (Arthus/Son: 162) ‘I will not let my son-in-law milk everything in Roccasera’.

However, on most occasions, the arguments of the infinitive are complements of the complex structure causative verb + infinitive verb. This is the VV construction. In that case, their form and linear position cannot be explained unless they are considered arguments of a simple clause. VV construction: (9)

a.

Causer [Vcaus Vinf]

(Obj) Causee

Intentó en vano hacer venir al abuelo (Arthus/Ternura: 85) ‘He tried vain to make his grandfather come’

Spanish causative-reflexive constructions 207

b.

Es la propia Hortensia quien, triunfante, se lo hace notar al viejo (Arthus/Son: 178) ‘It is Hortensia herself that, triumphantly, makes the old man note it’

The formal differences between the constructions above are related to semantic differences, in such a way that the VOV construction triggers a lower degree of ‘event conflation’ and thus corresponds more easily to indirect causation (for a detailed analysis, see Achard 1998: 73–121 for French, and Soares da Silva 1998, 1999 for Portuguese).4 A key consequence of the syntactic integration of causative verb and base verb resides in how many (core) participants we must identify in the main clause. The VOV construction can be assimilated to a complex transitive construction with Causer as Subject, Causee as Object, and the infinitive plus its complements as the secondary predication. On the other hand, in the VV construction the object of the infinitive, if any at all, also counts as a central participant of the main clause. As a consequence, we expect that the dative should be selected for the Causee if the infinitive is transitive in order to be distinguished from the object of the infinitive. In (10b), for example, the pronominal clitics are joined to the causative verb, each of them with a different case: accusative lo for the object of the infinitive and dative se cross-referring the Causee al viejo. With intransitive infinitives, the Causee is the sole object of the complex construction and, consequently, we should expect accusative case. Such a case distinction is only reflected in third-person pronominal clitics (le vs. lo) in Spanish, also subject to dialectal variation. Tables 3 and 4 show the actual realizations of the Causee with transitive and intransitive verbs: Table 3. Distribution of dative and accusative 3rd person clitics for the Causee: Vinf = transitive

Dative (le/les) Accusative (lo/la/…)

HACER 54 5

% 91.5 8.5

DEJAR 6 3

% 66.7 33.3

TOTAL 60 8

% 88.2 11.8

Table 4. Distribution of dative and accusative 3rd person clitics for the Causee: Vinf = intransitive

Dative (le/les) Accusative (lo/la/…)

HACER 46 48

% 48.9 51.1

DEJAR 18 43

% 29.5 70.5

TOTAL 64 91

% 41.3 58.7

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With respect to case choice in third-person clitics, as reflected in the tables, the Causee is generally expressed in the dative with transitive verbs (88,2 %). By contrast, accusative Causees would be expected in sentences with intransitive verbs since they constitute the first and the only objects. However, dative forms are as frequent as the accusative ones, at least with the verb hacer.5 All in all, the distinction between VOV and VV constructions becomes fuzzy because (a) in most cases we get clitics and not full noun phrases for the Causee, making constituent order irrelevant, (b) with first and second person clitics, case is irrelevant, (c) with intransitive verbs, accusative case is coherent both with VOV and with VV constructions, and (d) the choice between accusative and dative clitics is variable in any Spanish construction and is subject to dialectal variation. Nevertheless, the most frequent constructional possibilities lead to integrated constructions as reflected in Table 5. The analytic causative tends to blend with the ditransitive clause when the infinitive is transitive and with a twoparticipant clause with variable object-marking when the infinitive is intransitive. Table 5. Correspondence between simple and causative clauses in Spanish TC Simple ditransitive clause IC Simple two-participant clause

Vcaus Vtrans V3 Vcaus Vintrans V2

< Causer Subject

Causee Afectee > IO DO (Dative) (Accusative)

< Causer Subject

Causee > Object (Accusative/Dative)

Note that the Dative/Accusative alternation found in “intransitive causatives” is also frequent in Spanish two-participant constructions (for example: la encontró ‘he met her’ vs. le gusta ‘he likes her’). Its main effect is to reduce the semantic contrast between subject and object.6 In causative constructions, the Dative form may express a higher degree of activeness by the Causee, and/or a higher degree of coertion by the Causer. The Dative is thus more likely to occur with hacer than with dejar.7 A third variant of the causative construction with an infinitive does not include an explicit Causee, which allows a straight connection between the Causer and the Affectee.

Spanish causative-reflexive constructions 209

Causer (10)

[Vcaus

V2]

Obj

Su sonrisa apenas dejaba ver el rojo de los labios (Arthus/Jov: 94) ‘Her smile hardly let see the red of the lips’

As pointed out by Rodríguez Espiñeira (1999: 328), (10) is not equivalent to a construction with a schematic Causee (*Su sonrisa dejaba a la gente ver el rojo de los labios): the absence of the Causee makes the construction profile the relation between the Subject of dejar or hacer and the object of the infinitive, thus facilitating the syntactic and semantic integration of predications. However, this construction also allows the expression of the Causee as oblique with the preposition por8, an in (11a), adapted from Alsina (1996: 194), which contrasts with (11b), with the Causee as IO. (11)

a. b.

Haré ordenar la clase (por mis alumnos) ‘I will have the classroom put in order (by my students)’ Les haré ordenar la clase a mis alumnos ‘I will made my students put in order the classroom’

Independently of whether the agent is overt or is left unexpressed, the relevant point in (11a) is what I want to achieve in my class, the role of the students being less relevant than in (11b), which can be interpreted as a penalty suffered by the students. The occurrence of por in causative constructions is less frequent in Spanish than in other Romance languages, such as French (see, for instance, Roegiest 1985). Actually, our corpus contains only one example (Me hizo dar hora por la enfermera [Arthus/BAires: 50]), in which the Causee is not necessarily perceived as a central participant. This issue will be corroborated by the analysis of the causative-reflexive construction below. 2. The causative-reflexive construction 2.1. Causative-reflexives, passives, and coreference Let us now deal with the ‘reflexive causative’ construction, characterized by the reflexive middle-voice item se and the pattern given in (3) [see examples (1), (2), (6)]. In English, a reflexive pronoun can occupy the syntactic position of object if it is coreferent with the subject-causer. This fact motivates the selection of the passive voice in (12b):

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a. b.

Mary let/made herself comb Susan Mary let/made herself be combed by Susan

Both the analogy with the English passive in (12b), supported by the coreference of the matrix and embedded subjects, and the expression of the agent by means of a por prepositional phrase have led some scholars (for example, Postal 1995 for the French language) to interpret the reflexive causative construction as a special type of passive construction in Romance languages and to suggest derivational mechanisms by means of which it can be derived from a complex structure involving the passivization of the subordinate clause. Such an account poses semantic and formal problems. As in other Romance languages, the infinitive of Spanish causatives does not occur in the passive voice form – it can occur in the middle voice (le hizo caerse), which is a different construction. What is more, the reflexive morpheme cannot be simply explained in terms of coreference between the subject of the main clause and the subject of an embedded clause. Yet, coreference might motivate the presence of the reflexive with verbs such as obligar and permitir, which are construed with a subordinate clause and admit the reflexive when the subject of the main clause is coreferential with the participant which controls subordination. (13)

a. b.

(14)

a. b.

María obliga a Juan a peinar a Susana / a que peine a Susana ‘Mary obliges John to comb Susan’. María se obliga (a sí misma) a peinar a Susana. ‘Mary obliges herself to comb Susan’. María permite a Juan peinar a Susana / que peine a Susana ‘Mary allows John to comb Susan’ María se permite (a sí misma) peinar a Susana. ‘Mary allows herself to comb Susan’

Unlike obligation and permission verbs, however, hacer and dejar do not allow anaphoric coreference between the subject of the causative verb and the subject of the subordinate verb either in the construction with complement clause or in the one with infinitive. (15)

a. b.

*Maríai hace/deja que Maríai/ellai peine a Susana. ‘Maryi makes/let that Maryi/shei combs Susan’. *Maríai se hace/deja a sí mismai peinar a Susana. ‘Maryi makes/let hershelfi comb Susan’.

Spanish causative-reflexive constructions 211

When there is coreference, it involves the subject of the causative verb (Causer) and the patient of the caused event (Affectee), independently of the form – finite or nonfinite – adopted by the subordinate verb. The three causative constructions defined in (4) to (6) allow for expressing such coreference: (16)

a. b. c.

Maríai hace/deja que Pedro lai/j peine Mary makes/lets that Peter combs her Maríai hace/deja a Pedro peinarlai/j. ‘Mary makes/lets Peter comb her’. María se hace/deja peinar por Pedro. Mary se makes/lets comb by Peter ‘Mary makes/let herself be combed by Peter’.

This shows that the causative-reflexive construction does not simply arise from coreference between the arguments but is revealing of the way in which the situation is conceptualized. On the other hand, the causative-reflexive construction is also common with intransitive and ditransitive verbs, which do not allow passivization: (17)

a. b. c.

María se dejó peinar por Susana [María es peinada por Susana] María se dejó caer en el sofá [*María es caída en el sofá] María se dejó poner un sombrero [*María es puesta un sombrero]

Finally, the explanation which relies on the parallel with complex clauses does not take into account the degree of conceptual integration between the events. The three constructions exemplified in (16) may refer to the same situation, even though they materialize construal differences. Examples (4) to (6) show an increasing conceptual conflation of the causing and the effected events. In the light of these observations, the explanations based on the derivation of complex clauses do not seem to account for the facts conveniently. The hacer/dejar-plus-infinitive constructions cannot always be analyzed as complex clauses (even less likely in combination with se), and the use of se cannot always be accounted for by means of coreference between an argument and the subject. Therefore, it seems that a non derivational account should be preferred if it can explain the syntactic and semantic coherence of se and the causative construction.

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2.2. Middle voice and the causative-reflexive construction In different studies on the middle voice in Spanish from a functional and cognitive perspective (Kemmer 1993, Maldonado 1992, 1999, GarcíaMiguel 1995, 2001) the “low elaboration of events” is understood as a fundamental feature of the construction, which brings about a lesser degree of distinguishability of participants and a decrease in transitivity.9 These facts locate middle constructions in between transitive ones, which prototypically profile an energetic interaction between two different participants, and absolute intransitive constructions, which profile a state or process, with no energy input involved. Even though the middle voice is a highly polysemous category, the image schemas which best represent the opposition with transitive and absolute intransitive constructions are those in Figure 2 (based on Maldonado 1999 and Langacker 1991): The middle voice prototypically profiles a change on the subject (as may be the case with intransitive subjects and transitive objects) and, at the same time, places it in energetic interaction.

SUBJ

OBJ

a. Transitive

SUBJ

SUBJ

b. Middle

c. Absolute intransitive

Figure 2. Prototypes of transitive, middle and absolute construal

The main consequence is that the middle voice normally implies a decrease in the number of central participants both with transitive (18) and with ditransitive (19) verbs. Yet, this fact does not block the occurrence of some intransitive verbs in middle-voice constructions, e.g. (20). (18)

a. b.

(19)

a. b.

Susana enfada a María [SUB – Vtr – DO] ‘Susana annoys Maria’ María se enfada (con Susana) [SUB – se + Vtr – (Oblique)] ‘Maria gets annoyed (with Susana) Le pusieron un sombrero a María [SUB – Vditr – DO – IO] ‘They put a hat on Maria’ María se puso un sombrero [SUBJ – se + Vbitr – DO] ‘Maria put a hat on’

Spanish causative-reflexive constructions 213

(20)

a. b.

María cayó sobre el sofá ‘Maria fell over the sofa’ María se cayó sobre el sofá ‘Maria fell over the sofa’

[SUBJ – Vintr – Oblique] [SUBJ – se + Vintr – Obl]

Since the middle voice does not profile an asymmetric interaction between Agent and Patient, and an affected participant is being selected as the subject, i.e. the primary figure or trajector, there is no room for any other active entity among the core participants. At most, an oblique complement as in (18b), may represent a backgrounded non-topical causing entity. If we take canonical middle-voice constructions as the base for the causative periphrastic construction, the resulting patterns are also subject + predicate, both with transitive (21) and intransitive (23) verbs, and subject + predicate + object with ditransitive verbs (22): (21)

María se dejó peinar por Pedro SUBJ – se + Vcaus + Vtr – (Oblique) SUBJ – se + Vtr – (Oblique)

‘based on’

(22)

María se dejó poner un sombrero SUBJ – se + Vcaus + Vbitr – DO – (Oblique) ‘based on’ SUBJ – se + Vbitr – DO – (Oblique)

(23)

María se dejó caer sobre el sofá SUBJ – se – Vcaus + Vintr – (Oblique) SUBJ – se + Vintr – (Oblique)

‘based on’

In these constructions the affected participant, which is somehow the initial Causer, is also selected as the subject. According to such a selection, the Causee is left unexpressed or can be expressed as an oblique complement. In terms of correspondence between mental spaces, the middle voice communicates specific cross-space mapping configurations (cf. Mandelblit 2000: 211–212), that is, the middle voice acts as a ‘blending schema’ guiding the process of conceptual integration. By way of illustration, Figure 3 shows the mapping between a basic middle syntactic structure and the semantic relations implied in the complex event exemplified in (21):

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Input 1

Input 2 Causer (María)

SUBJ

acts

se V

LET (dejar) Agent (Pedro) Event (peinar) Patient (María)

(OBL)

SUBJ (María) se Vcaus (dejó) Vinf (peinar) OBLIQUE (por Pedro) Blend

Figure 3. The blend of a causative-reflexive construction with a transitive verb (María se dejó peinar por Pedro)

Figure 4 and Figure 5 show in a more lineal way the typical correspondences for the causative-reflexive construction with ditransitive and intransitive verbs. María Causer

dejar V1

(X) poner (Agent) V2

SUBJECT se V María se dejó poner

un sombrero María Theme Experiencer

OBJECT un sombrero

Figure 4. The causative reflexive construction with a ditransitive verb María Causer

dejar V1

María caer Theme V2

SUBJECT se V María se dejó caer

sobre el sofá Locative

OBLIQUE sobre el sofá

Figure 5. The causative-reflexive construction with an intransitive verb

Mandelblit and Fauconnier (2000: 182) insist on the fact that “the blending operates only on selective projection from inputs, and that the causal

Spanish causative-reflexive constructions 215

conceptualization is pragmatically underspecified in systematic ways”. In our example, at least what kind of activity or non-activity Maria does as Causer is left underspecified. However, note that our proposal, unlike Mandelblit and Fauconnier’s (2000: 183–185) analysis, does not assign any syntactic function to se, since it is taken as a middle-voice marker which allows correspondence between the patient or theme of V2 and the subject. This also implies that the two roles of Causer and Affectee are conceptualised as somehow integrated. I will show below that this is a relevant factor in the explanation of the meaning of the construction. A prominent consequence of the middle voice in the examples with transitive verbs is the decrease in the number of central participants. Apart from this reduction in the number of participants, other conceptual issues concerning causative-reflexive constructions are also worth commenting. The, in principle, problematic instance of the middle voice construction is the one with intransitive verbs in which the number of core participants is not reduced. An illustration of the contrast between middle and non-middle is that holding between caer and caerse (Maldonado 1992: 348–349; 1999: 376ff): (24)

(25)

a.

Juan (*se) cayó al agua con toda elegancia ‘Juan fell into water with elegance’ b. Juan se (*ø) cayó al agua vestido ‘Juan fell into water dressed’ Después de que le dispararan, el ratero (*se) cayó muerto ‘After they shot him the thief fell dead’

According to Maldonado, caer, either as an intentional (24a) or as a nonintentional event (25), profiles only the movement of the participant by the strength of gravity, so that “the energy flows in one direction”; while “in caerse there is a conflict of forces: the upward angle shows the resisting energy imposed against gravity. This force is canceled by an unspecified force and gravity becomes a stronger force (the sign +)” (Maldonado 1992: 349) [cf. Figure 6].

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S

S

caerse

caer

Figure 6. Caer / caerse (Maldonado 1992: 349)

Taking this analysis as the point of departure, I claim that the verb dejar adds a force dynamics construal in the causative construction dejarse caer. The responsibility for the event is attributed to the participant, which inputs enough energy as to overcome its own resisting force (see Figure 7). g w

e

S

circle = participant arrow = change of location angles = force dynamics g = external force (gravity) w= internal force (will) e = internal force (tendency toward equilibrium)

dejarse caer Figure 7. dejarse caer

In other words, the middle voice together with the causative verb expresses conflicting forces inside the subject participant. This justifies the semantic correspondences shown in Figure 2 – both the Causer and the Affectee are mapped onto the subject of the construction – and correlates with Talmy’s (1988) description of “force dynamics patterns” with a “divided self”, even though Talmy applies it to English patterns such as refrain from doing, considerably different from the constructions under study here. In effect, perhaps, a force dynamic opposition originating between the self and the surrounding seems here to be introjected into an opposition between parts of the self (Talmy 1988: 71)

Summing up, the meaning of the causative-reflexive construction implies a specific force dynamics pattern. When the same verb admits more than one construction, coherent semantic interpretations arise, as shown in (26).

Spanish causative-reflexive constructions 217

(26)

a. b. c.

Cayó sobre el sofá [absolute (not energetic)] Se cayó sobre el sofá [energetic : not controlled] Se dejó caer sobre el sofá [energetic and controlled]

Thus, (26a) expresses an absolute construal, which simply depicts a descending event and a final place. In (26b), se imposes an energetic construal, in which the event is presented as contrary to expectations as a result of a conflict of forces. In (26c), the verb dejar adds to the meaning of the construction the fact that the subject is providing a controlling force over the event, that is, the event is happening only because the subject ‘lets’ it happen. Altogether, each part is contributing with its meaning to an overall coherent whole. The important issue here is that in the causative-reflexive construction exemplified in (26c) the situation is conceptualized as a single event with a single participant, with conflicting forces operating inside that participant. This is, of course, also valid for causative-reflexive constructions with transitive verbs and is somehow connected with the construal differences between causative-reflexive constructions and complex constructions with a finite complement clause. As already discussed in constructions with hacer or dejar, the Causer cannot be coreferential with the embedded subject. Hence it is impossible to have constructional variants if V2 is an intransitive verb such as caer. However, with transitive verbs, such as ver, both the causative-reflexive construction and the complex construction with que plus a finite complement clause and an object coreferring with the matrix subject are found in the corpus. The examples could, in principle, be reworded according to the alternate construction. - SUBJi hace/deja [que SUBJ V2 OBJi] (27) a. --¿Y yo, puedo verla así también? --Me parece que no. Sólo deja que la vean de esa forma los hombres, y yo, porque soy su hermana. (Arthus/Sur: 81) ‘-- May I see her this way too? --I don’t think so. She allows to be seen so only by men, and by me, because I am her sister b. Personas que por hacer... ¿qué le diría yo?... ¡no sé!... ser un poco originales, que todo el mundo les vea... (Arthus/Madrid: 18) ‘People that in order to manage … how could I say … I don’t know … to be a bit original that everybody sees them

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218

- SUBJ se hace/deja V2 (por A) (28) a. El Romano Pontífice quiso dejarse ver por los 50 millones de católicos norteamericanos (Arthus/Raton: 235) ‘The Pope wanted to be seen by 50 million of American catholics’ b. No conviene que ande por ahí haciéndome ver (Arthus/Laberinto: 49) ‘It is not convenient that I am making myself be seen everywhere’ These two constructions seem to coincide in argument structure, that is, regarding the semantic role each nominal holds with respect to the verbs hacer/dejar and ver. However, even though the situations to which they apply might be identical, the syntactic structures construe them differently in each case. The two-clause construction of (27) profiles primarily the relation between the Causer and a state of affairs construed as a proposition. In this relation the primary figure (Langacker’s 1991 trajector) is the subject, with simply the role of Causer, and the complement clause is the landmark. In the effected event one recognises its own subject (trajector) and object (landmark), the latter being capable of coreferring with the main subject. TR1

LM2

TR2

S1

O2

S2 ver hacer/dejar LM1

Figure 8. Ellai hizo/dejó que lai vieran

Therefore, the construction dejar/hacer + que puts forward an objective relation. Given the relative distance with respect to the caused event, the subject of the latter (TR2) bears responsibility for the initiative, and directs or can direct his/her attention to any entity. In (27a), one understands that the men want to see her and that she does nothing to prevent it or that she permits it. Similarly, (27b) profiles the activity that some people are carrying out in order to obtain the result in which they are interested. Simultaneity of the actions or non-actions of the Causer and the event designated by the subordinate clause is not necessary in either case.

Spanish causative-reflexive constructions 219

The causative-reflexive construction of (28), by contrast, construes the situation in a simple clause with a lesser degree of elaboration of the different dimensions of the event, and with lesser prominence of the Perceiver in the process of ver ‘see’, by presenting him/her as either irrelevant or secondary with respect to the person being seen. As far as the main subject is concerned, I understand that the construction “does not invoke the conception of distinct participants” (Langacker 1991: 37) but a single participant affected by ‘conflicting forces’ in a way similar to that mentioned with the intransitive caer ‘fall’, in conformity with Kemmer’s and mainly Maldonado’s claims about the middle voice. TR

ver

Figure 9. Ella se hizo/dejó ver

The conflicting forces are, on the one hand, the expectations about the unlikeliness of the event’s taking place (in this case, the event profiled by the verb ver) and, on the other, the subject’s wish that the event takes place. In this connection, the causative-reflexive construction attributes the responsibility for the situation to the Causer-Affectee participant, and minimizes the role of the other participants. E.g. (28a) describes what the Pope is doing, and not what the American Catholic people do, whose initiative is not relevant here. The construction with que plus a finite clause (el Papa dejó que los católicos lo vieran) would yield a very different interpretation, basically a permissive one, which is precluded in the causative-reflexive construction. 2.3. Verbs in the causative-reflexive construction The syntactic and semantic integration which takes place in the causativereflexive construction determines which verbs are more likely to combine with hacerse and dejarse. In Table 6, I give some corpus-based information about the verbs that are found and preferred in the causative-reflexive construction. The column on the left-hand side contains the verbs that easily combine with hacerse, and the other columns display the verbs which commonly co-occur with dejarse.

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Table 6. Verbs co-occurring with hacerse and dejarse with the highest degree of frequency in Arthus HACERSE + pasar (por) ‘pose as’ esperar ‘wait’ notar ‘notice’ respetar ‘respect’ oir ‘hear’ entender ‘understand’

8 6 6 4 3 2

DEJARSE + caer ‘fall’ 29 ver ‘see’ llevar ‘carry’ 21 guiar ‘guide’ arrastrar ‘drag’ 8 impresionar ‘move’ ir ‘go’ 5 querer ‘want’ influir ‘influence’ 5 vencer ‘beat’ invitar ‘invite’ 5

4 3 3 3 3

The frequency of certain verbs with the causative auxiliaries is partially due to idiomatic reasons (entrenchment, routinization) and partially to the force dynamics expressed by the verb and the global meaning of the construction. In principle, the subject must be conceptualized as affected, which excludes intransitive active verbs such as entrar ‘enter’, salir ‘leave’, llorar ‘cry’ or reír ‘laugh’. As seen in Table 6, the verb dejar is construed with verbs of continuous physical movement (caer ‘fall’), verbs of metaphorical movement (dejarse llevar ‘let oneself lead’, arrastrar ‘carry’, ir ‘go’, etc.) as in (29a), or social acts such as invitar (29b). In all cases the subject obliterates the expected resistance against the external tendency by which the subject is affected. (29)

a.

b.

Siempre pedía consejos a las profesoras, al claustro y no se dejaba ella llevar por sus ideas. (Arthus/Sevilla: 172) ‘[She] always asked for advice to the teachers, the staff and did-not let herself be-carried by her ideas’. La chica modosa se resistía a dejarse invitar por un hombre que no fuera su novio (Arthus/Usos: 88) ‘The cautious girl resisted to let herself be-invited by a man other than her boyfriend’

Hacerse, by contrast, is rare with intransitive verbs except in hacerse pasar por (30a). It is also found with perception verbs (oír, notar, ver), as in (30b) or social interaction verbs (30c). In these cases, the subject is attributed the capacity of provoking events by which it is affected, that is, it/he/she is attributed the initiative in them.

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(30)

a.

b. c.

Carlos Sotuela se hizo pasar por Guardia Civil (Arthus/3Voz: 26) ‘Carlos Sotuela made-himself be mistaken as a Guardia Civil’ Aumenta el griterío. Maffei grita para hacerse oír (Arthus/Coart: 74) ‘The shouting increases. Maffei shouts to be heard’ Es joven y no tolera jactancias. Necesita hacerse respetar (Arthus/Son: 324) ‘He is young and doesn’t accept showing-off. He has a need to feel respected’.

As far as the initiative of the process is concerned, the differences just mentioned follow from the basic opposition between ‘causing’ and ‘letting’, as characterized by Talmy: Causing: “the Agonist’s resultant state of activity is the opposite of its intrinsic actional tendency” Letting: “‘letting’ patterns involve the cessation of impingement” “the Antagonist … releases the Agonist to manifest its tendency” (Talmy 1988: 57)

A final remark seems in order here. Causative-reflexive constructions are infrequent with inanimate subjects. The statistically odd cases with inanimate subjects appear in idiomatic expressions. They imply also a further step in the agent’s defocusing. Interestingly enough, hacerse with an inanimate subject usually combines with the verb esperar (31), whereas dejarse co-occurs with perception verbs (32). (31)

La recuperación económica se está haciendo esperar (Arthus/3Voz: 61) ‘The economic recovery has not come yet’ (lit. ‘ is making itself wait’)

(32)

Se dejó oír un desabrido carraspear (Arthus/Laberinto: 64) ‘A disgusting throat-clearing was heard’ (lit ‘ let itself hear’)

In these cases, the realization of the event depends on the nature of the inanimate subject, not on that of the agent of the infinitive. Put differently, the fact of waiting or hearing is not brought about by the one who waits or perceives but by the existence and the characteristics of the thing awaited for, or perceived. On the other hand, these constructions are also motivated

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by the polysemy of the middle voice in Spanish and by the fact that the middle voice typically marks affectedness of the subject and only secondarily activity or control. 3. Conclusions We have observed that simple clauses act as a model both for active causatives and for reflexive (middle) causatives. Each syntactic schema, as a conventional pattern for the formation of complex signs, is associated with its own meaning. Basic patterns act as models for the creation of novel expressions. Causative constructions with transitive verbs include three participants and, thus, are structured according to the model of ditransitive clauses, whereas causative constructions with intransitive verbs include only two central participants and allow more readily the choice between accusative and dative for the second participant. As for the causativereflexive construction, the models are middle-voice constructions, either with one central participant or with two central participants. In them, the subject is presented as Causer and Affectee and, as a consequence, the Causee could only be expressed as an Oblique. The syntactic integration into a simple clause correlates with semantic integration of meaning components and results in construal differences with respect to complex clauses. The global meaning of an expression is (at least partially) the product of the elements of which it consists. The specific meaning adopted by an expression will depend on the integration (and the compatibility) of the combined meanings. The meaning of the causative-reflexive construction depends on the coherent integration of the meanings of hacer or dejar, the middle voice, the infinitive verb and the syntactic pattern. Any of these elements is interpreted in relation to the others in the same construction and modulates its meaning accordingly. More specifically, the middle voice imposes a particular cross-space mapping, and also an energetic interpretation that combines coherently with the force-dynamic meaning of hacer and dejar. The global meaning is not predictable straightforwardly on the basis of the meaning of the parts, although it is motivated by them. In the conceptual integration, the output blend adds new properties, at least interpretation routines. The global meaning will also depend on meanings conventionally associated with the expression as a whole. One of the consequences is that only some infinitives are coherent with causative-

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reflexive constructions; more specifically, only a few can occur in semiidiomatic constructions with inanimate subjects. Acknowledgments This work was partly supported by Spanish MEC (BFF2002-01197 and HUM2005-01573) and by Xunta de Galicia (PGIDIT03PXIC30201PN). Earlier versions of the text were presented at the 7th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference and the 34th Societas Linguistica Europaea Meeting. The final version has benefited from questions, comments and suggestions from those audiences and from an anonymous reviewer. Andrea Pascual’s collaboration in tasks such as search and statistical treatment of the data is fully acknowledged. Special thanks are to be transmitted to my colleague Javier Pérez Guerra, for suggestions about the content of this paper and, above all, for his linguistic guidance in this version in English.

Notes 1. Traditionally, se has been analyzed as a reflexive pronoun. Whereas in GarcíaMiguel (1985) I claim that its reflexive content is a variant of the middle voice, other scholars prefer to keep reflexive meaning and middle voice apart (see, for example, Kemmer 1993 and Maldonado 1999). At least for the causative“reflexive” construction, I believe that it is better to include the meanings of se within the middle voice. 2. Mandelblit (2000: 240n3) notes: “Fauconnier and Turner suggest analyzing the caused-motion sentences as a case of blending between a prototypical instance of the caused-motion construction (e.g., Mary threw the ball into the basket) and an unintegrated novel conceived caused-motion event sequence. In the analysis proposed in this article, the blending is between an abstract representation of the causedmotion construction and a novel caused-motion event sequence. That is, one of the input domains to the blend (input 2) is not a representation of any actual sentence in the language, but rather a representation of the construction's form and semantics- a schema abstracted from all instances of the construction.”. I mostly agree with Mandelblit’s view. The conceptual integration is based on perceived similarity between input 1 and input 2 in generic space. In my view, the blending is also based on the syntagmatic contrast between central syntactic functions. 3. Most examples and data I will use have been obtained from ARTHUS (‘Archivo de Textos Hispánicos de la Universidad de Santiago’), a corpus of contemporary Spanish of 1,5 million words. The syntactic analysis of the

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160.000 clauses of this corpus constitutes the BDS (“Base de Datos Sintácticos del español actual”), and their semantic annotation constitutes the ADESSE project, still under development. All frequency tables are retrieved from these two databases. 4. The syntactic and conceptual independence is more evident in constructions with complement clause (Juan dejó que los niños jugaran). Portuguese has an intermediate construction with personal infinitive and nominative causee as subject of the infinitive (A Maria deixou [os miúdos brincarem]) (Soares da Silva 1998). 5. If one considers only the cases with an animate Causee, the rate with hacer is 25–45. With an inanimate Causee the clitic is normally accusative, even though we have registered an example in the Dative, probably motivated by the middle voice of the infinitive: Los volúmenes se apelmazan bajo el grisáceo resplandor – o quizá la vista nublada les hace diluirse en la penumbra (ARTHUS/Mirada 18). 6. In ditransitive clauses we get three participants, whose encoding is accomplished by way of three different functions. The hierarchy SUBJ>IO>DO (García-Miguel 1995: 51–52, relying on E. García 1975) establishes contrast between the central participants in terms of agentivity and topicality. In monotransitive clauses we can choose among three syntactic functions for the encoding of two participants. This allows for the non-subject participant’s paradigmatic selection between Accusative and Dative. 7. In our corpus, a human Causee with dejar takes the accusative form in 31 cases and the dative form in 18; but with hacer the figures are 25 examples in the accusative case, and 45 in the dative case. 8. Relying on the fact that the oblique causee is identical in form to the passive oblique, many studies of Romance causatives, for example Hyman and Zimmer (1976), Gibson and Raposo (1986), have proposed that its presence is the result of passivizing the embedded predicate in the causative construction. Such passive interpretation is rejected by, inter alia, Kayne (1975), Legendre (1990), and Alsina (1996). Kemmer and Verhagen (1994 :136) disfavor passivization and maintain that “the marking found on instruments, passive agents, and the similarly marked causees designates a dispensible, non-topical causal intermediary”. 9. This interpretation is incompatible with any formalist account that interprets se as an anaphoric pronoun, and is to a larger extent in line with other accounts that interpret it as a marker of valence reduction (for example, Grimshaw 1982, García-Miguel 1985, Alsina 1996). Nevertheless, both Kemmer (1993) and Maldonado (1992, 1999) show that valence reduction does not account for the full range of data and that conceptual factors must be considered.

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References ADESSE = Base de datos de verbos, Alternancias de Diátesis y Esquemas Sintáctico-Semánticos del Español ARTHUS = Archivo de Textos Hispánicos de la Universidad de Santiago BDS = Base de datos sintácticos del español actual Achard, Michel 1998 Representation of Cognitive Structures. Syntax and Semantics of French Sentential Complements. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Alsina, Alex 1996 The Role of Argument Structure in Grammar. Evidence from Romance. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information. Fauconnier, Gilles, and Mark Turner 1996 Blending as a central process of grammar. In Conceptual Structure, Discourse and Language, Adele E. Goldberg (ed.), 113–129. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information. García, Érica 1975 The Role of the Theory in Linguistic Analysis. The Spanish Pronoun System. Amsterdam: North-Holland. García-Miguel, José M. 1985 La voz media en español: las construcciones pronominales con verbos transitivos. Verba 12: 307–343. 1995 Las relaciones gramaticales entre predicado y participantes. Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago. 2001 Algunas motivaciones en la tipología de las variaciones de diátesis: sistemas actanciales y polisemia de los morfemas de voz. In Linguagem e Cognição. A Perspectiva de Linguística Cognitiva, Augusto Soares da Silva (ed.), 375–400. Braga: Associação Portuguesa de Lingüística / Universidade Católica Portuguesa. Gibson, Jeanne, and Eduardo Raposo 1986 Clause Union, the Stratal Uniqueness Law and the Chômeur Relation. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 4: 295–331. Givón, Talmy 1980 The binding hierarchy and the typology of complements. Studies in Language 4: 333–377. Grimshaw, Jane 1982 On the Lexical Representation of Romance Reflexive Clitics. In The Mental Representation of Grammatical Relations, Joan Bresnan (ed.), 87–148. Cambridge (Massachusetts): The MIT Press. Hyman, Larry, and Karl Zimmer 1976 Embedded Topic in French. In Subject and Topic, Charles Li (ed.), 191–211. New York: Academic Press.

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Kayne, Richard 1975 French Syntax: The Transformational Cycle. Camdridge: MIT Press. Kemmer, Suzanne 1993 The Middle Voice. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Kemmer, Suzanne, and Arie Verhagen 1994 The grammar of causatives and the conceptual structure of events. Cognitive Linguistics 5 (2): 115–156. Langacker, Ronald 1987–1991Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Volume I: Theoretical Prerrequisites. Volume II: Descriptive Application. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 1995 Raising and Transparency. Language 71 (1): 1–62. Legendre, Géraldine 1990 French Causatives: Another Look at faire par. In Grammatical Relations. A Cross-Theoretical Perspective, Katarzyna Dziwirek, Patrick Farrell, and Errapel Mejías-Bikandi (eds.), 247–262. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information. Maldonado, Ricardo 1992 Middle voice: the case of Spanish se. Ph. D. Dissertation. University of California San Diego. 1999 A media voz. Problemas conceptuales del clítico se. Mexico: UNAM. Mandelblit, Nili 2000 The grammatical marking of conceptual integration: From syntax to morphology. Cognitive Linguistics 11 (3–4): 197–251. Mandelbit, Nili, and Gilles Fauconnier 2000 How I got myself arrested. Underspecificity in grammatical blends as a source for constructional ambiguity. In Constructions in Cognitive Linguistics, Ad Foolen, and Frederike van der Leek (eds.), 167–189. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Postal, Paul 1995 A Glance at French Pseudopassives. In Grammatical Relations. Theoretical Approaches to Empirical Questions, Clifford S. Burgess; Katarzyna Dziwirek, and Donna B. Gerdts (eds.), 391–428. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information. Rodríguez Espiñeira, Mª José 1999 Problemas de interpretación sintáctica en cláusulas con dejar + infinitivo. In Homenaxe ó profesor Camilo Flores, 306–331. Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago Roegiest, Eugeen 1985 Datif ou Objet Indirect: A propos de la construction factitive. In Actes du XVIIème Congrès International de Linguistique et Philologie Romanes, vol. 2, 361–373. Marseille: Université de Provence.

Spanish causative-reflexive constructions 227 Silva, Augusto Soares da 1998 Origem Latina e Evolução das Construções Causativas. Uma contribuição para o seu estudo. Revista Portuguesa de Humanidades 2: 119–138. 1999 A semântica de deixar: Uma contribuição para a abordagem cognitiva em semântica lexical. Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. Talmy, Leonard 1976 Semantic Causative Types. In The Grammar of Causative Constructions, Masayoshi Shibatani (ed.), 43–116. New York: Academic Press. [also in L. Talmy (2000, I): 471–549] 1988 Force Dynamics in Language and Cognition. Cognitive Science 12: 49–100. [also in Talmy (2000, I): 409–470] 2000 Toward a Cognitive Semantics. Volume I: Concept Structuring Systems. Cambridge (Massachusetts): The MIT Press.

Soft causatives in Spanish Ricardo Maldonado

1. Introduction This paper addresses a descriptive problem that may have important implications for cognitive accounts of causative constructions. Causative constructions involve a variety of interaction types between a causer initiating the event and the causee actually acting or undergoing the event action. These interactions determine the degree of integration of the two causal sub-events into one. The descriptive problem involves providing an account for two causative constructions strongly linked to the speech event. One construction is of recent appearance – last twenty years – but totally entrenched in Mexican Spanish (1), the other is well established in the dialect of Spain (2): (1)

Déja(me) veo si let.IMP-OBJ1 see.1SG if ‘Let me see if I have it’

(2)

Deja que veo si let.IMP COMP see.1SG if ‘Let me see if I have it’

las them

tengo have.1SG

Mexico

las tengo them have 1.SG

Spain

Since both constructions have a complement in indicative mood they will be identified as the (Mexican or Castilian) indicative causative constructions. Both constructions correspond to oral discourse and represent direct speaker-hearer interactions where the speaker holds her/his turn before responding to a previous request. If Valeria thinks that I may have her keys she can utter ¿Tienes mis llaves? ‘Do you have my keys?’ I would utter either examples (1) or (2). There are important differences between the Mexican and the Castilian examples. In the former the causee me is the main clause object. There is no complementizer que between the two verbs and there is no intonation change or pause between the two clauses. At first sight it could be claimed that the main and the complement clauses are fused into one simple clause and, in contrast, example (2) would involve separate clauses containing a complementizer que with a tone

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change (high-to-low) after the main verb deja. As will be shown below, the case of (1) is far more complex. More important is the fact that both constructions (1) and (2) always take indicative mood. In more canonical causatives the use of indicative is ruled out. As exemplified in (3), if the causee “raises” to object position in the main clause the subordinate verb takes infinitive. On the other hand if the causee is the subordinate subject the complementizer que must be used and the subordinate verb must take subjunctive mood as shown in (4): (3)

Déjame ver si las tengo let-me see.INF if OBJ.3PL have-1S ‘Let me see if I have them’

(4)

Deja que vea si las tengo let that see.SUBJ.1S if OBJ.3PL have1S ‘Allow that I see if I have them’

It is well known from cognitive and functional approaches that examples like (3) show a higher degree of event integration than (4) since the event is coded as one – although it is internally complex. The case of (4) is less integrated since a complex event is represented as composed of two subevents (Langacker 1991; Givón 1990; Kemmer and Verhagen 1994; Fauconnier and Turner 1996, 1998; Shibatani 2002). The question to address is whether integration is the right notion to account for the oral examples of Mexico and Spain. The use of the indicative form in both examples with and without complementizer argues against integration. It suggests an important degree of independence of the causee. This raises the question as to whether we can actually see the complement clause as subordinated to the main clause. In the body of this paper I will try to argue against an integrational analysis derived from a simple matrix verbal form and involving subordination. Instead I will suggest that these constructions involve a high degree of subjectification (Langacker 2000) in the sense that the causative verb dejar ‘let’ undergoes a strong process of attenuation to exhibit an equally high degree of transparency. Causation is thus reduced to its minimal expression and the asymmetry characteristic of subordination is not attested. The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces the view of causatives as determined by integrated conceptualizations. Section III offers the alternative view of causative events as varying according to degrees of complexity. Section 4 constitutes the core of the paper. First the behavior of the indicative-causative construction is put forward. This section is

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composed of two subsections. Section 4.1 shows that the Spanish causative constructions display different degrees of (in)dependence, and section 4.2 puts forward the specific dependency problems of the indicative-causative construction. Here the semantic agentive attenuation process of dejar ‘let’ is given as the fundamental raison d’être of the construction. Also the degrees of independence of the three causative constructions in Spanish are seen then as clear manifestations of a subjectification process. Finally, Section 5 offers the conclusions. 2. Event integration As first proposed by Langacker (1991) and further developed by Kemmer and Verhagen (1994), complex analytic constructions may be seen as elaborations of basic schemas corresponding to a single predicate. According to that view constructions “...are best represented as schemas (of different degrees of specificity) some of which can be used as the basis for extension for the formation of more complex grammatical patterns” (Kemmer and Verhagen 1994: 145). Thus complex analyzable causatives can be seen as schemas elaborated on the basis of a single predicate. Constructions with an intransitive complement clause are prototypically construed on the basis of a plain transitive verb: the causer is the nominative subject while the causee is the accusative direct object as in (5). On the other hand, when the complement clause is transitive, the model of ditransitive verbs is assumed: the causee is most commonly a dative indirect object, while the third element remains analyzable as accusative object as in (6). (5) (6)

I made Terry cry [S OD] I made John do it [S OI OD]

< I ATE THE CAKE < I GAVE HER THE CAKE

In line with that proposal, Fauconnier and Turner (1996, 1998) suggest that French causative constructions are best analyzed as conventional blends of two input spaces where the second space imports the roles and the syntax from a fully integrated event (the structure of a simple verb) in the first space. Causatives with faire “make” thus correspond to at least two mental representations the TRANSITIVE SCHEMA (Kemmer and Verhagen’s intransitive causative) and the TRANSFER SCHEMA (Kemmer and Verhagen’s transitive causative). As can be seen from example (7), the

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causative construction with faire inherits its basic structure from the schema of a transitive clause: Transitive: Syntax: NP Roles: CA (7)

V E

NP O

(causer, event, object entity)

Marie fait courir Paul, (Marie le fait courir) < MARIE NOURRIT PAUL ‘Marie makes Paul run’ (‘Marie makes him run’) ‘Marie feeds Paul’

The syntax and the semantics of the transitive schema map on the periphrastic causal structure. The agent maps on the causer while the patient maps on the causee. All other mappings are predictable. Notice that the behavior of pronouns is predicted by the mappings: le, in brackets, is accusative. The dative clitic, lui, is nicely ruled out since there is no indirect object source. On the other hand, the transfer schema follows the structure of prototypical ditransitive verbs where there is an extra dative prepositional phrase [à NP]. The causative faire clause will follow the pattern of donner ‘give’ as in (8). In contrast with (7), the dative IO clitic lui is the event agent (EA), i.e. the causee in input space 2 as guaranteed by the basic transfer schema in the input space 1: Transfer: (8)

Syntax: NP Roles: CA

V E

NP O

à NP IO

Marie fait manger la soupe à Paul < MARIE DONNE LA SOUPE A PAUL ‘Marie make Paul eat the soup’ ‘Marie gives the soup to Paul’ (Marie lui fait manger la soupe) (‘Marie makes him eat the soup’)

The contrast between accusative and dative clitics in causative constructions is handled without using ad hoc mechanisms (transformations, union of clauses, promotions, etc.), as it simply corresponds to the properties of the source verb. There are, however, a number of integration situations that do not correspond to the imposition of a simplex verb to a syntactic structure. For one thing, in French, the degree of integration may depend on the position

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of the object causee. Achard (1996, 2000) has shown that the object (O), may occur either postverbally (VVO) or between the two verbs (VOV). The variation is meaningful: the degree of influence of the mother’s permission over Paul’s action is stronger in the VV structure (9b) than in the VOV structure (9a): (9)

a. b.

Sa mère laisse Paul jouer dans le jardin (Achard 1996) Sa mère laisse jouer Paul dans le jardin ‘His mother lets Paul play in the garden.’

We may suggest that in the VOV structure the nominal form is equated with a more agentive causee than in the VVO structure. Thus the degree of causee activity/agentivity determines degrees of integration. Even more degrees of integration can be found in Portuguese where VV contrasts with VOV and VSV as put forward by Soares da Silva (2003). A second problem for the integration model via verb inheritance is the well-known variability between accusative and dative/instrumental marking on the causee in a wide variety of languages. Following a well-established tradition, Kemmer and Verhagen (1994) have referred to this phenomenon as the contrast between direct and indirect causation. The phenomenon, as they show, is crosslinguistically recurrent, Hindi, German, Dutch and Kannada being representative samples. Spanish is no exception to this general tendency, as can be seen from the accusative/dative alternation in (10) and (11): (10)

Lo

hizo salir made.3SG go out ‘He made him go out’ ACC.3SG.MASC

(11)

Le

hizo salir made.3SG go out ‘He made him go out’ DAT.3SG

Consistent with crosslinguistic patterns, the use of the accusative clitic implies stronger causation and control by the causer. The dative form, on the other hand, refers to a situation in which the causee keeps his own initiative and will leave the room as convinced or invited by the causer. Shibatani (2002) has suggested that direct causation corresponds to cases where the causee is equated with the patient while with indirect causation the causee is an agent. Leaving aside Spanish dialectal differences1, the dative clitic designates that the subject of the complement clause, the

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causee, is more independent and thus, is less controlled by the causer. Datives generally mark some type of distance either from the subject or from the action designated by the verb. One manifestation of this phenomenon in Spanish is the use of dative le to address older people or people with a higher social status. Comrie (1976) has pointed out a common contrast between dative and instrumental marking on the causee which Kemmer and Verhagen (1994) see as depending on the degree of integration and affectedness of the causee. They rightly sustain that instrumental marking is consistently less integrated than the dative. These cases correspond to an initiative capacity hierarchy: agent > experiencer > other which is by default encoded by nominative > dative > other (accusative or oblique) as initially proposed by Givón (1990) and Langacker (1991). Thus accusative causees mark direct causation while instrumental causees correspond to indirect causation. Yet for many languages the instrumental case may overrule dative and accusative marking. In the case of Quechua instrumental overrules accusative as exemplified in (12 and 13, from Langacker 1991): (12)

nuqa fan-ta rumi-ta I Juan-ACC rock-ACC ‘I made Juan carry the rock’

apa-þi-ni carry-CAUS-I

(13)

nuqa fan-wan rumi-ta apa-þi-ni I Juan-INSTR rock-ACC carry-CAUS-I ‘I had Juan carry the rock’

and Kannada exemplifies a case where instrumental dominates dative (from Langacker 1991): (14)

avanu nanage bisketannu tinnisidanu he:NOM me:DAT biscuit:ACC eat:CAUS:PAST ‘He fed me a biscuit’

(15)

avanu nanninda bisketannu tinnisidanu he:NOM me:INSTR biscuit:ACC eat:CAUS:PAST ‘He caused me to eat a biscuit’

Langacker explains that in these languages the instrumental inherits the active/agentive properties from the agent. Thus the initiation hierarchy would be agent > instrument > dative > accusative > other. There seems to be abundant data showing that in causation the degree of activity of the

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causee is crucial in determining the degree of causation imposed by the causer. In the next section I explore the ways in which this property determines event complexity. In section 4 the input of the causer will also be addressed. 3. Causal Event Complexity From a variety of perspectives (Shibatani 2002; Givón 1990; Comrie 1976; Maldonado and Nava 2002; Vázquez 2002) it has been claimed that causative constructions are determined by the complexity of the event. Complexity is determined by several factors: the number of participants involved in the event, the degree of (in)dependence of the causee to perform an action, the degree of volition with which the causer impinges the causee to do something, the capacity of the causee to resist the causer’s input and the degree of separability of the two composing subevents. All these facts are best understood in terms of force-dynamics (FD). FD has proven crucial for a variety of causation, modality and speaker’s expectations phenomena (Langacker 1991; Maldonado 1988, 1999). It involves the encounter of two forces the strongest of which determines the output of the event. Figures 1 and 2 represent two polar FD situations. In Figure 3 the left-to-right arrow with the ‘+’ sign is the stronger force overwhelming a resisting force (the right-to-left arrow). The change of state (the arrow outside the dotted rectangle) results from the dominance of the acting force. Figure 4 provides the opposite construal where the resisting force is stronger and blocks the action, as indicated by the dot on the arrow.

+ Figure 1. Force dynamics stronger acting force

+ Figure 2. Force dynamics stronger resisting force

Causal constructions conform to a basic FD representation. The causer imposes force on the causee for it to undergo some change of state. Force dynamics is lexicalized in the meaning of the causal verb. Thus in the Spanish version of Talmy’s classical examples seguir ‘keep’ (Figure 1) and dejar ‘cease’ (Figure 2) two opposite FD structures contrast as shown in (16): (16) a.La pelota siguió rodando sobre la dura hierba ‘The ball kept rolling agains the stiff grass’ b.La pelota dejó de rodar por la dureza de la hierba ‘The ball stopped rolling due to the stiffness of the grass’

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In seguir (Figure 3) the initial force is stronger than the resisting grass thus the ball’s rolling continues. Dejar, as represented in Figure 4, has the opposite FD structure: the stronger resisting force blocks the motion pattern as indicated by the dot on the line. The strength being profiled by the causative verb varies importantly in degree. Thus forzar ‘force’ and hacer ‘make’ contrast in the degree of strength necessary to bring about the causal event. The higher degree of energy depicted by forzar involves a higher degree of the causee’s resistance. As I will show below the new INDICATIVE CAUSATIVE construction is only possible with a low degree of energy input. Talmy’s force-dynamics and Shibatani’s (2002) definition of direct and indirect causation coincide: direct causation implies an agent causer and a patient causee, while indirect causation is a case where both causer and causee are agentive and the degree of energy conflict is higher. Given these definitions we may link the degree of complexity of the causal event with the type of coding. Lexical causatives matar ‘kill’, romper ‘break’, doblar ‘bend’, etc. correspond to direct causation. An outstanding property of lexical causatives is that the initiative causal event and the actual action are not separable. On the other hand analytic causatives do designate two subevents with different degrees of integration/separateness. Thus they may depict either direct or indirect causation. Now there are many languages that do not have a vast number of lexical causatives. For those languages direct causation is obtained with causative morphology. Tarascan, or P’orepecha, as called by its speakers, constitutes an example where a gradual increase of morphemic and periphrastic complexity can be found (Maldonado and Nava 2002). In the simplest case an intransitive stem (17a) can take the -ra causative suffix to obtain a direct causative construction (17b): (17) a. Takusï ura-pi-s-Ø-ti cloth white-INTR-PERF-PRES-IND.3 ‘The cloth is white’ b. Valeria ura-pe-ra-s-Ø-ti Valeria whitte-INTR-CAUS-PRES-IND.3 ‘Valeria (painted/washed) the cloth white’

takusï-ni cloth-NS

We may expect indirect causation to be marked with a causative verb in an analytic construction. While this happens under specific circumstances, depending on the degree of complexity of the event, indirect causation may be marked by more than one causative morpheme. In (18) -tara makes the direct causative event an indirect one:

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(18) Valeria ura-pe-ra-tara-s-Ø-ti takusï-ni Adrián-ni Valeria white-INTR-CAUS-CAUS-PRES-IND.3 cloth-NS Adrián-NS ‘Valeria made Adrian whiten the cloth’ In the absence of -ra the use of -tara is out (*Valeria ura-pe--tara-s-Ø-ti takusï-ni Adrián-ni). A direct causative construal is required as the basis for an indirect one to take place. This reflects the higher degree of complexity of indirect causation. Although the -tara indirect construction already involves an agentive causee Adrián in (18) is still compelled to perform the action imposed by Valeria. Should the causee need to be represented with a higher degree of independence the construction would have to be periphrastic, as in (19), where the causative verb uni ‘make’ designates the causing event while horni ‘learn’ designates the performed action. The complex event is composed now of two sub-events with higher degree of independence. (19) Ji u-sïn-Ø-ka eski-ksï sapi-icha I make-HAB-PRES-IND1/2 COMP-PL3 child-PL hore-n-kurhi-a-ka know-?-RFLX-FUT-SUBJ ‘I make the child know’ (I teach the child) Moreover, the interaction among participants may be coded in finer terms to designate different degrees of implicativity. While in morphological causatives the causal event must happen, in periphrastic ones the force dynamic quality of the verb determines whether the causal event must take place. The verb uni ‘make’ in (19) is considerably more applicative than jurani ‘let’. In (20) Maria’s daughter may eventually not have gone to the party: (20) Maria jura-hku-s-Ø-ti wahpa-ni para nira-n María let-CAUS-PERF-PRES-IND.3 kin-ACC para go-INF k’winchikwa-rho party-LOC ‘María let her daughter go to the party’ Lexical differences in implicativity are crosslinguistically common. Spanish forzar ‘force’, hacer ‘make’ and dejar ‘let’ provide a downward cline of causal imposition by the causer which runs in the opposite direction of the activity degree of the causee:

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(21)

Lo forzó a salir del salón ‘He forced him to leave the room’

(22)

Lo hizo salir del salón ‘He made him leave the room’

(23)

Lo dejó salir del salón ‘He let him leave the room’

The P’orepecha data suggest a gradual increase in causal complexity by which, in the simplest case, lexical causatives code direct causation construals designating causer/causee contact with high degree of implicativity. Morphemic causatives may either code direct or indirect causation. Indirect causatives are more complex and less implicative. Both P’orepecha and Spanishgive evidence for indirect causation as involving a gradual decrease of implicativity determined by the degree of independence/agentivity of the causee, by the causation strength of the causal verb and by the possibility of construing the causative event as composed of two independent events. The iconic match of implicativity directness and degree of complexity in coding is represented in Figure 3:

Event complexity Direct causation CODING:

lexical

Indirect causation >

morphemic

> periphrastic

Figure 3. Causal event complexity

Given this gradual organization we may expect that languages will chose alternative coding strategies to reflect the degree of complexity involved in the interaction between causer and causee. Event conflation, a phenomenon whereby a simple verb imposes its structure on the causative construction undoubtedly exists. It corresponds to construals that approximate direct causation construals. However we expect higher degree of independence to be coded periphrastically. Higher degrees of implicativity will tend to align to the left of Figure 3. On the other hand causative construals involving a somewhat indirect type of interaction align to the right side of the scale. In the case of Spanish it will be shown that constructions with infinitival

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complements are more implicative than those with a complementizer. Moreover I will show that the Mexico and Spain oral causative constructions of the type illustrated in (1) and (2) show the highest degree of causal independence. I will first describe the properties of the indicative causative construction to then explain how it relates to other causative constructions in Spanish. 4. The indicative-causative construction The indicative-causative construction in Castilian Spanish is well established in oral discourse. We may see from example (24) that it depicts two semi-independent events: (24)

Deja, que yo COMP I let ‘Stop, I’ll do it’

lo it

limpio clean

The two events can easily be recognized. There is a strong pause to control on the one hand the hearer’s behavior and, on the other, to introduce the speaker’s action. The complementizer can be omitted. However the pause and the intonation change are clear enough to distinguish the two subevents: (25)

Deja, yo lo let I it ‘Stop, I’ll do it’

limpio clean

The pause can be reduced and the subject pronoun can be left out to signal a less stringent subevent separation: (26)

Deja que lo let COMP it ‘Stop, I’ll do it’

limpio clean

Yet in all cases the instruction for the hearer to wait while the speaker performs some action is constant. The indicative form iconically represents a high degree of causee independence and control. The causee is active and agentive and the main clause subject shows no causative strength. This subdivision for the Mexican construction is not as clear. However some restrictions provide evidence for a non-intregational analysis. Let us revise

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some restrictions for both dialects as well as those that are specific for Mexican Spanish. There are shared restrictions for the Mexican and the Castilian constructions. Since it is a request it can only be coded as imperative mood. Declarative (27a–b) and indirect requests expressed in subordinate clauses (27c) are out. In all cases the first example corresponds to Castilian and the second to Mexican Spanish: (27) a. * * b. * * c. * *

Dejas que veo si puedo ir Dejas veo si puedo ir ‘You let I see if I can go’ Mi padre me deja que lo busco Mi padre me deja lo busco ‘Mi father lets me I search fir it’ Espero que dejes veo si puedo ir Espero que dejes veo si puedo ir ‘I hope that you let I see if I can go’

In both varieties the indicative-causative construction involves a polite command from speaker to hearer to hold while s/he does some other action. Thus the causee may only be expressed in first person as in (28a). The plural first person is also possible while not pragmatically common (28b), and all other grammatical persons are questionable, e.g. (28c–d): (28) a. b. # c. * d. *

Deja veo si puedo ir let-2S see-1S if can-1S go ‘Let me see if I can go’ Deja vemos si podemos ir let-2S see-1PL if can-1PL go ‘Let us see if we can go’ Deja ve si puede ir let-2S see-3S if can-3S go ‘Let him see if he can go’ Deja ven si pueden ir let-2S see-3PL if can-3PL go ‘Let him see if he can go’

Further restrictions determined by face to face speaker-hearer interaction correspond to the fact that the causal verb can only be used in second person singular or plural as in (29). Verb inflection for third and first person on LET are ruled out, e.g. (30):

Soft causatives in Spanish

(29) a. b.

(30) a. * b. *

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Deja veo si puedo ir let-2S see-1S if can-1S go ‘Let me see if I can go’ Dejen veo si puedo ir let-2PL see-1S if can-1S go ‘Let me see if I can go’ Deja(n) veo si puedo ir let-3S see-1S if can-1S go ‘He/they let me see if I can go’ Dejo veo si puedo ir let-1S see-1S if can-1S go ‘I let me see if I can go’

The Mexican Spanish construction may be more problematic than the Castilian counterpart and shows further restrictions. The indicative causative construction is most commonly used informally but the respectful second person form is also allowed (31b). Notice however that the subject pronoun representing the causee is illegal (31c, d). (31) a. b. c. * d. *

Deja lo busco ‘Let-INFORM that I look for it’ Deje lo busco ‘Let-FORM that I look for it’ Deja tú lo busco ‘You let that I look for it’ Deje usted lo busco ‘You-FORMAL let that I look for it’

These restrictions do not apply to Castilian Spanish: (32) a. b.

Deja tú que lo busco ‘You let that I look for it’ Deje usted que lo busco ‘You-FORMAL let that I look for it’

Interestingly enough the pronoun can be used for emphatic purposes in the subjunctive-causative construction in both varieties of Spanish, as shown in (33a–b):

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(33) a. b.

Deja tú que lo busque ‘You let that I look for it’ Deje usted que lo busque ‘You-FORMAL let that I look for it’

It must be stressed that in all cases the causee is always identified with the speaker. Should the causee be someone clearly identified in the context the use of the pronoun provides a more interactive causative reading. In (34) the subject of LET actually allows the causee to act and none of the restrictions apply. Any person for causer and causee are legal as long as they do not co-refer: (34)

Dejo/as/a que tú/él/ellos lo busque/s/Ø/n let.1/2/3 COMP you/he/them it search/2/3S/3PL ‘I/you/he let/s you/he/them search for it’

The use restrictions found particularly in the Mexican Spanish indicative construction show an outstanding rigidity which resembles the behavior of idiomatic constructions. One may be tempted to analyze the INDICATIVECAUSATIVE as a “construction” a la Goldberg. However, this would be a wrong step. For one thing idiomatic constructions are the result of fossilized use reflecting frequent use and natural association of components. Its degree of lexicalization normally resists a compositional analysis of its meaning. The INDICATIVE-CAUSATIVE responds to the opposite characterization. It is a new construction emerging in a specific speech act situation, the construction meaning is fully compositional and it has only started to expand to new verbs that match the basic structure of the causative verb LET. Moreover, as I will show in the following section the degree of independence of the two sub-events of the INDICATIVECAUSATIVE construction is strictly determined by the polysemy of LET which in fact develops to a more transparent interpretation. 4.1. Causal event independence The degree of causative strength may be determined by the lexical properties of the causative verb. Thus forzar ‘force’ ranks above the scale strength of hacer ‘make’ and dejar ‘let’. Yet it is also the case that the coding patterns are meaningful enough to reflect the degree of autonomy/dependence among causative sub-events.

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In Spanish, the SUBJUNCTIVE-CAUSATIVE construction contrasts with the INFINITIVE-CAUSATIVE in that the causee is more independent from the causer’s imposition. The complementizer que signals a more indirect type of causation (Soares da Silva 1993, this volume). This is evidenced by the fact that the causee is freer to take action in a variety of situations. Suppose the causer is physically holding the causee to prevent him from hitting his enemy, then only (35b) is adequate. In (35a) the implication is that the causee may take action but he is not in trends of doing so: (35) a. b.

Deja que le parta la cara ‘Let that I smash his face’ (Lit: ‘let me split his face’) Déjame partirle la cara ‘Let me smash his face’

Likewise if somebody is intentionally blocking my way as I try to leave the room I will utter déjame salir ‘Let me out’. The SUBJUNCTIVE-CAUSATIVE construction deja que salga corresponds to less stringent situations. Moreover, if George Lakoff keeps interrupting my talk I will say to George Déjame hablar ‘Let me speak’, not ?? Deja que hable ‘let that I speak’. An iconic syntactic manifestation of the degree of conflation of the two subevents in the INFINITIVE-CAUSATIVE construction is the fact that the causee must occur as the main clause object, failing to do so leads to a marginal output as in (36b)2. (36) a. b. ??

Déjame buscarla ‘Let me look for her’ Deja buscarla ‘Let look for her’

Needles to say, if the causee is third person the sentence is ill formed. The case of (36b) is still valid since the causee is identified with the speaker and he is recoverable from the immediate context, a situation not applicable to third person in (37b) which leads to an ungrammatical output: (37) a.

Déjalo buscarla ‘Let him look for her’ b. * Deja buscarla ‘Let look for her’ Another fact showing a high degree of integration is the requirement for self-inductive middle verbs to only take the INFINITIVE-CAUSATIVE

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construction, as evidenced by the ungrammaticality of the (b) sentences (for a full account of self-agentive causatives see García Miguel, this volume): (38) a. La señora se dejó caer para llamar la atención ‘The lady let herself fall to attract attention’ b. * La señora dejai que se caigai para llamar la atención (39) a. b. *

Si me dejo caer me puedo lastimar ‘If I let myself fall I can hurt myself’ Si dejoi que me caigai me puedo lastimar ‘If I let that I fall, I can hurt myself’

Physical or temporal proximity is iconically encoded by the INFINITIVEconstruction. Thus the SUBJUNCTIVE-CAUSATIVE construction is best to express future events, such as hitting an aberrant enemy (40a), and the INFINITIVE-CAUSATIVE is awkward since it implies immediateness (40b): CAUSATIVE

(40) a. b. ??

Deja que lo vea y le parto la cara (future event) ‘Let that I see him and I (will) smash his face’ Déjame verlo y le parto la cara (future event) ‘Let me see him and I (will) smash his face’

In parallel fashion a predictive situation is best encoded by the SUBJUNCTIVE-CAUSATIVE. The case of (41) is important because, in the predictive reading, the caused action is totally independent from the causer’s restrictions. Here the meaning brings a strong inference of WAITING, a meaning that the INDICATIVE-CAUSATIVE construction has grammaticized: (41) Deja que Juan salga de estos problemas y verás que bello será todo ‘Let [wait] Juan get out of these problems and you’ll see how beautiful everything will be’ As may be expected, the INF-CAUS construction * Déja a Juan salir del problema... ‘Let Juan get out of the problem…’, *Déjalo salir del problema... ‘Let him get out of the problem...’ is inadequate given its degree of temporal immediateness. The infinitive construction indicates that the hearer is actually blocking Juan to solve the problem.

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4.2. Causal Independence and the INDICATIVE-CAUSATIVE construction The degree of event conflation of the INDICATIVE-CAUSATIVE increases if the causee occurs as the object of the main clause. As can be seen from (42), the “raised” object position (object form me) constitutes an argument for event conflation, i.e., for a high degree of event integration: (42) Déjame lo let-1.SG ACC.3.SG ‘Let me look for it’

busco search-1S-IND

Yet we can see that the integration process is not totally completed. The construction shows properties of both more and less degree of integration. A higher degree is signaled by adverbial modifiers which in principle should not be inserted between well integrated causative constructions. As expected, the subjunctive causative construction admits a prepositional phrase between the two clauses. In colloquial Mexican Spanish this possibility remains when the causee “raises” as main clause object, as can be seen from (43b). However when the causee is the object of the main clause, inserting a prepositional phrase yields an ungrammatical construction, as in (43c): (43) a.

Deja que, con paciencia, let that, with patience, b. Déjame que, con paciencia, let-me that, with patience, c. * Déjame, con paciencia, let-me, with patience, ‘Let me look for it patiently’

lo ACC.3.SG

lo ACC.3.SG

lo ACC.3.SG

busque look for-1S.SUBJ busque look for-1S.SUBJ busco look for-1S.IND

From the fact that no incidental phrase can be inserted we may conclude that in the INDICATIVE-CAUSATIVE construction the two sub-events are more integrated than in the SUBJUNCTIVE-CAUSATIVE construction. Yet other properties go in the opposite direction. In the INDICATIVE-CAUSATIVE construction the two sub-events are more integrated than in the SUBJUNCTIVE-CAUSATIVE construction. In the INDICATIVE-CAUSATIVE construction (44a), the caused event may be coordinated, and under those circumstances the prepositional phrase can be inserted (44b): (44) a. Deja y lo busco ‘Let and I look for it’

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b. Deja y con paciencia lo busco ‘Let and with patience I look for it’ Interestingly enough, under coordination the causee may also occur as object in the main clause, as in (45): (45)

Déjame y con paciencia lo busco ‘Let me and with patience I look for it’

Moreover, the causee may be expressed overtly as subject of the caused clause (46), while the causer may not, as already shown in (31c) and repeated here for convenience as (46b): (46) a. b. *

Deja yo lo busco ‘Let I look for it’ Deja tú lo busco ‘You let that I look for it’

Crucially, it is also possible to have the causee doubly marked as object in the main clause and as subject of the coordinated clause: (47)

Déjame y con paciencia yo lo busco ‘Let me and with patience I look for it’

What these data suggest is that the INDICATIVE-CAUSATIVE construction conforms to an intermediate degree of dependence and integration. The now soft imposition of the causer over the causee and the appearance of the causee as the main clause object, argue for a high degree of event conflation. However the indicative mood on the complement caused clause, the possibility of coordinating the two clauses, the flexibility to have an overt causee subject pronoun and the possibility of inserting a prepositional adverbial phrase between the two clauses argue in favor an analysis in terms of independence. Of special interest is the fact that the formal behavior reflects the degree of event complexity at the conceptual level. While there is some degree of dependence in the construction it fails to encode any situation approaching direct causation. Coercive causation with physical contact is banned for the INDICATIVE-CAUSATIVE construction, only the subjunctive is legal: (48) a.

Déjame partirle la cara ‘Let me smash his face’

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b. * Déjame le parto la cara Direct interference in the causee’s action is also prohibited for the INDICATIVE-CAUSATIVE construction. Notice from (49a–b) that the infinitive and the subjunctive construction are legal while the indicative is not (49c): (49) a.

No me interrumpas, deja que termine la tarea SUBJ-CAUS

b.

No me interrumpas, déjame terminar la tarea INF-CAUS c. * No me interrumpas, déja(me) termino la tarea IND-CAUS ‘Don’t interrupt me let me finish my homework’

The low degree of causer input over the causee predicts that strong causal verbs are not legal for this construction. This is attested by the impossibility of using hacer ‘make’ and forzar ‘force’: (50) a. * Hazme make-me b. * Fuérzame force-me

lo it lo it

busco I look for busco I look for

Further evidence that the causer strength on the causee is almost null can be seen from the fact that even verbs of permission such as autorizar ‘authorize’ and delegar ‘delegate’do not enter the INDICATIVE-CAUSATIVE construction: (51) a. b. * c. *

Déjame lo limpio ‘Let me clean it’ Autorízame lo limpio ‘Authorize me to clean it’ Delégame lo limpio ‘Delegate me to clean it’

Only permitir ‘permit’ may be accepted by some speakers with the polite meaning of English ‘allow’ as when the speaker offers to help the hearer in doing something (Allow me, I will do it for you):

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(52) %

Permíteme lo limpio ‘Allow me, I’ll clean it’

The exclusion of strong and even weak causative verbs and the restriction of using the “polite” meaning of permitir suggests that the meaning of dejar in the construction has been bleached from the permissive causative to a more generic meaning of ‘WAITING’ by which the speaker requires the hearer to hold, to remain in the line of communication while s/he performs another action. The INDICATIVE-CAUSATIVE construction with dejar (53a), as a grammaticized construction, can be equated with the lexical value of esperar ‘wait’ in the SUBJUNCTIVE-CAUSATIVE construction in (53b): (53) a. b.

Deja lo busco Let it look-1S Espera a que lo busque ‘Wait for me to look for it’

In fact, the INDICATIVE-CAUSATIVE construction may be linked via metonymy with the coordinate esperar construction: Espérame y te ayudo ‘Wait for me and I’ll help you’, espérame y nos vamos ‘wait for me and we’ll go’ which seems to respond to similar communicative needs of holding speaker/hearer contact while some other action is being performed. The construction may also be primed by the use of permitir ‘allow’ which in polite conversation means ‘wait’: (54)

- ¿Puedo hablar con la doctora Poot? ‘Can I talk to Dr. Poot?’ - Por supuesto, permítame ‘Of course, allow me (= wait)’

Yet the bleaching process of the causative LET meaning is mostly favored by the verb root meaning. Dejar in the CAUS-IND construction simply develops from its historical root meaning ‘to let go’ as in (55a) and more schematically ‘to suspend having contact with some object’ as in (55b–c): (55) a. Deja ir la cuerda ‘Let the line go’ b. Deberías dejar esos asuntos ‘You should leave those issues’ c. El mar de las noches deja un rumor relajante ‘The sea at night leaves a relaxing rumor’

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Soares da Silva’s extensive study of deixar ‘LEAVE and LET’ in Portuguese (1999, 2003, this volume) shows that the causative use of deixar develops from Latin laxare ‘to loosen, to slacken’ (bonds, fastenings, bolts, ropes, cables, attachments; body, mind) and originally also ‘to widen, to enlarge’. This basic meaning led to two groups of senses in Post-Classical and Late Latin: i)‘let’ and ii)‘leave’. The first group involved granting peace, truce and rights, and forgiving sins and debts. These Church usage meanings were to disappear in Romance. From the sixth century on laxare + infinitive took the meaning of ‘allowing, consenting and authorizing’, replacing sinere. The meaning of the second group was ‘to leave, to go away substituting relinquere. Soares da Silva contends that from around the third century onwards the meaning of ‘letting go’ shows up as an extension – more precisely, as an inversion – from the main meaning: releasing or letting an object go is to become separated from it. The meaning of ‘transfer due to death, to donate’ apparently does not show up until around the eight century. The two groups of meanings contrast in that the first licenses an active reading while the second leads to passive interpretations. This contrast is inherited to Romance. Looking at the passive interpretations we can observe an evolution a gradual decrease of activity in an already passive participant. Examples (55a–c) conform to the passive meaning of “suspending interaction with what is characterized as static”. As for the causative values of deixar Soares da Silva’s proposal can be schematized in three fundamental steps: ‘not to oppose what is presented as dynamic”. This is in fact actualized in three more specific meanings which fully coincide with the English causative let and with the Spanish dejar: This can be observed in (56 i) ‘let go’, ii) ‘allow’, iii) ‘not to prevent’. I have added the Spanish gloss to show the parallelism between Portuguese and Spanish: (56) i.

Ele deixou o pássaro voar (arbindo a gaiola) LET GO

ii.

Ella dejó volar el pájaro (abriendo la jáula) ‘She let the bird fly out (by opening the cage) A Maria pediu-me para ir ao cinema, e eu deixei-a ir ALLOW

iii.

María me pidió permiso de ir al cine, y yo la dejé ir ‘María asked me if she could go to the cinema and I let her go’ O João pôs-se a fazer desparates, e eu deixei-o fazer NOT TO PREVENT, NOT TO IMPEDE Juan empezó a hacer disparates y yo lo dejé hacerlos ‘John started fooling around and I let him do it’

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The evolution form the root meaning to the causative is determined by the fact that the object of interaction is dynamic in the causative construction and non-dynamic in the root meaning (Soares da Silva, this volume). Now the range of meanings found in the causative constructions seems to follow a well attested and transparent pattern of extension: from the concrete the LET GO FD interaction where the causer stops blocking the bird’s action. That schema takes an abstract configuration in the ALLOW meaning such that the hands can now be equated with the authority in blocking someone’s action in an asymmetric relationship. It is now well established that changes from the concrete dominion to an abstract one involve a weakening and a bleaching process. The loss of actual strength evidences as the actual controlling force is canceled to let the bird fly in (56i) while in (56ii) the potential of using such blocking force is not exerted and in fact a positive force of approval goes along with the action. A further step in this weakening process is exemplified in (56iii). Not preventing constitutes an event where the causer, more than flowing with the causee’s action simply refrains from exerting his blocking force. Interestingly enough, the more active interpretation of ‘allowing’ in (56ii) is shared with the verb permitir ‘permit, allow’, while the less active meaning of ‘not preventing, not intervening’ is more frequent. These three levels of lessened participation constitute the basis for the proper understanding of the INDICATIVE-CAUSATIVE construction as it constitutes a further step in the causation weakening process of LET. The construction meaning develops from (56iii). The meaning change from ‘NOT PREVENTING’ to ‘WAITING’ is expected since ‘REFRAINING FROM ACTING FOR SOME TIME’ is a strong inference of ‘NOT PREVENTING’: the causer requests the causee to hold his/her potential acting capacity, thus the time span gains prominence and the actual causal force keeps bleaching out. The lessened degree of causal force has already been pointed out as a lexical property of causal verbs. The down cline from forzar ‘force’ > hacer ‘make’ > permitir ‘permit’ > dejar ‘let’ is well attested in innumerable languages of the world. Now syntactic constructions obey finer communicative needs. For one thing lexical forms do not indicate if causation lessens due to the stronger or weaker resistance of the causee or to the increased/diminished strength of the causer. Causative constructions do respond to those finer demands. Syntactic composition matches the degree of complexity of the event. Independently of the level of causal strength of the verb, the causative constructions reflect different degrees of causer/causee independence as evidenced by the parallel behavior of hacer and dejar, in the INFINITIVE-CAUSATIVE, the SUBJUNCTIVE-CAUSATIVE and the INDICATIVE-CAUSATIVE constructions:

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251

Antonio me hizo salir ‘Antonio made me leave/go out’ Antonio hizo que saliera ‘Antonio made that I leave/go out’ * Hazme salgo (y nos vamos) make-me I leave/go out Antonio me dejó salir ‘Antonio let me leave/go out’ Antonio dejó que saliera ‘Antonio let that I leave/go out’ Déjame salgo (y nos vamos) ‘Let me go out = ‘Wait and I come out (and we will go)’

The indicative causative construal is restricted to dejar, at the exclusion of hacer. Langacker (1991) has defined causatives as constructions where the causer has the capacity of initiating the caused event. I claim that the independence of the causee increases as we move down form the INFINITIVE-CAUSATIVE to the SUBJUNCTIVE-CAUSATIVE to the INDICATIVECAUSATIVE. The picture in fact is made more complex by the polysemy of let .3 One reason for event independence is found in the resistance on the causee’s part to the causer’s input, yet the decreasing “directness” of the three Spanish causative constructions obtains as the degree of participation of the causer diminishes to its minimal manifestation: waiting. Event independence is determined by the degree of interactive strength established between causer and causee as provided by both the construction and the causative verb. Focusing on the causative Spanish constructions we see that they code three different force-dynamic schemas as determined by the causal energy (E) of the causer: (59) Causal energy: E+ > E > EThe contrast between direct and indirect causatives as traditionally seen implies only two levels, yet data from different languages suggest a recurrent three way distinction which is subject to even more subtle classification (see Soarez da Silva for Portuguese, this volume). There is a gradual cline from stronger to weaker control of the causer over the causee. The causative Spanish constructions seen in this paper represent a three way organization. There are other languages showing a gradual cline involving more than two levels. Dutch encodes a three way distinction via neuter, accusative and dative case marking4. Portuguese has three different constructions VV, VOV and VSV showing different degrees of integration

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and causative strength which is encoded by the occurrence of the causee between the VV where the second verb may be an inflected infinitive5. Likewise in the Spanish causative constructions we can see that event independence is equated with energy decrease of the causer. Within the lexical limits of the verb dejar, in the INFINITIVE-CAUSATIVE construction the causer is maximally energetic [E+]; in the SUBJUNCTIVE-CAUSATIVE s/he is energy neutral [E] while in the INDICATIVE-CAUSATIVE construction the causer is non-energetic [E-]. As for the causee some energy adjustments may take place as determined by the strength of the causer. We can see a gradual increase of energy from the INFINITIVE-CAUSATIVE to the SUBJUNCTIVE-CAUSATIVE and even more so to the INDICATIVE-CAUSATIVE where the indicative mood on the verb makes the causee take on higher energy [E+]. We can schematically represent the Mexican Spanish three way contrast in the following manner:

E+ causer

Ecausee

Figure 4: INF-CAUS

E E causer causee Figure 5: SUBJ-CAUS

EE+ causer causee Figure 6: IND-CAUS

Figures 4 to 6 show a gradual decrease of causer agentivity which gives more freedom for the causee to act. In Figure 4 the infinitive-causative construction reflects higher degrees of integration. The causee integrates to the main clause as the main clause object. The caused event is impinged by the causer who is energetic [E+]. In Figure 5 the subjunctive-causative construction is less integrated. The independence of the caused event is attested by the fact that the causee remains as the subject of the complement clause. The two events remain relatively independent and the causer holds an intermediate degree of energy [E]. In this case for the causal event to happen the causee’s participation is necessary. Thus the initiative force is less stringent. This is represented as an attenuation of agentivity which matches the trends of subjectivity (see below). As for Figure 6 the caused event is not determined by the causer’s action at all [E-].We may suggest that such initial strength has become almost totally transparent. The causee is clearly energetic [E+], as it is coded as nominative in the indicative mood. This type of approach accounts naturally for all the problematic cases given in section II. The direct-indirect contrast in Spanish is determined by the degree of energy of the causee having the dative a [E+] configuration. It also accounts for the Kannada, Hindi, Quechua examples and the VVO, VOV gradual organization described for French by Achard.6 We still need to account for the fact that the causee may be the object of the main clause. The pragmatic information involving hearer and speaker interaction provides the clue. Causation takes place now at the discourse

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level only, a grammaticalization phenomenon following one of the tendencies suggested by Traugott (1982, 1986, 1988), where a referential element shifts from the referent in the “real world” to the dominion of the speaker. By request the hearer allows the speaker to perform some other action. Thus the speaker gets accusative marking in the main clause. The actual action is one of which the speaker is in total control. Thus the indicative form at the action level is expected. Coordination is also expected for there are two events linked by pragmatic coincidence. This explains why the causee can be overtly expressed as object and subject as in (47). To sum up, although the INDICATIVE-CAUSATIVE construction is still causative at the discourse level, it shows a high degree of independence of the caused event. This obtains as the initiative force of the causer has been drastically reduced to suspend his/her activity as requested by the speaker. The link between causal and caused event is however maintained pragmatically as the causee is equated with the speaker and the causer with the hearer. In contrast with other manifestations of dependency among events, the INDICATIVE-CAUSATIVE constructions maintain the link through conversational ties. This pragmatic strategy constitutes the last and weakest possible link in the causative chain which comes as a direct consequence of the weakening causation process that dejar ‘let’ has undergone. The behavior described for the indicative-causative construction fully coincides with what Langacker (2000) has proposed as subjectification, a diachronical process of attenuation in degree of control exerted by an agentive subject. As attenuation takes place the notion of potency weakens and shifts from the dominion of the subject to that of the conceptualizer. Subjectification thus involves subjectivity. For instance, the attenuation involved in the diachronical evolution of can precisely shifts the potency of the subject to do something (60) to that of some other participant in the event (61), and finally to that of the conceptualizer as s/he evaluates the possibility of the event to take place (62): (60)

I can solve the problem

(61)

The patient can come in now

(62)

Things can go wrong

In the last stage the agentive force becomes totally transparent. Attenuation is a pervasive process in grammaticalization which shows up in modals, auxiliaries, tense markers and other grammatical means. The shifting of go from actual motion to future marking is a most cited case. This shift is also represented in Soares da Silva’s analysis of Portuguese deixar ‘let’ and this

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paper is in line with the Portuguese findings. Yet Mexican Spanish seems to have taken a step forward in the subjectification process. The change of dejar ‘let’ from letting go (Dejé ir el pájaro / Dejé que el pájaro se fuera ‘I let the bird go’) to allowing somebody to do something (Dejé que me sustituyeran ‘I allowed them to take my place’) there is already a first shift in attenuation as the potency is transferred from the causer to the causee. The causer’s potency is further diminished as dejar only means not impeding someone else’s action as shown in (Juan empezó a hacer disparates y yo lo dejé hacerlos ‘John started fooling around and I let him do it’). Since the subject’s force is still present in this case there is no total transparency. Finally, the case of the INDICATIVE-CAUSATIVE construction is a further step in the direction of transparency since potency now shifts to the ground, the dominion of speaker and hearer in oral interactions. Both the Castilian and the Mexican INDICATIVE-CAUSATIVE constructions are quite transparent and yet we can still find degrees of causation, since the Castilian construction appears to be less transparent than the Mexican one. The complementizer – together with the intonation change – reflects a stronger demand on the hearer by the speaker. Is this an effect of orality? Yes it certainly is. But what is crucial is the fact that the indicative causative construction has taken one more step in the grammaticalization process as the complementizer and the intonation change have been lost. The last point to consider is whether the indicative-causative construction involves subordination. The data given along this paper suggest that it does not. In true causative constructions with hacer ‘make’, forzar ‘force’, etc. the asymmetry between the two clauses is evident. The case of the indicative-causative construction, however, constitutes another instance of more formulaic expressions pointed out by Thompson (2002) and Langacker (ms.) where there is enough evidence against analyzing the complement clause as subordinate. Epistemic, evidential, evaluative and formulaic expressions have been identified by Thompson as clear cases where the apparent main “clause” is less prominent than the complement. The complement taking verb simply introduces the content of the second clause. The complement clause does not qualify either as an object or as a subordinate clause. Here are two typical examples where the informative clause is put in capitals: (63) a. I’m convinced THAT IT’S OK b. Let’s find out IF IT WORKS.

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As pointed out by Thompson, these cases do not pass Haspelmath’s (1996) test of “focusability” for complements, which predicts that only subordinates may be focused: (64) a. * What let’s find out is if it works. b. * What I am convinced is that it is OK Similarly, in the Spanish indicative-causative (65) the complement cannot take focus while a real complement can (66): (65) déjame veo ‘let me see’ > * Lo que déjame es veo ‘what let me is I see’. (66) Acepté que no me quisieras ‘I accepted that you wouldn’t love me’ > Lo que acepté es que no me quisieras ‘What I accepted is that you wouldn’t love me’ Not only this syntactic argument but the whole behavior of the indicativecausative construction proves that no subordination takes place. Both clauses operate at different levels. While the let clause pertains to the discourse level, the complement caused clause is situated at the level of the action. The Spanish causative construction is no doubt formulaic, as evidenced by all the speaker-hearer interaction restrictions put forward in section 4. Yet unlike epistemic expressions like Creo QUE VA A LLOVER ‘I think it is going to rain’, commonly used to introduce a topic in the complement clause, the indicative-causative maintains the link between speaker and hearer to put the complement clause in profile. Figure 6 above precisely represents a case where attenuation has made the causal verb totally transparent with little prominence (as represented by the dotted arrow) while the complement verb is undoubtedly the main figure. In the case of causative constructions the asymmetry found in main and complement clause represents iconically higher degrees of causative organization via subjectification as in the CAUSATIVE-SUBJUNCTIVE construction. Such asymmetry is lost too since both clauses operate at different levels such that the complement clause is no longer a caused object.

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5. Conclusions In this paper I have proposed that causative event complexity is determined by the force-dynamic interaction established between causer and causee. The type of interaction to be found is rich and complex as it can be determined by the number of participants involved in the event, the degree of (in)dependence of the causee to perform an action, the degree of volition with which the causer impinges the causee to do something, the capacity of the causee to resist the causer’s input and the degree of separability of the two composing subevents. While periphrastic causative constructions tend to map the structure of basic transitive and transfer mental constructs, as proposed by the integration hypothesis, the representation of causal relations can be subject to more specific conceptualizations which are coded syntactically, not lexically. While the semantics of causative verbs provides one degree of information for the calculus of causal strength, finer grain force-interaction is reflected by the coding properties of the construction. Invoking P’orepecha I have shown that, following general principles, the degree of complexity of the event is represented by the coding properties of the language. Lexical and morphemic causatives tend to reflect direct causation while (complex) morphemic and periphrastic causatives specialize in indirect causation. Once there is some caused event independence, causer and causee may interact in a variety of ways that are coded in the construction. Case marking, complement mood choice and word order are the most common syntactic-semantic strategies with which the complexity of the event is coded. The case of the three causative Spanish constructions is coded mainly by mood choice. While the infinitive clause reflects maximal dependence, the subjunctive mood encodes independence, decreasing the strength of the causer. And the indicative provides more energetic causees with capacity to resist or diminish the causer’s commands. Crucially, the lack of a complementizer signals an important degree of causee independence. The emergence of the INDICATIVE-CAUSATIVE construction may be motivated by the attenuation process of the causative verb dejar. While the bleaching process of dejar may respond to general cognitive processes associated with diminishing causal strength in verbs that already mean “suspending some interaction” (Soares da Silva, in press), Spanish has taken a further step where dejar denotes the minimal causal strength of keeping the hearer “connected” to the communicative line as s/he performs some other action. Pragmatic communicative needs keep triggering new conceptualization patterns and the indicative-causative construction responds precisely to those requirements.

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Notes 1. Facts involve a considerable amount of variation with subtle meanings. In the standard dialect of Spain le and la lost their case meaning (dative and accusative) and became gender markers: masculine le, feminine la. The problem is complicated by the fact that there are leísta, loísta and laísta dialects that choose le, lo or la as the unmarked clitic for accusative meanings. While in Spain there is strong leísmo, the Latin American dialects have kept to a considerable extent the original case meanings inherited from Latin: dative for le and accusative for lo, la. 2. This is a transitivity related issue. Things are worse if the complement clause is transitive and less marginal with intransitive non-active subjects: 1. a. Déjame descansar ‘Let me rest’ b. % Deja descansar ‘Let rest’ 3. The bleaching process of dejar ‘let’ makes for a more elaborate picture since in the INFINITIVE-CAUSATIVE construction three meanings of dejar can be instantiated: ‘to let go’, ‘no to allow’ and ‘not to impede’. Crucially, the indicative causative construction only admits the not impeding reading. 4. The two way contrast is normally coded by dative/accusative as in Spanish or dative/instrumental as in Hindi. Kemmer and Verhagen (1994) document a three way contrast for Dutch where zero marked accusative (non-nominative) is in contrast with dative and instrumental. The highest degree of causer control/affectedness over the causee should be zero marked; dative would signal some degree of the causee’s independence, while instrumental marking would let the participant be peripheral to the core event as s/he would be most independent. [+E] 1. a. Hij liet haar de brief lezen (NON-NOMINATIVE) He let her the letter read ‘He let/had her read the letter’ [E] b. Hij liet de brief aan iedereen lezen (DAT) He let the letter to everybody read ‘He let/had everybody read the letter’ [-E] c.Hij liet de brief door iemand lezen (AGENTIVE/INSTR) He let the letter by somebody read ‘He had the letter read by somebody’ 5. There is a higher degree of causer control in the VV structure with uninflected infinitive as in (a). The causee can only occur after the infinitive if it is uninflected. The two clauses are less integrated when the causee occurs between verbs (c and d) and there degree of causer control is most diminished when the infinitive is inflected as in (d): 1. a. A Maria fez/mandou/deixou/viu correr os miúdos [+E] Mary made/ordered/let/saw run-INFIN the children b.*A Maria fez/mandou/deixou/viu correrem os miúdos

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Mary made/ordered/let/saw run-INFL.INFIN-3PL the children ‘Mary made/let/saw the children run / ordered the children to run.’ c. A Maria fez/mandou/deixou/viu os miúdos correr [E] Mary made/ordered/let/saw the children run-INFIN d. A Maria fez/mandou/deixou/viu os miúdos correrem [-E] Mary made/ordered/let/saw the children run-INFL.INFIN-3PL 6. In exactly the same way French causatives show a three way gradual organization where the VV construction is only adequate when the causer is in a higher degree of control over the causee’s actions as in (a). In contrast, when the causee’s control of his own actions is higher, as in (d), the VOV construction rules: (VV) [+E] a. Jean laisse partir Marie quand il veut [+E] b. ??Jean laisse Marie partir quand il veut (VOV) [E] c. ??Jean laisse partir Marie quand elle veut (VV) [E] d. Jean laisse Marie partir quand elle veut (VOV) Force-dynamics determines that [+E] be linked to a VV construction, hence the marginality of (b and c). Other details regarding viewpoint and verbs of perception as analyzed by Achard are consistent with this analysis

References Achard, Michel 1996 Two causation/perception constructions in French. Cognitive Linguistics 7 (4): 315–357. 2000 Selección de modo en complementos oracionales. In Estudios Cognoscitivos del español, Ricardo Maldonado (ed.), 153–174. México: Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas-UNAM. Comrie, Bernard 1976 The syntax of causative constructions: cross-language similarities and divergencies. In Syntax and Semantics 6: The Grammar of Causative Constructions, Masayoshi Shibatani (ed.), 261–312. New York: Academic Press. Fauconnier, Gilles, and Mark Turner 1996 Blending as a central process of grammar. In Conceptual Structure Discourse and Language, Adèle Golberg (ed.), 113–129. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information. 1998 Conceptual integration networks. Cognitive Science. 22: 133–187. García Miguel, José María This vol. Syntactic and semantic integration in Spanish causative-reflexive constructions. Givón, Talmy 1990 Syntax: A functional typological introduction, Vol 2. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

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Haspelmath, Martin 1996 The converb as a cross-linguistically valid category. In Converbs in Crosslinguistic Perspective, Martin Haspelmath, and Ekkehard König (eds.), 1–55. Berlin/ New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Kemmer, Suzanne, and Arie Verhagen 1994 The grammar of causatives and the conceptual structure of events. Cognitive Linguistics 5(2): 115–156. Langacker, Ronald 1991 Transitivity, case and grammatical relations. Concept, Image and symbol. The Cognitive Basis of Grammar. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 209–260. 2000 Subjectification and Grammaticalization. In Grammar and conceptualization, 297–316. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. ms. Subordination in Cognitive Grammar. Maldonado, Ricardo 1988 Energetic reflexives in Spanish. Berkeley Linguistics Society. 14: 153–165. 1999 A media voz. Problemas conceptuales del clítico se. Mexico: Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas, UNAM. Maldonado, Ricardo, and Fernando Nava 2002 Tarascan Causatives and event complexity. In The Grammar of Causation and Interpersonal Manipulation, Masayoshi Shibatani (ed.), 157–196. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Talmy, Leonard 1988 Force dynamics in language and cognition”. Cognitive Science 12: 49–100. Thompson, Sandra 2002 Object complements and conversation towards a realistic account. Studies in Language 26 (1): 125–164. Shibatani, Masayoshi 2002 Introduction: Some basic issues in the grammar of causation. In The Grammar of Causation and Interpersonal Manipulation, Masayoshi Shibatani (ed.), 1–22. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Soares da Silva, Augusto 1999 A Semântica de Deixar. Uma Contribuição para a Abordagem Cognitiva em Semântica Lexical. Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. 2003 Image schemas and category coherence: The case of the Portuguese verb deixar. In Cognitive Approaches to Lexical Semantics, Hubert Cuyckens, René Dirven, and John Taylor (eds.), 281–322. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. This vol. Verbs of letting: some cognitive and historical aspects. Traugott, Elizabeth 1982 From propositional to textual and expressive meanings: some semantic-pragmatic aspects of grammaticalization. In Perspectives

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on Historical Linguistics, Winfred P. Lehmann, and Yakov Malkiel (eds.), 245–271. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 1986 From polysemy to internal reconstruction. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 12: 539–550. 1988 Pragmatic strengthening and grammaticalization. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 14: 406–416. Vázquez, Verónica 2002 Some constraints in causative constructions in Cora. In The Grammar of Causation and Interpersonal Manipulation, Masayoshi Shibatani (ed.), 197–244. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Two causal alternatives: carry vs. push type constructions in English Natalya Schmidt

0. Introduction The leading approach in present cognitive linguistics, based on the metaphorical nature of language, with its emphasis on the speaker/hearer as a person in all his aspects, i.e. his physical makeup (embodied cognition), emotions, physical and social activity, capacities for perception, naturally leads to an increasing interest in, and a closer consideration of, the person from different sources and points of view: philosophical and psychological theories of action and causation, developmental and social psychology, the neurocognitive basis of language, cognitive models of behaviour etc. Resultative constructions of the type (1)

a. b. c. d.

He talked him into taking a trip. He ate him out of the house. She drank him under the table. He walked the horse tired.

attract the attention of many researchers, due to the syntactically and semantically irregular use of their verbs (violation of subcategorization and semantic selection requirements). With syntactic and semantic analyses of these phenomena not exhausting these problems, Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980, 1987) theory of metaphorization offers another possibility to analyse resultative constructions. From this perspective, the question arises what kind of construction should be considered as basis of metaphorical projections leading to derived resultatives. The idea of a metaphorical connection of resultatives with the movement domain was proposed e.g. by Goldberg (1991: 368–378, 1995: 81); i.e., resultatives like (2)

He hammered the metal flat.

are taken to be derived from the caused-motion construction (3)

He threw the box off the table.

The article is devoted to the problem of the formation of the basic causal construction, with its two variants A carried/pushed B to place C, which are argued to reflect two basic causal alternatives of human activity (vs.

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mechanical causality among inanimate objects), and which can be related to Michotte’s (1963) fundamental causal scenes of entraining and launching, respectively. The role of the basic causal construction, as a prototype of all resultatives, is to serve as the basis for the metaphorical projection to derived constructions, which is effective not only on the syntactic level, but also on the prelinguistic levels, such as the structure of experience of a person, gestalt and causal perception, image schematization, and the linguistic level of basic semantic categories. All these levels are interrelated and interconnected with each other and form a hierarchy; they simultaneously manifest an identical level-internal developmental structure of stages of cognitive complication and modification, so that the structure of a given stage is based on, or arises from the structure of the previous one with the addition of new features and necessary changes of old ones. Those stages of development form a hierarchy on each level that is specific for its structure. The principle of stage-development of the structures, and their hierarchical relations are general and function on all the pre-linguistic and linguistic levels. From this point of view the basic causal construction and all the levels of its formation are considered as appearing at a certain stage in the development of the cognitive structures reflecting human movement activity. The above main thesis will now be expanded in more detail for the individual levels, leading to a comprehensive picture of the formation of the basic causative construction. Accordingly, the paper comprises the following sections: 1. the level of personal experience, reflecting the experience of a person in his movement activity; sections 2 and 3 discuss the connection of the models of the experience with the structure of gestalt perception, and with phenomenal perception of the causal scenes, respectively. Section 4 represents the cognitive structuring of image schemas, which is based on the data of the previous levels; sections 5 and 6 are devoted to the “output” of the development of the cognitive structuring – to the linguistic levels of semantic categories (5) and syntactic constructions (6). 1. The level of personal experience 1.1. The three stages of intra-level development On this level, the following stages of development can be identified: (i) The first, pre-causal stage reflects the experience of a person in his movement activity, i.e. movement to/into/out of some place.

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(ii) The second, causal stage reflects the experience of a person in taking some thing to some place by means of carrying. (iii) The third, causal causal stage reflects the experience of a person in his moving some thing to some place by pushing it. The models of the actions characteristic for each stage could be described in the following way (with the performer of the action being called the subject, and the thing acted upon, the object): (i) The first, pre-causal stage (“movement to”): Everyday experience of a person is full of movement, performed by him, to some place or places, usually with some purpose. A person can have different reasons, intentions (whether prior intentions or intentions in action; see Searle 1983) and aims for moving. What unites all the cases is one important basic feature of the structure, viz. that the animate performer of the movement, unlike inanimate objects, is aware of his actions; i.e. he goes “somewhere”, and usually knows exactly where to. In this sense, human locomotion is intentional action, which has the aim to attain some definite point (see Lakoff 1987: 275). (ii) The second, causal stage (“carrying”): The formation of the second stage is based on the principle of the effectivity of the experience obtained at the previous stage, and is determined by the wish of a person to use the obtained experience and – due to the capacity to imagine or mentally construct some new action – to realize a new aim which naturally follows from the previous one by the logic “If I can do X, then I want and can do Y”: If I can go to that place, then now I want that this thing also could be in that place. This aim is fulfilled naturally and is connected with the basic experience of a person in using the physical abilities of his body, viz. the ability to move and the physical power of his hands. That is, the logic is the following: “If I go and hold the thing in my hand, then I can thereby take this thing to some place.” This is the grounding of the basic category of the action carry on the level of experience. This aim could be realized by a slightly different means, viz. in such a way that the subject holds the object, being in front of it, so giving rise to the formation of the categories of pulling it, or dragging it behind, in case of the liability of the latter (e.g. when pulling a sledge); see Michotte (1963: 163). (iii) The third, causal stage (“pushing”): The third stage is determined by the intention of the subject to fulfill the same aim – to act so that the object is in a certain place – in another way. The knowledge, based on the subject’s own numerous experiences and on the perception of other persons’ activity, that some objects if pushed, kicked, or thrown can move in some way by inertia (for example, a stone or stick could ”fly” in the air), is used intentionally by the subject for the realization of its aim. In comparison with the scene of the second stage, at the third stage, due to the capacity of the object to move, the subject does not have to carry it; so the

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subject’s task becomes easier in the sense that it only has to apply the physical power of its hands to initiate the movement of the object by means of pushing or throwing it (for example, a boat can move on the water current being pushed from the bank). Variants of this, when a kind of “modernization of the technique” takes place, are found when someone throws a stone, shoots with a bow and arrow, slings a catapult, throws a javelin or harpoon, or bowls a cricketball; see Michotte (1963: 165). 1.2. The causal alternatives ”carry – push” as two fundamental psychological models of action Carry and push variants actually represent two functional alternatives of causal action, which are mutually exclusive (i.e., if not carry, then push). Grounded by the factors of experience, those two variants are connected with two psychological models of action, which are determined by two main strategies of how to perform the action: on one’s own or not. In the first case the “natural ambitions” and intentions of the subject to realize the aim by all means and in the best way are fulfilled with guaranteed success as the action follows the common sense principle: ”It is better to do important things yourself.” For example, in the situation when a mother carries a child, in some sense the ideal psychological model of causal activity is realized: It is a case in which the subject has complete power and absolute dominance over the object, so that it realizes its aim without any resistance from the object’s side, the subject being a performer is an observer of the own action and its result, and controls the situation from the beginning to the end. The peculiarity of human causal action1 in general is that if the action is not performed by the subject, the latter’s intentions are such that it should be done by an object as if it were done by the subject itself, so in the best way from the subject’s point of view. Thus in a way a pushing scene is a continuation of the carrying scene; it is “carrying mentally” since the subject initiates the movement of the object in the direction which the subject would take itself if it carried the object, and remains with it mentally till the point of destination, as if following the movement of the object with its eyes. In other words, the subject by pushing projects the direction of the movement of the object on analogy with its own movement. The first (“carrying”) variant, while being safest from the psychological point of view, is still more complicated for the subject to perform in comparison with the second (“pushing”) variant when the time and physical (but not intellectual) involvement of the subject in the object’s movement are reduced, although at the cost of the “concentration of energy” by the

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subject in the initial stage, and increased uncertainty on the subject’s side concerning the success of the action. These two variants are relevant and suitable under specific conditions, and involve reference to differences in causal power of the actor, the liabilities of the object, and the releasing conditions which allow the action to have its effect.2 The two causal alternatives are determined by two main ideas or strategies of behaviour: (i) direct constant control performed by the subject while being “together” with the object during the whole action; this control can take two “psychological directions”: positive – when the subject does it for the sake of the object as a form of help or assistance, and negative – when the subject does it for its own sake, the object thus manifesting a kind of submission; (ii) indirect control when the subject by releasing the object (physically but not psychologically), hence not being physically with the latter, still directs and controls the object’s action “from a distance”, as it were, thus staying with the object indirectly through the influence at the beginning which is strong enough to be effective till the end. Again, this indirect control is of two main types: positive, “encouraging”, when the subject “pushes the object into movement” for the sake of the latter, and negative, when the subject ”pushes the object away”, i.e. with the principal intention to be “separate” from the latter, thus revealing its negative attitude towards the object. Generalizing, “carrying” means constant control and much effort on the side of the subject, high assurance in the success of the action, physical closeness of subject and object, incapacity of the object to perform the action on its own, and consequent performance of it by the subject, given its absolute dominance over the object. The “pushing” action means indirect control, and less assurance in the success of the action on the side of the subject, influence over the object in the beginning, physical separation of subject and object, the capacity of the object to perform the action on its own, and the increasing probability of the object’s deviating from the path as projected by the subject. On the whole, since it is the subject that is the performer of the causal action, the choice of causal alternative is determined to a significant extent by many psychological factors, connected this time with intentions of the subject grounded in mental attitudes, emotions, attitudes towards the object, which could be united into more general pairs, such as concern vs. indifference, positive vs. negative attitude of the subject towards the object, pleasant vs. unpleasant emotions, the subject’s intentions and natural ambitions to fulfill the aim by all means, and in the best way, with guaranteed success, which, together with the objective conditions, seem to play an important psychological role in the decision of which alternative to choose.

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2. The level of gestalt perception Gestalt perception deals with the perception of shape and movement as such (Michotte 1963: 6; cf. also Rosch 1978: 29), on the basis of the distinctions between figure and ground, between contour and enclosed space, and between perspective and projective size; on the basis of the concepts “gestalt itself”, “centration”, “part-whole relations”, “absorption”, “internal hierarchy”, and “belonging”, and on the basis of the laws of “structural organization”, e.g. those relating to integration, segregation, spatial and temporal contiguity, similarity (in the form of “common fate” and “good continuation”), and, in modern terms, on schemes and principles such as “base vs. profile”, “scanning”, “point of view”, “attention distribution”, “force dynamics”, and “barrier” (Michotte 1963: 308; Langacker 1987: 262–267, 1988: 58–63, 1990: 68–69,74–75, 278–288; Talmy 1988). The connection of the first and the second stages on the level of experience can correspondingly be observed on the level of gestalt perception. The parameters of the performance of the action, such as physical closeness of the subject and the object, and passivity of the object, in the second scene provides the perception of the person carrying a thing (an object) on analogy with a moving person, due to the action of the gestalt of a person; a thing is considered then as part of his body, as a continuation of a hand, so that the gestalt image of a whole is being preserved. It is natural that movement of the person and his holding the thing are also perceived simultaneously, together, as both referring to him. It could be hypothesized that the gestalt principle of ”common fate” described by Michotte (1963: 318–319), in his study of causal perception with inanimate objects, is based on the gestalt of a moving person, in which the parts of a person’s body move simultanuously and together as well. So the thing perceived as a part of the person’s body in the second scene is treated as sharing the “common fate” with the moving person. The third stage is the next step in the development of the perceptual structure, when due to the different conditions of the performance of the scene, its perception leads to the formation of a new gestalt image which is nevertheless based on the structure of the second stage; the object, being then distinct but perceived within the whole gestalt of a person, is now separated from him, and is actually perceived as moving on its own. However, in the gestalt terms used by Michotte, the integration of the movement into a whole relies on the principle of “good continuation” (Michotte 1963: 351).

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3. The level of phenomenal perception, or „causal perception” Here one should not overlook the contribution made by the Belgian psychologist A. Michotte, with his studies of the phenomenal perception of causality,3 and with many other works published in French, in which he presented the descriptions and analyses of more than one hundred types of psychological experiments on the perceptual causal structure of scenes with inanimate objects. The structure of causal perception, with the notion of ampliation of the movement, the idea of actual perception of causality (Michotte 1963: 87), and many other ideas proposed by Michotte on the basis of numerous experiments, appear to be of great value and importance in the study of human causal activity, especially in connection with the role of perception in forming pre-linguistic and linguistic structures. Among others, on the basis of numerous observations in his experiments, that in their descriptions the subjects systematically make comparisons with human or animal activity, Michotte (1963: 280–281) expressed the idea that there should exist “... a close relationship between all forms of phenomenal activity”, that “... human activity serves in some sense as a prototype for all other kinds...,” and that “... human activities, both causal and otherwise, occur far more often in our experience than any variety of physical activity to be found in the inanimate world.” Those conclusions and the fundamental role of movement in the phenomenal perception, of mechanical causality in particular, emphasized by Michotte, support the hypothesis, put forward in the present paper, that causal structures are founded in the cognitive structures of movement, and that there very probably exist principled correspondences and similarities between perceptual causal structures described by Michotte and those of human activity, natural differences notwithstanding. The structure of causal perception of the scenes with inanimate objects studied by Michotte, being obviously closely related to those with animate agents (not represented in Michotte’s experiments) could thus be considered as a fundamental experimental basis (though it is not excluded that it could be secondary to the phenomenal human activity as a “prototype” in the sense of Michotte; see above) in the hypothetical modelling of the preconceptual and conceptual structures of human causal activity. Moreover, the principles and conditions of the causal perceptual structure of launching and entraining scenes seem to be the only ones naturally suitable and adequate for carry and push scenes of human activity. So, while the gestalt perception of the scene of the second stage is similar to that of a moving person, its content is different; on the level of phenomenal perception another action is already “seen”, that of a carrying person. This perception implies functional relations between objects (Michotte 1963: 4–5, 15).4 The causal action, established on the level of

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personal experience, then being perceived in the activity of some other person, represents a kind of functional opposition between the subject and the object which could be described in the following way: On the one hand the subject does “everything”; it holds, moves, takes the object – in short, it carries. The object does “nothing”, it is only a thing which is being carried. On the other hand, from the moment the subject takes the object in its hands and begins moving, it is clear that everything the subject does, it does it not for itself, but for the sake of the object. This difference of perspective could be represented in a more detailed way: On the one hand the subject is an actor, it is the main participant as far as the performance of the action is concerned, and movement of the object is dependent on the subject’s decision: to perform carrying the thing or not, in what direction, and to what place. The subject is fully responsible for the fulfillment of the movement of the object, and the role of the object in this scene is absolutely passive, it is simply the thing which lacks the capacity to move and to decide. The only feature of the object which could be important is its liability to be carried, i.e. possession of such properties as for example not too much weight, to be possible for a person to carry it, a solid physical structure, etc. In short, the subject is active and dominant, and the object is passive and weak (see also White 1995: 5, 276). On the other hand, the movement performed by the subject is interesting not for its own sake as in the first scene, but only in connection with the object, as the subject goes with the purpose of taking the object to some place, so in the centre of attention is the object’s “fate”, and the movement of the subject is only the means (together with holding) by which it takes the object to a certain place. Causal perception is characterized a feature known as phenomenal duplication (cf. Michotte 1963: 319). The scene in which visually and factually only one movement takes place – the movement performed by the subject –, is divided mentally by the observer into a scene with two movements, or two specific “pictures” or impressions, one of which refers to the subject, and the other, to the object. The latter, which in reality has no movement of its own, is identified as a distinct element with its own fate; the fact that the subject carries simultaneously means that the object “is carried”. These two structures are not the same by content and character: the subject is active (goes and holds), the object is passive (lies in the hands of the subject). Nevertherless, the object is perceived as still “moving”, even if because of the subject; i.e., here we have some kind of paradox: the object does not move, but is still moving. The perception is evidently performed here on the basis not of some separate independent actions or states like “it is at rest”, or “he is moving”, but on the basis of a combination of interrelated conditions (see also Rosch 1978: 29); for example, how it lies: not on the table, but in the

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hands of a person, who at the same time is moving – yielding the unified or general impression “it is carried”, or in what way he is moving: with some thing in his hand, so “he carries”. Moreover, the phenomenal perception becomes one of “seeing” functional relations between the participants, as appears from descriptions that answer the question “why” and “what for”. Thus the question “What is going on in the scene?” could be answered as “The man is carrying some thing”, and the question “What is happening to the object?” as “It is carried by the man”, and the person actually or directly perceives the carrying action as such, as well as the objects being carried (as to reasons for analysing this as “seeing”, not interpreting causal events (see Michotte 1963: 311–313). From this position the fact that the movement of the object is fulfilled by the subject happens to be secondary in comparison to the principle of functional separateness of the object; the main thing is that the object, and “what happens to it”, represents phenomenally a separate “structure”, exlusively characterizing and referring to the object. On the one hand, the subject and the object are “together” from the beginning to the end of the scene, and this produces the impression that they have a “common fate”, and they have it from the point of view of their physical closeness. On the other hand, each participant possesses its own specific features, and plays its own role, and in this sense the subject and the object have different fates; i.e., here we have another paradoxical feature of the phenomenal perception: being together they are separate. With these two structures or impressions coinciding with each other spatio-temporally, the fact that the subject carries is accompanied by the simultaneous impression of the object being carried. The latter could be described as an effect of the action carry, which is the cause, in turn. At the same time, while the establishment of functional causal relations has to do with the cognitive processes connected directly with perception and its structures, it is also based on memory, imagination, and the capacity of a person to mentally connect and unite several perceptual structures of different fragments of the situation at different times, in one composed full structure, in the form of an abstract path (in the sense of Jackendoff 1990), the actual perception being in this sense the source for remembering and constructing images (Lamb 1999: 170). The functional relations could then be represented in the following slightly paradoxical way: The effect of being carried seems to take place over the whole time interval that the subject performs the carrying action. At the same time, as the aim of the action carry is the attainment of the point of destination, that is to carry something to some definite place, the effect of being carried produces an impression of an intermediate or temporary effect on the way to the final one, which coincides with the aim. Then, with the point of destination

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being the final aim, the action carry is considered as a means of its achievement. The above significant functional characteristics lead to a more general impression, which makes it possible to refer the scene to another functional type than simply a scene of movement. The carry scene, while possessing its own content, at the same time manifests direct analogies with the fundamental causal scene of the “entraining” type, identified by Michotte (1963: 149, 162–163, 319–320). Note further that the subjects in his experiments, in describing their impressions, had a tendency to make comparisons with human or animal activity. In experiments of entraining it was regularly said that object A “took B with him” or “carried him off” (Michotte 1963:21:280). In the light of all these considerations, the carry type scene can be argued to be a basic causal scene reflecting human activity, as the analogue of entraining for the scenes with inanimate objects. Thus the causal structure is not some isolated or independent structure given in perception, but it is related to the structure of the previous stage, reflecting the movement of a person to some place so that the main causal features and senses are formed or formulated as a result of constant reference to and comparison with the first stage. A fundamental point needs to be stressed here: The causal impression is something quite different from a mere perception of movements. The impact itself is an event of a special character, having special properties, one of which is dynamic force. We see the subject carry the object and thus perform a quantity of “work”. The impression of dynamic force clearly corresponds to the kinetic energy of a person, and the impression of “carrying” corresponds to the mechanical work done, i.e. to the expenditure of kinetic energy in the displacement of the object (Michotte 1963: 226–227), the causal impression thus being the perception of the work of a mechanical force (Michotte 1963: 228; see also Talmy 1988: 53–59). The perceptual structure of the carry scene is closely connected or in some sense gives rise to the scene of the next stage, so that it could naturally change to the latter if some conditions become different; i.e. if the subject at the beginning does not take and hold the thing, but pushes it away, so that the latter undergoes displacement (cf. also Michotte 1963: 149). I.e., those scenes, being related to different stages of development (with the formation of the carry scene preceding the push scene, thus being more basic), are in close relation at the level of perception as well; cf. also Michotte (1963: 265–266): “The Entraining Effect is thus the basic form of the causal impression, while the Launching Effect is only secondary in relation to it.” The observer of the push scene in which the subject pushes the object, for example some bulk from a hill, which then continues to move or rather rolls down by virtue of its inertia, has a causal impression

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that the movement of the object is caused by the push produced by the subject. This impression (and that with carrying) could be directly compared with those obtained in the experiments made by Michotte with inanimate objects. He presented visual stimuli involving what appeared to be two rectangles, A and B. A moved toward B at constant speed and came into contact with it, whereupon A remained at the point of contact and B moved off in the same direction at constant speed. Adult observers of this usually reported that the movement of B is caused by the impact of A upon it, and that A pushes, kicks, or launches B. In other words, they have an impression that the movement of B is caused by A. This causal impression is known in English as the “launching effect” (Michotte 1963: 21). Michotte also used stimuli in which A continued to move after striking B, so that the two formed an effective unit. With this stimulus observers still report a causal impression, A and B remain perceptually distinct objects after contact has occurred. Michotte called this the “entraining effect”.5 There are objectively two stages in the typical launching effect sequence. In the first stage, A is moving and B is at rest, and in the second stage B is moving and A is at rest. The essential perceptual structure of the causal impression corresponds to the transition stage, designated by Michotte (1963: 91, 224) “ampliation of the movement”, which is characterized by phenomenal duplication and kinematic integration.6 The two-stage structure of causal perception with the ampliation of the movement is argued to be relevant for the causal scenes with animate subjects, and principally remains the same. For example, in the scene in which the subject bowls the cricket-ball, the action of the principle of phenomenal duplication is valid; though the inanimate object such as a cricket-ball cannot start moving without being bowled by the subject, still when moving after the bowl, its movement is eventually perceived as separate from the subject and as if performed independently. However, as Michotte (1963: 316) has pointed out, it is not more than a continuation of a subject’s push, or bowl in this case, the direction of which is completely determined by it. This causal impression, as was shown above, is in close relation with the previous one due to the action of the principle of the ”two causal alternatives”, “either carry or push”, “together or separate”, identified in the cognitive structure of experience of an action. Thus the push impression, being subconsciously opposed to the carry one, is identified in reference to it; cf. also Michotte (1963: 218): “there are no other alternatives, ... it is impossible in principle that there should be any types of causal impression other than launching and entraining.” In other words, the relations established between the carry-push scenes in the structure of the action experience are supported on the level of causal perception in their close

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derivational relations, and their character as two basic causal scenes in comparison with other causal scenes. Summing up, it is possible to hypothesize that the principle of double or alternative representation of the causal experience (carrying vs. pushing) is reflected on the level of causal perception in the two basic causal structures, with their direct correspondences with the fundamental entraining and launching effects.7 The variants of both types, described by Michotte (1963: 172), in the form of launching by expulsion effect (with the example given above, when someone throws a stone), or cases of propulsion (as a variant of entraining in which tools or other instruments are used, e.g. pen, brush, rake, hammer, or violin; and also cases of launching by expulsion, particularly the bow and arrow, harpoon, and javelin examples, considered from the point of view of entraining), testify to their close relation and reference to one of the main types on the one hand, and to each other, so that the scene could possess the features of both types (as cases with bow or arrow), on the other hand. It should be pointed out once more that the two stages in the typical causal effects of launching or entraining types identified by Michotte turn out to be valid or preserved in the perceptual structures of the scenes with animate subjects, thus manifesting their close relationship, so that the perception of the causal actions of carrying or pushing implies or means causal impression in terms of Michotte with the addition of the impression of the achievement of the aim (point of destination) in case of the possibility of its perception. 4. The level of image schematization The common gestalt image of the scenes of the first and second stages seems to provide similarities in the image schematization; thus the carry scene is schematically structured on analogy with the going scene or, in other words, the actions carry to/into/out of are schematized the same way as the actions go to/into/out of, with the involvement of the two fundamental schemas of the path and the container (Lakoff 1987: 271–273, 275; Johnson 1987: 38). The point of destination, schematically representing the aim of the movement, is identified in relation to a container, either inside or outside it, that is p or not-p (Lakoff 1987: 272). Thus the transition from p to not-p and vice versa comprises the content of the pair go (carry) into – go (carry) out. The push scene is schematized in analogy with the structures of the previous levels, with the difference that now it is the object alone which moves to, into, or out of some container (in comparison with the carry scene where the subject and the object are

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schematized as being situated together), and the subject is added to the scheme. The direction of the movement on a path is identified in relation to the subject, or, more precisely, from the point of view of the subject and its perception of its own movement; wherever it moves it would move forward in the sense that it moves with its face towards the destination, thus seeing the path before its eyes. So cases with opposite directions, when for example a person goes into a room and then goes out of that room, are represented in the path scheme in the same way – as a movement from the initial point to the point of destination with the position of the elements being fixed and given. Thus the representation of opposite (backward) direction, or two opposite (to and from) directions simultaneously in the limits of one path scheme would demand the change of the position of path elements, and so contradict the principles of its structuring; cf. (4)

He went into the house out of the house.

The only possibility to represent those opposite directions in the path is to schematize each direction separately, i.e. in a separate path scheme, and unidirectionally (cf. also the unique path constraint, proposed by Goldberg 1995: 82). That peculiarity of the path scheme provides some specific features in the representation of the causal scenes; as it is already known from the previous level, the structure of the causal perception in terms of Michotte consists of two stages, one following the other temporally and spatially. For example in the push scene at first the subject moves, then the object moves after the contact, which schematically should be represented according to the path law as two separate movements, either in two separate schemes, or if in one scheme then only one stage of it, representing one movement; so in both scenes the final stage connected with the aim and thus being in the focus of attention receives its schematization (for the push scene it is the stage including the point of contact). As the dynamic force of push or carry, as well as movement do not possess direct schematic counterparts in the static scheme of the path, the causal feature is implicitly conveyed through the spatial position of the subject and object accompanying the causal scene, relative to the container. So according to the causal perceptual structure (see above) the subject is supposed to remain in the point of contact (push), so that when it means “to push s.th. out of”, then the subject should remain in the container out of which it pushes the object. In the case of “pushing into” the subject should remain outside the container into which it pushes the object. These scenes would be schematized then through the final positions of the subject and the object: either the subject inside – object outside in the case of push out of, or vice versa in the case of push into. For example if the subject is situated

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somewhere in the container and the object outside it, it means that the subject has pushed the object out of the container beforehand. Or the spatial position of the subject and the object in the same point outside the container implicates the idea that the former has carried the latter out of the container. Those qualitatively new spatial positions of the subject in the scheme accompanying the causal scene and being its essential features, turn out to be decisive in the process of metaphorical schematization of the derived causal scenes, and further on the level of the derived causal constructions.8 The results of recent investigations in the field of neural structures also suggest that perceptual mechanisms are used to perform abstract reasoning (Lakoff 1999: 574–575). With the first causal scene being actually performed and perceived in the limits of the movement scene as its “development” and thus in the limits of its spatial and temporal properties, the image schematization of the causal scene is realized in a natural way on analogy with the movement scheme of the first stage; at the same time, since causal and path structures are not equal by nature, the process of image schematization, with the path structure being preserved, is accompanied by specific modifications, which could be compared with the phenomenon of “double existence” described by Michotte (1963: 222): something “... without ceasing to be what it was before, ‘becomes also’ something else, distinct from itself.” Thus the point of destination when transferred to the second stage scheme, while remaining a final local point of the movement, simultaneously obtains the meaning of the final effect. The path itself begins to express the movement of the object, performed by it alone as in the push scheme, or together with the subject as in the carry scheme, and acquires a sense of a means (or intermediate effect), by which the subject causes the object to be in a certain place (i.e. by moving). The first part of the causal means (or force) – “pushing the object away from” or “taking the object in the hands before carrying”, and supposed to be performed by the subject – is schematized somewhere in the initial part of the path, on analogy with the scheme of the first stage of the moving person. Thus the elements of the causal structure coincide with the respective elements of the path, so that a kind of “causal path” is formed. In conclusion, the causal scene turns out to be schematized completely in the limits of the path scheme, with its three-element structure preserved, and with functional secondary renaming of its elements in terms of causal structure. The causal scene is structured in the limits of the path not completely but in its final stage. The causal feature is conveyed through the spatial position of the subject “separate” from that of the object in the push scheme, and “together” in the carry scheme, where in the first case the subject is supposed to be placed in the point of contact (push), and the

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object, in the point of destination, and in the second case the subject and the object are supposed to be at the point of destination “together”. 5. The level of the basic causal meaning As the causal scenes are structured on the levels of experience, gestalt, causal perception, and image schematization, it becomes possible to form their semantic structure on the linguistic level of the basic verbal category (see Rosch 1978: 30–43; Lakoff 1987: 46–55). In other words, all prelinguistic levels play their role as basis for structuring the linguistic meaning. The semantic causal structure is formed at the same time as a result of the development of the semantic structure of movement. From the first perspective the causal structure identified by Michotte (1963: 96), with the modifications caused by the introduction of the animate subject – with one of its main principles, viz. the “integration” of stages into one scene or event, which is then represented on the level of the three-element path scheme –, is also valid on the level of the verbal meaning, in that the structure of the path is embedded en miniature in the semantic structure of the meaning in the form of the three-phase model as a preconceptual basis. I.e., the idea is to represent the causal scene in the meaning with the greatest possible correspondence to the structure of the previous, pre-linguistic level, and with the least cognitive effort. This provides the representation of the causal force or means in the semantic structure through the temporal counterparts of the spatial elements of the path structure forming pairs of the type “initial/final temporal point” – “initial/final” (in the sense “until the final spatial/temporal point”) causal force (push/carry), so that it becomes possible to make metaphorical projections onto other semantic domains – action and psychological domains within the semantic verbal structure, and onto the syntactic level, with the connection between the levels being constructed through the same preconceptual structure (Schmidt 2000: 247–252, but see also Albertazzi 2000: 134–138) . From the other perspective, the meaning of the verb in the second stage is formed as a result of the development of that of the first stage. The “priority of the movement”, which is valid on all the levels of the formation of the causal structure, also holds on the level of the verbal meaning in that the meaning of the first level functions as a basis for the derivation, so that the formation of the derived verbal meaning is performed as a result of the addition of a new meaningful element to the given one, taken from the first stage. A “new” element is determined by the level of experience with its grounding of the main parameters of the action carry – “to go and hold the thing in the hand”. The intentional character of the action carry being

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established on the level of the experience, when two separate actions are united into one complex action on the basis of a specific aim, which gives the new action a carry sense (carry means not simply to go and hold, but to go and hold so as to take the thing to a certain place), this is necessarily expressed in the lexical meaning.9 Thus the new meaning is formed on the basis of two meanings with the semantic contribution of both: “go” as basic and “static” determining the semantic type of the derived verb, that of movement (without going there is no carrying), “hold” as added and dynamic or “mobile” which provides the derived verb with its two arguments, and with its intermediate semantic type, not only of movement, but of physical action as well. The preconceptual structure of the path remains in the semantic structure of the category of the second stage as it is from the first stage, but now it obtains the status of the causal path on which the causal scene of prolonged (carry) type is structured, thus providing the changing of the semantic status of the meaning: now it is the causal meaning, i.e. expressing the causal means or force (with respect to the whole causal structure), which includes movement. The second peculiarity of the category concerns the object; as this on the one hand does not possess other features besides the ones which are determined by the actions of the subject (this does not have its own movement, is passive, with its movement completely performed by the subject), and on the other hand it has another role than the subject (which is reflected on the level of perception in the phenomenal duplication of the movement; see above), this peculiarity is conveyed through the voice forms of the verb. So the active-passive counterparts he carries vs. it is carried are differentiated through their functions in the causal scene. The content of what it actually means for the object to be carried is not directly expressed by the verb carry and its passive form, but is implied due to its reference to the cognitive, situational model (van Dijk 1987: 161–196). The real state of affairs seems to be secondary, or to constitute “preparatory” conditions in the process of the phenomenal or functional perception of being carried. The active-passive forms he carries vs. it is carried are in this sense a reflection of the structure of phenomenal perception, with its reference to the experiential level with its different structures of experience of the subject and the object in the causal scene. The next stage of the development of the category based on the second one is characterized by the fact that the physical action, being a component in the meaning of the previous stage (like “hold” in carry), becomes the specific meaning of a verb. With the semantic component of movement “disappearing” (as the action of pushing does not involve movement the way carrying does), the physical action becomes the main domain and fills “all the semantic space” in the derived verbal meaning. The character of the physical action in this stage is in a sense of the “opposite direction” in

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comparison with that of the previous stage: while hold implies the movement of the subject’s hands towards its body,10 push presupposes the direction of the movement away from.11 The meaning of push does not possess the idea of an achievement of the aim, i.e. causing s.th. by pushing to get to some place, like carry does, but expresses only the beginning of the scene; in other words, the aim is not definitely coded in the meaning at all, and the movement of the object is being identified in relation to the subject as a movement away from the latter, but not as a movement to some point of destination. The reasons of the shift of perspective with regard to the aim are connected with the peculiarities of the representation of the meaning in its reference to the preconceptual path scheme, in which the feature of the causal perception of phenomenal duplication is reflected (Michotte 1963: 224), and which in this particular case could be called “duplication of the movement directions”, when one movement performed in the scene refers to the subject, and the other, to the object. Thus push means movement of the subject’s hands in the direction away from it, and the movement of the object to some place, the object thus being involved simultaneously in two “movements”: in the movement away from the subject and in the movement to the final point, which would have their image schematization correspondingly as movement from the container, and to the container. According to the “laws” of the path it is not possible to represent in its limits two movements simultaneously, either unidirectional or of opposite directional character, and that is why the semantic structure of the meaning of push, having as its preconceptual basis the path scheme, cannot simultaneously involve the semantic components reflecting the movement from the subject’s side and from the object’s side: (5)

* to push away from to

(in the sense: the subject pushes the object away from itself, and the object moves to some place). In the scene of the previous stage, where the subject’s taking the object in its hand for holding it while carrying implies the hand’s movement towards the subject, the object’s movement to the point of destination is thus of opposite direction in relation to the first, which leads to the problem of the image schematization; even given that the object is “motionless” and the subject is kind of performing as if two movements itself, it still remains impossible to represent them in one scheme: (6)

*carry towards oneself away from to

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(in the sense that the subject carries the object toward itself and – together with the object – moves away). A choice between two alternatives should be made; in the meaning of carry the second direction of the movement – i.e. “to some place” – is definitely represented, implying the movement of the subject. In the meaning of push the problem of the priority of the aims is solved in favour of the subject as well, though now it is connected with the first direction comprising movement away from (i.e. movement performed by the subject on the object in a direction away from itself), which becomes its “small” aim. The “terminal” type of carry is thus determined by the fact that it is the subject which does everything, and the object being inert, without sharp segregation of the stages, while in pushing, with the push being separated from the movement of the object, the former is left in the initial stage; thus the final aim, connected with the object which is out of the focus, is not expressed. The representation in the semantic structure of direction of the movement from the side of the subject (not of the object) is not in the least predetermined by the structure of the experience with its model of the action, in which the main participant is the subject, as the actor. Although the movement of the object is not definitely expressed in the meaning as such, push is a “movement oriented” verbal meaning; to push the object in order to move it away or in some direction implies the continuation of the first stage of the scene so that the object moves in the direction determined by the subject, that being achieved through the preconceptual structure of the path, in the limits of which the causal structure is represented. Through this preconceptual path scheme, inserted in the semantic structure, the idea of the structure of causal perception is reflected with its kinematic integration of two stages due to the action of the gestalt principle of good continuation, so that the “backward connection” of the associations from semantic structure to perceptual structure could also be possible through the intermediate image scheme. From the point of view of categorization (cf. Rosch 1978: 30–35), carry and push are both considered as basic causal verbal categories. As two main causal alternatives, identified on the level of causal perception, with carry being so to say more basic by formation, and push being derived from it, still on the cognitive level they are equally relevant for the causal understanding to be complete, and belong to the basic level of categorization. The variants of both basic types, identified by Michotte, and found quite often in our everyday life, such as launching-by-expulsion, propulsion, are represented in a number of verbs of the type pull, drag, push ahead, throw, shoot, bowl, sling, hammer, rake, write, and many others, which could be considered as examples of subordinate categories of the corresponding basic ones. The superordinate category would then be “cause”, or more correctly, for each type its own superordinate category

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could be designated: for push it is initiating causation, for carry it is “prolonged” causation. This question, being beyond the limits of the present article, still requires more deeper analyses of the conditions of the scenes; for the categorization to be closer to the actual state of things, the findings on causal perception provided for example by Michotte could again be of much empirical and theoretical significance. The basic causal categories carry and push formed on this level “do the job” of differentiating the types of causal scene through the expression of the causal force, which determine the main conditions of the action to be identified. Still they do not involve the specific conditions (the causal powers of the actor, the liabilities of the thing acted upon, and the releasing conditions which allow the action to have its effect (White 1995: 268), without which, however, there cannot be full actual causal understanding. The task of depicting the causal scene with its specific features is fulfilled then on the level of the syntactic construction. 6. The basic causal construction The formation of the syntactic causal construction is considered on the one hand from the point of view of the development within one level, from the syntactic construction of movement into the causal (or causative) construction, and on the other hand in connection with the development of the levels as such, with the syntactic level being the “continuation” of the level of the verbal meaning (or basic category). Taking the level of the verbal meaning first, the basic causal construction could be considered as a result of the development from the semantic to the syntactic level, in order to provide maximum information with the least cognitive effort (cf. Rosch 1978: 28). According to the principle of the rendering of the information from one level to another; when the task which is impossible to fulfill on the given level is ”handed over” to the next level of the hierarchy, it is natural for the semantic level and the syntactic level to have a common basis to provide for the connection between them to be represented in the same terms. Following this logic the syntactic construction could have the same preconceptual basis as the previous, semantic, linguistic level, viz. the preconceptual structure of the path. This fact still does not prevent the specific relations between the levels from being established, due to their hierachical positions, for example of the type: the semantic level is more basic, yet lower, the syntactic level is derived yet higher; the syntactic level is not subjected to the laws of the lower semantic level, and could fulfill the task which is not feasible on the semantic level according to its own laws.

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The aim of conveying the information is realized on each level by its own means, although in close connection with each other. For example in the semantics of the basic categories push and carry, the constraint concerning the involvement of the object in the representation of the scene is operative, so that the action is “rendered” from the side of the subject, which as a consequence leads to the semantic absence of the final aim (movement to the point of destination), supposed to be performed by the object (see above). According to the principle of the representation of the information “from level to level”, in the case of push for example the idea of the movement of the object to the point of destination, which could not be definitely expressed in the semantic “path” of the meaning, is rendered (or continued from the movement away from the subject) in the limits already of the syntactic “path”. The syntactic structure makes it possible to convey the idea of the object’s movement through the syntactic relations, according to which the resultative component, implying the preceding movement, refers to the object; thus (7)

He pushed the stone into the river.

means that it is the stone which moves into the river, but not the subject (cf. Simpson 1983: 144; Jackendoff 1990: 225–235); analogously for nonspatial resultatives: (8)

a. b.

Charlie chewed his knuckles raw. (Jackendoff 1990: 226) *I melted the steel hot.

(This cannot mean: I melted the steel until I was hot; cf. Simpson 1983: 144.) The structure of the syntactic construction represents the causal scene with its two stages, so that the duplication of the movement is represented through two different paths; the movement from the side of the subject is reflected through the semantic path in the causal verb which has its position in the syntactic construction, and the movement from the side of the object – implicitly through the syntactic positions of the object and the local element. As the object is involved in the causal structure in the two movements (i.e. from the subject, and to the point of destination), the local element initially connected with the final aim implying the preceding movement of the object, it could in principle be used for expressing the “small aim”, too, as in (9)

He pushed the dog away.

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The principle of the object orientation of the movement being preserved, the difference lies in a shift of the aim perspectives; now the point of destination (the place as the aim) is determined in relation to the subject as the position where there is no subject (i.e. “not with S[ubject]”), with the latter left behind the object (i.e. if x = P[lace] where S, then P[oint of]D[estination] = not x), while in the first case (ex. 7) the point of destination is determined in relation to the object as the position where the object is (i.e. “with O[bject]”), which is in front of the object (i.e. if y = P[lace] where O, then PD = y). Again the principle is operative when one preconceptual structure of the path (semantic) is embedded in another (syntactic) as its element (a verb); both possessing their own laws of structuring, they mutually colloborate in order to provide “maximum information with the least cognitive efforts” (see above). The local element, reflecting the point of destination, in a specific construction performs the function either of completing the causal structure, thus representing the element which is absent in the semantic structure of the verb, as in the case of push: (10) He pushed a plate of biscuits towards me. or of concretizing the point of destination, which as a general idea (as some place) is already involved in the verbal meaning, as in the case of carry, as for example in (11) She carried the child to the house. This seems to be sufficient and necessary for the scene to be actually understood as a causal one. The hierarchical character of the relations between the levels reveals itself in that the constraints relevant for the structure of the lower level are not relevant for the structure of the higher level. Though the syntactic structure is also ruled by the unique path constraint, it works on its own level, and the path of the lower level, being embedded in the path of the higher level, does not influence its laws. By this it becomes possible in the limits of the syntactic structure to represent two stages of the causal structure in the limits of two paths so that one is being represented through the semantic structure of the verb which functions as an element of the syntactic structure, with the latter being preserved. From the point of view of the development within one level, the basic causal construction is formed from the construction of the previous stage, i.e. of the type “S V (movement) Loc(ative)”, with its already established syntactic positions and the choice of the participants, each element being meaningful and necessary, thus together providing the identification of the

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construction as of the movement type. In the second stage of the development the basic causal construction is formed with the whole structure of the previous stage preserved, the syntactical position of the object being added and the verb position filled with that of the causal verb: “S V (carry) O Loc”, in which the participants and the dynamic aspect of the causal scene are directly reflected so that all the levels take their own part in the formation of the syntactic structure (scheme). The functional positions of the subject and the object (main vs. dependent) are reflected in the syntactic structure by linear precedence, i.e., with main element before dependent element. Those two participants are related through the action, represented by the causal verb. The meaning of the causal verb reflects the main content of the action (see above). The point of destination, reflecting the final aim and being the necessary element of the image schematization of the carry scene, is thus directly transferred to the syntactic structure the way it is in the scheme, viz. in relation to the container (some place): (12) a. b. c.

Bill pushed the piano into the orchestra pit. (Jackendoff 1990: 233) He carried the bag out of the room. He pushed the vase onto the floor.

As it has already been pointed out, the opposition of morphological forms of the verb carry (carries vs. (is) carried) expressing the role of the object is reflected at the level of the syntactic construction in the opposition of active – passive constructions. Thus, abstracting from the details, their formation is cognitively grounded as well, by reference to the prelinguistic levels of perception and experience. The structure of the construction of the second stage is used for the representation of the scene of the third stage: “S V (push) O Loc”, so that the push construction is structured in analogy with the carry one. This is possible because the main structural principles of the reflection of the causal structure are established on the second stage, which are relevant for the causal structure of the next stage. The peculiarities of the causal force are reflected by the meaning of the verb, which naturally provides the corresponding changes in the semantic combinability of the syntactic elements. From this point of view, the structures of the second and the third stages, being identical, represent one structure, which was established on the second stage: S V (carry/push) O Loc. Using the structure of the second stage, the structure of the third stage is still not identical to it in the sense that it reflects a different causal scene, viz. pushing, which is accompanied by the complex of the knowledge and associations established already on all the previous prelinguistic and linguistic levels. In this sense we can speak about two related but different constructions, each possessing its

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specific features and properties. The peculiarity of their relation is that, being derivationally related, they at the same time are two opposite or alternative variants of the causal structure. The difference between them is essential, because it provides for alternative metaphorical coding of the derived causal scene by the model of one of the variants. In other words, while both basic constructions are rendered by one and the same syntactic structure, each basic construction preserves its unique content, due to the direct references to the different prelinguistic structures of experience, causal perception, image schematization, and to the semantic structures of the verbal categories. Thus the differentiation of the causal variants (13) a. b.

He pushed the box out of the room. He carried the box out of the room.

is performed within one syntactic structure, through the basic causal verbs carry and push with their projections primarily to the perceptual structures with their different gestalts of common vs. separate fates. The dual character of the basic causal scenes, represented on all the pre-linguistic levels, makes it possible to propose a new interpretation or explanation of the coding of the basic causal scenes in language, in particular in the two basic causal contructions, which then both serve as a basis for metaphorical formation of the derived causal constructions, traditionally called “resultative”. Notes 1. According to Michotte (1963: 25), all cases of animate causality are also cases of activity – while the converse is not true. For a “classical” linguistic survey of types of causation, see Shibatani (1976). 2. See for example White (1995), “based on the theory of powerful particulars of causation as the operation of causal powers of things actually producing or generating effects (often by acting on liabilities of other things) under suitable conditions that serve to release or activate those powers. For example, when people perceive a hammer smashing a plate, they interpret this as a generative relation in which the power of the hammer actually produces the effect of the plate smashing under the condition of forcible contact between them. Such causal relations are usually understood as reflecting both the power of the cause and a liability of the object on the effect side: the power of the hammer was greater than the resistance of the plate” (White 1995: 5). 3. Their first publication (in French) appeared in 1946, with the English translation in 1963. 4. “These functional relations, then, constitute the essential fabric of the phenomenal world; they must be considered as a highly important factor in the adaptation of activities to their environment. They are important, also, in

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enabling an external observer to understand the human and animal conduct which he sees. It is these relations which give the things around us their significance, since it is by coming to know what things do that we learn they are. ... Among the functional relations which give things their significance, the causal relations which unite them clearly play a very considerable part” (Michotte 1963: 4–5). Michotte expressed the opinion “... that certain physical events give an immediate causal impression, and that one can ‘see’ an object act on another object, produce in it certain changes, and modify it in one way or another. I quoted various examples in this connexion, e.g. that of a hammer driving a nail into a plank, and that of a knife cutting a slice of bread. The question that arises is this: when we observe these operations, is our perception limited to the impression of two movements spatially and temporally coordinated, such as the advance of the knife and the cutting of the bread? Or rather do we directly perceive the action as such – do we see the knife actually cut the bread? The answer does not seem to me to admit of any doubt” (Michotte 1963, 15). Note that the results of recent investigations (e.g. Regier 1996) suggest that the absolute distinction in faculty psychology between the perceptual and the conceptual is illusory (Lakoff and Johnson 1999: 574). 5. “Entraining”, which is usually associated with carrying, can also refer to the impression of one object joining another and pushing it along (Michotte 1963: 21; cf. German schieben) – or, in Bartlett’s words, “pushing with follow up”; cf. Michotte (1963: xv) –, in contradistinction to pushing as a variant of “launching”, where the impression is one of an object giving another a single push (cf. German stossen) and send it off (“lancement”). 6. Ampliation of the movement (“l’ampliation du mouvement”) ”... is a process which consists in the dominant movement, that of the active object, appearing to extend itself on to the passive object, while remaining distinct from the change in position which the latter undergoes in its own right” (Michotte 1963: 217). A phenomenal duplication (or double representation) in the launching effect ”... is seen in the fact that the movement physically performed by object B appears simultaneously under two different guises: (i) as a movement (belonging to object A), (ii) as a change in relative position (by object B)” (Michotte 1963: 136). So there is a phenomenal duplication of B’s movement such that B undergoes passive displacement but is perceived as executing A’s movement. For Michotte movement and displacement are different. For a discussion of the difference between “movement” and “displacement” see Michotte (1963: 134). “The integration favoured by the movements is seen in the fact that they are united – the second movement appearing as a prolongation of the first” (Michotte 1963: 136–137). 7. In this respect, it is worth recalling the assumptions made by A. Michotte in connection with the role of perception in conceptualization: “... our basic concepts concerning the physical world (such as causality) are represented at the strictly sensory level by characteristic, primitive impressions (such as “pushing” or “launching”). Furthermore, these impressions can be regarded as constituting an actual prefiguration of such concepts” (White 1995: 62).

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The concept of causality (or causation), due to its origin, happens thus to have the character of some kind of bipartite concept, including not one but two causal variants, thereby resembling the relations between the members of a binary grammatical opposition. 8. See Schmidt (forthcoming). 9. Cf. “carry 1 to support the weight of sb/sth and take them/it from place to place; to take sb/sth from one place to another” (OALD 1995: 164). 10. Cf. “hold 1 to keep or support sb/sth using one’s arms or hands or another part of the body” (OALD 1995: 542). 11. Cf. “push 1 to stand behind sth/sb and use esp one’s hands to move it/them away from oneself or to a different position” (OALD 1995: 902).

References Albertazzi, Liliana 2000 Directions and perspective points in spatial perception. In Meaning and Cognition, Liliana Albertazzi (ed.), 123–143. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. van Dijk, Teun A. 1987 Episodic models in discourse processing. In Comprehending Oral and Written Language, Rosalind Horowitz, and S. Jay Samuels (eds.), 161–196. New York: Academic Press. Goldberg, Adele E. 1991 It can’t go up the chimney down: paths and the English resultative. In Proceedings of the 17th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 368–378. 1995 Constructions. A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Harré, Romano, and Edward H. Madden 1975 Causal powers: A theory of natural necessity. Oxford: Blackwell. Jackendoff, Ray 1990 Semantic structures. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. Johnson, Mark 1987 The body in the mind: the bodily basis of reason and imagination. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, George 1987 Women, fire, and dangerous things. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson 1980 Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1999 Philosophy in the flesh. The embodied mind and its challenge to western thought. New York: Basic Books. Lamb, Sydney M. 1999 Pathways of the brain. The neurocognitive basis of language. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

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Langacker, Ronald W. 1987 Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. 1: Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1990 Concept, Image, and Symbol. The Cognitive Basis of Grammar. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Michotte, Albert 1963 The Perception of Causality. London: Methuen. OALD: Hornby, Albert Sydney et al. 1995 Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English. 5th edition (ed. Jonathan Crowther). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Regier, Terry 1996 The Human Semantic Potential: Spatial Language and Constrained Connectionism. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. Rosch, Eleanor 1978 Principles of categorization. In Cognition and Categorization, Eleanor Rosch, and Barbara B. Lloyd (eds.), 15–35. Hillsdalle, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum. Schmidt, Natalya 2000 The three-phase model of verbal meaning and the problem of its preconceptual structure. In Jazyk. Glagol. Prelozhenie, Leonid Kuz’min (ed.), 246–257. Smolensk: Izdatel’stvo Smolenskogo Gosudarstvennogo Pegagogicheskogo Instituta. forthc. The English Resultatives. In Proceedings of the 35th Colloquium of Linguistics, Innsbruck 2000. Vol. 2, Lew Zybatow (ed.). Frankfurt: Lang. Searle, John R. 1983 Intentionality: An essay in the philosophy of mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Simpson, Jane 1983 Resultatives. In Papers in Lexical-Functional Grammar, Lori Levin, Malka Rappaport, and Annie Zaenen (eds.), 143–157. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club. Shibatani, Masayoshi (ed.) 1976 Syntax and semantics 6: The grammar of causative constructions. New York: Academic Press. Talmy, Leonard 1988 Force dynamics in language and in cognition. Cognitive Science 12: 49–100. White, Peter A. 1995 The Understanding of Causation and the Production of Action. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Grammar of “manner of motion” verbs in English and Spanish: between lexicon and syntax Yuko Morimoto 1. Introduction: Typology of Motion Because of their syntactic and semantic diversity, verbs of motion are an interesting field of study for those wishing to shed light on the relationship between semantics and syntax.1 Among the various problems associated with this type of verbs, I deal here only with one related to the grammar of verbs which express a manner of motion, such as walk or swim, bearing in mind the features of Spanish and English. More precisely, I am going to try to elucidate the linguistic factors which make it impossible to translate apparently simple verb-complement combinations like walk to the library or swim to the island word-for-word into Spanish (notice, for example, the ungrammaticality of *caminar a la biblioteca ‘walk to the library’). It is well-known that since the typology work of Talmy (1975, 1985), this difference has been the subject of on-going interest, and numerous authors such as Levin and Rappaport (1989), Jackendoff (1990, 1997), Mateu and Rigau (2000) have tried to explain this phenomenon from diverse perspectives. As a consequence, we now have a more precise description of the facts and, above all, a better understanding of the factors that intervene in them. Bearing this situation in mind, in this article I propose to first look at the state of the art, in section 2, which I feel is necessary after more than a decade of debate, and then, based on advances in Construction Grammar (Cf. Goldberg 1995), proceed to present a new perspective, in section 3, from which the English combination cited above will be considered as an idiomatic construction which can be defined in aspectual terms. In the remainder of this first section I will try to identify the problem under study more clearly. In 1.1., after introducing the classification of verbs of movement on which the later discussions are based, I will present data from English and Spanish which show the existing divergence between the two languages with regard to the grammar of walk-type verbs. Then, in 1.2. I will present the analysis offered by Talmy, who deals with this phenomenon from the point of view of lexicalization typology.

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1.1. “Manner of motion” verbs with a direction complement Before I address the central topic, the classification of verbs of motion on which my analysis is based must be clarified: (1) Directed Motion Verbs (DMVs)2: Spanish: ir ‘go’, venir ‘come’, entrar ‘enter’, salir ‘go out’, subir ‘go up’, bajar ‘go down’, acercarse ‘approach’, alejarse ‘move away’, partir ‘leave’, llegar ‘arrive’, atravesar ‘cross’, cruzar ‘cross’, pasar ‘pass, go past’, etc. English: go, come, arrive, depart, descend, enter, exit, fall, return, rise, etc. Manner of Motion Verbs (MMVs): - External reference motion: Spanish: caminar ‘walk’, andar ‘walk’, correr ‘run’, nadar ‘swim’, volar ‘fly’, arrastrarse ‘drag oneself, crawl’, etc. English: run, walk, swim, jump, fly, roll, sneak, etc. - Internal motion: Spanish: tambalearse ‘stagger, totter’, agitarse ‘toss, flap’, balancearse ‘swing, rock’, temblar ‘shake, tremble’, patalear ‘stamp’, etc. English: swing, lurch, stagger, wiggle, wriggle, etc. The distinction between verbs that express a directed motion (e.g. go, come, enter) and verbs which express a manner of motion (e.g. walk, run, swim) is one of the commonest classifications of verbs of motion proposed to date and I shall not endeavor to justify it here.3 The differentiation between two subtypes of MMVs, the walk-type and the swing-type, is less well known but is however necessary, as we shall see, to explain certain syntactic features of verbs belonging to each subtype. The main difference between the two is that the motion expressed by walk-type verbs, naturally implying a change of location, normally includes some external spatial reference to the moving object, whereas swing-type verbs indicate a strictly internal movement of the object. In the following pages, I focus mainly on the walk-type MMVs which express a manner of motion that involves displacement. Using the foregoing classification, the problem to be dealt with can now be identified. Firstly, the contrast in grammaticality between the examples in (2) below -in which each English sentence is followed by its word-for-word translation into Spanish- should be noted: (2) a. She danced [into the kitchen]. a’. *Bailó [a la cocina]. ‘(He/she) danced to the kitchen.’ b. John walked [to the library]. b’. *Juan caminó [a la biblioteca]. ‘Juan walked to the library.’

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c. John swam [to the island]. c’. *Juan nadó [a la isla]. ‘Juan swam to the island.’ These examples show that while an MMV is perfectly compatible in English with a directional complement, this combination is ungrammatical in Spanish. To translate the English sentences under (2) into Spanish, different combinations would have to be used, as shown under (3): (3) a. Entró {a/ en} la cocina bailando. ‘(She/he) went into the kitchen dancing.’ b. Juan fue a la biblioteca caminando. ‘Juan went to the library walking.’ c. Juan fue a la isla {nadando/ a nado}. ‘Juan went to the island swimming.’ In these examples, based on a DMV, the manner of motion is expressed by a gerund or an adverb and does not form part of the meaning of the main verb. 1.2. Talmy’s analysis One of the first attempts to describe and formally explain this phenomenon was that of Talmy (1975, 1985, 1991), which has had a notable impact on subsequent studies. The contrast observed between the examples under (2) led Talmy to establish a typological differentiation between English and Spanish, among other languages, with respect to how the two languages lexicalize the semantic components of the motion event. Talmy’s typological analysis begins by establishing a set of semantic components which are basic constituents of the motion event, and then observing which syntactic elements – prepositions, verbs, etc. – express these semantic components in the sentence. The semantic components which are fundamental, in Talmy’s view, for the motion event are the following: (4) Basic semantic components of the Motion: Motion: presence of motion Figure: the object which moves in relation to another object which serves as point of reference (Ground) Path: the Figure’s route in relation to the point of reference (Ground). Ground: the object-point of reference with respect to which the Figure moves (based on Talmy 1985)

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This author also considers that, besides the fundamental components under (4), a motion event can have “Cause” or “Manner” components which are events external to the motion per se. On this premise, and after a thorough analysis of data relating to several languages of the world, Talmy concludes that languages differ depending on the prevailing model of lexicalization, and establishes a lexicalization typology in the scope of motion expressions. For our purposes here, the relevant point in Talmy’s typology is that English and Spanish are classified in two separate groups of languages. The two lexicalization models represented under (5) characterize, according to this author, respectively English and Spanish.4 (5) Model A: Conflation of Motion and Manner Figure Motion Path Ground Manner VERB ex. She danced into the kitchen. Model B: Conflation of Motion and Path Figure Motion Path Ground Manner VERB ex. Juan bajó al sótano.‘Juan went down to the cellar.’ (based on Talmy 1985) Talmy considers that English belongs to the group of languages in which lexicalization model A prevails; this model conflates in the verbal meaning the semantic components of Motion and Manner. In turn, Spanish is characterized by model B, like other romance languages; this model combines the Motion and Path components in the meaning of the verb. The author includes the Spanish language among those that mostly adopt lexicalization model B on the basis of two considerations: firstly, the existence in Spanish of an extensive and varied list of directed motion verbs (such as entrar ‘enter’ and subir ‘go up’); and secondly the impossibility of a word-for-word translation into Spanish of English sentences like those under (2) (recall that examples like *Juan rodó del tejado ‘Juan went tumbling from the roof’ are ungrammatical). According to Talmy, the ungrammaticality of Spanish examples like those under (2a’), (2b’) and (2c’) proves that Spanish resists making use of the A-type conflation model, which fuses Motion and Manner into a verb meaning.

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2. Alternative approaches: conflation vs. construction The phenomenon noted by Talmy gave rise to great interest, evidenced by the various Ph.D. dissertations on the subject both in Spain and the U.S.A. (cf. Gaytan, Mora Gutiérrez and Morimoto, all in 1998). In this respect, Crego García’s (1988) dissertation and especially Cifuentes Honrubia’s book (1999), even though they do not focus on this problem, also bear witness to Talmy’s contribution. Among other reasons, the impact was due to the fact that the contrast identified by Talmy affects the relationship between the semantic structure and the syntactic structure, since one semantic class of verbs, MMVs, presents two quite different combination possibilities from one language group to another. In this chapter, I will briefly review the most significant proposals regarding the semantics-syntax relationship of these combinations. This review has to be necessarily brief and selective, and this means that instead of trying to encompass all the contributions in the aforementioned studies, I will focus only on those aspects that have a direct relationship with our subject. The proposals I am going to examine are grouped under (6), classified into subheadings (a) and (b) depending on the need or not for an additional operation to account for the English examples under (2): (6) a. Conflation of Motion and Manner predicates by an operation: -lexical operation: Levin and Rapoport (1988), Levin and Rappaport (1989) -interpretative operation: Jackendoff (1990) -morpho-syntactic operation: Mateu and Rigau (2000) b. Construction in the Lexicon (without any operation): Goldberg (1992, 1995) In 2.1., I will examine the first three approaches grouped under (6a), all of which assume the existence of some kind of conflation process that makes the fusion of Motion predicate with Manner predicate possible. Next, in 2.2., I will turn my attention to the constructional approach – (6b) – of the combinations in question, which advocates the existence of constructions as units of the form-meaning pairing. As we shall see, from this point of view there would be no need to expect any conflation process to explain the directional interpretation of the MMVs in English. Finally, in the last section of this heading, 2.3., I will point out the existence of an interesting parallelism between the directional use of the MMVs and the resultative construction. This observation will lead us to adopt, in the following section, an aspectual analysis of the MMV combinations studied here.

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2.1. Conflation of Manner and Motion predicates by some operation The first three options under (6a) involve some kind of operation whereby the Manner predicate expressed by the MMVs is demoted to a subordinate component of a Motion event when these verbs are followed by a directional complement. The difference lies in the nature of the operation. Below we are going to first present the options supported by Levin, Rapoport and Rappaport (calling for a lexical operation) and by Jackendoff (calling for an interpretive operation). The main idea of the two operations can be seen in (7) and (8) respectively. (7) Lexical Subordination: a. run (manner of motion): [X MOVE in-a-running-manner] b. run (directional): [X GO TO Y BY [X MOVE in-a-running-manner]] (based on Levin and Rappaport 1989: 326, (26a–b)) (8) GO-Adjunct Rule: If V corresponds to [MOVE ([Object ])], [SVV ...PP] may correspond to GO ([Object Į ],[Path ]) WITH/ BY ([MOVE ([Į ])] ) (based on Jackendoff 1990: 224, (31) and (32)) Option (7), proposed by Levin and Rapoport (1988) and Levin and Rappaport (1989), and option (8), established by Jackendoff in his 1990 book, may seem very similar at first sight. Both subordinate the MMV meaning to a Motion event, represented by the “GO” function.5 However, while the subordination process defined under (7) creates a new lexical-conceptual structure of the verb from the old one, the correspondence rule under (8) takes the combination of V and PP as a whole and links to it a conceptual structure peculiar to the construction. Jackendoff thus avoids any modification of the lexical meaning of the verbs in question. As the author recognizes, establishing a correspondence rule as in (8) involves treating these combinations as a kind of “idiomatic construction” and, in this sense, his proposal is similar to that of the supporters of Construction Grammar like Fillmore or Goldberg.6 Mateu and Rigau’s proposal (2000) differs from the foregoing in that it explains the phenomena in syntactic terms within the Minimalist Program’s theoretical framework. These authors maintain the hypothesis that the

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languages in which the conflation of Manner and Motion is observed, as is the case of English, have in their lexicon a phonologically null predicate expressing motion (“positive transition” in their terminology): go. The lexical properties of this predicate are defined as in (9a). As the motion predicate it is, go subcategorizes for a directional PP, as can be seen in (9b). (9) a. go no phonological matrix V (
P N

P

Sue

P

N room

P P into (Mateu and Rigau 2000: 12, (18)) However, a syntactic object like that of (9b) would not be convergent at PF, because of the phonologically null property of the verb go. Thus, according to the authors, there is the need for another predicate with a phonological matrix, so that the phonologically empty verb may be provided with phonological features. A phrase like Sue danced into the room would, therefore, for Mateu and Rigau, mean the conflation of go with dance, the latter being a verb with a phonological matrix. Under (10), the verb dance with its phonological content is adjoined to the phonologically null transition verb go by means of Merge. According to the authors, this process provides the empty transition verb with phonological features, thus avoiding its crashing at the phonetic form. According to this hypothesis, the impossibility in Spanish of combinations like *nadar al barco ‘swim to the boat’ would be attributed to the inexistence in this language of a motion predicate which is phonologically vacuous such as go.

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(10) Sue danced into the room: V V V V go N V dance

P N

P

Sue P

N room

P

P into

(Mateu and Rigau 2000: 13, (20))

2.2. Construction in the Lexicon As already indicated, the three foregoing proposals have in common that they involve some kind of operation, either semantic or syntactic, to cater for the combinations of MMVs which, in principle, cannot be sanctioned by the lexical properties of these verbs. It might be said that this is a natural consequence of a conception of grammar in which the syntactic structure is basically considered as a projection of the lexicon. From this point of view, anything exceptional which cannot be foreseen from the lexical information should be attributed to a certain rule or operation in order to legitimate it. A radically different point of view is that of authors such as Fillmore (1988) or Goldberg (1995) from the standpoint of Construction Grammar, which admits constructions, apart from the lexical pieces, as units of the formmeaning correspondence. According to Goldberg, “C is a CONSTRUCTION iffdef C is a form-meaning pair such that some aspect of Fi or some aspect of Si is not strictly predictable from C’s component parts or from other previously established constructions” (Goldberg 1995: 4). It is a grammar which presupposes the existence of a single level consisting of a “big lexicon” (Koenig 1999:6) that stores everything from morphemes to complex constructions. From this view point, Goldberg (1995) defines the construction addressed here as shown in (11):

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(11) Sem MOVE

Syn

PRED Ļ V

<

Ļ SUBJ

Ļ OBL

>

(based on Goldberg 1995: 160) This representation corresponds to a construction consisting of a syntactic scheme, i.e., verb, subject (SUBJ) and oblique complement (OBL), and a semantic structure scheme corresponding to a MOVE event whose participants are theme and goal. The dotted line from the second MOVE argument, that of goal, shows that the destination complement forming part of the construction is not the argument selected by the verbal predicate but is imposed by the construction as such. It is important to note that the term “construction” or “idiomatic construction” used here must be distinguished from that used outside this theory. For instance, although Jackendoff considers as “idiomatic constructions” such expressions as John danced into the kitchen, the interpretation of this construction depends on a special form-meaning correspondence rule (see above, 2.1.). On the contrary, in Construction Grammar, the meaning of a construction like the one we are dealing with here is associated with its syntactic scheme and consequently it is not necessary to manipulate the lexical meaning of the verb, and an additional rule to derive it is not needed. Though Goldberg does not explicitly mention it, from this point of view, the ungrammaticality in Spanish of combinations such as *caminar a la biblioteca ‘walk to the library’ would be due to the absence of idiomatic constructions like those under (11). 2.3. Relationship with other resultative meaning constructions So far this review has focused on the theoretical differences between the proposals summarized under (6). There is however some common ground which should be underlined: in spite of the divergence, all the authors mentioned recognize the close relationship between MMV constructions and those of resultative meaning based on activity verbs. For instance, Levin and Rapoport maintain that lexical subordination is applicable not only to MMVs in their directed use, but also to other activity verbs used in a resultative context. The examples provided by these authors appear under (12).

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(12) a. go: The bottle floated into the cave. b. create: Frances kicked a hole in the fence. c. remove: The company processed the vitamins out of the food. d. cause-state: Evelyn wiped the dishes dry. e. cause-location: Philip waltzed Sally across the room. f. express: Pauline smiled her thanks. (Levin and Rapoport 1988: 283, (25)) On the left hand side of each example is shown the predicate that may appear in the interpretation of the verb used. According to Levin and Rapoport, in spite of this difference of interpretation, all the examples under (12) imply one and the same semantic extension process, that could be schematically represented as shown in (13), where LCS stands for Lexical Conceptual Structure: (13) LCS: manner/instrument Ļ LCS: [resultative change BY MEANS OF manner/instrument] (based on Levin and Rapoport 1988: 282, (20)) 3. The telicity criterion The idea of relating the MMV construction to the resultative construction seems right and is also interesting from a contrastive standpoint. Nevertheless, I believe there is a problem to be solved beforehand in order to develop this idea properly. As we will see in 3.1., the problem derives from the definition itself of “MMV construction” as a construction in which an MMV appears in combination with a directional complement, whatever the aspectual character of the complement might be. Based on Aske’s (1989) observations, I will propose a new “aspectual” definition of the construction in question. This modification will allow me to establish a parallelism between the MMV construction and the resultative construction in aspectual terms. Finally, in 3.2., following Williams (1994), I will suggest that the English constructions studied here share the same construction scheme and that they form part of a “family of idiomatic constructions,” according to the terminology of this same author. This proposal will allow us to conclude that the ungrammaticality in Spanish of combinations like *caminar a la biblioteca ‘walk to the library’ is nothing more than a consequence of the fact that this language lacks an idiomatic construction scheme that can sanction this type of expression.

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3.1. Telic path-complement as resultative predicate Let us look again at the definitions under (7) and (8). According to these propositions, any “directed” use of the verbs in question would be considered an instance of the MMV construction, regardless of the semantic mode of the path-complement. However, I consider that a unitary treatment of any realization of the <MMV + path-complement> scheme obscures important generalizations. The example under (14), taken from Slobin (1996:216), and those under (15) may help to explain the reason for this formulation. (14) ... echó a correr sendero abajo, entre los setos, hacia el coche. ‘... started to run down the path, through the bushes, towards the car.’ (from the novel by Lessing, D. (1952): A Proper Marriage, Spanish translation by F. Parcerisas and A. Samons (1979): Un Casamiento Convencional; taken from Slobin 1996: 216, (31)) (15) a. Juan nadó [hacia el otro extremo de la bahía]. ‘Juan swam toward the other end of the bay.’ b. Juan caminó [a través de la montaña]. ‘Juan walked through the mountain.’ c. El herido se arrastró [por el pasillo]. ‘The injured man dragged himself along the corridor.’ According to the definitions given under (7) and (8), these examples, which are completely grammatical, would be instances of the construction depicted therein, which is supposedly non-existent in Spanish and other Romance languages. The grammaticality of examples (14) and (15), thus, raises doubts about the validity of definitions (7) and (8). Another problem raised by the examples (14) and (15) is that it seems difficult to relate these examples to those under (12). Note that (14) and (15) do not indicate the resultative state of the theme since they do not contain information about the destination of the motion. In his 1989 paper, Aske, taking into account the data of the Spanish language, states that the walk-type MMVs in Spanish are subject to an aspectual restriction, namely that these verbs cannot take a path complement that directly mentions the resultative location of the theme, i.e. of a ‘telic’ nature, in Aske’s terminology. In the author’s opinion, only goal and source complements are telic (source indicates, albeit negatively, the resultative location of the theme, since ‘leaving X’ means that the theme ‘will not be at X’ at the end of the event).

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It must be stressed that telicity, in Aske’s definition, is very different from the notion of boundedness. The fact that a path is space-limited does not directly imply a telic path. This distinction is crucial to uphold Aske’s theory, for MMVs in general can take hasta-initiated PP, which mark the final limit of a path (e.g., nadar hasta el barco ‘swim up to the boat’, arrastrarse hasta la puerta ‘crawl up to the door’), as well as the quantitative phrases expressing a defined distance (e.g., correr cien metros ‘run one hundred meters’), both of a clearly bounded nature7. In Aske’s explanation, hasta-initiated complements indicating an area’s boundary cannot define the resultative location of the theme, although this location can be “deduced” from the information conveyed by complements of this kind. Aske’s view is strongly supported by the fact that in Spanish a predicate which selects the resultative location of the theme, such as tirar ‘throw’, cannot be combined with an hasta-initiated PP (tirar la basura {al suelo/ dentro del agujero/ *hasta el cubo} ‘throw the garbage {on the ground/ into the hole/ up to the garbage can}’).8 Returning to the grammatical examples under (14) and (15), it should be noted that none of them contains a complement which refers to the path’s destination or source. Combinations such as *nadar a la costa ‘swim to the shore’ or *rodar del tejado ‘go tumbling from the roof’ are ungrammatical, according to Aske’s line of thinking, because they contain a telic complement. This aspectual limitation does not affect the English verbs of the same semantic type, hence the contrast of grammaticality observed under (2). Once the combination restriction of Spanish MMVs has been redefined in aspectual terms, the relation between MMV constructions and resultative constructions –as in the examples under (12) – becomes clearer: both the (12a) type of construction and the other resultative constructions – cf. (12b) to (12f) – express a resultative event in which the activity expressed by the main verb is interpreted as the means or manner of carrying it out. Also, both are unforeseeable from the lexical properties of the verb which appears in them. What must be stressed is that in Spanish none of these constructions are productive. 3.2. “Aspectual” constructions The contrast between Spanish and English constructions with a resultative complement is shown in the table under (16). In the upper part are the constructions in which the resultative complement only ‘specifies’ the resultative state expressed by the verb; in the lower part are those which contain a resultative complement which ‘adds’ that state to the atelic event expressed by the verb.

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(16) Constructions with a complement specifying the result of a telic event Spanish English volverse loco become/ go mad ‘become mad’ ponerlo nervioso make him nervous ‘make him nervous’ Spanish English dibujar el círculo torcido freeze solid ‘draw the circle crooked’ lavarlo bien lavadito9 burn it black ‘wash it really well’ Constructions with a complement adding the resultative state to an atelic event Spanish English ĭ swing open pound the metal flat sneeze the tissue off the table ...

Particularly noteworthy is the absence of Spanish examples to represent the scheme. So as not to have to attribute this situation to mere chance, I suggest an approach which is potentially conducive to a tentative generalization. Let us assume, in line with Goldberg (1995) but bearing in mind the aspectual factor just mentioned, that the <MMV + telic path-complement> combination is an idiomatic construction and, as such, is registered in the English lexicon together with its schematic semantic structure. At the same time, I attribute the same idiomatic construction status to other English constructions based on the combination, whatever the category of this complement. English grammar will thus have available a series of idiomatic constructions with a resultative meaning like the following under (17): (17) a. She danced into the kitchen. (non-causative motion) b. John kicked the bottle into the yard. (causative motion) c. She kissed him unconscious. (causative change of state) Given this situation, a hypothesis worth considering is that of Williams (1994), according to whom the lexicon of every language contains abstract patterns of idiomatic constructions peculiar to each language or group of languages. These patterns define the possible types of idiomatic construc-

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tion available in the language concerned and give rise to “families” of idiomatic constructions that share certain syntactic and semantic features. Following this line of thinking, we can postulate that the English language has a pattern or scheme of idiomatic construction like (18): (18) <Subj. + Activity verb (+ Obj.) + Result compl.>: resultative event The “Object” in parentheses is optional and reflects the causative/noncausative variation in these constructions. This pattern would yield constructions containing an “activity” verb and a resultative complement which are interpreted as a resultative event, in spite of the fact that the main verb is an ‘activity’ verb. (19) scheme <Subj.+Activity v. +Obl.goal>: Result. motion (non causative) <Subj.+Activity v. +Obj. +Obl.goal >: Result. motion (causative) <Subj.+Activity v. +Obj. +X result>: Result. change of state (causative) ..... This pattern may be responsible for other constructions of similar characteristics and it also may be the case that there is a hierarchically superior pattern encompassing this and other intermediate patterns.10 The implication of recognizing the existence of a pattern like that in (19) is that the fact that in Spanish *nadar a la isla ‘swim to the island’ is ungrammatical may be related directly to the impossibility of interpreting a sentence like *Me besó inconsciente ‘(He) kissed me unconscious’ as resultative. The knowledge of Spanish speakers does not contain a pattern that can give rise to constructions that sanction these expressions. The pattern and the constructions themselves are obviously reinforced by the existence and use of constructions and expressions based on them; therefore there should be two-way arrows under (19). 3.3. Conclusion In this paper the problem arising from the difference in syntactic behavior observed between English and Spanish MMVs is studied. Bearing in mind data from the two languages, it has been suggested that it is necessary to adopt an aspectual criteria – that of telicity – to understand the true nature of this difference. In more concrete terms, it has been put forward that the

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English construction of the type dance into the kitchen, a construction which lacks productivity in Spanish, should be understood as an “aspectual” construction. As the most important consequence of this proposal, I would like to point out that this modification has permitted an articulation of the connection between the MMV construction and others with similar characteristics (e.g. the swing open or wipe (the dishes) dry type) in terms of a constructional scheme, which, at the same time as it sanctions the combination of an action verb with a telic complement, associates the combination with a semantic structure corresponding to a resultative event. Thus, I hope I have shown that recognition of the relevance of aspectual criteria on one hand and the existence of linkage between the constructions studied here on the other, makes it possible to place a phenomenon which is apparently limited to the area of expressions of movement – the MMVs – in another, broader area – that of expressions of resultative change. List of abbreviations C = Construction DMV = Directed Motion Verb F = Form LCS = Lexical Conceptual Structure MMV = Manner of Motion Verb Obj. = Object Obl. = Oblique PF= Phonetic Form PRED = Predicate Result. Compl. = Resultative Complement Result.motion = Resultative motion S = Meaning Sem = Semantic structure scheme Subj. = Subject Syn = Syntactic scheme

Notes 1. See, among others, Boons (1987), García Padrón (1988), Hilty (1990), Lamiroy (1991), Bouchard (1993, 1995: chapter.5), Crego García (2000), Cifuentes Honrubia (1988/1989, 1999), Morimoto (2001). In traditional Spanish grammar, there are many studies devoted to the periphrastic use of such verbs; we only mention here Alonso (1939), Roca Pons (1958) and Coseriu (1977). 2. This classification does not imply that the DMVs form a completely homogeneous group. From the point of view of the argument structure, these verbs can be divided at least into three different types. Although most of them select a path-argument – cf. {ir a Madrid ‘go to Madrid’ / venir a la escuela

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‘come to the school’ / llegar a la estación ‘arrive at the station’} –, others need a place-argument – cf. {penetrar en el territorio ‘penetrate the territory’ / irrumpir en el aula ‘burst into the classroom’} –, and there exist still others which require a locative object as their argument – cf. {atravesar el pueblo ‘go through the town’/ cruzar la calle ‘cross the street’}–, yielding, thus, a transitive structure. See Morimoto (1998, 2001), where I suggest a possible way of understanding this divergence. In above mentioned studies, it is also indicated that the DMVs may be divided mainly into two different aspectual groups. Thus, while some (entrar ‘enter’, llegar ‘arrive’, etc.) express a bounded displacement – i.e. a displacement with a clearly defined final point –, others (alejarse ‘move away’, subir ‘go up’, etc.) do not include in their meaning the final point of the displacement and should be considered unbounded. 3. See Tesnière (1959: § 131), Leech (1970: 189), Vandeloise (1987: 78), Talmy (1975, 1985), Lamiroy (1991), Levin (1993: § 51, and the bibliography included therein). 4. Besides these two lexicalization models, Talmy identifies another which combines Motion and Figure. This is the one prevailing in the Atsugewi and Navajo languages, according to the author (1985: 73). 5. “Subordination” refers to the fact that in (7b) as well as (8), the Event headed by the MOVE predicate becomes a constituent part of the Event headed by GO. Note that Jackendoff uses the term “superordination” to refer to the same phenomenon, thereby focusing on the dominant status of the GO predicate. Nevertheless, this difference in terminology does not affect the content of our discussion here. 6. For the theoretical basis of this trend, see, inter alia, Fillmore (1988), Fillmore, Kay and O'Connor (1988), Koenig and Jurafsky (1994), and Goldberg (1995). 7. Note that, from this new point of view, the standard tests for the boundedness (e.g., the possibility of being used with temporal adverbials such as in an hour or in two months) do not serve as diagnostics for the telicity. See Morimoto (2001), where I suggested that only those movement events which have the Conceptual Structure of the type [Event GO ([X], [Path TO ([Y])])] can be considered telic, while the space-limited character of its path is sufficient for a movement event to be aspectually bounded. 8. Personal communication from Mª V. Pavón Lucero. 9. This example is used quasi-exclusively in colloquial Spanish. It must be noted that this type of example, because of its highly idiomatic character, must not be understood as proof of the productivity of the resultative construction in Spanish. The most important point here, however, is the total absence of constructions in which a resultative predicate converts an atelic event expressed by the main verb into a telic one. 10. In this context, it is illustrative that Jackendoff (1997) notes the possibility of considering under the same idiomatic construction model the resultative construction, the construction with “possessive + way” (e.g.: He joked his way

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into the meeting) and the “time + away” construction (e.g.: She slept the whole afternoon away).

References Aske, Jon 1989

Path and Predicates in English and Spanish. In Proceedings of the 10th Annual Meeting, Berkeley Linguistic Society, 1–14. Boons, Jean-Paul 1987 La notion sémantique de déplacement dans une classification syntaxique des verbes locatifs. Langue Française 76: 5–40. Bouchard, Denis 1993 Primitifs, métaphore et grammaire: Les divers emplois de venir et aller. Langue Française 100: 49–66. 1995 A case study of six French verbs. In The Semantics of Syntax. A Minimalist Approach to Grammar, 119–254. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Cifuentes Honrubia, José Luis 1988/ 89 Sobre las construcciones locales en español. Estudios de Lingüística 5: 145–181. 1999 Sintaxis y Semántica del Movimiento: Aspectos de Gramática Cognitiva. Alicante: Instituto de Cultura “Juan Gil-Albert”. Crego García, María Victorina 2000 El Complemento Locativo en Español. Los Verbos de Movimiento y su Combinatoria Sintáctico-semántica. Santiago de Compostela: Universidad de Santiago de Compostela. Fillmore, Charles J. 1988 The mechanisms of “Constructional Grammar”. In Proceedings of the 14th Annual Meeting, Berkeley Linguistic Society, 35–55. Fillmore, Charles J. , Paul Kay, and Catherine O'Connor 1988 Regularity and idiomaticity in grammatical constructions: The case of LET ALONE. Language 64 (3): 501–538. García Padrón, Dolores 1988 Estudio semántico de los verbos de “movimiento” en el español actual. Ph.D. diss., Universidad de La Laguna. Gaytan, Eddy Herminio 1998 A study of path: the semantics of English and Spanish dynamic prepositions and motion and manner verbs, Ph. D. diss. University of Chicago. Goldberg, Adele 1992 The inherent semantics of argument structure: The case of the English ditransitive construction. Cognitive Linguistics 3 (1): 37–74. 1995 Constructions. A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

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Hilty, Gerold 1990 Análisis semántico de algunos verbos de movimiento. Verba Anejo 32: 163–166. Jackendoff, Ray 1990 Semantic Structures. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. 1997 Twistin’ the night away. Language 73 (3): 634–559. Koenig, Jean-Paul 1999 Lexical Relations. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and InformationPublications. Lamiroy, Béatrice 1991 Léxico y Gramática del Español. Estructuras Verbales de Espacio y de Tiempo. Barcelona: Anthoropos. Leech, Geoffrey 1970 Toward a Semantic Description of English. London: Longman. Levin, Beth 1993 English Verb Classes and Alternations. A Preliminary Investigation. Chicago: The University Chicago Press. Levin, Beth, and Tova Rapoport 1988 Lexical Subordination. In Papers from the 24th Regional Meeting, Chicago Linguistic Society, 275–289. Levin, Beth, and Malka Rappaport 1989 Approaches to unaccusative mismatches. In Papers from the19th Annual Meeting, North Eastern Linguistic Society, 314–328. Mateu, Jaume, and Gemma Rigau 2000 A minimalist account of conflation processes: parametric variation at the lexicon-syntax interface, ms. (report GGT-00-1). Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona. Mora Gutiérrez, Juan Pablo 1998 Directed motion in English and Spanish. Ph.D. diss., Universidad de Sevilla. Morimoto, Yuko 1998 Los verbos de movimiento en español: Aproximación léxicoconceptual. Ph. D. diss., Universidad Complutense de Madrid. 2001 Los Verbos de Movimiento. Madrid: Visor Libros. Slobin, Dan 1996 Two ways to travel: verbs of motion in English and Spanish. In Grammatical Constructions: Their Form and Meaning, Masayoshi Shibatani, and Sandra Thompson (eds.), 195–220. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Talmy, Leonard 1975 Semantics and syntax of motion. In Syntax and Semantics 4, John P. Kimball (ed.), 181–238. New York: Academic Press. 1985 Lexicalization patterns: semantic structure in lexical forms. In Language Typology and Syntactic Description, 3: Grammatical

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Categories and the Lexicon, Timothy Shopen (ed.), 57–150. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1991 Paths to realization: a typology of event integration. Buffalo Papers in Linguistics 91 (01): 480–519. Tesnière, Lucien 1959 Eléments de Syntaxe Structurale. Paris: Klincksiek. Vandeloise, Claude 1987 La préposition À et le principe d'anticipation. Langue française 76: 77–111. Williams, Edwin 1994 Remarks on lexical knowledge. Lingua 92: 7–34.

On the nature of lexicalization patterns: a crosslinguistic inquiry Luna Filipoviü

1. Introduction One of the ways to study the interplay between language and experience of events has been to choose a universal experiential domain (e.g. motion events) and check how speakers of different languages describe events within it. Its most recent outcome was the latest typology of languages proposed by Talmy (1985, 2000). The aim of this paper is not to indulge solely in a discussion on typological issues. The central question to be answered here is the following: if both the ‘directional verb + manner adjunct’ and ‘manner verb + directional particle’ exist as options for expressing motion events in a language (which they do in most, if not all languages), are there any linguistic factors that make one of the options the preferred one in a particular language and on what occasions? The present study illustrates that certain typological predictions in a language are overriden due to language-specific structural requirements, or more precisely morphosyntactic and semantic reasons. It also shows that an analysis of languages based on how more finely grained spatio-temporal features are lexicalized in them provides a better insight into the mechanisms of lexicalization patterning. This paper takes an all-encompassing view of semantics, which includes every level where meaning is conveyed, namely the morphological, syntactic and semantic level (cf. Matthews (1995) for the narrow vs. broad definition of semantics). Language processing consists of speaking or writing and understanding, whereby all means available within a language convey meaning as a “joint venture”. The explanation for semantic phenomena in a language must be sought within the whole system, without giving primacy to any single level, and must include all levels where meaning is conveyed, i.e. morphology, syntax and lexical semantics, and the way they all interact. Consequently, a number of different parameters will have to be included in a study of lexicalization instead of just focusing on whether Manner or Path of motion is lexicalized in the verb, which has most often been the case in the past.

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This holistic view of semantics, together with parts of the typology being revised, make it possible to reveal the language-specific mechanisms of lexicalization and the effect they have on the information content of motion expressions. In this context, by contrasting English and Serbian/Croatian1, as well as providing examples from Italian, French and Spanish, it will be shown that the classification of languages within the typology should be redefined. The starting point of the discussion is the need to refine the factors responsible for lexicalization of motion across languages, which is followed by specific and novel proposals for the typological refinement regarding the position of Serbian/Croatian. Section 2 explains the principle of the typological classification and provides a general outline of some of its problems. Section 3 proposes a spatio-temporal network on the basis of which motion events (and possibly events in general) are lexicalized, and provides an in-depth contrastive analysis of two lexicalization patterns, English and Serbian/Croatian. Two original hypotheses crucial for the lexicalization in Serbian/Croatian are put forward, and they are termed morphological blocking and combinatory potential. Acknowledging their importance will improve our understanding of lexicalization in general, since similar processes may prove to be relevant in other morphologically complex languages. Section 4 brings a conclusion and suggests a way forward for future research. 2. Locating the problems Linguists have detected the existence of different lexicalization2 patterns, which in effect influence the way events are rendered in different languages. The variations are of a very limited number, and the patterns are said to show a high degree of consistency within a particular language. Talmy (1985) proposed a typology of the world’s languages on the basis of the way they lexicalize motion events. He noticed that Romance languages, for example, show preference for the lexicalization of the Path component of motion in the verb (therefore they are dubbed Path-languages, or Vlanguages3), and Germanic and Slavonic languages (called Mannerlanguages, or S-languages), on the other hand, show preference for expressing the Manner component in the verb, and the Path in a preposition and/or prefix. The examples in (1) illustrate the patterns in Spanish, English and Serbian/Croatian respectively: (1)

(a) Spanish:Salió Exit-PRF-3SG

de la casa of the house

corriendo. running

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‘He exited the house running.’ (b) English: He ran out of the house. (c) Serbian/Croatian: Is-trþao je Out-run-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP iz kuüe. out of house ‘He ran out of the house.’ Slobin (1996, 1997, 2000, 2004) showed the kinds of consequences these differences in the lexicalization patterns have for spoken and written language habits. He concentrated especially on narratives with regard to scene-setting, foregrounding vs. backgrounding of information, and establishing rhetorical styles. He observed that English texts contain numerous and more varied manner verbs, whereas Spanish texts show an abundance of directional verbs, and very limited expressions of manner in general. He also found that Spanish translators tend to omit the manner component from the original when translating an English text, and English translators add manner even though it is not expressed in the Spanish original. However, the situation is far from being a clear-cut one. A number of researchers from different camps voiced their concerns, contributed to a number of clarifications regarding the typology and its predictive power (Aske 1989; Slobin 1996, 1997, 2000, 2004; Talmy 2000; IbarretxeAntuñano 2001), or provided some examples that challenge the postulates of the typology (cf., Asher and Sablayrolles 1996; Naigles et al. 1998; Narasimhan 1998; Berthele 2004). These further developments do not undermine the invaluable insights of the typology itself, which remains the driving force behind numerous research projects, including the analysis offered here. It is crucial to emphasize that Talmy’s typology was based mainly on the Manner vs. Path lexicalization in motion expressions. Aske (1989) observed and documented another important (perceptual) factor, essential for the expression of motion cross-linguistically. The notion of ‘boundary’ conditions the choice of linguistic means used in the lexicalization process. Spanish is a Path language, and thus directional verbs are supposed to be used in motion expression in order to lexicalize the Path of motion and the Manner is lexicalized in an adjunct. However, this is done only when there is a boundary that the moving Figure has to overcome, whereas in situations where there is no boundary, a manner verb is freely used and the

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Path is expressed in a preposition. Slobin terms those two different situations boundary-crossing (2a) and non-boundary-crossing (2b): (2) a. Salí por la puerta de la cocina, pasé por Exit-PFV-1SG via the door of the kitchen, pass- PFV-1SG via los corrales, y me dirigí a casa de Jasón. the animal pens, and myself direct- PFV-1SG to house of Jason ‘I exited through the kitchen door, passed by the animal pens, and directed myself to Jason’s house.’ b. Así, pues, los tres hombres caminaron lentamente y Thus, then, the three men walk-PFV-3PL slowly and sin agitación visible por las calles, desde la cárcel without agitation visible through the streets, from the jail hasta el extremo de la marisma. to the edge of the marsh. ‘Thus, then, the three men walked slowly and without visible agitation through the streets, from the jail up to the edge of the marsh.’ The boundary-crossing situations are of a particular importance at present because languages seem to differ precisely along this parameter according to Talmy’s typology, because it categorizes languages according to whether manner is expressed in the verb or not in boundary-crossing situations. In non-boundary crossing situations all languages seems to have the possibility to lexicalize manner in the verb. The constraint of boundarycrossing proposed by Slobin is that in Romance languages manner verbs are used in non-boundary-crossing situations (as in the example (2b)). Interestingly, Naigles et al. (1998) confirm further that boundary-reaching and boundary-crossing situations are described using the ‘manner verb+directional particle’ pattern in Spanish (especially in motion events on the vertical scale), which is a Path language, and thus such occurrences should not be possible. Similarly, Italian, also a Path language, does not fully follow the predicted pattern. Manner verbs can be used in both boundary-crossing and non-boundary-crossing situations. The only difference is in the use of auxiliaries (to be-‘essere’ (3a) vs. to have-‘avere’ (3b)), as in: (3) a. É Be-AUX-PRS-3SG. ‘He ran into the room.’

corso run-PTCP-M

nella stanza. in the room

On the nature of lexicalization patterns

b. Ha Have- AUX-PRS-3SG ‘He ran in the room.’

corso run-PTCP-M

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nella stanza. in the room

It seems that linguistic factors (i.e. the meaning and use of auxiliaries) affect the lexicalization pattern in Italian. By the same token, the lexical content of some verbs in Spanish seems to affect their use in the lexicalization of motion expressions. It may be the case that because some manner verbs4 used to express vertical motion in Spanish seem to incorporate both the Manner and the Path component, they become allowed in boundary-crossing expressions (e.g. in situations where the moving Figure slides into a swimming-pool). Similarly, in French, the effect of linguistic factors, namely lexical meaning of prepositions and their combining with different verbs, becomes noticeable at closer inspection. Asher and Sablayrolles (1996) provide examples of motion expressions in French that contain manner verbs in boundary-crossing situations. For example, they argue that the French preposition dans can refer to both locational and directional spatial configuration (the equivalents of the English in and into respectively) when used in a VP with the verbs of manner. Asher and Sablayrolles (1996) offer no confirmation that those examples are attested and native speakers we tested do not seem to accept both the boundary-crossing and non-boundary-crossing interpretation in examples like ‘Jean a couru dans le jardin’ (‘John ran in/into the garden’). They asserted that the meaning of the combination ‘manner verb+dans’ is locational, non-boundary-crossing only (meaning ‘John ran in the garden’) (cf. Asher and Sablayrolles 1996 and Filipoviü 2002 for discussion). On the other hand, Fong and Poulin (1998: 32–33) point out that there is a possibility to use manner verbs in French to express boundary-crossing, but it is important to know what must follow the preposition, as in the case of à travers (‘through’ or ‘across’). They contend that the example in (4a) is correct, and the one in (4b) is not because à travers needs to be followed by an object which clearly signifies a barrier (or a boundary) that is crossed5. According to them, there is a barrier expressed in (4a) but not in (4b): (4)

a. b.

Le poisson a nagé à travers la chute d’eau. ‘The fish swam through the waterfall’ ?L’enfant a couru à travers la pièce. ‘The child ran across the room’.

In (4a) a manner verb is used with a directional preposition, and the situation described seems to be that of a boundary-crossing kind. The

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English translation of (4a) contains a manner verb, which is the most natural choice for English speakers, but is the same also the case for French speakers? Fong and Poulin (1998) observe that the manner expressed is the inherent manner of motion of the figure involved (i.e. fish normally move by swimming), and thus deem it the most natural choice in both languages. This certainly would be the understanding of English speakers, who habitually use manner verbs in such situations. A directional verb instead of a manner verb would be a marked option in English in general and especially so in this case. It would be possible to use it though in imaginable but obscure contexts (e.g. if the fish changed location in an untypical manner, for example lying on the deck of a ship, when the verb cross would be used and manner expressed in an adjunct). However, the French example in (4a) does not seem fully acceptable to the French native speakers it has been tested on (Filipoviü (2002)). Contrary to their English peers and in contrast with Fong and Poulin’s account of the example (4a), French speakers feel that precisely because fish naturally move by swimming, it is not necessary to specify that the fish passed through by swimming, and therefore they assert that the directional verb traverser (cross) is the most natural choice for them (Filipoviü (2002)). Apparently, English and French speakers are influenced by their lexicalization patterns when they reason about how much and what kind of information is natural, marked or simply necessary. This is not to say that the conceptualization6 of the scene may be the same for both speaker communities. The manner verb in French that Fong and Poulin offer in their examples might also be the result of a language contact (e.g. Canadian French in contact with English; Slobin p.c.), which is another point that should be taken into consideration and further explored. Stosic (2001), on the other hand, shows that à travers ‘through’ is used with expressions that most typically do not indicate a boundary. It is used for localizing the figure during the process of change of location, never including the initial or final stage, unlike the English equivalents across and through, which can include all the stages (initial, medial and final). Stosic (2001, p.c.) contends that a directional verb should be used in cases like (4), and gives an example of the use and meaning of à travers : (5)

Nous sommes descendus dans la ville à travers le faubourg SaintDenis. ‘We descended into the town through the suburb of Saint-Denis’

Statistical, corpus and experimental data suggest however, that on the whole, the habitual tendency in Romance languages is to express the Path

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of motion in the verb (Slobin 1996, 1997, 2000, 2004). Nevertheless, the examples analysed so far indicate that important additions to the typology may come up if a detailed analysis of a number of language-specific semantic features within the Romance group is carried out. Important insights could become available by studying the effect on lexicalization stemming from the following: tense and aspect, unergative vs. unaccusative meanings and different uses of auxiliaries (cf. Levin and Rappaport Hovav 1995), preposition and VP meaning, as well as lexical and construction meaning (cf. Goldberg 1995, Croft 2001) in individual languages. We now turn to English and Serbian/Croatian, which belong to the Germanic and Slavonic branches of languages respectively, and which have been analysed in previous studies as the same typological type, where the Manner is expressed in the verb and the Path in the preposition and/or prefix. Both prefixes and prepositions are used in Serbian/Croatian at the same time to express direction, as in illustrated in the examples in (1), where English and Serbian/Croatian show the same pattern of lexicalization, as opposed to that of Spanish. However, the two languages do not show similarity in (6): (6) a. I ran out the kitchen door, past the animal pens, towards Jason’s house. b. Istrþao je na kuhinjska vrata, out-run-PST-PFV-3SF be-COP through kitchen door, prošao pored tor ova i uputio by animal pens, and direct- PST-PFV-3SG pass- PST-PFV-3SG se ka Džejsonovoj kuüi. oneself towards Jason’s house ‘He ran out of the house through the kitchen door, passed the animal pens and went in the direction of Jason’s house’ An English verb can accumulate a number of Path elements, whereas more than one verb is needed in Serbian/Croatian to express this kind of Path (in this case, one manner and two path verbs). Moreover, one manner verb and two directional verbs are used to lexicalize a complex Path in Serbian/Croatian, whereas one manner verb is used in English in the same situation. Consequently, it is not certain that the figure ran all the time (covering all the sections of the complex Path), whereas in English the expressions refers to the situation where the Figure ran all the time. The claim is that it is the linguistic factors again that are responsible for these restrictions in lexicalization. The accumulation of Path elements has been set by Slobin (1996, 1997) as one of the criteria for the membership in the

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branches of the Indo-European language family that typically express manner in the verb (Slavonic and Germanic). Obviously, a further inquiry was necessary taking in consideration different layers where meaning is conveyed. The meaning of prepositions (and verbal prefixes, if a language has them) and auxiliaries, as well aspectual meanings and the interplay between lexical and construction meaning in a language are some of the crucial factors that have to be considered in a lexicalization study. This was done for Serbian/Croatian (Filipoviü 1999, 2002, 2006), and the analysis is presented in the next section. 3. Path to solutions The proposed solution to the problem of how to approach and analyse lexicalization processes cross-linguistically comes in the form of situation types. The justification for this method is found in the criterion adopted here, which is to start from experiential categories, i.e. motion events7 and see what means are used in languages to express different spatial and temporal features involved. Situation types are defined within the spatial frame as boundary-crossing, boundary-reaching, and non-boundarycrossing. The term ‘boundary’ refers to a physically and perceptually salient element, i.e. a physical boundary that is to be overcome (in the case of boundary-crossing), reached (in the case of boundary-reaching) or is non-existent (in non-boundary-crossing). These distinctions are taken to be universally perceivable, and their importance for the lexicalization process has been documented across languages (cf. Slobin 1996, 1997 for further reference). We also distinguish three major temporal features, which characterize different phases of motion: if an expression relates to a motion event in which the change of location did not occur (at the time the event was witnessed), it is the no-change phase; if the event was occurring at the moment of witnessing it, it is the moment-of-change phase; and finally when the change of location has occurred, the phase is called the changeoccurred. They are temporal in the sense that they refer to phases of motion, not time of occurrence of events. In that respect, they evoke the notion of aspect (which is usually defined as the inner temporality of a situation expressed in language, cf. Comrie 1976). However, the temporal phases outlined here are not aspectual: they do not pertain to (any) language, but rather to experience. Aspect is understood as a linguistic (grammatical, verbal) category here and identifying the linguistic and the experiential would just cause unnecessary confusion, especially in cases of

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languages that do not specify for the category of aspect. Therefore, our temporal categories are experiential and pertain to universality, whereas aspectual categories do not. Introducing temporal phases in the analysis revealed important distinctions in lexicalization, especially regarding the moment-of-change phase, which has been completely disregarded until now. How do the spatial and temporal features combine within the spatiotemporal network? Motion events occur within the domain of space and time and thus both spatial and temporal features are necessary in order to classify and describe a motion event. A motion event is defined as change of location whereby a moving Figure is at a location A at a certain point in time and then as a result of motion ends at another location B at a different point in time. An example of a complete expression of a motion event would be: ‘He ran out of the room into the bathroom’. The expression is an instance of a boundary-crossing/change-occurred situation type. The expression ‘He staggered into the room’ also refers to the same situation type, and although the initial location (somewhere outside the room) is not expressed, it can be inferred. Boundary-crossing can be achieved in full, and then change-occurred is expressed, or a moving Figure can be seen at the moment where the boundary was being crossed, which is the case of the moment-of-change phase. Moment-of-change is a phase whereby the moving entity is changing the location, but has not reached the point B (e.g. ‘He was staggering into the house when I saw him (but he did not make it, because he fainted on the threshold)’). The initial point of motion is gapped8, but is inferred to be different from point B where the moving Figure is (perhaps) going to end up. If no boundary is crossed, the phase is no-change, because the motion event by definition is not complete unless the change of location occurs. Until the moving Figure ends up at a different location from the one it started at, one cannot talk about change of location. No-change phase refers to the situation type when neither initial nor the final point are expressed and cannot be inferred without contextual information, but the moving Figure was in the process of motion: ‘He ran in the park all afternoon’. Boundary-reaching/change-occurred situation type is the case when boundary is only reached, but not crossed. For example, the expression ‘He ran to the edge of the cliff’ refers to a motion event where movement was from rather than to a location also qualifies as this situation type, as in ‘He ran from the edge of the cliff’. The difference is in the “slicing of the path”, i.e. whether the start or the end point of movement was lexicalized.9. Boundary-reaching/moment-of-change situation type is possible but not expressed by motion verbs strictly speaking. This situation type is referred

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to by using ‘verbs of arriving or leaving’ (cf. classified as such in Levin 1993), as in ‘I was arriving at Cambridge when my phone rang’, where the noun phrase that follows the preposition refers to goal rather than a boundary that is reached (thus the marking (–/+) in table 1). If one tries to come up with an example where the object of the preposition actually refers to a cognitively salient explicit boundary (e.g. ‘I was arriving at your door when my phone rang’), one can see that the construction sounds rather unusual. If a manner of motion verb were to be used in this construction, it no longer refers to a boundary-crossing/moment of change situation type, since the situation type referred to becomes that of non-boundarycrossing/no-change type (although still directional, not locational), as in ‘I was running from/to your door when my phone rang’. This type is not discussed in detail at present. It is evident that the distinctions drawn within the spatial domain relate to the distinctions made within the temporal domain. The two domains, spatial and temporal, are intertwined in the following way: when a boundary is crossed (or reached) or is being crossed (or reached), a change has occurred or is occurring; when no boundary is crossed, then no change in circumstances is expressed. For example: (7) a. He ran into the room. (boundary-crossing/change-occurred; the meaning usually referred to as ‘directional’) b. He ran in the park. (non-boundary-crossing/no-change; the meaning usually referred to as ‘locational’) The relevant spatial and temporal features of motion events are given in 0: Table 1. Situation types Spatial Temporal

Boundarycrossing

Boundaryreaching

NonboundaryCrossing

Change-occurred

+ (8a)

+ (8c)

--

Moment-of-change

+ (8b)

-- (+)

--

No-change

--

--

+ (8d)

Examples: (8)

a.He ran into the room. b.He was running into the room when I saw him.

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c.He ran to the door. d.He ran/was running across the field for a while. According to the predictions, Serbian/Croatian, a Slavonic language should behave like English, which it does as in (9a). However, if Serbian/Croatian data are “sifted” through the whole network of spatial and temporal parameters from table 1, it becomes obvious that the situation is far more complex. In order to illustrate the differences between English and Serbian/Croatian, lexical, syntactic and morphological features of the two languages have been investigated in an integrated fashion. The examples in English are contrasted to those in Serbian/Croatian: (9)

a.He crawled into the shelter. (change-occurred) b.He was crawling into the shelter when I saw him. (moment-ofchange) c.He was crawling/crawled towards the shelter. (no-change)

(10)

a.Upuzio je u sklonište. into-crawl-PST-PFV-3SG be-COP into shelter. ‘He crawled into the shelter’ b.Ulazio je u sklonište puzeüi ener- PST-IPFV-3SG be- COP into shelter crawling kada sam ga ugledao. when I saw him ‘He was entering the shelter crawling when I saw him.’ c.Puzio je ka skloništu. crawl- PST-PFV-3SG be- COP towards shelter. ‘He was crawling/crawled towards the shelter.’

There is a similarity in the examples in (9a) and (10a), and (9c) and (10c) expressions, but not in (9b) and (10b). This is due to the fact that in Serbian/Croatian moment-of-change situation types need to be expressed by using an imperfective verb.10 Manner verbs are prefixed by directional prefixes which make them perfective at the same time, and further imperfectivization is not carried out. It has been registered on very few verbs, but then those verbs are used for habitual and iterative expressions, seldom for the moment-of-change.11 The same phenomenon is known in Russian (cf. Gasparov 1990). Therefore, in situations like the one in (10b) a directional verb is used instead. This constraint is termed morphological blocking in Filipoviü (2002), and represents a morphological constraint on the lexicalization process of motion events in Serbian/Croatian. Thus,

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manner verbs are not freely employed in all situations as they are in English. How does the analysis based on situation types help us find out more about the lexicalization of a domain? How difficult is it to determine what situation type an expression refers to? In Serbian/Croatian the verb form alone is enough to determine the type of situation that is described. This is not the case in English, because both simple and progressive forms in English12 can be used to express all the phases: change-occurred, momentof-change and no-change. Consequently, not much can be inferred on the basis of the verb form only. For example, the same verb form can refer to two different phases in a motion event. The example in (11a) refers to boundary-crossing/change-occurred situation, whereas (11b) and (11c) describes a boundary-crossing/moment-of-change situation type: (11)

a. The soldiers marched into the theatre. b. The people outside stood motionless in silence while the soldiers marched into the theatre. c. The soldiers marched into the building for half an hour.13

The lexical meaning of verbs in English is also not particularly informative when it comes to determining which situation type is described. Very few verbs have the kind of content that has a direct contribution to the interpretation of the spatio-temporal frame of a motion event. For example, hover is one of those rare verbs. It has a component of meaning that expresses certain duration of an activity at a certain location, and thus the example ‘The hawk hovered over the hill’ undoubtedly refers to nonboundary-crossing/no-change situation type. This would not have been the case if a different verb (e.g run) had been used, because the preposition over can be used in both expressions of boundary-crossing as well as nonboundary-crossing situations. It is possible that the combination ‘verb+preposition’ makes it easier to determine which situation type is expressed. For example, run into or run out of clearly express crossing of a boundary and motion expressions containing manner verbs and directional prepositions clearly refer to boundary-crossing situation types. The phase of event expressed could be that of change-occurred (if past simple is used) or moment-of-change (if past progressive is used). This rule is overriden on two occasions, namely if a time clause or a time adverbial is used, as in (11b) and (11c), whereby past progressive can be used in an expression of the moment-of-change.

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More problematic even are the cases where prepositions can be used in both expressions of boundary-crossing and non-boundary crossing situations, as shown in (12) and (13): (12)

a. She ran through the house, looking for her passport. (non-boundary-crossing/no-change) b. She ran through the back door and ended up in the back garden. (boundary-crossing/ change-occurred)

(13)

a. We stumbled over the rough ground in the back garden for some time. (non-boundary-crossing/ no-change) b. The door flung open and Sara stumbled over the threshold. (boundary-crossing/change-occurred).

In such cases, the internal argument plays a crucial role. If it refers to a spatial configuration that is clearly perceived as a boundary (e.g. a door), then the whole expression is that of boundary-crossing.14 Nevertheless, it is not always obvious whether the internal argument designates a boundary or not, as in: ‘We stumbled over the rough ground in the back garden’ (the example (13a) without the time adverbial). The interpretation really depends on whether the speaker considers it to be a boundary or not, but he/she may not specify it because it effectively does not matter in the whole chain of events. If the example (13a) was slightly modified (e.g. ‘We stumbled over the rough ground in the back garden and entered the house’), meaning that the Figure(s) encounter and overcome the boundary (a bit of rough ground) and ended up at a certain (different) location (in this case, a house), the interpretation of the whole event could be ‘changeoccurred/boundary-crossing’ type. Some spatial configurations are more easily interpreted as boundaries, whereas some others could be cognized as either boundaries or locations. In the case when both boundary and location interpretations are available, it is difficult to judge based on bare, simple sentences taken out of context. In language use, under normal circumstances, the narrative sequence of events provides the necessary clarification. For the purposes of our present discussion we decided to limit ourselves to the analysis of the sentence level, but we do look deeper into this matter elsewhere (cf. Filipoviü 2002 on simple vs. complex events and clause vs. sentence level of lexicalization15). This is just an illustration of the ways in which to interpret and understand different types of events, based on their lexicalization, which is driven by language-specific meanings of lexical items, VP’s and sentence structures, as well as by the

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cognitive processing of referents expressed in the external/internal argument (cf. Filipoviü 2002 for more detailed discussion). The situation types seem more easily discernible in Serbian/Croatian descriptions due to straightforward morphological marking. Perfective manner verbs are used in expressions of boundary-crossing/ changeoccurred, imperfective directional verbs in the boundary-crossing/momentof-change expressions, and imperfective manner verb in expressions of the non-boundary-crossing/no-change phase. (cf. examples in (10)). Unlike English, Serbian/Croatian does not allow unrestricted use of manner verbs due to the process of morphological blocking. One other important systemic feature affects the lexicalization process in Serbian/Croatian, and it is related to the prefixes. All perfective manner verbs are prefixed by prefixes which are also directional and they are all used to express boundary-crossing. Those are16: U- (in, into), IZ- (out of), PRE- (across, over), PRO- (through, past), OD- (from), DO- (to), NA- (onto), POD(under), with the exception of PRO- which can be both boundary-crossing and non-boundary-crossing (indicating that some time has been spent at a certain location).17 There is an important and well-defined cline18 in prefix use, given in table 2: Table 2. Prefix Cline Prefixed manner verbs

Types

Tokens

DO-

118

423 (31.9%)

OD-

118

396 (29.9%)

IZ-

43

169 (12.7%)

43

117 (8.8%)

PRO1 - and PRO2-

41

135 (10.2%)

PRE-

20

74 (5.6%)

NA-

5

10 (0.7%)

POD-

3

2 (0.2%)

Total

391

1326 (100%)

U19

Most of the verbs in the dictionary and corpus data are prefixed with OD- / DO- prefixes. There are significantly fewer verbs in both the dictionary and corpus data towards the end of the cline. The explanation for this is that the

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prefixes on the top of the cline can be attached to more verbs and employed in more expressions because of their combinability with different prepositions that follow the verbs, the number of which decreases down the cline (see Filipoviü (2002) for a detailed discussion). This quality is termed the combinatory potential and it diminishes progressively down the cline in table 2. The OD-/DO-verbs have the highest combinatory potential because: – they can combine with all prepositions: (14)

Odšepao je ‘from-the-speaker/scene’-limp-PST-PFV-3SG be-COP preko vlaznog šljunka. over moist gravel ‘He limped off over the moist gravel on tiptoe.’

– they can encompass the whole Path: (15)

U baraku preko se Into shed opposite oneself doteturao otud iz logora ‘to-the-reference-point’-stagger-PST-PFV-3SG from out of camp ‘He staggered into the shed opposite from out there out of the camp.’

(16)

Kao srndaü doskakao Like young deer ‘to-the-reference-point’-jump-PST-PFV-3SG je uz stepenice u devojcinu sobu. be-COP up stairs into girl’s room; ‘Like a deer, he jumped up the stairs into the girl’s room.’

– they express deixis; an OD-/DO- verb is used more often for any direction, even though other prefixes specifying direction are possible; for example: (17)

To je rekao i It be-COP said and oteturao se u ‘from-the-speaker/scene’-stagger- PST-PFV-3SG oneself into gostinjsku sobu guest room;

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‘He said that and staggered away into the guest room.’ (Note that ‘uteturati’ – ‘into-stagger’ does exist). A verb prefixed by a deictic OD-/DO- prefix would be used when there is no verb prefixed by the required directional prefix. However, the point being made here is that, even when verbs signalling different directions (non-deictic) exist in the language, a deictic verb is habitually used and the precise direction is specified in the preposition, as illustrated in (15), (16) and (17). Since those verbs are used more frequently than verbs prefixed otherwise, an additional piece of information (deictic) is frequently found, for example, in translation from a language that does not have deixis as a strong feature of the system (e.g. English) into one that does (e.g. Serbian/Croatian). Many examples are found where no deictic reference is given in the original (English), but exists in the translation into Serbian/Croatian (cf. Filipoviü 1999). The same study also found a substantial absence of manner detail in the translation from English into Serbian/Croatian, and adding manner even though it was not given in the original in translation from Serbian/Croatian into English.20 This presence/absence of information in accounts of events is one of the consequences of the differences in lexicalization patterns. The reason for this can also be an incompetent translator, but it can be shown that on a number of occasions the translation would be strained if, for example, a deictic expression were introduced every time in a translation into a language which does not favour deictic expressions (e.g. if translated from Serbian/Croatian into English). Apparently, a speaker of Serbian/Croatian would more often than not provide information related to his/her position, or have a referent other than the Figure that is moving. It would be worth finding out whether it is just information content that is affected or perhaps there is more at stake. Some recent studies experimentally tested the psychological reality of the typology in studies of memory and verbal retrieval of information from memory (cf. Finkbeiner et al. 2002; Gentner and Goldin Meadow 2003). The subject of deixis naturally leads to the frames of reference. Saeed (2001: 173) confirms that deictic devices in a language “commit a speaker to set up a frame of reference around herself”, and he gives examples of Somali, where the two deictic morphemes (soo – ‘towards the speaker’, and sii – ‘away from the speaker’) combine freely with verbs (Saeed 2001: 176). Complete freedom in combination of the deictic OD-/DO- prefixes with verbs in Serbian/Croatian was also evident. This, in effect, brings us to Levinson (e.g. 1999a, 1999b, 2003), who studies a number of diverse (and less commonly discussed) languages. He proposed three frames of

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reference in spatial orientation depending on what the accounts of movement in space typically have as a central point of reference. It can be the moving Figure, in which case the frame of reference is intrinsic. It can also be the speaker, who in his/her accounts of movement of the Figure provides information on his/her position with the respect to the moving Figure, in which case it is the relative frame of reference. It is also possible to refer to movement in space with respect to the points of the compass, in which case one talks about the absolute frame of reference. The frames of reference used in Serbian/Croatian are intrinsic and relative (deictic)21, but when it comes to the central situation type that is the backbone of the typology under scrutiny here (boundary-crossing/change-occurred), it seems to be in most cases a relative one. It is vital that other experiential domains, apart from motion events, be analysed in this respect and a detailed study on orientation and memory carried out, in order to discover the preferred frame in a language. The cline in prefix use that was established is an indicator that the relative frame is a preferred option in Serbian/Croatian, as opposed to English, where the intrinsic perspective appears to be favoured, which a study of manipulating objects in space has demonstrated (Carroll 1999). The analysis of deictic and other directional prefixes in Serbian/Croatian thus draws attention to the fact that deixis constitutes an important part of the lexicalization process. Yet, the deictic meaning of certain prefixes in Serbian/Croatian has not received much interest, and it is hardly ever mentioned in some major descriptions of the system of prefixes22. It has also not been of major concern in the lexicalization studies, either, apart from a few notable studies (Choi and Bowerman 1992). Choi and Bowerman (1992) consider it one of the key elements in the lexicalization process, on a par with Manner and Path. Taking all the above into consideration, it does not seem unsound to propose a cline in the typology, namely Romance>Slavonic>Germanic, noting that internal clines within larger families of languages may exist, as well as differences caused by language contact. And these are some possible lines for further investigation. 4. The way forward This analysis was aimed at uncovering the underlying mechanisms of the lexicalization of motion events in individual languages. It neatly shows similarities and differences in a more precise manner and demonstrates how different levels where meaning is conveyed all interact in the process.

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Generalizations within typologies mean that their predictive power is not absolute. The analysis has demonstrated that the principles of language processing can only be revealed if all the means of conveying meaning are considered in a certain language. The starting point was the assumption that the human ability to distinguish a variety of spatial and temporal features of events is universal. This paper proposes a set of features on the basis of which motion events can be distinguished and expressed in a number of languages, with potential wider application. The distinctions drawn with regard to situation types are universally perceivable, but whether all the languages distinguish them the way the ones discussed do is yet to be explored. What is apparent though is the role of linguistic factors in restrictions that underlie the process of the lexicalization of motion events. Linguistic factors have an effect on the presence/absence of information, like Manner and Path details, as well as the position of the speaker/witness. As a result, the informative content of the message is affected. The morphological blocking and the combinatory potential in Serbian/Croatian are the two factors that have been spelled out here and will possibly find their way into analysis of other Slavonic (and perhaps some non-Slavonic) languages. Finally, further research along these lines could possibly lead to uncovering whether (or not) the linguistic expression of events has any effect on the way certain parts of human cognition (e.g. linguistic memory) function in terms of retaining, retrieval and provision of information based on the linguistic patterns favoured in a particular language (Filipoviü, in preparation). Putting these typological findings to experimental testing provides an important basis for truly interdisciplinary research, prompting hopes that it will not be long before many issues still unresolved in language and cognition will stop being so. Notes 1. The name of the language ‘Serbian/Croatian’ is justified by the fact that this is linguistically one language, although politically Serbian and Croatian nowadays are treated mainly as separate languages. Filipoviü (2002) refers to them as ‘Serbo-Croatian’, but the choice to refer to the language as Serbian/Croatian here stems from recent practice in linguistic papers, which reflects politically correct sociolinguistic reality. Both Serbian and Croatian sources were used for this study. 2. The term “lexicalization” is used differently by different scholars; here Talmy’s definition is adopted, meaning the process of rendering experiential data (e.g. components of events) into languages (Talmy 1985).

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3. Motion is defined primarily as “change of location” (Talmy 1985), and therefore the languages that lexicalize that crucial piece of information (the Path of motion) in the verb are called V-languages. Those languages that lexicalize the Path of motion elsewhere (e.g. in a particle) are called Slanguages (“S” standing for Talmy’s term “satellite”). 4. Naigles et al. (1998) hypothesized why the use of manner verbs expressing boundary-crossing on the vertical scale seems less restricted than that of manner verbs on the horizontal axis, based on factors like controlled vs. uncontrolled motion and lexical salience, and leave the matter open. The cognitive aspects of these findings are not discussed here, since the focus on linguistic factors is preserved. 5. Filipoviü (2002) discusses in detail the importance of distinguishing between what is or is not considered a boundary and lexicalized as the object of the preposition. 6. The conceptualization issues are beyond our scope at present, because we focus only on the information content. 7. We discuss only agentive motion, not caused motion. 8. Cf. Talmy (1996) where ‘gapping’ is discussed and termed “windowing of attention”. 9. The initial/final stage of an action lexicalised in the verb by the ‘OD-‘/’DO-‘ (‘from’/’to’) prefixes is of particular importance in Slavonic languages from the point of view of the grammatical category of aspect, and this piece of information in an expression is highly favoured (cf. Verkuyl (1999)). Therefore this could be one important reason for the pronounced preference of OD-/DOverbs in Serbian/Croatian, discussed in section 3. 10. The distinction perfective/imperfective refers to the morphological marking; perfective verbs are normally derived by prefixing the imperfective ones. 11. Very few verbs (6 according to the dictionary data) are confirmed in momentof-change situations with their imperfectivised prefixed forms, but only 3 examples with the verb ‘run’ are found in the corpus data, which makes this pattern extremely rare (compare: trþati – ‘run’: imperf.; pretrþati – ‘acrossrun’: perf.; pretrþavati – ‘across-run’: imperf.); therefore we note that this pattern is rather rare and untypical. 12. All the data for this research consist of examples in past tenses only. 13. If the external argument were in singular (e.g. ‘The soldier marched into the building for half an hour’), the sentence would sound unusual, but still not impossible to contrive if the notion extended space (cf. Filipoviü 2002) is evoked. 14. For cognitive notions related to the interpretation of boundaries, termed extended space and extended time, see Filipoviü 2002. 15. Cf. also Higginbotham, Pianesi and Varzi (2000) on Event Semantics, and Croft (1990) on event distinction. 16. Capital letters are used to mark the prefixes because they are morphophonemes, realized differently depending on the initial sound in the verb.

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17. Probauljala je kuüom jedno pola sata. (‘She spent about half an hour roaming around the house aimlessly.’) 18. The cline is based on the number of verbs prefixed in the dictionary data and the numbers found in the corpus. Sources: The Dictionary of Serbian/Croatian by The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and the Dictionary of Serbian/Croatian by Matica Srpska, and Croatian National Corpus on-line (October 1999–October 2002). 19. The interpretation of the prefix PRO- (i.e. whether ‘through’ or ‘past’) is resolved by the prepositions that normally follow PRO-verbs, which are different depending on this difference in meaning. Practically speaking, a PRO-verb can be followed by the preposition ‘pored’ (‘past’) or ‘kroz’ (‘through’), and the meaning of the verb varies accordingly. That is why PROverb types and tokens in table 2 seem as numerous as IZ-/U- verbs, which are higher on the proposed cline, but, in fact, comprise two different spatial configurations, and thus are placed lower. For convenience, PRO1- and PRO2data are given together since it does not affect the point made. 20. This looks more like the Spanish pattern that was reported in Slobin (1996) and (1997). 21. Although there is no one-to-one relationship between deictic and relative, as Levinson (2003) explains, the two are considered to be the same for the purpose of this analysis. The reason for this approach at present lies in the fact that the data do not give access to the information concerning the “origin”, in Levinson’s terms. One cannot be sure whether, in the descriptions of motion events, the movement described was to /from the speaker, addressee or a third party. Any point of view could be taken and it is not obvious from an expression given within a sentence or a clause. Accounts of events in literary works contained in the corpus, for example, could have been written in 1st or 3rd person, and there is no way of knowing unless one is familiar with the source (e.g. the whole novel). Thus, since there is no great harm done to the understanding of the frames of reference, the distinctions offered here cut across Levinson’s, and are simplified for the purpose of this study, bearing in mind that subtler (and by no means unimportant) differences exist. 22. No mention in two seminal studies on Serbian/Croatian (Beliü 1964; Stevanoviü 1989).

References Asher, Nicholas, and Pierre Sablayrolles 1996 A typology and discourse semantics for motion verbs and spatial PPs in French. In Lexical Semantics, James Pustejovsky, and Branimir Boguraev (eds.), 163–209. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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Path predicates in English and Spanish: A closer look. In Proceedings of the Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 1–14. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society. Beliü, Aleksandar 1964 Savremeni srpskohrvatski knjizevni jezik II. Beograd: Nauþna knjiga. Berthele, Raphael 2004 The typology of motion and posture verbs: A variationist account. In Dialectology meets Typology. Dialect Grammar from a Crosslinguistic Perspective (Trends in Linguistics. Studies Monographs 153), Bernd Kortmann (ed.), 93–126. Berlin/NewYork: Mouton de Gruyter. Carroll, Mary 1999 Changing place in English and German: language-specific preferences in the conceptualization of spatial relations. In Language and Conceptualization, Jan Nuyts, and Eric Pederson (eds.), 137– 161. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Choi, Sonia, and Melissa Bowerman 1992 Learning to express motion events in English and Korean: the influence of language-specific lexicalization patterns. In Lexical and Conceptual Semantics (Cognition Special Issues), Beth Levin, and Steven Pinker (eds.), 83–121. Cambridge, MA. and Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Comrie, Bernard 1976 Aspect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Croft, William 1990 Possible verbs and the structure of events. In Meanings and Prototypes: Studies in Linguistic Categorisation, Savas L. Tsohatzidis (ed.), 48–73. London: Routledge. 2001 Radical construction grammar: syntactic theory in typological perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Filipoviü, Luna 1999 Language-specific expression of motion and its use in narrative texts. MPhil dissertation, University of Cambridge, UK. 2001 Language-specific use of verbs in motion expressions. In El verbo entre el léxico y la gramática, Alexandre Veiga, and Mercedes Suárez Fernández (eds.), 53–62. Lugo: Tris-Tram. 2002 Verbs in motion expressions: structural perspectives. PhD diss., University of Cambridge, UK. 2006 Weaving the web of meaning. Languages in Contrast 6 (1): 151– 175. in prep. Language effects on memory of events. University College London, ms.

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Finkbeiner, Matthew, Janet Nicol, Delia Greth, and Kumiko Nakamura 2002 The role of language in memory for actions. Unpublished ms. University of Arizona. Fong, Vivien, and Christine Poulin 1998 Locating linguistic variation in semantic templates. In Discourse and Cognition, Jean-Pierre Koenig (ed.), 29–39. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information. Gasparov, Boris 1990 On the “Metaphysics” of Russian aspect. In Verbal Aspect in Discourse, Nils Thelin (ed.), 191–212. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Goldberg, Adele 1995 Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gentner, Dedre, and Susan Goldin-Meadow (eds.) 2003 Language in Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Higginbotham, James, Fabio Pianesi, and Achille C. Varzi (eds.) 2000 Speaking of Events. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ibarretxe-Antuñano, Iraide 2001 Path and manner in motion events: a comparative study. unpublished ms. University of California at Berkeley. Iviü, Milka 1982 O nekim tipovima prefiksacije. Juznoslovenski Filolog XXXVIII: 51–60. Levin, Beth 1993 English Verb Classes and Alternations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Levin, Beth, and Malka Rappaport Hovav 1995 Unaccusativity: At the Syntax-Lexical Semantics Interface. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. Levinson, Steven 1999a From outer to inner space: linguistic categories and non-linguistic thinking’. In Language and Conceptualization, Jan Nuyts, and Eric Pederson (eds.), 13–45. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1999b Frames of reference and Molyneux’s question: cross-linguistic evidence’. In Language and Space, Paul Bloom, Mary Peterson, Lynn Nadel, and Merrill Garrett (eds.), 109–169. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. 2003 Space in Language and Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Matthews, Peter H. 1995 Syntax, Semantics, Pragmatics. In Grammar and Meaning, Frank Palmer (ed.), 48–60. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Naigles, Letitia, Ann Eisenberg, Edward Kako, Melissa Highter, and Nancy McGraw 1998 Speaking of motion: verb use in English and Spanish. Language and Cognitive Processes 13 (5): 521–549. Narasimhan, Bhana 1998 The encoding of complex events in Hindi and English. PhD. diss., Boston University. Saeed, John I. 2001 [1997]Semantics. Oxford: Blackwell. Slobin, Dan 1996 Two ways to travel: verbs of motion in English and Spanish. In Grammatical Constructions – Their Form and Meaning, Masayoshi Shibatani, and Sandra Thompson (eds.), 195–219. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1997 Mind, code, and text. In Essays on Language Function and Language Type, Joan Bybee, John Haiman, and Sandra Thompson (eds.), 437–467. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 2000 Verbalized events: A dynamic approach to linguistic relativity and determinism. In Evidence for linguistic relativity, Susan Niemeier, and Rene Dirven (eds.), 107–138. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 2004 The many ways to search for a frog: linguistic typology and the expression of motion events. In Relating events in narrative: typological and contextual perspectives, Sven Strömqvist, and Ludo Verhoeven (eds.), 219–257. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Stevanoviü, Mihajlo 1989 Savremeni srpskohrvatski jezik, vol. I. Beograd: Nauþna knjiga. Stosic, Dejan 2001 Prendre par le sentier à travers le bois ou comment à travers (se) fraie un chemin’. Paper presented at: Colloque International – Prépositions et conjonctions de subordination. Université de l’Ouest, Timisoara , 29–31 May, 2001. Talmy, Leonard 1985 Lexicalization patterns: semantic structure in lexical forms In Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Timothy Shopen (ed.), 57–149. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1996 The windowing of attention in language. In Grammatical Constructions – Their Form and Meaning, Masayoshi Shibatani, and Sandra. A. Thompson (eds.), 235–287. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1999 Towards a Cognitive Semantics (vol 2.). Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. Verkuyl, Henk 1999 Aspectual Issues: Studies on Time and Quantity. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information.

The semantics of space : A study of the prefix proin Serbian Dejan Stosic

Most of the studies dealing with prefixes in the Slavic languages focus on their role in expressing verbal aspect.1 Research on the expression of motion in Serbian rarely takes into account the semantic contribution of prefixes when they are associated with verbs. In this paper2, we will attempt to show by analysing the prefix pro- in Serbian that prefixes also play a very important role in the semantic structuring of space. First, we will examine effects which may cause the addition of the prefix pro- to different semantic classes of simplex verbs (§ 2.2). Next, we will show that proprefixed verbs involve, because of the semantic particularities of this prefix, more than one syntactic as well as semantic constraint on the nature of selected objects (§ 3). Finally, we will point up the relationship which exists between the spatial and the aspectual meaning of the prefix pro- (§ 4). 1. Introduction The interaction between verbs and prefixes in the Slavic languages has been the subject of many studies in the last century. The importance of prefixation especially has been emphasized in the studies dealing with verbal aspect because of the quite central role which prefixes play in aspectual morphology. Aspectual morphology in the Slavic languages refers to a set of morphological processes which the languages use in deriving perfective verbs from imperfective verbs and imperfectives from perfectives. So, in Serbian, it is possible to change the aspectual value of a verb either by the addition of a prefix (e.g. imperfective trþati ‘to run’ vs perfective istrþati ‘to run out from’), or by that of a suffix (e.g. perfective završiti ‘to finish’ vs imperfective završavati ‘to be in the process of finishing’). Examples (1) and (2) illustrate the way in which speakers of Serbian contrast imperfectives (e.g. pisati pismo ‘to write a letter’) and perfectives (e.g. napisati pismo ‘to finish the letter’) by adding a prefix (Pfx) to the former (see List of abbreviations on page 355):

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(1)

Pisao sam joj pismo kada su oni ušli u written AUX her letter-ACC when AUX they entered into kuüu. house- ACC ‘I was writing her a letter when they entered the house.’

(2)

Napisao sam joj pismo Pfx-written AUX her letter- ACC ‘I wrote her a letter in one hour.’

za sat vremena. in hour time-GEN

This article will not deal any further with imperfectivizing suffixes. So, for the remainder of the article, all unprefixed verbs can be assumed to be imperfective (unless otherwise noted), all prefixed verbs can be assumed to be perfective. Studies dealing with verbal aspect have also shown that prefixes play a very important role in expressing Aktionsart. Moreover, the addition of a prefix can change the combinatorial properties of the verb. Thus, the base form and the prefixed verb can require a different type of object, or one of them can be transitive, the other intransitive. But, verbal prefixes, which obviously have aspectual meaning, play also a very important role in the semantic structuring of space. In spite of the very abundant literature on the semantics of prefixes in Slavic languages, few Slavists have really tried to define the semantic contribution of prefixes in the expression of motion (e.g. Dabrowska 1996). With regard to Serbian, few studies deal with the spatial meaning(s) of prefixes (e.g. Mitrinoviü 1990; Iviü 1982); most of the studies dealing with the semantics of space focus on prepositions and cases (e.g. Iviü 1957, 1957–1958; Piper 1997; Klikovac 2000). Yet, the meaning of a prefixed verb is significantly distinct from the meaning of the base form. In the case of e.g. the motion event described by the derived verb istrþati which means ‘to run out from’ (3), the prefix expresses the "path" (Talmy 2000), while the base form (trþati 'run') (4) expresses the "manner of motion" (Talmy 2000). (3)

Trþao je ceo dan. run AUX all day ‘He ran all day long.’

(4)

Istrþao je u baštu. Pfx-run AUX into garden-ACC ‘He ran out into the garden.’

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These examples show that although prefixes are not autonomous elements, they seem to have a very rich semantic potential, entirely comparable to the semantic potential of spatial prepositions. According to L. Talmy (2000), prepositions and verbal prefixes in Slavic languages constitute the class of "satellites" which play a very important role in the expression of motion events because the Path component is characteristically represented in them. So, according to L. Talmy's typology, Serbian belongs to "satelliteframed" languages as well as English, German, Dutch, Russian, Chinese, and so on. Satellite-framed languages oppose to "verb-framed" languages such as French, Spanish, Hebrew, etc. which characteristically express Path in the verb root (cf. Talmy 2000). In this paper, our primary purpose will be to precisely define the semantic contribution of the prefix pro- in the expression of motion in Serbian. The prefix pro- is typically used in its spatial meaning in describing situations as exemplified in (5) and (6): (5)

Maþka je projurila kroz kuhinju. cat AUX Pfx-run through kitchen-ACC ‘The cat ran (passed running) through the kitchen.’

(6)

Pas je protrþao ispred kuüe. dog AUX Pfx-run in front of house-GEN ‘The dog ran (passed running) in front of the house.’

(7)

Pas je trþao ispred kuüe kada smo ušli u dog AUX run in front of house- GEN when AUX entered into baštu. garden-ACC ‘The dog was running in front of the house when we entered the garden.’

We will use the term Figure to designate a moving or located entity and the term Ground to designate a reference entity with respect to which the position of a Figure is determined (Talmy 2000). Thus, in examples (6) and (7), the dog functions as the Figure and the house as the Ground. These terms respectively correspond to Langacker's terms Trajector and Landmark.

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2. The Spatial Meaning of the prefix pro- in Serbian According to several studies dealing with the evolution of prefixes in different Indo-European languages (Ernout and Meillet 1959; Mitrinoviü 1990), the prefix pro- derives from the Indo-European root PER. This root has produced in different languages a range of prefixes and prepositions which preserved a substantial resemblance in form, but also in meaning. Thus, the basic spatial sense of Indo-European PER ‘ahead’ has evolved into both a spatial and a temporal sense: ‘through’, ‘across’, ‘from one end to the other’, ‘from beginning to end’, ‘entirely’. It is currently expressed in the Slavic languages by prefixes and/or prepositions pre(-), pro(-), preko, pri(-), per(-), prze-, przez, and so on. The same element(s) exist(s) in Latin (e.g. per(-)), in French (e.g. per-, par(-)) and in English (e.g. pre-, per(-)). These elements have been the subject of a number of studies, especially in Russian and Polish. With regard to Serbian, (Mitrinoviü 1990) constitutes the most detailed analysis of the prefixes pro- and pre-. In fact, it is a cross-linguistic study of the prefix prze- in Polish and its Serbian equivalents pro- and pre-. This study is based on a very large quantity of data and deals with all the uses of selected prefixes. However, (Mitrinoviü 1990) doesn't provide a really detailed semantic description of the prefix pro-. 2.1. The prefix pro- and the grammatical structuring of conceptual content (Talmy 2000) The main idea which we will take as our starting point in describing pro- is the one developed in several works of L. Talmy, according to whom: “The open-class, or lexical, subsystem represents conceptual content, while the closed-class, or grammatical, subsystem represents conceptual structure” (Talmy 2000: vol.2, 32–33). What makes the grammatical structuring of conceptual content possible are schemas – in idealized form –, specified by closed-class elements. Thus, each of these grammatical elements specifies a particular concept or schema according to its meaning. So, as a closed-class item, the prefix pro- itself refers to a particular conceptual schema. First we will attempt to identify and secondly to characterize – from both a semantic and a cognitive point of view –, the concepts conveyed by this prefix in its spatial uses, as seen in (8), previously given in (6):

A study of the prefix pro- in Serbian (8)

Pas je protrþao dog AUX Pfx-run ‘The dog ran in front of the house.’

ispred in front of

335

kuüe. house-GEN

We assume that, in its spatial uses, the prefix pro- mainly specifies two concepts: the concept of progress and the concept of carving out a segment of a motion event. In the next section, we will sharpen these two concepts by analysing the behaviour of pro- in relation to different classes of simplex (unprefixed imperfective) verbs.3 2.2. The combination of the prefix pro- with different classes of simplex verbs The analysis of the spatial meaning of the prefix pro- first of all has to take into account the semantic properties of the simplex verbs with which this element can be associated. In ‘The Dictionary of Standard Serbo-Croatian’ (Reþnik srpsko-hrvatskoga književnog jezika) in six volumes, there are more than 600 verbs accepting the prefix pro- which is due to the fact that this prefix is extremely polysemous. Of course, the list of pro- prefixed verbs figuring in that dictionary cannot be exhaustive because this prefix is still productive. Thus, according to the The Dictionary of Standard Serbo-Croatian and Mitrinoviü (1990), the prefix pro- has at least eight different meanings. It can express space, time, inchoativity, penetration, loss, and so on. We will not analyse all the verbs derived via pro- which can be found in the The Dictionary of Standard Serbo-Croatian, but only 440 among them which are actually used by speakers of Serbian. Half of these pro-prefixed verbs in usage (about 220 verbs) express dynamic spatial phenomena, that is a change of location in space. Only these 220 verbs formed via pro- will be analysed here in order to define the spatial meaning of the prefix pro-. This paper will only deal with these 220 pro- prefixed verbs; all of them are perfective which means that they are derived via simple addition of the prefix to simplex verbs (e.g. protrþati ‘to pass running’, i.e. ‘to run past’). The analysis of this corpus of 220 verbs shows that the prefix proexpresses motion in combination with five semantic classes of simplex verbs: verbs of motion (e.g. trþati ‘to run’), verbs denoting sound phenomena (e.g. pištati ‘to whistle’), verbs of visual perception (e.g. viriti ‘to glance’), verbs of change of material integrity of an object (e.g. kopati ‘to dig’) and verbs of change of state (e.g. kvasiti ‘to soak’).

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(1) Verbs of motion. According to the corpus of 220 verbs taken into account, the prefix pro- more often than not enters into combination with verbs of motion, broadly speaking. It is worth noting that the term ‘verb of motion’ may designate, on the one hand, verbs of movement literally speaking which express change of shape (e.g. to grow) or change of posture (e.g. to gesticulate) – there is some entity which moves, but it does not change location in the given reference-frame –, on the other hand, it may designate a genuine motion involving change of location (e.g. to enter). With regard to motion involving change of location, a Figure can either shift within a same reference-frame (e.g. to run, to wander) which we will term site shift, or pass from one reference-frame to another (e.g. to enter, to exit) which we will term reference-frame shift. We broadly adopt here the classification of verbs of motion proposed by Aurnague (2000) (see also Aurnague and Stosic 2002). (1.a) Addition of pro- to verbs of motion without reference-frame shift. Most of the verbs of motion beginning with the prefix pro- derive from verbs of motion without reference-frame shift but which obligatorily involve site shift, such as trþati ‘to run’, defilovati ‘to defile’, galopirati ‘to gallop’, leteti ‘to fly’, and so on. Let us compare sentence (9) which contains this kind of simplex verb to sentences (10) and (12) which contain pro-prefixed verbs: (9)

Ptica je letela iznad kuüe. flown above house-GEN bird AUX ‘The bird was flying above the house.’

(10)

Ptica je proletela iznad kuüe. bird AUX Pfx-flown above house- GEN ‘The bird flew past above the house.’

(11) Konji su galopirali ispred štale. horses AUX Pfx-galloped in front of stable- GEN ‘The horses were galloping in front of the stable.’ (12)

Konji su progalopirali ispred štale. horses AUX Pfx-galloped in front of stable- GEN ‘The horses galloped past in front of the stable.’

The base forms leteti ‘to fly’, trþati ‘to run’, galopirati ‘to gallop’, and so on, express site shift (i.e. a shift from one to the other sub-part of a same Ground entity). Those verbs describe atelic situations and stress the manner of motion, as seen in (9) and (11). But the addition of the prefix pro- to this

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type of verb results in a formation of verbs which express reference-frame shift, as in (10) and (12) (e.g. proleteti ‘to fly past’; progalopirati ‘to gallop past’). More precisely, we fix a landmark by selecting some entity as reference entity which (artificially) divides the trajectory into three portions: one before, another after and a third one corresponding to the scope of a fixed landmark. All pro- prefixed verbs focus on this segment of motion where the Figure is in the scope of the Ground. This means that situations described in (10) and (12) are telic ones because the Figure shifts from one reference-frame to another during the motion. It can be noted that, on the one hand, pro- prefixed verbs at issue express a continuous motion which takes place before, in the scope of and after the Ground, on the other hand, this continuity seems to be broken because of the presence of the Ground (respectively, the house and the stable in (10) and (12)). The reference-frame shift is much more salient when derivatives with pro- introduce objects which express internal localisation, as seen in the following example: (13)

Petar je protrþao kroz dnevnu sobu. Peter AUX Pfx-run through living room-ACC ‘Peter ran (passed running) through the living room.’

Unlike the situations illustrated in (10) and (12) where the path followed by the Figure is artificially divided into three distinct portions (BEFORE, IN THE SCOPE OF and AFTER), in the situation exemplified in (13), the Ground entity naturally divides trajectory on three portions. By focusing on the median phase of motion, the prefix pro- underlines, by virtue of its semantics, both the reference-frame shift and the fact that movements at issue extend beyond the scope of the Ground (the notion of continuity). In order to stress the reference-frame shift conveyed by the prefix pro- in combination with different kinds of verb, we will often use in the translations the preposition past. Thus, it is clear that there is a fundamental semantic difference between prefixed verb and base form due to the addition of the prefix pro-. Let us also remember that, in accordance with the principles of aspectual morphology, verbs derived with pro- are perfective (e.g. proleteti ‘to fly past’ – (10)) contrary to the corresponding base forms (verbs of motion without reference-frame shift) which are intrinsically imperfective (e.g. leteti ‘to fly’ – (9)). (1.b) Addition of pro- to verbs of motion involving reference-frame (and site) shift. Even if it happens very rarely, verbs of motion involving

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reference-frame (and site) shift such as pasti ‘to fall’(perfective verb) and kroþiti ‘to cross, to get over’ can take the prefix pro-, as seen in (14): (14) Propao je kroz led koji se iznenada razbio. Pfx-fallen AUX through ice-ACC which itself suddenly cracked ‘He fell through the ice which suddenly cracked.’ In this case, the addition of prefix pro- emphasizes the reference-frame shift already involved in the semantics of the base form and introduces the idea of continuity. This kind of verbs generally expresses the movement through the Ground. (1.c) Addition of pro- to verbs of motion which can involve (but not obligatorily) site shift. In the case of verbs such as tapkati ‘to stamp’ and skakutati ‘to hop’, site shift is possible but not obligatory because someone can hop while remaining in the same place. However, prefixed with pro-, all of these verbs denote dynamic spatial relationships. (15) Marija je skakutala u dvorištu Mary AUX hopped in backyard-LOC ‘Mary hopped in the backyard for half an hour.’ (16) Marija je proskakutala Mary AUX Pfx-hopped ‘Mary hopped past Peter.’

pored beside

pola sata. half hour

Petra. Peter-GEN

In (15), it is difficult to determine precisely whether Mary hops in the same place or shifts position, but in (16) where the verb skakutati ‘to hop’ is prefixed with pro-, it is clear that there is a motion involving referenceframe shift. The Ground entity, as it happens ‘Peter’, fixes a referenceframe with respect to which it can be considered that the Figure changed locations. (1.d) Addition of pro- to verbs of motion without site shift. Referenceframe shift also appears when the prefix pro- occurs with certain verbs of motion such as batrgati se ‘to stagger’ or rasti ‘to grow’ which do not intrinsically involve any site shift. Notice that the derived verbs probatrgati se ‘to stagger past’ and prorasti ‘to grow through’ are actually little used, but everyone understands what they mean. (17)

Biljka je prorasla izmedju ploþa. Plant AUX Pfx-grown between paving stones- GEN ‘The plant grew between the paving stones.’

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Once again, a dynamic interpretation of the action denoted by the base form obviously comes from the addition of the prefix pro-. (1.e) Addition of pro- to causative verbs of motion. Causative verbs of motion (e.g. terati ‘to drive’) are distinguished from other verbs of motion by their argument structure which incorporates, in addition to Figure and Ground, an Agent which causes the Figure to move. The subject usually denotes an Agent, and the direct object denotes a Figure, as seen in the following example: (18)

Proterali su stado ispred naše Pfx-driven AUX herd-ACC in front of our-GEN ‘They drove the herd past our house.’

kuüe. house- GEN

To sum up, all the verbs of motion prefixed with pro- which we have seen above describe reference-frame shift. Since some base-form verbs do not involve reference-frame shift (e.g. trþati ‘to run’), it must be conveyed by the prefix (e.g. protrþati ‘to run past’). (2) Addition of pro- to verbs denoting sound phenomena. Another semantic class of verbs which can take the prefix pro- are those verbs which refer to sound phenomena accompanying certain motions.4 Sentences 19 and 20 exemplify this case: (19)

Granata je propištala iznad šume. shell AUX Pfx-whistlled above forest-GEN ‘The shell whistled past above the forest.’

(20)

Nešto prošušta nedaleko od nas. smth Pfx-rustled not far from we- GEN ‘Something rustled past not far from us.’

Unlike the simplex verbs pištati ‘to whistle’ et šuštati ‘to rustle’, the corresponding verbs derived with pro- are capable of expressing dynamic spatial phenomena because of the concept of progress involved in the semantics of the prefix pro-. (3) Addition of pro- to verbs of visual perception. Next, the prefix procan be used in its spatial meaning in combination with certain verbs of visual perception such as viriti ‘to glance’ and gledati ‘to watch’, as seen in the following examples:

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(21)

Neko je provirio kroz prozor. smbd AUX Pfx-glanced through window-ACC ‘Somebody glanced through the window.’

(22)

Naprežu oþi ne bi li progledali5 kroz maglu. strain eyes- ACC in order to Pfx-watch through fog-ACC ‘They are straining their eyes to see through the fog.’

The semantic contribution of the prefix pro- consists in stressing the fact that the act of perception runs through a material entity or through an aperture. These sentences describe what L. Talmy (2000) called “fictive motion” (see Talmy 2000: vol. 1, ch. 2). (4) Addition of pro- to verbs denoting a change of material integrity of an object. Apart from verbs of motion and verbs of (auditory and visual) perception, there are about sixty verbs prefixed with pro- which express dynamic spatial relationships and which derive from verbs denoting a change of material integrity of an object. This class includes verbs such as bušiti ‘to drill’, kopati ‘to dig’, seüi ‘to cut’, grebati ‘to scratch’, kositi ‘to mow’, and so on. (23)

Moj tata je prokosio Pfx-mown my father AUX ‘My father mowed through the clover.’

detelinu. clover- ACC

(24)

ýim probušim dasku, dodaj mi jedan as soon as Pfx-drilled plank pass I-DAT one ‘As soon as I drill the plank pass me a nail.’

ekser. nail- ACC

The base forms denote, generally, actions which consist in extracting or in separating a substance from a material entity. What is particular about their derivatives with pro- is the fact that they involve the creation of a portion of space, namely of an immaterial entity, within a given material entity. If the region devoid of substance by action indicated by the simplex verb does not have any precise shape, the space portion resulting from the action expressed by verbs derived via pro- appears mainly either as a hole or as a space longer then wide like a road, footpath, passage, tunnel, canal, and so on. In addition to their specific shape, these created entities have a very particular function which consists in providing a passage through the material entity whose integrity is changed. The idea of making a path is arrived at by combining the semantic properties of simplex verbs (substance extraction or separating a substance) with the idea of progress

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conveyed by the prefix pro-. Such an assumption therefore is in contrast with what is usually said about the semantics of pro-. For example, Grickat (1966–67: 205) argues that this prefix conveys the idea of penetration (through an entity) which we rather term as ‘making a path’. In fact, the idea of penetration can occur in the interpretation of only a few verbs derived via pro- because their base forms (e.g. bušiti ‘to drill’, kopati ‘to dig’) denote substance extraction. The notion of penetration is inadequate in many other cases where the prefix pro- is attached to verbs such as trþati ‘to run’, leteti ‘to fly’ which do not express a change of material integrity of an object. (5) Addition of pro- to verbs of change of state. Moreover, there are a few verbs of change of state such as kvasiti ‘to soak’, mrznuti ‘to freeze’ which, when prefixed with pro-, express the penetration of the Ground entity. Such a case is illustrated by example (25): (25) Kiša nas je prokvasila rain we-ACC AUX Pfx-soaked ‘The rain soaked us to the bone.’

do until

kostiju. bone-GEN

As in the previous case, the object of the verb refers to a material entity which undergoes an internal modification, but this time there is no substance extraction suggested by the semantics of the simplex verb. In association with this kind of verb, the prefix pro- encodes a dynamic relationship between the Ground and some substance (Figure) which seeps into it and passes through from one end to the other. These derivatives with pro- go usually together with the adverb skroz which means ‘entirely’, ‘from one end to the other’. Summing up the basic points made above, it seems that adding the prefix pro- to semantically different classes of verbs results in making derived verbs extremely dynamic. This dynamic nature of pro- is reflected by the ability of this prefix to form verbs of motion even out of those base forms which intrinsically cannot refer to spatial phenomena. Pairs of verbs such as šuštati ‘to rustle’ vs prošuštati ‘to rustle past’ and kositi ‘to mow’ vs prokositi ‘to mow through’ are a very good examples (see examples (20) and (23)). Other prefixes in Serbian have the same ability but they do not convey the same concepts. It may also be noted that all the verbs prefixed with pro- seen above involve reference-frame shift. This property of derivatives via pro- is revealed by their comparison to the corresponding base forms, as illustrated by examples (26) vs. (27), previously given in (9) and (10):

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(26) Ptica je letela iznad kuüe. bird AUX flown above house-GEN ‘A bird was flying above the house.’ (27) Ptica je proletela iznad kuüe. bird AUX Pfx-flown above house-GEN ‘A bird flew past above the house.’ In (26), the relationship between the bird and the house does not change during the motion, whereas in example (27), the relationship between the bird and the house obviously changes which is marked by the prefix pro-. The localization specified by verbs prefixed with pro- is in effect as long as the position of the Ground can be evaluated with respect to a given reference-frame. The space portion adjacent to the landmark can be situated either outside it – in which case the pro-prefixed verb is usually followed by prepositional phrases introduced by ispred ‘in front of, past’, pored ‘closed to, past’, iznad ‘above’, iza ‘behind’, etc. –, or within the landmark and then the pro-prefixed verb is mainly followed by prepositional phrases introduced by kroz ‘through’ (see below § 3). Once again, other prefixes in Serbian involve reference-frame shift, but the spatial relationship which they establish between Figure and Ground is different (e.g. the prefix uencodes movements going from outside to inside and focuses on the endpoint of the motion: trþati ‘to run’ vs utrþati ‘to run into’). What makes different the prefix pro- from other verbal prefixes is its capacity of making us conceptualise the motion event as a tripartite one. More precisely, the action specified by verbs derived with pro- represents just one spatiotemporal portion of a larger movement which extends over both sides of the segment delimited by the framework of the Ground. Such a relationship can be schematised as seen in Figure 1 below. BEFORE

"to fly past above" proleteti

AFTER

Ground Reference frame Figure 1. The prefix pro- : Carving out a segment / Continuous progress

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Figure 1 shows that the motion itself is conceptualized rather as continuous since the motion event takes place BEFORE, DURING and AFTER the momentary localization of the Figure with respect to a given referenceframe. In fact, the action of passing through the extracted segment, that is, through the scope of the Ground does constitute a reference-frame shift. This concomitance of continuity and discontinuity in the representation of motion events specified by verbs prefixed via pro- directly derives from both the notion of carving out a segment and the notion of continuous progress involved in the semantics of pro-6. These two notions have been pinpointed through the analysis of perfectives prefixed via pro-. 3. The argument structure of verbs prefixed with proIn this section, we will look at both syntactic and semantic types of objects which can occur with pro-prefixed verbs. We will concentrate on showing that the syntactic and semantic structure of verbs derived with pro- is closely dependent on the semantic characteristics of the prefix. We will see that the concepts of continuous progress and carving out a segment which are claimed to define the semantics of pro- play a very important role in selecting not only base forms to which this prefix can be attached but also objects capable of combining with pro-prefixed verbs. The data show that the 220 verbs prefixed with pro- which we have taken into account above occur in one of the three following syntactic constructions:  [NPAg pro-V NP],  [NPAg pro-V NPfigure Prep NPground],  [NPfigure pro-V Prep NPground]. 3.1. The Direct-Transitive Construction [NPAg pro-V NP] Pro-prefixed verbs which are derived from verbs denoting a change of material integrity of an object (class 4, e.g. kopati ‘to dig’) and from verbs of change of state (class 5, e.g. kvasiti ‘to wet’) occur in the direct-transitive construction [NPAg pro-V NP]. The following examples illustrate the point: (28) Prokopali su tunel za deset dana. AUX tunnel-ACC in ten days Pfx-dug ‘They dug the tunnel in ten days.’

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(29) Pacov je proglodao zid. rat AUX Pfx-gnawed wall-ACC ‘The rat gnawed through the wall.’ In some cases, the Agent of motion encoded by the Subject NP acts simultaneously as Figure because of its progress through the Ground during the realization of a given process. The direct object can specify either the entity whose material integrity is changed (e.g. the wall, in 29) or the immaterial entity which results from the action designated by the simplex verb (e.g. the tunnel, in 28). The complexity of both the syntactic and the semantic structure of these verbs is directly due to their morphological complexity. On the one hand, the prefix pro- focuses – because of its semantic properties –, on the act of motion involving reference-frame shift. On the other hand, the base form (i.e. the simplex verb) expresses – because of its high degree of transitivity (Sarda 1999) and its lexical meaning –, the modification of the Ground entity resulting from the change of location. 3.2. The Causative Construction [NPAg pro-V NPfigure Prep NPground] Pro-prefixed verbs which are derived from causative verbs of motion (class 1.e., e.g. terati ‘to drive’) appear in the causative construction [NPAg proV NPfigure Prep NPground]. Although transitive, this construction is significantly distinct from the previous construction through the syntactic encoding of the semantic components of the motion event, namely Figure, Ground and Agent. (30) Pastir je proterao stado ispred naše kuüe. shepherd AUX Pfx-driven herd-ACC in front of our house-GEN ‘The shepherd drove the herd past our house.’ This type of derivatives has retained the basic causative structure (e.g. terati ‘to drive’, (31)) in which the direct object noun phrase encodes the Figure, the noun phrase in the prepositional phrase encodes the Ground and the subject noun phrase encodes the Agent. (31)

Marija tera stado kroz selo. Mary drives-ACC herd-ACC through village-ACC ‘Mary is driving the herd through the village.’

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3.3. The Indirect-Transitive Construction [NPfigure pro-V Prep NPground] All the other verbs prefixed with pro- – the great majority –, occur in the indirect-transitive construction [NPfigure pro-V Prep NPground]. This kind of verb can be derived from verbs of motion (class 1 apart c.), from verbs denoting sound phenomena (class 2) and from verbs of visual perception (class 3). In such a case, the moving entity is denoted by the subject noun phrase, the Ground by the prepositional phrase. We will now tackle the issue of which prepositions (i.e. prepositional phrases) may be combined with pro-prefixed verbs. This analysis will help to bring out more than one semantic characteristic of the prefix pro- and confirm our assumptions that the concepts of progress and carving out a segment can be considered as defining the semantics of pro-. The spatial prepositional phrases which can be combined with pro-prefixed verbs fall into two groups: (a) External localization prepositional phrases, as seen in(32), and (b) Internal localization prepositional phrases, as seen in (33). (32) Pas je protrþao ispred/ iza/ pored kuüe. dog AUX Pfx-run in front of/ behind/ beside house-GEN ‘The dog ran past in front of/ behind/ beside the house.’ (33) Vojska je prodefilovala preko glavnog trga/ army AUX Pfx-defiled across principal square-GEN/ kroz grad. through city-ACC ‘The army marched across the central square / through the city.’ From a cognitive point of view, this means that the reference-frame with respect to which a moving entity is temporarily localized can be situated either on the path itself followed by the Figure (internal localization – (33)) or outside the path (external localization – (32)). a) External localization prepositional phrases. With regard to external localization, verbs derived with pro- mainly occur with the prepositional phrases ispred+NP-GEN ‘in front of’, iza+NP-GEN ‘behind’, pored+NPGEN ‘beside, past’, and so on. In all these situations, the Ground may be conceptualized as a (reference) point lying outside the path. Such a point divides the motion event into two further portions (BEFORE and AFTER) and, at the same time, makes possible a reference-frame shift. However, not all prepositional phrases denoting external localization can appear with proprefixed verbs. Thus, the prepositional phrases such as duž+NP-GEN

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‘along’ and oko+NP-GEN ‘around’ never enter into combination with proderivatives. (34)

*Marko je protrþao duž reke/ oko Mark AUX Pfx-run along river-GEN/ around ‘*Mark ran past along the river/ around the house.’

kuüe. house- GEN

Such an incompatibility is due to the fact that these prepositional phrases refer to extended and boundless spatial configurations which it is impossible to conceptualize as a simple point with respect to which reference-frame shift takes place. So, carving out a segment of a entire motion is not possible. b) Internal localization prepositional phrases. With regard to internal localization, verbs derived with pro- appear most frequently with prepositional phrases such as kroz+NP-ACC ‘through’, preko+NP-GEN ‘across, by’, niz+NP-ACC ‘down’ and uz+NP-ACC ‘up’. What is important about all of these prepositional phrases is the fact that the Figure, during its continuous motion, really crosses the Ground entity. Sentences (35 to 37 exemplify the point: (35)

U povratku smo prošli preko Srbije. in way back-LOC AUX passed via Serbia-GEN ‘On the way back we passed via Serbia.’

(36)

Provukao se kroz živu ogradu. Pfx-shuffled itself through hedge-ACC ‘He passed through the hedge.’

(37)

Petar je projahao kroz grad. Peter AUX Pfx-riden through city-ACC ‘Peter rode through the city on horseback.’

The reference-frame with respect to which the Figure is temporarily located can correspond either to the whole Ground entity as in (35) and (36), or to an implicitly present landmark situated within the Ground, as in (37). In the latter case, the Ground (the city) is not crossed from end to end. Next, verbs prefixed with pro- very often take only noun phrases in the instrumental case, as is illustrated in example (38):

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(38)

Auto je projurio našom car AUX Pfx-rushed our-INS ‘The car rushed by our street.’

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ulicom. street-INS

Entities denoted by noun phrases in the instrumental case are conceptualized as boundless (see Iviü 1954; Stosic 2002). Such a representation of a given configuration corresponds perfectly to the concept of continuous progress conveyed by the semantics of the prefix pro-. With regard to carving out a segment, we assume that it takes place with respect to some region delimited by the field of vision of an observer situated outside the Ground (generally a speaker). This means that the Figure is located not only with respect to the Ground which is explicitly mentioned in the sentence (the street), but also with respect to some third element involved in the configuration. Thus, according to Borillo (1998: 19): … the location of a Figure with respect to a Ground can also be determined from the coordinates of some third participant, namely an observer who, in describing a spatial phenomenon, creates a speech situation in which he makes himself play the role of speaker. The spatial relationship which he establishes between the Figure and the Ground places him in such a situation in which he must take into account his position in the space. He establishes, from his person and from the place he occupies, the location of entities, generally in the space limited by his field of vision, and in doing so, he plays in some way a role of ‘polarizer’. (translation D.S.)

Sentence (39) exemplifies in a more salient way the ability of the speaker to implicitly function as a reference point in a spatial descroption (without being explicitly designated): (39)

Neko je protrþao. smbd AUX Pfx-run ‘Somebody ran past.’

The presence of the prefix pro- in the sentence suggests that the spatial relationship between the Figure and the Ground is a temporary one (reference-frame shift) and that there is some reference-point capable of dividing into three portions the path followed by the Figure and, more generally, the motion event itself. This reference-point can only be the location of the speaker himself. Furthermore, independently of the internal or external nature of localization, verbs derived with pro- do not accept prepositional phrases

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which designate the starting point or endpoint of the Figure's movement, as seen in examples (40) to (42) below: (40) *Prošli smo iz Beograda. passed AUX from Belgrade-GEN ‘We passed from Belgrade.’ (41)

*Prošli smo u kuhinju. passed AUX into kitchen-ACC ‘We passed into the kitchen.’7

(42)

*Prošli smo iz sobe u passed AUX out bedroom- GEN into ‘We passed from the bedroom to the kitchen.’

kuhinju. kitchen- ACC

Sentences (40) to (42) are not acceptable because the Ground entities locating the Figure in the initial or final phase of motion, far from being capable of acting as a simple point which may provide carving out a median portion of a motion event, fix limits to the whole Figure's movement. The combination of pro-prefixed verbs with initial or final localization prepositional phrases results in a clash between the notion of continuous progress conveyed by pro- and the existence of the initial and final limits of the whole motion event conveyed by prepositional phrases. Unlike the prefix pro- which suggests boundless of a whole Figure's movement, initial or final localization prepositional phrases suggest its boundedness, namely its beginning or its end. Note that derivatives with pro- – because of the notion of carving out a segment –, only allow the presence of limits which define a portion within the motion event and never of those corresponding to the beginning or the end of the whole motion event. To sum up, the restrictions which the prefix pro- imposes on adverbials of space capable of combining with its derivatives directly result from the concepts of progress and carving out a segment of the motion event. 4. Consequences on the aspectual level What was previously shown by the semantic and syntactic analysis of motion verbs derived with prefix pro- has more than one consequence on the aspectual level. For this reason, we will now focus on the aspectual side of the concepts of progress and carving out a segment.

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In accordance with principles of verbal aspectual morphology characteristic of Slavic languages (see § 1), the addition of the prefix proto some, generally, imperfective verbs results in a change in aspectual value, making it perfective. What is interesting about situations denoted by perfectives derived with pro- is that all of them involve a transition. In terms of Vendler's (1957) distinctions, these situations correspond either to achievements or to accomplishments. These two kinds of transitional situations can be distinguished by applying the test of the time adverbial introduced by the preposition za ‘in’ (such as za pet minuta ‘in five minutes’). Whereas accomplishments license a time adverbial introduced by za ‘in’, as seen in (43), achievements cannot, as seen in (44). (43)

Prokopali su tunel za mesec dana. Pfx-dug AUX tunnel- ACC in month- ACC days-GEN ‘They dug the tunnel in a month.’

(44)

Markov pas je projurio pored nas (*za dva minuta). Mark's dog AUX Pfx-run beside we- GEN ‘Mark's dog ran past us (*in two minutes).’

Applying this test to the verbs dealt with in this study shows that only proprefixed verbs derived from verbs denoting a change of material integrity of an object (class 4) and from verbs of change of state (class 5) refer to accomplishments (43), whereas all other derivatives with pro- refer to achievements (44), as Table 1 shows. First, this table shows that almost all the base forms (simplex verbs) are imperfective ones. Secondly, it can be observed that, by contrast, all verbs formed by prefixation with pro- are perfective ones, whether the base form is imperfective or perfective. Moreover, most of these verbs formed via the prefix pro- refer to achievements, that is to punctual situations.

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Table 1. Change of aspect of simplex verb due to the addition of the prefix proBase form

Verb derived with proAspect

Aspect Semantic class of verbs

Example

Example

Impf Pf

Perfective

1.

Verbs of motion (VM)

Ach. Accom. a) VM without referenceframe shift b) VM with referenceframe shift c) VM with possible site shift

leteti ‘to fly’

Verbs of perception

skakutati ‘to hop’

visual Viriti ‘to glance’

Verbs of change of 4. material integrity of an object Verbs of change of 5. state

+

propasti + ‘to fall through’ proskakutati ‘to hop past’

pasti ‘to fall’

batrgati d) VM without se ‘to site shift stagger’ e) Causative terati VM ‘to drive’ Verbs denoting pištati ‘to 2. sound phenomena whistle’ 3.

+

proleteti ‘to fly past’

+ + + +

kopati ‘to dig’

+

kvasiti ‘to soak’

+

probatrgati se ‘to stagger past’ proterati + ‘to drive past’ propištati ‘to whistle past’ proviriti ‘to glance through’ prokopati ‘to dig through’ prokvasiti ‘to soak to bone’

+ + + + + + + + +

The transitional nature of the situations designated by pro-prefixed verbs studied here is quite compatible with the concept of carving out a segment of space and time and constitutes in fact its aspectual dimension. Let us consider the following example: (45)

Pacov je proglodao zid. AUX Pfx-gnawed wall-ACC rat ‘The rat gnawed through the wall.’

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This example shows that, on the spatial level, the action specified by the direct-transitive verb proglodati ‘to gnaw through’, is delimited by the extension, that is by the limits of the entity which the Figure moves through. It means that the segment of space extracted from the motion event coincides with the thickness of the entity which is gnawed through. On the aspectual level, the extracted segment corresponds to a portion of time which the Figure needs to cross the Ground from end to end. Thus, the fact that the action specified by the verb proglodati ‘to gnaw through’ is spacebounded results, on the aspectual level, in introducing limits to an intrinsically imperfective situation (glodati ‘to gnaw’). Such a situation delimited both in space and time becomes a segment which is very easy to carve out from the entire motion event. The realization of the same schema – which consists in mapping the spatial limits of the reference-frame onto the temporal limits of the action –, can be observed in the case of derivatives via pro- which enter into the indirect transitive construction (see § 3.3). In all these situations, a moving entity can be considered as being located with respect to a certain Ground as long as a given Figure is within reach of it, i.e. in the space portion adjacent to the Ground specified by the spatial prepositional phrases (such as in front of the house, beside me). Because of the addition of the prefix pro-, the imperfective situation designated by the simplex verb is not considered as such, but only during a particular interval corresponding to the duration of a Figure's localization with respect to a given referenceframe. From an aspectuo-temporal point of view, such a situation lasts from the moment of the Figure's entering this reference-frame to the moment of the Figure's leaving it. These two moments can coincide, in which case there is a punctual event. This particular kind of reference-frame shift and the focusing on the median portion of a previously homogenous situation can only be due to the semantics of the prefix pro-, as the following examples show: (46) Trþao je ispred kuüe nekoliko run AUX in front of house-GEN a few ‘He ran in front of the house for a few minutes.’ (47)

minuta. minutes

Protrþao je ispred kuüe (*nekoliko minuta). a few minutes Pfx-run AUX in front of house- GEN ‘He ran past (in front of) the house (*for a few minutes).’

In sentence (46) with imperfective trþati ‘to run’, the situation ‘to run in front of the house’ is atelic and corresponds to a simple site shift (see §

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2.2): the Figure moves from one place to another within the same referenceframe, namely in front of the house. Consequently, this is a durative situation. By contrast, in sentence (47)0 with perfective protrþati ‘to run past’, the situation ‘to run in front of the house’ is punctual. Such a relationship is true only for one interval, this one in which the Figure, during its motion extended over more than one entity, is in front of the house. The three level analysis which we used to examine the prefix pro- (its combining with simplex verbs, argument structure and intrinsic aspectual value of its derivatives) shows that pro- conveys via its semantics the notions of progress and carving out a segment. In the case of perfectives derived with pro- we have shown that a reference-frame shift on the spatial level always corresponds to a transition on the aspectual level, which represents a convergence between the spatial and the aspectual characteristics of the prefix pro-. 5. Conclusion The aim of this study was to show that the semantics of the prefix pro-, when used in a spatial sense, can be defined principally by means of two concepts: the concept of continuous progress and the concept of carving out a segment of the entire motion. We have pointed out these concepts by successively observing first, the semantic classes of simplex verbs to which the prefix pro- can be applied, secondly, the nature of locative adverbials able to combine with pro-prefixed verbs and finally, the aspectual properties of situations expressed by these pro-prefixed verbs. First of all, we have found that when the prefix pro- has a spatial meaning it can associate with five semantic classes of simplex verbs (see table 1). The analysis of the combination of pro- with these different classes of verbs allowed us to isolate, on the one hand, the dynamic nature of this prefix (reflected by its capacity to transform those simplex verbs which do not express motion into verbs of motion), and on the other, the fact that all perfectives formed with pro- involve a particular kind of reference-frame shift. These two characteristics of the prefix pro- are directly related to the concepts of continuous progress and carving out a segment. From a syntactic point of view, we have shown that, in indirect transitive constructions, pro-prefixed verbs accept only spatial adverbials introduced by prepositions whose semantics is compatible with the above concepts. In the direct transitive construction, the entity denoted by the direct object imposes through its extension both spatial and temporal limits on the

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situation and defines in this manner an extractible portion of the entire motion. From an aspectual point of view, perfectives formed via proexpress processes whose realisation leads to a transition. This transition presents the aspectual side of the concept of carving out a segment. This work represents the first step in establishing a correlation between aspectual and spatial characteristics involved in the semantics of prefixes in Serbian. Contrary to the aspectual side of verbal prefixes which has been the subject of numerous studies, their spatial side was not studied in detail. The analysis of the prefix pro- has turned out to reveal essentially the spatial characteristics of situations designated by verbs derived via pro-. We stressed that the aspectual and spatial characteristics involved in the semantic content of this prefix are not only far from being incompatible but rather converge. However, numerous problems remain to be resolved. One of the most interesting ones is the possibility that certain perfectives derived with probecome imperfectives via the addition of imperfectivizing suffixes. We could wonder what happens with the schema specified by pro- which we presented in this study when certain derivatives formed with pro- become imperfectives and in this way refer to durative or repetitive situations. The consequences of this phenomenon on the spatial level are the subject of an ongoing study. Another very interesting problem is the relation of pro- to the other verbal prefixes in Serbian. List of abbreviations ACC Accom Ach Ag AUX DAT GEN Impf INS LOC NP

– accusative case – accomplishements – achievements – agent – auxiliary – dative case – genitive case – imperfective – instrumental case – locative case – noun phrase

Pf – perfective Pfx – prefix PP – prepositional phrase Prep – preposition smbd – somebody smth – something V – verb VM – verb of motion Vmvt – verb of movement (literally speaking)

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Notes 1. This work was carried out within the project “Spatial entities and their categorization in language and cognition” (COG135; 1999–2001) granted by the Action Concertée Incitative “Cognitique” of the French Research Ministry. 2. I should like to thank Andrée Borillo, Michel Aurnague, Milka Iviü, Paul Garde, Dany Amiot and Francis Cornish for their valuable comments and remarks concerning an earlier version of the paper; without their help, the final draft of this paper would have never been written. I would also like to express my thanks to Ana Rosiü and Saso Cemerski for their patient reviewing of the paper. 3. It is worth noting that the verb proüi which means ‘to pass’ is formed by the combination of the prefix pro- and the verb iüi ‘go’. Thus, the verb proüi has had to incorporate in its meaning most of the semantic properties of the prefix pro-. Note that the Serbian verb proüi corresponds to the English verb to pass only in this kind of use where the Ground does not define the endpoint of the motion (e.g. My dog passed in front of/behind/through the hedge). The uses of to pass where the Ground defines the endpoint of the motion (e.g. The guests passed into the living room) are typically expressed in Serbian with the verb preüi ‘cross’ (see note 6). 4. In a cross-linguistic study dealing with several Slavic languages (Serbian, Bulgarian, Slovenian and Polish), M. Iviü (1982) traces the evolution of the ability of two prefixes – the directive prefix do- ‘until’ and the ablative prefix od- ‘from’ – to enter into combination with different semantic classes of simplex verbs. According to the author, these two prefixes had initially been applied exclusively to verbs of motion in order to essentially express direction (e.g. do-trþati ‘until-run’). Later, their semantic potential extended and they began to express motion itself. Thus, the prefixes do- and od- also began to be combined with verbs which express actual movement (e.g. lepršati ‘to flutter’) and transform them into verbs of motion (e.g. od-lepršati ‘to go from fluttering’). Next, the directive prefix do- and the ablative prefix od- were applied to verbs which denote sound effects resulting from a motion of certain specific objects. For example, there is a clattering of a cart only when the cart moves, never when it stands still. The very fact that someone specifies the production of such a sound effect by the verb tandrkati ‘to clatter’ suggests that inevitably there is motion. That is the reason why among a number of verbs which do not express motion via their lexical meaning, verbs referring to sound phenomena have followed the model of verbs of motion by taking the prefixes do- and od-. Since the prefix pro- seems to behave in synchronic terms in the same way in relation to these classes of verbs, it must have undergone an evolution analogous to those of the prefixes do- and od-. It is worth noting that Slovenian has gone further by combining the prefixes do- and od- even with verbs such as to laugh, to cough or to cry which express processes entirely independent of motion (Iviü 1982). 5. Note that the use of the verb progledati in the sense ‘to watch through’ is very archaic. The current sense of this verb is ‘to begin to see’, so that the prefix

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pro- conveys an inchoative meaning as in the verb progovoriti ‘to begin to talk’ or ‘to start talking’. For example, it can be said about a kitten: Maþe je progledalo pre dva dana. ‘The kitten began to see two days ago’. 6. The same phenomenon can be observed in English regarding the verb to pass which specifies motion events involving both the notion of continuity and the notion of reference-frame shift with respect to some fixed or really crossed landmark (e.g. My dog passed in front of/ through my house.) 7. In examples 0 and 0, this is the verb preüi which could normally be used in Serbian. This verb, derived via prefix pre-, expresses the passage from one side to another or, more generally, the passage from one reference frame to another. Compared with English, the verb preüi covers the spatial uses of the verb to cross (e.g. Peter crossed the street. ‘Petar je prešao ulicu.’) and only one part of the uses of to pass (e.g. They passed into the living room. ‘Oni su prešli u dnevnu sobu.’).

References Aurnague, Michel 2000 Entrer par la petite porte, passer par des chemins de traverse : à propos de la préposition par et de la notion de “trajet”. Carnets de Grammaire 7. 2001 Entités et relations dans les descriptions spatiales: l'espace et son expression en basque et en français. Mémoire d'HDR, Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail, Toulouse. Aurnague, Michel, and Dejan Stosic 2002 La préposition par et l'expression du déplacement : vers une caractérisation sémantique et cognitive de la notion de “trajet”. Cahiers de Lexicologie 81 (2): 1–27. Borillo, Andrée 1998 L’Expression de l’Espace en Français. Paris : Ophrys. Dabrowska, Ewa 1996 The spatial structuring of events: A study of Polish perfectivizing prefixes. In The Constural of Space in Language and Thought (Cognitive Linguistics Research 8), Martin Putz, and René Dirven (eds.), 467–490. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Ernout, Alfred, and Antoine Meillet 1959 Dictionnaire Étymologique de la Langue Latine. Histoire des Mots, 4th edition. Paris: Klincksieck. Grickat, Irena 1966–1967 Prefiksacija kao sredstvo gramatiþke (þiste) perfektizacije: naþelna razmatranja i savremena srpskohrvatska gradja [Prefixation as a means of (purely) grammatical perfectivization: basic considerations and modern Serbo-Croatian data]. Južnoslovenski filolog, XXVII(1– 2).

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Iviü, Milka 1954

Znaþenja srpskohrvatskog instrumentala i njihov razvoj [The meanings of the Serbian instrumental case and their evolution]. Beograd: Nauþna knjiga. 1957 Jedno poglavlje iz gramatike našeg modernog jezika – sistem mesnih padeža [One chapter of our moderne language grammar – locative cases system]. Godišnjak Filozofskog fakulteta u Novom Sadu II. 1957–1958Sistem predloških konstrukcija u srpskohrvatskom jeziku [Prepositional phrases system in Serbian]. Južnoslovenski filolog XXII: 141–146. 1982 O nekim principima glagolske prefiksacije u slovenskim jezicima [About some principles of verbal prefixation in Slavic languages], Južnoslovenski filolog XXXVIII: 51–62. 1995 Lingvistiþki ogledi [Essays in linguistics] (Biblioteka XX vek). Beograd: Slovograf. Klikovac, Duška 2000 Semantika predloga [Semantics of prepositions]. Beograd: Filološki fakultet. Laur, Dany 1993 La relation entre le verbe et la préposition dans la sémantique du déplacement. Langages 110: 47–67. Meillet, Antoine 1964 Introduction à l'Étude Comparative des Langues Indo-Européennes, 8th edition. Alabama : University of Alabama Press. Mitrinoviü, Vera 1990 Poljski glagolski prefiks prze- i njegovi srpskohrvatski ekvivalenti pro- i pre- [Polish verbal prefix prze- and its Serbian equivalents proand pre-]. Beograd: Nauþna knjiga. Piper, Predrag 1997 Jezik i prostor [Language and space]. Beograd: ýigoja štampa. Rousseau, André (ed.) 1995 Les Préverbes dans les Langues d'Europe: Introduction à l'Étude de la Préverbation. Lille : Presses du Septentrion. Sarda, Laure 1999 Contribution à l’étude de la sémantique de l’espace et du temps : analyse des verbes de déplacement transitifs directs du français. Ph.D. diss., Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail. Stosic, Dejan 2001a Par et l'expression des relations spatiales en français. Revue de Sémantique et Pragmatique 9: 101–130. 2001b Le rôle des préfixes dans l'expression des relations spatiales. Eléments d'analyse à partir des données du serbo-croate et du français. Cahiers de Grammaire 26: 207–228.

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Par et à travers dans l’expression des relations spatiales : comparaison entre le français et le serbo-croate. Ph.D. diss., Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail. Talmy, Leonard 2000 Toward a Cognitive Semantics. Cambridge Massachusetts: MIT Press. Vandeloise, Claude 1986 L’Espace en Français : Sémantique des Prépositions Spatiales. Paris: Le Seuil. Vendler, Zeno 1957 Verbs and times. Philosophical Review 66: 143–160.

Subject index absolutive, 5, 126–132, 139–141 accidental, 3, 81, 96 accusative, 4, 12, 100, 207, 208, 224 acquisition, 1, 3, 7, 17, 20–24, 27, 30–33 adjective, 103, 104, 106, 122, 158 adversative, 5, 9, 143–154, 160–166, 169, 172 agent, 3, 4, 18, 40, 41, 54–56, 65, 205, 213, 214, 337, 342 agentivity, 7, 29, 33, 41, 54–56, 150, 192, 224, 233, 238, 252 agonist, 6, 174–185, 193, 194, 221 animacy, 5, 20, 27–29, 34, 39–45, 56, 65, 68, 70, 105, 135, 149, 150, 153, 157, 163, 176, 224, 263, 267, 271, 272, 275, 283 antagonist, 5, 174, 176, 179–184, 193, 194, 221 aspectual, 11, 23, 64, 72–76, 84, 98, 167, 287, 291, 296–313, 329, 330, 335, 346, 349–352 attenuation, 10, 192, 230, 231, 252– 256 Avar, 19 Bantu, 189 Basque, 5, 8, 13, 19, 125–141 bleaching, 6, 10, 248, 250, 256, 257 Bulgarian, 353 Burmese, 144 case, 4, 12, 41, 100, 256 causality, 7, 27, 28, 29, 31, 33, 182, 184, 262, 267, 283–285 causation, 1–9, 17–21, 27, 40, 82, 83, 88, 96, 104, 150, 155, 171, 179–195, 197–200, 203, 205, 207, 233–238, 243, 246, 250– 261, 279, 283, 285

causative, 1–10, 18, 41, 47, 83, 86, 89, 125, 127, 131, 137–140, 145, 146, 150, 154–169, 175, 178, 180, 185, 187, 200–262, 279, 286, 300, 337, 342 causee, 3, 5, 9, 80, 81, 127–131, 136–140, 180, 224, 229–233, 235–258 change of state, 3, 6, 11, 18, 20, 23, 40, 65, 80–88, 96, 103–108, 235, 299, 300, 333, 339, 341, 347, 349 Chinese, 32, 144, 169, 331 cognition, 3, 7, 15, 19, 34–36, 200, 205, 259, 261, 286, 322, 353 Cognitive Grammar - Linguistics, 1, 2, 12–14, 35–37, 58, 59, 100, 101, 110, 111, 121, 123, 198, 202, 223, 226, 258, 259, 286, 306, 354 communication, 1, 3, 29, 42, 46–48, 52–54, 248, 302 complement, 4, 10, 45, 69, 98, 107– 112, 121, 148, 158–178, 187– 197, 204, 205, 210, 213, 217, 218, 224, 229–233, 246, 252– 257, 287–292, 295–301 conceptual, 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 13, 20, 28, 80, 89, 109, 110, 131, 169, 171, 179, 192–194, 198, 202, 203, 205, 211, 213, 215, 222– 226, 246, 259, 267, 284, 292, 304, 332 conceptualization, 1, 2, 4, 14, 28, 33, 35, 72, 75, 81–83, 89, 91, 95, 96, 171, 202, 215, 256, 259, 284, 323, 325 configuration, 3, 21, 41, 78, 80, 84, 250, 252, 309, 317, 345 construal, 1, 5, 6, 67–69, 74–92, 96, 114, 121, 178, 203, 211, 212, 216, 217, 222, 235, 237, 251

360

Subject index

Construction Grammar, 1, 11–13, 96, 100, 122, 202, 285, 287, 292, 294, 295, 303, 326 control, 2–10, 19, 29, 33, 40, 42, 45, 55, 128, 135, 136, 146, 148–167, 192, 198, 222, 233, 239, 251, 253, 257, 258, 265, 323 Croatian, 7, 11, 306, 307, 311, 315, 316, 318, 320–324, 333, 354 Dami, 189 dative, 4, 99–101, 126, 133, 166, 205, 207, 208, 224 deictic, 11, 320, 321, 324 diachronic, 50, 143, 154, 159, 171, 174, 188, 191, 193, 195 ditransitive, 8, 55, 125–138, 208– 214, 222, 224, 231, 232, 303 domain, 6, 11, 20, 24, 29, 50, 69, 71, 78, 80, 172, 181, 187, 191, 192, 195, 261, 276, 305, 313–316 Egyptian, 196 embodiment, 1, 261, 285 English, 5–13, 19, 22–26, 30, 31, 36, 61–63, 68, 75, 89, 91–93, 98– 103, 121–123, 143–178, 184, 188, 189, 192, 194, 200, 209, 210, 216, 223, 247, 249, 261, 271, 283–332, 353, 354 entrenchment, 5, 21, 220 ergative, 5, 8, 20, 125–127, 132, 133, 135, 136, 140, 141 experiential, 9, 11, 193, 276, 305, 312, 313, 321, 323 extension, 1, 4, 7, 8, 20, 84, 92, 96, 190, 191, 231, 249, 250, 296, 350, 351 Finnish, 141, 196 force dynamics, 3–6, 10, 18, 20, 174–179, 183, 184, 191–237, 242, 247, 250–256, 266, 270– 276, 279, 282, 307

French, 9–12, 43, 47, 50, 51, 57, 147, 171, 185, 188, 195, 205– 210, 225, 226, 231, 232, 252, 258, 267, 283, 303, 306, 309, 325, 331, 332, 353 frequency, 17, 18, 21, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 32, 51, 53, 154, 156, 158, 164, 204, 220, 224 German, 8, 13, 61, 63, 91–93, 97, 99–101, 177, 190, 199, 233, 284, 325, 331 Germanic, 7, 11, 101, 189, 192, 307, 311, 312, 321 grammar, 1, 2, 12, 13, 20, 21, 33, 34, 42, 59, 61, 62, 70, 80, 89, 94, 95, 98, 100, 101, 121, 141, 167, 169, 184, 198, 202, 225, 226, 259, 286, 287, 294, 299, 301, 325, 355 grammaticalization, 9, 15, 23, 24, 167, 178, 190, 192, 253, 259, 260 Greek, 188, 189, 191 Hausa, 189 hearer, 10, 163, 229, 239–241, 244, 247, 248, 223–256, 261 Hebrew, 4, 8, 22, 61–101, 147, 166, 196, 331 Hindi, 159, 233, 252, 257, 327 human behavior, 1, 5, 28 Hungarian, 140, 189 imperative, 6, 79, 151, 152, 240 imperfective, 7, 72–75, 316, 318, 323, 329, 330, 333, 335, 346, 347, 350, 352 inanimacy, 7, 27–29, 34, 41–43, 48, 50, 51, 55, 105, 108, 153, 157, 163, 221–224, 262, 263, 266, 267, 270, 271 Indonesian, 144–146, 168, 169, 196 intentionality, 3, 5, 7, 17, 29–34, 67, 75, 96, 181, 191, 195, 215, 263, 275

Subject index 361 intransitivity, 6, 11, 23, 74, 93, 105, 106, 120, 126–129, 137, 165, 205–208, 211–217, 219–222, 231, 236, 257, 330 Japanese, 19, 140, 144, 147, 160, 168, 196 Javanese, 144, 145, 166 Korean, 144–146, 168, 325 Lango, 189 Latin, 185, 187–191, 196, 249, 257, 332 lexical, 1, 4, 8, 10, 17, 21, 53, 61, 62, 72, 84, 91, 98, 101, 141, 159– 165, 198, 202, 203, 227, 236, 238, 242, 248, 250, 252, 276, 291–295, 298, 304, 305, 306, 309, 311, 312, 315, 316, 318, 323, 332, 342, 353 lexicalization, 6, 11, 175, 242, 287, 290, 302, 305–325 locative, 4, 214 manipulation, 2, 18, 167 manner of motion, 6, 11, 287, 288, 305–314, 318, 330 mental, 64, 84, 181, 195, 202, 213, 231, 256, 265 metaphor, 2, 7, 10, 20, 28, 65, 66, 68, 89–91, 96, 112, 118, 120, 122, 191, 193, 220, 261, 262, 274, 275, 283 middle voice, 6, 10, 148, 166, 201, 203, 210–216, 219–224 mind, 1, 13, 21, 28, 30, 90, 118, 185, 249, 285, 286, 287, 299, 300, 324 Miskitu, 189 modality, 77, 79, 183, 184, 235 morphology, 7, 8, 11, 24, 87, 99, 126, 127, 131, 135, 139, 141, 145, 160, 161, 203, 237, 282, 305, 306, 315, 316, 318, 322, 323, 329, 342

motion, 2–7, 10, 11, 18, 28, 32, 36, 61, 64, 72–74, 82–89, 92, 95, 98, 99, 107, 110–122, 159, 160, 174– 177, 189, 193–195, 223, 236, 253, 261, 287–293, 297–316, 321–354 movement, 3, 8, 27, 28, 29, 40, 54, 65, 98, 104, 114, 115, 117, 174, 190, 191, 215, 220, 261–284, 287, 288, 301, 302, 314, 321, 324, 334, 336, 340, 345, 346, 352, 353 object, 3–5, 7, 8, 11, 17, 22–29, 32, 36, 39–62, 70, 71, 75, 83, 85, 91, 96–98, 103–122, 126, 144, 155– 159, 162, 168, 172, 178, 185, 190–194, 196, 197, 206–209, 213, 217, 218, 229–233, 243, 245, 246, 248–255, 263–274, 276–284, 288, 289, 293, 302, 309, 314, 323, 330, 333, 337– 342, 347, 349, 351 objective, 30, 31, 159, 218, 265 oblique, 9, 11, 39, 40, 42, 45, 48, 53, 73, 92, 93, 125, 126, 130, 131, 135, 136, 153, 209, 213, 224, 234, 295 passive, 5, 9, 12, 56, 81, 83, 85–89, 96, 99, 143–169, 172, 177, 183, 184, 187, 192, 209, 210, 224, 249, 268, 276, 282, 284 patient, 3, 18, 40, 41, 53–56, 65, 205, 213 perfective, 7, 72, 75, 316, 318, 323, 329, 330, 333, 335, 336, 346, 347, 351, 352 perspective, 9, 11, 19, 22, 24, 29, 30, 31, 35, 85, 143, 193, 199, 212, 261, 266, 268, 275, 277, 285, 287, 321, 325 physical, 2, 6, 7, 17–21, 24, 27–31, 33, 84, 104, 112, 172, 174, 175,

362

Subject index

177, 181, 182, 187, 191–196, 220, 246, 261–269, 276, 284, 312 Polish, 332, 353, 354, 355 Portuguese, 23, 171, 177, 178, 185– 196, 199, 207, 224, 233, 249, 251, 253, 259 possession, 5, 23, 146, 155, 162– 165, 186, 197, 268 pragmatic, 10, 15, 252, 253, 259 process, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 23, 28, 66, 69–79, 83, 89, 96, 121, 160, 164, 187, 190, 191, 194, 202, 212, 213, 219, 221, 225, 230, 231, 245, 248, 250, 253, 256–258, 274, 276, 284, 291–293, 296, 308, 310–318, 321– 323, 329, 342 profile, 4, 7, 18, 20, 80, 84, 204, 209, 212, 213, 255, 266 prominence, 2, 4, 5, 17, 30, 68, 85, 110, 192, 219, 250, 255 prototype, 3, 4, 7, 8, 17–32, 34, 36, 39, 41, 55, 56, 64, 65, 72, 80, 91, 92, 150, 174, 183, 185, 187, 190, 192, 193, 223, 232, 262, 267 psychology, 3, 7, 28, 31, 34, 261, 284 reasoning, 1, 105, 109, 112, 154, 274 reflexive, 6, 9, 98, 106, 120, 146, 150–165, 201–204, 209–223, 258 representation, 1, 3, 4, 7, 32, 155, 173, 186, 223, 235, 256, 272– 278, 280–284, 293, 295, 341, 345 resultative, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 103–122, 261, 280, 283, 285, 291, 295–302 Romance, 7, 9, 12, 41, 45, 47, 49, 50, 56, 101, 171, 174–178, 182– 195, 205, 209, 210, 224, 225, 249, 297, 306, 308, 311, 321 Rumanian, 4, 7, 41, 42, 45, 47–51, 54–56 Russian, 20, 52, 98, 145, 147, 196, 316, 326, 331, 332 satellite, 7, 8, 10, 323, 331

schema - schematic, 4, 6, 9, 20, 22, 80, 89, 96, 175–179, 182–184, 190–195, 201–205, 209, 213, 222, 223, 231, 232, 250, 273, 299, 332, 350, 352 scope, 41, 45, 56, 72, 75, 78, 90, 122, 290, 322, 335, 341 Serbian, 7, 11, 306, 307, 311, 315– 324, 339–333, 339, 340, 352–355 Slovenian, 353 space semantics, 1, 4, 6, 7, 11, 93, 114, 115, 190, 192, 196, 213, 222, 223, 231, 232, 266, 276, 298, 302, 313, 321, 324, 326, 329, 330, 333, 338, 340, 345, 346, 349, 350, 355 Spanish, 4, 6–12, 23–26, 32, 33, 39, 41, 43, 47, 50–63, 70, 80, 91– 100, 157, 185, 188, 195, 201– 212, 222, 223, 225, 226, 229, 231, 233, 235, 237, 239–243, 245, 249–259, 287–290, 293– 304, 306–311, 324, 325, 327, 331 spatial, 7, 11, 73, 122, 187, 191, 196, 266, 273–275, 280, 285, 288, 309, 312–317, 321–325, 329–354 speaker, 1, 10, 11, 62, 72, 79, 81, 85, 91, 148, 149, 161–165, 195, 229, 235, 239–243, 247, 248, 252–255, 261, 310, 317, 319, 320–324, 345 structure, 1, 2, 4, 13, 15, 20, 32–37, 40, 50, 53, 54, 55, 59, 62, 72, 73, 83, 84, 89, 90, 93, 95, 96, 100, 103, 104, 106, 109, 121, 122, 127, 131, 134, 136, 137, 139, 141, 145, 149, 165, 193, 196– 213, 218, 226, 231–236, 238, 242, 256, 257, 259, 262, 263, 266–286, 291, 292, 294, 295, 299, 301, 303, 304, 325, 332, 337, 341, 342, 351 subcategorization, 4, 8, 103–122 subject, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 17, 24, 25, 29, 40, 42, 47, 54, 56, 67, 91, 92,

Subject index 363 101–110, 114–121, 126, 136– 139, 144–154, 157–165, 172, 174, 176–178, 182, 187, 190, 192, 193, 197, 203, 207–224, 230–233, 239–242, 246, 251– 256, 263–282, 287, 291, 295, 297, 321, 329, 332, 337, 342, 343, 352 subjectification, 10, 178, 198, 200, 230, 231, 253–255 subjective, 7, 24, 30, 148, 149, 161, 162, 164, 165, 178 synchronic, 9, 143, 154, 195, 353 syntax, 2, 24, 25, 47, 56, 61, 91, 107, 121, 141, 167, 226, 231, 232, 258, 287, 291, 304, 306

Tamil, 191, 196 Tarascan, 236, 259 Thai, 144 Tongan, 19 transparency, 10, 18, 198, 230, 254 typology, 2, 6–10, 18, 19, 21, 33, 56–63, 95, 100, 135, 143, 165, 167, 193, 203, 225, 258, 287, 290, 305–311, 320–327, 331 Urdu, 159 Vietnamese, 144 viewpoint, 8, 11, 62, 72, 76, 85, 148, 149, 153, 161, 258 Yoruba, 189 Yup’ik, 144, 145

Author index Achard, Michel 5, 11, 206, 207, 233, 252, 258 Albertazzi, Liliana 275, 285 Alsina, Alex 5, 12, 136, 209, 224 Amiot, Dany 353 Anderson, Gregory 165 Andrews, Avery 18, 56 Arrivé, Michel 98 Asher, Nicholas 307, 309 Aske, John 10, 12, 296–298, 307 Atkinson, Kate 115 Aurnague, Michel 334, 353 Awbery, Gwenllian M. 160 Babby, Leonard H. 145 Bach, Kent 178 Baldwin, Gillian 21, 22 Barber, Elizabeth J.W. 143 Bauer, Patricia J. 28, 93 Beliü, Aleksandar 324 Benjamin, Carmen 23, 32 Berman, Ruth A. 99, 147 Bernárdez, Enrique 185 Berthele, Raphael 307 Bierwisch, Manfred 131 Blume, Kerstin 3, 12, 40, 41, 55 Bolinger, Dwight 61, 159 Boons, Jean-Paul 301 Borillo, Andrée 4, 6, 345, 353 Bouchard, Denis 301 Bowerman, Melissa 22, 321 Braine, Martin D.S. 22 Brandt, Per A. 194, 195 Brisard, Frank 11 Broccias, Cristiano 4, 8, 103–122 Brugmann, Karl 67, 98 Buck, Carl D. 188, 196 Budwig, Nancy 29 Butt, John 12, 23, 32 Bybee, Joan L. 14, 37, 98

Cano Aguilar, Rafael 57 Carroll, Mary 321 Cemerski, Saso. 353 Chappell, Hilary. 143 Chen, Lilly Lee 144 Choi, Sonia 321 Cifuentes Honrubia, José L. 197, 199, 291, 301 Collins, Peter C. 143, 148 Comrie, Bernard 2, 145, 234, 235, 313 Cornish, Francis 353 Coseriu, Eugenio 301 Crego García, María V. 291, 301 Croft, William 1, 18, 19, 20, 22, 27, 32, 146, 155, 181, 311, 324 Cruse, Alan 22, 34, 83 Cuyckens, Hubert 11 Dabrowska, Ewa 330 Davidson, Donald 32, 182, 195 Davies, William D. 145 De Cock, Barbara 12, 31 de Haan, Pieter 24, 25 Delancey, Scott 17, 19, 30, 32 Delbecque, Nicole 8, 32, 62, 71, 80, 97–99 Denison, David 143, 158, 165 Di Tullio, Angela 11, 31 Dirven, René 179 Donohue, Catherine 4, 5, 8, 125–140 Downing, Angela 9, 143, 148, 160– 162 Dowty, D. 3, 40, 41, 55, 65, 71 Draye, Luk 63, 93 Dryer, Matthew 55 Duffley, Patrick J. 155 Erades, Peter 151 Ernout, Alfred 332 Español-Echevarría, Manuel 155

366

Author index

Fauconnier, Gilles 9, 12, 202, 205, 214, 223, 230, 231 Fellbaum, Christiane 151 Felser, Claudia 116, 120 Filipoviü, Luna 4, 6, 11, 305–324 Fillmore, Charles J. 98, 292, 294, 302 Finkbeiner, Matthew 321 Foley, William A. 64, 160 Fong, Vivien 309, 310 Gadet, Françoise 98 Galmiche, Michel 98, 99 Garai, Koldo J. 11 García Padrón, Dolores 301 García-Miguel, José-María 4, 6, 9, 18, 20, 201–224 Gasparov, Boris 316 Gaytan, Eddy H. 291 Geeraerts, Dirk 27, 30, 34, 175, 194 Gentner, Dedre 321 Gergely, György 33 Gibson, Jeanne 205, 224 Givón, Talmy 31, 55, 56, 143, 154, 155, 159, 184, 205, 230, 234, 235 Goldberg, Adele 1, 2, 4, 11, 19, 30, 32, 61, 62, 83, 108, 184, 202, 225, 242, 261, 273, 287, 291, 292, 294, 295, 299, 302, 311 Goldenberg, Gideon 98, 101 Goldin Meadow, Susan 321 Golinkoff, Roberta M. 28 Gómez Torrego, Leonardo 57 Granger, Sylviane 152 Greenberg, Joseph 14, 155 Grickat, Irena 338 Gronemeyer, Claire 143, 154, 155, 157, 158 Haegeman, Liliane 143, 148, 160 Haiman, John 14, 61 Hale, Ken 98 Halevy, Rivka 4, 8, 61–98 Harnish, Robert M. 178 Haser, Verena 188, 189, 196

Haspelmath, Martin 146, 255, 259 Hatcher, Anna G. 143 Havers, Wilhelm 98 Hawkins, John A. 8, 99 Heine, Bernd 13, 141, 159, 160 Higginbotham, James 324 Hilty, Gerold 301 Hopper, Paul J. 2, 7, 17, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 32, 36, 37, 39, 41, 50, 55, 56, 58, 64, 68, 70 Hume, John 32 Hyman, Larry 224 Ibarretxe-Antuñano, Iraide 307 Iviü, Milka 326, 330, 345, 353 Jackendoff, Ray. 3, 10, 269, 280, 282, 287, 291, 292, 295, 302 Janda, Laura 11 Jespersen, Otto 85, 143, 157, 158 Johnson, Mark 2, 19, 28, 182, 191, 193, 194, 196, 261, 272, 284 Joppen-Hellwig, Sandra 5, 125, 135, 136, 139 Jurafsky, Daniel 302 Kana, Marit A. 145, 146 Karmiloff-Smith, Annette 28 Kay, Paul 302 Kayne, Richard 224 Keenan, Edward L. 144, 146, 159, 160 Kemmer, Suzanne 2, 6, 9, 17, 21, 35, 146, 181, 191, 203, 205, 212, 219, 223, 224, 230, 231, 233, 234, 257 Keyser, Samuel 98 Kim, Kyunghwan 145, 146 Kiparsky, Paul 9, 131, 141, 179 Klikovac, D. 330 Koenig, Jean-Pierre 294, 302 Lahousse, Karen 11 Lakoff, George 2, 4, 5, 17, 18, 19, 28, 143, 148, 161, 182, 191, 193,

Author index 367 194, 196, 243, 261, 263, 272, 274, 275, 284 Lamb, Sydney M. 269 Lamiroy, Béatrice 11, 99, 100, 301, 302 Langacker, Ronald W. 1, 3, 10, 17, 20, 21, 27, 32, 40, 55, 83, 110, 121, 178, 184, 192, 202, 204, 212, 218, 219, 230, 231, 234, 235, 251, 253, 254, 266, 331 LaPolla, Randy. 40, 55, 56 Lass, Roger 155 Lazard, Gilbert 39, 40, 41, 55, 56 Leclère, Cristian 147 Leech, Geoffrey 123, 153, 302 Legendre, Géraldine 224 Leslie, Alan M. 32 Levin, Beth. 8, 18, 89, 98, 99, 103, 104, 106, 107, 108, 117, 121, 286, 287, 291, 292, 295, 296, 302, 311, 314 Levinson, Steven 2, 321, 324 Lieven, Elena V. 21, 22 Lyons, John 69, 71, 195 MacWhinney, Brian 61 Mahajan, Anoop 155 Maldonado, Ricardo 4, 6, 10, 194, 212, 215, 216, 219, 223, 224, 229–260 Mandelblit, Nili 202, 213, 214, 223 Mandler, Jean M. 28 Mateu, Jaume 10, 14, 287, 291, 292, 293, 294 Matthews, Peter H. 305 McEwan, Ian 115 Meillet, Antoine 99, 332 Meltzoff, Andrew N. 33 Michotte, Albert 5, 10, 28, 262, 263, 264, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272, 273, 274, 275, 277, 278, 283, 284 Miller, Jim 143, 154, 155 Mitrinoviü, Vera 330, 332, 333 Mora Gutiérrez, Juan Pablo 291

Morimoto, Yuko 4, 6, 10, 287–308 Morton, John 28 Mulloy, Nick 165 Mulrooney, David 165 Mustafoviü, Melisa 165 Naigles, Letitia 307, 308, 323 Narasimhan, Bhana 307 Nava, Fernando 235, 236, 259 Newman, John 182, 196 Ninio, Anat 22, 24, 27, 29 Nuyts, Jan 1, 325 O'Connor, Catherine 302 Olsen, Hedvig 49, 56, 57 Oostijk, Nelleke 24 Ortiz de Urbina, Jon 140 Østergaard, Svend 181, 195 Palmer, Robert 194 Pascual, Andrea. 223 Payne, Thomas E. 145, 160 Pederson, Eric 1, 182, 189, 191, 325 Pérez Guerra, Javier 223 Pérez Pereira, Miguel 31 Piaget, Jean 19, 28 Pianesi, Fabio 324 Pine, Julian M. 21, 22 Pinker, Steven 83 Piper, Predrag 330 Polinsky, Maria 2 Polotsky, Hans J. 99 Postal, Paul 210 Poulin, Christine 309, 310 Premack, David and Ann J. 29, 36 Primus, Beatrice 3, 40, 41, 55, 58 Quirk, Randolph 110 Raposo, Eduardo 205, 224 Rappaport Hovav, Malka 8, 103, 104, 106–108, 117, 121, 311 Regier, Terry 284 Rice, Sally 2, 99, 116

368

Author index

Rigau, Gemma 10, 14, 287, 291, 292, 293, 294 Rivas, Elena 31 Rivière, Claude 103, 109, 110 Roca Pons, José 301 Rodríguez Espiñeira, Ma José 209 Roegiest, Eugeen 4, 7, 39–60, 98, 209 Rojo, Guillermo 24, 25, 31, 32 Rosch, Elenaor 17, 27, 266, 268, 275, 278, 279, 286 Rosiü, Ana 353 Rosta, Andrew 151 Rowland, Caroline 21 Sablayrolles, Pierre 307, 309 Saeed, John 153, 165, 321 Saltarelli, Mario 140 Sandfeld, Kristian 49, 56, 57 Sarda, Laure 342 Schmidt, Natalya. 4, 5, 10, 261–286 Searle, John 263 Shannon, Thomas F. 177, 178, 195 Shibatani, Masayoshi 2, 14, 144, 145, 146, 169, 230, 233, 235, 236, 283 Shyldkrot, Bat-Zeev 146 Siewierska, Anna 152 Simpson, Jane 168, 280 Slobin, Dan 11, 20, 21, 32, 297, 307, 308, 310, 311, 312, 324 Smith, Linda 28, 35 Sneddon, James Neil 146 Soares da Silva, Augusto 4, 6, 9, 11, 171–200, 206, 207, 224, 233, 243, 249, 250, 253, 256 Song, Jae Jung. 154 Spelke, Elizabeth S. 28, 32 Stevanoviü, M. 324 Stosic, Dejan 4, 6, 7, 11, 310, 333– 360 Strang, Barbara 158 Svartvik, Jan 123, 153 Sweetser, Eve 11, 182, 183, 194

Talmy, Leonard 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 20, 34, 37, 58, 98, 167, 171, 174, 181, 182, 192–194, 198, 200, 216, 221, 225, 227, 235, 236, 258, 259, 266, 270, 286–291, 302, 304–308, 323, 327, 330–332, 338 Taylor, John 17, 18 Tesnière, Lucien 302 Thompson, Sandra 2, 7, 14, 17, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 36, 39, 41, 50, 55, 56, 58, 64, 68, 70, 254, 255 Tiee, Henry H. 144 Timberlake, Alan 39 Tomasello, Michael 21, 34, 35 Tortora, Christina 104 Toyota, Junichi 4, 5, 9, 143–170 Trask, Robert L. 140 Traugott, Elizabeth 15, 167, 178, 253 Tsunoda, Tasaku 18, 19, 32 Tuggy, David 11 Turner, Mark 9, 202, 205, 223, 230, 231, 258 Ulrich, Miorita 58 van Dijk, Teun 276 Van Langendonck, Willy 11, 100 Van Valin, Robert 40, 55, 56, 65, 160 Vandeloise, Claude 4, 6, 302 Vanrespaille, Mia 143, 148, 150, 153, 161 Varzi, Achille C. 324 Vázquez Rozas, Victoria 3, 7, 17–37, 235 Vendler, Zeno 347 Verhagen, Arie 2, 6, 9, 181, 191, 203, 205, 224, 230, 231, 233, 234, 257 Verspoor, Marjolijn 11 Visser, F.Th. 143, 155, 156, 158 Von Wright, Georg H. 185, 191

Author index 369 Wanner, Anja 116, 120, 122 White, Peter 15, 268, 279, 283, 284 Wierzbicka, Anna 48, 147, 179 Williams, Edwin 296, 299 Winters, Margaret E. 11, 18, 22

Wunderlich, Dieter 4, 9, 13, 125, 128, 131, 133–137, 139–141 Yang, Lynne 143, 154, 155 Zimmer, Karl 224