Phrasal Constructions and Resultativeness in English: A Sign-oriented Analysis (Studies in Functional & Structural Linguistics)

Phrasal Constructions and Resultativeness in English

Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics (SFSL) Taking the broadest and most general definitions of the terms functional and structural, this series aims to present linguistic and interdisciplinary research that relates language structure — at any level of analysis from phonology to discourse — to broader functional considerations, whether cognitive, communicative, pragmatic or sociocultural. Preference will be given to studies that focus on data from actual discourse, whether speech, writing or other nonvocal medium. The series was formerly known as Linguistic & Literary Studies in Eastern Europe (LLSEE).

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Volume 52 Phrasal Constructions and Resultativeness in English: A sign-oriented analysis by Marina Gorlach

Phrasal Constructions and Resultativeness in English A sign-oriented analysis

Marina Gorlach Metropolitan State College of Denver

John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam
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Philadelphia

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The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gorlach, Marina. Phrasal constructions and resultativeness in English : a sign-oriented analysis / Marina Gorlach. p. cm. (Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics, issn 0165–7712 ; v. 52) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. English language--Verb phrase. 2. English language--Resultative constructions. 3. Semiotics. I. Title. II. Series. PE1319.G63 2004 425’.6-dc22 isbn 90 272 1561 8 (Eur.) / 1 58811 597 6 (US) (Hb; alk. paper)

2004059572

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Table of contents

List of tables

vii

List of figures

viii

Abstract Introduction Chapter 1 The sign-oriented approach 1.1 The linguistic sign 5 1.2 The definition of language 7 1.3 Invariant meaning versus variation of messages 8 1.4 The communication factor and the human factor 9 1.5 Markedness and distinctive feature theory 10 1.6 Isomorphism 13 1.7 Iconicity 14 1.8 Non-synonymy 14 1.9 Synergesis 15 1.10 Methodology of the research 16 1.11 The hypothesis 19 Chapter 2 Phrasal constructions and resultative meaning 2.1 Phrasal verbs in the linguistic literature 21 2.2 Structure of phrasal verbs and constructions 25 2.3 Phrasal verbs and resultative meaning 29 2.4 Word order in phrasal constructions 31 2.5 The system “V NP – V Particle NP – V NP Particle” 39

ix 1

5

21

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Table of contents

Chapter 3 Resultativeness 3.1 Traditional views of resultativeness 48 3.2 Sign-oriented analyses 53 3.3 The linguistic forms expressing the category of resultativeness 55 3.4 Resultative constructions 58 3.5 Resultativeness as a system of oppositions 63 Chapter 4 Microlevel analysis 4.1 Simple verbs versus phrasal verbs 67 4.2 Continuous versus discontinuous phrasal constructions 72 4.3 Semantics of word order and style 81 4.4 Dictionaries of phrasal verbs 86 4.5 The non-synonymy test 90 Chapter 5 Macrolevel analysis 5.1 Tender Is the Night (Fitzgerald 1933) 99 5.2 The Last Billable Hour (Wolfe 1989) 107 5.3 Comparative analysis of English and Russian texts 115 Conclusion Notes References Name index Subject index

47

67

99

125 129 133 143 147

List of tables

Table 1. The non-synonymy test Table 2. Correspondence rates – the non-synonymy test Table 3. Comparative distribution according to the message Table 4. List of Phrasal Verbs: Tender Is the Night Table 5. Text Analysis: Tender Is the Night Table 6. List of Phrasal Verbs: The Last Billable Hour Table 7. Text Analysis: The Last Billable Hour Table 8. Comparison of English and Russian forms: Theatre Table 9. Translation of Phrasal Verbs into Russian: Grammar Forms Table 10. Translation of Phrasal Verbs into Russian: Word Order

List of figures

Figure 1. Different Views of ‘Resultativity’ in English Figure 2. The Result-Based Oppositions in the Language (U)/(M)

Abstract

This study analyzes the system of linguistic tools used for representing the suggested category of resultativeness in English, focusing on the post-NP position of a particle in transitive phrasal verbs. The hypothesis that the discontinuous (V NP Prt) construction makes a specific claim for Result (is marked for Result) whereas the continuous one (V Prt NP) indicates either Process or Result (is unmarked for Result) is validated by the findings of the non-random distribution of the two forms in literary texts as well as their consistent translation into Russian by different aspectual forms. The result-based oppositions, both lexical (synonymous pairs) and grammatical (verbal complements, tense, aspect, voice, mood, types of utterances), are supplemented by the continuous/discontinuous phrasal constructions to make up a system of forms expressing Result in English.

Introduction

This volume discusses the semantics of phrasal verbs and constructions as well as the nature of the word order alternation typical of transitive phrasal verbs with a nominal object. In recent years, this subject has been researched by linguists so often and scrutinized so closely that the chances to shed new light on such a popular matter seem to be extremely slim. But the study of the numerous publications on the issue, including the relatively recent ones1 allows to conclude that the approach adopted in this book is different and the analysis goes beyond this specific topic. The term ‘phrasal verb’ is used in this paper merely for convenience and might be replaced by other commonly used terms – ‘verb-particle construction’ (VPC), ‘particle verb’, ‘verb-particle combination’, etc. The definition of phrasal verbs, as well as the term itself, is a subject of much controversy. However, this study does not attempt to solve the problem of the definition of phrasal verbs or constructions. It is performed in the framework of sign-oriented theory, one of the essential features of which is that it makes no attempt to provide general definitions for notions like ‘noun’ or ‘verb’, nor does it seek to establish a universal inventory of parts of speech (cf. Contini-Morava 1995: 22). Signoriented linguists tend to postulate grammatical categories only to the extent they are needed for the purposes of a particular analysis. Therefore, I will follow the standard view on the phrasal verb as a discontinuous lexical item consisting of a transitive or intransitive verb and an adverbial particle, e.g. break down or make up.2 Out of the inventory of phrasal verbs, I will limit the scope of my study only to such combinations of a verb and adverbial particle that allow two word order positions of the constituents: hold up a train – hold a train up. The combination of a phrasal verb and a direct nominal object will be referred to as ‘phrasal construction’. Although I do not discuss phrasal constructions with pronominal objects in this study, their standard placement between the verb and the particle does not seem to be accidental. I will give a more detailed explanation of the preferred word order for pronominal objects in Chapter 2.

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Introduction

The category of phrasal verbs has often been narrowed down to idiomatic constructions only (cf. Courtney 1983; Palmer 1974; Quirk et al. 1982). In my opinion, relying on idiomaticity as a criterion makes the delimitation of this category vague and complicated because idiomaticity itself is ”a highly gradable phenomenon” (Hampe 1997). I will discuss both the combination hold up a hand, generally perceived as having literal meaning (or sometimes as having a lower degree of idiomaticity), and hold up a train, having idiomatic meaning, since both cases allow for the alternative word order: The fact that a particular combination of verb+particle is idiomatic need not affect its grammar. . . For instance, the direct object can be changed around in both cases: She made up her face/She made her face up. Bill carried away the rubbish/Bill carried the rubbish away. (Cowie & Mackin 1993: ix)

The structural definition of phrasal verbs above may be supplemented with the broader syntactic-semantic definition by Hampe (1997: 239–240): “. . .the phrasal verb is a fuzzy category, a continuum ranging from syntactically unrestricted to syntactically frozen and from non-idiomatic to idiomatic constructions, with both dimensions not always coinciding, but with the semantic characteristics motivating syntactic behavior to a large extent.” This research aims at analyzing the semantics of the English phrasal construction and its specific word order alternation from a different, sign-oriented perspective. I will claim that the word order in phrasal constructions is one of the tools for expressing the resultative meaning. Discussing the meaning of result as one of the semantic functions of the phrasal constructions, I will also search for other forms expressing this meaning in English. The analysis of various lexical, grammatical, and syntactic units and their semantic structure shows that almost all language forms can be regarded as establishing semantic oppositions revolving around the degree of the resultative meaning they convey, in addition to other types of oppositions they may form. It may be ascribed to the existence of a specific category of resultativity, or resultativeness, whose meaning is permanent while tools of expression vary greatly. I will suggest a definition of resultativeness as a linguistic category and analyze the lexical and grammatical means of its representation in language. One of my goals will be to demonstrate the inadequacy of merging resultativeness with, or confining it to ‘aspectual’, ‘passive’, or any other role.

Introduction

The study pursues the following analytical tasks: – – –

to investigate the semantics of phrasal verbs and constructions semiotically; to show the semantic significance of word order in phrasal constructions; to identify and define the category of resultativeness and its realization in English.

Chapter 1 gives a brief overview of the theoretical and methodological principles underlying the present study. The analysis applies the sign-oriented approach to language developed by de Saussure (1916), Diver (1969, 1979), and Tobin (1990a, 1993), relying on its most significant premises: the adoption of the linguistic sign as a unit of analysis, invariance and variation in language, markedness, and distinctive feature theory. I also introduce such sign-oriented principles as non-synonymy, iconicity, and synergesis. Chapter 2 discusses phrasal verbs in English and their role in implementing resultative meaning as presented in numerous studies representing different theoretical views. I further account for the semantic significance of word order in general and of the alternating word order in the phrasal constructions in particular. The chapter establishes and analyzes a semantic system for the continuous (C) or ‘uninterrupted’ phrasal construction (V Prt NP) and the discontinuous (D) or ‘interrupted’ one (V NP Prt) with regard to the degree of the resultative meaning each of them conveys. This system is based on the theoretical concepts of markedness, distinctive feature, iconicity, and synergesis mentioned above. Chapter 3 summarizes the traditional views on the resultative meaning, the sign-oriented analyses discussing this issue, the concept of the resultative construction and its structural, semantic, and syntactic properties. The category of result, or resultativeness, rather frequently used in passing, did not seem to require a precise definition, since it was thought of as a subcategory of aspect which itself aroused no little controversy, or as a part of the meaning of the passive voice. I will claim the independent status for resultativeness and propose a single definition of this linguistic category. The results of my search for the linguistic forms expressing the meaning of result are summarized in the end of the chapter and presented as a system of oppositions based on this semantic feature. The following two chapters (Chapters 4 and 5) present a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the non-random distribution of the phrasal verbs and constructions both in minimal pairs, shorter contexts and larger texts, working its way up from individual utterances and sentences (micro-level analysis) to

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Introduction

the entire literary texts (macro-level analysis). I will present the findings of direct testing using questionnaires, analyze examples from the dictionaries of phrasal verbs, and compare and contrast some English phrasal verbs and their translation into Russian, showing the systematic representation of D phrasal constructions by perfective verbs in Russian. The results and conclusions of the analysis concerning the semantic significance of word order and resultativeness in language may be valid for other types of syntactic patterns and constructions as well.

Chapter 1

The sign-oriented approach

This study investigates the semantic significance of word order in phrasal constructions based on the sign-oriented approach to language. I am going to examine the following mutually related assumptions: 1. A difference in the sequence of language forms should reflect some difference in meaning. With regard to phrasal constructions this can be paraphrased as: ‘There should be a difference in meaning between the continuous (V Prt NP) and discontinuous (V NP Prt) phrasal constructions in English’; 2. English exploits a variety of lexical, morphological, syntactical, and prosodic tools to express the concept of Result. Phrasal constructions possibly serve as one of the most powerful tools to express resultativeness through the combined effect of their lexical and morphological complexity, word order, and stress. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time the alternative word order of phrasal constructions is being analysed in the sign-oriented framework. The basic theoretical and methodological principles used in this study have originated with F. de Saussure, the Prague School3 and the Columbia School4 and are presented below.

. The linguistic sign The notion of the linguistic sign, first introduced by de Saussure (1916) [1983], was further developed by the Prague School, the Columbia School, and the Guillaumean School of Psychomechanics.5 In this chapter I will offer a brief overview of this concept and advocate its use in linguistic analysis. According to de Saussure, the linguistic sign is a single unit inseparably combining an acoustic or other perceivable signal (which he refers to as a signifiant) with a concept (which he refers to as a signifié) in the form of an abstract invariant meaning. This view is perfectly consistent with the commu-

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Chapter 1

nicative function of language: “. . . communication requires a set of perceptible signals each of which is associated with some conceptual content” (ContiniMorava 1995: 2). In sign-oriented theory, any language element can constitute a signal (signifiant): a suprasegmental, a phoneme, a combination of phonemes, the placement of words in a particular order, or the absence of an element in a position that would otherwise be filled (the so-called zero-morpheme)6 (quoted in Contini-Morava 1995: 7–8). The sole requirement for such an element to count as a signifiant is to convey a constant semantic content. The same concerns de Saussure’s signifié – ‘meaning’, which can be any concept as soon as it meets the requirement of being invariably associated with a specific linguistic signal. This implies that the linguistic sign is an integrity of mutually defining form and meaning. The traditional units of analysis – word or sentence – can be substituted by the linguistic sign due to the essential advantages of the latter – its universality and efficiency. The characteristics and specific traits of the sign were discussed in detail and contrasted to the traditional concepts and categories of linguistics, for example, in Tobin (1990a: 40): By combining all the elements of sound and meaning and their relationships to each other into a single unit and by studying the relationships of these units, we can abandon the traditional methods of separating language into autonomous and independent levels of sounds, forms, their arrangements and their meanings: phonology-morphology-syntax-semantics, etc.

Therefore, the value of the linguistic sign as a unit of analysis is in its application to any language signal irrespective of its size and degree of abstractness: phonemes, morphemes, words, phrases, clauses, sentences, texts, word order, zero morphology, intonation, and stress. The linguistic sign bridges the gap between grammar and the lexicon and has a potential to replace the autonomous levels of morphology and syntax, which are actually interdependent and inseparable, the distinction between them being to a great degree artificial and “illusory” (de Saussure 1959 [1916]: 136). Linguistic signs are organized into groups or subsystems making up larger sign systems, all of them interrelated and united for accomplishing the primary objective – providing communication. In this study, I will view simple and phrasal verbs, as well as phrasal constructions of both types as independent linguistic signs forming parts of larger semantic system, each being semantically distinct from the other members of the system.

The sign-oriented approach

. The definition of language The Saussurian model of language can be summarized in the following three maxims: 1. Langue, or an abstract language system, is distinguished from parole, or individual acts of speech. 2. The basic unit of langue is the linguistic sign, consisting of a signifiant arbitrarily linked with an (invariant) signifié. 3. Linguistic signs are defined both in terms of their inherent formal and semantic substance and in terms of valeur, or their paradigmatic opposition with other signs in the same system (cf. Contini-Morava 1995: 14). Considering the above principles, I will adopt the following definition of language suggested by Tobin (1990a: 47): “Language is a system of linguistic signs, composed of various interrelated and internally organized subsystems forming an abstract code shared by a community of speakers, which they use to communicate in an individual and creative way.” This definition has both theoretical and methodological implications for linguistic analysis. On the one hand, it presupposes the dichotomy between langue as an abstract code composed of linguistic signs and their paradigmatic and syntagmatic relationships, and parole as spontaneous realization of this abstract code by concrete speakers in their effort to communicate diversified messages in a variety of contexts. On the other, this definition calls for specific methods of studying language, namely: the use of concrete spoken and written language data to account for the ‘human factor’ involving peculiarities of individual cognitive, linguistic, and non-linguistic behavior. This definition also reflects the flexibility and cohesiveness of the structure of language, as well as its main goal – to serve a tool of communication in human society. De Saussure’s rather restrictive conception of langue as a system of signs, as well as the claim that the structure of language (a code consisting of meaningful signs) is determined by its communicative function, have been disputed ever since. Many linguists argue that the communicative function of language is merely one among many of its functions, almost an incidental epiphenomenon, not a basis from which the units of linguistic analysis should be derived (Contini-Morava 1995: 1). One of my goals is to show the opposite, or how the distribution of linguistic forms is motivated by the communicative function of language, by the concrete messages to be conveyed in specific discourse situations.

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Chapter 1

. Invariant meaning versus variation of messages One of the basic and fundamental principles of language for sign-oriented linguists is invariance versus variation, when “. . . the same linguistic sign with a single invariant meaning can be inferred to have many and diverse messages as well as multiple syntactic and pragmatic functions within different discourse contexts” (Tobin 1990a: 51). The contextual messages a sign may convey are usually listed in dictionaries as the ‘meanings’ of the lexical item. To illustrate the difference between meaning and message, I’ll take the English adverb too as an example. The Webster’s New World Dictionary and Thesaurus has the following entry for too:

Too, adv. 1 2 3 4

in addition; as well; besides; also more than enough; superfluously; overly: “The hat is too big” to a regrettable extent: “That’s too bad!” extremely; very: “It was just too delicious!” Too is often used as a mere emphatic [I will too go!] and is sometimes construed as an adjective in modifying much, little, etc. [there was not too much to see]

Are these four instances of too mutually related or independent? If we postulate an abstract invariant meaning for too (e.g., integral addition), we can view all of the above dictionary meanings as realizations of this single invariant meaning by the speakers in order to generate different context-specific messages. This principle is a logical extension of the concept of the linguistic sign and states that each sign in a language possesses a single unitary meaning, which distinguishes it from the other signs and motivates its distribution in speech, being consistent with the requirements for language as a medium of communication. By admitting the invariant meaning value we establish and emphasize a one-to-one relationship between the phonetic or physical and conceptual sides of the linguistic sign, the signal and the meaning. . . . all sign based theories make a distinction between the underlying, abstract, invariant meaning of a sign, which is a unit of langue, and the open-ended set of specific interpretations it can have in particular contexts of use, which belong to parole. (Contini-Morava 1995: 9)

The sign-oriented approach

Following the Columbia School approach, I will adopt the view that neither the signals nor the invariant meanings are known in advance. The meanings of signs are not the same or equivalent to sentence, dictionary, or discourse messages nor to the syntactic, logical, or pragmatic functions. They should be postulated and validated individually for each linguistic sign (Tobin 1990a: 79). The invariant meaning of the linguistic sign is usually represented by one or more semantic concepts which belong to a semantic domain. If there exist several linguistic signs within one and the same semantic domain, they establish oppositions of value and taken together exhaustively classify this semantic domain as part of a system. The invariant meaning belongs to the abstract level of the language as opposed to concrete textual messages, which can vary according to the linguistic or situational needs. In this study, I am going to postulate an invariant meaning for each of the phrasal verb constructions as part of a semantic system and analyze how each construction contributes to context-specific messages.

. The communication factor and the human factor According to Diver (1995: 43), “the general picture of human language is that of a particular kind of instrument of communication, an imprecise code by means of which precise messages can be transmitted through the exercise of human ingenuity. The code and the ingenuity must be kept clearly separate. . .” This approach to language structure and function distinguishes, therefore, between two fundamental orientations: the communication factor and the human factor. We have briefly discussed the fundamentals of the communication factor: the concepts of the linguistic sign, invariant meaning, and the distinction between meaning and message. The human factor embraces a number of extralinguistic variables: (a) human intelligence, or problem-solving ability, making possible for the units of communication to be remarkably imprecise in comparison with the precision of the ideas that are communicated; (b) human economy of effort – a general avoidance of the use of a greater degree of precision than is necessary for the accomplishment of any given task; (c) limitedness of human memory making it vital to select and memorize only the essential features skipping the non-important or non-essential ones (Diver 1995: 44). The implications of the communication factor role include the consistency of the postulated theoretical units with the communicative goals of language. The human factor requirements provide correspondence between the choice

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Chapter 1

of language forms and the language-external principles of human psychology.7 The Columbia School linguists point out the role of both a speaker and a hearer in the process of communication, stressing the significance of both linguistic and extralinguistic factors in conveying an infinite number of messages on the basis of a finite number of invariant meanings: . . . a linguistic meaning – the speaker’s input – falls short of accounting for the totality of the output – the message communicated. A meaning is a mere hint, which pushes the message in a particular direction. But there is a gap between meaning and message which must be bridged by an inferential leap on the part of the hearer; and, for this, the hearer relies on context. (Huffman 1995: 190)

The variety of messages, the so-called linguistic creativity, is not a feature of langue, which certainly contributes to it as a code of the invariant meanings of the linguistic signs, but rather its realization through the infinite applications of extralinguistic factors, such as background knowledge, contextual information, psychological, social, cultural, and other aspects of human linguistic behavior.

. Markedness and distinctive feature theory Some sign-oriented linguistic schools, such as the Jakobsonian school,8 view language as a system of oppositions based on the relationships of markedness. This implies that the linguistic signs establish oppositions based on the compulsory presence or possible presence or absence of a certain semantic feature called ‘distinctive’ in their invariant meanings, sharing the rest of their semantic features. Greenberg (1966) developed the idea of markedness as a global property of language structure and attempted to summarize and isolate common features of marked and unmarked categories in phonology, grammar, and the lexicon. The phenomenon of markedness was investigated in detail by Battistella (1990: 1): . . . the term markedness refers to the relationship between the two poles of an opposition; the terms marked and unmarked refer to the evaluation of the poles; the simpler, more general pole is the unmarked term of the opposition while the more complex and focused pole is the marked term.

In addition to the distinction between the members of markedness-based oppositions relying on such cognitive properties of language entities as ‘simpler’/’more complex’ or ‘more general’/’focused’, they may make up an opposition where one member makes a specific claim for a single semantic feature,

The sign-oriented approach

whereas the other member, sharing the rest of its semantic features with the first one, may either make such a claim or not. Battistella further emphasizes the correlation between markedness and the distribution of linguistic signs, which reflects the demands of the communicative function of language (ibid.: 37–38): . . . pairs of opposed items never have equivalent distributions: one item occurs in a wider, less restricted set of contexts than the other. . . . there is a correlation between semantic markedness and distribution. The semantically unmarked term tends to occur in a wider range of contexts than its opposite. The correlation of semantic markedness and distribution is extremely plausible given the double semantic value of an unmarked feature. The semantic indeterminacy of the unmarked term will result in its being used in a greater number of contexts than the marked member, all else being equal. The unmarked term will be the category used when a choice between opposites is unnecessary or impossible.

As different linguistic trends assign different roles to the unmarked member of an opposition, I find it necessary to note that this study follows the Jakobsonian-van Schooneveldian view of markedness, which conceives the concept of a hierarchy of morphological or semantic marked features. Consequently, a marked member of an opposition makes a specific claim regarding the presence of a certain semantic feature (the above-mentioned distinctive feature), while the unmarked member is neutral, or makes no claim for the presence or absence of the said semantic feature, allowing all possibilities: In its Prague school version, semantic markedness is a relation between features whereby the marked feature signals the presence of a property and the unmarked feature signals either its absence or has a more general interpretation covering both terms of the opposition. (Ibid.: 66)

Tobin (1990a) bases his analysis of the system of number, of the ‘synonymous’ lexical pairs if/whether, also/too, and others on the distinctive feature of semantic integrality. He further applies the distinctive feature of process/result to the analysis of synonymous verbal pairs such as say/tell, begin/start, etc., and the grammatical oppositions such as -ing/-ed forms, be/have, be/get, irregular verbs, etc. (Tobin 1993). Battistella views syntactic markedness as a derivative of semantic markedness and this falls in with our conception of language where the use of each form or structure is perceived as motivated by meaning. This leads to the conclusion that the use of phrasal verbs over simple ones, as well as of D phrasal constructions over C ones should have semantic justification. We may view the

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Chapter 1

oppositions ‘simple versus phrasal verb’ and ‘C versus D construction’ as being in a markedness relationship with regard to some distinctive feature. This study focuses on the markedness relationships of the two types of phrasal constructions establishing word order oppositions. Battistella points out the strong correlation between markedness of meaning and the choice of word order type: Studies of word order function and word order variation often assume the existence of a dominant word order type for a given language and treat variations from that order as marginal or marked word orders. . . . Iconicity and markedness assimilation will favor a closeness of fit between basic syntax and categories of meaning that are stylistically neutral and semantically cardinal (that is, categories with no special semantic function, information focus, emphasis or dialectal flavor). Conversely, clauses that implement non-prototypical categories, such as nonassertions (questions, negations, exclamations, commands), special styles (formal language, dialectal speech, very casual speech), and special rhetoric or discourse functions (such as contrastive emphasis or the introduction of a new topic) should exhibit syntactic complications (marked expression). (Ibid.: 108–109)

In Chapters 2 and 3 I will examine the relationship between the semantics of phrasal constructions and their word order. The present analysis will regard the D phrasal constructions as marked, i.e. making a claim for the distinctive feature of Result, as opposed to the C constructions which may either make such a claim or not, denoting either process or result, or both. Although we cannot deny the role of many other contextual forms in expressing the resultative meaning, the word order seems to be one of the most significant among them. Let us turn to the language facts for support. Here are the passages from two modern novels by famous writers where the phrasal construction put on a play appears in two positional variants: (1) ‘The secretary told me you were rehearsing this morning, Miss Lambert,’ the young man remarked. ‘Does that mean you’re putting on a new play?’ (Maugham 1985: 16) (2) Because he was practically penniless, he moved into the room in the Hotel Lincoln where Craig was living and in the five months that it took to put the play on they were together twenty-four hours a day. (Shaw 1973: 63)

The attempt to explain the difference in the word order by traditional factors, such as idiomaticity, style and register, or the length of the object, do not seem to yield satisfactory results: the phrasal verb put on is used in both cases in the same figurative meaning, namely ’stage’, ‘present’, the style and register are

The sign-oriented approach

similar, the length of the object is the same. In search for a more consistent explanation, we may want to consider the messages they convey. In (1), the message reflects the process of staging a new spectacle with no overt claim for the result of this action. The emphasis on the process is reinforced grammatically by the progressive aspect form. The phrasal construction in (2), analogous to (1) in all respects but the word order, conveys a different message: to get the play ready for presentation, finish staging it within a limited period of time, five months. We may assume that the discontinuous word order used here is not arbitrary, but contributes to the claim for completion or result of the action, essential in the context.

. Isomorphism As I have already noted in 1.1 above, the introduction of the linguistic sign as a uniform unit of analysis allows us to apply it to all levels of language, which makes it possible to avoid the traditional tripartite division between lexicon, morphology, and syntax, criticized by de Saussure (1916[1986]: 133–134). By the same token, we are not obliged to follow the division of grammar into three levels – syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. In his discussion of the theoretical premises of the sign-based approach, Huffman (1995: 185) points out that “Where everybody else needs three sets of explanatory devices, the Columbia School grammarian claims to get along with only one.” Sign-oriented linguists investigate all levels of language applying the same single set of methodological and theoretical principles including invariance versus variation, markedness, and distinctive feature theory. They regard all the diversified phenomena of language use (phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic, lexical, and others) as serving one common purpose – providing successful communication through transmission of meaning: “Language is an integrated system, where everything ‘conspires’ to convey meaning – words, grammatical constructions, and illocutionary devices (including intonation)” (Wierzbicka 1988: 1). I will illustrate this point by suggesting a category of resultativeness and showing the universal character of its manifestation in language in Chapter 3. I will consider the semantics of phrasal verbs and constructions and their word order as phonological-morphological-syntactic-semantic phenomenon: a phrasal verb is distinct from its mother verb phonetically, prosodically, morphologically, syntactically, and semantically. As for the D phrasal construction,

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Chapter 1

its special word order pattern as well as stress and intonation peculiarities serve as a manifestation of its more complex semantic value – markedness for Result.

. Iconicity The principle of iconicity implies a mimetic connection between a signal and its referent, i.e. signs have a tendency to resemble what they stand for. Thus, for example, signals indicating the plural (‘more than one’) will often be larger (physically) than those indicating the singular (‘one’): girl – girls, child – children. The principle of iconicity reflects the systematic correspondence of form and meaning, which is one of the general properties of human languages (Tobin 1990a). It is also interlocked with the concepts of markedness and distinctive feature theory: the more marked the form, the more specific its meaning, the more restricted its distribution, and the greater its size. In the case of phrasal verbs and constructions, we may claim that the form of a greater morphological complexity – phrasal verbs – may possess a greater number of semantic features than the morphologically plain form – simple verbs. It seems plausible that during a phrasal verb formation, its form and meaning become more complex, and its invariant meaning systematically acquires an additional feature, that of Result (completion, endpoint, goal, etc.). Similarly, the marked or ‘non-standard’ word order in D phrasal constructions, viewed by many grammarians as a ‘deviation’ from the ‘standard’ continuous word order, may reflect a greater semantic burden such constructions bear in comparison with C constructions. In addition, the analogy in the form of the ‘resultative constructions’ and the D phrasal constructions (hammer the metal flat and hold the train up) may indicate a probable iconic relationship between their meanings: in both the semantic focus is shifted to the end of the sentence associated with the endpoint (completion, result) of the action (Tenny 1994).

. Non-synonymy The assumption that each word or form in language is semantically motivated and has no completely congruent form is essential for any sign-oriented analysis. On the one hand, the existence of two absolutely synonymous forms is likely to confuse the language speakers and create difficulties in communication between them, on the other hand, it seems to be inefficient and unnecessary. The notion of the linguistic sign is based on a unitary relationship between form

The sign-oriented approach

and meaning, which denies the legitimacy of two full synonyms co-existing in the language. The fundamental principle of non-synonymy in language is postulated in Bolinger (1971: ix): “. . . any word that a language permits to survive must make its semantic contribution; and the same holds for any construction which is physically distinct from any other construction.” Therefore, the task of a linguist may be to find the semantic distinction underlying the availability of two presumably synonymous forms, even if they are interchangeable in some or even most contexts. The non-synonymy hypothesis leads to the conclusion that the use of phrasal verbs alongside with the simple ones, as well as of D constructions alongside with the C ones, is not designated for conveying the same meanings, but on the contrary, reflects the semantic difference between them. This explains also the fact that they can not be interchangeable in every context without change in meaning: to work one’s head off – to work off one’s head

However, the change in the meaning of the phrasal construction resulting from change in form is rarely gross and in most cases can be described as a different degree of the claim for Result they make.

. Synergesis The principle of synergesis is fundamental for various sciences where complex units possess a larger range of qualities than the simple sum of the qualities of their constituents. It also serves as one of the central theoretical postulates in the sign-oriented theory underlying all language processes. In Tobin (1990a: 48) we find the following definition of synergesis: . . . the linguistic whole (language) is greater than the sum of its individual parts (i.e. the various units which may be related to forms and meanings and their use: phonemes, syllables, morphemes, stems, roots, words, word classes, meanings, phrases, clauses, sentences, utterances, contexts, texts, etc.)

Various language oppositions display the basic synergetic relationships in language: a. between signal and meaning – the smaller the signal of the sign, the more vague its invariant meaning and the greater the number of its potential discourse messages, and vice versa; b. between the invariant meaning of the sign and the various dictionary or contextual messages it may convey; c. paradigmatic and syntagmatic oppositions between the invariant meanings; d. the principle of ‘least effort’ in all domains of language (Zipf ’s Law); e. between

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Chapter 1

encoders and decoders (both pursuing the ‘least effort’ principle); f. between lexical and grammatical signs; g. between the communication factor and the human factor. With regard to the signal/meaning relationship, Bolinger’s definition of a phrasal verb as ‘a lexical unit in the strict sense of a non-additive compound or derivative, one that has a set meaning which is not the sum of the meanings of its parts’ (1971: xii) has the synergetic implication of a greater complexity of the resulting meaning. (3) “Are you coming out for a drink? I’d love to hear what’s going on.” “Maybe later. I’m trying to clean up a couple of loose ends. I’ll tell you what else I need. . .” (Grafton 1982: 198) (4) “Didn’t I ever tell you the end of that? Charlie snitched the letter, just cleaned out all the evidence, and that’s why they ended up settling out of court. She didn’t do that well but at least it got Laurence off the hook.” (Grafton 1982: 199)

In (3) and (4) the phrasal verbs clean up and clean out convey more complex messages than the verb clean alone would do. Although any phrasal construction implies the completeness of the action to a certain extent, this message is emphasized much stronger by the marked word order: (5) “I left after that but I felt bad and I went back later and that’s when I found her dead on the bathroom floor. I was afraid the’d find my fingerprints and think I’d done something to her so I wiped the whole place down.” (Grafton 1982: 190)

My assumption is that the meaning of any phrasal verb is more complex than just a simple sum of meanings of its components, and this greater semantic complexity can be associated with the resultative meaning emerging synergetically and essential for this class of verbs.

. Methodology of the research The methodological premises for this study rooted in the sign-oriented approach differ from the traditional approaches in a variety of ways. As Reid (1995) points out, the task of linguistic analysis is different for a sign-oriented linguist, and this different task calls for a different procedure involving both qualitative and quantitative techniques. The sign-oriented linguist hypothesizes the formal and semantic structure of a system being examined looking for correspondence of its signals and their meanings. At this stage, the infor-

The sign-oriented approach

mal qualitative techniques, such as minimal pair contrasts, textual analysis, informant reports, and introspection are used. The next step is to test the meanings against the distribution of their signals in language use. In order to support the hypothesized system empirically, the distribution of the signals must be motivated by the contribution of their meanings to the messages being communicated. The procedure becomes more rigorous and objective placing emphasis on the quantitative analysis methods. According to Diver, signals are distributed in a certain asymmetrical fashion because their meanings are contributing to messages that are structured and distributed in the same asymmetrical fashion. From this follows a two-part analytical procedure: a. postulate certain linguistic forms (sounds or letters) as signals of certain meanings; b. test for the predicted parallelism between two asymmetries – one among signals and the other among messages (cf. Reid 1995: 118). Another principal feature of the sign-oriented methodology consists in an emphasis on observing natural discourse, both spoken and written, reflecting the communication of actual messages rather than on sentences invented by the linguists. “The Columbia School interest in developing and testing hypotheses to explain actually-appearing forms, in turn, commits us to an approach grounded in natural data” (Huffman 1995: 186). Not only the source of the data is different, but also the length of the analyzed texts seems unusual due to the impossibility to perform a reliable statistical analysis at the sentence level, where the expected communicative effect of a sign is too subtle to be relied on, as in our case. According to Diver (1995: 81), the most useful texts for analysis are “long prose texts written by skilled writers. The importance of the skill is that such a writer will exploit the resources of the language much more thoroughly, providing both a more challenging problem and a better testing ground.” The use of long texts is a marked departure from the usual procedure, where individual sentences are the primary object of analysis. Methodologically, the research is based on text analysis, originally derived from Diver (1979) and expanded in Tobin (1990a, b, 1993, 1994), both of the Columbia School of linguistics. This particular “from sign to text” approach to discourse analysis has become an indispensable part of the Columbia School methodology involving both the qualitative and quantitative validation of invariant meanings through the analysis of the non-random distribution of language forms within a text. In this study the sign-oriented approach is ap-





Chapter 1

plied to the validation of the semantic significance of the word order in phrasal constructions. The procedure shares certain features with the multi-dimensional analysis by Biber (1995), such as using the corpora of representative spoken and written texts – continuous segments of naturally occurring discourse, extensive reliance on the statistical data, recognition of form-function interrelation, and viewing the non-random distribution of linguistic features as motivated by the communicative purposes. However, there are a number of aspects where the suggested analysis is different from Biber’s: postulating a hypothesis on the basis of theoretical inference prior to the quantitative analysis itself; avoiding the wide use of the preconceived grammatical categories typical of Biber, adopting definitions only as far as they are needed for solving specific analytical problems. In addition, the sign-oriented methods usually take into consideration the implications larger contexts may have on the discourse message. If Biber is looking for the linguistic features differentiating between registers (1995), the main task of this research is to find a universal principle common for all styles and registers. Unlike Tobin’s analysis (1993) where the sign-oriented method is applied to some troublesome lexical pairs, infinitives and irregular verb forms, degrees of comparison of adjectives, auxiliaries, plural forms, etc., I shall investigate the semantic significance of the specific word order pattern, thus expanding the analysis to the syntax province and attempting to bridge the gap between the lexicon and grammar. To the best of my knowledge, the discourse analysis performed in the present study has not been previously applied to the investigation of the word order in phrasal constructions. I am using a corpus of texts belonging to different styles, registers and dialects. This analysis also compares the collocation of the marked and unmarked constructions with the grammatical forms that have been recognized as resultative by many linguists:9 perfective forms, the infinitive, the future and past tenses, passive forms, and others. My assumption is that the principles of text cohesion should be manifested in a higher percentage of the marked constructions used in the so-called marked grammatical forms. I examine the distribution of the C versus D phrasal constructions through the analysis of both individual utterances and in larger texts. “As evidence in support of a particular analysis, all sign-oriented linguists use the method of citing examples that illustrate a number of contextual interpretations of the signs being analyzed. . .” (Contini-Morava 1995: 23). Although this study is language specific, I compare a corpus of phrasal constructions occurring in the original English texts with the Russian translation

The sign-oriented approach

of these texts, looking for systematic distinctions in translating different word order patterns. The analysis includes review and critical evaluation of numerous traditional and modern studies of phrasal verbs and constructions, their semantic properties and syntactic peculiarities. The data are culled mainly from literary works of British and American authors, dictionaries of phrasal verbs, the mass media, textbooks, manuals, etc. Another database includes the questionnaires offered to the native speakers and their summary. The analysis of the data intends to show that the choice of a particular word order in phrasal constructions within the text is not arbitrary, but motivated by the distinction in their meaning, and their distribution agrees with other means of conveying resultativeness, both lexical and grammatical.

. The hypothesis The theoretical and methodological premises applied in this study and outlined above allow me to assume the existence of meaningful correlation between the asymmetrical distribution of signals and the messages they convey in various natural contexts. The specific hypothesis is that the invariant meaning of the English phrasal verbs contains the element of the result of the action which can be represented to a different degree. In other words, phrasal verbs are marked for Result as compared to simple (one-word) verbs. Another resultrelated opposition is created by the word order in phrasal constructions: the D constructions behave as marked for Result, while the C ones are unmarked. Moreover, the investigation of phrasal verbs and constructions led me to the conclusion that they serve as one of the manifestations of the linguistic category which has not yet been recognized as a category in its own right, resultativeness. I will attempt to validate another assumption holding that resultativeness is represented in English by a system of lexico-grammatical oppositions of the unmarked (U)/marked (M) forms and meanings of (a) lexical pairs of simple verbs; (b) simple (U) versus phrasal (M) verbs; and (c) C (U) versus D (M) phrasal constructions. I assume that the distinction in (a) is motivated by the semantic meaning of the verbs, in (b) can be ascribed to the morphological difference, synergetic effect, and the meaning of the particle, while in (c) the major role is played by the word order. Applying the principles of non-synonymy, iconicity and synergesis, I propose that word order in phrasal constructions, like in other types of syntactic structures, can hardly be arbitrary, but rather represents the distinction in form

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Chapter 1

motivated by the distinction in meaning. The hypothesis of this study is: The C phrasal construction as well as the D one are distinct linguistic signs, and the opposition of their invariant meanings serves as one of the manifestations of the category of resultativeness in English. The C word order is neutral for the distinctive feature of Result, meaning both Process and/or Result, whereas the D word order makes a specific claim for Result. The next step requires performing both qualitative and quantitative analyses in order to establish the invariant meanings for the linguistic signs and categories and then validate the non-random distribution of signs, demonstrating the link between the meanings and the messages being communicated.

Chapter 2

Phrasal constructions and resultative meaning

In this chapter I will present phrasal verbs and constructions, their status, structure, semantics, and word order peculiarities as described by different theoretical approaches. I will maintain that phrasal constructions are one of the tools by which language expresses resultative meaning by analyzing the following systems of oppositions: a. ‘simple verb phrase’ versus ‘phrasal construction’: eat the apple – eat up the apple b. ‘C phrasal construction’ versus ‘D phrasal construction’: eat up the apple – eat the apple up I suggest that the members of the system c. [simple verb + NP] – [V Particle NP] – [V NP Particle] eat the apple – eat up the apple – eat the apple up establish oppositions based on the different degrees of resultative meaning they convey, with the degree of resultativeness increasing as we proceed to the right. The members of the above system may stand in the relationship of ‘unmarked for result’ versus ‘marked for result’ as one of essential realizations of the proposed category of resultativeness in English.

. Phrasal verbs in the linguistic literature Phrasal verbs have been singled out and studied by different linguists, at different times, and within different theoretical frameworks. The term ‘phrasal verbs’ is the most common one used by many scholars,10 although ‘verb-particle construction’ (VPC)11 and other labels have been applied to the verb and particle functioning as a unit.12 The distinction is not only in the explicit terminology, but also in the range of verb+particle combinations covered implicitly by



Chapter 2

the term. The concept ‘phrasal verb’ seems to be the most appropriate for the present analysis, denoting all verb-particle locutions that display semantic and syntactic behavior of a single language unit. The nature and categorization of the phrasal verb in English have been questioned and debated for over a century. Kennedy (1920: 9) sounds rather dubious as to the status of ‘verb-adverb combination’ in English: “. . . it would be a hopeless undertaking to attempt to classify every verb-adverb combination as either close enough to be termed a verb-adverb compound, or loose enough to be called merely an adverbial modification.” Chomsky (1965: 190) claims that the verb-particle constructions are very difficult to put into preconceived grammatical categories like parts of speech or noun phrases. He finds them ‘not suitable’ instead of regarding the accepted linguistic classification as not reflecting all language phenomena adequately enough: Verb^Particle constructions also provide a variety of . . . problems. To some extent, the Particle is a fairly free “Adverbial” element, as in “I brought the book (in, out, up, down).” Often, however, the Verb^Particle construction is a unique lexical item (such as ‘look up’, ‘bring off ’, ‘look over’). In all cases, however, the syntactic structure is apparently the same, with respect to the possibility of applying familiar transformational rules. I see no way, for the present, to give a thoroughly satisfactory treatment of this general question.

Chomsky assumes that at the level of Deep Structure the particle is adjacent to the verb (the C construction), and that movement to the right across the NP yields the alternative configuration (the D construction). This rule is deemed as obligatory if the NP is a pronoun. Though not satisfied with his own treatment of the problem, Chomsky is reluctant to change it later and consider other approaches, e.g., that of Bolinger (1971), which I will discuss later in this chapter. The degree of ‘freedom’ in the word order of phrasal verb constituents is further discussed in Marchand (1969: 1). He distinguishes between genuine free morphemes with sign character, i.e. words, and so-called ‘free forms’. According to Marchand, the constituents of phrasal verbs behave like words in their distribution, but cannot be regarded as independent signs. They rather form parts of a discontinuous sign, such as make. . .out, having no sign status of their own (quoted in Kastovsky 1997: 84). Some contemporary authors set forth the assumption that phrasal verbs are single lexical items.13 Bolinger (1971: xii) devotes much attention to the class of phrasal verbs recognizing them as a very productive complex way of

Phrasal constructions and resultative meaning

coining new words in English. He refers to the phrasal verb as to “a lexical unit in the strict sense of a non-additive compound or derivative, one that has a set meaning which is not the sum of the meanings of its parts”. Bolinger (1971: 6) does not attempt to provide a set of precise conditions for the identification of phrasal verbs; on the contrary, he claims that this task is hardly feasible: I do not believe that a linguistic entity such as the phrasal verb can be confined within clear bounds. Rather, there are analogical extensions in all directions, some of which, along with their causes and effects, must be traced; being or not being a phrasal verb is a matter of degree.

Bolinger (1971: 111) emphasizes the similarity between adverbial particles and derivational affixes and defines the place occupied by the phrasal verb in language structure as “at the border of syntax and morphology”. This status he explains (1971: 111) by the morphological-syntactic peculiarities of the phrasal verbs: . . . phrasal verbs are special in that they represent a kind of double layer of compounding. The particles are, to begin with, more or less affixal in nature. . . The first compositional layer is the simple association of a verb and a particle. The second layer is a differentiation within the phrasal verb, related to the varying positions of the particle and other factors.

I support Bolinger’s treatment of phrasal verbs and will attempt to extend it further and trace the correlation between the compositional layers and the degree of resultative meaning conveyed. At the first level, the resultative meaning becomes a component of the invariant meaning of the locution; at the second, the word order enhances and emphasizes the specific claim for Result that is made. Fraser (1976) regards a verb-particle construction as ‘a two-word verbal idiom’, where an idiom is a single constituent or a series of constituents whose semantic interpretation is independent of the formatives composing it. This approach seems to exclude all non-idiomatic verb-particle combinations, contradicting Hampe’s assertion of non-random semantic meaning of all phrasal verbs, even highly idiomatic ones. Fraser claims however that the VPC can be “identified in terms of its syntactic properties rather than its semantic noncompositionality” (vi). Johnson (1991: 590–591) suggests three definite criteria for the treatment of ‘particle verbs’, as she refers to them, as single lexical items. First, they can undergo the morphological processes that can only apply to single verbs, such as forming nouns with -ing or adjectives with -ed:

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Chapter 2

(6) a. Mikey’s looking up of the reference is a trying affair. b. The table remained dusted off. c. the dusted off table.

Another argument she adduces is the selectional requirements of particle verbs, which are not derived from the selectional requirements of their parts: (7) We can’t make out whether he is lying or not.

Third, gapping exhibits the same behavior in particle verbs as in single verbs: (8) a. Gary looked up Sam’s number, and Mittie, my number. b. *Gary looked up Sam’s number, and Mittie, up my number. c. *Gary looked up Sam’s number, and Mittie, my number up.

These tests, according to Johnson, show that the particle can be regarded as part of the verb, which makes the status of phrasal verbs different from idioms, compounds, and other phrasal words. Neeleman and Weerman (1992: 469–470ff.) suggest that English particles possess several properties allowing them to function as morphemes: There are two ways in which morphological principles can be stretched to such an extent that English verb-particle constructions can undergo derivational morphology after all. First, there are some rather exotic examples like passer-by and picker-upper that are somehow related to the verb-particle constructions to pass by and to pick up. The fact that these derivations are far from regular (insertion of an affix between the verb and the particle in the one case, a kind of reduplication in the other) . . . confirms that English verb-particle constructions as such cannot be input to regular derivational morphology. Second, there are examples like outgoing, upcoming, and output that also confirm our analysis. Here the particle is on the left-hand side of the head, just as in Dutch. These can be analyzed as morphological particles, and thus the constructions they participate in can undergo regular derivational morphology.

In conclusion, Neeleman and Weerman claim that syntax and morphology are governed by the same general principles, and morphological patterns can be visible in syntax. This agrees with the sign-oriented principle of isomorphic language structure, where the same principles can be applied to the analysis of all language levels: phonetics, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. So the status of phrasal verbs remains rather controversial, and no satisfactory solution has yet been proposed for their identification. The intricacy of this task lies in the very special position of phrasal verbs whose location can be defined as the lexicon-grammar interface (Contini-Morava & Tobin

Phrasal constructions and resultative meaning

2000), on the one hand, and the border between morphology and syntax, on the other. In the framework of the sign-oriented approach, we do not need to solve the identification problem, since we deem the phrasal verb to be a linguistic sign, combining a signal and its invariant meaning. The invariant meaning of this sign, according to the principle of synergesis, is semantically more complex than a simple sum of its constituents’ invariant meanings. Following the semiotic principle of isomorphism, the phrasal verb as a linguistic sign may be analyzed applying the same set of principles, no matter whether it is classified as a lexical or grammatical phenomenon, or as either a morphological or syntactic unit. We can assume that each phrasal construction (C and D) is a separate linguistic sign having its own signal and, subsequently, its own meaning.

. Structure of phrasal verbs and constructions The majority of linguists studying phrasal verbs have been concerned with the problem of distinguishing particles from adverbs and prepositions, using lexical, syntactic, structural, phonetic, and semantic criteria.14 Kruisinga (1932) describes them as ‘separable verbal compounds’, e.g. to take off, which allow the object to be inserted: to take a hat off, and contrasts them to ‘semicompounds’, e.g. to laugh at, which can not be separated by the object: he laughed at it. Fraser (1965) views one of his primary tasks in distinguishing particles from non-particles – prepositions or adverbials, and representing the structure of phrasal constructions graphically. Fraser offers a number of tests for identifying particles and contrasting them with prepositions, among which the word-order test plays a central role. He states that particles may be permuted over a direct object NP: a. The fisherman reeled in the line b. " " " the line in,

while prepositions may not be: c. They talked about the situation d. *" " the situation about

Hence, Fraser (1965: 1) distinguishes between particles and adverbials on the basis of purely syntactic factors. He overtly refuses to account for semantic criteria and claims that the distinction between ‘verb-particle’ and ‘verbadverbial’ sequences “can be maintained on the basis of their syntactic patterning and without reference to their semantic interpretation”. This approach

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Chapter 2

was criticized by Bolinger (1971) and Declerck (1976), who present arguments disproving Fraser’s syntactic approach to the VPC problem. Fraser assumes further that example (b) above is derived from example (a) applying the Forward Particle Movement transformation. Emonds (1972: 549), however, claims that the (b) construction (‘discontinuous’) is primary, the NP is adjacent to the verb at Deep Structure, and the kind of transformation applied is Leftward movement of the particle. Emonds assumes that post-verbal particles are in fact transitive prepositions, which might potentially have an object. This identification, by Emonds, proves to be rather effective in explaining various language phenomena, among them the optional character of contiguous or non-contiguous sequence of elements in lexical entries. The lexicon contains a considerable number of idioms where direct objects intervene between the two parts of the idiom: (9) a. John took his students to task. b. *John took to task his students. (10) a. His proposal will bring the crisis to a head. b. *His proposal will bring to a head the crisis. (11) a. John wants to put that car to the test. b. *John wants to put to the test that car.

Concerning the present analysis, one can hardly fail to notice the structural similarity between such idioms, resultative constructions, and D phrasal constructions: work one’s head (butt) off, kick someone around, cry one’s heart out. Another issue regarding the structure of phrasal constructions and discussed in Fraser is the predictability of combining particular verbs with particular particles. Fraser explains this as determined not by the syntactic and semantic properties of the verb, but by its phonologic shape: only monosyllabic and initially stressed disyllabic verbs can occur in VPC. This feature, although common, is not universal, polysyllabic verbs can and do collocate with particles and make up phrasal verbs as well, e.g. average out, consume away. Kayne (1984: 121) in his Small Clause-based analysis of the two phrasal constructions below finds them syntactically homogeneous: [VP V

[SC

NP

(12) switched the light

Particle] off

(13) looked the information up

However, Kayne points to a semantic distinction between the two, claiming that in the first example “the particle expresses a result”, while the second example

Phrasal constructions and resultative meaning

belongs, according to Kayne, to the class of verb-preposition constructions, having an idiomatic character. According to him, the C construction is derived moving the NP to the right. I will not discuss the transformational aspects of this view, but try to argue against the semantic approach of the author. Kayne contrasts the meaning of result to idiomatic meaning as if they were members of the same system. In my opinion, the meaning of both (12) and (13) is the combination of their lexical meaning and the resultative meaning, which I would attribute to the semantics of phrasal verbs and the word order type rather than only to the meaning of the particle. Aarts (1989: 280) argues that phrasal constructions are indeed ‘verbpreposition constructions’. He gives a brief review of their previous theoretical treatment by the Government-Binding Theory and then argues against Kayne’s analysis of the D constructions (1) switched the light off and (2) looked the information up: I will show that the semantic difference between spatial-resultative constructions such as (1) and idiomatic constructions such as (2) is paralleled by the different syntactic behavior of these two constructions. Thus, the claim here is that there are two distinct classes of verb-preposition construction.

Aarts further explains the syntactic difference between (1) and (2) by their subcategorization for Small Clauses (1) or for a NP and a PP complement (2), viewing (2) as transitive prepositional verbs and denying the existence of phrasal verbs per se. Aarts’s view seems very interesting, although his denial of phrasal verbs as a category is hardly justified. I find it difficult to agree that up in (2) is used in its prepositional function, like in looked up (down, around). For the purposes of our analysis, however, the behavior of both (1) and (2) in expressing the meaning of result is quite similar. Radford (1988: 257) suggests a hypothesis of a different nature for the two phrasal constructions. According to him, the D construction involves not a particle, but a PP, whereas the C one contains ‘complex verbs’ switch off and look up regarded as word-level adjuncts. Here a number of important implications can be deduced: the two constructions do not have the same deep structure and are not results of a transformation; the particle can function as a syntactic unit in one case and a morphological one in the other; consequently, each construction is an independent language unit with its own meaning, structure, and function. Hampe (1997: 211) questions the distinction between idiomatic and nonidiomatic phrasal verbs suggested in Fraser (1965, 1976), citing the examples

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Chapter 2

found in Declerck (1976) and Lindner (1983) and showing that non-idiomatic and idiomatic constructions share several syntactic characteristics. She regards idiomaticity as a highly gradable phenomenon, which can be affected by the metaphorical use of either the elements of constructions or the constructions as a whole, or by lexicalization processes. She also claims that the particles are not derived from prepositional phrases, but are independent lexical elements, whose meaning can range from literal adverbial to merely aspectual, grammaticalized uses as aspect/aktionsart markers, a point I strongly support: In (24a), for example, an aspect of completeness, resultativeness or perfectivity is implied in the use of the adverbial particle that is absent in the use of the preposition (cf. (25a)). That this is indeed the case show examples (24b) and (25b) (cf. Declerck 1976: 67): (24) a. John has travelled Europe over. (= all over Europe) b. *He has a bit travelled Europe over. (25) a. He has travelled over Europe. b. He has travelled a bit over Europe.

Hampe discusses the so-called redundant phrasal verbs, which can possibly be replaced by the bare verbs in the same contexts, such as phone (up), rise (up), finish (off), note (down), and concludes that in the cases where both bare verb and phrasal verb could be used, the phrasal verb is the marked member of the opposition. According to Hampe, a speaker’s choice of the phrasal verb expresses his/her attitude, emotion, or evaluation. I agree that ‘subjective comment’, or the way the speaker may use one sign other than another in order to tell us something about his/her own attitude towards the scene, as opposed to merely giving an objective description (see Tobin 1990a: 81), is one of the reasons for selecting a phrasal verb, but as I will show further, the claim for the result of the action the speaker is willing to make is of even greater significance in this case. This brief overview of the linguistic approaches to the structure and constituents of a phrasal construction shows that there is no general agreement on the nature of the postverbal element in phrasal verbs, and the main technique applied to distinguish between particles, prepositions, adverbs (adverbials) and so-called ad-preps is the word order test. Most of the transformational analyses suggest indirectly that the word order variants of a phrasal construction are no more than the effect of transformation, leaving the meaning of the sentence unaffected. This claim may partially be the result of a reliance on invented sentences and an avoidance of corpora containing actual usage that provide numerous counter-examples. The use of the ‘real’ data has led me to

Phrasal constructions and resultative meaning

the conclusion that the word order in phrasal constructions makes a semantic difference. Although I do not endorse the transformational approach to phrasal constructions, the conclusions of Emonds’ research are very significant for my own because of his non-explicit recognition of the initially independent status of a D construction. My objective is to show that the widespread view on the D construction as some ‘deviation’ from its ‘correct’ C form does not accurately reflect the state of things. According to the one-form-one-meaning principle, the D construction can be regarded as a sign in its own right, whose particular individual form reflects its individual meaning.

. Phrasal verbs and resultative meaning Resultative meaning has been recognized by many scholars15 as a part of the semantics of phrasal verbs. However, they are usually inclined to explain this resultative meaning by appealing only to the semantic properties of the particle. One of the first studies to describe the ability of phrasal constructions to picture the action as leading to result was conducted by Kennedy (1920: 27–28) who suggested that phrasal verbs containing the “adverbs“ up and down had a resultative meaning as compared to simple verbs: (14) a. He chopped the tree. b. He chopped down the tree.

According to Kennedy, (14b) conveys the message ‘He chopped the tree and finished his job.’ Kennedy (1920: 96) views resultative meaning as one of the semantic properties of the particles, in his case, particularly up and down, not relating it in any way to the word order factor: “It simply appears that some of the particles – most especially up – have in some cases traded their full resultative meanings for the bare meaning of ‘result achieved’.” Anastasijevic (1954: 37) discusses the meaning of the particles up, down, in, out, on, off, which are referred to as ‘adverbial extensions’, and the relation between the simple verb and the verb extended with a particle. While analyzing the semantic functions of the particle up, the author claims the following: “Up may express the idea of summation or enumeration; a final or total sum or amount, as in add up, mount up, sum up, tot up, etc.” However, Sroka (1972: 47) argues that these examples do not illustrate the semantic function of the particle, since the meaning of summation or a fi-

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Chapter 2

nal amount is wrongly ascribed here to the particle, being actually the lexical meaning of the verb. Hampe (1997: 207) suggests explanations for the linguistic ‘overdetermination’ of ‘redundant’ phrasal verbs, pointing out that they are marked as colloquial items conveying attitudes and emotions of the speaker in respect to the corresponding simple verbs, which she regards as their unmarked counterparts. Hampe claims that ‘redundant’ phrasal verbs impose process- or end-point focus, the latter representing an emphasis on the accomplishment character of actions. Such a profiling can itself be redundant, e.g. with verbs denoting starting or end-point, she remarks. Bolinger (1971: 96) in his discussion of English phrasal verbs points out the fact that the main semantic function of phrasal verbs is to denote result: “The notion of resultant condition is essential to phrasal verbs. . . . the phrasal verb pictures the action as leading to a conclusion.” In his view, again, the meaning of result is just a semantic feature of particles: The importance of the resultant condition suggests a hypothesis about the nature of the adverbial particles that may form part of a phrasal verb. I offer this: In its core meaning. . . the particle must contain two features, one of motionthrough-location, the other of terminus or result. (Bolinger 1971: 85)

In my opinion, the combined meaning of process and result is an invariant meaning of the phrasal verb as a whole rather than of the particle alone. It can be explained by the synergesis: when the verb and the particle merge, the lexical meaning of the formation acquires in all cases an additional semantic feature of Result. Verbal particles are regarded by some modern scholars as sharing many common features with resultatives. Neeleman and Weerman (1992: 446) explore Dutch particles and resultatives and draw an analogy between the two categories, pointing to a great similarity existing between the Dutch and English languages in this respect: . . . it should be noted that several authors analyze English particles as adjoined to V at D-structure, just like Dutch particles (see, e.g., Johnson 1991). Keyser and Roeper (1992) go a step further. They argue that not only particles but also resultatives form a unit with the verb at D-structure, and observe that particles and resultatives are mutually exclusive. Thus, we cannot have sentences like those in (65):

(65) a. *John broke up the stick in half. b. *John lost out touch.

Phrasal constructions and resultative meaning

c. *John regave himself up. d. *John outruns Mary over.

Performing a diachronic comparison of English and Dutch particles, the authors distinguish between the two categories as adjoined to morphology (in Dutch) versus adjoined to syntax (in English). The similarity between resultatives and verb particles refers not only to their syntactic function, but also to their semantics – attaching the resultative meaning to the syntactic construction. Tenny (1994) discusses the semantic role of verb particles as converting non-measuring internal arguments into measuring ones. She points out that verb particles enforce a delimited reading of the verbal complex, which is semantically parallel to our concept of resultative reading: “‘To eat the apple up’ means to consume it completely, the eating event progressing through the apple, and the end of the event coinciding with the end of the apple” (37). Tenny recognizes the resultative meaning of verb-particle constructions, which she does not attribute to the particles as such, but to their effect on the invariant meaning of the construction: “These particles also have a particular semantic property; they impart a resultative sense to the sentence or verb phrase” (147–148). She claims further: If I look up a name or think up an answer my action of looking or thinking has a clear result or termination. The name has been found; there is an answer that did not exist before. Either the object itself has been changed or the activity has progressed ‘through’ the object itself during the course of the event. (Tenny 1994: 149)

Tenny’s analysis may serve to support the hypothesis that the invariant meaning of any phrasal verb contains the semantic feature of Result imposed on the simple verb in the course of adding the particle.

. Word order in phrasal constructions The possibility of placing the particle before or after the object NP is part and parcel of the English language and so common that most grammar books do not regard it as worthy particular attention. Linguists unanimously recognize two alternative positions of the particle as to the object and mention this language fact:

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Chapter 2

Usually there are two possible positions for the object. So you can say: object object I turned off the light. or I turned the light off. (Murphy 1985: 262) With most transitive phrasal verbs the particle can either precede or follow the direct object: They turned on the light ≈ They turned the light on (Quirk et al. 1982: 304)

Despite the obvious difference in word order, these two constructions are described in many dictionaries as two possible ways to convey the same meaning: Sometimes the parts of the phrasal verbs can be separated. We can say, for example, The soldiers blew up the bridge. (a) The soldiers blew the bridge up. (b) Blow up is an example of a phrasal verb where you can use either (a) or (b). (Courtney 1983: preface)

Attempts to account for this phenomenon are aimed at discovering regularities in their distribution based on various factors, though rarely on semantic ones. I will discuss some of such analyses in chronological order. One of the earliest studies of the conditions governing word order in phrasal constructions was performed by van Dongen (1919). He listed some syntactic and prosodic conditions for the higher frequency of the continuous word order: –

– – – –

object at the beginning of the clause (as in passive constructions, topicalizations for prosodic reasons and in zeugmas of complex sentences, where two verbs are used with one and the same object); object in the form of a very long NP or a clause; object for prosodic reasons at the end of the sentence; no object because of the intransitivity of the verb; order of the elements in the clause for reasons of rhythm: verb-particleobject.

Erades (1961: 57) disagrees with the above criteria and suggests a quite different explanation to the problem of word order in phrasal verbs: The principle governing the place of the objects. . . is neither stress nor length nor rhythm, but something quite different: the news value which the idea denoted by the object has in the sentence. Objects denoting ideas that have news value, no matter whether they are nouns or pronouns, long or short, have end-position; those that have no such value come between verb and adverb.

Phrasal constructions and resultative meaning

I do not see any contradiction between Erades’ position and my own, since in the cases where the action is perceived as result-oriented, the idea denoted by the NP usually has no news value: (15) a. He chopped down the tree (not smb’s opinion). – NP has the news value b. He chopped the tree down (not off or up). – No news value for NP

Another parameter brought about by van Dongen and shared later by Bolinger (1971) and Palmer (1974) relates the distinction in word order to a literal/ figurative meaning of a given VPC. They claim that the post-verbal position of the particle is typical for the idiomatic phrasal constructions and vice versa: With transitive phrasal verbs there is a greater likelihood of the particle preceding the noun phrase if idiomatic, and of following it, if not: (18) a. They covered up the crime. b. They covered the body up.

(Palmer 1974: 227)

Later, this opinion was shared by Tenny (1994: 179), who claims that the separability of the verb and the particle can also be influenced by the degree of idiomatization of a verb-particle combination: Highly idiomaticized combinations are less likely to be separable from the verb: (a) below may be interpreted in the literal or the figurative sense, but for many speakers, (b) may only be interpreted in the literal sense: a. Don’t throw up your lunch. b. Don’t throw your lunch up.

I will show in the analysis of my data that the word order in phrasal constructions does not show any regular dependence on their idiomaticity, the verb and the particle appearing adjacently or separately in both idiomatic and nonidiomatic constructions. The examples I will cite in the subsequent chapters show that the word order reflects different views on the action/event as either marked for result or not. Kroch and Small (1978) consider the effect of prestigious language norms, or grammatical ideology, on speech. Among others, the authors analyze the social-ideological grounds of the word order choice in phrasal constructions as a reflection of the speakers’ belonging to a certain sociolinguistic category. Two groups of speakers were compared during several hours of talk-show conversation on Philadelphia radio station WWDB-FM: a group of hosts and studio guests as speaking a more standard English, and a group of callers as speaking a less standard English. The results of the comparison show that the group of callers (less standard) uses the D constructions substantially more frequently

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Chapter 2

(53%) than the host/guest group (standard) (37%). In order to exclude the possibility that this difference is actually motivated by some linguistic factors, the authors checked the effects of length of the object NP, degree of semantic dependence of particle on the verb, and stress. The results of the analysis show that the difference between the host/guest and caller groups is rarely influenced by the linguistic environment. According to Kroch and Small, if the noun phrase contains more than three words, both groups prefer using the C phrasal construction, though the hostguest group (standard) prefers it significantly more (73%) as compared to the caller (less standard) group (58%). The factor of semantic dependence, or tight semantic connection between the verb and the particle, displays a more frequent choice of C versus D constructions in both groups, being also much more significant in idiomatic constructions (82% in the host/guest (standard) group versus 62% in the caller (less standard) group). In the phrasal constructions where the particle is relatively independent of the verb, the preference is given to the D constructions and the results are very much the same in both groups (71% in the caller group, 70% in the host/guest group). As it was discovered, “the host/guest group uses the V Prt NP order more than the caller group only to the extent that this order reflects the closeness of the semantic relationship between verb and particle” (52). I find the results of this analysis relevant to my own because: 1) they deal with spoken communication and thus extend the conclusions to both modes of language; 2) they confirm the claim that the length of the object NP does not serve as the only reason for using one or another construction; 3) they support the hypothesis of the semantic rather than prosodic or other reasons for the word order difference. The caller group displays a more sensitive linguistic behavior, being guided by the message only, while the host/guest group is less flexible due to the traditional attitude that the C construction is more ‘standard’. Another interesting point may be a topic for investigation here: the caller group applying the discontinuous resultative word order more frequently uses many more interrogative sentences. As I am going to suggest further, questions are more usually marked for result as compared to statements, and this may be one of the explanations of Kroch and Small’s findings. Stowell (1981) assumes that when the particle is adjacent to the verb, we deal with its ‘incorporation’ within that verb resulting in a so-called complex verb. The discontinuous structure, according to Stowell, is a result of two consecutive transformations: NP Incorporation and Particle Incorporation. This view does not touch upon the semantic aspects of phrasal verbs and treats the difference in word order as stemming from different types of transformation.

Phrasal constructions and resultative meaning

Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik (1982: 304) suggest that the choice of the particle position depends either on the length of the object or on stress demands: “With most transitive phrasal verbs, the particle can either precede or follow direct object. The particle tends to precede the object if the object is long or if the intention is that the object should receive end-focus.” This might be true in most cases, but still does not account for all of them. As my discourse analysis shows, the verb is indeed less likely to be separated from the particle by long objects (5 words and more). However, with 1 to 4 words long objects, the word order is usually motivated semantically and does not depend on merely formal characteristics, such as linear size of the elements. As for the end-focus, the object preceded by the particle may either receive it or not: (16) a. That’s exactly the way I’m bringing up these chíldren. b. That’s exactly the way I’m bringing úp these children. (Bolinger 1971: 54)

It is interesting that the correlation between the semantic focus and the place of the particle is much more systematic in D constructions – in all the examples the semantic focus is invariably on the postposed particle emphasizing the resultative nature of the action. Kilby (1984: 112) discusses the difference in the word order in terms of style or register and states that the constructions with postposed particles sound more polite than those with the particles adjacent to the verb. He compares the following two sentences: a) Take your coat off. b) Take off your coat. Obviously tone of voice and other such factors are the crucial deciding factor in the ‘friendliness’ of a message, but (a) is the sort of thing which you might well say to a friend who has just come to visit you, while (b) has more the tone of the mugger or immigration official.

Kilby further suggests conducting a sociolinguistic investigation aimed at finding a satisfactory solution for the word order in phrasal constructions as an issue of style. The field studies I performed show that this is correct only if the respondents are offered a choice between the two phrases given out of context. Under certain circumstances and depending on the context and the speaker’s intention, both can be used in formal/informal oral/written texts, and (b) can be addressed to a friend and, conversely, (a) can be uttered in a formal situation.

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Chapter 2

As can be seen from this brief overview of some traditional and modern syntactic analyses, a difference in meaning between the two ‘parallel’ phrasal constructions has rarely been considered relevant. In most cases, the position of the object has been explained by its length, difference in style and register, or prosodic factors. This approach is characteristic of many sentence-oriented theories analyzing semantics separately from lexicon, morphology, or syntax. The semantic significance of word order in general has been pointed out and investigated by a number of linguists of various theoretical orientations who studied this phenomenon with regard to different languages and linguistic categories.16 Some of them have explored the semantics of word order in phrasal constructions.17 The sign-oriented analyses have shown that “. . . with respect both to word order and to all other categories and processes, for every difference in form there is a concomitant, associated, and invariant difference in meaning” (Waugh 1976: 84). Accordingly, I will view the C and D phrasal constructions as two linguistic signs, each having its own signal (V Particle NP and V NP Particle) to which an invariant meaning is attached. These two signs consist of the same elements, but the order of the elements differs. If we adopt the approach that the difference in signal existing between these two signs should bring about difference in meaning, our task then is to discover this difference, however slight it might be. Bolinger (1971: 82) asserts that in most cases there is no practical difference in meaning caused by the position of the particle. The difference he admits lies in what word is modified by the particle – the noun (the D position) or the verb (the C one). He proceeds saying that “one case where the affinities are kept fairly clear is with get and make: (17) a. Get in that report. (deliver it) b. Get that report in. (delivered) (18) a. He’s getting out a paper. (publishing) b. We’d better get this paper out. (issued) (19) a. They made clear their intention. (clarified) b. They made their intention clear. (unmistakable) (20) a. They got off the man. (stood up, rose from him) b. They got the man off. (acquitted)

Tobin (1993: 262) states that the feature Result is present in all the above examples, but, in his opinion, it is due to the semantic markedness of get and make for the feature Result. I find it possible to supplement Bolinger’s view with the following: when the particle modifies the noun, an action or event is usually re-

Phrasal constructions and resultative meaning

ported as resultative. When the particle modifies the verb, such an action may be either resultative or not: (18a) He’s getting out a paper. According to Bolinger (1971: 540), the type of word order where the particle is postposed shifting the semantic burden of the utterance onto it emphasizes the meaning of the phrasal verb: The phrasal verb is not a case of optional or obligatory or stylistic hop and skip of the particle but is part of our means of achieving semantic focus. By putting the particle at the end and accenting it, we recapture the power to make the verb the high point without explicitly degrading anything else.

Analyzing the semantics of the word order in phrasal constructions, Bolinger notices that the D version expresses resultative meaning more intensely: “He put up the money differs from He put the money up in that the latter signifies more clearly a resultant condition” (1971: 120). Bolinger (1971: 60) states that in certain cases moving the particle is impossible without changing the message: (21) a. He took off his hát and bówed. b. He took his hát off and bówed.

In the first, the action of removal is a gesture: take off = do off. In the second, the hat is perhaps removed for fear it may fall off in the act of bowing. My claim is that this semantic change should not be restricted to certain cases, but rather holds for each and every case of shifting the particle. Sroka (1972: 100) contrasts the distribution and the communicative value of the verb-particle constructions containing the so-called ‘Adverb-Preposition words’ (A-P words) in either adverbial or prepositional function. The position of the A-P word serves as the basis for a semantic opposition made up by the two word-order positions, each of them communicating a different message: (ac ) Ross, Business III, 104: Then for heaven’s sake let’s telephone and get it o v e r. (bc ) WILLIAMS, Accident 2, 40: I thought it was something I had to cope with myself. I thought I’d get o v e r it.

As I will show in Chapter 4, the position of a particle always signifies a difference in the meaning of a PV, although this difference may sometimes be very subtle. In the above examples from Sroka, the change in the AP-word position brings about an obvious difference in meaning: finish in (ac ) versus cope with in (bc ), which is fully consistent with our approach to C and D phrasal constructions as to two different linguistic signs. His examples can also serve as an illustration of the claim that the D word order (ac ) is marked for the result of

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Chapter 2

the action. Another important thing these examples show is that the pronoun can appear before or after the verbal particle depending on the speaker’s intent and the message conveyed. Sroka’s examples use a pronominal object it, which brings up the issue of pronouns as objects in phrasal constructions. As I mentioned earlier, pronominal objects show a tendency to follow the verb immediately, but this tendency can be explained semantically, on the one hand, and is not universal, on the other. Pronouns usually have immediate antecedents in the discourse and refer to some previously known information. Therefore, their position between the verb and the particle reflects the main communication principles of the placement of new information, the end-focus, and the weight and balance principle, placing the emphasis on the particle (cf. Biber 1995). Since phrasal constructions with pronominal objects are usually discontinuous, they are hypothetically marked for the result of the action. When the object is familiar and conveys no new information, the result of the action is more likely to be in focus. Besides, the position of the pronouns is less rigid than is generally believed. When the pronoun should be emphasized or differentiated from others, as well as in the cases where the change in its position involves change in message, pronouns do appear to the right of an adverbial particle: (22) The orthopedist had prescribed six weeks of physical therapy and so far, I’d done three. There was nothing for it but to work my way patiently from one machine to the next. I was usually the only woman in the place at that hour and I tended to distract myself from the pain, sweat, and nausea by checking out men’s bodies while they were checking out mine. (Grafton 1986: 2)

There are numerous examples, especially in spoken language, when the pronominal objects follow the particle. According to Mills, in two days of September 1993 he observed the following sentences, one of them overheard on National Public radio, another on a re-run of the popular ‘reality TV’ show Cops on Fox TV, and the third one in a food shop of the University of Cincinnati: (23) (7) He wanted to help out them. NPR 9/93 (11) He went in the house and put down something. Cops, 9/93 (13) Can you ring up this? Campus yogurt shop, 9/23/93 (Mills 1994: 197)

Mills further discusses these examples as being perceived by the speakers and the listeners as unremarkable, causing no miscommunication or any desire to repair. These and other examples show that the requirements of the

Phrasal constructions and resultative meaning

communication often affect the word order and override the rules of prescriptive grammar. The word order of the phrasal constructions with pronominal objects can also be explained applying Diver’s (1986) theory of Systems of Differentiation which I will describe briefly in Chapter 3. Pronouns, according to Diver, are used when the identity of the referent is established perfectly well, and no Differentiation from Other is necessary. Consequently, the only kind of differentiation applicable is between the former and the resultant state of the object – Differentiation from Self, which is achieved regularly by the D word order pattern. Differentiation from Other He painted the red barn.

Differentiation from Self He painted the barn red. (Diver 1986: 46)

According to Diver, in the Differentiation from Other case, ‘red’ narrows down the range of referents of ‘barn’ and excludes other possible referents, like nonred barns. However, in the Differentiation from Self case, the referent goes through a change of state, and the barn becomes red as a result of the painting. Tenny (1994: 152) draws a parallel between extraposed verb particles and resultatives. She uses the terms ‘verb particle’ (by which she only implies the extraposed particle) and ‘resultative’ as synonyms, emphasizing this way the similarity of their position and meaning: Resultatives, like verb particles, serve the semantic function of introducing a temporal endpoint and measuring-out the event. Particles do this by indicating the event ’travels through’ the object completely (e.g. eat the apple up) and resultatives by indicating the endpoint is achieved when the object is in a certain state (e.g. paint the barn red).

Tenny’s claim that extraposed verb particles usually impose resultative meaning on the event described by a verb (148–149) agrees with our view that the D construction is used for emphasizing the resultative meaning due to its marked-for-result word order.

. The system “V NP – V Particle NP – V NP Particle” This section shows that in the opposition of VP containing simple verbs versus C and D phrasal constructions, each member of the opposition has its own specific invariant meaning, and that the established opposition serves as one

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Chapter 2

of the significant tools for reflecting the perception of actions and/or events as either neutral (Process-Result) or result-oriented: c.

to eat the apple – to eat up the apple – to eat the apple up

My hypothesis is that the VP composed of a simple verb + NP has the invariant meaning of presentation of action/event as neutral for result, i.e. allowing either process or result and determined by the lexical meaning of the verb. It stands in opposition with the C construction, having the invariant meaning of presentation of action/event as either process or result with greater possibility for result. The invariant meaning for the D construction may be postulated as presentation of action/event as resultative, irrespectively of the initial lexical meaning of the verb: (24) a. to eat the apple b. to eat up the apple c. to eat the apple up

neutral for result greater possibility for result compulsory claim for result

As I have shown in this chapter, many linguistic analyses of Modern English have attempted to give an explanation of why English speakers may choose phrasal verbs over simple ones, as well as prefer one structural variant of a phrasal construction to the other. Let us consider this phenomenon within the framework of the sign-oriented approach. One of the main assumptions underlying this approach is that there must be a strict correspondence between form and meaning of the linguistic sign as the most effective way to achieve understanding is to preserve one signal for one meaning. As it is formulated in Penhallurick (1987: 104), There are, in fact, strong reasons for assuming that the normal relationship between form and meaning, particularly with grammatical forms, is one-to-one. This is the normal relation between form and meaning in all other systems of communication, whether human or not. If human languages are in some fundamental sense systems of communication, then we should expect them to share this basic characteristic with other such systems.

It can be logically concluded that a change of signal (form) should bring about some change in concept (meaning), and vice versa, there should be some internal reason (motivated by the message conveyed) for any change of external signal. This principle is best presented in Bolinger (1977: x): “. . . the natural condition of a language is to preserve one form for one meaning, and one meaning for one form.”

Phrasal constructions and resultative meaning

Verb phrases containing simple verbs, as well as C and D phrasal constructions, are distinct linguistic signs where the signals are grouped together in different ways. It suggests that their meanings are not identical, but does not necessarily imply that they differ greatly or are not subtle. Yet, the existence of different forms with different meanings no matter how subtle should be explained and clarified. I think the best way to go about language puzzles is spelled out by Diver (1969: 45): “The task confronting linguistics resembles that of other sciences and consists in searching for explanation of the non-random character of observable phenomena.” The explicit distinction in morphological structure as a reflection of the implicit semantic distinction of VPs with simple and phrasal verbs, similar to the explicit word order distinction as a reflection of the implicit semantic distinction between the two types of phrasal constructions can be explained by varying degrees of the resultative meaning they convey. I maintain that the systematic opposition of simple verbs versus phrasal verbs is explained by the relative degree of resultativeness in their invariant meanings. I further contend that in C versus D phrasal constructions, the more complex (D) form is the one expressly marked for Result. In other words, it means that actions and/or events expressed by this form are always viewed from the point of view of their Result, the notion of Result being applied here in its broad sense, i.e. spatially (destination, boundary, limit), temporally (completion, terminus, endpoint), and existentially (consequence, telic point, goal, outcome). This study presumes that C constructions are more marked for result than simple verbs constructions, but less than D constructions, which reflects the approach to markedness similar to Comrie (1976: 112): . . . markedness is apparently not an all-to-none choice (marked versus unmarked), since there are oppositions where the markedness difference between the members is very great, and oppositions where the difference is much less, i.e. there can be degrees of markedness.

In the light of the above, we assume that the relationship between the members of the opposition can be described in the following way: (25) to eat the apple – to eat up the apple – to eat the apple up process/result greater possibility for result result

The invariant meaning of simple verb constructions may be marked or unmarked for Result depending on the lexical meaning of these verbs. This phe-

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Chapter 2

nomenon has been studied and demonstrated in the analysis of verb pairs in Tobin (1993): (26) to do something (U) – to make something (M) (27) to end the conversation (U) – to finish the conversation (M)

Quite a new type of relationship exists between simple verbs and their combinations with particles. The morphological development of simple, or lexical, verbs into phrasal verbs is accompanied by the change in the invariant meaning, which acquires the distinctive feature of result: the morphological opposition simple verb versus phrasal verb reflects the semantic opposition process/result versus greater possibility for result

The greater semantic complexity of phrasal verbs is consistent with the semiotic principle of synergesis, which applies to many disciplines, including psychology – Gestalt theory: “. . . a whole has properties that its parts, taken individually, do not have. Harmony and rhythm are properties of a sequence of notes but never of an isolated note. . .” (Holenstein 1976: 16–17). The difference between simple verb phrases and phrasal constructions lies in the greater morphological and semantic complexity of the latter forms due to the additional semantic feature of Result they possess. The word order change – extraposition of the particle – enhances the meaning of result even more, and the D constructions are often treated as a subcategory of resultative constructions: For example, Jonathan broke the window seems to mean that the window is simply broken, while Jonathan broke the window up adds a sense that the window is completely broken, and Jonathan broke the window to bits adds the sense that the window is in little pieces. (Tenny 1994: 109)

Bolinger (1971) in his detailed analysis of phrasal verbs in English points out that they possess two semantic features, the process and the result. Like the majority of linguists, he does not see the positional variants of verb-particle constructions as a matter of linguistic interest and claims that their distribution in language is almost arbitrary (ibid.: 82): Though the phrasal verb embodies both the action and the result, the position of the particle tends to make one or the other paramount. With transitive verbs, when the particle is postposed it tends to modify the noun; when it stands next to the verb it behaves more like a verbal affix. Much of the time

Phrasal constructions and resultative meaning

there is no practical difference – if there were, the prosodic nuances would have to be sacrificed.

Although I endorse the assumption that the meaning of the phrasal verb integrates process and result, as well as the recognition of the significance of the position of the particle, I find the denial of the semantic difference between the two forms contradictory to the one-sign-one-meaning principle put forward by Bolinger himself. I would have modified the second part of the above quotation in the following way: “When the particle follows the verb, the meaning of the construction is both process and result, whereas if the particle follows the object, the construction acquires an unambiguous resultative meaning.” Later, on the next page, Bolinger (1971: 83) arrives at a very similar conclusion: In

Don’t scuff your shoes. Don’t scuff up your shoes. Don’t scuff your shoes up. the first refers only to the action, while the second and third both refer to the effect on the shoes, with the latter making the effect more explicit.

According to the hypothesis set forth in this analysis, the order of constituents in phrasal constructions is not arbitrary, but determined by the specific message conveyed in a particular context. If the reader still finds it difficult to notice the difference in meaning between the C and the D constructions, this can be explained by the relatively short contexts in which they have been cited by now. Continuous = Process/Result Discontinuous = Result

This hypothesis is an immediate consequence of the central sign-oriented principle about the character of form-meaning relationship, namely the nonsynonymy hypothesis: difference in form is bound to bring about difference in meaning. It is natural to assume that ‘change in form brings about change in meaning’ principle holds for any change of the particle position, since the result of such change is a different linguistic sign, possessing its own signal and invariant meaning. The two phrasal constructions under discussion cannot be viewed as being fully synonymous because, as I will show, they cannot replace each other in all contexts, but rather each possesses a single invariant meaning distinguishing it from the other.

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Chapter 2

I can summarize the premises of the present analysis in the following way: 1. Both C and D constructions share a common semantic domain, which can be defined as ‘manner of perceiving a certain action/event.’ 2. Word order in a phrasal construction may be regarded as independent linguistic sign, which implies that the two phrasal constructions are not completely synonymous. Instead, each construction is assumed to possess a single invariant meaning differentiating it from the other and motivating its distribution in the language. 3. The invariant meanings of C and D phrasal constructions are in an unmarked/marked relationship revolving around the distinctive feature of Result, which reflects two alternative ways of perceiving actions/events. 4. The marked construction (D) is viewed as making a specific claim for the semantic feature result: an action or event is viewed as including its result, goal, destination, endpoint, consequence, etc. 5. The unmarked form (C) makes no specific claim or is neutral for the semantic feature result: an action/event may be perceived from the point of view of a process and/or result. This is based on the notion of ‘Jakobsonian’ markedness which confers a neutral (+/–) value to the unmarked member of the dyad, unlike other approaches which treat it as lacking the distinctive feature in all cases, or being negatively marked. 6. Out of the two semantic features – process and result – I chose result as a marked one due to its greater semantic weight: an action/event is presumably viewed holistically and integrally, in regard to its onset and/or performance together with its result (goal, conclusion, consequence, destination, telic endpoint, etc.), which is more complex than viewing it as merely an ongoing process. 7. Iconically, placing the particle in final position (usually reinforced by the stress shift) reflects the message of finality, or result. 8. Isomorphically, I can observe that the phonetic (prosody), morphological (word formation), syntactic (word order), and semantic (semantic focus) aspects of language all come together to mark the D phrasal construction for Result. 9. In accordance with the theory of markedness, the unmarked member of the opposition is more flexible, neutral and open, since it allows for any kinds of actions/events. The marked member of the opposition makes a specific claim for Result and is reserved only for such linguistic contexts where an action/event is perceived together with its result, which respectively restricts its usage.

Phrasal constructions and resultative meaning

All the aforesaid allows me to suggest that the choice of one phrasal construction over the other is not arbitrary, or determined by any descriptive or stylistic rule, but is motivated by the subtle semantic distinction between them, based on the different perception of actions and/or events in regard to the semantic feature of Result.

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Chapter 3

Resultativeness

Resultativeness has very rarely been treated as a linguistic category in its own right, although this term has lingered long in the arena of linguistic discussion. It was applied in an intuitive way in studies on the topic of aspect and aspectuality in English and mentioned in a peripheral way in respect to a wide range of grammatical phenomena. Generally, it has been merged with the perfective aspect or the passive voice18 or attributed to the semantics of certain word classes19 or morphemes.20 The notion of result has been studied from different angles and analyzed within different theoretical frameworks, but the task to establish a system of oppositions underlying the category of resultativeness in English is yet to be accomplished and remains a topic for future discussion. I will try to bring the existing analyses together and add my own in search for a lexico-grammatical system reflecting the opposition of non-resultative versus resultative forms. In this chapter, I will review the notion of resultativeness, approaching it from the sign-oriented point of view based on the concepts of invariance, markedness, and distinctive feature theory. I will attempt to define the status of this category which has multiple manifestations in English, and I will also outline the various lexical and grammatical means of its representation. Instead of merging or delimiting resultativeness to pure ‘aspectual’ or ‘passive’ role, I will propose a system of oppositions of linguistic signs based on the distinctive feature of Result, supported by my findings about one of the most important tools for expressing resultative meaning – phrasal constructions. I will show that the category of resultativeness is represented in English by a system of various lexico-grammatical oppositions, which appear at all levels of language structure: the oppositions of morphemes, auxiliaries, lexical pairs, verb complements, tense, aspect, and voice forms, simple versus phrasal verbs, C versus D phrasal constructions, as well as different types of sentences (affirmative versus negative, declarative versus interrogative, etc.). Some of these systems of oppositions have already been investigated and described, and I do not claim any priority for these findings. Others require further investigation in order to establish the members of the oppositions and validate the ‘Result-

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Chapter 3

oriented’ hypothesis. In any case, such a comprehensive representation, though uncommon and in some cases hypothetical, allows one to view resultativeness as a category in its own right. The tasks I intend to accomplish in this study can be roughly defined as: 1. an attempt to integrate the scattered individual analyses into a single cohesive picture of the tools used for expressing resultativeness in English; 2. a close examination of one of the significant Result-based oppositions, namely simple verbs versus phrasal verbs, as well as C versus D phrasal constructions, applying the principles of markedness, synergesis, and invariance.

. Traditional views of resultativeness Looking into the historical development of various categories in English, we discover that ‘resultativeness’ has never been assigned an independent status or given a definition, and no two linguists have agreed upon what this category comprises. Many scholars have attempted to link ‘resultative meaning’ to various tenses and aspects in English, particularly to the ‘perfect’ tenses and the passive voice, others attributed it to certain morphemes, functional words, and word forms. Different authors used different terms, and this added up to the vagueness and fuzziness associated with resultative meaning and its realization.21 The distinction between lexical and grammatical forms based on the claim linguists make (or not) for the result of the action/event has been observed and discussed, though usually rather marginally, by various authors representing many linguistic schools. Chafe, for example, regards resultatives as a type of derivational suffixes (1970: 124): The item labeled resultative is a derivational unit, which converts a verb root which is intrinsically a process into one which is derivatively a state. process -> state The dish broke. root root + resultative The dish is broken.

According to this definition, the term ‘resultative’ refers here to the suffix -en, denoting the state derived from the process and applied regularly for passive formation. In Comrie (1976) the term ‘resultative’ is interpreted as “. . . indicating the successful completion of a situation.” Furthermore, Comrie suggests a concept of resultativity as associated with and included in the aspectual category of perfectivity: “But the resultativity is only one possible type of perfectivity, and the

Resultativeness

term ‘resultative’, like the term ‘completed’, puts unnecessary emphasis on the final stage of the situation rather than on its totality” (21). [italics mine] [M.G.] Both statements do not sound convincing to me: I can see no reason why unsuccessful completion of a situation is denied its resultative meaning, and would have omitted the word ‘successful’ as unnecessarily restrictive: (28) a. He has passed his driving test successfully. – successful completion b. He has barely passed his driving test. – successful (?) completion c. He has not passed his driving test. – unsuccessful completion

There is no reason to believe that failing someone’s driving test is less resultative than passing it. The above examples (28) may lead us to think that resultative meaning is just a part of the perfective meaning, a very common opinion among linguists of various schools and periods. As can be seen from examples (29), this is not always true: (29) a. She has been teaching English for 25 years. b. She has lived in New York since 1982.

The meaning of the perfective aspect can contain no resultative element in it as in (29), whereas the resultative meaning can be expressed by different forms with no reference to perfectivity: (30) a. He watered the tulips flat. b. I turned this offer down. c. She broke the mirror into pieces.

Furthermore, the ‘completion’ of the action should be distinguished from its ‘completeness,’ which implies that “the speaker has in mind the performance of the action as a total event” (Forsyth 1970: 11), or as an ‘indivisible whole’, i.e. together with its outcome. ‘Completeness’ does not necessarily imply the actual completion of the action, since an action perceived as a total event may specifically not have been carried out. On the other hand, an action, which in reality is completed, may nevertheless be perceived as ‘finished’ in a temporal sense only, without having in view its result. Therefore, we find the concept ‘completeness’ much closer to the resultative reading: the action is perceived as a total event, including its result. The authors of A University Grammar of English, Quirk et al., claim that the resultative meaning is a semantic property of prepositions or prepositional phrases, for example, of over:

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Chapter 3

6.16 Resultative meaning All prepositions which have motional meaning can also have a static resultative meaning indicating the state of having reached the destination: I managed to get over the fence (i.e. so that I was then on the other side) Resultative meaning is not always distinguishable out of context from other static meanings; its presence is often signalled, however, by certain adverbs: already, just, at last, (not) yet, etc. (Quirk et al. 1982: 142)

The difficulties experienced in establishing the category of resultativeness in English are sometimes ascribed to the fact that this category was borrowed or mechanically transmitted from the Slavonic languages, where verbs are used in either a perfective or an imperfective aspect. The grammarians investigating the Slavic verb usually use the term ‘result’ referring to the category of aspect. Streitberg (1889) distinguished between three semantic categories, which govern the whole verbal system of the Slavonic as well as the Baltic dialects: 1. The imperfective or durative or continuous aspect which gives the action in its uninterrupted duration or continuity; 2. The perfective or resultative aspect, which adds the additional notion of termination to the sense of the verb; 3. The iterative aspect, which gives the notion of its repetition. (In: Chatterjee 1988: 5)

Here the term ‘resultative’ is deemed to be identical to the ‘perfective’, although, as I have already explained, these categories overlap only partially, remaining independent and distinct. A similar approach is found in Forsyth (1970: 3) in his detailed analysis of the aspect in the Russian verb: The category of aspect indicates that the action expressed by the verb is presented: a. in its course, in process of its performance. . .; b. as something restricted, concentrated at some limit of its performance, be it the moment of its origin or beginning of the action or the moment of its completion or result. . . [italics mine, M.G.]

The resultative meaning is one of the essential meanings of the perfective verb in Russian, according to Forsyth: “(b) The perfective verb is consequently used whenever emphasis is placed upon a new state of affairs produced by the action, i.e. the result or consequence of the action” (ibid.: 8). [italics mine, M.G.]

Resultativeness

Forsyth remarks further that “This does not mean that ‘result’ is the principal meaning of the perfective, as is assumed, for instance, by Mazon. Many actions expressed by perfective verbs produce no results beyond themselves” (ibid.: 8f.). As far as Forsyth’s interpretation of the term ‘resultative’ is concerned, he restricts this category to a very specific semantic group included in ‘procedurals’ (Aktionsarten): The only type of procedural to which the name resultative can be properly attached is that formed by the addition to a simple verb of the prefix do– and the reflexive particle, and expressing achievement of the desired result [italics mine, M.G.] or, ironically, performance of the action to an undesirable or absurd degree: dobudilsa, dozvonilsa. (ibid.: 23)

The two forms establish a regular opposition as to the distinctive feature of completion or result of the action/event: budil [‘woke/was waking someone up’] – dobudilsa [‘has been waking someone up and finally succeeded’]; zvonil [‘called/was calling’] – dozvonilsa [‘has been calling for some time and finally succeeded’]. One of the basic works devoted to resultativeness is Nedjalkov’s Typology of resultative constructions, where he defines ‘resultative’ in the following way: The term resultative is applied to those verb forms that express a state implying a previous event. The difference between the stative and the resultative is as follows: the stative expresses a state of a thing without any implication of its origin, while the resultative expresses both a state and the preceding action it has resulted from. [italics mine, M.G.] (Nedjalkov 1988: 6)

In his cross-linguistic analysis, Nedjalkov concludes that resultatives may constitute part of other verbal categories and gives several possible types of relationship between the resultative form and other grammatical categories in various languages. The resultative (Nedjalkov 1988: 22) may enter into the system of tense forms (as in Archi, one of the Caucasian languages spoken in Dagestan, where it is called the perfect) or voice forms (as in German), appear as one of the functions of some other form, entering into either the voice, or aspect, or tense system (as in Russian, Chinese or Selkup, one of the Ural languages, the Samoyed group), or occur at a juncture of two categories (e.g., in Evenki, or Tungus language, spread in the north-east of Siberia, it is represented by passive forms in the perfect only). As for the English language, Nedjalkov claims that the English resultative is homonymous with the passive form, and regards the opposition of perfec-

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Chapter 3

tive versus passive forms presented below as a regular way to derive resultative forms in English verbs (ibid.: 7–8): (9) a. John has opened his eyes b. John’s eyes are opened; (12) a. John has built the house → b. The house is built;

I agree that the meaning of the English passive forms may usually contain the element of Result, but I view resultativeness as a wider lexico-grammatical category, distinct from passive, perfect, or other categories, which may partially overlap in form with the passive remaining voice-neutral per se. To support this view, I will present examples of resultative constructions in the active voice which exist alongside those in the passive, since I claim that the category of resultativeness is not restricted to any specific tense, aspect, voice or mood, but cuts across all of them. English has traditionally been regarded as having developed no distinct morphological tools for resultative derivation. Consequently, the opposition Process/Result has been analyzed in English mostly in semantic terms, which, in turn, resulted in a diversity of meanings that various linguists attached to this notion. The authors discussing the category of resultativeness have used different terms reflecting the different meanings they have assigned to it: ‘result’, ‘completion’, ‘completeness’, ‘effect’, ‘consequence’, ‘resultative’, ‘resultant condition’, ‘result phase’, ‘result-orientation’, ‘outcome’, ‘endpoint’, ‘destination’, ‘telic goal’, etc. The approaches to resultativeness, or resultativity in English suggested by the traditional grammarians may be divided rather schematically into several groups: 1. Resultative = Perfective (Comrie, Charleston, Jespersen, Joos, Onions, Poutsma, Streitberg, and others) 2. Resultative = Passive (Nedjalkov, van Schooneveld) 3. Resultativity = Semantic property of word classes or morphemes (Chafe – of morphemes, Forsyth – of a particular group of verbs, Quirk et al. – of prepositions, Bolinger – of particles) Figure 1. Different views of ‘resultativity’ in English

Resultativeness

The findings of the present analysis indicate that merging the category of Result with the passive voice, as well as with the perfective aspect, is unjustified and theoretically unsound since each of these categories has its own meaning and morphological tools of expression. Thus the category of resultativeness has not been elaborated on sufficiently by traditional grammarians due to its rather specific and non-obvious means of morphological representation. This will be the topic of the discussion in the next section.

. Sign-oriented analyses Some sign-oriented analyses show the tendency to relate the notion of aspect in general to the ‘boundaries’ of predication within the time-field, or discuss the phenomenon within the ‘boundaries of orientation’ approach, which distinguishes the action perceived as a whole within a predication or, on the contrary, the predication as being within the boundaries. Such an approach is found in Diver (1986), Huffman (1989), Penhallurick (1981), and others. Allen (1966), a representative of Jakobsonian-van-Schooneveldian School, sets up a markedness relationship between the inclusive (or perfective) and intrusive (or imperfective) aspects in English based on the concepts similar to ‘completion’ or ‘non-completion’ in Russian. He argues against the view that the resultative meaning is identical to that of the perfect, and brings about the examples of sentences where the verbs in the perfect lack the ‘element of result’ in their meaning: . . . the ‘element of result’ felt to be present in a given sentence containing a present perfect verb-cluster probably comes from the lexical meaning of the verb or of some other word or words in the sentence rather than from the grammatical form of the cluster. The “element of result” does not seem to be evident – at least to the present writer – in sentences like the following, for example:

I’ve seen it before. It’s only been three or four times that we’ve come face to face. (Allen 1966: 130)

Allen believes that the concrete result (cf. ‘element of result’) should be distinguished from the result phase of the event (cf. the expression ‘before now’), and is by no means obligatory in the sentences containing a present perfect verb-cluster.

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Chapter 3

Hirtle (1975: 27), belonging to the Guillaumean Psychomechanics School, in his analysis of the correlation between the action and its result regards the aspect system of the English verb as involving two positions or moments, one in which any development, any duration, any actualization is represented as taking place within the confines of the event’s duration, the other in which the only event time open to further duration is the result phase, the interior of the event being left behind.

According to the Guillaumean chart of ‘notional chronology’ based on his theory of operative time, the following semantic oppositions can be established: before cause condition operation

after effect consequence result

The Guillaumean approach to actions, states, and events as being divided according to their process versus result-oriented phases leads into my treatment of the problem. Tobin (1993: 19) devotes a lot of attention to the meaning of result in the English verb paradigm and views it as “a fundamental semantic distinctive feature which cuts across almost all traditional categories: verb, noun, adjective, infinitive, gerund, participle, particle, auxiliary.” Tobin claims further that the concepts of process and result should be viewed as part of a primary distinctive feature in language, instead of being ignored or mentioned as a secondary principle of categorization within the realm of verbal aspect, inferior to the opposition of ‘perfective’ versus ‘imperfective’: . . . language may reflect two fundamental ways of viewing actions, states, or events; either as focusing on the (ongoing) process involved in the action, state, or event, or, alternatively, from the point of view of the result (outcome, endpoint, consequence, completion, destination, or telic or teleological goal). (Ibid.: 15)

I base my hypothesis on Tobin’s view of resultativeness, though my analysis, unlike his, focuses on syntactic units (constructions) rather than lexical pairs, auxiliaries, irregular verbs, or infinitives, and my definition of resultativeness broadens the scope of meaning attached to this category. The meaning I assign to resultativeness – perception of actions and events integrally with their actual or potential result – attempts to cover the whole scope of the invariant meaning of this linguistic category.

Resultativeness

. The linguistic forms expressing the category of resultativeness Resultative forms, like any other language forms, are regarded by sign-oriented theory as linguistic signs composed of a concept and a signal. One of the reasons that resultativeness has remained a poorly defined category is that it embraces both lexical and grammatical levels going beyond each of them. In order to arrive at a comprehensive definition of resultativeness, I will determine the signal of this linguistic sign, which is manifested in an inventory of linguistic forms used to signify the resultative meaning. Another reason for the controversy or neglect associated with the concept of result in the linguistic literature is the failure to find any systematic morphological or any other way to represent the opposition of resultative versus non-resultative meaning. Any category can only be defined and analyzed adequately provided it has its own means of expression in language: “. . . not to admit any semantic category which does not correspond to a means of expression in the language itself ” (Zandwoort 1962: 18). My claim is that Result as a distinctive semantic feature may be realized as part of a marked invariant meaning in numerous language forms. This approach is based on the assumption that there exist two alternative ways of perceiving actions and events: either as making a claim for their Result (the marked form) or making no such claim (the unmarked or neutral form). Having no particular affix or auxiliary for expressing Result, English has developed a number of regular oppositions based on this semantic feature, and therefore the category of resultativeness has morphological and other (e.g., word order) representations in the language. I wish to suggest a systematic opposition based on this distinctive feature, which is going to supplement the system of lexico-grammatical oppositions set forth by Tobin (1993). Reviewing the previous analyses, we come across a number of systems of oppositions based on the distinctive feature of Result, each of them dealing with a particular phenomenon – either lexical, morphological, grammatical or syntactic – and discussing it separately. In search for an orderly system, I will attempt to unite them singling out one of the essential subsystems of language. Tobin (1993) provided a detailed analysis of troublesome pairs of verbs belonging to various semantic groups, among them: a. performative verbs b. speech act verbs c. aspectual verbs

do (U) – make (M) say (U) – tell (M); speak (U) – talk (M) begin (U) – start (M); end (U) – finish (M); shut (U) – close (M)

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Chapter 3

The sign-oriented analysis of these lexical pairs, carried out by Tobin, provides a non-synonymy explanation of the non-random distribution of these forms in discourse based on their abstract invariant meanings and concrete discourse messages. The invariant meaning integrates: (a) a common semantic domain shared by the two forms, and (b) distinctive semantic features placed in an asymmetric relationship of marked/unmarked forms, serving as a basis for the systematic distinction between them. The members of each pair stand in opposition as to the distinctive feature of Result, one of them making a specific claim for it, the other being unmarked or neutral, i.e. viewing an action or event as either process or result: do (U) versus make (M).

The role of process-marker performed by the verb do is motivated by its invariant meaning, which is unmarked for result, compare: (31) What did you do today? (either process or result implied) (32) What did you make today? (the result of the activity implied) (Tobin 1993: 40)

and remains such in all the uses of this verb, including its auxiliary function which belongs rather to the grammar of the language than to the lexicon. Several recent analyses are devoted to the contrasting of grammatical categories based on the resultative meaning they possess.22 These analyses discuss the invariant meaning of derivational suffixes and auxiliaries and the oppositions established by derived verbal categories. Huffman (1989: 113–114) suggests that the suffixes used for deriving the English participles (-ing and -ed) each has a constant semantic value (invariant meaning in our terms) and they compose together a two-member grammatical system. The suffix -ed is used here to include any past participle form. Huffman formulates their respective invariant meanings as ‘actual activity’ (more vivid) versus ‘a state resulting from the activity’ (less vivid) which may be translated as ‘process’ (-ing) versus ‘result’ (-ed) opposition displayed on the morphemic level: (33) a. When I got to the office I found John going. b. When I got to the office I found John gone.

Since -ing signifies the present participle (or gerund), and -ed is a marker of the past participle, it is logical to view the oppositions of the corresponding categories as based on the semantic feature of Result in their invariant meaning:

Resultativeness

Progressive (-ing) versus Perfect (-ed); Progressive (-ing) versus Passive (-ed). (34) a. The teacher is helping. (process) – The teacher has helped. b. The teacher is helping. (process) – The teacher is helped.

(result) (result)

Fradkin (1991: 161) postulates an invariant meaning for the -ing forms as referring either to the action in general or to particular instances of the action: is cooking; was defrosting. The invariant meaning of the -ed forms he defines as describing “results of actions, rather than actions themselves” (ibid.: 165). The progressive forms, therefore, may be regarded as unmarked for Result in comparison to the marked perfective forms, the same being true for the opposition of progressive versus passive forms. The second elements of these compound forms, namely auxiliaries be and have, also establish an opposition based on markedness, where be is unmarked for Result and have is marked for Result (see Tobin 1993: 298–299). Example (34a) may illustrate the opposition of both participles and auxiliaries. Resultativeness has often been merged with the passive voice due to the vivid resultative meaning it conveys: Nedjalkov, for example, identifies the English resultative with passive, Chafe applies the term ‘resultative’ to the passive derivation (Chapter 3.1). “The passive emphasizes the result of the event rather than describing the event itself, which is considered to be already known” (van Schooneveld 1989: 106). The meaning of the passive voice includes a resultative meaning, which allows us to regard the opposition of active versus passive forms as based on the process/result distinction between the two forms: active forms may denote both process and/or result of the action or event they indicate, whereas passive forms are marked for Result. In the opposition ‘break’ – ‘is broken’ the first member may either suggest resultative reading or not (I saw the dish break), while the second reports the result of the action leading to a change of state (The dish is broken). Beedham (1987: 10) draws our attention to a “close similarity in meaning between the passive and the resultative perfect. Both constructions express a state as the result of an action. . .” The marked resultative meaning of the passive forms Beedham associates with ‘aspect’, replacing the traditional division into aspect-voice by a classification of verb categories according to the degree of result in their invariant meaning. Morphologically, however, there exists an even subtler distinction between the participles derived by -en and -ed suffixes. The -ed participles indicate actions integrally with their result, whereas the -en participles report states either resulting from the previous action or not (see

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Chapter 3

Huffman 1989). According to Huffman, the passive derivation suffixes -en/-ed establish an opposition based on the invariant meaning of Result. Another Result-based opposition exists between two English passives: the so-called ‘be-passive’ and ‘get-passive’, the latter form being stronger marked for Result due to the resultative meaning of the auxiliary ‘get’ versus the neutral meaning of ‘be’: The BE-passive can have either a stative meaning or an actional meaning. The GET-passive, however, can never be stative. It is always actional. But at the same time a reference to the outcome of the action, the result is implied. Compare: The book was lost. (stative or actional) (Vanrespaille 1989) The book got lost. (actional and resultative) (in Tobin 1993: 263)

Though the distinction neutral/resultative is displayed in both progressiveperfect and active-passive oppositions, I suggest that neither ‘passive’ nor ‘perfect’ is equivalent to ‘resultative’, but rather contain a semantic feature of Result as a part of their invariant meaning, which allows us to view them as the marked members in the said oppositions. As follows from the above studies, the distinctive feature of Result underlies all verbal categories, and a division based on this feature is an indispensable part of any paradigmatic opposition in the English verb. But the category of resultativeness does not seem to be restricted to verb morphology. Therefore let us continue looking for still other, probably syntactic means of expressing resultativeness in language.

. Resultative constructions Recently a great deal of attention has been paid to so-called ‘resultative constructions’.23 The common features of the syntactic patterns implied by this term can be summarized roughly as: a) structurally, they consist of a verb, a postverbal NP and a ‘result phrase’, which may be represented by an adjective, a prepositional phrase, a particle, etc.; b) semantically, the action is viewed as having achieved some result, which led to some change of the state in the object NP; c) the word order of the elements is a constant and determining parameter in this type of syntactic structure. Legum (1968: 56) justly draws a parallel between the roles of postposed particles and adjectives in the constructions identified by modern linguists as ‘resultative’: “cut short, blast open, blow shut, and fling open.” Diver (1986) discusses the syntactic construction dubbed here as ‘resultative’ in the framework of a sign-oriented approach. He points out the ex-

Resultativeness

istence and interaction of two kinds of signals: morphological signals (based on phonology in the same way the lexical items are) and word order signals (the signal lies in the ordering of lexical items). He regards the morphological signals as obligatory ones, which facilitate the recognition of word-order signals having no explicit phonological representation. Diver develops a theory of Systems of Differentiation based on word order as a sign, which he describes as “the simplest possible system, consisting of two members that divide the semantic substance into two distinct parts” (45). These two parts make up a system of oppositions based on two types of differentiation: differentiation of the referent of the lexicon from other referents or from itself: Differentiation from Other

Differentiation from Self

i. ii. iii. iv. v.

He painted the barn red. She wore her hair long. He found the man guilty. He made the porridge sacred. He left the house empty. B A (Diver 1986: 46)

He painted the red barn. She wore her long hair. He found the guilty man. He made the sacred porridge. He left the empty house. A B

The word order relationship between the two lexical items signifies two different ways of differentiating one of them by means of the other. According to Diver, in AB ordering the item A serves to narrow down the range of referents of the item B by restricting it to those members of its group that have A characteristics: excluded are all non-red barns, non-guilty men, etc. However, when the same lexical items are arranged in another way (the right-hand column), the message produced is quite different: no other referent is involved, but each referent is said to undergo a change of state as a result of the activity that has taken place. Thus the barn becomes red as a result of the painting, the porridge becomes sacred as a result of some ritual performed, etc. So the System of Differentiation from Self is represented in Diver by the constructions referred to elsewhere in the linguistic literature as resultative, and they are singled out on the basis of the main signal they exploit – the typical word order. Diver (1986: 47) discusses the greater semantic complexity of compound forms in general and attributes it to the synergetic intensification of their combined meaning, on the one hand, and to the role of the word order factor, on the other: In minimal pairs between AB and BA . . . the shift of meaning is so marked that it is likely to have an effect on any analysis of the lexicon. . . The message

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Chapter 3

that is communicated is the resultant of a mix of inputs, there is not a oneto-one mapping between the components of output in the message and the morphemes of the input. . . . The output (the communication) is regularly much richer in detail than is the input (the actual signals and lexical items).

In application to our case of C versus D phrasal verb constructions, the combined effect of adding a particle to a simple verb (a morphological signal) joined with the word order shift (a word-order signal) represents the input that produces the specific message of the action perceived integrally with its result (the output). So, the resultative message may be added synergetically and associated to a certain degree with the typical ‘resultative’ word order. Carrier and Randall (1992) investigate the syntactic structure of resultatives in an attempt to suggest the adequate schematic analysis of the verb, the postverbal NP and the result phrase in resultative constructions. Unfortunately, the authors provide no definitions either of the term ‘resultative’ or of its numerous derivatives used throughout the article: ‘resultative verb’, ‘resultative sentence’, ‘the result phrase’, ‘resultative predicate’, ‘resultant event’, ‘resultant-state’. They discuss the following two groups of resultatives (173): (1) Transitive resultatives a. The gardener watered the tulips flat. b. The grocer ground the coffee beans (in)to a fine powder. c. They painted the house a hideous shade of green. (2) Intransitive resultatives a. The joggers ran their Nikes threadbare. b. The kids laughed themselves into a frenzy. c. He sneezed his handkerchief completely soggy.

Their objective is to establish the syntactic structure of resultatives and more generally, the relationship between the two levels of grammatical representation, argument structure, and syntactic structure. The authors conclude that the most adequate syntactic analysis of these constructions is the Ternary Analysis, which regards the resultative construction as a ternary-branching VP, within which the postverbal NP and the result phrase are sisters. The result phrase, according to Carrier and Randall, is fairly free in terms of category: it can be either an adjective phrase, a prepositional phrase, a noun phrase, or I would add, a verbal particle. Simpson (1983) proposes that whatever its category, the result XP must designate a state, but does not provide a precise formulation of the state restriction. The result XPs are believed to be selected

Resultativeness

directly by the verb on semantic grounds,24 though the absence of reliable criteria makes determining the class of allowable result XPs problematic. Leaving the details of the syntactic structure beyond the scope of this study, I find it important to emphasize the typical word order they suggest for resultative constructions: “All resultatives share the single ternary syntactic configuration. . ., but their lexically specified representations. . . differ” (ibid.: 226). Tenny (1994: 37) investigates the aspectual roles of resultative constructions, emphasizing the order of the elements typical of this syntactic class: “In the resultative construction, a secondary predicate is found after the direct object. That secondary predicate is predicated of the object, naming the endstate of it.” She suggests a semantic definition of the resultative phrase (ibid.: 151): “The resultative prepositional phrase, noun phrase or adjective describes the effect on the object of the action described by the verb; or the endstate of the object in the event described by the verb.” Tenny (ibid.: 156) regards phrasal and resultative constructions as two parallel syntactic forms sharing a lot of common properties and functioning on a similar basis: English verb-particle constructions and resultative secondary predicates are very similar syntactic constructions. In each case there is some syntactic element that may appear before or after a direct object. This element, the secondary predicate, has the semantic function of requiring the presence of the measure aspectual role.

It should be mentioned that Tenny exemplifies verb-particle constructions by the D constructions only, drawing a parallel between them and resultative constructions and viewing them as two types of syntactic constructions similar both in their form (word order) and meaning (endstate, or result). Levin and Rappaport (1995: 34) in their analysis of the syntax of resultative constructions suggest the following definition of the resultative phrase: “A resultative phrase is an XP that denotes the state achieved by the referent of the NP it is predicated of as a result of the action denoted by the verb in the resultative construction.” The examples of the resultative constructions brought by the authors show the fixed typical word order, i.e. V + NP + XP, where the latter element is expressed by ‘resultatives’: adjectives, verb-particles, adverbs, prepositional phrases, etc., occupying a permanent position in the structure of the resultative construction – following the direct object.

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Chapter 3

(35) Woolite safely soaks all your fine washables clean. . . (36) Sylvester cried his eyes out. (37) Sleep your wrinkles away. (ibid.: 34)

We see from the above examples that the resultative constructions are distinguished structurally by V-NP-resultative phrase word order. Prosodically, they follow the same intonation pattern: the final element is usually stressed. It seems significant for our further analysis that the ‘resultative’ word order matches only one type of phrasal constructions, namely the D constructions. Following the principle of synergesis, it can be assumed that the meaning of the resultative construction is more complex that a simple sum of its components’ meanings, and that the meaning of the result of the action is conveyed by the construction as a whole. It can be further assumed that syntactic structures in general possess the ability to contribute meaning well above the combined meaning of the lexical items composing the construction. Goldberg (1995) and Jackendoff (1997) apply the concept of “constructional idioms – syntactic configurations whose structure contributes semantic content above and beyond that contained in the constituent lexical items” (Jackendoff 1997: 553). The range of syntactic structures which can be called meaningful varies with different linguists, being restricted to so-called autonomous syntax (Jackendoff 1996) or expanded and covering all syntactic constructions (Langacker 1987; Goldberg 1996). I have no solution for the problem of the universality of the constructional approach, but I find it strongly possible that resultative constructions can be regarded as constructional idioms in Jackendoff ’s sense: In these constructions, the construction rather than the verb determines the argument structure; . . . all the semantic peculiarities come from the meaning associated with the construction. In such a case, the NP in the resultative is the object of the construction, and hence the object of the VP – but not the object of the verb. (Jackendoff 1997: 554–555)

This can be best supported by Carrier and Randall’s examples of intransitive resultatives above. Jackendoff remarks that the notion of a constructional idiom makes little sense for traditional generative grammar, which treats syntactic patterns separately from semantics. But in the sign-oriented approach each syntactic unit of the language is viewed as an inseparable combination of the signal and the invariant meaning attached to it. The word order signal of resultative constructions signifies the meaning of the result of the action denoted by the verb and the effect produced on the referent of the nominal object.

Resultativeness

These and other recent analyses of resultative constructions inspire me to associate resultativeness with a special type of word order, which appears to function as a linguistic sign distinguishing meaning and marked for Result. I would define resultativeness as a lexico-grammatical category, which reflects a fundamental way of perceiving actions and events integrally with their actual or potential result and can be sometimes expressed in English by a particular word order.

. Resultativeness as a system of oppositions Resultativeness is different from traditional categories in that it is not restricted to one affix or auxiliary, nor to one tense or aspect form. It cannot be accounted for by only the lexicon or grammar. Unlike other categories, it is expressed by oppositions of marked/unmarked forms throughout all language levels and subsystems: morphemes, auxiliaries, lexical pairs, compounds, verb complements, tense, aspect and voice forms, syntactic patterns, types of sentences, word order, stress, and intonation. Summing up the analyses of the oppositions based on the distinctive feature of Result, I arrive at the conclusion that they occur virtually everywhere (see Figure 2). As can be seen from Figure 2, oppositions based on the distinctive feature of Result can be found everywhere. In the lexicon we find pairs of synonyms opposed according to their neutral/resultative message, such as begin(U)/start(M), do(U)/make(M), etc. (cf. Tobin 1993). I claim that the location of the result-based opposition ‘simple verbs versus phrasal verbs’ break(U)/break up(M) discussed in Chapters 2 and 4 is on the borderline of the lexicon and grammar.25 In the grammar we find the opposition of morphemes -ing(U)/-ed(en)(M) where the former is neutral and the latter marked for Result (cf. Fradkin 1991; Huffman 1989). On the basis of Huffman’s findings it may be assumed that the inflectional affixes -en and -ed are by themselves members of another opposition based on the same semantic feature, where -en is neutral for Result, while -ed is resultative and denotes a change of state (in: Tobin 1993). The auxiliary verbs constitute two distinct oppositions based on the result of the action: be(U) versus have(M), and be(U) versus get(M).26 The opposition of affixes -ing(U)/-ed(M) leads to another opposition based on Result: present participle(U)/past participle(M) and gerund(U)/infinitive(M).27 On the level of verb categories, the opposition of the present tense as unmarked for Result versus past and future tenses as marked for it has been suggested by Battistella

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Chapter 3

LEXICON Lexical pairs: do/make, begin/start, till/until (cf. Tobin) Simple Verbs/Phrasal Verbs fight/fight off, eat/eat up (cf. Bolinger, Gorlach, Jackendoff, Kennedy, Kruisinga, Live, Tenny, Tobin) GRAMMAR morphemes: -ing/-ed(-en); -en/-ed (cf. Fradkin, Huffman, Tobin) auxiliaries: be/have; be/get (cf. Battistella, Benveniste, Dik, Tobin) verb complements: gerund/infinitive present participle/past participle (cf. Fradkin, Huffman, Tobin) tense: present/past present/future (cf. Battistella, Tobin) aspect: progressive/perfect (cf. Battistella, Comrie, Fradkin, Khlebnikova, Tobin) voice: active/passive (cf. Andersen, Beedham, Nedjalkov, Tobin, van Schooneveld) be-passive/get-passive (cf. Bolinger, Tobin, Vanrespaille)

constructions: non-resultative/resultative (cf. Carrier&Randell, Jackendoff, Levin&Rappaport, Simpson, Tenny) phrasal constructions: continuous/discontinuous (cf. Bolinger, Gorlach, Tenny, Tobin)

Other possible candidates (require further investigation) sentences: statements/questions statements/negations statements/exclamations non-emphatic/emphatic (cf. Battistella) questions: Yes/No-questions/Wh-questions Yes/No-questions/alternative questions non-tag/tag-questions mood: indicative/imperative indicative/subjunctive

Figure 2. The result-based oppositions in the language (U)/(M)

Resultativeness

(1990) and Tobin (1993), but needs to be studied and validated further. The relationship between the progressive and perfect aspect has been regarded as unmarked/marked for the resultative meaning by various authors.28 The same applies to the category of voice: passive voice is resultative in comparison to the Result-neutral active voice.29 Moreover, passive constructions have lately been analyzed as either be-passive or get-passive, and these two forms may present an example of another Result-based opposition within the passive voice, the getpassive being marked for Result corresponding to the be(U)/get(M) opposition discussed above.30 On the level of syntax, I should emphasize the opposition between resultative constructions and the rest of syntactic constructions based on the particular fixed word order.31 Then, expanding Jackendoff ’s concept of constructional idiom, I suggest the Result-based opposition of the C versus D phrasal constructions, viewing it as a significant language tool for expressing resultativeness, and completing this way a coherent picture of this category in the English language structure. According to Battistella (1990), different types of sentences, such as declarative versus interrogative, positive versus negative, non-emphatic versus emphatic, also stand in the asymmetric relationship of markedness one to another, though the author does not state the distinctive semantic feature these sentence types are marked for. In my opinion, the assumption that such a distinctive feature might be Result is of high probability, but the framework of this study does not allow me to discuss it in depth and I leave it to further research. Hence, I suggest that resultativeness is a broad linguistic category, which cuts across all the traditional categories, justifying this way the application of one and the same set of principles (invariant meaning, markedness, and distinctive feature theory) for the analysis of various language phenomena. In order to validate this hypothesis, the oppositions of different sentence types should be analyzed for the distinctive feature of Result in their invariant meaning.32

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Chapter 4

Microlevel analysis

In this chapter I will present the microlevel analysis of the role of simple verbs versus C and D phrasal constructions in expressing the resultative meaning in individual sentences appearing in literary texts of different styles. This analysis is based on data consistent with the sign based approach, where “. . . there is an emphasis on observing natural discourse, whether spoken or written, i.e., situations in which actual messages are being communicated, rather than asking speakers to make judgments about sentences invented by the linguist” (Contini-Morava 1995: 4). I will try to support the non-random distribution hypothesis using discourse examples. According to the Columbia School approach, the analytical problem can be postulated as follows: The distribution of the signals (word order) can be explained in terms of the contribution of their meanings to the messages being communicated (resultative or neutral for result). First, informal qualitative techniques, such as minimal or nearminimal pairs, textual analysis, and informant reports will be applied. Then I will use quantitative analysis to support the predicted relation between the word-order signal and the message. The task of validating the hypothesis will require searching for a connection between the signals and their meanings and the messages they communicate.

. Simple verbs versus phrasal verbs The following data culled from various sources are intended to show that the meaning of a simple verb is consistently contrasted to that of a phrasal verb by the different degree of Result they convey. The opposition ‘simple verbs versus phrasal verbs’ can be regarded as one of the language tools applied systematically to express resultative meaning. It can be illustrated by the following examples: (38) There was a gallantry about their devotion to their profession that brought tears to Craig’s eyes, even though, as he watched, he saw the faults in casting,

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Chapter 4

direction and interpretation that had obscured the subtle, multiple intentions of the play and brought down the critics’ wrath on Brenner’s head. (Shaw 1973: 113)

In (38) the message conveyed by bring as a simple verb reflects both the process (going on during the performance) and the effect (tears in Craig’s eyes), or is neutral. The message expressed by the phrasal verb bring down may be paraphrased as to cause someone to meet or suffer something bad33 and describes the eventual outcome of the performance, conveying the more resultative message. One of the ways to convert the lexical meaning of the simple verbs, both containing the element of result or not, to more resultative is through exploiting grammatical tools, such as the perfect aspect, for example. (39) Some contemporary figures, though (particularly sociolinguists and sociologists), have not shied away from engagement in what Bolinger called the “public life” of language. Joshua Fishman is a good example here. He has noted that regret over mother-tongue loss among groups who “have not capitulated to the massive blandishments of western materialism, who experience life and nature in deeply poetic and collectively meaningful ways” (1982: 8) – has brought many academics into linguistics and related fields. (Edwards 2003: 39)

In (39) the resultative meaning is imposed on the initially neutral for result simple verb bring by the grammatical form marked for Result – the present perfect. Another way to make the meaning of this verb resultative is to add a particle forming a phrasal verb like in (40) below: (40) Maybe her program’ll get one person to go into a bookstore to buy one of them or two or all of them. Or since they’re out of print, maybe it’ll get a publisher to bring out my collected works in paperback. (Shaw 1973: 181)

The phrasal verb bring out is used here in the sense of produce (something),34 the action presuming the final product in the way make is resultative in Tobin (1993).35 The same phrasal verb bring out appears in (41) in the sense cause (something) to be seen or known,36 its meaning including a clear resultative component. The change of Juanito’s financial situation has resulted in a positive change in his character, i.e. the action represented by the phrasal verb is viewed together with its consequence.

Microlevel analysis

(41) Having money had eliminated from Juanito’s face an expression that suggested furtiveness of character, a consequence of his extreme underprivilege, and replaced it with a look that brought out his good qualities. (Dunne 1989: 384)

In (42) and (43) below the phrasal verb bring up conveys different messages: the first can be paraphrased as educate or raise (a child),37 the second - mention or introduce (a subject),38 each of these messages being more cognitively complex than the messages conveyed by bring because of the presence of the resultative constituent in their meaning. (42) As the discussions grew more heated, Penelope swore that she watched every cent, called on the names of wives of their friends who spent more on their clothes in one month that she did in a year, which was true, brought Heaven to witness that all her efforts and expenditures were designed to make him a decent home, give him a wife he would not be ashamed to be seen in public, bring up his children decently. (Shaw 1973: 95) (43) “. . . Listen, I don’t like to bring up unpleasant matters, especially on a holiday, but I know you must be worrying about dough just about now. . .” ‘Just about now,’ Craig said. (Shaw 1973: 53)

The greater semantic weight of phrasal verbs as compared to simple verbs is a natural consequence of their structural complexity and can serve as an illustration of the synergesis in language: the combined meaning of two elements is usually more complex than the simple sum of the individual parts. It also reflects iconicity in language – the physically larger signal conveys the message that is more complex semantically. In our case, the additional semantic feature in the meaning of the phrasal verb seems to be the result of the action. The semantic distinction between the members of the hierarchical semantic opposition based on resultativeness suggested in Chapter 3 may be demonstrated by the following examples presented in their immediate context. In (44) the simple verb denotes an anticipated action irrespectively of its result, starting point, or completion: (44) He had intended to drive without a halt until Madrid, sleep over, go farther south, to Malaga, the next day. A man he knew, something of a friend, a matador, really the friend of a friend, was fighting in Malaga the next afternoon. (Shaw 1973: 88–89)

In (45) the simple verb expresses the idea of a reiterated action, the meaning of the verb being neutral for result:

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Chapter 4

(45) What had he wanted to do in Salzburg, what had he planned to see in Florence? His friend the matador would be fighting in thirty different places all season, why had he felt it was necessary to go to Malaga? He no longer remembered. (Shaw 1973: 89)

The phrasal verb derived from the simple verb fight acquires a different and more complex meaning, which can be traced in the following examples: (46) Judd’s head began pounding again. The pain was returning. He swallowed to fight off the nausea that engulfed him. He wanted to ring for the nurse, but he was damned if he would give McGreavy the satisfaction. (Sheldon 1970: 46)

Here the character is trying to overcome sickness, his actions (swallowing) are aimed at achieving this goal (fighting off the nausea) and motivated by this, i.e. oriented toward the result. Thus, the meaning of the phrasal verb contains the resultative component and is marked for the result of the action as compared to the simple verb, though the semantic component of activity or process is also present. The C construction usually denotes both Process and Result with a greater possibility for Result than in a simple verb. However, the resultative meaning is pronounced much stronger in D constructions: (47) Standing there in the bright sunshine, he felt deserted. He didn’t want to be alone that afternoon, remembering what it had been like when he was twenty-seven. He had the impulse to hurry after her, touch her arm, walk beside her. But he fought the impulse down. (Shaw 1973: 75)

The character knows that he has no right to give free rein to his desires and dreams, so he makes an effort to suppress them. The D phrasal construction reports here the result of the resolution of his inner conflict. The meaning of resultativeness is reinforced by the marked resultative word order and stress: But he fought the impulse dówn. The three-member opposition of resultativeness discussed in Chapter 3 can be illustrated by an additional group of examples contrasting simple verbs with phrasal constructions, as well as C with D phrasal constructions: (48) ‘It sure does explain things. This whole deal: the van, the furniture, it’s just cover. Those two guys are coke runners. Two suitcases full of cocaine. Jesus.’ He got out of the chair and against Mudge’s protests shut the suitcase. Then they checked its mate. It was just as full. He lifted first one, then the other. (Foster 1987: 144)

Microlevel analysis

Checking the suitcase is reported here as a step in the chain of actions the characters performed when captured by two drug runners and locked in their van. I assume that the analysis of the lexical pair ‘check-examine’ might show that the invariant meaning of ‘check’ is unmarked for Result, though to the best of my knowledge, such an analysis has not been performed yet. But this lexically unmarked verb can obtain the element of resultative meaning if combined with a particle: (49) “Doctor, my men and I spent the night checking out every Don Vinton in Manhattan and all the other boroughs. We even covered New Jersey and Connecticut.” He took a ruled sheet of paper out of his pocket and showed it to Judd. (Sheldon 1970: 107)

In this case the emphasis is put not only on the activity itself, but also on its goal, and the meaning of the phrasal verb integrates process and its intended completion, implies a thorough and comprehensive search exhausting all possibilities and having in view a very definite result. The C phrasal construction may be regarded as composed of both Result and Process elements, which makes it more resultative than the simple verb, though not necessarily marked for Result. (50) As both Vandervoort and Wainwright knew, there were devices used by criminals to decide whether a credit card in their possession could be used again, or if it were ‘hot’. A favourite was to pay a headwaiter twenty-five dollars to check a card out. (Hailey 1975: 49)

In (50), the headwaiter is bribed for a very clear purpose – to make sure whether a credit card is registered as stolen or its disappearance has not yet been noticed by the owner. The D construction is applied here to convey the claim for the result of the action. Throughout these examples the category of resultativeness is expressed with an increasing strength, which agrees with the hypothesis of the present study. As can be seen from the above examples, the semantic contribution of the particle to the meaning of the phrasal verb is systematic and significant, and the meaning of the particle can hardly be restricted to adverbial, intensifying, aspectual or idiomatic, as it is often described in the linguistic literature.39 On the basis of the analysis of the textual data, I propose to regard these ‘meanings’ as derived from context messages of the single abstract invariant meaning of the particle as a sign: indication of the result (endpoint, telic goal, consequence, destination, completion) of the action/event denoted by the verb.

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Chapter 4

. Continuous versus discontinuous phrasal constructions As previously mentioned, the meaning of a phrasal verb always includes resultativity, where the variable is the relative weight of the resultative element’s contribution to the general message. The degree to which one or another phrasal verb expresses resultative meaning determines the word order type of the phrasal construction. If the resultative meaning does not dominate the meaning of activity/process, the unmarked or neutral for Result C type is preferred, while if the resultative meaning prevails, both of them may be appropriate, but the D type marked for Result is selected more often. The investigation of the meaning of phrasal constructions has shown that this assumption is supported by the language data. Let us consider the phrasal verb give up. The examples below show that the degree of the resultative meaning it conveys can be increased by using either grammatical tools (perfective forms or infinitive) or word order (postposition of the particle). As a rule, however, these strategies act concomitantly, a descriptive fact that reflects the isomorphic structure of language. (51) There would be something fine in giving up art because he was convinced that he could not excel; but unfortunately it would seem so only to himself: to others it would be an admission of defeat, and he did not want to confess that he was beaten. (Maugham 1963: 140)

The component of the action performance is more significant here than the resultative element, since the delight is supposed to be derived from the act of ceasing to learn art, though it also involves the natural result of such an act – taking up another vocation. A relatively great share of the process meaning is achieved by using both the gerund and the C form of the phrasal verb, which we claim is unmarked or neutral for Result. (52) “But if you are going to be ordained, Philip?” Aunt Louisa exclaimed in dismay. “I’ve given up that idea long ago.” (Ibid.: 48)

Though the C construction itself is neutral for Result, it displays a much stronger resultative message when used in the perfect. We see that the resultative meaning can be conveyed also by C constructions, but in this case some grammatical reinforcement is added: (53) Perhaps, worn out by exposure, starvation, disease, he had found an end in some hospital, or in an access of despair had sought death in the turbid Seine;

Microlevel analysis

but perhaps with his Southern instability he had given up the struggle of his own accord, and now, a clerk in some office in Madrid, turned his fervent rhetoric to politics and bull-fighting. (Ibid.: 241)

The past perfect emphasizes here the resultative meaning of the phrasal verb making it dominant. The same effect can be achieved by using the combination of non-perfective forms with the D construction: (54) She was too weak to resist his wish, and she gave the child up. The doctor handed him back to his nurse. (Ibid.: 2)

The mother’s desire to hold her son was passionate, but she felt very weak and finally had to obey the doctor’s orders. The meaning of finality of the action is expressed clearly enough by the D construction, needing no additional grammatical reinforcement. The data show that when the author’s intent is to use a phrasal verb for representing actions where the performance and the goal are equally important, the C type construction is usually preferred: (55) As soon as it’s light, let’s get in a car and go out to the house, in Queens or wherever he lives. Bring some lawyers with us. Set up educational trusts so that each kid’s college education is paid for. Pay off the mortgage on their house so it’s free and clear. Set up a trust fund for Mrs., uh, what’s-hername-again? (Dunne 1989: 283)

This dialogue takes place immediately after Ruby, a millionaire’s wife who is busy at the moment with preparations for an extraordinary party, learns that one of the workers they hired gets killed. The accident can destroy Ruby and her husband’s reputation, so they think feverishly of taking some urgent steps to hush up the issue. The actions described in this paragraph are viewed together with their result, which motivates the use of phrasal constructions of a particular type. The matter of their performance is deemed as no less significant at the moment, which underlies the choice of the C word order. One of the most convincing ways to demonstrate the distinction between C and D constructions is to contrast pairs of phrasal verbs differing only in their word order pattern, ‘near-minimal pairs’, which provide the best oppositions and give the opportunity to compare the motives of using one or another type of word order. (56) I deal with hundreds of millions of dollars a day in my business. I didn’t fire more than five hundred people, and I brought in a whole new board of directors, responsible people like Laurance Van Degan, Loelia Manchester,

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Chapter 4

Lord Beidermeier here, and my English friend the Earl of Castoria, highprofile people like that. Now we have a working operation. (Dunne 1989: 232)

The list of good deeds and successful business practices is reported here as a chain of activities, their performance being more important at the moment than their result. This probably is a reason for the author to choose the C construction as emphasizing the performance of the action more than its result. (57) Did I tell you the latest Leo story? I’m not in bad taste, am I, with him wounded there in the next room? He brought one of his real estate clients in to see Tom about a tax shelter last week, and Tom told him that only farms can use that shelter. So the guy said, ‘Hey, I’m a farm!’ (Wolfe 1989: 43)

In (57) the client was invited for a concrete purpose – to consult Tom about a tax shelter. The sentence reports the goal of this visit, its process being of no significance in the context. The D construction is preferred here due to the highly resultative message it conveys. The correlation between Process/Result and C/D phrasal constructions can be illustrated by means of the following examples with contrastive word order: (58) Craig hesitated. Unconsciously, he patted his coat over his wallet. He knew he had five hundred dollars in American money and about two thousand francs in his wallet. Superstitiously, in memory of the time he had been poor, he always carried a lot of money with him. Turning down requests for loans, even from people who were strangers, was invariably painful, almost impossible, for him. He regarded this trait, rightly, as a weakness in his character. He always remembered that in War and Peace, Tolstoy had used Pierre Bezouchov’s new-found ability to turn down supplicants for money as a sign of maturity and ripening intelligence. (Shaw 1973: 85)

The use of the C construction, especially as gerund, denotes that the character dreads the process of refusing people more than the consequences of such an action. The unmarked construction conveys in both cases the meaning of either process or result. (59) It is common knowledge that at least on one occasion he was offered the top position at one of the most prestigious studios in the industry. It is said he turned the offer down in a brief telegram, “Have already deserted sinking ship. Craig.” (Shaw 1973: 28)

Unlike in (58), the firm refusal of the character to accept the offer considered rare and flattering by most of his colleagues in (59) strongly implies resultative

Microlevel analysis

meaning. The emphasis in (59) is on the result of the action, and the marked form is chosen to convey the message of finality and irreversibility. (60) Clothahump wanted Jon-Tom close at hand in case he had any more potentially lethal errands to be run. But that hadn’t been reason enough for her to turn the gift down. (Foster 1987: 3)

Jon-Tom is a spell-singer brought up and taught magic by an old wizard Clothahump. When the young musician gets married to a very practical and mercenary girl, Clothahump makes them a house in a big tree closest to his own, wishing to keep Jon-Tom close by. For Jon-Tom’s wife, turning down the gift would result in having no house of her own, ruining her dreams, and putting her future in question. The D phrasal construction denotes here an action whose outcome is more important than its course. As the data show, the distinction in word order consistently reflects different ways of perceiving actions from the point of view of their result. I will further illustrate this assumption with the examples of phrasal verbs differing only in word order and analyze the distinction in meaning between them. The action denoted by the phrasal verb sort out in (61) can be perceived as either resultative or not. The character has attempted to perform a certain kind of action, presumably having in view its result or consequence. (61) Judd stood there, trying to sort out the storm of emotions that raced through him. He looked up Angeli’s home number and dialed it. It rang five times, and Judd was filled with a sudden panicky fear that Angeli might not be at home. (Sheldon 1970: 100)

In a similar example (62), the character was classifying subjects in his mind while on a trip, which shifts the semantic focus to the process and makes no reference to its result or outcome. The C construction is therefore preferred in the cases where the resultative meaning is possible, though not essential or emphasized: (62) He sorted out the subjects in his head as they drove. (Shaw 1973: 211)

Quite a different message is conveyed in (63) where the girl implies rather obviously that she wants to come back to college after the matters there are settled and completed. The D construction used here expresses the resultative meaning and makes a claim for Result:

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Chapter 4

(63) What I’d like, if it wouldn’t be too much of a burden on you – would be to get on a plane and come over to Europe for the summer and let them sort things out at the college without me before the Fall term begins. (Shaw 1973: 36)

The C phrasal construction used in (64) may be regarded as denoting process or result, or both: (64) ‘Well,’ Murphy said, raising his glass, ‘here’s to my boy.’ He gulped down a third of his drink. ‘It’s wonderful finally catching up with you. In person. You don’t hand out much information in your letters, do you?’ (Shaw 1973: 51)

Unlike (64), where only a third of Murphy’s drink has been consumed, in (65) the resultative meaning of emptying one’s glass quickly and completely is conveyed by using the D word order type preserved for contexts marked for the distinctive feature of Result. (65) The routine of the mornings. After breakfast, he and Brenner sprawled in swimming trunks in the sun, the manuscript of Brenner’s new play open on the table between them and Brenner saying, ’What about as the curtain comes up on the second act, the stage is dark, and she comes in, goes over to the bar, you only see her in silhouette, she pours herself a drink, sobs then knocks the whole drink down in one gulp. . .?’ (Shaw 1973: 66)

The dilemma the character faces in (66) is whether it is safer for him to transmit the information or to withhold it. He is uncertain about either of the possibilities and the probable consequences, and the meanings of process and result are both reflected by the C phrasal construction used. (66) Wizard Wong had glanced at the tape several times, reluctant to wipe out what was on it, yet uneasy about passing on the information. Nowadays, recording any telephone conversation was risky. Even riskier was to play the recording back for someone else. (Hailey 1975: 409)

In (67), however, the information is reported as already disclosed, i.e. the action is viewed inseparably from its result, which is indicated by both the D phrasal construction as a lexico-grammatical tool and by the past perfect form as a morphological tool expressing resultativeness. (67) Strictly speaking, he didn’t believe this present move was necessary – at least not yet – because he was sure Eastin had been lying when he said he had found out this location from Danny Kerrigan and had passed the information on. (Hailey 1975: 454)

Microlevel analysis

The way phrasal constructions are used in discourse provides evidence that their distribution is semantically motivated and the invariant meanings of C and D constructions make up an opposition of unmarked versus marked form concerning the result of the action. One of the objectives of the present analysis is to show that the two phrasal constructions with different word order are not completely synonymous. Moreover, their distribution is not based on the traditionally suggested distinctions between pairs of synonyms: literal/figurative, spoken/written, formal/informal, or other similar distinctions. I can also argue against one of the most commonly held views regarding the reasons of their distribution – the length of the object. I found a number of counterexamples to the criterion of the length of the object phrase and the end-focus, set forth by van Dongen (1919), Quirk et al. (1982), and other authors: “With most phrasal verbs, the particle can either precede or follow the direct object. The particle tends to precede the object if the object is long or if the intention is that the object should receive end-focus” (Quirk et al. 1982: 304). The criterion of the size of the object phrase is not always supported by language data providing more than a few counterexamples: (68) Failing to get any results, I turned the rest of the local stores over to one of the boys from the Agency, and went across the bay to canvass the Oakland stores. (Hammett 1985: 424)

Another example of a six-word object used in a D construction is (57) above. In the following abstracts 5-word-long objects are placed between the verb and the particle, contradicting the claim as to the particle’s obligatory position before the long object: (69) There is nothing magical in them at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us. (Bradbury 1983: 93) (70) By the end of the first week, Gus had gotten the movements of Lefty Flint down. He knew the time of day Lefty Flint rose. He knew the diner where he had breakfast. (Dunne 1989: 421)

The same point is relevant for the ‘end-focus’ the object is supposed to receive. There is no strict correspondence between the stress and the position of the object: (71) That’s exactly the way I’m bringing thése children up. That’s exactly the way I’m bringing úp these children. (Bolinger 1971: 54)

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If we find the criteria of the size of the object phrase and end-focus insufficient, let us analyze more data in search for an alternative basis for the distributional distinctions between the phrasal constructions. Sometimes we meet two variants of the same construction in the same paragraph, which means they are used in the same style, register and mode, these factors playing no significant role in favoring/disfavoring the word order patterns. (72) . . . Anyway, Tuesday, the night of the accident, he was comin’ out of an office building where his sister-in-law works. He dropped some pills off because his brother Matthew, who’s a Bible salesman, had the flu an’ she was going to take the pills home to him. So Mr.Benson dropped off these pills an’ was comin’ out of the building when he saw this limousine headin’ toward you. . . (Sheldon 1970: 80)

In the first case, the action is described as having in view its goal – to deliver the medicine to a sick brother, which can explain the use of a D construction as resultaive in meaning. In the second case, the action is described in relation to the moment when a hit-and-run accident occurred, and the C construction serves to emphasize the temporal dimension of the action making the resultative element less important. In the course of the analysis I have found no evidence that the literal or figurative meaning of a phrasal construction affects its ability to appear in different word order patterns. In the following examples the phrasal verb put on used literally appears in both C and D constructions: (73) He boasted that his weight had not changed since he was twenty, and for years, wet or fine, he had got up every morning at eight to put on shorts and a sweater and have a run round Regent’s Park. (Maugham 1985: 15–16) (74) At that moment Miss Wilkinson tripped downstairs, singing a song by Benjamin Goddard. She had put her hat on, for she and Philip were going for a walk, and she held out her hand for him to button her glove. (Maugham 1963: 75)

In the next example the phrasal verb put on is used in one of its figurative dictionary meanings, namely ’stage’, ‘present’,40 the style, register, and diglossia criteria all being preserved exactly as in (73) and (74). The process of staging a new spectacle is implied by the C phrasal construction, and this meaning is reinforced grammatically by the use of the progressive aspect.

Microlevel analysis

(75) ‘The secretary told me you were rehearsing this morning, Miss Lambert,’ the young man remarked. ‘Does that mean you’re putting on a new play?’ (Maugham 1985: 16)

The phrasal construction in (76) is analogous to (75) in all respects but the word order. We may conclude that the role of the D construction used here is to make a claim for Result essential to the context – to get the play ready for presentation, finish staging it within a limited period of time – five months. (76) Because he was practically penniless, he moved into the room in the Hotel Lincoln where Craig was living and in the five months that it took to put the play on they were together twenty-four hours a day. (Shaw 1973: 63)

Another group of examples will illustrate the usage of the phrasal verb put down in Maugham’s “Of Human Bondage”. Like most phrasal verbs, it can be used either in a literal meaning or in a figurative one, which does not affect its ability to appear in both word order positions reflecting the degree of result in the message conveyed by the phrasal verb. In (77) below, Philip, the main character, stops reading for a few minutes, trying to be polite toward his friend’s daughter, but as she does not want to interrupt him, he returns to his book. The short interruption of the activity is expressed by the C construction, unmarked or neutral for Result, and put down is used in its literal spatial meaning: (77) . . . Sally came in and sat by the window to sew. The girl’s clothes were made at home and Sally could not afford to spend Sundays in idleness. Philip thought she wished to talk and put down his book. “Go on reading,” she said. “I only thought as you were alone I’d come and sit with you.” (Maugham 1963: 339)

The same phrasal construction containing put down in the literal meaning in (78) conveys the message of an intentional cessation of the action caused by Philip’s anxious and distressed state. His teacher deliberately stops reading and changes the subject of the conversation. The action is reported from the angle of its endpoint, which motivates the usage of the D construction as marked for Result: (78) Mr. Perkins looked at him again. He wondered whether there was sarcasm behind the boy’s reply, but he was still much too shaken. His face was white and his eyes had a look of terrified distress. Mr. Perkins got up and put the book down. As he did so he took up some photographs. “A friend of mine sent me some pictures of Athens this morning,” he said casually. “Look here, there’s Acropolis.” (Maugham 1963: 39)

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Since both word order variants are possible, their distribution depends on the degree of result in the message conveyed, reflecting the author’s perception of the action as either including its result (completion, endpoint, goal, etc.) or not. For example, a boy’s instinct to touch his foot is reported in (79) without having in view the result of the action, but merely as an act. The literal meaning of the particle does not determine the choice of the word order pattern, whereas the implication for the result of the action does. (79) His heart was filled with joy and gratitude. His first instinct was to put down his hand and feel the foot which was whole now, but to do this seemed to doubt the goodness of God. He knew that his foot was well. (Maugham 1963: 30)

The phrasal verb put down in (80) is used figuratively, and the action it denotes is reported making no claim for its result. What allows Philip to be promoted is the very opportunity for him to act in a certain way, and no result of this action is emphasized at the present stage. This seems to be the reason why the neutral for Result C construction is used: (80) His fellow-clerk was a long, lean man of forty, sallow, with black hair and a ragged mustache; he had hollow cheeks and deep lines on each side of his nose. He took a dislike to Philip because he was an articled clerk. Because he could put down three hundred guineas and keep himself for five years Philip had a chance of a career; while he, with his experience and ability, had no possibility of ever being more than a clerk at thirty five shillings a week. (Maugham 1963: 92)

In (81), the action of registering Philip’s name for a clerk’s position is aimed at obtaining a job, and this result-oriented action is indicated by the D construction, while the figurative meaning of the phrasal verb does not seem to have an effect on the word order: (81) The first examination he could take was in Midwifery and the Diseases of Women, and he put his name down to be a clerk in the ward devoted to feminine ailments; since it was holiday time there happened to be no difficulty in getting a post as obstetric clerk; he arranged to undertake that duty during the last week of August and the first two of September. (Maugham 1963: 337)

The analysis of the examples shows that the choice between the C and D constructions depends neither on the length of the object, nor the end-focus the object receives. It shows no direct correspondence with the literal or figurative

Microlevel analysis

message they convey either. As can be seen from the quoted examples, the distinction in word order is motivated by the encoder’s perception of an action as either result-oriented or not.

. Semantics of word order and style The contrast of C versus D phrasal constructions will be illustrated in this section by the examples taken from different sources, such as the mass media, textbooks, dictionaries, and user manuals. My goal is to show that the choice of the construction type is not arbitrary, but reflects the author’s intention to report an action as either marked for Result or not. I will attempt to provide a semantic explanation for the use of a particular type of phrasal construction in each case, showing that it does not depend on the literary style or genre the text represents. As my data show, newspapers and magazines make wide use of phrasal verbs and constructions, constantly adding new combinations of verbs and particles to the thousands of already existing ones. The mass media exploit phrasal constructions of both word order types, whose distribution corresponds to the claim for Result the reported actions may indicate or not. I must note that when I refer to the meaning of phrasal verbs and constructions as ‘process’, I imply cases in which the relative share of the resultative meaning is low. The first example is taken from an article devoted to the notorious trial handled in early 1995 in the USA – the O. J. Simpson case: (82) Lead prosecutor Marcia Clark methodically laid out the physical evidence that she said will show “a trail of blood from Bundy Drive to Rickingem Avenue and into the defendant’s very bedroom.” On Wednesday, Cochran shrugged those charges off and then began bringing on his surprises. (Newsweek, Feb 6, 1995)

The actions of the prosecutor are described as they progress with an emphasis on their development in time, reinforced also by the word ‘methodically’, which makes the use of the C construction motivated and appropriate. The defense lawyer, however, throws her arguments aside, the effect of it being more important than the process, and this factor justifies the use of the D construction as making a claim for Result. After having the prosecution’s claims refuted, Cochran starts putting forward his counter-evidence, which is reported as an

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action taking place step by step. In this case the neutral type of phrasal construction is more suitable. The abstract of the article comments on the measures taken by the defense: (83) O. J.’s defenders bring on some questionable new witnesses. The prosecution is angry, the judge beleaguered. Will jurors be swayed? (Newsweek, Feb 6 1995)

Here the use of the C construction reflects the neutrality for Result: the passage serves to describe the uncertainty and hesitation in the court room, where the very behavior of the participants is in focus, and the perspective of reaching a decision is too remote. As I have already noted in Chapter 2 above, the resultative meaning is part and parcel of the invariant meaning of phrasal verbs, the variable being its relative weight as compared to the lexical meaning of the activity itself. In some cases the degree of the resultative meaning may be relatively low, and then C phrasal constructions are used more commonly: (84) We and the Palestinians are determined to keep up the struggle and will not be deterred by arrests and violence. (JP Jan 5, 1995)

The confrontation around construction in the settlements has a long history, and the struggle for its cessation is still going on, regarded meanwhile just as a process, but directed to a certain result in the future. The resultative meaning is presented to a relatively small degree, which explains the use of the neutral phrasal construction. Alternatively, there are cases where the emphasis is placed on the effect of the action, the action itself being uninteresting in comparison with the result achieved. For example, the author of an article published in International Business Week expresses his skepticism as to the Maastricht Treaty coming about: (85) Who Can Put Europe’s Humpty Dumpty Together Again? (the title) (IBW May 31, 1993)

The title taken from the nursery rhyme has in view the result of the action – the unity of Europe. The question concerns not the course of the action, but only its performer. The marked D construction is used to reflect the goal-oriented message of the sentence. The next example is taken from a newspaper essay If you knew Susie. . . portraying a well-known British fashion consultant Susie Faux. The choice of C or D phrasal constructions in the narration depends on the resultative/nonresultative message the sentence conveys:

Microlevel analysis

(86) When her boss failed to recognize the need for dressing women properly, Faux established Wardrobe, which she says plays a big part in helping working women to get their act together. [goal] [M.G.] . . . Today padding is out, but some women have sloping shoulders, so they should put in a little padding. [action] [M.G.] . . . Leave the jacket off, and they’ll ask you to make the coffee. [created effect] [M.G.] (JP June 4, 1999)

When Susie advises on the techniques women may use in choosing their clothes, the neutral construction is used. However, in a context expressing her ultimate objective – to help working women look their best – we find the result-oriented D construction. The newspapers of today devote a considerable part of their space to computer information, intending to assist computer users and increase their awareness of the latest innovations in the field. The language of ‘computer’ articles is as dynamic as the branch itself, it abounds in phrasal constructions of both types, showing no preference for either of them but always reflecting the degree of the resultative message they convey: (87) . . . There is some Velcro on the perimeter. When he loads up an especially annoying Web page [during the process of it] [M.G.], the kind that has hundreds of Ks worth of graphics and dumps Java applets indiscriminately, he sticks the plastic sheet over the monitor, takes some rubber darts out of his drawer, and starts throwing. . . . if you try to turn off the proxy set up by Webcelerator [to act this way] [M.G.], the program immediately disables itself. . . . This is really an ambitious idea – setting up a proxy for use by anyone! [doing it and having it – process/result implied] [M.G.] . . . There are ads and there are ads. Some ads are fun; some just hit you over the head with their message, which only serves to get you to put your defenses up [the achieved result] [M.G.] because you are being ‘sold’ something. (JP March 28, 1999)

All the examples in (87) exhibit the same tendency: only the actions making a claim for their Result are reported by the marked D construction. As for the cases allowing both interpretations, they are consistently represented by the unmarked C construction. Cookbooks generally suggest tips and instructions on how to prepare tasty things. It is logical to predict that in advice-giving texts, such as, for example, Phyllis Glazer’s Notebook, the C phrasal constructions will be favored:

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Chapter 4

(88) The best way to preserve a fruit or vegetable is to slow down its respiration [the course of action – process/result implied][M.G.], by keeping it cold and limiting its oxygen supply. . . . If you own one of those wonderful Tupperware refrigerator containers for produce, they are simply ideal because they keep out oxygen [that is what they do – process implied] [M.G.], and are friendlier to the environment. . . . Stir in the vanilla, Kahlua and salt [procedure implied] [M.G.] and continue cooking over low heat until the mixture thickens. (JP June 4, 1999)

Following the tips and instructions provided in the article is mainly a process which may be related to a goal to the extent that phrasal verbs can serve for reporting processes at all. The recommendations for keeping vegetables and fruit fresh for a long time make use of the C constructions only, reflecting their activity-oriented character. The next group of examples is cited from The New Jewish Cuisine and teaches us to prepare biscuits: (89) . . . drop in the vanilla essence and egg yolk. . . . put the flour and sugar into a bowl and rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine crumbs. . . . roll out the paste on a floured board. . . . put the icing sugar into a small pan and stir in the lemon juice. (NJCuisine 1985: 239–241)

The recipe books emphasize the techniques of preparing meals, they focus on the nature and sequence of the operations viewed as process-oriented. This explains the prevalence of the unmarked constructions and the very rare use of the marked ones. Another type of texts, school textbooks, address students with requests or commands in an attempt to evoke various actions. The orientation for process determines the use of the C constructions in the assignments: (90) – Read the text below about a surprising new development in computers. Now read again and fill in the blanks, keeping the following in mind. – If the relative pronoun is followed by a subject + verb, we can leave out the relative pronoun. If it is followed by a verb, we cannot leave out the relative pronoun. – The only preparation you need is to set aside the things you’ll need during the exam: pens, pencils, eraser, your dictionary, a bottle of water and perhaps a sandwich or two.

Microlevel analysis

– Think of what you want to say. In English or in your mother tongue, jot down any thoughts you have on the topic. – Organize your thoughts! Group similar ideas together. Cross out any irrelevant ideas, then number the groups in a logical order. You now have an outline of your essay. – Find the repeated structures on both sides of the bolded connectors and fill in the missing words. – If the missing word is a part of a phrasal verb, and the verb is given, look up the base form. (From: Top Marks 1997)

We see that students are instructed on various techniques of learning English, all of them perceived as actions, or processes, and, therefore, reported by means of the C constructions. In the rare cases where the completion of the action is implied, the D construction is used: (91) Important: Read the whole passage through before doing the exercise. (Green 1991: 74)

Here the requirement is to complete reading the entire text before moving on to the exercise. If we replace the D construction with its C counterpart, the message will change to a non-resultative, or putting no emphasis on finality. Compare: Important: Read through the whole passage before doing the exercise.

The message conveyed by the C construction is ‘doing something’, and it makes the reader perceive reading as a process rather than as its result and a starting point of another action, as in (91). It is interesting to contrast two groups of examples taken from user manuals for electric appliances, referring to similar actions and using similar verbs. (92) a.

Turn on the radio by rotating the volume control knob clockwise. To increase the sound volume, turn the knob clockwise. Turn off the radio by rotating the knob counter clockwise until a slight click is heard. (Sanyo Radio Model 5050) b. Turn clockwise to switch the unit on (a click is felt). Continue turning to increase the volume. Turn fully counter-clockwise to switch the unit off. (Aiwa stereo car cassette receiver CS W6604)

In (92a), the unmarked C form is used to describe the manner of performing certain actions. In (92b), the marked for Result form conveys the message of achieving a certain goal – having the unit in operating mode.

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An example from a TV talk show conversation may illustrate the discussed phenomenon in oral speech: (93) I gave smoking up a year ago.

The program was devoted to the problem of smoking before and after openheart surgery. The caller quoted in (93) was talking about his health condition and the positive changes he experienced after he had quitted the harmful habit. The D construction he chooses reflects the importance he attaches to the consequences of his action, not going into details about the action itself. During an English lesson in Gymnasium Herzlia High School, the teacher is checking homework and does not want her pupils to call out answers. (94) – Don’t call out answers! – The next person to call an answer out, is out!41

(several times)

The teacher reprimanded the students several times on their inappropriate behavior using the C construction to imply the action. Finally, her patience wore out and she announced what would happen to the next person to talk out of turn. Because she placed her emphasis on the consequence or result she chose to use the D word order pattern. The above review of the phrasal constructions appearing in various types of written and oral texts belonging to different styles, registers and genres may be summarized as illustrating the direct relationship between the resultative/nonresultative message they convey and the word order. The C constructions are found much more frequently in texts of all types due to their non-specific meaning: they occur in sentences expressing the meaning of process and/or result. As for the D constructions, they appear in texts of all styles, but their distribution is limited to result-oriented contexts, most appropriate for marked language forms.

. Dictionaries of phrasal verbs Dictionaries of phrasal verbs reflect the general vagueness or uncertainty found in modern linguistic theory in regard to the definition and structure of phrasal verbs, as well as to the degree of their idiomaticity. They include, as a rule, all possible combinations of verbs with prepositions, adverbs and adjectives, as well as idioms and verb + pronoun expressions whose meaning differs from the sum of their elements. For example, Courtney’s “Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs” and “The Oxford Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs” by Cowie and Mackin,

Microlevel analysis

the largest known phrasal verbs dictionaries, both pay attention to the word order of phrasal verbs, though they do not go beyond a more or less precise statement of a possibility of word order alternation. However, the dictionaries of phrasal verbs are of great practical value and linguistic interest as they contain data providing further evidence that word order distinctions are systematically motivated by a semantic difference between the two forms based on the degree of resultative meaning they express, a fact their authors do not seem to notice. Courtney (1983) defines phrasal verbs as ‘idiomatic combinations of a verb and adverb, or a verb and preposition (or verb with both adverb and preposition)’, thus ruling out the non-idiomatic constructions from the definition. I have already referred to this point, showing that non-idiomatic verb-particle combinations display similar syntactic behavior to the idiomatic ones and are also united semantically, though probably to a smaller degree. This is recognized also by Cowie&Mackin (1993: ix): The fact that a particular combination of verb + particle is idiomatic need not affect its grammar. The combination make up as used in She made up her face is quite clearly an idiom (a unit of meaning). Yet the grammar of the idiomatic make up is similar in many respects to the grammar of the non-idiomatic carry away. For instance, the direct object can be changed around in both cases: She made up her face/She made her face up. Bill carried away the rubbish/Bill carried the rubbish away.

Both Courtney and Cowie&Mackin mention that the word order in phrasal verbs may undergo alternation, though this phenomenon is treated as having no motivation and requiring no comment: Sometimes the parts of the phrasal verbs can be separated: (a) The soldiers blew up the bridge. (b) The soldiers blew the bridge up. Some phrasal verbs are always used as in (a), such as leave off in “He left off working”. Others must always be used as in (b) as with keep open in: “She kept the door open”. Blow up is an example of a phrasal verb where you can use either (a) or (b). (Courtney 1983: preface)

This presumes that the distribution of the C and D constructions is arbitrary and that the change of word order bears no semantic significance. In other words, the language applies two structurally distinct constructions for expressing the same meaning. By admitting such a point of view we deny the

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Chapter 4

language its logic, efficiency, and economy and ascribe to it such properties as arbitrariness and redundancy. In order to show that the difference between the two types of transitive phrasal constructions is not purely structural but involves some semantic distinction, I have analyzed the meaning of different phrasal constructions in relationship to their word order. The majority of transitive phrasal verbs can appear in two word order variants at least in one of the messages they convey. Here I must mention that most phrasal verbs are polysemic, the number of their dictionary messages ranging from 2 to 12 and even more, including dialectal distinctions (British, Australian, Canadian, or American English), style distinctions (formal or informal), special jargons (military, literary, law, poetical, technical, nautical, slang), or emotional connotation (derogatory, humorous, pompous). A number of transitive phrasal verbs can be used in two word order positions in some of their dictionary messages and have only one fixed word order position in the others. I will attempt to show that: (1) the meaning of phrasal verbs cannot be separated from their word order, its alternation being not a mere transformation, but rather a change of meaning, however slight or subtle it may appear; (2) the invariant meaning of the phrasal verbs allowing no alternation reflects their marked/unmarked value for the result of the action or event. In the following examples the transitive phrasal verbs that can appear in both C and D constructions are indicated as T1, those used only in the C variant – T1a, and only in the D variant – T1b. Let us consider chuck out as a phrasal verb whose five dictionary meanings allow both positions of the particle with respect to the object and convey result-oriented messages: (95) chuck out 2. infml to get rid of (something): [T1] I really must chuck out all those old newspapers. 3. infml to make (someone) leave because of a fault: [T1] A man was employed to chuck out any troublemakers. 4. infml to make (someone) leave a home: [T1] The owner chucked the old lady out because he wanted to pull the house down. 5. infml to refuse to accept (a suggestion, law, etc.): [T1] The committee chucked your suggestions out because they would cost too much. 7. infml to spoil (something): [T1] Bad weather chucked out our plans. (Courtney 1983: 79)

Microlevel analysis

The invariant meaning of the linguistic sign chuck out can be postulated as get rid of (something or somebody), which has in view the result of the action – to remain without undesirable persons or objects. However, in one case the result component in the meaning of the construction is suppressed by the meaning of activity/process: (95) 6. infml to say (something) suddenly, often carelessly: [T1a] It was unfortunate that you chucked out that remark. (Courtney 1983: 79)

This usage reports an action which is perceived as not oriented for Result – saying something carelessly, without thinking of the consequences – and can be best represented by the C word order pointing to the integral link between signal and meaning. Although the linguistic literature does not seem to recognize that the meaning of phrasal constructions changes as a result of word order alternation, there exist examples where the message conveyed by the C construction is different from that conveyed by the D form: (96) get up 5. to (cause to) rise from bed, esp. in the morning: [T1b] Please get my daughter up at 7:30 tomorrow. 6. to (cause to) leave one’s bed after an illness: [T1b] This letter will get my mother up faster than any medicine. 8. to cause (a feeling) to arise: [T1a] I can’t get up any pity for the difficulties of such people, it’s their own fault. I doubt if I shall ever get up any keenness for the game again. Don’t mention the letter to her, I don’t want her to get up any false hopes. 9. not fml to study; prepare (something): [T1a] How quickly can you get up this piece for the concert? I have to get up a talk for the club’s next meeting. I must go and get up my notes ready for the text. 10. not fml to organize (something): [T1a] The children are getting up a play for next week. The church is getting up a sale to collect money for the homeless children. (Courtney 1983: 231)

In (96-5) and (96-6) above the message conveyed by the D construction is result-oriented: getting somebody up is aimed at changing their state for ‘awake’, like getting somebody up after an illness is aimed at changing their state for ‘fit’. Alternatively, the message conveyed by the C construction in (96-8), (96-9), and (96-10) is mainly activity or process: getting up false hopes, studying or preparing for the test, just like organizing a sale, all report a process, which may be viewed together with its potential result or not. We may conclude

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Chapter 4

that if the action is either process- or result-oriented, it is more likely to be denoted by the C construction, whereas the D form is reserved for the definitely result-oriented contexts. The distinction in messages communicated by C and D phrasal constructions provides support for the sign-oriented assumption on the one-to-one correspondence between signal and meaning. Other examples from the dictionaries can further illustrate this point of view: (97) set up 4. (usu. in sport) to reach or establish (a new record): [T1a] The young swimmer has set up a new fast time for the backstroke. 7. to cause (pain or infection): [T1a] This wet weather sets up the ache in my old wound. 8. to express (a loud noise): [T1a] The crowd set up a shout as the winner neared the post. 9. not fml to make (someone) feel better: [T1b] You need a holiday to set you and Jane up again after all that hard work. 12. not fml to cause (someone) to receive (something such as blame): [T1b] The thief tried to set his companion up for punishment, but he too was caught and tried. (Courtney 1983: 559)

In (97-4), (97-7) and (97-8) above the only possible structure of the phrasal construction is C, while in (97-9) and (97-12) only the D construction can be used. Different word order patterns signal different lexical meaning: ‘reach’, ‘establish’, or ‘express’ versus ‘make feel better’ or ‘cause to receive blame’. Furthermore, the messages reported by the D forms (the latter two) are clearly result-oriented, while in the messages reported by the C forms the meaning of result may be present, partially due to the influence of the marked grammar forms, such as the present perfect in (97-4), or absent like in (97-7) and (97-8). The analysis of the above examples from the dictionaries of phrasal verbs allows for two main conclusions. First, each phrasal construction is an independent linguistic sign whose individual signal motivates its own individual meaning. When the two constructions are composed of the same elements, the word order serves as a linguistic sign distinguishing meaning. Second, the meaning of the D construction is always marked for the result of the action, whereas the meaning of the C construction may be either resultative or not.

Microlevel analysis

. The non-synonymy test As I suggest in the present study, the C and D constructions are not complete synonyms and cannot replace each other in any context without causing a change in message. Having different structure, they are different signals conveying different invariant meanings. The difference in this case is very subtle and rarely affects the lexical meaning (although in some cases it does, like in (96) and (97) above), but rather the process/result versus result-oriented aspect of it. In order to validate the semiotic principle of non-synonymy and its application to the phrasal constructions of two word order types, I asked a group of native speakers to fill in the blanks with the form they regard as more appropriate in the paragraphs culled from literary texts. I sought for some regularity in the way native speakers favor one or another construction in given contexts, comparing their choice with the original variant. My assumption was that in result-oriented contexts the respondents will choose either C (neutral) or D (marked for Result) constructions, since both of them can be used to denote the resultative meaning. In contexts where the resultative meaning was weak or non-specific, I predicted a higher percent of C constructions and, correspondingly, a lower percent of D constructions. 23 respondents were offered a questionnaire containing sixteen questions in the form of relatively long paragraphs from various British and American original texts and representing different styles and genres.42 The respondents were all native speakers of English, most of them students and teachers of English, their age ranging from 19 to 55. They were not limited in time and did not know the purpose of my questions. They were asked to choose the word order variant that, in their opinion, reflected the contextual message better. They had to rely on their language intuitions, and they were specifically instructed to view both variants as grammatical and make no attempt to match their answers to any rules they might have learned. A sample page from the questionnaire is presented below.





Chapter 4

Questionnaire on word order in phrasal constructions – a sample 4. Wadleigh had obviously not been wasting his time seeing too many films. He was as brown as the two girls. In his ill-fitting clothes he had seemed ungracefully shaped, almost tumescent, but stripped for the beach as he was now, his flesh was solid and he looked powerful and dominating. He was laughing and gesturing with a glass he held in his hand. None of the three noticed Craig for the moment and he half-resolved to turn and walk away. There was something too reminiscent in the group for him, it was too much like the Italian actor on the beach, showing his teeth in a smile, with the two girls listening to him. But he ________________________ as bad-tempered and childish and went up to the table. a. fought down the impulse b. fought the impulse down

6. At the bar, Murphy ordered a martini. He made no concessions to what his wife called the tropics. Craig ordered a beer. ‘Well,’ Murphy said, raising his glass, ‘here’s to my boy. He ________________ ___________ . ‘It’s wonderful finally catching up with you. In person. You don’t hand out much information in your letters, do you?’ a. gulped down a third of his drink b. gulped a third of his drink down __________________________________________

8. The routine of the mornings. After breakfast, he and Brenner sprawled in swimming trunks in the sun, the manuscript of Brenner’s new play open on the table between them and Brenner saying, ‘What about as the curtain comes up on the second act, the stage is dark, and she comes in, goes over to the bar, you only see her in silhouette, she pours herself a drink, sobs then ____________________________ in one gulp. . .?’ a. knocks down the whole drink b. knocks the whole drink down

Microlevel analysis

Among the sixteen questions offered in the questionnaire, seven were originally of the D type and nine – of the C type. The length of the object NPs was from two to five words, which was intended to eliminate the effect of the object length factor. Hence, the respondents’ choice was motivated primarily by the meaning they attributed to different word order variants. In all sixteen questions both types of constructions could be used as well-formed and acceptable, probably equally possible in an out-of-context sentence, in order to rule out grammaticality judgments as a variable influencing the respondents’ choice. The summary of the non-synonymy test findings is presented below. If we adopt the view that the C constructions are associated with either resultative or neutral for Result messages, while the D constructions are always conveying resultative message, we may regard the mismatches where the D constructions are mistaken for the C ones as supporting the assumption, since the unmarked C constructions can be used to convey both messages and are in many cases preferred by the respondents who received traditional prescriptive instruction and view the C constructions as ‘correct’. If the original C constructions are perceived as D ones in the cases where they convey a strong resultative message (questions ## 2, 4, 6), I will refer to such choices as non-contradicting the assumption since the message was perceived correctly by the respondent. The cases where the original C constructions denoting process/result meaning with a non-explicit result component are perceived as D ones by the respondent are regarded as contradicting the assumption since this function is presumably restricted to the C constructions. The findings presented in Table 1 above indicate that out of 368 answers, 263 are identical to the original (71.47%). The original D constructions are replaced by C ones due to the resultative message both of them may be representing in 54 answers (14.67%), and these cases also support the assumption. In questions ## 2, 4, and 6 the C constructions have a strong resultative meaning, therefore, their perception as the D type does not contradict the assumption – 25 answers (6.79%). The number of answers where the original C constructions conveying neutral for Result message with a stronger emphasis on the activity which may contradict the assumption are perceived as the D ones is 26 (7.07%). In total, the answers identical to the original, supporting or non-contradicting the assumption are 342 out of 368 (92.93%), while those contradicting the hypothesis amount to 26 out of 368 (7.07%). As can be seen from Table 2, the rate of full or partial correspondence between the original version and the respondents’ choice is rather high – 92.93%, which agrees with the hypothesis of the semantic motivation of the phrasal





Chapter 4

Table 1. The non-synonymy test Quest. # Resp. #

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

Original version

C

C

C

C

D

C

D

D

C

D

D

D

C

C

D

C

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

D D D D D C C D C C C D D D D C D C C D C C D

C C D C D C D C D D D D C D D D D C C C C C C

C D C C C C C D D C C C C D C D D C C C C C C

C C D D C C D D D D C C C D C C C C C C C C C

D D C C D D D D D C D D C C D C D C C D D D D

C C D C D C C D C C D C C C C D C D C D C C C

D D D D D D C D D D D D D D D D D C D D D D D

D D D C C C C D D C D D D D D D C C C C D C D

C C C D C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C

D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D C D C C D D D D

D D C D C C C D D D D D D C D C D D C C C C D

C D D D D C D D C C C D D D C D D C D D C C D

C C C C C C D D C C C D C C C C C C C C C C C

C C C C C C C C D C C C C C C C C C C C C D C

D D D D C C D D C C C D C D D D C D C C C C C

C C C C C C C C C C D C C C C C C C C C C C C

Table 2. Correspondence rates – the non-synonymy test Type of correspondence

Number of answers

Percentage

Identical Supporting the assumption Non-contradicting the assumption Total of identical, supporting or non-contradicting the assumption Contradicting the assumption

263 54 25 342

71.47% 14.67% 6.79% 92.93%

26

7.07%

Microlevel analysis

constructions distribution in the language and contradicts the approach of a random word order choice. The analysis of the responses to the particular questions shows that the respondents made much more precise choices when the grammatical form the construction appeared in reinforced the message. For example, the C construction was better identified when it appeared in gerund, like in question # 3 (17 matches) and #9 (22 matches): (Quest. #3): In the casino, Craig explained, briefly, about roulette and put Patty next to a croupier to help him out. He himself sat down at a chemin-de-fer table. He had only played the one time since coming to Cannes, the night he had loaned Wadleigh the three hundred dollars, the night Murphy had told him to forget the idea of ___________________________. He chuckled to himself, remembering Murphy on the phone. As he sat down at the table he thought, comfortably, I’m thirty thousand francs ahead. I can afford to fool around. a. putting on ‘The Three Horizons’ b. putting ‘The Three Horizons’ on (Quest. #9) Craig hesitated. Unconsciously he patted his coat over his wallet. He knew he had five hundred dollars in American money and about two thousand francs in the wallet. Superstitiously, in memory of the time he had been poor, he always carried a lot of money with him. ______________ ___________________, even from people who were strangers, was invariably painful, almost impossible for him. a. Turning down requests for loans b. Turning requests for loans down

It seems plausible that the combination of the semantic and grammatical factors results in the unanimity of the respondents’ choice of the unmarked C construction. Not only these examples contain the message of process to a high degree (the procedure of staging a play or refusing people), but this action-oriented message is also reinforced by the grammar form marked for Process (gerund). However, grammatical reinforcement is not absolutely essential for the correct choice of the word order as can be seen from the answers to questions ## 14 and 16 where the number of correct choices is 21 and 22 correspondingly. Since there are no additional factors at work in these questions, the preference for the unmarked construction has to be motivated by the emphasis on the activity rather than its result:



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Chapter 4

(Quest. #14) Find the repeated structures on both sides of the bolded connectors and _________________________. a. fill in the missing words b. fill the missing words in (Quest. #16) If the missing word is a part of a phrasal verb, and the verb is given, _________________________. a. look up the base form b. look the base form up

As far as the D constructions are concerned, the two questions that displayed the most matches put an emphasis on the completeness of the action, which seems to be the reason almost all of the respondents recognized them as marked for Result: (Quest. #7) Craig’s rented Simca was shunted around by the doorman to spots less exposed to public view and sometimes, when the spate of expensive hardware was intense, Craig would find his car parked a block away on a side street. There had been a time in his life when he had gone in for Alfas and Lancias, but he ______________________ many years ago and now, as long as a car carried him where he wanted to go, he was satisfied. But today, when the doorman finally told him his car was parked behind the hotel and he trudged on the hunt for it past the tennis courts toward the corner where the whores loitered in the afternoon, he felt vaguely humiliated. a. had given up all that b. had given all that up (Quest. #10) The rest of his speech was in American English. He had a written speech with him – fustian and bombast, I imagine. But, when he found he was going to speak to so few, and to fellow Americans for the most part, he _________________________ . A light sea wind ruffled his thinning hair. ‘I am about to do a very unambassadorial thing,’ he declared. ‘I am about to tell you what I really feel.’ a. put away the formal speech b. put the formal speech away

Answering these questions, the overwhelming majority of the respondents have chosen the D construction. Although I tend to ascribe this fact to the meaning of finality both of these phrasal constructions express (being past the stage of taking pride in fancy cars in #7 or having made the decision to speak spontaneously in #10), I cannot ignore other factors possibly partaking in the respondents’ choice. For example, the object NP ‘all that’ in #7 is frequently positioned

Microlevel analysis

between the verb and the particle as bearing little semantic information and avoiding the semantic focus. I must mention another issue that influenced the respondents’ choice and resulted in 54 cases of preferring the C construction to the D construction. Many of the respondents were university or college educated middle-aged adults, some of them English teachers who received a ‘prescriptive education’. Although they were told that the questions did not deal with ‘correctness’ or ‘grammaticality’, some of them inquired afterwards whether they were tested on the use of split constructions, which they had been taught to avoid as ‘wrong’. Consequently, some of them tried not to use the D constructions nearly at all: respondents ##19 (only 2 D constructions used), 6 and 18 (only 3 each). This may have affected the data to a certain degree. As for the 26 answers where the original message is neutral and the respondents checked the D variant, they can be explained by the properties of the phrasal verbs and the pragmatic features of the context. Most of them (19 out of 26) involve phrasal verbs pass on and put on in questions ##1 and 3: (Quest. #1) The reel of tape, retrieved from the Double-Seven Health Club, had been lying there on the shelf above the test bench for six days. Wizard Wong had glanced at the tape several times, reluctant to wipe out what was on it, yet uneasy about _______________________. Nowadays, recording any telephone conversation was risky. Even riskier was to play the recording back for someone else. a. passing on the information b. passing the information on (Quest. #3) In the casino, Craig explained, briefly, about roulette and put Patty next to a croupier to help him out. He himself sat down at a chemin-de-fer table. He had only played the one time since coming to Cannes, the night he had loaned Wadleigh the three hundred dollars, the night Murphy had told him to forget the idea of _______________________________. He chuckled to himself, remembering Murphy on the phone. As he sat down at the table he thought, comfortably, I’m thirty thousand francs ahead. I can afford to fool around. a. putting on ‘The Three Horizons’ b. putting ‘The Three Horizons’ on

Thirteen respondents chose the D construction in question #1, and 6 in question #3. In both questions the phrasal verbs contain the particle on that seems to appear more and more frequently in a post-posed position when used metaphorically: pass the job on to somebody, put one’s best face on, put the brakes on, put one’s thinking cap on. Selecting the D word type in question #1 modifies





Chapter 4

Table 3. Comparative distribution according to the message Message

Original variant

Continuous

Process/Result Result

138 230

112 98

Answer Discontinuous 26 132

the original message: being ‘uneasy about passing the information on’ places the emphasis on the likely consequences of reporting the phone calls to the bosses. This reading is quite possible, and probably seems more appropriate to some respondents who ascribed Wizard Wong’s reluctance to act in a certain way to his fear of the outcome. In question # 3, the phrasal construction conveys the idea of staging a new play, which the author expressed with the neutral word order. However, if the production is perceived as a complete, result-oriented action, this message can be also expressed by the D word order: ‘to forget the idea of putting “The Three Horizons” on.’ The analysis of mismatches shows that the choice of one or the other word order type may reflect the interpretation of a message as either resultative or neutral. Table 3 shows that the message of process/result is associated for the majority of the respondents with the C construction (81.2%), while the resultative message is perceived by them as the function of either the C or D construction with a similar frequency (42.6% versus 57.4%). Although some of the respondents felt reluctant to use the D construction doubting its “correctness”, the findings still allow to make two important conclusions with regard to the D construction distribution: (1) the respondents applied it much more frequently in result-oriented contexts: 132 out of 158 total D constructions occurring in the answers, or 83.5%; (2) the marked D form is rather rarely applied to convey the message of process/result: in 26 out of 158 cases, or 16.5%, all of which may also be interpreted from a result point of view as well. As for the unmarked form, it appears more frequently (210 answers) than the marked one (158 answers) and serves to convey the message of both process/result (112) and result (98), which supports our hypothesis.

Chapter 5

Macrolevel analysis

The link between the resultative message and word order in phrasal constructions is especially vivid in contextual analysis. The analysis of whole texts is intended to illustrate the semantic role of word order as a linguistic sign in distinguishing meaning on the basis of an extended corpus containing phrasal constructions. I will perform a quantitative analysis of the distribution of phrasal constructions with regard to their markedness value for the semantic feature Result as they appear in the grammatical forms regarded as either unmarked (U) or marked (M) for Result in Battistella (1990), Comrie (1976), Fradkin (1991), Huffman (1989), Khlebnikova (1973), and Tobin (1993): (1) the -ing forms (progressive, present participle, and gerund (U)) versus perfect forms and infinitive (M), present tense (U) versus past and future tenses (M), indicative mood (U) versus subjunctive and imperative mood (M), and others. My assumption is that if the relationship of markedness for Result applies to the word order type in phrasal construction, the marked for Result grammatical forms will co-occur more frequently with the D word order type, and vice versa. If so, it will support the hypothesis that the meaning of Result is reflected in English by the combination of multiple tools and categories. I will present the analysis of two American novels belonging to different epochs and then analyze a British novel and its translation into Russian testing the hypothesis that English resultative forms will correspond to Russian perfective verbs, which are used to represent completed actions.

. Tender Is the Night (Fitzgerald 1933) I begin with the novel “Tender Is the Night” (Fitzgerald [1933]1983) as an example of an earlier twentieth-century American English text. The total number of phrasal constructions found in the novel – 209 – illustrates the fact that the author used them rather frequently. Phrasal constructions may be chosen over one-word verbs due to their semantic potential and syntactic flexibility. For the

 Chapter 5

purposes of the analysis, I selected the first 100 phrasal constructions presented in Tables 4 and 5 below. The analysis of literary texts often reveals interesting facts that may question or disprove existing myths and stereotypes. Despite the common view that the phrasal verbs are usually derived from monosyllabic, or less frequently disyllabic verbs (cf. Fraser 1965), I came across several polysyllabic verbs used with adverbial particles: (98) It was the same feeling that had oppressed her at the hotel – accustomed to seeing the starkest grotesqueries of a continent heavily underlined as comedy or tragedy, untrained to the task of separating out the essential for herself, she now began to feel that French life was empty and stale. (44)

This and other examples may show the growing frequency of phrasal verbs as a way to coin new words in Modern English and demonstrate that their scope is being extended to polysyllabic verbs as well: (99) So Rosemary found it a pleasant party, that luncheon, nicer in that there were only seven people, about a limit of a good party. Perhaps, too, the fact that she was new to their world acted as a sort of catalytic agent to precipitate out all their old reservations about one another. (81)

Among the 100 constructions, the ratio of the C versus D constructions is 94:6, which indicates that the C type is significantly more common in this text written in 1933. I would like to compare the two word order variants of the construction, based on the same phrasal verb: (100) And I’ll look over the whole field of knowledge and pick out something and really know about it, so I’ll have it to hang on to if I go to pieces again. You’ll help me, Dick, so I won’t feel so guilty. (189)

The phrasal verb look over conveys the message of activity, viewed together with and inseparable from its probable result: Nicole is going to engage herself in checking the entire inventory of human knowledge, her purpose being to choose one area and study it thoroughly. This message is typical of the C phrasal constructions, process/result and result are perceived here integrally, being interdependent and completing each other. However, in the D constructions the message of activity is generally superseded by that of its result, which is emphasized and highlighted as important in itself: (101) He was wrong; Baby Warren had no such intentions. She had looked Dick over with worldly eyes, she had measured him with the warped ruler of an

Macrolevel analysis 

Anglophile and found him wanting – in spite of the fact that she had found him toothsome. (185)

Baby, Nicole’s sister, felt herself responsible for Nicole’s marriage, and seeing the relationship between the young people, Baby has already considered all the advantages and disadvantages of a possible alliance. The D construction reports the action as aimed at its result, which bears a greater significance than the activity per se. Table 4 presents the categorization of the phrasal verbs according to word order, lexical, and grammatical factors. The choice of the C or D word order is checked for its correlation with the lexical factor (the literal or figurative meaning of the phrasal verbs) and the grammatical factor (the tense/aspect/mood forms in which they appear), in order to test the assumption that this choice is not arbitrary. The literal/figurative distinction relies on the definitions found in the “Longman Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs” (Courtney 1983). Table 4. List of phrasal verbs: Tender Is the Night No.

Phrasal verb

Word order

Lexical factor

Grammar factor

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

spread out make out wash off gather up shake out separate out open up pick up put on turn up take off break up pick up shut up drink off pull out shoot up precipitate out look up hang up hand over bomb out pick up

C C C C C C C C C C C C C D C C C C C C C C C

lit fig lit lit lit fig fig fig lit fig lit fig fig fig lit lit fig fig fig fig fig lit fig

PS Part I Inf Part I PS Ger Fut PS Imp Part I PrS Inf PrS Inf PS PProg PS Inf PS PS Inf Inf PS

 Chapter 5

Table 4. (continued) No.

Phrasal verb

Word order

Lexical factor

Grammar factor

24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

put up call on pick up take down throw off sweep away think out cut across pay off set up fit in yield up pull down suck back pull up shake off pin down tell off give back fight off hang up strip off turn up smooth back build out push out put on map out pass up put out gather up stretch out build up point out fold up wind up pick up bring out clear up wheel off look over

C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C D C C C C C C C C C C D

lit fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig lit fig lit fig fig fig fig fig lit fig lit lit fig fig fig fig fig lit fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig

PS PProg Part I PS PS Inf PP Part I PS PrS Inf PS Fut Inf Ger PS Part I Ger PrS Fut PP PS Ger PS Inf PProg PS PS Inf PrP PS Ger Inf PS Fut PS PrP PS PS PS PP

Macrolevel analysis 

Table 4. (continued) No.

Phrasal verb

Word order

Lexical factor

Grammar factor

65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100

look over trace down pick out crush out make up make up send off keep up give up pull down pick out clip off throw up push up pick up bottle up bring up yield up hack off take away round up snatch up crush down bend away lift out pull out make up hold up lay out strip off send out bear up push off wave away pull on sweat out

C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C D C C C C C C C C C C C C D D C C

fig fig fig fig fig fig lit fig fig lit fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig lit fig lit lit lit fig lit lit lit lit fig lit fig fig fig

Fut Part I Fut PS Inf Inf PS Inf Inf Fut PS PProg PS PS PProg PP Part I Inf PS PP Imp PS PS PS PS Ger PS PS Part I PS PS Part I PS PS PS PS

PrS – present simple, PS – past simple, Fut – future simple, PrP – present perfect, PP – past perfect, Inf – infinitive, Ger – gerund, Part I – present participle, Cond – conditional mood, Imp – imperative mood, PerfInf – perfect infinitive, PrProg – present progressive, PProg – past progressive

 Chapter 5

Let us examine the contribution each of the factors makes to the choice of the C or D word order pattern. Concerning the lexical factor, the existence of a consistent correlation between the literal/figurative meaning of the phrasal verbs and word order cannot be found. The sample contains 29 phrasal verbs with a literal meaning versus 71 with a figurative meaning. Among 29 phrasal verbs with a literal meaning 27 are of the C type and 2 of the D type, while among 71 verbs with a figurative meaning 67 are of the C type and 4 – of the D type. If we rely on the word order factor, the C constructions are used in literal meaning in 27 cases, while in figurative meaning in 67 cases; the D constructions are distributed as 2 literal versus 4 figurative. Below are the examples of all four possible variants: (102) Table 4, ##2,3. She laughed cheerfully, inviting him to talk, but Dick Diver was already carrying a tent and a beach umbrella up to a waiting car, so she went into the water to wash off the sweat. He came back and gathering up a rake, a shovel, and a sieve, stowed them in a crevice of a rock. He glanced up and down the beach to see if he had left anything. – C, literal (39) (103) Table 4, #12. The interchange filled a pause and Rosemary’s instinct was that something tactful should be said by somebody, but Dick made no attempt to break up the grouping formed by these late arrivals, not even to disarm Mrs. McKisco of her air of supercilious amusement. He did not solve this social problem because he knew it was not of importance at the moment and would solve itself. – C, figurative (57) (104) Table 4, #97. Nicotera in his leopard skin talked attentively to Rosemary while the electrician discussed something with the director, meanwhile leaning on him. Finally the director pushed his hand off roughly and wiped a sweating forehead, and Dick’s guide remarked: “He’s on the hop again, and how!” – D, literal (238) (105) Table 4, #14. Well, none of them knew just what happened until the car stopped and Barban cried in a voice that shook everybody, a voice for cavalry. “Do you want to step out here – we’re only a mile from the hotel and you can walk it or I’ll drag you there. You’ve got to shut up and shut your wife up!” – D, figurative (71)

So far, the only plausible conclusion is that both the C and D phrasal verbs are used with literal and figurative meaning, and that the figurative meaning is more common with phrasal verbs irrespectively of the word order. Considering the grammar factor, I have found out that the total number of the phrasal verbs used in the marked for Result grammatical forms is 75 versus 25 examples where they appear in the grammatical forms neutral for

Macrolevel analysis 

Result. In all 25 cases where phrasal verbs are used in unmarked for Result tense/aspect/mood forms, they also appear in the C constructions: (106) Table 4, #2. Nearest her, on the other side, a young woman lay under a roof of umbrellas making out a list of things from a book open on the sand. Her bathing suit was pulled off her shoulders and her back, a ruddy, orange brown, set off by a string of creamy pearls, shone in the sun. Her face was hard and lovely and pitiful. – C, participle I (33) (107) Table 4, #13. In turn she was equally firm when he tried to monopolize her hand, so they talked shop or rather she listened while he talked shop, her polite eyes never leaving his face, but her mind was so definitely elsewhere that she felt he must guess the fact. Intermittently she caught the gist of his sentences and supplied the rest from her subconscious, as one picks up the striking of a clock in the middle with only the rhythm of the first uncounted strokes lingering in the mind. – C, present simple (58)

Conversely, all the D constructions are used in the marked for Result grammatical forms: (108) Table 4, #84. Upon a single occasion he had let the girl, a flirtatious little brunette, ride into Zurich with him, upon her request, and in the evening brought her back to the clinic. In an idle, almost indulgent way, he kissed her. Later, she tried to carry the affair further, but he was not interested and subsequently, probably consequently, the girl had come to dislike him, and taken her mother away. – D, past perfect (214)

The fact that all the D constructions are used in the tense/aspect forms that are marked for Result whereas all the neutral for Result tense/aspect forms make use of the C word order can be hardly regarded as random. This distribution supports the assumption that the C word order in phrasal constructions is unmarked, or neutral, and represents both result- and process-oriented actions, which makes it possible to use it in neutral for Result tense and aspect forms. However, the D word order in phrasal constructions is marked for Result and preserved for the result-oriented contexts only. Table 5 presents a detailed analysis of the role lexical and grammatical factors play in the choice of word order variant. The lexical factor proves to be less relevant since the ratio of C versus D constructions is similar for the phrasal verbs whose contextual meaning is either idiomatic or literal. A greater consistency can be observed in the grammar factor, where the forms which are neutral for Result are found only in C constructions (100%), and vice versa, the marked grammatical forms show a strong tendency to co-

 Chapter 5

Table 5. Text Analysis: Tender Is the Night Total (100)

Continuous (94)

Discontinuous (6)

Lexical Factor Literal Figurative

29 71

27 (93%) 67 (94%)

2 (7%) 4 (6%)

Grammar Factor Forms Marked for Result Past Simple Infinitive Past Perfect Future Simple Imperative Mood Present Perfect Total

42 17 5 7 3 1 75

40 16 3 7 3 – 69

2 1 2 – – 1 6

Forms Unmarked for Result Gerund Past Progressive Participle I Present Simple Total

7 5 10 3 25

7 5 10 3 25

– – – – –

occur with the D constructions (100%). In other words, while the C constructions use both marked and unmarked grammar forms, the D ones use exclusively the marked ones. It allows us to conclude that the distinction in word order is directly and consistently related to the degree of resultative element in the contextual message: when the grammatical form is neutral for Result, the C constructions are used in all cases. The resultative message expressed by the D constructions is systematically reinforced by the marked grammatical form. This can be regarded as a means of achieving text coherence and is consistent with the semiotic approach claiming that regular co-occurrence of unmarked/marked forms creates syntactic-semantic systems contributing to the non-resultative/resultative message of context and text. This semiotic process is called ‘from sign to text’ and is elaborated upon in greater detail in Tobin with regard to the synonymous pair also/too (1990a: Chapter 7) and various troublesome lexical pairs such as look/see (1993, 1995). In our case, the resultative word order co-occurring with the grammatical forms marked for Result contributes to the contextual message and creates thematic cohesion of the text.

Macrolevel analysis 

. The Last Billable Hour (Wolfe 1989) Another text for a macrolevel analysis is a more recent American novel “The Last Billable Hour” (Wolfe 1989). This novel depicts a big and respectable law office in the Silicon Valley, its feverish operation mode with impossible billable hours, as well as the complexity of human relationships and passions: greed, crime, friendship, and betrayal. The database comprises 132 phrasal constructions, among them 110 of the C type and 22 of the D type. As in the previous text, the C constructions occur much more frequently, which is typical of unmarked forms. I will bring some examples of the ‘minimal pairs’ to exclude the considerations of style, register, or politeness. (109) Certainly there was no transformation in the cooking. She dislodged an egg from her pan on her hot plate and handed it to him on a chipped turquoise dish. The egg was edged in black lace, and the yolk bobbed in a milky puddle. But he had foiled her. He opened the pastry box and pulled out a buttermilk doughnut. (133) (110) He reached into the box and pulled out a maple bar. Sarah got up to get the coffeepot. “Doughnuts,” she said, her back to him. “I had you figured for a muffin type.” He paused in midbite. (135) (111) The thing that almost went wrong was the weapon. I didn’t want to pull the spike out; blood is messy, you start leaving prints everywhere. But the base already had fingerprints, it was rammed against his chest, I couldn’t be sure of getting them all. So I unscrewed the base and took it with me. (179)

In (109) and (110) the actions are reported by the C constructions since they refer to on-going activity: the character keeps taking pastries from the box during the conversation. In (111) the murderer gives an account of what he did to the police and explains his unwillingness to remove the weapon from his victim’s body. Obviously, he is not concerned with the act of pulling out the spike, but with its grave consequences. In all three examples pull out is used in the literal sense, which does not seem to be linked to the choice of the word order. Analyzing the data, I came across examples contradicting the general view on such factors as the length of the object phrase and the fixed position of the pronominal object and the choice of the C phrasal verb: (112) . . . Did I tell you the latest Leo story? I’m not in bad taste, am I, with him wounded there in the next room? He brought one of his real estate clients in to see Tom about a tax shelter last week, and Tom told him that only farms

 Chapter 5

can use that shelter. So the guy said, ‘Hey, I’m a farm!’ Now Leo has Tom doing research to see if the lemon trees by the guy’s garage can qualify as a farm.” (43)

Following the general principles postulated, for example, in Quirk et al. (1982), the particle in (112) should have been placed before, not after a 6-word object. The position of the particle cannot be motivated by the peculiarities of this particular phrasal verb either since it can occur and is regularly used in the C position: (113) “ . . . The tone of the file is getting more and more anxious, Bonifacio is saying we have problems, would somebody please pay attention, and then CompuStar gets slammed with a lawsuit for one point four million dollars. They bring in Gerry Tweedmore.” (134–135)

My explanation is that the word order choice is motivated semantically in both cases, and while in (112) the emphasis is on the purpose of bringing the client to the office – finding the ways to reduce his tax payments, Gerry Tweedmore’s appearance on the scene in (113) is reported as an action undertaken by the company in the situation, where the way of acting is of utmost significance. The following examples show that unlike the commonly shared view on the position of the pronoun object NPs, they can occur in both positions in the same text: (114) “I can talk with Madras about the will. It would make sense for me to be concerned about it. I can just drop in on him without giving him a chance to make something up.” (102) (115) “Then Cal Forman. I’ll get an appointment to talk to him. Then Connie Valentine. I think it’s time to get her explanation about the will. What else? Find out anything about Leo’s big favor for Peter Bonifacio?” “Not yet.” (94–95) (116) “. . . Has Peter looked over the stuff you gave him?” Bill nodded. “He turn up anything?” “Haven’t talked to him.” (89) (117) “Somebody took a paint sprayer to his car a couple of months ago. No suspects. I had a feeling about Slyde, though. I ran a computer check that didn’t turn up anything.” (51)

The fixed position of a pronoun can not be regarded as a rule, or at least, this rule has too many exceptions to be reliable. Probably it works better for

Macrolevel analysis 

personal pronouns, although the semantic considerations may demand that a personal pronoun be placed to the right of the particle, as I have shown above (Chapter 2). In the above examples, we can trace the resultative/neutral distinction expressed by the position of the pronoun: in (114) it is important to take a person by surprise, catch him unprepared and deprive of the opportunity to have a fabricated story ready. The act of creating this story is a matter of secondary concern, whereas the end product makes the difference. In examples (115) and (116), the agents ask each other about the recent progress on the case, the emphasis being placed on the course of the action more than on its result. In (117), a police officer who was trying to get a line on a possible suspect with no success, reports his actions as the steps taken, making no claim for their outcome. The message conveyed by the C construction leaves the case open, the goal is not achieved, the result not accomplished. In my opinion, the considerations of completeness/incompleteness of the action determine the word order in both nominal and pronominal objects, and the higher percentage of the pronouns occurring in the D constructions agrees with the higher probability of the semantic focus on the resultative message that exists for pronominal objects. Table 6 presents the full list of the phrasal verbs found in this text, the word order type of the constructions they form, the literal/figurative distinction, as well as the grammatical form they occur in. Table 6. List of phrasal verbs: The Last Billable Hour No.

Phrasal verb

Word order

Lexical factor

Grammar factor

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

look up set off divide up round out take on keep up bring back put on look up put together pick up leave out put down hold out slam down pull out

C C C C C C C C C C D C C C D C

fig fig lit fig fig fig lit lit fig lit fig fig lit lit lit lit

PP PS PrS Inf PProg Imp PS PS PS Fut PS PP PS Part I PS PS

 Chapter 5

Table 6. (continued) No.

Phrasal verb

Word order

Lexical factor

Grammar factor

17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

look up croak out slick back set up knock down set up hang up put in take on pick up think up blow away figure out slow down bring in pick up start up fill in set up pick up hold up turn up pick up set up pick up piss off pick up put together pull back pick up pick up pick up keep on shut off turn on hang up prop up set out turn out turn up turn up

C C C C D C C C C C C D C C D C C C C C C C C C C C C C D C C C D C C C C C C C C

fig fig lit fig lit fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig lit fig fig fig fig fig lit fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig lit fig fig fig

Part I Inf PS Inf Inf Inf PS PrProg Inf Inf PP Inf Inf Conj PS Inf PS Inf Inf PS PS PS PS Inf PS PS PS Ger Inf PS Ger PS Inf PS PS PS PProg PS PS PrS PS

Macrolevel analysis

Table 6. (continued) No.

Phrasal verb

Word order

Lexical factor

Grammar factor

58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99

shrug off put together find out find out pull off pick up turn on turn off roll up turn on check out make up sum up type out pick up screw up pick up pick up pick up clear up finish up piece together pull out buy back buy out bring in get back draft up pull out pull out screw up stub out stub out put in set up get out print out print out pull away rip out pick up stub out

D C C C C C D C C C C D C C C C C C C C C C C C D C C C C C C C C C C C C C D D C C

lit fig fig fig lit fig fig fig lit fig lit fig fig lit fig fig fig fig fig fig lit fig lit lit fig fig lit lit lit lit fig lit lit fig fig lit lit lit lit lit fig lit

PS PrS PS PS PS Inf PS PS Part I PS Inf Inf PS Ger PS Part I Ger PS PS Inf Imp Inf PS Inf Inf PrS Inf PrS PS Inf PS PS PS Inf PS PS PS PS PS PS PS Part I





Chapter 5

Table 6. (continued) No.

Phrasal verb

Word order

Lexical factor

Grammar factor

100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132

draw out set up pick up make up turn out snap on hang up turn on leave out turn on close out sort out get out carry on drum up pay out put aside screw up pull in suck out spit out churn up hand in clean up punch in hang up push out put down give up pull out pick up pull out turn up

C C C C C C C D D C C D D C C C D C C C C C C C C C D D C C C D D

lit fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig fig lit lit lit fig fig fig lit fig lit lit fig lit fig lit lit

PS PS PS PS PS PS PS Inf PrP Inf PS Inf Inf PerfInf PS Inf PS PrS PrS PrS PrS PrP PP Inf PS PS PS PS PrP PS PS Inf Inf

For abbreviations see Table 4 above. Conj – conjunctive mood.

As for the lexical factor, the sample contains 43 phrasal verbs with literal meaning versus 89 with figurative meaning. Among 43 phrasal verbs with literal meaning, 33 are of the C type and 10 of the D type, while among 89 verbs with figurative meaning, 77 are of the C type and 12 – of the D type. If we rely on the word order factor, the C constructions are used in literal meaning in 33 cases, while in figurative meaning in 77 cases; the D constructions are

Macrolevel analysis

distributed as 10 literal versus 12 figurative. Below are the examples of all four possible variants: (118) Table 6, #7. “Gentlemen, and ladies, I feel compelled to share a bit of news with you this evening, a bit of bad news and a bit of good news about our own Leo M. Slyde. The bad news is that, after some hard drinking and some hard working and some hard other things [shouts of laughter], Leo up and died. And the good news is that, quality control being in a very sorry state, he actually got into heaven. [More laughter.] So when Leo got up to the pearly gates and gave his name, the angels rushed off and brought back St. Peter himself. – C, literal (17) (119) Table 6, #42. “Who is Rickover?” “A guy who works here and shouldn’t. Leo decided the firm needed a guy to do estate planning scutwork and pissed off the hiring committee by leaving us out of the decision. Leo assured us it was a probationary hire, but apparently he never got around to telling Rickover. Anyway the consensus is he blew it.” – C, figurative (58) (120) Table 6, #132. At twelve twenty-five the elevator doors opened and two people emerged into the foyer. The woman had stringy red hair. The man was rumpled, and the lines of his body sloped down and out. Neither of them was dressed for the storm. She saw them laugh with surprise and turn their collars up as she leaned into the rain to call “Howard!” – D, literal (182) (121) Table 6, #28. As he stood near the meatballs with a glass of flat beer, he was momentarily distracted by the large number of Tweedmore secretaries who were bursting with radiant sexuality. Laser-bright silk dresses dotted the pinstripe landscape, and fresh laughter seemed to blow the nervous exhaustion away from the male lawyers’ faces, revealing momentarily eyes more vulnerable than confident. – D, figurative (40)

The word order of the phrasal constructions once again does not reveal any consistent correlation with literal/figurative meaning in which they are used: among the C constructions the literal/figurative ratio in per cents is 30:70; among the D constructions it is 45:55, indicating once again a preference for figurative meanings in the text. These findings provide further support to our conclusion that most of the phrasal verbs are used idiomatically irrespectively of the word order. Considering the grammar factor, I have found that the total number of the phrasal verbs used in the marked for Result grammatical forms is 111 versus 21 examples where they appear in the grammatical forms neutral for Result. All





Chapter 5

21 phrasal verbs used in unmarked for Result tense/aspect/mood forms occur in the C constructions: (122) Table 6, #5. Howard always said yes. Billable work in probate was temporarily scarce, and Howard felt flattered that these various fine lawyers were eager to get his help. By the end of the second week he noticed with satisfaction that his file cabinet was already taking on the bulging, slightly unkempt look of a real lawyer’s. – C, past progressive (8) (123) Table 6, ##118, 119, 120. “You know what that is, Sarah? It’s a giant law machine that pulls in human beings, sucks out their brains, and spits out the carcasses. It’s a factory. All that thick carpet and fancy art is camouflage. – C, present simple (169)

Conversely, all the D constructions are used in the marked for Result grammatical forms: (124) Table 6, #23. Gerry looked back without stopping. “Oh, Bill. Stick around awhile, will you? We’ll be back.” “Where’s he going?” Linda asked Bill. “I thought he was going to knock your door down.” “Okay,” said Candy. “Finally. They’re on.” – D, infinitive (30)

Like in the previous text, we cannot overlook the fact that all of the D constructions are used in the tense/aspect forms that are marked for Result whereas all of the neutral for Result tense/aspect forms make use of the C word order. We therefore assume that there is a consistent tendency to apply the C word order for conveying both result- and process-oriented actions, using both marked and neutral for Result tense and aspect forms. The marked D word order does not occur in neutral for Result contexts because of its resultative invariant meaning, which is compatible with its exclusive favoring of resultative tense/aspect forms in this text as well. In Table 7, I present the analysis of the co-occurrence of the word order of phrasal verbs with other language forms. As before, it revealed no traceable tendency with regard to the literal/figurative meaning factor. As for the grammar factor, we can see that the C type is compatible with all tense/aspect/mood forms, unlike the D type that appears systematically in the grammatical forms marked for the result of the action. It supports the assumption that the D word order type is more restricted in its distribution and preserved to the result-oriented contexts as making a specific claim for Result. To sum up the macrolevel analysis, we conclude that the choice of word order type is actually independent of the lexical factor – figurative or literal

Macrolevel analysis

Table 7. Text analysis: The Last Billable Hour Total (132) Lexical Factor Literal Figurative Grammar Factor Forms Marked for Result Past Simple Infinitive Past Perfect Present Perfect Imperative Mood Future Simple Perfect Infinitive Conjunctive Mood Total Forms Unmarked for Result Present Simple Participle I Gerund Past Progressive Present Progressive Total

Continuous (110)

Discontinuous (22)

33 (76.7%) 77 (86.5%)

10 (23.3%) 12 (13.5%)

66 33 4 3 2 1 1 1 111

56 22 4 2 2 1 1 1 89

10 11 – 1 – – – – 22

9 5 4 2 1 21

9 5 4 2 1 21

– – – –

43 89

–

meaning of the phrasal constructions, but is regularly and systematically linked to the use of grammatical forms unmarked/marked for the result of the action. Consequently, when a phrasal construction is used in its D form, it makes a specific claim for Result, and the resultative message is conveyed mostly through the combined effect of grammatical means and the word order. These data support both our definition of language as a system of systems used by human beings to communicate, our analysis of phrasal verbs, and the ‘from sign to text’ approach to text analysis.

. Comparative analysis of English and Russian texts The category of resultativeness that I suggest in this study may be categorized as aspectual, and the aspectual distinctions in English are not realized in a clearcut systematic opposition ‘perfective’ versus ‘imperfective’ expressed by a regular alternation of morphological forms, like in the Slavic languages, for example





Chapter 5

(cf. Tobin 1993: 3). In Russian, in particular, there exist two parallel sets of verb forms carrying identical lexical meaning, i.e. indicating the same type of action: imperfective and perfective, e.g. слушать-выслушать (slushat’-vyslushat’ [listen-hear out]), петь-спеть (pet’-spet’ [sing-have it sung]). English lacks this morphological complexity, but applies instead various lexical, morphological, and syntactic systems of signs that I have shown above in order to express distinctions in meaning similar to those expressed by aspect in the Slavic and other ‘aspect’ languages. Although I do not identify the category of resultativeness with the perfective aspect, regarding the former as a wider and more universal system of oppositions, not limited to verbs only, and even less to their specific forms, I find it justified to hypothesize that the resultative English forms might be represented in Russian by the perfective verbs, while the neutral or process-oriented forms – by the imperfective verbs. It corresponds to the traditional definition of aspect suggested by the Academy Grammar, translated by Forsyth (1970: 3): The category of aspect indicates that the action expressed by the verb is presented: (a) in its course, in process of its performance, consequently in its duration or repetition, e.g. жить [live], петь [sing], работать [work], ходить [walk], читать [read] (imperfective); (b) as something restricted, concentrated at some limit of its performance, be it the moment of origin or beginning of the action or the moment of its completion or result, e.g. запеть [start singing], кончить [finish], побежать [start running], пропеть [sing the whole song], прийти [come over], узнать [recognize], уйти [go away] (perfective). [translation mine, MG]

Forsyth finds this definition unsatisfactory because it contrasts too many alternative criteria instead of establishing a simple opposition of forms, and puts forward the principle of totality: “a perfective verb expresses the action as a total event summed up with reference to a single specific juncture” (8). The functions of the Russian perfective, as presented in Forsyth (1970: 8), correspond to the semantic functions of the resultative forms: “The perfective verb is consequently used whenever emphasis is placed upon such a new state of affairs produced by the action, i.e. the result or consequences of the action.” I would like to draw a parallel between prefixation as a regular way to convert the imperfective form into a perfective (p) in Russian and adding a particle to a simple verb as a regular way to make the non-resultative verbs resultative in English (Forsyth 1970: 18–19):

Macrolevel analysis

В-бить p Вы-тянуть p За-вернуть p

knock in pull out roll up

под-бросить p при-клеить p раз-о-брать p

throw up stick together take apart

The examples brought by Forsyth show that the derivation of phrasal verbs from simple verbs could be regarded as one of systematic ways to impose the meaning of result in English. Since my claim is that the invariant meaning of phrasal verbs is always resultative to a certain extent, I would anticipate most of them to be translated into Russian by perfective forms, and more rarely by imperfective forms, correspondingly to the degree of resultative message they convey. Among the phrasal verbs translated into Russian by imperfective forms, I expect to find mainly the C constructions as neutral for Result. In order to check my prediction, I have compared the body of the phrasal verbs appearing in an original English text (Maugham: Theatre) with their translation into Russian by either perfective or imperfective forms (translated by G. Ostrovsky). The distribution of forms is presented in Table 8 below, where I used boldface for emphasizing the D constructions in the original English text. The analysis of the 94 phrasal constructions we encounter in Maugham’s novel and its translation into Russian, which is presented in Table 8, was performed according to two criteria: the grammar factor and the word order factor. Both factors were found to have a considerable influence on the translation of the phrasal verbs by either perfective or imperfective forms in Russian. First of all, the number of perfective verbs in the translated text exceeds significantly the number of imperfectives: there are 69 perfective forms versus 25 imperfective, or 73.4% versus 26.6%, which reflects the general trait of the phrasal verbs to be perceived as denoting an action in its totality, shared by the Russian perfective forms. If we analyze the grammar forms the phrasal verbs appear in, the marked for Result tense/aspect/mood forms are found in 85 cases, or 90.4%, while the neutral forms appear in only 9 cases, or 9.6%. The correspondence between the marked for Result grammar forms and the translation of these forms into Russian is presented in Table 9 below. The phrasal verbs used in the tenses and forms marked for Result in English are mostly translated by perfective forms (81%), which is consistent with the resultative message both classes usually convey. However, 17 constructions (19%) were translated into Russian by imperfective forms, all of them of the C type. The fact that in all phrasal verbs appearing in the grammar forms marked for Result and translated into Russian by imperfective forms, the word order





Chapter 5

Table 8. Comparison of English and Russian forms: Theatre Phrasal Construction

Word Grammar Russian Translation Order Form Aspect into Russian

1. put on shorts

C

Inf

I

2. put on a new play

C

PrProg

I

3. smooth out the wave 4. look through the photographs 5. gamble away his fortune 6. pick up a girl

C

Inf

I

C

PS

P

C

PP

P

C

PS

I

C

Inf

P

C

Part I

I

C

PP

P

10. scratch your eyes D out 11. throw up her hands C

Inf

P

PS

I

7. fork out five thousand pounds 8. shout out words of command 9. pull off a trick

12. bring down the C house 13. stretch her legs out D

PP

I

PS

P

14. carry off a scene

C

Inf

P

15. bring up their C joint capital 16. pay out hard C cash 17. put down her novel C

PS

P

Part I

I

PS

P

Inf

P

Fut

P

PP

P

18. buy Dolly de Vries D out 19. clear up all this mess C 20. put on her stockings C and shoes

Надевал шорты Nadeval shorty Ставить новую пьесу Stavit’ novuju pjesu Пользовался бриллиантином Pol’zovalsja brilliantinom Пересмотрела фотографии Peresmotrela fotografiji Проигравшем свое состояние Proigravshem svojo sostojanije Подцеплял девчонку Podtzepljal devchonku Раскошелятся на пять тысяч фунтов Raskosheljatsja na pjat’ tysjach funtov Выкрикивать слова команды Vykrikivat’ slova komandy Удалось сыграть шутку Udalos’ sygrat’ shutku Выцарапала бы вам глаза Vytzarapala by vam glaza Вздымала руки к небесам Vzdymala ruki k nebesam Вызывавшая аплодисменты Vyzyvavshaja aplodismenty Вытянула ноги Vytjanula nogi Провести сцену Provesti stzenu Составило Sostavilo Платили чистоганом Platili chistoganom Отложила роман Otlozhila roman Откупиться от Долли де Фриз Otkupitsja ot dolli de friz Приберу весь этот разгром Priberu ves’ etot razgrom Надела чулки и туфли Nadela chulki i tufli

Macrolevel analysis

Table 8. (continued) Phrasal Construction

Word Grammar Russian Translation Order Form Aspect into Russian

21. give up my career 22. make up her mind 23. take up the receiver

C

Subj

P

C

PS

P

C

PS

P

24. snap out the light

C

PS

P

25. give up his compart- C ment 26. pick up a woman C

PP

P

Inf

I

27. lap up milk

PrS

I

28. turn on the gramo- C phone 29. pick up a French tart C

PS

I

Part I

I

30. put on no frills

C

PS

I

31. carry out her part 32. put on a dressinggown 33. hold out a hand

C

Inf

P

C

PS

P

C

PS

P

34. take her clothes off

D

PS

P

35. ring Michael up

D

PS

P

36. give Julia away

D

Inf

P

37. carry off the incident C

PerfInf

P

38. cut off his nose

Subj

P

39. bring the matter up D

PP

P

40. slip off her shoes

PS

P

C

C

C

Откажусь от своей карьеры Otkazhus’ ot svojej kar’jery Решила Reshila Сняла трубку Snjala trubku Свет погас Svet pogas Уступил свое купе Ustupil svojo kupe Заводить знакомство Zavodit’ znakomstvo Лакает молоко Lakajet moloko Заводили граммофон Zavodili grammofon Подбирает уличную девку-француженку Podbirajet ulichnuju devku-frantzuzhenku Ничего из себя не строит Nichego iz sebja ne strojit Привести его в исполнение Privesti jego v ispolnenije Надела халат Nadela khalat Протянула руку Protjanula ruku Разделась догола Razdelas’ dogola Позвонила Майклу Pozvonila majklu Предать Джулию Predat’ dzhuliju Выпутался бы из положения Vyputalsja by iz polozhenija Наплевать в собственный колодец Naplevat’ v sobstvennyj kolodetz Затеяли этот разговор Zatejali etot razgovor Скинула туфли Skinula tufli



 Chapter 5

Table 8. (continued) Phrasal Construction

Word Grammar Russian Translation Order Form Aspect into Russian

41. call up a taxi

C

PP

P

42. turn down the offer 43. bring a note in

C

PP

P

D

PS

P

44. take in the girl

C

PP

P

45. take off your hat

C

Imp

P

46. shake out her curls

C

PS

P

47. turn over the parts 48. train up actors

C

PrProg

I

C

Inf

I

49. get round the old girl 50. put off royalty

C

PP

P

C

PS

P

51. hold out a hand

C

PS

P

52. put a play on

D

PrProg

I

53. put in a word

C

Subj

P

54. turn on the lights

C

Fut

P

55. pour out the whisky

C

PP

P

56. break up the home 57. turn his head away

C

Inf

I

D

PS

P

58. turn out the lights

C

PS

P

59. put his foot down

D

Inf

P

60. surge up recollections C

PS

I

Вызвал такси Vyzval taksi Отказалась от поездки Otkazalas’ ot pojezdki Принесла записку Prinesla zapisku Поняла, что представляет собой девушка Ponjala chto predstavljajet soboj devushka Снимите шляпу Snimite shljapu Тряхнула кудряшками Trjakhnula kudrjashkami Перебираю роли Perebiraju roli Готовить смену Gotovit’ smenu Обвести старуху Obvesti starukhu Сбросила королевский вид Sbrosila korolevskij vid Протянула руку Protjanula ruku Ставите пьесу Stavite pjesu Замолвили бы словечко Zamolvili by slovechko Зажгу свет Zazhgu svet Налил виски Nalil viski Разбивать семейный очаг Razbivat’ semejnyj ochag Отвернулся Otvernulsja Погасила свет Pogasila svet Воспротивиться этому Vosprotivitsja etomu Всплывали картины Vsplyvali kartiny

Macrolevel analysis

Table 8. (continued) Phrasal Construction

Word Grammar Russian Translation Order Form Aspect into Russian

61. carry the rupture through D

PP

P

62. take off the receiver

C

PS

P

63. write down the address

C

PS

P

64. give up the flat

C

Inf

P

65. put up the notices

C

Inf

P

66. draw in his belly

C

PS

P

67. thrust out his chin

C

PS

P

68. make up her mind

C

PP

P

69. show off her figure

C

Inf

I

70. put on a tan

C

Inf

P

71. put out lights

C

Imp

P

72. switch off everything

C

PS

P

73. reach out a helping hand

C

Inf

P

74. wipe out the recollection

C

Inf

P

75. pick up a woman

C

PP

I

76. take up modern languages C

Inf

I

77. take away my belief

C

PrP

P

78. leave out the blue

C

Inf

I

79. bring down the house

C

PS

I

PerfInf

P

80. think out all that nonsense C

Провела сцену разрыва Provela stzenu razryva Снял трубку Snjal trubku Записал адрес Zapisal adres Отказаться от квартиры Otkazatsja ot kvartiry Повешу извещение Poveshu izveshchenije Втянул живот Vtjanul zhivot Выдвинул подбородок Vydvinul podborodok Решила Reshila Подчеркивающих ее фигуру Podcherkivajushchikh jejo figuru Напудриться Napudritsja Погасите верхний свет Pogasite verkhnij svet Выключил все лампы Vykluchil vse lampy Подать руку помощи Podat’ ruku pomoshvchi Стерла воспоминания Stjorla vospominanija Знакомится с дамой Znakomitsja s damoj Браться за современные языки Bratsja za sovremennyje jazyki Отняли у меня веру Otnjali u menja veru (не) включать синий (ne) vkluchat’ sinij Вызывала аплодисменты Vyzyvala aplodismenty Дошел до всех этих глупостей Doshel do vsekh etikh glupostej



 Chapter 5

Table 8. (continued) Phrasal Construction

Word Grammar Russian Translation Order Form Aspect into Russian

81. give up one’s ideals

C

Inf

P

82. take everything in

D

PS

P

83. set out the tea-service

C

PS

P

84. take off her hat

C

PS

P

85. put her hat on

D

PS

P

86. strike up the National C Anthem 87. bring out the colour of C her eyes 88. take on a sardonic colour C

PP

P

Inf

P

PS

P

89. let Dolly down

D

Inf

P

90. take off her make-up

C

Inf

I

91. let the poor old gal down 92. ring up the Berkeley

D

Inf

P

C

Imp

P

93. bring on his heroine

C

Ger

I

94. eat out her heart

C

PProg

I

Отказаться от своих идеалов Otkazatsja ot svojikh idealov Увидеть все это Uvidet’ vsjo eto Расставил чайный сервиз Rasstavil chajnyj serviz Сняла шляпу Snjala shljapu Надела шляпу Nadela shljapu Заиграл национальный гимн Zaigral natzionalnyj gimn Оттенить цвет глаз Ottenit’ tzvet glaz Приобрела сардонический оттенок Priobrela sardonicheskij ottenok Подложить Долли свинью Podlozhit’ dolli svinju Снимать грим Snimat’ grim Подведете несчастную старуху Podvedjote neschastnuju starukhu Позвони к Баркли Pozvoni k barkli Выводя свою героиню на сцену Vyvodja svoju geroinju na stzenu Изнывать от тоски Iznyvat’ ot toski

was unmarked for Result, can hardly be considered accidental. We may claim that alongside the grammar factor, the word order is another significant influence on the choice of the aspectual form in Russian translation, and in these 17 examples the correspondence between the English word order and the Russian aspect is complete (100%), while the correspondence between the English grammar forms and the Russian aspect is not (81%), which may be explained by the different roles word order and morphology play in expressing meaning in these languages. As for the grammar forms unmarked for Result, 100% of them are translated into Russian by the imperfective forms, which shows that

Macrolevel analysis 

Table 9. Translation of phrasal verbs into Russian: Grammar forms Grammar forms

Total

Marked for Result Neutral for Result

85 (100%) 9 (100%)

Translated by perfective

Translated by imperfective

68 (81%) 0

17 (19%) 9 (100%)

neutrality for Result is captured in two languages identically and reflected with their respective tools. As for the word order factor, the original text contains 94 phrasal constructions of both types, among them 78 continuous (83%) and 16 discontinuous (17%), which is an additional evidence of a more frequent use of the neutral word order type as less restricted and applicable in more situations. The correlation between the word order type and the Russian translation by imperfective/perfective forms is shown in Table 10. As can be seen from Table 10, the C constructions can be translated into Russian by both perfective and imperfective forms (68% versus 32%), whereas the D ones are translated by perfective forms significantly more frequently – in 94% cases, which points to the higher degree of resultative message they convey. Still, there is one example where the D construction is translated by the imperfective form: (125) Table 8, #52. ‘The theatrical profession’s terribly overcrowded,’ said Julia. ‘Oh, I know. It seems almost hopeless unless you’ve got influence or something. I hear you’re putting a new play on soon.’ ‘Yes.’ Julia continued to smile with an almost intolerable sweetness. (Maugham 1937: 142) – В Лондоне актеров больше, чем ролей, – сказала Джулия. – О, без сомнения. Попасть на сцену почти безнадежно, если не имеешь поддержки. Я слышала, вы скоро ставите новую пьесу. – Да . Джулия продолжала улыбаться мало сказать сладко – прямо приторно. (Ostrovsky 1995: 152) Table 10. Translation of phrasal verbs into Russian: Word order Word order type

Total

C D

78 (100%) 16 (100%)

Translated by perfective

Translated by imperfective

53 (68%) 15 (93.7%)

25 (32%) 1 (6.3%)

 Chapter 5

(135) ставите новую пьесу ‘are putting on a new play’

In my opinion, we deal here with a conflict between several differently marked forms: the present progressive, which is often viewed as marked for Process, and the D word order, which is marked for Result. It is possible that the marked grammar form determined the translator’s choice in favor of the corresponding imperfective verb in this case. The 15 D constructions translated into Russian by perfective forms appear in the grammar forms marked for Result (see the examples in bold in Table 8) and may be regarded as combining the resultative meaning of the marked grammar forms and the resultative word order with the essential resultative meaning of the phrasal verb as a lexico-grammatical unit. A similar correspondence is traced in the phrasal verbs used in neutral for Result grammar forms and the unmarked word order: all 9 such cases are translated by imperfectives. Analyzing the data from a different perspective, we see that out of 26 imperfective forms in the Russian translation, 25 represent the C constructions in English. Among them 8 appear in the neutral for Result grammar forms, and their translation by imperfectives is the result of the combined effect of word order and grammar factors. Another 17 occur in the grammar forms marked for Result, therefore their translation by imperfective forms is motivated by the C word order. In just one case an imperfective form ‘invaded’ the territory of the perfective when used to translate the D construction (see (135)) due to the emphasized markedness for Process of the present progressive form it appears in. The foregoing analysis is based on the general premise that the Russian aspect forms a privative perfective/imperfective opposition, where the perfective is the ‘marked for Result’ member. The main prediction that the word order in the original English phrasal constructions should influence their translation into Russian has been confirmed: the majority of the marked D constructions were translated by the marked perfective forms (94%). Similarly, almost all the constructions translated by the imperfectives were of the C word order type, making no claim for Result (25 out of 26).

Conclusion

. . . the task confronting linguistics resembles that of other sciences and consists in searching for explanation of the non-random character of observable phenomena. (Diver 1969: 45)

The present study has attempted to uncover the link between two phenomena I viewed as requiring clarification: the status of resultativeness as a separate linguistic category, and the role of word order as a linguistic sign. Both of them appear to be related to constructions containing phrasal verbs, which serve as one of the main tools for expressing resultativeness in English, on the one hand, and provide a systematic opposition based on word order difference, on the other. In order to suggest a solution to the above problems, I have studied the semantics of phrasal verbs and constructions and the word order alternation typical of such constructions, applying the theoretical and methodological principles of a sign-oriented approach to language. I have reviewed previous studies devoted to both phrasal verbs and resultativeness, representing various theoretical linguistic schools. As I had predicted, the post-position of a particle in English phrasal constructions was found to serve as one of the main tools to express the category of resultativeness, which can be seen from numerous examples in British and American English taken from spoken and written language, from literary and journalistic texts, dictionary entries, textbooks and conversation representing diverse genres, styles and registers. Having summarized the findings of the previous research, I have further elaborated upon them applying sign-oriented methodology, which allowed me to postulate a definition of resultativeness, recognizing its status as a category in its own right, distinct from the perfective aspect or passive voice: resultativeness is a lexico-grammatical category, which reflects a fundamental way of perceiving actions and events integrally with their actual or potential result, and is sometimes expressed in English by a particular word order. Like many other linguistic categories, resultativeness has its own forms of representation, which I claim are systematically opposed to each other in a markedness relationship as unmarked (Process/Result) versus marked

 Conclusion

for Result. Unlike many other categories, such as aspect, tense or voice, this system of result-based oppositions is observed at all language levels and cuts across virtually all forms: it is found in the lexicon, e.g., nonresultative versus resultative verbs (do/make) and grammar, e.g., progressive versus perfective aspect (is doing/has done) as well as at their interface, e.g., simple versus phrasal verbs and continuous versus discontinuous phrasal constructions. It includes oppositions of morphemes (-ing/-ed), words (begin/start), auxiliary verbs (be/have), tenses (present/past), aspects (progressive/perfect), verb complements (gerund/infinitive), voice (active/passive) and mood (indicative/subjunctive) forms, and even types of sentences (nonemphatic/emphatic). In my opinion, these findings may bear a certain linguistic interest, and such topics as ‘The Category of Voice as a Result-Based Opposition‘, or ‘Resultativeness as a Basis of Emphatic/Non-Emphatic Imperative Opposition’ and many others can be regarded as areas for further investigation. Focusing specifically on phrasal verbs and constructions, I have analyzed hundreds of examples culled from literary and non-literary texts of different authors, belonging to different dialects, genres and styles, written at different times, including oral examples, dictionary entries, newspapers and magazines, textbooks, instruction manuals and so on. The quantitative discourse analysis I chose to perform integrated micro- and macro-level types: the data included both independent sentences, sentences in their immediate contexts, and entire texts, where the non-random distribution of phrasal verbs and constructions was investigated. I studied the role of different linguistic criteria such as literal/figurative meaning, unmarked/marked grammar forms and word order in expressing resultativeness, and arrived at the conclusion that the oppositions of simple versus phrasal verbs, as well as of C versus D phrasal constructions, are systematically exploited to convey the message of Result. This confirms the initial hypothesis: the C phrasal construction as well as the D one are distinct linguistic signs within a semantic system, and the opposition of their invariant meanings serves as one of the manifestations of the category of resultativeness in English. The C word order is neutral for the distinctive feature of Result, conveying the message of both Process and/or Result, whereas the D word order is marked for Result. Another conclusion of this study is that the C and D phrasal constructions are neither complete synonyms nor the result of a transformation or syntactic derivation, but exist in the language as independent linguistic signs, each of them characterized by its own form and invariant meaning within a larger semantic system. The word order in phrasal constructions is motivated by the distinction in their invariant meaning, which is rather subtle, though clearly

Conclusion 

recognized and systematically applied by native speakers, as well as affecting the translation of English texts into the ‘aspectual’ languages, such as Russian. Though I agree with Declerck (1978), who claims that “. . . there are so many unsolved problems in connection with VPCs that a coherent treatment of the subject will be most difficult as long as there has not been a tremendous progress in linguistic research,” I hope that the present study will be a step in the right direction.

Notes

. Among the recent publication on this subject I should name Zeller (2001), Dirven (2001), Gries (1999), Dehe, Jackendoff, McIntyre, Urban (Eds.) (2002) and others. . This or similar definition is functional and can be found in many articles and studies devoted to phrasal verbs, such as Bolinger (1971), Declerck (1976), Lipka (1972), Quirk et al. (1982), Side (1990), and others. . The following works by the representatives of the Prague School have been drawn on in this paper: Jakobson (1957), van Schooneveld (1978, 1983, 1989), Waugh (1977). . Contini-Morava (1976, 1983, 1989), Diver (1963, 1964, 1969, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1986), Garcìa (1975), Huffman (1983, 1985, 1989), Kirsner (1979, 1985), Klein-Andreu (1983), Otheguy (1977), Penhallurick (1984, 1987a,b), Reid (1974, 1979, 1991), Tobin (1982, 1985, 1989, 1990a, 1991, 1993a, b, 1994). . Fraser and Joly (1975), Garnier (1983), Guillaume (1984), Hewson (1976, 1981), Hirtle (1967, 1975, 1982), Joly and Hirtle (1980), Jones (1976), Valin (1954). . Saussure (1916 [1986]), Jakobson (1939), Guillaume (1941 [1984]), Tobin (1990), Diver (1995). . The complementary relationship between the communication and human factors determining the distribution of language forms is discussed in detail in Tobin (1990a). . Andrews (1984), Fradkin (1985), Jakobson (1932, 1936, 1971), van Schooneveld (1978, 1983, 1987, 1988). . Charleston (1941), Comrie (1985), Forsyth (1970), Fradkin (1991), Huffman (1989), Jespersen (1924), Joos (1964), Onions (1904), Poutsma (1926), Streitberg (1891), Tobin (1993), and others. . For example, Bolinger (1971), Fairclough (1965), Halliday (1963), Jowett (1951), Mitchell (1958), Palmer (1965), Spasov (1966), Sroka (1972) and others. . Cf. Legum (1968), Lindner (1983), Lipka (1972). . Other terms applied include ‘verb-particle combination’ (Fraser 1976) or other less accepted terms such as ‘verb-adverb combination’ (Kennedy 1920), ‘compound verb’ (Kruisinga 1931), ‘verb-adverb locution’ (Roberts 1964), ‘two-word verb’ (Taha 1960), ‘discontinuous verb’ (Live 1965), ‘particle verb’ (Johnson 1991), etc. . This view is expressed in Bolinger (1971), Stillings (1975), Fraser (1976), Selkirk (1982), Guéron (1987), Johnson (1991) and others.

 Notes . See, for example, Bolinger (1971), Emonds (1972), Fraser (1965), Kennedy (1920), Kruisinga (1932), Legum (1968), Sroka (1972), Sweet (1900). . Bolinger (1971), Jackendoff (1997), Kennedy (1920), Kruisinga (1932), Live (1965), Tenny (1994), Tobin (1993). . The studies of the semantic role of word order looked into marked and unmarked word order in Old Norse (Christoffersen 1980), preposed and postposed adjectives in French and Spanish (Klein-Andreu 1983; Waugh 1976, 1977), grammatical tenses in French (Reid 1979), noun-adjective versus adjective-noun constructions in English (Diver 1986) to name just a few. . Among them Bolinger (1971), Levin & Rappaport (1995), Sroka (1972), Tenny (1994), Tobin (1993), and others. . Comrie (1976), Hirtle (1975), Jespersen (1924), Nedjalkov (1988), Poutsma (1926), Streitberg (1889), and others. . Bolinger (1971), Forsyth (1970), Quirk et al. (1982), and others. . Chafe (1970). . Jespersen (1924) and Poutsma (1926) apply the term ‘result’ to an element of the semantics of the perfect, different from the purely temporal one. We also encounter the notion of ‘result (‘resultative’) implied by such terms as ‘completion’ in Allen (1966) and Charleston (1941), ‘effect’ or ‘consequences’ in Comrie (1986), Joos (1964), Onions (1904), Poutsma (1926) to mention but a few. . Battistella (1990), Beedham (1982), Fradkin (1991), Huffman (1989), Vanrespaille (1989). . Carrier and Randall (1992), Jackendoff (1997), Levin and Rappaport (1995), Simpson (1983), Tenny (1994). . Carrier and Randall (1992), Simpson (1983), Smith (1983). . See also E. Contini-Morava and Y. Tobin (Eds.) Between Grammar and Lexicon (2000), Amsterdam/Philadelphia, John Benjamins. . Battistella (1990), Benveniste (1971), Dik (1983), Tobin (1993). . Fradkin (1991), Huffman (1989), Tobin (1993). . Battistella (1990), Comrie (1976), Fradkin (1991), Khlebnikova (1973), Tobin (1993). . The resultative meaning of the passive has been pointed out by Andersen (1991), Beedham (1982, 1987), Nedjalkov (1988), Tobin (1993), van Schooneveld (1989), and others. . Bolinger (1977), Tobin (1993), Vanrespaille (1989). . Carrier and Randall (1992), Jackendoff (1997), Levin and Rappaport (1995), Simpson (1983), Tenny (1994). . Gorlach, M. (2000). “Resultativeness: Constructions with phrasal verbs in focus.” In E. Contini-Morava & Y. Tobin (Eds.), Between Grammar and Lexicon (pp. 255–286). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. . Courtney (1983: 51). . Ibid.: 53.

Notes

. See Chapter 3.3 above. . Courtney (1983: 53). . Ibid.: 55. . Ibid.: 55. . E.g., Kuznetz and Kerlin (1986). . Courtney (1983: 470(9)). . I owe examples (102) and (103) to Chagit Rifinski. . Shaw (1973), Maugham (1963, 1985), Sheldon (1970), Vonnegut (1963), Lamb (1992), Hailey (1975), Bradbury (1983).



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Name index A Aarts, B. 27 Allen, R. L. 53, 130 Anastasijevic, K. 29 Andersen, P. K. 64, 130 Andrews, E. 129 B Battistella, E. 10–12, 63–65, 99, 130 Beedham, Ch. 57, 64, 130 Benveniste, E. 64, 130 Biber, D. 18, 38 Bolinger, D. 15, 16, 22, 23, 26, 30, 33, 35–37, 40, 42, 43, 52, 64, 68, 77, 129, 130 Bradbury, R. 77, 131 C Carrier, J. 60, 62, 64, 130 Chafe, W. 48, 52, 57, 130 Charleston, B. 52, 129, 130 Chatterjee, R. 50 Chomsky, N. 22 Christoffersen, M. 130 Comrie, B. 41, 48, 52, 64, 99, 129, 130 Contini-Morava, E. 1, 6–8, 18, 24, 67, 129, 130 Courtney, R. 2, 32, 86–90, 101, 130, 131 Cowie, A. P. 2, 86, 87 D Declerck, R. 26, 28, 127, 129 Dehé, N. 129 Dik, S. 64, 130 Dirven, R. 129

Diver, W. 3, 9, 17, 39, 41, 53, 58, 59, 104, 125, 129, 130 Dunne, D. 69, 73, 74, 77 E Emonds, J. 26, 29, 130 Erades, P. A. 32, 33 F Fairclough, N. L. 129 Fitzgerald, F. S. 99 Forsyth, J. 49–52, 116, 117, 129, 130 Foster, A. 70, 75 Fradkin, R. 57, 63, 64, 99, 129, 130 Fraser, B. 23, 25–27, 100, 129, 130 G García, E. C. 129 Garnier, G. 129 Goldberg, A. 62 Gorlach, M. 64, 130 Grafton, S. 16, 38 Greenbaum, S. 35 Greenberg, J. 10 Gries, S. T. 129 Guéron, J. 129 Guillaume, G. 129 H Hailey, A. 71, 76, 131 Halliday, M. A. K. 129 Hammett, D. 77 Hampe, B. 2, 23, 27, 28, 30 Hewson, J. 129 Hirtle, W. 54, 129, 130 Holenstein, E. 42

 Name index

Huffman, A. 10, 13, 17, 53, 56, 58, 63, 64, 99, 129, 130 J Jackendoff, R. 62, 64, 65, 129, 130 Jakobson, R. 129 Jespersen, O. 52, 129, 130 Johnson, K. 23, 24, 30, 129 Joly, A. 129 Jones, R. M. 129 Joos, M. 52, 129, 130 Jowett, W. P. 129 K Kastovsky, D. 22 Kayne, R. S. 26, 27 Kennedy, A. 22, 29, 64, 129, 130 Kerlin, A. A. 131 Khlebnikova, I. 64, 99, 130 Kilby, D. 35 Kirsner, R. S. 129 Klein-Andreu, F. 129, 130 Kroch, A. 33, 34 Kruisinga, E. 25, 64, 129, 130 Kuznetz, M. D. 131 L Lamb, W. 131 Langacker, R. 62 Leech, G. 35 Legum, S. 58, 129, 130 Levin, B. 61, 64, 130 Lindner, S. 28, 129 Lipka, L. 129 Live, A. H. 64, 129, 130 M Mackin, R. 2, 86, 87 Marchand, H. 22 Maugham, W. S. 12, 72, 73, 78–80, 117, 123, 131 McIntyre, A. 129 Mills, C. 38 Murphy, R. 32, 76, 92, 95, 97

N Nedjalkov, V. 51, 52, 57, 64, 130 Neeleman, A. 24, 30

O Onions, C. 52, 129, 130 Otheguy, R. 129

P Palmer, F. R. 2, 33, 129 Penhallurick, J. M. 40, 53, 129 Poutsma, H. 52, 129, 130

Q Quirk, R. 2, 32, 35, 49, 50, 52, 77, 108, 129, 130

R Radford, A. 27 Randall, J. 60, 62, 64, 130 Rappaport, M. 61, 64, 130 Reid, W. 16, 17, 129, 130 Roberts, P. 129

S Saussure, F. de 3, 5–7, 13, 129 Selkirk, E. 129 Shaw, I. 12, 68–70, 74–76, 79, 131 Sheldon, S. 70, 71, 75, 78, 131 Side, R. 129 Simpson, J. 60, 64, 130 Small, C. 33, 34 Smith, C. 130 Spasov, D. 129 Sroka, K. 29, 37, 38, 129, 130 Stillings, J. 129 Stowell, T. 34 Streitberg, W. 50, 52, 129, 130 Svartvik, J. 35 Sweet, H. 130

Name index 

T Taha, A. K. 129 Tenny, C. 14, 31, 33, 39, 42, 61, 64, 130 Tobin, Y. 3, 6–9, 11, 14, 15, 17, 18, 24, 28, 36, 42, 54–58, 63–65, 68, 99, 106, 116, 129, 130

van Schooneveld, C. H. 52, 57, 64, 129, 130 Vanrespaille, M. 58, 64, 130 Vonnegut, K. 131

U Urban, S. 129

W Waugh, L. 36, 129, 130 Weerman, F. 24, 30 Wierzbicka, A. 13 Wolfe, S. 74, 107

V Valin, R. 129 van Dongen, W. A. S. 32, 33, 77

Z Zandwoort, R. W. 55 Zeller, J. 129

Subject index

A Aktionsarten 28, 51 adverbial extensions 29 Adverb-Preposition words 37 Also/too 11, 106 Archi 51 arguments, internal non-measuring/measuring 31 aspect/aspectuality 2, 3, 13, 28, 47, 48, 50, 52, 53, 57, 61, 63, 68, 71 auxiliaries 18, 47, 54, 56, 57, 63, 64 B Baltic dialects 50 be/have, be/get 11, 64, 126 be-passive versus get-passive 58, 64, 65 begin/start 11, 64 break/break up 63, 101, 104, 120 bring/bring down/bring out 1, 67, 68 C check/examine 71 Chinese 51 chuck out 88, 89 Columbia School 5, 9, 10, 13, 17, 67 communication factor 9, 16 communicative function 7, 11 completion/completeness 41, 49, 50, 52, 53, 69, 71, 130 complex verb 34 consequence 41, 44, 50, 52, 54, 68, 71, 75, 86, 130 constructional idioms 62

D declarative/interrogative sentences 47, 65 deep structure 22, 26, 27 destination 41, 44, 50, 52, 54, 71 dictionaries of phrasal verbs 4, 19, 86, 87, 90 Differentiation from Other/ Differentiation from Self 59 discourse analysis 17, 18, 35 distinctive feature theory 3, 10, 13, 14, 47, 65 do/make 64 Dutch 24, 30, 31 E economy of effort 9 effect 43, 52, 54, 61, 62, 68, 81–83, 130 efficiency 6 emphatic/non-emphatic sentences 64, 65, 126 end/finish 42, 55 end-focus 35, 38, 77, 78, 80 endpoint 14, 39, 41, 44, 52, 54, 71, 79, 80 Evenki (Tungus) 51 F figurative meaning 12, 33, 78, 80, 101, 104, 112–114 focus 12, 14, 30, 35, 37, 38, 44, 75, 77, 78, 80, 82, 84, 97, 109, 130 formal/informal situations 35, 77, 88

 Subject index

Forward Particle Movement transformation 26 from sign to text approach 17, 115 G gapping 24 German 51 gerund versus infinitive 54, 63, 64, 99, 126 Gestalt theory 42 get-phrasals 36 get-passive 58, 64, 65 get up 89 goal 14, 41, 44, 52, 54, 70, 71, 73, 74, 78, 80–85, 109 grammar 2, 6, 10, 13, 18, 24, 31, 39, 49, 56, 62–64, 87, 90, 95, 101–106, 109–124, 130 grammatical categories 1, 18, 22, 51, 56 grammatical forms 18, 40, 48, 99, 104–106, 113–115 Guillaumean School of Psychomechanics 5, 54 H human factor 7, 9, 16 I iconicity 3, 12, 14, 19, 69 idiomatic meaning 2, 27, 105 idiomatic/non-idiomatic constructions 2, 23, 28, 33, 34, 87 idiomaticity 2, 12, 28, 33, 86 if/whether 11 indicative/imperative mood 64, 99, 126 indicative/subjunctive mood 64, 126 infinitive 18, 54, 63, 64, 72, 99, 103, 106, 114, 115 inflectional morphology 63 information, new 38

-ing/ed(-en) 11, 23, 56, 57, 63, 64, 126 intonation 6, 13, 14, 62, 63 invariance versus variation 8, 13 invariant meaning 5, 8, 9, 14, 15, 19, 23, 25, 30, 31, 36, 39–44, 54–58, 62, 65, 71, 82, 88, 89, 114, 117 isomorphism 13, 25 J Jakobsonian school 10 Jakobsonian-van-Schooneverdian view of markedness 11 L language, definition 7 langue/parole 7, 8, 10 Leftward movement 26 length of the object 12, 13, 32, 34, 36, 77, 80, 93 lexical pairs 11, 18, 19, 47, 54, 56, 63, 64, 106 lexical verbs 42 lexicon 6, 10, 13, 18, 24, 26, 36, 56, 59, 63, 64, 130 linguistic sign 3, 5–9, 13, 14, 25, 40, 43, 44, 55, 63, 89, 90, 99 literal/figurative meaning 33, 101–106, 109–115 literary texts 4, 67, 91, 100 M macrolevel analysis 99, 107, 114 make-phrasals 36 marked/unmarked word order 16, 37, 39, 63, 70, 126 markedness theory 3, 10, 13, 14, 19 meaning versus message 8 meaning, resultative 2, 3, 27, 62 microlevel analysis 67 minimal pairs 3, 59, 73, 107 mood, indicative/imperative 64, 99, 106, 115, 126

Subject index 

mood, indicative/subjunctive 64, 99, 126 morphemes 6, 15, 22, 24, 47, 48, 52, 60, 63, 64 morphology 6, 13, 23–25, 31, 36, 58, 122 morphology, derivational 24 N negations 12, 64 neutral (unmarked)/marked for Result 40, 44, 56, 72, 79, 122 news value 32, 33 nominal object 1, 62 non-random distribution 3, 17, 18, 20, 56, 67 non-synonymy hypothesis 15 O object, direct 35, 61, 77, 87 one form – one meaning hypothesis 29, 40 outcome 41, 49, 52, 54, 58, 68, 75, 98, 109 P participle (present, past) 56, 63, 64, 99 particle 1, 19, 21–39, 42–44, 51, 54, 58, 60, 61, 68, 71, 72, 77, 80, 87, 88, 97, 108, 109, 116, 129 particles versus adverbials 25, 28 particles versus prepositions 25, 28 passive voice/forms 3, 18, 47, 48, 51, 52, 57, 65, 125, 126 past tense 18, 63, 64 perfective aspect 47, 49, 50, 53, 116 perfective/imperfective forms 18, 57, 72, 73, 117, 123, 124 perfectivity 28, 48, 49 Prague School 5, 11, 129 prepositions (transitive) 25, 26, 28, 49, 50, 52, 86 present/future tense 63, 64

present participle/past participle 63, 64 present/past tense 63, 64, 126 Process/Result 11, 41–43, 52, 57, 74, 83, 84, 91, 93, 98, 100 progressive/passive 57, 58, 64, 65, 78, 99, 114, 115, 124, 126 progressive/perfect 57, 64 pronominal object 38, 107 pronoun 22, 38, 84, 86, 108, 109 put down 38, 79, 80, 109, 112, 118 put on 12, 78, 97, 101, 102, 109, 118, 119, 121

Q quantitative analysis 3, 17, 18, 67, 99 questions, non-tag/tag-questions 64 questions, yes-no/alternative 64 questions, yes-no/wh-questions 64

R register 12, 35, 36, 78, 107 result phase 52–54 Result versus Process 21, 42, 54, 91, 125 resultant condition 30, 37, 52 resultative constructions 14, 26, 27, 42, 51, 52, 58, 60–63, 65 resultative meaning 2, 3, 12, 16, 21, 23, 27, 29, 31, 37, 39, 41, 43, 47–50, 53, 55–58, 65, 67, 68, 70–73, 75, 76, 81, 82, 87, 91, 93, 124, 130 resultative phrase 61, 62 resultativeness 2–5, 13, 19–21, 28, 41, 47, 48, 50–55, 57, 58, 63, 65, 69–71, 76, 115, 116, 130 resultatives, transitive/intransitive 30, 31, 39, 48, 51, 61, 62 resultativity 2, 48, 52, 72 rhythm 32, 42, 105 Russian 4, 18, 50, 51, 53, 99, 115–124

 Subject index

S say/tell 11 secondary predicates 61 Selkup 51 semantic domain 9, 44, 56 semantic integrality 11 set up 73, 83, 90, 102, 110–112 shut/close 55 sign-oriented analysis 14, 56 sign-oriented approach 3, 5, 16, 17, 25, 40, 58, 62 sign-oriented method 18 sign-oriented theory 1, 6, 15, 55 signal and meaning 15, 89, 90 signifiant/signifié 5–7 Slavic languages 115 Slavonic 50 speak/talk 55 spoken/written language 7, 78, 124 statements, non-emphatic/emphatic 64 stative meaning 58 stress 5, 6, 14, 32, 34, 35, 44, 63, 70, 77 style 12, 35, 36, 78, 81, 88, 107 subjective comment 28 synergesis 3, 15, 19, 25, 30, 42, 48, 62, 69 synonymous verb pairs ix, 11, 106 synonyms/synonymy 15, 39, 63, 77, 90, 126 syntax 6, 12, 13, 18, 23–25, 31, 36, 61, 62, 65 Systems of Differentiation 39, 59 system of oppositions 3, 10, 47, 59, 63, 116

T telic goal 52, 71 tense/aspect/mood forms 101, 105, 114, 117 terminus 30, 41 Ternary analysis 60 traditional categories 54, 63, 65 transformational approach 29 transitive phrasal verbs 1, 32, 33, 35, 42, 88 translation 4, 18, 99, 116–124 troublesome lexical pairs 18, 106 V verb complements 47, 63, 64 verb-particle combination 1, 33, 129 verb particle construction 1, 21–24, 31, 37, 42, 61 verb-preposition constructions 27 verbs, prepositional 27 vivid, more vivid/less vivid 56 voice, active/passive 3, 47, 48, 52, 57, 64, 65, 125 W weight and balance principle 38 wh-question 64 word order, marked 70, 76, 124, 126 word order, resultative 4, 39, 44, 60–62, 124, 126 Y yes-no questions 64 Z zero morphology 6

In the series STUDIES IN FUNCTIONAL AND STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS the following volumes have been published thus far or are scheduled for publication: 43 ANDREWS, Edna and Yishai TOBIN (eds.): Toward a Calculus of Meaning. Studies in markedness, distinctive features and deixis. 1996. xxviii, 432 pp. 44 JESSEN, Michael: Phonetics and Phonology of Tense and Lax Obstruents in German. 1999. xx, 394 pp. 45 MARTÍN-VIDE, Carlos (ed.): Mathematical and Computational Analysis of Natural Language. Selected papers from the 2nd International Conference on Mathematical Linguistics (ICML ’96), Tarragona, 1996. 1998. xviii, 391 pp. 46 ŠTEKAUER, Pavol: An Onomasiological Theory of English Word-Formation. 1998. x, 192 pp. 47 MARTÍN-VIDE, Carlos (ed.): Issues in Mathematical Linguistics. Workshop on Mathematical Linguistics, State College, PA, April 1998. 1999. xii, 214 pp. 48 REID, Wallis, Ricardo OTHEGUY and Nancy STERN (eds.): Signal, Meaning, and Message. Perspectives on sign-based linguistics. 2002. xxii, 413 pp. 49 HLADKÝ, Josef (ed.): Language and Function. To the memory of Jan Firbas. 2003. x, 339 pp. 50 DUŠKOVÁ, Libuše (ed.): Dictionary of the Prague School of Linguistics. Translated from the French, German and Czech sources. Author: Josef Vachek †. In collaboration with Josef Dubský. Translated by Aleš Klégr, Pavlína Šaldová, Markéta Malá, Jan Čermák, Libuše Dušková. 2003. x, 216 pp. 51 CONTINI-MORAVA, Ellen, Robert S. KIRSNER and Betsy RODRÍGUEZ-BACHILLER (eds.): Cognitive and Communicative Approaches to Linguistic Analysis. 2004. viii, 388 pp. 52 GORLACH, Marina: Phrasal Constructions and Resultativeness in English. A sign-oriented analysis. 2004. x, 150 pp. 53 EDDINGTON, David: Spanish Phonology and Morphology. Experimental and quantitative perspectives. 2004. xvi, 197 pp.