Stretched Verb Constructions in English

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Stretched Verb Constructions in English

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This book presents a thorough and original discussion of an important yet neglected area of English grammar and semantics. Verb phrases such as make an accusation against somebody, give one’s approval for something or be abusive towards somebody can be seen as ‘stretched’ versions of simpler verb phrases such as accuse somebody (of something), approve (of) something or abuse somebody. The stretched construction in each case consists of a verb with a rather ‘thin’ or ‘lightweight’ meaning, complemented by a noun phrase or adjective phrase that carries the eventive meaning normally carried by the verb. Offering a wealth of new material, this book seeks to answer certain questions about these constructions: • • • •

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• •

What is the precise nature of these constructions and how many types of them are there? What differences in syntactic structure are there between the stretched verb construction and the simple verb? What kinds of eventive noun are used to represent the related simple verb, and what kinds of specifiers and modifiers do they require or permit? What kinds of thin verbs are used, and what semantic contributions can they make in their semantically lightweight use? How do stretched verb constructions compare with other non-literal expressions like restricted collocations and idioms? How are stretched verb constructions handled by language-users and dictionary makers?

Students and linguists working in the fields of syntax, idiomaticity and lexicology will find this book a valuable resource. D. J. Allerton lectured in general linguistics at the University of Manchester until 1980, when he moved to become Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Basle in Switzerland. His chief research field is syntax, which he approaches from a valency/dependency perspective. His other interests include lexicology, semantics, pragmatics, discourse analysis and intonation.

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Routledge Studies in Germanic Linguistics Series Editors: Ekkehard König and Johan van der Auwera

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1 Negative Contexts Collocation, polarity and multiple negation Ton van der Wouden 2 When-Clauses and Temporal Structure Renaat Declerck 3 On the Meaning of Topic and Focus The 59th street bridge accent Daniel Büring 4 Aspectual Grammar and Past-Time Reference Laura A. Michaelis 5 The Grammar of Irish English Language in Hibernian style Markku Filppula 6 Intensifiers in English and German Peter Siedmund 7 Stretched Verb Constructions in English D. J. Allerton

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Stretched Verb Constructions in English D. J. Allerton

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RO

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ou

y Ta

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LE UT D

& F r n cis G a

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London and New York

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First published 2002 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. © 2002 D. J. Allerton All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Allerton, D. J. Stretched verb constructions in English/D. J. Allerton. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. I. English language – Verb phrase. 2. English language – Syntax. I. Title. PE1319 A56 2001 425–dc21 2001052018 ISBN 0-203-16764-3 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-26255-7 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0–415–25733–6 (Print Edition)

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‘Those rules of old discover’d, not despis’d, Are Nature still, but Nature methodiz’d;’ (Pope, Essay on criticism)

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Contents

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List of figures List of tables Preface PART I

Defining the field

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I.1

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Towards a definition of ‘kindred relations’ I.1.i I.1.ii I.1.iii I.1.iv I.1.v

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x xi xiii

Stretched elaborated verb structures I.2.i I.2.ii I.2.iii

I.3

The data to be explained 3 Types of correspondence between structures 8 ‘Transformational relations’ 9 Harris’s approach 10 ‘Kindred relations’ 13 15

The data and the issues they raise 15 The range of stretched verb constructions 20 The individual stretched verb constructions 24

Using data I.3.i The problems of corpus-based and intuition-based data 30 I.3.ii The approach used in this study 31

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PART II

Syntactic restructuring

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Syntactic framework II.1.i Levels of syntactic description 35 II.1.ii Scheme of functional categories and structures 38 II.1.iii Obligatory and optional elaborators 49

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viii Contents II.2

Types of restructuring II.2.i II.2.ii II.2.iii II.2.iv II.2.v II.2.vi II.2.vii

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Structure 1 patterns: V-ejection to AD (agentive) 54 Structure 2 patterns: V-ejection to ND (agentive) 59 Structure 3 patterns: V-ejection to ND (eventive) 63 Structure 4 patterns: V-ejection to PD (eventive) 66 Structure 5 patterns: V-ejection to PO/PÖ (eventive) 70 Structure 6 patterns: V-ejection to O/Ö (eventive) 77 General trends of restructuring 105

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PART III

The event phrase

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III.1 Eventive and agentive noun phrases: their core

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Eventive nouns: their mode of derivation, semantic value and status 113 III.1.ii The determiner and the grammatical subclass of eventive noun phrases 124 III.1.iii Agentive nouns and their determiners 136 III.2 Eventive and agentive noun phrases: modifiers and qualifiers

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III.2.i Adjectival modifications 139 III.2.ii Prepositional postqualifiers and thin prepositions 148 III.3 Agentive adjective phrases

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III.3.i Agentive-eventive adjectives 159 III.3.ii Agentive adjective modification and complementation 163 PART IV

The thin verb

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IV.1 The individual thin verbs, their meanings and collocations

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IV.1.i IV.1.ii IV.1.iii IV.1.iv

Thinness and predictability of meaning 169 Thin verbs of high frequency 174 Thin verbs of medium frequency 186 Thin verbs of low and very low frequency 190

IV.2 The grammatical meanings of thin verbs IV.2.i Thin verbs, verb valency and verbal voice 192 IV.2.ii Thin verbs, ‘Aktionsart’ and verbal aspect 197

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Contents IV.2.iii Thin verbs and minor semantic features 208 IV.2.iv Thin verbs and positive polarity 209

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PART V

The lexical status of stretched verb constructions

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The semantics of stretched verb constructions

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V.1.i V.1.ii

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V.1.iii V.1.iv

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Idioms, metaphors and collocations 215 The analysability and malleability of stretched verb constructions 223 Stretched verb constructions compared with rival patterns 226 Defective stretched verb constructions 234

Stretched verb constructions and the lexicon V.2.i V.2.ii V.2.iii

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The cross-language status of stretched verb constructions 239 The psycholinguistic and cognitive status of stretched verb constructions 242 The lexicographic status of stretched verb constructions 245

A final thought

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Appendix 1: Appendix 2:

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Appendix 3: Appendix 4:

A classification of English adverbials Types of adjective modifying deverbal nouns – their correspondences to adverbial types Potential of eventive nouns for thin verbs Complete list of stretched verb constructions

Glossary Bibliography Index

258 266 271 280 283 293

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2.1 Syntactic restructuring 4.1 Scheme of eventuality types 5.1 Schematic model of semantic processing by the reader–hearer

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Tables

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1.1 Exemplification of structural types of stretched verb construction 2.1 English verb valency patterns in non-stretched structures (excluding embedded structures) 3.1 Modes of derivation of eventive and deverbal nouns 3.2 Additional semantic facets of eventive deverbal nouns 3.3 Basic determiner potential of eventive nouns (in stretched verb constructions) 3.4 Modes of derivation of agentive-eventive nouns 3.5 Correspondences between meanings of adjectives (modifying eventive nouns) and types of adverbial 3.6 Prepositions and semantic roles in prepositional qualifiers (and in other prepositional phrases) 3.7 Modes of derivation of agentive-eventive adjectives 3.8 Semantic facets of subjects expressed by agentive adjectives as descriptors 4.1 Frequency of thin verbs in structures 5 and 6 (in combination with deverbal nouns in data base) 5.1 Phraseological units – defining criteria for subtypes 5.2 List of defective stretched verb constructions (numbered according to their construction type) 5.3 Range of structures in the semantic field (‘benefit some other person(s) by undertaking or joining some work on their behalf’)

18 50 114 122 128 137 147 152 160 162 171 222 236 247

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Preface

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The impulse to write something about what I call ‘stretched verb constructions’ grew out of two earlier interests, syntactic valency and collocations. I once encouraged a doctoral student to work in this field, but when she (quite sensibly) switched to German literature, she left me with a mediumsized collection of examples. I soon realized that because of the number and variety of the constructions any attempt at a thorough piece of work would mean a more detailed but less extensive coverage. Hence the curious limitation to verbs and deverbal (eventive) nouns beginning with A. Even so, the elusive nature of real data means that many aspects of the examples and their analysis is debatable and in need of further investigation. I can only hope to have taken some first steps in this relatively unexplored field. My thanks go to Domenica Cameron for bequeathing me her collection of constructions and the challenge of incomplete, unanalysed data. I am grateful to Cambridge University Press for permission to reproduce extracts from Cambridge International Dictionary of English (1995). I have had very helpful discussions with Richard Matthews, Paul Skandera and Nadja Nesselhauf about different parts of the book. I received some very encouraging comments from an anonymous reviewer, and Esther Mombelli and Rosemary Allerton read the whole of the book, pointing out many errors of detail. The doubtless large number of remaining errors are of course my own responsibility. The arduous task of compiling an index has been taken on by Cornelia Tschichold, to whom I owe sincerest thanks. DJA February 2001

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Part I

Defining the field

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I.1 Towards a definition of ‘kindred relations’

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I.1.i The data to be explained Language apparently abhors absolute synonymy almost as much as nature abhors an absolute vacuum. It is generally assumed by linguists that pairs of words or other lexical elements with absolutely identical meanings are rare, perhaps even non-existent. Not surprisingly, synonymy between grammatical constructions is equally uncommon: rival constructions, like affirmative versus negative verb phrase, or restrictive versus nonrestrictive relative clause, usually show clear differences in meaning; in other words, to adopt the terminology of Haas (1980: 67–9), they exhibit ‘heteronymy’. Even structures with more subtle differences of meaning, like active versus passive, or cleft versus non-cleft, can be said to be nonsynonymous, although they may involve near-synonymy, or ‘plesionymy’, to use the term proposed by Cruse (1986: 285–9). Morphologically related words of different syntactic classes, such as those of (1) below, are no exception to the general rule of heteronymy: (1)

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(a) danger dangerous endanger

(b) risk (NOUN) risky risk (VERB)

(c) chance (NOUN) chancy chance (VERB).

There is a difference not only between the sets (1) (a), (b) and (c), but also between the words within each group sharing a common base but belonging to different word-classes. These differences in meaning between related words of different syntactic classes are of course partly predictable from the difference between noun, adjective and verb, but not completely so.1 For instance, whereas in the risk group all words have a pessimistic orientation, in the chance group this is only true of the verb and the adjective; the noun chance is neutral between optimism and pessimism. But such

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4 Defining the field idiosyncrasies are almost to be expected in the field of word-formation: the lexicon is well known as a repository for irregularities and exceptions, both in form and meaning. What is slightly less well-known is how such sets of words behave when they are placed into appropriate syntactic contexts. The adjectives (dangerous, risky, chancy) in the second line of (1) have been derived by suffixation, and the verbs in the third line have been derived by prefixation (endanger) or by so-called ‘conversion’ (risk, chance). As an alternative to deriving a verb from a noun by morphological derivation of this kind, it is often possible to form a more complex construction that is equivalent to the (one-word) verb (e.g. put . . . in danger, take a risk with . . . ). In such cases we seem to be able to start from a word of one syntactic class from which we derive a word of a different class by morphological means, and we can then embed this derived word in a syntactic construction of the same syntactic class as the original word. The resulting construction, if it is equivalent to a single verb, may well need a similar kind of complementation (or, to use a less ambiguous term, ‘elaboration’) to the one required by the simple verb, if it is to become an autonomous ‘complemented or elaborated verb structure’. For instance, put . . . in danger, take a risk with . . . will require elaboration with something, somebody (or the like) in the same way as the transitive verbs endanger and risk. We shall give the label ELABORATED VERB STRUCTURES2 to combinations of a verb with all the complementation it requires. Elaborated verb structures, in their turn, may be further supplemented by ‘free’, i.e. optional, adverbials (of time, manner, etc.) and require completion with an ‘auxiliary verb structure’ (i.e. tense and auxiliary verbs) to become a full predicate. The following example will clarify the analysis being assumed here: Sebastian must have endangered our lives there yesterday. SENTENCE SUBJECT Sebastian PREDICATE must have endangered our lives there yesterday. AUXILIARY VERB must have -ed STRUCTURE FREE ADVERBIALS there yesterday. ELABORATED VERB endanger- our lives STRUCTURE Let us now consider the range of elaborated verb structures3 of (2); those of (2)(a) are simple, or let us say ‘simplex’ (i.e. based on a simple lexical

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2 The term ‘elaborated verb structure’, an improvement on ‘verb elaboration structure’ as used in Allerton (1982) is preferred to the ambiguous expression ‘verb phrase’, which for many syntacticians would have the meaning needed here, but for Quirk et al. (1972: 43–4) refers to combinations of auxiliary and lexical verb without its elaboration. 3 In all following examples smth, smbd, smwh stand for ‘something’, ‘somebody’, ‘somewhere’ respectively.

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‘Kindred relations’ 5 verb like endanger in its active or passive form), whereas those of (2)(b) are complex (i.e. involving a construction like put in . . . danger): (2) (a) (b)

endanger smth be endangered – – put smth in danger be in danger (of failing) –

risk smth be risked take a risk with smth ?take a risk on smth put smth at risk – be at risk of failing

– – – – –

run the risk of failing take the risk of failing take risks/a risk – –

chance smth ?be chanced take a chance with smth take a chance on smth – –

– – ?take the chance of failing take chances/a chance have a chance of winning use the chance to succeed

The existence of such constructions, with their surprising variety, raises a number of interesting questions, of which the most immediate is what to call them. They were discussed by early modern grammarians like Aronstein (1924: 42–4), Poutsma (1926: 21f, 387f), Trnka (1928: 141), Kruisinga (1932: 198), Jespersen (1942: 116–18) and Kirchner (1952), and also Rensky´ (1964) of the Prague school, who all saw the constructions as manifesting the analytic tendency of English, and the division of the simple verb’s meaning into two elements; but none of them offers a distinctive label for them, apart perhaps from Rensky´ ’s ‘verbo-nominal phrases’. They have also been linked with idioms and other conventional phrases: Nattinger and DeCarrico have a category of ‘lexical phrases’, but they apparently limit this to ‘collocations . . . that have been assigned pragmatic functions’ (1992: 36). The constructions were referred to as types of ‘phrasal verb’ in Stein (1991), and, more recently, as ‘expanded predicates’ in Algeo (1995) and ‘composite predicates’ in Brinton and Akimoto (1999); but none of these terms is very distinctive. Comparable constructions have been noted in German, where they are referred to as ‘Funktionsverbgefüge’(= ‘function verb constructions’) by, for instance, Engelen (1968) or as ‘nominale Fügungen’ (= ‘nominal complexes’) or ‘nominal paraphrases’, to use the translation of Keller (1978).4 In French the terms ‘locution verbale’ and ‘coalescence verbonominale’ are sometimes used, for instance by Björkman (1978). A new generally acceptable label for English would therefore be very useful. Since both take a risk and put (smth) at risk, for example, have a meaning that is very similar to that of risk (smth), we could say, adapting Heringer’s 4 Important contributions in this field are also to be found in Daniels (1963), Engelen (1968), Herrlitz (1973), von Polenz (1985), Sommerfeldt and Schreiber (1996).

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6 Defining the field terminology (1989: 106–13), that the meaning of the simple verb has been ‘stretched’ over the longer whole phrase, and speak of STRETCHED VERB CONSTRUCTIONS.5 The next most obvious point to consider, given our starting point, is what kind of difference of meaning is involved between standard elaborated verb structures based on verbs compared with the ‘stretched’ ones based on verb–noun combinations. It is certainly quite a subtle difference, and we might also be tempted to ask why a language with a verb like risk also needs two alternative structures like take a risk with and put . . . at risk, or even why it needs the lengthier verbo-nominal constructions at all. Even without going into the matter in detail, we can already observe that the typical semantic role for a verb in a standard simple verb structure like risk smth is to refer to the kind of event involved, while the role of the subject, object, etc. is to refer to the participants and circumstances of the event. In the verbo-nominal structures, on the other hand, the event appears in the form of a noun, and there may be a more general reassignment of semantic roles to grammatical categories. A second set of questions to consider concerns the nature of the elements that have to be added to the (verb-derived) noun to give the combination the status of an elaborated verb structure. Starting from the noun itself, we can note that it first has to be supplied with an appropriate determiner, countable or mass according to the context, but that then the resulting noun phrase needs to be given a function (such as object) relative to a specially inserted verb, like take, put, be or run in the examples of (2). These verbs are used in an abstract non-literal sense, and although there seems to be a certain logic in the choice of verb in each combination, there also seems to be an element of arbitrariness. There does not seem to be a good reason why, for instance, English allows run the risk but does not favour run (the) danger(s). German, by contrast, has the combination Gefahr laufen literally ‘run danger’ but requires ein Risiko eingehen ‘go-in(to) a risk’, with combinations corresponding to run a risk and take a risk being unacceptable. These examples illustrate the general point that the choice of verb in such structures is at least partly arbitrary; and the same applies to prepositions selected to precede the nouns in the constructions put smth at risk and put smth in danger. The verbs and prepositions in question do not have their full literal meaning; nor are they totally empty of meaning. The verb and preposition of a stretched verb construction like put . . . in danger could be said to have a meaning that, while certainly not empty,6 5 Heringer actually seems to distinguish between ‘Streckverbindungen’ (in this case ‘gestreckte Verben’) and ‘Funktionsverbgefüge’ according to the degree of emptiness or grammaticalization of the thin verb. 6 This is suggested by Halliday (1985: 135), for whom ‘the process is expressed only as a Range, the verb being lexically empty’, although, interestingly enough, the example She dropped me a curtsey is analysed as having a ‘material Process’, which is defined (1985: 103–4) as being a process of ‘doing’.

‘Kindred relations’ 7

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has, as a result of the stretching of the meaning over the longer construction, become rather ‘thin’, ‘weak’ or ‘light’, compared with, for instance, put and in in an elaborated verb structure like put the car in the garage. The verbs in stretched verb constructions seem to have a status that is half way between full lexical verbs and auxiliary verbs. There is probably a continuum of ‘fullness’ of lexical meaning ranging from very explicit lexical verbs like wink or engrave through more general verbs like act or affect, and then non-auxiliary be and have, to the most lexically empty grammatical markers, progressive or passive be and perfect have, which only have meaning in conjunction with the verb suffixes -ing and -en/-ed. The verbs take, put, etc. in the constructions under consideration here probably come about half-way along this scale: we can therefore refer to them as THIN VERBS, because the meaning is spread more thinly across the whole stretched construction. This is what Jespersen (1942: 117) probably had in mind when he spoke of ‘light verbs’.7 A term that refers more to the place these verbs have on the scale from auxiliary to lexical is the expression ‘support verbs’ used by Dras and Johnson (1996). Some French grammarians, such as Tutin (1997), have used the expression ‘verbe support’. In German grammar, where equivalent structures have been studied more intensively than in English, such verbs are referred to as ‘Funktionsverben’ (= ‘function verbs’). Thin verbs are discussed from a slightly different but eminently compatible perspective by Mel’cˇuk (1993). For him they realize one of his standard types of ‘lexical function’ (= ‘fonction lexicale’), the type that he entitles ‘Oper1’. Such recurrent semantic elements appear with different lexical shapes in different lexical collocations, the choice being determined by the deverbal noun (referred to as the ‘key word’ (‘mot clef’)), which appears in deep object position in French examples like porter plainte à qqn. This approach is not so far from that hinted at in Allerton (1982: 75–6), where it is suggested that, although such structures obviously have syntactic aspects, the choice of verb with ‘minimal semantic content’ is something that needs to be recorded in the lexicon. This is not to say that the verb is devoid of semantic content, and some linguists, such as Wierzbicka (1982), Stein (1991) and Quirk (1995), have pleaded strongly for the individual semantic contribution of such verbs. A further important issue concerning these constructions is their syntactic structure. We have seen that, as regards the role they play in the wider sentence, they are all elaborated verb structures. But their internal structures vary: while the basic structures with full lexical verbs (endanger smth, risk smth, chance smth) are apparently verb-plus-object constructions, the

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7 The term is used in a rather different sense by, for instance, Radford (1997: 201f ), for whom it refers to a semantically lightweight verb that forms a construction with a full lexical verb, e.g. sad in make . . . sad (beside sadden).

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8 Defining the field stretched verb structures we have considered sometimes have the deverbal noun as object (e.g. take a risk with smth) but sometimes have it as part of a preposition phrase (e.g. put smth at risk). It is clearly worth asking what the full range of such stretched verb structures is, and how they correspond to simple verb structures. In comparing such simple and complex constructions with each other, we can be seen to be following an approach that has something in common with the Construction Grammar approach found in, for instance, Fillmore et al. (1988), Goldberg (1995), Michaelis and Lambrecht (1996). A final important question concerns the lexical status of these constructions. It is clear that they cannot simply be regarded as fully regular syntactic structures that have simply been generated according to general rules. Although they do follow general patterns, it is obvious that they are subject to significant restrictions, not only in the choice of thin verbs and prepositions but also in their ability to be formed at all. The gaps in (2) above speak for themselves: why, for instance, does a risk require run, while a chance requires take, and a danger allows neither. This irregularity of patterning puts us in mind of word-formation, and we might be tempted to say simply that they must be listed in dictionaries. Even ignoring the fact that no current dictionaries, not even the B.B.I. Dictionary (Benson et al. 1986a), yet do this satisfactorily, this listing would still not bring out the evident regularity of syntactic patterning. This naturally brings us to the question of the nature of the syntactic relationship between the different grammatical patterns we have observed.

I.1.ii Types of correspondence between structures In Chomskyan ‘transformational grammar’ and other generative approaches the treatment of related but superficially different syntactic structures (such as affirmative versus negative, cleft versus non-cleft or active clause versus passive clause) has been developed considerably over the last forty years or so. Whereas originally Chomsky (1957) foresaw the possibility of generating the marked member (e.g. negative) of a pair of related structures directly by transformational rule, it is now envisaged that the pair will be differentiated at an underlying level by means of abstract devices, which then trigger movement rules and other ‘tidying up’ operations, to give the two superficially different sentences. This can mean that the relationship is not so clearly visible at the surface level of description; to appreciate the relationship (in a generative account) we need to see the transformational or derivational history of the structures concerned. A clearer picture of such relationships may emerge from a connectionist approach, cf. Bechtel and Abrahamsen (1991), Cottrell (1994), or even from a more highly developed lexicalist approach, either of which might allow the separate specification of different but related structures, presumably through some kind of ‘parallel processing’. For the time being, though,

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‘Kindred relations’ 9 it will be sufficient to go back to early Chomsky, or, even better, to his teacher, Z. S. Harris. More traditionally the grammar of a language is described, either formally or informally, as a series of connected constructions. These constructions can be linked in at least three different ways, as noted by Haas (1966: 126–7): (a) they can be linked hierarchically, in that a construction at one level operates as a constituent of a higher construction (as when an object noun phrase, or a predicative noun phrase, forms part of a elaborated verb structure); (b) they can be linked also paradigmatically, in that one construction operates as an alternative to another (as when noun phrases and adjective phrases act as alternative predicative complementations of copular verbs like be or seem); (c) they can finally be linked syntagmatically, most closely as fellow constituents of a higher construction (to which each of them is linked hierarchically – as when a verb is partnered by an object or predicative noun phrase).

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Moreover pairs of constructions that were treated by Harris (1957) or Chomsky (1957) as related through a transformation are linked either hierarchically through embedding (as when a relative clause with a sentence-like structure, is a constituent of a noun phrase) or paradigmatically (as when active and passive are alternative structures for a whole clause). But in either case they are linked by being functionally equivalent despite having similar (though structurally different) internal forms. If we approach things from a different direction, we can ask just how similar or how different two grammatical structures can be. They may differ minimally in that they have different elements at one point in their structures (as outlined in (b) above), or in that one of them contains an additional (optional) element; in both of these cases the two structures can, where this is thought desirable, be regarded as variants of a single complex construction.

I.1.iii ‘Transformational relations’ The relationships between constructions (at sentence level or below) for which Harris and Chomsky invoked the notion of ‘transformation’ involved cases for which the two patterns are too different to be regarded as variants of the same construction and yet are semantically so close that they need to be linked. Let us describe such constructions as being TRANSFORMATIONALLY RELATED. In such cases there will be a relatively complex difference in form between two constructions but a simple difference in meaning. Usually the two structures can be related by an automatic

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Defining the field

rule. To form a standard negative sentence from an affirmative one in current spoken English, for instance, the rule could look something like: (i) In finite clauses: if there is an auxiliary (/or are auxiliaries), add the clitic n’t after the (first) auxiliary; if no auxiliary is present, add n’t after a specially inserted auxiliary DO. (ii) In non-finite clauses: add the word not immediately before any auxiliary or the lexical verb. The effect of such rules is to produce related structures like those of (3): (3)

AFFIRMATIVE

NEGATIVE

opened the door could have opened the door to open the door having opened the door

didn’t open the door couldn’t have opened the door not to open the door not having opened the door or having not opened the door

We can observe a similar effect by comparing active clauses with their corresponding passive clauses. The net effect of all of this for such structures, which we are calling TRANSFORMATIONALLY RELATED, is, as we noted, that they have a complex difference in form corresponding to a simple difference in meaning. The complex differences in form result from the insertion or omission of grammatical elements and the reordering of elements, with any consequential changes in agreement, etc. due to a change in function (like object to subject). There can be changes in grammatical function and changes in inflectional category (e.g. active to passive verb) but no changes in major word class (e.g. noun to verb). A connexionist approach to the description of such structures implies specifying not just the separateness of the different structures, but also the precise ways in which they are related, e.g. the correspondence between an active object and a passive subject. This does of course mean a high level of redundancy in the specification of grammatical patterns. But the human mind may well require the high level of redundancy necessitated by multiple specification in order to compensate for its general inefficiency of operation and the myriad of errors of performance it is capable of.

I.1.iv Harris’s approach Z. S. Harris’s approach to inter-sentence relations is still worthy of our attention. In his article ‘Cooccurrence and transformation in linguistic structure’ (1957) he developed a notion of ‘transformation’ that corresponds quite closely to the traditional idea embodied in such well-known grammatical exercises as ‘Convert into the passive’. Harris’s approach,

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‘Kindred relations’ 11 however, arose out of his requirement that a fully explicit syntax should take account of lexical cooccurrence restrictions and of textual links between sentences. The fact, for instance, that injure (unlike damage) does not collocate with table or telephone, either as the head noun of its object in an active sentence or as the head noun of its subject in a passive sentence, is something that needs to be accounted for in a full syntactic description of English. Equally the fact that Sybil said so can only be understood by referring back to an earlier sentence is something requiring a syntactic explanation. It is worth emphasizing three points about Harris’s notion of ‘transformation’. The first is that, although the two structures linked in a transformational relationship may be unequal in that one of them (such as ACTIVE in the pair ACTIVE–PASSIVE) is structurally simpler and therefore perhaps the natural candidate for the grammarian to select as the basic form, it is perfectly possible to regard the two related structures as, at least in some ways, equal in status. In fact, Harris speaks of ‘two-way transformations’. Certainly at the level of performance it is easy to envisage a speaker switching from PASSIVE to ACTIVE or from INTERROGATIVE to DECLARATIVE just as readily as in the reverse direction. A second point is that some transformational relationships involve a link between a lexical element and a corresponding grammatical one. A good example is the relationship formulated in the 1960s and 1970s as the rule of ‘pronominalization’. This means that, for example, any singular countable noun in English can be replaced with the grammatical substitute one, or any noun phrase can be replaced with one of the pronouns he, she, it or they. Harris saw such correspondences as involving a one–many relationship; and, although within a generative framework it would be essential to take the lexically specified structure as primary, this is not strictly necessary if we are (redundantly) specifying the two structures in parallel. Finally, Harris was willing to contemplate the possibility that transformational relations could involve exceptions. Of course some of the exceptions he discussed were purely the result of the technical limitations of his chosen syntactic framework, as when he worries about the fact that the apparently passive sentence (4)(a) does not have (4)(b) as its corresponding active: (4)

(a) The guests were drunk by midnight. (b) *Midnight drank the guests.

Any grammarian looking for a semantic correspondence between two transformationally related sentences would of course immediately reject (4)(a) and (b) as such a pair (on the basis of were drunk being not passive but adjectival, not to mention the meaning of by); but Harris was simply following post-Bloomfieldian tradition by refraining from considering semantics.

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A more serious exception to the ACTIVE–PASSIVE correspondence is the fact that active sentences with reflexive objects have no corresponding passive sentence, as demonstrated by: (5)

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(a) *Themselves were incapacitated by the guests with drink. (b) The guests incapacitated themselves with drink.

Such apparent ‘exceptions’ to transformational correspondences can presumably be taken care of by building the limitations into the specification of the relationship. Alternatively, it could be said that the relationship only holds for, say, 95 per cent of the possible cases. Whichever of these approaches we take, it will still be possible to state transformational relations of Harris’s kind in terms of regular correspondences between alternative structures. The active–passive relation for English, for instance, (given that it excludes ‘stative’ passive structures like be interested in smth) could be expressed as follows: (6)

[activeNP1 subj + Aux + Vactive + (Prep +) NP2 obj ] ⇔ [passive NP2 subj + Aux + Vpassive + (Prep +) + by + NP1]

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Defining the field

in which ‘Aux’ stands for all auxiliaries except passive BE, and ‘Vpassive’, is understood as equivalent to ‘BE + Vactive’, and in which the sign ⇔ is interpreted as meaning ‘corresponds to’. This would ensure correspondences like: (7)

[The farmer shot (at) the duckling] ⇔ [The duckling was shot (at) by the farmer]

providing that subject–verb agreement was only allowed to operate once the one form or the other had been selected. The role of the NP1 will probably also have to be specified.8 Similarly for cleft structures of active sentences: (8)

[non-cleft NP1 subj + Aux + Vactive + (Prep +) NP2 obj + Advb/PPplace + Advb/PPtime] ⇔ [cleft It + Aux + BE + X + that + [non-cleft structure without X]]

whereby ‘X’ is interpreted as one of the set {NP1 subj, NP2 obj, Advb/ PPplace, Advb/PPtime}. This would ensure correspondences like:

8 See the discussion of ‘perjects’ in section II.1.i below.

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‘Kindred relations’ 13 (9)

[The farmer shot (at) the duckling at home last night] ⇔ [It was the farmer that shot (at) the duckling at home last night.] or [It was the duckling that the farmer shot (at) at home last night.] or [It was at home that the farmer shot (at) the duckling last night.] or [It was last night that the farmer shot (at) the duckling at home.]

Correspondences such as these are regular enough to be formulated as grammatical rules, not in the sense of ‘rewrite rules’, but in the sense of ‘rules of regular grammatical-semantic correspondence’.

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I.1.v ‘Kindred relations’ Under this heading Harris wanted to place all quasi-transformational relationships which were valid for considerably less than 100 per cent of cases. We could consider the following as typical examples: (10) (a) ATTRIBUTIVE/PREDICATIVE adjectives, (b) ‘simple’/‘stretched’ elaborated verb structures. Beginning with the first type, we should note the extremely regular but less than total correspondence between the two structures: (11) (a) the ADJ. N (b) the N that is/was/etc. ADJ. Hundreds of adjectives appear in both positions, e.g. artistic, beautiful, constant, dangerous, eventful, fertile, good, hostile, important. In choosing adjectives for either structure, account needs to be taken, of course, of the collocational restrictions of the adjectives concerned. As is well known, ‘predicative-only’ adjectives, such as afraid, asleep, glad, ill are excluded from the adjective position of (11)(a), while ‘attributive-only’ adjectives like former, principal, sole, are impossible in the structure of (11)(b). Moreover some adjectives (e.g. present) appear in the two positions, but with a clear difference in meaning. This all serves to suggest that the two adjectival structures of (11), while apparently related, are not so closely related that they can be regarded as involving a transformational relationship (although this was proposed in early transformational grammar). They are more distantly related, more like cousins than siblings. It does not seem unreasonable to use Harris’s term ‘kindred relations’ to describe them. This volume is chiefly concerned with describing the other type of kindred relations exemplified above, namely that of (10)(b), which Harris did briefly mention under this heading. Kindred relations are not, however, limited to these two types. Let us consider briefly the following examples:

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14 Defining the field (12) (a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

Sybil’s legs were/felt stiff. Sybil had stiff legs. Sybil was/felt stiff-legged. Sybil was/felt stiff in the legs. Sybil had/felt stiffness in her legs.

Here too we find a set of sentences that have related meanings on the basis of the relatedness of their constructions and the common lexical items used to fill out those constructions. Each example of (12) represents a different kindred pattern, but all of them involve a proper Noun Phrase (Sybil), a concrete noun (leg) and an adjective (stiff ). The set could be represented roughly as follows:

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(13) (a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

[[NP’s]Det N]NPsubj + Vcop + [Adjpredic]AdjP [NPsubj] + Vposs + [Adjattr + N]NPobj [NPsubj] + Vcop + [[Adjattr + N]-ed]AdjP [NPsubj] + Vcop + [Adjpred[P + N]]AdjP [NPsubj] + Vposs + [Adj-ness]NPobj + [P + NP]Advl.

The overall relationships between these different sentence structures involve a number of different individual correspondences: the adjective appears sometimes in attributive position, sometimes in predicative position, and once (in (13)(e)) it appears in the form of the corresponding derived noun; the Noun Phrase Sybil mostly appears as subject of the sentence, but in (13)(a) it is embedded as the base for a possessive determiner with the noun legs as the core noun of the subject; the verb is in some cases a copular verb, in others a possessive verb; some patterns involve a preposition, others do not. The overall effect of these and other differences is to produce sentence structures which cannot be linked by regular transformations but can only be seen as involving a kindred relationship.

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I.2 Stretched elaborated verb structures

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I.2.i The data and the issues they raise Returning to the type of kindred relations which is of central interest to us, we can begin by considering the following sets of sentences and asking to what extent the members of each set can be said to be semantically the same and in what ways they differ: (14) (a) (b) (c) (d)

Sybil criticizes me. Sybil is critical of me. Sybil is a critic of mine. Sybil makes criticisms of me.

(15) (a) (b) (c) (d)

Sebastian disgraced us. Sebastian was disgraceful. Sebastian was a disgrace (to us) Sebastian brought disgrace (on) to us.

(16) (a) (b) (c) (d)

Politicians should serve the community. Politicians should be servants of the community. Politicians should be of service to the community. Politicians should give service to the community.

The similarities in meaning are obvious, and it can simply be said that this results from the lexical-morphological relationship between members within the sets of word criticize, critic, critical; disgrace, etc.: they share a derivational stem or base, and the semantic similarity is the consequence. But, as we began to see in the case of expressions related to danger, risk and chance, there is more to it than this. Each difference in word-class involves a difference in meaning, and in addition there are differences in the syntactic structure of the remainder of each sentence which give rise to further differences in meaning. Yet the overall effect is that sentences are nearly, though not quite, synonymous. How is this possible? It is as though the syntactic structure outside

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Defining the field

the related words makes up for the difference in grammatical class within the set of related words themselves. We could compare it to the situation that arises within lexical morphology, when a denominal adjective-forming suffix (e.g. -al) is added to a noun (e.g. nation), and then the stem formed has a further deadjectival noun-forming suffix (e.g. -ity) added to it, to give a complex noun (e.g. nationality), which is clearly still related to the original root noun, but equally clearly different from it. Another way of looking at the differences exhibited within the sets of (14), (15) and (16) is to say that, since the sentences with simple verbs seem to involve the simplest structure, the other structures can be looked at as expanded, or (to retain the terminology introduced earlier) ‘stretched’ verb constructions. The main questions to be asked, then, about these related constructions are: (17) (a) What are the precise grammatical structures of the different stretched verb constructions? (b) How regular are the semantic differences between the different structures? (c) How regularly can the constructions be formed from each other, and do they mutually interact? (d) How should they be accounted for in a linguistic description – by grammatical rule, by listing in the lexicon, or in some other way? These are very large questions, which will need to be answered in depth, but, to begin with, we can at least look at the sample of structures given in Table 1.1, to see what they reveal. The following provisional conclusions can be drawn to the questions of (17): (I) Unlike transformational relations, kindred relations involve crosscategorial changes, like verb > noun, verb > adjective. Obviously, each related structure needs to be given an independent grammatical description, but each of these descriptions should make clear how each structural element is related to the corresponding elements in the other structures. Something like a surface and a deep level of description will thus be necessary for each structure related by a kindred relation. In our examples we can take the simple elaborated verb structure (numbered ‘0’) as the ‘basic’ or ‘simplex’ structure – not so much because it is derivationally primary or underlying but purely because it has a simpler structure. (II) Whereas transformational relations are in principle regular and apply in all cases (providing they are semantically appropriate), kindred relations are less regular and with their obvious gaps and idiosyncrasies seem to stand between syntax and lexical morphology (= word-formation). This is why they are often put along with idioms in ‘phraseology’ (translating German ‘Phraseologie’), although unlike idioms, they are semantically

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Stretched elaborated verb structures 17 analysable. This means that the semantic value of the various adjectives and nouns and of the constructions they occur in can only partly be predicted on the basis of the verb to which they are related; in other words, we are in the realm of what Goldberg (1995: 120–40) refers to as ‘partial productivity’, cf. also Matthews (1979, 1981), Allerton (1984a, 1990b). For instance, the fact that the word servant has a narrower meaning than simply ‘person who serves’ or the fact that service has slightly different meanings depending on whether it is a countable or a mass noun, is a matter of individual lexemes. Equally, we could cite the examples be of use, be in use to show that an alternation in the thin preposition in effect selects one of two polysemous readings for the noun use, either ‘value’ or ‘utilization’. In the verb structures we have examined account also needs to be taken of limitations on the choice of degree modifiers and other expansions of the verb or its equivalent element: for instance, with the verb criticize the modifiers sharply, intensely are possible and therefore correspondingly sharp, intense in the nominal structures 5 and 6 and sharply, intensely again in the adjectival structure 1; in structure 2 on the other hand, big is a possible modifier of critic, without having a corresponding modifier in the other structures. (III) Just as transformational relations may combine with each other to produce complex sentences (for instance sentences involving both passivization and clefting), so also kindred relations may combine with each other and with transformations. For example, the form be a decision-maker (quoted in parentheses in Table 1.1) involves two kindred relations: first, the type 0 construction decide smth is expanded to the type 6 construction make a decision, and then this construction is used as the basis for the formation of a type 2 construction, be a decision-maker. A case where a transformational relation interacts with a kindred relation can be observed by taking any of the examples cited for construction 6 and converting it to the passive, e.g. Criticisms were made; this is possible in all cases except those with the verb have, which is not a normal transitive verb as regards passivization. On the other hand, some of our kindred structures need to be interpreted as related not to the active form of the verb but to its passive form; this point has been taken account of by giving double entries for the verbs criticize, decide, etc. and is particularly relevant for use and its kindred structures. We shall later also need to consider structures that have a causative meaning, to account for structures like put into service, which might have been included in Table 1.1 under serve, if there had been a suitable place for it. (IV) The last question is the most problematic of all. It is insufficient to mention such structures in the syntax, but it is equally inadequate simply to list them in the lexicon; what is needed is a link component between syntax and lexicon, but exactly what this should look like is a question that cannot yet be answered. This question, even more than the preceding ones, makes a thorough examination of the available data absolutely essential.

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be abundant

–

–

be critical

–

be decisive

– be dependent (on smbd/smth) be dependable be destructive

– be disgraceful –

–

be fashionable

abound

abscond (from smwh) claim smth

criticize (smbd)

be criticized

decide (smth)

be decided depend on smbd/smth be depended on destroy smth

be destroyed disgrace (smbd) end smth

be ended

–

–

–

– be a destroyer of smth – – –

– [cf. be a decision-maker] – be a dependant

–

be a critic

be an absconder (from smwh) be a claimant

–

be an end (to smth) be the fashion

– be a disgrace –

– –

be a decision be a dependency

–

–

–

–

–

–

3. Vø + NomDescrev

be in fashion

–

– be in disgrace be at an end

– –

– –

–

–

–

–

be (there) in abundance –

4. Vø + PrepDescrev

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2. Vø + NomDescrag

come into fashion

– – bring smth to an end come to an end

– –

indulge in criticism come in for criticism arrive at/come to a decision – –

–

exist in abundance –

5. Vø + PrepObjev

1

1. Vø + AdjDescrag

1

0. Vev

Table 1.1 Exemplification of structural types of stretched verb construction

set the fashion

have an end

– cause the destruction of smth suffer destruction bring disgrace put an end to smth

make/take a decision – –

suffer criticism

have a claim on/ lay claim to smth make criticisms

–

–

6. Vø + Objev

1

– be serviceable

– be threatening

– – be useful

be helped lead murder smbd be murdered offer (smbd) smth

be offered serve (smbd)

be served threaten smbd

be threatened use smth be used

Note: The term

DESCRIPTOR

a leader a murderer

a helper smbd)

be an offer –

– be a help (to smbd) – – – – –

– –

– –

– come to the help of smbd – – – – –

5. Vø + PrepObjev

receive help have the lead commit a murder – make smbd an offer receive an offer give service, do a service receive service make threats

– give help to smbd

6. Vø + Objev

be under threat come under threat receive threats – – make use of smth be of use, be in use come into use find a use

– –

be on offer be of service

– be of help (to smbd) – be in the lead – – –

4. Vø + PrepDescrev

(preferred here to the traditional terms ‘complement’, ‘predicative’, etc.) and the term

OBJOID

will be explained in Chapter 2.

PrepDescrev = eventive Prepositional Descriptor PrepObjev = eventive Prepositional Object/Objoid Objev = eventive Object/Objoid

3. Vø + NomDescrev

– be a threat to smbd – – be a user (of smth) – – –

– –

– be a servant

– be (of – be be – –

2. Vø + NomDescrag

AdjDescrev = eventive Adjectival Descriptor1 NomDescrag = agentive Nominal Descriptor NomDescrev = eventive Nominal Descriptor

be afloat be helpful (to smbd) – – (be murderous) – –

float (INTR.) help (smbd)

Note: Abbreviations Vev = eventive Verb Vø = thin Verb

1. Vø + AdjDescrag

0. Vev

Table 1.1 (continued)

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Defining the field

I.2.ii The range of stretched verb constructions A first issue that needs to be addressed with regard to the range of data that form the topic of this study, is the precise delimitation of stretched verb constructions. Throughout, the aim is to study non-minimal (i.e. stretched) constructions that are semantically equivalent to minimal (i.e. simplex) verb-based constructions, in their active or passive form, or in a causative version or that of some other grammatical voice, if one can be found. This means that a border-line has to be drawn between those examples that are near-synonymous allowing for a possible change of voice and those that are sufficiently different in meaning to be regarded as having a distinct additional semantic component. This will not always be an easy line to draw, but it is necessary to draw it, both to make the study of manageable size and to concentrate on the essential problem (or even paradox) of having so many semantically similar constructions. The effect of this decision will be, for instance, that corresponding to the simple verb annoy smbd we shall accept cause annoyance to smbd (with an ‘active’ value) and feel annoyance at/with smbd/smth (with a ‘passive’ value). On the other hand, we shall reject express annoyance at/with smbd/smth and show annoyance at/with smbd/smth, because they refer not only to the act of annoyance but also to the fact that the annoyance is exhibited, either verbally or nonverbally, whereas annoyance alone is strictly a mental state which need not be physically manifest. Similarly, whereas give/grant admission and gain admission will be included (because of their correspondence to admit and be admitted respectively), seek admission will be excluded because the notion of ‘seeking’ is not present in the basic meaning of the verb admit (in this sense). To be absolutely strict, we might wish to exclude structures that differ substantially in terms of grammatical aspect, e.g. strike up, keep up or renew an acquaintance (beside the neutral have an acquaintance): but, just like differences in grammatical voice, these differences leave the core meaning of the construction intact and can thus be regarded as within our field. The semantic contribution they make will be discussed in section IV.2.ii. A second kind of construction we shall exclude is one in which there is a similar semantic correspondence to the one we are looking for between a simplex verb construction and a longer construction but in which the noun in the extended construction is not an eventive one derived from the verb: it is instead is a basic concrete noun used in an instrumental sense, from which the verb has been derived. In other words, whereas stretched verb constructions (in the sense we have been considering) have an abstract thin verb and an eventive noun (or adjective), these other verb constructions, which we might call ‘full instrumental elaborated verb structures’, contain a verb designating a concrete action and a noun referring to a tool, piece of equipment or container involved in the action. Consider the examples:

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Stretched elaborated verb structures 21 FULL INSTRUMENTAL E.V.S.

REDUCED INSTRUMENTAL E.V.S.

cast/weigh anchor supply smbd with arms/armaments put smth into bottles hit smth with a hammer contact smbd by radio

anchor (ship) arm smbd bottle smth hammer smth radio smbd

These full instrumental elaborated verb structures differ from stretched verb constructions in a number of ways: although the fuller version of the structure may look ‘stretched’, it can be regarded as the normal format, from which the other format has been reduced; the concrete noun they contain can be seen as basic, while the verb in the reduced construction has been derived from it; and, as we have seen, both constructions have a relatively concrete meaning. A further group of constructions that have to be excluded according to our strict definition (and are excluded, for instance, by Rensky´ (1964: 290)) is the set of constructions that match the syntactic structure and semantic value of a particular stretched verb construction but for which there is no corresponding simple verb. For instance, beside expressions like cause (much) annoyance to/for smbd, cause (no) harm to smbd, cause (real) worry to/for smbd, all with a corresponding simple eventive verb (annoy, harm, worry), we also find expressions like cause anguish for smbd or cause problems for smbd. Native speakers often feel that there is a similarity between cause anguish/problems for smbd and the verb-related constructions, but it is obviously not possible to regard these examples as stretched verb constructions. What we can say is that such constructions have a similar grammatico-semantic pattern to stretched verb constructions, but that they are not identical because one connection is missing. They perhaps still deserve the label ‘stretched verb (elaboration) structures’ because they are non-minimal, but their lack of connection to a simple verb means they are in some sense ‘defective’. Often this becomes clear by comparison with other languages, e.g. English has commit suicide but no corresponding simple verb construction (except for kill oneself ) whereas French has se suicider. There is a problematic borderline between the defective stretched verb constructions and normal ones, in that in some cases there is a verb but one that is extremely rare and perhaps unknown to many speakers: we might cite the marginal stretched verb constructions gain access, commit aggression, cause consternation with their stylistically restricted or very rare verbs access (technical), aggress (highly formal) and consternate (archaic). But such cases are fortunately relatively few in number, and it is possible a draw a line somewhere down the middle, allowing all cases where the typical speaker-writer familiar with formal style might have come across the verb in question. Truly ‘defective’ stretched verb constructions will be considered in more detail in Part V (section V.1.iv).

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There is a final border-line case for us to consider. It concerns structures in which the eventive noun occurs in subject position followed by a thin verb. This is a structure for which we have so far made no provision, but which is Rensky´’s (1964) Type A2 and which Mel’cˇuk (1982) allows for by proposing a lexical function ‘Func’ for the semantically ‘light’ or ‘thin’ verb. In sentences like those of (18), for example, the subject noun phrase expresses the class of event, while the verb simply says that the event took place:

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(18) (a) (b) (c) (d)

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An advertisement appeared in today’s local newspaper. The attack occurred at half-past-nine. Agony afflicted him. Applause rang out across the whole auditorium.

There are certainly lexical cooccurrence restrictions between the eventive noun in subject position and the thin lexical verb, as any attempt to interchange the verbs of (18)(a), (b), (c) and (d) clearly demonstrates. The choice of thin verbs is, however, (at least in English) more limited than in the patterns we have so far discussed: in fact, it is mainly a matter of the verbs occur and take place. It is also obvious that they cannot give rise to stretched verbs in the sense of non-minimal lexical verb constructions. We shall therefore exclude them largely from our study. Let us now survey the structures that will be included in our study. Our starting point can be simplex (= non-stretched) elaborated verb structures, i.e. combinations of a lexical verb with all of its required elaboration or ‘complementation’, to use the term favoured by Quirk et al. (1972, 1985). Since these are the starting point for our establishment of kindred structures, they were labelled as Structure 0 (‘Vev’) in Table 1.1. Such structures differ of course according to the valency of the verb, so that the elaboration may include elements such as (direct) object, indirect object, prepositional object, predicative complement, required adverbial or some combination of these. Some of the verbs given in Table 1.1 could serve as examples:

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(19) VERB (alone) VERB + OBJECT VERB + PREPOSITIONAL OBJECT VERB + ADVERBIAL COMPLEMENT VERB + OBJECT + INDIRECT OBJECT VERB + OBJECT + PREPOSITIONAL OBJOID9

abound destroy smth depend on smbd abscond from smwh offer smth to smbd threaten smbd with smth

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9 This term, taken from Allerton (1982: 89–93), refers to apparent ‘prepositional objects’ that are not potential subjects of a corresponding passive sentence.

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Stretched elaborated verb structures 23 Each of the structures of (19) is simple or minimal, in the sense that its verb is a full lexical element, and that the same applies to all of its elaborators (its object, etc.), with the result that there is no need for any ‘thin’, ‘empty’ or ‘filler’ elements in slots that do not have a ‘full’ lexical content. Verbs that are lexically full have the semantic function of specifying the class of event that is being referred to, while the noun phrases and preposition phrases that elaborate it refer to entities involved in the event in various ways, such as performing it, being affected by it, benefiting from it, etc. – a point that was first clearly made by Fillmore (1968, 1971, 1977). If we now consider the structures of the other columns, we meet a rather different state of affairs. Here we find a variety of kindred constructions that are longer because of their thin elements. We may distinguish two main types of these stretched verb (elaboration) structures, with the possibility of a third to be added: (A) NOUN-BASED stretched verb structures are found in columns 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 of Table 1.1. These are noun-based in the sense that the lexical meaning carried by the verb in a simplex elaborated verb structure is carried in these structures by a noun. In most cases this is a derived noun that specifies the class of event (i.e. the process or action referred to by the kindred verb), but in the case of Structure 2 it is an agentive noun that refers to the performer or principal entity involved. In all Structures 1 to 6 the verb slot is filled by a thin (or ‘empty’) verb, marked in the notation of Table 1.1 with the symbol ‘Vø’; this is normally the verb be in Structures 1, 2, 3 and 4 but involves a variety of verbs in Structures 5 and 6 (such as do, give, have, make, put; bring, come). The noun is the principal element (the ‘head’ in the interpretation of some grammarians) of a noun phrase; and this noun phrase is a ‘descriptor’ (i.e. a predicative complement) in Structures 2 and 3, an object (or objoid) in Structure 6, and embedded within a preposition phrase in Structures 4 and 5. (In sentences like The attack occurred it is of course the subject.) (B) ADJECTIVE-BASED stretched verb structures are found in column 1. The adjective is derivationally linked to the basic lexical verb of the corresponding Structure 0; together with the verb be it forms a construction with a combined meaning that is actional in nature. The combination be critical, in the use we are considering here, amounts to ‘behave critically’. The adjective is part of an adjective phrase which syntactically plays the role of ‘descriptor’ (i.e. predicative complement) to its companion verb be, which is of course a classic ‘empty’ (i.e. thin) verb. (C) A possible third type, which does not appear in Table 1.1, is the type of ADVERB-BASED stretched verb constructions exemplified by act foolishly compared with fool about, be a fool, be foolish, act the fool. Here again we have a thin verb, but this time it is modified directly by its most natural modifier, a manner adverb. The thin verb in this

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Defining the field construction is largely limited to act or behave; this lack of variety makes for a less interesting construction. Possible examples corresponding to the constructions of Table 1.1 would be (re)act critically, behave destructively, act disgracefully.

Such constructions are language-specific. Very often while in one language a particular construction is used, in another language the same meaning has to be expressed using a different but kindred construction, giving rise to possible interference and translation problems, e.g.

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ENGLISH

GERMAN

draw smbd’s attention to smth (*make smbd attentive to smth)

jdns Aufmerksamkeit auf etws lenken10 jdn auf etws aufmerksam machen11

English only has one pattern with this kind of meaning, whereas German has two different patterns with a delicate semantic difference between them: the first (slightly more formal construction) suggests a more subtle or indirect hint, while the second refers to an explicit verbal mention of something and therefore comes closer to the English constructions. Let us now turn to look briefly at the individual stretched verb structures of English to establish their basic characteristics. At this stage we shall remain at a fairly superficial level of syntax.

I.2.iii The individual stretched verb constructions

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Referring again to Table 1.1, we can take Structure 0, i.e. simplex (= non-stretched) elaborated verb structures, as the basis for our description. Comparing Structure 0 (e.g. help (smbd)) directly with each of the other structures in turn, we can observe the most important features that characterize each of them. Whereas Structure 0 has a normal full lexical verb with whatever complementation is required by that individual verb, Structure 1 (‘Vø + AdjDescrag’) has an adjective as its kernel lexical element, as in be helpful [to smbd]. The expected semantic effect of this would be to place emphasis on the propensity to perform the action rather than on the action itself; but this is only the meaning conveyed when the combination be helpful is used with a ‘stative’ (Quirk et al. 1985: 177–8) meaning, suggesting a permanent character trait. When, however, the meaning is ‘dynamic’, with the possibility (but not the requirement) of a progressive form of the verb be, the meaning is rather ‘behave helpfully’. The contrast can be seen best

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10 The abbreviation jdns stands for jemandens ‘somebody’s’. 11 The abbreviations jdn and etws stand for jemanden ‘somebody (ACC.)’ and etwas ‘something’ respectively.

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Stretched elaborated verb structures 25 in the present, where the dynamic meaning can only be expressed with the progressive form: (20) (a) Sybil is always extremely helpful. (b) Sybil is being extremely helpful today. The adjective has clearly been morphologically derived, and, as in other fields of word-formation, its existence depends on the historical accidents of lexicalization. Thus while kindred adjectives like abundant, critical, dependent, etc. exist as relatives of the verbs abound, criticize, depend, etc., no corresponding adjective exists for abscond, claim, end, etc. The fact that such missing items are due to lexical gaps rather than to any semantic incongruence again becomes clear when we compare English with other languages: German, for instance, has an adjective-based expression fündig werden meaning ‘be/become successful in finding something that has been searched for’ related to finden ‘find’, where English has no comparable adjective-based expression linked to find – although there is of course the noun-based structure make a find, which has a meaning that is broader in that it also applies to accidental finds.12 In Structure 1, then, the adjective, or at least the adjective phrase of which it is part, functions as the predicative complement of the verb be (or some other copular verb), a classic case of a lexically empty (or rather ‘thin’) verb, which has the main function of simply enabling the adjective to operate as the main element in a verb phrase. But this change of function is not without its syntactic effects. The examples of (19) above showed that verbs, depending on their valency, may require complementation by one or more from an inventory of different structural elements (such as object); and some of these are noun phrases. Adjectives, on the other hand, are rarely complemented by noun phrases,13 which means that another kind of complementation, in the form of a preposition phrase (for instance), may be necessary, cf. be helpful to smbd beside help smbd. Moreover, even though such complementation is possible, it is less common than verb complementation with objects, etc., even allowing for the optionality of objects like help. So the net result is that this structure tends to de-emphasize the participant referred to by the object of the kindred simple verb. Structure 2 (‘Vø + NomDescrag’) differs from Structure 1 in being centred on a noun rather than an adjective (e.g. be a helper (of smbd) compared with be helpful). Its most important feature is that the lexical content of the verb of Structure 0 appears as the stem of a derived agentive noun (=

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12 German also has einen Fund machen with a more general meaning, but the more common expression eine Entdeckung machen ‘to make a discovery’ is often preferred. 13 Exceptions in English include worth, and possibly near (always assuming the latter is an adjective).

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26 Defining the field ‘nomen agentis’) such as helper. Semantically this has the effect of emphasizing not the activity, nor the personal quality or manner associated with it, but rather the individual person and his/her role in the activity. The example helper, being formed as it is with a highly productive suffix, may give the impression that the pattern is highly productive and even regular; but such an impression would be misleading. It is true, admittedly, that ‘nonce’-forms like (21) can always be created: (21) ?Sebastian was the ender of the uncertainty.

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But such utterances are generally perceived as mild errors of performance, because they do not correspond to the lexical intuitions of the native speaker: not only is there no lexical item ender; there is no stretched verb construction be the ender (of smth) either. The existence of a derived agentive noun is thus a prerequisite for this structure, but of course it does not have to be formed with -er. In Table 1.1 we find examples of the suffix -ant/-ent (e.g. claimant, dependent), as well as the use of a bare stem (critic), in this case entailing the removal of the verbalizing suffix (-ize); a variety of minor suffixes is also found, e.g. -ee (as in be an escapee), -ist (as in be a recordist), -ster (as in be a trickster). Like the adjective of Structure 1, the agentive noun occurs as the core noun of a predicative noun phrase following a copular verb. The copular verb, in turn, normally appears as the verb be, although it is true that combinations like become a helper can occur. The agentive noun frequently allows complementation, but its valency requirements are again rarely the same as for the corresponding simple verb, because the complementation of a noun must take the form of a preposition phrase. The most frequent preposition used is of, but other prepositions are found, for instance to in be a claimant to smth. In some cases, moreover, it is most common to find the agentive noun without complementation at all, even though it has a transitive verb as its kindred construction, e.g. murderer; even with nouns that allow a complementing preposition phrase, this tends to be peripheral (as in Structure 1), meaning that the person(s) referred to are de-emphasized. At one level of description Structure 3 (‘Vø + NomDescrev’) is just like Structure 2 in that it is built around a noun, and that this noun occurs as the core noun of a predicative noun phrase following a copular verb. Where Structure 3 differs from Structure 2 is in the nature of the noun itself: the noun of Structure 3 (e.g. disgrace, fashion, help, threat) is not agentive but eventive, i.e. it specifies the class of event being referred to in the sentence. In fact, this structure, which is somewhat less frequent than the other structures, poses something of a semantic problem,14 in the sense that it either has to be understood metaphorically or requires a different interpretation of the verb be. Consider the examples: 14 I am grateful to Itsuki Koya for drawing this point to my attention.

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Stretched elaborated verb structures 27 (22) (a) Sebastian’s book was a disgrace. (b) Sybil was a great help. It seems clear that, in a literal sense, neither Sebastian’s book could actually be a disgrace nor could Sybil actually be a help, because the nouns disgrace and help normally refer to an act, process or state. Sebastian’s book or Sybil is the cause or target or source of the disgrace or help respectively, but not the disgrace or help itself. We could say that such sentences involve a metaphor; alternatively we could say that be here has a special meaning, something like ‘cause’ or perhaps even ‘become a source of’. Whatever our analysis, it is clear that Structure 3 is not synonymous with either Structure 2 or Structure 1: the essential difference is that, perhaps through its dramatic, metaphorical mode of expression, it focuses our attention on the grammatical subject’s responsibility for the event and more particularly for its results. This comes out especially clearly if we compare be a help (to smbd) (Structure 3) with be helpful (Structure 1) and be a helper (Structure 2). From the grammatical point of view Structure 3 is relatively straightforward. Morphologically the core noun is usually derived from a verb, often by zero-derivation (as in all the examples in Figure 1) but not always, cf. be an abhorrence. The valency of the noun is usually different and sometimes quite limited than that of the kindred verb. For instance, be a disgrace (for smbd) quite commonly occurs with the for- phrase, thus leaving unmentioned the ‘experiencer’ of the feeling of disgrace, whereas the verb disgrace is that type of transitive that always requires its object to present. The structure be a help (to smbd) is even more minimalist, in that it not only optionally omits mention of the person helped but also is incapable of mentioning the field of activity referred to in help smbd with smth or help smbd to do smth. In Structure 4 (‘Vø + PrepDescrev’) we again meet a noun-based structure involving a copular verb, but this time the noun phrase is embedded in a preposition phrase, e.g. in disgrace, in the lead, of help. The description given at the top of column 4 for this structure is mildly controversial, in so far as it suggests that these preposition phrases can be interpreted as ‘prepositional descriptors’, i.e. as prepositional predicative complements, (a category that is discussed in more depth in II:1.ii; for the category in general, see Allerton and Koya (forthcoming). If, however, we examine data like the following: (23) (a) Sybil was in a bad mood. (b) The children were out of control. (c) Sebastian was in danger. we are faced with the problem that although the preposition phrases look like place adverbials, they could not possibly be queried with Where? and

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28 Defining the field thus cannot simply be regarded as place adverbials. The only kind of question that can normally be used to elicit such elements is What state was/were NPsubj in?, and such a question would also elicit answers like He/She/They was/were cheerful/quite miserable/a bit confused. In other words, following a copular verb, a description of a subject’s mental or physical state can take the shape of an adjective phrase or a preposition phrase. The copular verb in this Structure 4 is most commonly be, but seem is also often possible too, as it would have been in (23)(a)(b) and (c). A further possibility for the verb in Structure 4 is a verb indicating a change from some other state to the one described by the preposition phrase; as a result the word get can often be used in this pattern, providing we are ready to change in to into to mark the change of state, as in:

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(24) (a) Sybil got into a bad mood. (b) The children got out of control. (c) (?)Sebastian got into danger. As the example of (24)(c) demonstrates, there may be certain collocational restrictions between thin verbs and our proposed prepositional predicatives,15 but then there are too between standard copular verbs and adjectives, cf. fall ill, *fall fit; keep fit/healthy, ?keep unfit/unhealthy.16 If then the functional category of prepositional predicatives, or as we have also termed them ‘descriptors’, can be justified, there seems to be no reason why our Structure 4 should not be accommodated under it. We shall therefore describe be in disgrace, be in fashion, be of help, etc. in this way. Turning to the semantics of Structure 4, we find that the choice of preposition phrases, with their natural association with place and time adverbials, is not so unreasonable. Virtually all of the examples we have considered seem to suggest an action that is more limited in its nature, perhaps in time, perhaps in degree, than the corresponding Structure 0 pattern with the simple full lexical verb. Thus to be of help seems to involve a weaker or less definite contribution than to help; similarly, to be in the lead suggests something more temporary and transitory than to lead. Structure 4 also seems to describe the position someone is in, rather than what they are actually doing. This apparently squares quite well not only with the

15 Consider further the following examples: (for which different speakers will make different judgements of acceptability):

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John was in danger. *John was in problems. John was in a difficult situation.

(?)John got into danger. ?John got into problems. John got into a difficult situation.

?John got out of danger. ?John got out of problems. John got out of a difficult situation.

16 Examples from Allerton (1984b); see also Quirk et al. (1985: 1171–3).

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Stretched elaborated verb structures 29 meaning of prepositional predicatives in general (like be in a bad mood and the other examples discussed above) but also with comparable literal place or time adverbial constructions. The remaining patterns, Structure 5 (‘Vø + PrepObjev’) and Structure 6 (‘Vø + Objev’) are also noun-based, with the noun at the core of a noun phrase. Structure 5 has the noun phrase as part of a preposition phrase which in turn is part of the elaboration demanded by the thin verb, while Structure 6 has the noun phrase as a direct constituent of the elaborated verb structure. But in both cases the thin verb is a non-copular verb, either transitive or intransitive in the case of Structure 5, always transitive in the case of Structure 6. Semantically this has the effect of seeing the verb elaboration structure as ‘dynamic’ (i.e. as a process or action, etc.) rather than as ‘static’ (i.e. as a state). Syntactically it means that these two patterns present a much greater variety and richness than any of the other Structures, apart from Structure 0. They are, moreover, important constructions in Present-day English, and although some of them appear to be associated with a rather formal style, others, particularly those formed with do, have and get, are common in informal English, as the following example (seen outside a British shop in 1995) testifies:

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(25) We do high-quality leather-cleaning. With good reason the writer of this sign did not choose a Structure 0, which would have been based on the verb clean and thus needed an adverbial modifier to carry the meaning of high-quality, an adverbial that does not exist. A further example noted in current broadcast English is (26), which was heard from a rugby expert speaking after the international match between New Zealand and Scotland on 15 June 1996: (26) Let’s get into a bit of match analysis. The related simple eventive verb structure is clearly analyse the match, but the effect of using the stretched structure is quite complex. On the one hand it reifies the act of analysing the match, but on the other it makes the sentence more informal by using a stretched verb construction with the verb get and reinforcing the informality with the partitive construction a bit of. Although, therefore Structure 0 is the most basic pattern, it cannot be used in all contexts. Structures 5 and 6, on the other hand, are also highly significant patterns, which are represented in both informal and formal English. They will therefore play a major part in the detailed account of stretched verb constructions given in the remainder of this volume.

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I.3 Using data

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I.3.i The problems of corpus-based and intuitionbased data The advantages and disadvantages of corpus-based and intuition-based studies are well-known, cf. for instance Aarts (1991), Leech (1991, 1992); in fact, the debate is a long-standing one. The influence of behaviourism on Bloomfield and his consequent suspicion of meaning and of intuitions in his later work (1935: 139–44) meant that the post-Bloomfieldians concentrated on texts and corpora. J. R. Firth was much happier about accepting semantics as a legitimate part of linguistic studies but still preferred to interpret meaning in terms of context (1957: 19); indeed, it was this insistence on the contextual study of language that led him to the notion of ‘collocation’ (1957: 194–5). Contexts can of course be invented, but it is much easier to look for them in texts, and it is not surprising to find direct or indirect pupils of Firth like Halliday (1966), Sinclair (1966) and Mitchell (1975) developing the concept further. Corpora bring with them relative freedom from the personal intervention of linguists, in that, although someone is needed to sanction the corpus, this can normally be done en bloc, without picking and choosing particular parts of the text. The size of a corpus is of course especially important, and it obviously must be sufficient to provide a representative number of examples of the phenomenon under investigation; and the rarer the phenomenon, the larger the corpus will have to be. Moreover, even when apparently relevant examples have been found, they still may need to be sifted, to exclude dubious or false ones that merely give the illusion of representing the phenomenon in question. Examples taken from a corpus may be doubtful for various reasons: the analysis of the data may not have been rigorous enough to pick out exclusively relevant cases; the language-user producing the example in question may be a foreigner or a dialect-speaker; or the example itself may be non-standard, limited to a particular style, or perhaps even simply an error of performance that the user would normally reject. Such factors need to be taken into account

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Using data 31 by the linguist; and if the intuitions of a grammarian are necessary at this stage, then why not use them from the beginning? Intuitions, on the other hand, are not without their difficulties. For investigating linguists who are native speakers, introspection can certainly in theory give direct access to a speaker’s knowledge of his/her language, but such knowledge is not so easy to access. The problems of introspection have been evident since the advent of behaviourist psychology, which sought to avoid subjective interpretation of data, but unfortunately ended up by hardly investigating mental phenomena at all. An intuition-based researcher may simply have unreliable intuitions and wrongly include or exclude examples, perhaps because of an inability to introspect, perhaps because of interference from a devoutly held theory, perhaps because of memory limitations, etc. Moreover each lone linguist is strictly speaking limited to an individual idiolect. Since an intuition-based study thus suffers from as many shortcomings as a corpus-based one, it would appear that the only sensible decision is to combine the two approaches, and indeed any others that prove helpful. In fact, at least two other sources of data can be considered: pre-analysed data can be found in dictionaries of various types; and elicitation tests could be used to check possible findings against the intuitions of (other) native speakers. Dictionary entries can be assumed to be based on a combination of examples from texts and intuitions by the editors, and thus do not provide a truly independent source. Elicitation tests, as discussed by Greenbaum and Quirk (1970), are an attempt to gain information about the intuitions of language-users other than the investigator(s) and in this sense provide a further linguistic resource; but they have the disadvantage that they can only confirm or cast doubt on the hypotheses of the researcher, and formulating questions for a questionnaire in a neutral way can puzzle naive informants. All these sources of data thus have their weaknesses as well as their uses; they can be regarded as complementary.

I.3.ii The approach used in this study Stretched verb constructions as a whole are not a rare phenomenon and examples can be found in most texts; research done so far suggest that there may be about 5,000 to 10,000 of them in English. The frequency of any individual construction, however, is rather low, the least frequent ones being extremely rare. Corpora of the size of the LOB (London–Oslo–Bergen) corpus or the Brown corpus therefore turn out to contain only a relatively small number of examples, and even the BNC (British National Corpus) of 100 million words has its limitations. For instance, in Kjellmer (1994) (which is based on the Brown Corpus) the only Structure 6 (= Vø + Objev) constructions listed under MAKE (combining made, make, makes and making) that have a deverbal noun beginning with the letter A seem to be make an advance,

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make an adjustment, make an appearance and make an assignment, a total of four; but the last one is difficult to make sense of as a collocation, and this would reduce the number to three. The doubtless incomplete list on which the present study is based, on the other hand, contains around fifty examples. The principal (though not exclusive) basis for this study is the data gleaned from the author’s intuitions vis-à-vis the verb-related nouns and adjectives found under the initial letter A in the New Collins Concise Dictionary. First, a list of eventive nouns, agentive nouns and agentive adjectives was compiled. Then these were tested to see whether they could be combined with ‘thin’ verbs to form constructions that could be regarded as ‘stretched’ versions of the kindred verb. Intuitions about the existence or normality of constructions were in all doubtful cases checked against dictionaries, including the BBI, and against corpora, particularly the Brown and LOB corpora and the BNC. But non-occurrence in a corpus (even in the BNC) cannot entirely nullify the intuitions of the author or of the editors of the BBI Dictionary. Consider, for instance, the results of the following ‘simple searches’ carried out on-line on the BNC: practise abstinence practised abstinence

0 0

practises abstinence practising abstinence

1 0

They demonstrate just how rarely some stretched verb constructions are actually used, even though the majority of native speakers would feel them to be part of their linguistic repertoire. Results like this might suggest that there could be more place for elicitation tests and informant-based research in this field, and theoretically this is doubtless true. The problem is, however, one of scale. Actual stretched verb constructions would have to be tested against non-existent ones, and, with well over 400 examples, the work involved goes beyond the capacity of a small-scale study. Like most modern dictionaries the New Collins Concise Dictionary itself gives some examples of stretched verb constructions, but these only represent a fraction of the approximately 450 examples so far compiled under initial A. The present work has also drawn on earlier unpublished research by D. Cameron (1988), who collected about 2,500 examples all told, of which about 120 fall under initial A. Even the BBI Dictionary has only about 160 examples, i.e. about a third of the examples collected for this study. These examples probably represent about 6 per cent of the total number of stretched verb constructions used in English. It will be assumed in this volume that those based on deverbal nouns with initial orthographic A are reasonably typical of the whole set, but there is no way of knowing this before the complete NCCD has been processed. Time will tell whether this assumption has been a reasonable one. Ultimately a dictionary of stretched verb constructions may be required; but this issue will be taken up again in Part V.

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Part II

Syntactic restructuring

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II.1 Syntactic framework

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II.1.i Levels of syntactic description The aim of Part II is to describe and explain the relationships between the syntactic structures of simplex verb constructions and those of stretched verb constructions. The examples discussed in Part I made it clear that these relationships are no simple matter. In terms of the corresponding simplex structures, a stretched verb structure may have elements omitted, inserted or retained but with a new syntactic function. What then typically happens to the particular elements? We can already say that the semantic material of the lexical verb is displaced to various positions in its elaboration structure – to object position, for instance, in Structure 6, or to the noun phrase within a preposition phrase in Structures 4 and 5. But we also need to ask how the other syntactic elements are affected by this change. A further point to consider is what range of syntactic structures results from ‘stretching’ a simple verb structure: are the stretched structures actually longer or more complex, or do they remain within the format of simple elaborated verb structures, if necessary by dispensing with one or more elements? In describing the links between simple structures and stretched structures, we shall follow the view sketched in Part I that they are kindred constructions, but that the simple structure is in some sense more basic, if only because it does not need to have thin or empty elements. Kindred relations, as we saw, differ from transformational relations, in that they can involve transcategorial connections like verb-to-noun and that consequently they lack total regularity. Nevertheless there are some interesting parallels between kindred relations and transformational relations, which we can observe in the examples of (1) and (2):

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(1)

(a) (i) Sybil (greatly) enjoyed the concert. (ii) The concert was (greatly) enjoyed by Sybil. (b) Sybil (greatly) enjoyed herself.

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36 (2)

Syntactic restructuring Sybil derived17 (great) enjoyment from the concert.

The relationship between (1)(a)(i) and (ii) is the well-known transformational relation of passivization, which involves a shifting of the superficial syntactic functions determined by the valency of the verb. In the passive sentence the valency object18 appears as a superficial subject, and the valency subject appears as what in Allerton (1982: 43) is termed ‘perject’.19 But the verb itself, while taking on a passive form, remains a verb, and its valency remains intact, in that it still has the potential for taking a valency subject and valency object, even though these now appear as superficial perject and subject respectively, with the former becoming omissible. The issue of valency also arises in the sentence (1)(b), in which the object position is filled by a reflexive pronoun that lacks its normal semantic value and instead has the function of superficially filling the valency function of object. In this way it cancels the transitivity of the verb and simultaneously slightly modifies the lexical meaning of the verb, so that instead of describing a person’s reaction to a stimulus it refers to a very self-conscious emotional experience. The result of these processes is the formation of a new lexical item enjoy oneself, which, though having an obvious lexico-semantic link to the simple enjoy, is semi-independent of it and is certainly unpredictable enough in meaning to require a lexical entry in a dictionary. The relationship between enjoy and enjoy oneself 20 is one between a basic lexical item and a derived lexical item sharing the same base, in some ways similar to the relationship between a transitive/ intransitive pair like lay/lie. Superficially, enjoy oneself is a bivalent verb, with valency subject and object intact, but actually, the reflexive object is inert. The stretched verb construction of (2) introduces a new dimension: not only is derive enjoyment (from) a different lexical item from enjoy; it also has a radically different syntactic structure, involving a new range of syntactic potential, particularly that introduced by the new noun phrase object, with its possibilities for determiners, adjectives and relative clauses. Moreover the verb slot in (2) is now filled not by enjoy but by the thin verb derive, 17 In informal English got would be preferred. 18 The pair of terms ‘valency subject/object’ is elsewhere variously termed ‘deep subject/ object’, ‘D-subject/object’, ‘underlying subject/object’ and ‘logical subject/object’. 19 A special term seems necessary to indicate that such elements as by Sybil in (1)(a)(ii) are neither to be equated with the semantically defined concept of ‘agent phrase’ (which ought to apply to active subjects as well in appropriate cases) nor to be regarded as freely occurring adjuncts, since they are excluded in active sentences. 20 unlike the relationship between wash and wash oneself (which corresponds to regular syntactic expansions like wash and wash the baby) and also unlike an obligatorily reflexive verb like absent oneself (which is of course incapable of having such a relationship, because there is no independent lexical item absent (VERB) without a reflexive pronoun).

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Syntactic framework 37 which imposes its own valency on the structure, taking subject, object and what we shall come to call ‘prepositional objoid’ (from the concert). For assessing the precise nature of these syntactic structures, it will be useful to have a formulaic mode of expression. Let us adopt the following conventions to show the correspondences between the active simple verb structure of (1)(a)(i) and the other structures of (1) and (2): (A)

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We use a single upper-case letter to represent the superficial function of every basic element, including the following: S = Subject V = Verb O = Object

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J = Perject PÖ = Prepositional Objoid21

To every superficial descriptive category we attach an oblique stroke (or ‘slash’) followed by a lower case letter indicating the corresponding element in an equivalent active simple verb structure, e.g. . . . /s for the element that corresponds to the object in the simple verb structure. Thin elements which have no correlate in the simple verb structure will be labelled as . . . /ø.22

Returning to the examples of (1) and (2) we can now express them formulaically as follows: (1)

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(a) (i) Sybil enjoyed the concert. S/s + V/v + O/o (ii) The concert was enjoyed by Sybil. S/o + be/ø + V-en/v + J/s (b) Sybil enjoyed herself. S/s + V/v + O/s Sybil derived enjoyment from the concert. S/s + V/ø + O/v + PÖ/o

This convenient mode of representation thus makes it clear both what the superficial structure is and what the correspondences are of each of its major constituents, always allowing for the possibility that an element in the surface, typically a thin element, has no correlate in the kindred simple pattern. It does not, however, indicate which elements, if any, of the

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21 The term Prepositional Objoid refers to a preposition phrase that is closely associated with the verb but is not a potential passive subject. The motivation for the abbreviatory convention will be explained later. 22 This can be interpreted as zero, or as a special form of /␪/, the initial phoneme of thin.

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kindred simple verb structure are missing from the surface structure, for instance, the element that appears as the object in the structure of (1)(b). A more explicit mode of representation for (1)(b) would therefore be: (1)

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Sybil enjoyed herself. S/s + V/v + O/s (+ Ø/o)

where Ø indicates an element that appears in the kindred structure but not in the stretched structure under consideration. This is the format that will be used in section II.2 for representing the individual subvarieties of syntactic restructuring.

II.1.ii Scheme of functional categories and structures Before a detailed study can be made of the syntactic correspondences under review, it is obviously essential to establish a set of descriptive categories for the structures being considered. These must then be applied consistently to the stretched verb structures and the corresponding simple verb structures. We now proceed, therefore, to the establishment of a set of such criteria-supported verb valency categories. It corresponds, in the main, to the sets presented in two earlier works, namely Allerton (1982, 1994). The approach adopted proceeds from the assumption that active sentences with a full lexical verb are in some sense basic and can be taken as a reference point for the superficial structures of the other patterns, including simple passives and stretched verb structures, both active and passive. Each stretched verb structure will therefore be assumed to have a kindred simplex structure (see above, section I.1.v) with a verb that is active rather than passive. In identifying functional categories, therefore, all that we need is a set of criteria that gives clear results for simple active sentences but also (without any basic change) for the superficial form of the other structures. In other words, we need criteria for identifying subjects, objects, etc. that will tell us which phrases have which surface functions in any kind of sentence, so that we can make an accurate comparison of the distribution of functions in the stretched verb structures with that in the simple active structure. The distribution of superficial syntactic functions in some stretched verb structures differs from their distribution in the kindred simplex active structure even more than does their distribution in the passive transform of the simple sentence. Consider the examples: (3)

The news alarmed the stranger. S/s + V/v + O/o

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Syntactic framework 39 (4)

The stranger felt alarm at the news. S/o + V/ø + O/v + PÖ/s

Of course it could be argued that (4) should be related not to (3) but to the passive transform of (3) (The stranger was alarmed by the news); but there is no obvious evidence for this, and so for the sake of simplicity we shall leave this possibility aside. Assuming that the lexical VERB (V) with its potential for tense, aspect and modals, presents no problems of identification, we can begin our surface functional categories with the SUBJECT (S), which, following Allerton (1982: 42), we can identify in English23 through the following criteria: (i) POSITION. The subject is the noun phrase in a declarative sentence that either immediately precedes the lexical verb or precedes it with only auxiliaries and certain adverbials (but no noun phrases) coming between the two. When an object is fronted it precedes the whole subject(-auxiliary)-verb complex (Sebastian I (can) understand). In some interrogative sentences the finite auxiliary or finite main verb BE precedes the subject (cf. Is Sebastian complaining?/Is Sebastian sad?). (ii) LACK OF PREPOSITION. The subject (like the object) always appears as a noun phrase without a preposition, whereas both prepositional objects/objoids and perjects have a preceding preposition (cf. I was introduced to Sybil by Sebastian). (iii) CASE. The subject is the noun phrase that, when represented by a simplex (non-coordinated) pronoun, invariably appears in the nominate case (I, etc.), whereas the object, and even the predicative (or ‘descriptor’, see below) occurs in the oblique form (cf. She dislikes him/ He dislikes her /It is him (not her), etc.). (iv) CONCORD. The subject is the only noun phrase that (in clauses without a modal auxiliary) determines the number of the finite verb, where this is possible, i.e. in present and past tenses for the verb be, but only in the present tense for all other verbs (cf. She is making a complaint/complaints /They are making a complaint/complaints).24 (v) OBLIGATORINESS. The subject is obligatory in all declarative and interrogative sentences, whereas the obligatoriness or even the permissibility of objects, etc. depends on the valency of the individual verb. In an individual case, therefore, either there will be only one obligatory noun phrase, namely the subject, or there will be more than one,

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taking for granted that SUBJECT is a ‘family resemblance’ type of concept that needs to be defined differently for each language and is not necessarily universal, cf. Allerton (1980), Koya (1992). Some speakers apparently use predicative concord with the verb be in certain contexts, as in, for instance: The advantage of this way of organizing the teaching is/are the small classes; cf. further Allerton (1992).

40

in which case reference needs to be made to criteria (i) to (iv), cf. The professor is teaching (the new class). Additionally, the subject is the noun phrase that is ellipted in a standard imperative sentence, cf. Teach the new class.

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On the basis of these five criteria, the subject can be unequivocally identified in most English clauses. In fact the first two alone will suffice in most cases. The criteria will, moreover, give clear results whether the sentence is a basic simple active sentence, a passive version of this, or a stretched verb structure, active or passive. Existential sentences (cf. There are two books on the table (aren’t there?)) present more complex problems of identification, but they are perhaps best described separately. Turning to the OBJECT (O), we can begin by noting that it has already been partly distinguished from the surface subject on the basis of criteria (i), (iii), (iv) and (v) above. The first criterion, position, is obviously critically important in English. Although a surface object can appear before the subject, for instance in a clause with ‘object-fronting’, or in relative clauses with a relative pronoun as object (cf. (5)(a) and (5)(b) below respectively) the object never appears as the noun phrase that immediately precedes the lexical verb and its auxiliaries; this position is reserved for the surface subject: (5)

(a) Sybil he quite likes. (b) (The book) which he quite likes (is . . . ).

This means that the surface object is a prepositionless noun phrase (cf. criterion (ii) above) that either immediately precedes the subject (as in (5)(a) and (b)) or, more normally, immediately follows the lexical verb, with only the possibility of certain adverbials intervening between verb and object, and these only in formal English, as in (6): (6)

We completed yesterday a building that even the Prince of Wales admires.

There is one important exception to this rule for the normal position of the object: trivalent verbs like give, offer or tell allow an INDIRECT OBJECT (IO) (a category to be considered shortly) in its prepositionless form to appear before the (direct) object, as in (7′) as opposed to (7): (7) (7′)

He gave a book to Sybil. He gave Sybil a book.

OR OR

He gave it to Sybil. *He gave Sybil it.

The fact that (7′) is only a secondary or marked word order is demonstrated by the fact that this constituent order is impossible when the direct object is an unstressed pronoun, as shown.

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Syntactic framework 41 The positional criterion for identifying the surface object can thus be summed up as follows: the object appears either: (i) as the first of two pre-verb prepositionless noun phrases, or (ii) as the second, or as the unique post-verb prepositionless noun phrase. But this criterion, together with the criterion of case, actually picks out the broader category of ‘(prepositionless) non-subject noun phrase’ or ‘object-like noun phrase’ rather than solely ‘object’. To distinguish surface objects from other non-subject noun phrases, it will be useful to consider the following examples: (8)

The piano damaged a/the carpet.

(9)

The piano resembled a/the pianola.

(10) The piano weighed a ton. (11) The piano had a stool.

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(12) The piano seemed an antique. The first of these sentences contains a noun phrase (a carpet) that will count as an object in any account of these data. Sentences (9) to (12), on the other hand, contain a post-verb noun phrase that may seem like an object, and indeed satisfies the criteria we have used for distinguishing objects from subjects, but is best regarded as belonging to a different (though closely related) category. It is true that all the sentences, including (8) with its undeniable object, share certain features: for instance, they freely allow an adverb like possibly to intervene between the subject and the verb, but not between the verb and the following noun phrase; and they allow the post-verb noun phrase to be fronted to pre-subject position. But these postverb noun phrases also differ in certain important ways. It is probably the noun phrase an antique of (12) that stands out as most different from the others. In traditional grammar such noun phrases are referred to as ‘complements’, and this usage is retained in the Quirk et al. grammars (e.g. 1985), although the term ‘complement’ would be used by Halliday (e.g. 1985) for all of the non-subject noun phrases of (8) to (12), including objects. Many other grammarians use the term ‘predicate nominal’ (which on the face of it could also be interpreted to include objects), for which there then has to be a corresponding term ‘predicate adjectival’, to cover the possibility of something like (rather) ancient replacing an antique in (12), to give: (13) The piano seemed (rather) ancient.

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Syntactic restructuring

It is reasonable to use Jespersen’s term ‘predicative’ (1933: 124–31) for both nominal and adjectival possibilities; and indeed this is the usage adopted in Allerton (1982). But this term, looking as it does like an adjective, and being so close to ‘predicate’, is not ideal either. We shall therefore use the new term DESCRIPTOR, which can be symbolized as ‘D’; the term is already used in computer technology, where it has a meaning close to the one needed here.25 To distinguish the verb elaborators of (12) and (13) descriptors (or predicatives) can be divided into NOMINAL DESCRIPTORS (= ‘ND’) and ADJECTIVAL DESCRIPTORS (= ‘AD’). A further subclass of descriptor (whose existence was provisionally noted in Part I) needs to be recognized to describe the post-verb phrase in sentences like:

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(14) The piano seemed in good condition. Such preposition phrases (i.e. combinations of preposition and noun phrase) are certainly not adverbial in function and were identified by Jespersen (1933: 129–31) as ‘predicative’. They clearly have the function of complementing the verb, though, as we shall see shortly, they cannot be regarded as ‘prepositional objects’ either. The verb seem in general is not permitted to occur without a suitable element to satisfy its valency, but obviously this can be a suitable preposition phrase just as well as an adjective phrase or noun phrase. All three of them make equally good answers to questions like What was the piano like? or What state was the piano in? Let us simply call such phrases PREPOSITIONAL DESCRIPTORS (or ‘predicatives’) and abbreviate them as ‘PD’. Further examples (with appropriate subjects) would be in good health, out of condition, in a bad mood. Returning to nominal descriptors, as typified by (12) above, we can first distinguish them from the other non-subject noun phrases of (8) to (11) through their capacity for being replaced by equivalent adjective phrases (or preposition phrases). A second criterion for recognizing them is their inability to be the focus of a cleft sentence, which can be demonstrated by transforming all of the sentences of (8) – (12) to a version with the nonsubject noun phrase cleft, giving (8C) – (12C): (8C)

It was a/the carpet that the piano damaged (not a/the rug).

(9C)

It was a/the pianola that the piano resembled (not an/the organ).

(10C) It was a ton that the piano weighed (not a tonne).

25 For practical reasons it is also useful to have a term that can be abbreviated with a letter other than ‘P’, which can also stand for ‘preposition’.

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Syntactic framework 43 (11C) It was a stool that the piano had (not a stand). (12C) *It was an antique that the piano seemed (not a wreck). The differentness of the descriptors (= predicatives) of (12) to (14) compared with the object-like noun phrases of (8) to (12) is, of course, less than surprising when it is considered that semantically the latter refer to independent entities, while predicatives refer to a quality or attribute of the subject itself. They do this not only in bivalent structures of the kind we have been considering, in which the accompanying copular verb is one of the group be, remain, become, seem¸ etc. but also in trivalent structures of the form make the antique saleable, keep the antique in good condition. The non-subject noun phrases of (8) to (11) are not themselves all identical. Although they may all be regarded as ‘object-like’, only (8) has an OBJECT in the narrow sense of a noun phrase that is a potential subject of a passive sentence, cf.: (8P)

A carpet was damaged by the piano.

(9P)

*A/The pianola was resembled by the piano.

(10P) *A ton was weighed by the piano. (11P) *A stool was had by the piano. What is more, only true objects allow a so-called ‘tough-movement’ sentence like: (8T)

A/The carpet was difficult to damage (in those days).

111 Since, therefore, noun phrases like a pianola, a ton and a stool in (9), (10) and (11) respectively have some but not all of the characteristics of objects, we shall call them OBJOIDS, and refer to them with the abbreviation ‘Ö’.26 The examples of (9), (10) and (11) actually represent three different subtypes of objoid, cf. Allerton (1982: 83–5); but this difference need not concern us here. If we accept the transformational relationship to the subject in a corresponding passive sentence as a criterion for judging true object status, then

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26 The German letter ‘Ö’ can be thought of as standing for Öde or Ödland ‘wasteland’, since objoids are not fruitful ground for transformational relations like passivization and ‘tough movement’; alternatively it can simply be thought of as a variant of ‘O’, with the two dots representing the ‘i’ and the ‘j’ of ‘Objoid’. Note that, unlike the term ‘Objektoid’ used by Siller-Runggaldier (1996), the concept of ‘objoid’ does not normally imply an associated preposition; in fact, we shall need a distinct category of prepositional objoid.

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we must also accept that some sentences contain two such ‘objects’ (in this narrower sense). The sentence pair (7)–(7′) above exemplified this double object pattern, as well as its potential for transposition of the two objects. A further example is the pair (15)–(15′) below, which similarly have two post-verb noun phrases that are potential subjects in a corresponding passive sentence, as the related sentences (15P) and (15′P) show: (15) (15′) (15P) (15′P)

The piano offered an opportunity to us. The piano offered us an opportunity. An opportunity was offered (to) us by the piano. We were offered an opportunity by the piano.

We shall follow traditional practice (as opposed to that of some modern grammarians) by referring to both noun phrases and preposition phrases like (to) us in (15) and (15′) as INDIRECT OBJECTS, but only in so far as the proposed candidate may appear both after the normal object in the form of a preposition phrase and before the normal object as a noun phrase. This means that verbs like give, tell, show, etc. follow the same pattern as offer, but that the preposition phrase occurring after the object of a verb like demonstrate, explain, return, etc. (as in demonstrate the equipment to smbd) cannot be regarded as an indirect object but must be seen as a prepositional object or, in this case, objoid. Two further categories are of lesser importance in the present work but should be mentioned for the sake of completeness: the first is that of INDIRECT OBJOID (IÖ) as it appears in sentences with two object-like noun phrases that lack the potential for being a passive subject, i.e. they have an indirect objoid as well as a (direct) objoid after the verb (cf. The piano cost me five pounds); the second is that of OBLIQUE OBJECT (OO) as it appears in sentences with two full objects (with passivization potential) the second of which may have a preposition (for) but can drop it without changing its position vis-à-vis the direct object (cf. He envied me (for) my piano). We have already met preposition phrases in a predicative function after verbs like seem; but they also have other functions in relation to a lexical verb. Consider the following examples: (16) The piano interfered with the view. (17) The piano differed from the pianola.

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(18) The piano stood beside the bookcase. (19) The piano deteriorated in the conservatory.

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Syntactic framework 45 The preposition phrases of (16) and (17) clearly differ from those of (18) and (19) on at least two counts. One is that the prepositions in (16) and (17) are fixed with no possibility of exchanging the two prepositions or introducing any other one like to or in, while in (18) and (19) any semantically appropriate preposition could be substituted, e.g. behind, against or near in (18) and outside, under or near in (19). The other is that the preposition phrases of (18) and (19) can be replaced, without a substantial change of sense, by there and can be elicited using the question word where?; whereas the preposition phrases of (16) and (17) cannot be reduced to there, and are most naturally elicited using questions of the form What . . . with/ from/etc.? This makes it plain that while the preposition phrases of (18) and (19) can be described as adverbial phrases of place, those of (16) and (17), having a preposition selected by the verb, and being nominal enough in nature to be elicited by a What? question, can be regarded as objectlike elaborators of the verb. But the preposition phrases of (16) and (17) are not grammatically identical. They seem to display a similar difference to that we noted above between objects and objoids, i.e. that only (16) has a natural passive transform; cf.:

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(16P) The view was interfered with by the piano. (17P) *The pianola was differed from by the piano. We shall refer to an item like with the view in (16) as a PREPOSITIONAL OBJECT, and to an item like from the pianola in (17) as a PREPOSITIONAL OBJOID, abbreviating them as PO and PÖ respectively. Turning to the adverbial phrases of (18) and (19), we find that they are not quite identical in status either, although they can each be regarded as constituting an adverbial. The phrase in the conservatory in (19) is a free modifier adverbial (abbreviated simply as Avl) of a type that can appear in any sentence. In sentence (18), on the other hand, the adverbial beside the bookcase has a special link to the lexical verb stand, which belongs to a set of verbs (including also stand, lie, live, reside, last, etc.) that are incomplete without a following adverbial of the category appropriate for the verb in question: for instance, stand requires an adverbial of place, last requires an adverbial of duration. In such cases the adverbial can be regarded as part of the valency requirement of the verb, in other words, as an ADVERBIAL ELABORATOR of the verb (to be abbreviated as AE). Some single word adverbials, i.e. adverbs, have an even stronger link with the verb, so that the combination of verb-plus-adverb has a semantic unity; these are the well-known ‘phrasal verbs’. For example, in the sentences:

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(20) The piano played up. (21) The piano hung about. the adverbs up and about cannot be contrasted with other adverbs of the same type (e.g. down, nearby) in the usual way, and the overall meaning of the verb-plus-adverb combination is at least partly unpredictable: play up does not mean ‘engage in games in a higher position’ but rather ‘act awkwardly’; hang about does not mean ‘remain suspended nearby’ but rather ‘stay too long in a place’. Following Allerton (1982: 91–2) we shall refer to the adverbs in these combinations as LIMITER ADVERBS, and record them simply as ‘L’, a phrasal verb appearing as ‘V-L’. Some verbs take an embedded sentence, i.e. some sort of clause rather than a phrase as an elaborator. The required clause may be a full finite clause (most commonly a that-clause) or it may be a non-finite clause based on an infinitive or a gerund, cf.: (22) The piano showed that live music has a great appeal. (23) The piano tended to play flat. (24) The piano kept disturbing the neighbours. We can describe this aspect of the valency of the verbs show, tend and keep as involving elaboration with a FINITE clause, with an INFINITIVE structure, or a GERUND structure respectively, and consequently use the abbreviations F, I and G. Whereas the finite clause of (22) naturally always has its own independent subject, this is often not so for infinitive and gerund structures, as the examples of (23) and (24) show. Such infinitive or gerund elaborators may, however, include an independent subject preceding the infinitive or gerund, as in (25), (25F) and (26): (25) The pianist wanted her to sing a wrong note. (25F) The director arranged for her to sing a wrong note. (26) The pianist anticipated her singing a wrong note. which all have the independent subject her. An infinitive clause with subject can be represented as S-I in cases like (25); cases in which the infinitive has subject preceded by for, as in (25F), can be subsumed under the same category, the occurrence of for being predictable by rules (which admittedly differ between British and American English). A gerund clause with subject, as in (26), can be represented as S-G. A further group of elements within elaborated verb structures needs to be referred to, those that are embedded as modifiers of primary elabora-

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Syntactic framework 47 tors. Within a noun phrase acting as object (or having some other function) we may find a preposition phrase qualifying the noun as its elaborator; in other words the element may be an elaborator of an elaborator. Consider the examples: (27)

The piano provoked an enthusiasm for music.

(28) (a) The piano interested the brother of the manager. (b) The piano interested the manager’s brother.

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The phrase for music in (27) does not stand in a direct relationship to the verb provoke; it is simply a postqualifying elaborator within the noun phrase an enthusiasm for music, which as a whole acts as the object of provoke. On the face of it of the manager in (28)(a) has a similar indirect relationship to the verb interest, and certainly it is a prepositional qualifier; but the semantics is slightly different in this case, as witnessed by the kindred possessive determiner construction found in (28)(b). We shall therefore regard both of the manager in (28)(a) and the manager’s in (28)(b) as GENITIVAL QUALIFIERS (= GQ), distinguishing these from the normal PREPOSITIONAL QUALIFIERS (= PQ) of (27). Finally, when clausal elements (finite, infinitival or gerundial) appear as postmodifying complements of nouns, as in the non-italicized parts of the following noun phrases: (29) the proof that live music has a great appeal (30) the tendency (for the piano) to play flat (31) the habit of singing late at night

111 they can be termed Finite Complements (= FC), (Subject-) Infinitive Complements (= (S-) IC) and Gerund Complements (= GC) respectively. We are now in a position to list our abbreviations for the principal elements that may play a part in an elaborated verb structure, including the subject (because of its close valency links) alongside normal verb elaborators, as well as elements that appear as a modifier or complement within a noun phrase in one of the primary elaborators: S

Subject

V

Verb

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O (direct) Object IO Indirect Object Ö Objoid

AE Adverbial Elaborator L Limiter adverb F I G

Finite clause elaborator Infinitive elaborator Gerund elaborator

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48 Syntactic restructuring IÖ OO ND AD PD

Indirect Objoid Oblique Object Nominal Descriptor Adjectival Descriptor Prepositional Descriptor

PO Prepositional Object PÖ Prepositional Objoid

J

Perject

PQ Prepositional Qualifier GQ Genitival Qualifier FC Finite Complement (of noun) IC Infinitive Complement (of noun) GC Gerund Complement (of noun)

These functional elements combine, initially, to produce elaborated verb structures, in that a V, depending on its valency requirements, adopts none, one, two or three of the elements O, IO, Ö, ND, AD, PD, PO, PÖ, AE, L, F, I or G; if it is passive, it must have a different S derived from the original O, IO, OO or PO and may also include a J in place of the original S; furthermore, noun phrases among them may incorporate a PQ or GQ. Then to produce a clause or sentence, the elaborated verb structure needs to be combined with an S and an auxiliary verb structure. Since a subject is a required constituent of every sentence, even meteorological verbs like rain, sleet or snow need one in the form of it, although this is empty of meaning or at the very best ‘thin’. Marking such thin subjects as Sø, we can display the range of non-embedded27 verb valency structures found in English sentences with a non-stretched verb structure as in Table 2.1. In Table 1.1, in section I.2.i, we noted a number of kindred structures corresponding to the simple Structure 0 with an eventive verb. These structures had the event expressed in different functional positions: Structure Structure Structure Structure Structure Structure

1 2 3 4 5 6

had had had had had had

an an an an an an

agentive agentive eventive eventive eventive eventive

Adjectival Descriptor. Nominal Descriptor. Nominal Descriptor. Prepositional Descriptor. Prepositional Object (or Objoid). Object (or Objoid).

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This is obviously the most important aspect of the syntactic restructuring that takes place as we switch from Structure 0 to Structures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. We can therefore take it as the primary factor in our classification of the kinds of structuring that take place; then within these general categories we can distinguish subcategories, and where necessary, subsubcategories, etc.

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27 i.e. excluding F, I and G.

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Syntactic framework 49

II.1.iii Obligatory and optional elaborators Verb elaboration structures were defined in the previous section as combinations of a lexical verb with the set of functional categories it requires to elaborate it: normal (mono)transitive verbs, for instance, require a subject and an object to accompany them. However, although such functional categories as subject and object are necessary to define a particular verb elaboration structure, this does not mean that the elaborators themselves are always obligatorily present. While subjects and descriptors are normally obligatory, objects and prepositional objects can be either obligatory or optional, depending on the individual verb. There is moreover more than one kind of optionality. Taking objects as our illustration, let us first consider cases of obligatory elaborators. It is easy to find examples of verbs that require their object to be present on all occasions: catch, damage, dread, find, influence, like, love, represent, say, sharpen, want are clear instances of verbs that cannot do without their object. This means that sequences such as *Sybil caught are not normally acceptable as sentences in any context. In such cases we can describe the object (or other elaborator, e.g. prepositional object) as OBLIGATORILY PRESENT and speak of PROHIBITED OMISSION of the elaborator in question. Turning to optional elaborators, we can illustrate one kind of omissibility of objects with the verb watch. Sentences like Sybil’s watching do occur, but only in the right context, i.e. when the speaker has reasons for believing that the listener will be able to identify the object which is being watched, whether it be us, the television programme showing at the moment or whatever else. The same considerations apply when the object is omitted after verbs such as choose, enter, find out, fit, follow, hurt, leave, obey, pull, push, ring (up) or win. Whenever such verbs are used without an overt object, the listener feels obliged to reconstruct a definite specific one from the surrounding linguistic and situational context. The verbs in question have a DEFINITE object that is subject to CONTEXT-BOUND OMISSION or is ELLIPTABLE.28 Such objects, etc. will be marked with the square brackets, e.g. watch [television], fit [the lock]. When, however, a potentially transitive verb like read occurs without an object, the omitted item has a different status altogether. When the speaker utters a sentence like Sybil’s reading, there is no question of the listener being required to reconstruct the nature of the thing being read. The speaker has omitted the object he or she could have included, but not because it is obvious from the context; rather, the speaker sees the nature of the thing being read as unimportant or even irrelevant to the message. In practical terms the speaker abstains from mentioning the nature of the

28 Matthews (1981: 38ff ) described such elements as ‘latent’.

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Table 2.1 English verb valency patterns in non-stretched structures (excluding embedded structures) Structure 0 pattern1

Example of Structure 0 pattern

(Example of kindred stretched pattern)

It rained.

(It poured with rain.)

S+V

Felix miaowed.

(Felix gave a miaow.)

Sø + V + AD

It got stuffy.

–

S+V+O

Felix saw me.

(Felix caught sight of me.)

S+V+Ö

Felix resembled me.

(Felix bore a resemblance to me.)

S + V + ND

Felix became a fanatic.

–2

S + V + AD

Felix became very angry.

–2

S + V + PD

Felix got into a bad mood.

–2

S + V + PO

Felix relied on me.

(Felix placed reliance on me.)

S + V + PÖ

Felix differed from me.

(Felix and I had our differences.)

S + V + AE

Felix sat on the sofa.

(Felix had a sit on the sofa.)

S+V+L

Felix broke down.

(Felix had a break-down.)

Felix gave catfood to me.

(Felix made a gift of catfood to me.)

Felix gave me the catfood.

(Felix made me a gift of the catfood.)

S + V + O + OO

Felix envied Felicity (for) her tail.

(Felix felt envy towards Felicity.)

S + V + IÖ + Ö

Felix cost me ninety francs.

(The cost of Felix (to me) was ninety francs.)

S + V + O + ND

Felix made me a fanatic.

–3

S + V + O + AD

Felix made me very angry.

–3

S + V + O + PD

Felix got me into a bad mood.

–

S + V + O + PO

Felix kept an eye on me.

–

S + V + O + PÖ

Felix deprived me of my slippers. –

Zero-valent Sø + V Monovalent

Bivalent

Trivalent S + V + O + IO

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Syntactic framework 51 Table 2.1 (continued) Structure 0 pattern1

Example of Structure 0 pattern

(Example of kindred stretched pattern)

S + V + O + AE

Felix led me upstairs.

(Felix took the lead.)

S+V+O+L

Felix held me up.

(Felix caused a hold-up.)

S + V + L + PO

Felix put up with me.

–

S + V + L + PÖ

Felix stood out from the others.

–

S + V + L + AE

Felix came over badly.

–

S + V + PO + PÖ

Felix applied to me for permission.

(Felix made an application to me for permission.)

S + V + PO + PD

Felix looked on me as an expert.

–

S + V + ND + IÖ

Felix made a nice pet for me.

–

Felix made me a nice pet.

–

S + V + ND + PÖ

Felix looked an expert to me.

–

S + V + AD + PÖ

Felix looked expert to me.

–

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111 Tetravalent S + V + O + IO + PÖ

Felix paid me a large sum for it. (Felix gave me a large sum in payment.) S + V + O + AE + AE

Felix moved it from here to there.

–

S + V + O + L + AE

Felix put the message over well.

–

S + V + O + L + IO

Felix typed out the article for me.

(Felix did the typing-out of the article for me.)

S + V + O + L + PÖ

Felix played me off against the vet.

–

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Felix paid a large sum to me for it. –

Notes: 1 For the abbreviations used here see pages 47–8; Sø stands for an irreplaceable subject without any lexical content. 2 The fact that these patterns lack a stretched correlate is probably no accident: the ‘simple’ construction in these cases can be regarded as non-minimal, in that the verb is lexically weak, being chosen from a very limited list, and it could be argued that the combination of copular verb-plus-adjective simplifies to a simple intransitive verb like enthuse or rage. 3 Like the bivalent patterns referred to in footnote 2, these patterns could also be regarded as non-simple: the combination of factitive verb-plus-object-plus adjective could be seen as simplifying to a transitive verb-plus-object like fanaticize me or anger me.

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52 Syntactic restructuring object of the verb read, and the listener simply ignores it; indeed the verb is being used as though it were intransitive. Verbs which allow their objects to be omitted in a similar way include clean, dig, draw, drive, hoe, knit, paint, sew, sow and wash. We can say that the verbs in question have an INDEFINITE object that is subject to CONTEXT-FREE OMISSION or is SUPPRESSIBLE. Such elements will be marked with parentheses, e.g. clean (the flat), paint (a picture). All verb elaborators need to be specified as to whether they are obligatorily present, elliptable or suppressible.29 Only then does it become clear how the verbs that they elaborate can be used. At least one pair of verbs (at least in traditional British English) differ from each other in the kind of omissibility of their objects, namely ring (up) and telephone, with the former having an elliptable object and the latter a suppressible one, so that, while Sybil’s ringing up now requires the listener to reconstruct the object, Sybil’s telephoning now does not. One special case of the ellipsis of an object needs to be noted: sometimes, when the verb involved is a mutual reciprocal verb, a definite object can be ellipted so long as it is combined with subject, leaving an omissible each other as object, etc. Thus Sybil met Sebastian and Sebastian met Sybil can be combined as Sybil and Sebastian met each other, or, more simply and naturally, Sybil and Sebastian met. Replacing met with kissed, married or quarrelled with gives similar results. We can call this phenomenon RECIPROCAL OMISSION and mark it with inward-pointing arrow brackets, as in meet >each other<. It goes without saying that such a specification of (non-)omissibility is equally necessary for stretched verb constructions. Indeed stretched verb constructions provide one of the ways that obligatorily present objects, for example, can become elliptable or suppressible. For instance, abuse and accompany are verbs that require their objects to be with them in all contexts, but shout abuse (at smbd) allows an indefinite object to be freely suppressed, while provide the accompaniment permits the ellipsis of a definite object that can be reconstructed from the context. In stretched verb constructions we meet a further kind of omission, combined with replacement of a neighbouring element, that applies to eventive nouns. This omission-cum-replacement is also found in the case of simple relational nouns like friend: a noun phrase like a/the friend often seems incomplete unless we know whose friend is being referred to. But this information can be supplied in two different ways: in a friend of Sybil(’s) the postmodifying of-phrase supplies it, whereas in Sybil’s friend the information is found in determiner position, as a substitute for the definite or

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29 It may be necessary to distinguish a third kind of omissibility to account for verbs like shrug (one’s shoulders) or purse (one’s lips), which only permit an entirely predictable object, the omission of which is neither ellipted nor suppressed, because it provides no extra information. Rather we could say that the object has been ‘cut’ as a redundant element.

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Syntactic framework 53 indefinite article. These two possibilities seem to be in complementary distribution, so that the of-phrase can only be dropped if there is a possessive determiner. Eventive nouns in stretched verb constructions seem to show a very similar relationship, so that come to the help of Sebastian seems to correspond exactly to come to Sebastian’s help. Since the first of these is the fuller form, we shall make it the citation form, and mark this special omission-cum-replacement with braces, thus: come to the help {of smbd}, which will thus be taken to imply come to smbd’s help (where smbd stands for somebody).

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II.2 Types of restructuring

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II.2.i Structure 1 patterns: V-ejection to AD (agentive)

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This stretched verb structure has an eventive adjective as an elaborator of a thin verb. The thin verb is be or a similar copular verb (such as remain, seem, become) in intransitive patterns, but make in transitive patterns. The eventive adjective phrase thus has the syntactic function of an adjectival descriptor (otherwise known as adjectival complement, predicative, or predicate adjectival) elaborating the copular verb. Sometimes a present participle (= gerund) or a past participle has developed more or less into an adjective and lost its actional meaning; such uses of participles (as in be accommodating, be accustomed to it) can be included under this pattern. Since, however, there are many border-line cases, only unequivocal cases have been included, in particular the requirement is that they should permit either very or (in the case of those with an absolutive meaning) the slightly colloquial downright 30 as a modifying intensifier, and are as normal in attributive position as predicative position; other candidates have been, sometimes perhaps unfairly, excluded. Similar problems arise in the case of transitive patterns: many past participles of transitive verbs can be understood as adjectives describing the state produced by the action or process of the verb, e.g. activate means the same as make active. But how many combinations of the latter type are actually used (outside dictionary definitions, where they are very popular!)? The following account is intended to cover normal collocations. If we use the same mode of representation for syntactic restructuring as that used above (in section II.1.ii) and assume that be can be understood as standing for the whole group of intransitive copular verbs (be, remain, seem, become, etc.), we shall find at least the following different possibilities:31

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30 Colloquial downright is proposed as the test, because other absolutive intensifiers, such as absolutely, utterly and completely, are equally possible with verbs and thus fail to distinguish adjectival past participles from verbal ones. 31 The numbering system for the subtypes of restructuring codes information about each

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Types of restructuring 55 (1–1–01–0–0) S/s + V/ø + AD/v e.g. be abundant be active be advanced 32 be afloat be agleam be aglitter be aglow be alive be alternate be asleep

kindred with S + V abound act (‘take action’) advance float gleam glitter glow live alternate sleep

(1–1–01–0–2) S/s + V/ø + AD/v (+ Ø/o) e.g. be absorbent be acquisitive be alarmist be analytic

kindred with S + V + O absorb smth acquire smth alarm smbd analyse smth

(1–1–01–0–5) S/s + V/ø + AD/v (+ Ø/po) e.g. be approximate

kindred with S + V + PO approximate to smth

(1–1–01–0–56) S/s + V/ø + AD/v (+ Ø/po + Ø/pö) e.g. be argumentative

kindred with S + V + PO + PÖ argue (‘quarrel’) (about smth) >with smbd<

[31 cont.] subtype: the first part of the number refers to basic structural type (Structures 1–6), the second part to the primary subtype, the third to the individual class, the fourth to the presence (1) or absence (0) of a Limiter adverb and the last to ‘underlying’ elements of the simplex construction not represented in the stretched construction, with the conventions: 1 = S; 2 = O or Ö; 3 = IO; 4 = D; 5 = PO; 6 = PÖ; 7 = AE. Incorporation of a prepositional qualifier (PQ) or genitive qualifier (GQ) into a preceding NP is indicated with < . . . >. Determiners and pronouns are abbreviated as follows: sm for some, smbd for somebody, smth for something, onslf for oneself, smwh for somewhere, pple for people. 32 This example is exceptional in corresponding not so much simply to the simple verb but to its progressive form (be advancing) or even more plausibly to its perfect form (have advanced).

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Syntactic restructuring

(1–1–02–0–0) S/s + V/ø + AD/v + PÖ/o kindred with S + V + O e.g. be absorbing ( for smbd) absorb smbd be abusive (to/towards smbd ) abuse smbd be accommodating [towards smbd] accommodate smbd be advantageous (to/for smbd) advantage smbd be alarming ( for smbd ) alarm smbd be amazing (to/for smbd) amaze smbd be amusing ( for smbd) amuse smbd be analytic/-al (about smth) analyse smth be annoying ( for smbd) annoy smbd be antagonistic (to/towards smbd) antagonize smbd be appalling ( for smbd ) appal smbd be appreciative [of smth/smbd] appreciate smth/smbd be articulate (about smth) articulate smth be astonishing (to/for smbd) astonish smbd be astounding (to/for smbd) astound smbd be attractive (to/for smbd) attract smbd (1–1–03–0–0) S/s + V/ø + AD/v + PÖ/po e.g. be aggressive (to/towards smbd)

kindred with S + V + PO aggress against smbd

(1–1–04–0–0) S/s + V/ø + AD/v kindred with S + V + PO e.g. be agape at smth/smbd gape [at smth/smbd] be attentive [to smth/smbd] attend to smth/smbd (1–1–05–0–2) S/s + V/ø + AD/v (+ Ø/o) e.g. be absent [from smth]

kindred with S + V + O= + PÖ absent onslf [from smth] 33

(1–1–06–0–0) S/s + V/ø + AD/v kindred with S + V + PO + PÖ + PÖ/pö e.g. be accountable [for smth] (to smbd) account for smth (to smbd) be answerable [for smth] (to smbd) answer for smth (to smbd) be apologetic [about smth] apologize [for smth] (to smbd) (to/towards smbd) 33 The object in this simplex pattern is compulsorily reflexive, i.e. coreferential with the subject, hence the sign O=.

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Types of restructuring 57 (1–1–07–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/o + AD/v e.g. make smth active make smbd angry make smbd annoyed make smth articulate make smth automatic

kindred with S + V + O activate smth anger smbd annoy smbd articulate smth automate smth

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(1–1–08–0–0)

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S/s + V/ø + O/o + kindred with S + V + O + PÖ AD/v e.g. make smbd accustomed to smth accustom smbd to smth make smbd acquainted with smth acquaint smbd with smth make smbd alert to smth alert smbd [to smth]

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(1–2–01–0–0) S/o + V/ø + AD/v (+ Ø/s) e.g. be abandoned be abortive be automatic

kindred with S + V + O abandon smbd abort smth automate smth

(1–2–02–0–0) S/o + V/ø + AD/v + PÖ/s e.g. be abhorrent (to smbd) be abominable (for smbd) be acceptable [to smbd] be accessible (to/for smbd)

kindred with S + V + O abhor smth abominate smth accept [smth] access smth34

(1–2–03–0–0) S/o + V/ø + AD/v e.g. be angry (about/at smth/with/ at smbd) be annoyed (about/at smth/ with/at smbd)

kindred with S + V + O anger smbd annoy smbd

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34 As noted above, the verb access was rare and historically a secondary derivation from the noun access, but as the verb increases in use, its secondary nature is becoming much less obvious.

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Syntactic restructuring

(1–2–04–0–0) S/o + V/ø + AD/v kindred with S + V + O + PÖ e.g. be alert (to smth) alert smbd [to smth] be accustomed (to smth) accustom smbd to smth To make it clear that the correspondences are valid, we can consider the following examples of (32) below, limiting ourselves to one example for each subvariety of Structure 1: (32) (1–1–01–0–0) (1–1–01–0–2)

Sebastian is always very analytic. (Sebastian always analyses things.)

(1–1–01–0–5)

Sybil was a bit argumentative. (Sybil argued a bit about the details.)

(1–1–02–0–0)

Sebastian was very amusing (for us) all evening. (Sebastian amused us all evening.)

(1–1–03–0–0)

Sybil was apologetic towards Peregrine. (Sebastian apologized to Peregrine.)

(1–1–04–0–0)

Sybil was attentive to the problems of the students. (Sybil attended to the problems of the students.)

(1–1–05–0–2)

Sybil was absent from the meeting. (Sybil absented herself from the meeting.)

(1–1–06–0–0)

Sebastian was accountable for the expenditure to Priscilla. (Sebastian accounted for the expenditure to Priscilla.)

(1–1–07–0–0)

Sybil made their concerns articulate. (Sybil articulated their concerns.)

(1–1–08–0–0)

Sebastian made everyone acquainted with the fire regulations. (Sebastian acquainted everyone with the fire regulations.)

(1–2–01–0–0)

The selection procedure was automatic. (Xavier automated the selection procedure.)

(1–2–02–0–0)

Sybil’s proposal was acceptable to the party. (The party accepted Sybil’s proposal.)

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Sybil was active at the very beginning of the crisis. (Sybil acted at the very beginning of the crisis.)

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Types of restructuring 59 (1–2–03–0–0)

Sebastian was angry about the procedure. (The procedure angered Sebastian.)

(1–2–04–0–0)

Sybil was alert to the problem. (Xavier alerted Sybil to the problem.)

As adjective phrases, the descriptors of this pattern essentially describe a state, in this case the state of the subject of the sentence, whereas the corresponding simplex verb construction, with its eventive verb, presents roughly the same eventuality as a happening (i.e. as a process, act, etc.). The adjective phrase can have a meaning that refers to the character, ability or potential of the subject rather than to any particular eventuality, but in order to be regarded as a stretched verb construction, the structure concerned needs to have an eventive meaning. Thus be active, for instance, needs to have the verbal meaning ‘act on a particular occasion or set of occasions’ (as in . . . was very active as chairman last week) rather than the adjectival meaning of ‘have the habit of acting’. From the structural point of view, it is worth noting that some preposition phrases that are prepositional objects or objoids in the simplex structure (as in attend to smth/smbd of (1–1–04–0–0)) appear as prepositional qualifiers in the stretched constuction (as in be attentive to smth/smbd) and are consequently incorporated into the adjective phrase (noted with < . . . >). We shall note a similar tendency with noun-based patterns too. There seem to be three major subvarieties of the pattern. The intransitive active one, basically S/s + V/ø + AD/v with or without some kind of preposition phrase, has the verb be and is stative in meaning. The transitive active one, basically S/s + V/ø + O/o + AD/v with or without a preposition phrase, has the verb make and is dynamic in meaning. The passive one, basically S/o + V/ø + AD/v with some kind of PP, again has the verb be and is stative.

II.2.ii Structure 2 patterns: V-ejection to ND (agentive) Like Structure 1 patterns, Structure 2 patterns have a copular verb such as be or become but this time accompanied by a descriptor in the shape of an agentive noun phrase. The agentive noun describes the role or function of the subject, rather than its state or condition, as an adjectival descriptor does; but clearly the two meanings are quite close. In combination with a copular verb like be, such an agentive noun only actually forms a stretched verb construction when it carries not just the meaning of attributing the relevant role or function but also implying that the subject actually does the action designated by the kindred verb. Thus whereas elaborated verb structures like be a dunce, be a duke or be a typical Dane simply attribute a particular quality to somebody, phrases such as be a drinker or

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60 Syntactic restructuring be a good driver typically ascribe an activity to the agent referred to by the subject. Many agentive nouns are ambiguous or at least vague in this respect, so that an enquiry whether someone is a ‘lecturer’ can be a question about someone’s occupation (i.e. university or college lecturer) or about what the person does (i.e. sometimes or regularly gives lectures). The examples that follow should all fall into the latter category. They are categorized according to the same scheme as for Structure 2 patterns. (2–1–01–0–2) S/s + V/ø + ND/v (+ Ø/o) e.g. be an abortionist be an administrator be an advertiser be an alarmist be an analyser/analyst be an announcer be an appeaser be an assassin be an assessor be an assurer35 be an attacker be an/the auctioneer be an/the auditor be an avenger

kindred with S + V + O abort smth administer/-strate smth advertise (smth) alarm smbd analyse smth/smbd announce smth appease smbd assassinate smbd assess smth/smbd assure smbd attack (smth/smbd) auction smth audit smth avenge smth/smbd

(2–1–01–0–5) S/s + V/ø + ND/v (+ Ø/po) kindred with S + V + PO e.g. be an abstainer abstain [from smth] be an adjudicator adjudicate [between pple] be an aggressor aggress against smbd be an attendant attend (‘help’) to smbd/smth (2–1–01–0–6) S/s + V/ø + ND/v + (+ Ø/pö) e.g. be an absconder be an actor

kindred with S + V + PÖ abscond [ from smwh] act (‘perform dramatically’) (in smth)

(2–1–02–0–0) S/s + V/ø + ND/v e.g. be an abetter/-or of smbd be an abhorrer of smth

kindred with S + V + O abet smbd abhor smth

35 in the sense of ‘provide financial protection to smbd’.

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Types of restructuring 61 be be be be be be be

an an an an an an an

abridger of smth abuser of smbd admirer of smbd adorer of smth advocate of smth aide of smbd arranger (of smth)

abridge smth abuse smbd admire smbd adore smth advocate smth aid smbd arrange smth

(2–1–03–0–0) S/s + V/ø + ND/v kindred with S + V + PO e.g. be an agitator ( for/against smth) agitate for/against smth be an applicant [ for smth] apply [ for smth] be an arbitrator (between people) arbitrate [between people] be an aspirant to smth aspire to smth (2–1–04–0–0) S/s + V/ø + ND/v kindred with S + V + O = + PÖ e.g. be an absentee [ from smth] absent onslf [ from smth]

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(2–1–05–0–0) S/s + V/ø + ND/v e.g. be an accompanist {of smbd} be an accuser of {of smbd} be an adviser {of smbd} be an aide {of smbd} be an assistant {of smbd} be an avenger {of smbd}

kindred with S + V + O accompany smbd accuse smbd advise smbd aid smbd assist [smbd] avenge smbd

(2–1–06–0–0) S/s + V/ø + ND/v kindred with S + V + PÖ e.g. be an agent {of smbd} act (‘be active’) for smbd be an associate >of smbd< associate with smbd (2–1–07–0–0) S/s + V/ø + ND/v kindred with S + V + O= + PÖ e.g. be an ally >of smbd< ally onslf with smbd (2–2–01–0–1) S/pö + V/ø + ND/v kindred with S + V + O + PÖ (+ Ø/s) e.g. be an/the addressee [of smth] address (‘send’) smth (to smbd)

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(2–3–01–0–0) S/x + V/ø + ND/v (+ Ø/pö) e.g. be an adhesive (for smth)

adhere to smth

As with Structure 1 patterns, we can now demonstrate the validity of the correspondences by giving examples as in (32) below, limiting ourselves to one example for each subvariety of Structure 2: (33) (2–1–01–0–2)

Sebastian was the auctioneer. (Sebastian auctioned the antiques.)

(2–1–01–0–5)

Sybil is an abstainer. (Sybil abstains from strong drink.)

(2–1–01–0–6)

Sebastian was an absconder from boarding school. (Sebastian absconded from boarding school.)

(2–1–02–0–0)

Sybil is an advocate of corporal punishment. (Sybil advocates corporal punishment.)

(2–1–03–0–0)

Sebastian was an applicant for the post. (Sebastian applied for the post.)

(2–1–04–0–0)

Sybil was an absentee from the meeting. (Sybil absented herself from the meeting.)

(2–1–05–0–0)

Sebastian was Grizelda’s accompanist/the accompanist of Grizelda. (Sebastian accompanied Grizelda.)

(2–1–06–0–0)

Sybil was Gerald’s agent/the agent of Gerald. (Sybil acted for Gerald.)

(2–1–07–0–0)

Sweden was an ally of Prussia. (Sweden allied itself with Prussia.)

(2–2–01–0–0)

Sebastian was the addressee of the petition. (The secretary addressed the petition to Sebastian.)

(2–3–01–0–0)

Superglue is an adhesive for plastics. (Superglue causes plastics to adhere to things.)

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kindred with S + V + PÖ

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The vast majority of these variants of Structure 2 are ‘active’ and ‘intransitive’ in the sense that they preserve the subject of the kindred simplex verb structure: they all centre around the pattern S/s + V/ø + ND/v with or without a preposition phrase corresponding to an object or prepositional object or objoid in the kindred simplex structure. The only real

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Types of restructuring 63 exceptions are structures (2–2–01–0–0) and (2–3–01–0–0), each with only one example. For (2–2–01–0–0), which has a subject corresponding to a prepositional objoid in the kindred structure, it is possible to find examples outside our A- database with a kindred object, e.g. be an employee, be a trainee, but these are less common than might be imagined.36 Example (2–3–01–0–0) also represents a rare type, with its subject corresponding to an external agent in the corresponding simple verb structure and its qualifying preposition phrase corresponding to the kindred object. Structures with preposition phrases are subject to the same trend of incorporation noted for Structure 1: in be an abetter/-or of smbd of type (2–1–02–0–0) or be an agitator for/against smth of (2–1–03–0–0), for instance, the object or prepositional object of the verb in the simplex construction has become a prepositional qualifier of the agentive noun.

II.2.iii Structure 3 patterns: V-ejection to ND (eventive) It will be recalled that in this pattern the event appears not as a verb (as it does in a simplex structure) but as a descriptor (= predicative) in the form of a noun phrase. Structure 3 is not particularly common; but, despite its lack of frequency, it throws up a number of interesting variant forms. (3–1–01–0–0) S/s + V/ø + ND/v e.g. be an advantage [to smbd ] be an affront [to smbd ] be an answer [to smth] be an attack [on smbd/smth]

kindred with S + V + O advantage smbd affront smbd answer [smth] 37 attack [smbd/smth] 38

(3–1–02–0–0) S/s + V/ø + ND/v kindred with S + V + PO e.g. be an allusion to smbd/smth allude to smbd/smth be an argument [for/against smth] argue (‘reason’) for/against smth (3–2–01–0–0) S/o + V/ø + ND/v + PÖ/s e.g. be an abomination ( for smbd)

kindred with S + V + O abominate smth/smbd

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36 Why, for instance, are there no -ee nouns derived from the verbs abuse, accuse, appease, assassinate, assess, avenge? 37 only with the meaning ‘constitute a response to something’ (for abstract grammatical subjects). 38 only with the meaning ‘constitute a verbal assault’ (for abstract grammatical subjects).

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(3–2–02–0–1) S/o + V/ø + ND/v kindred with S + V + O + PÖ (+ Ø/s) e.g. be an addition [to smth] add smth [to smth] be an award [to smbd] award smth (to smbd) (3–2–03–0–1)

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S/o + V/ø + ND/v kindred with S + V + O + PÖ (+ Ø/s) e.g. be an acquaintance {of smbd} acquaint smbd with smbd

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(3–3–01–0–0)

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S/po + V/ø + ND/v kindred with S + V + PO e.g. be an/the agreement agree on smth [between pple] (3–4–01–0–1) S/pö + V/ø + ND/v kindred with S + V-L + O + PÖ (+ Ø/s) e.g. be an average of sm things average smth out at smth (3–5–01–0–1) S/avl + V/ø + ND/v kindred with S + V + O + Avl (+ Ø/s) e.g. be an abuse [of smth] abuse smth ( by means of smth) be an analysis [of smth] analyse smth through smth

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(3–5–02–0–1) S/avl + V/ø + ND/v kindred with S + V + PO + Avl (+ Ø/s) e.g. be an application [ for smth] apply [ for smth] (through smth) To make it clear that the correspondences are valid, we can consider the following examples of (34) below, limiting ourselves to one example for each subvariety of Structure 3: (34) (3–1–01–0–0) (3–1–02–0–0)

The article was an attack on the Prime Minister. (The article attacked the Prime Minister.) The comment was an allusion to his grey appearance. (The comment alluded to his grey appearance.)

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Types of restructuring 65 (3–2–01–0–0)

Sabotage was an abomination for Priscilla. (Priscilla abominated sabotage).

(3–2–02–0–1)

The stamps were an addition to the collection. (Sybil added the stamps to the collection.)

(3–2–03–0–1)

Sebastian is an acquaintance of Priscilla’s. (I acquainted Priscilla with Sebastian.)39

(3–3–01–0–0)

Payment within 30 days was the agreement (between us). (We agreed on payment within 30 days.)

(3–4–01–0–1)

The final mark was the average of the two individual marks. (We averaged the two individual marks out at 65 per cent.)

(3–5–01–0–1)

The decree was an abuse of presidential power. (Peregrine abused presidential power in/with that decree.)

(3–5–02–0–1)

The letter was an application for the new post. (Quentin applied for the new post in a letter.)

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The two features shared by all of these subvarieties of Structure 3 are the occurrence of the verb BE as the thin verb and the appearance of the event in the form of an abstract noun in the position of nominal descriptor (predicative). Since the effect of the verb BE in this sentence pattern is to ascribe the quality of the descriptor to the subject, it is not surprising to see that the subject is also most commonly an abstract noun; but examples with an animate noun can be found, such as:

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(27) Sebastian was an addition to the team. The (3–1) patterns retain the subject of the simple verb structure, but all of the other types select a different subject – the kindred simple object in (3–2), the kindred simple prepositional object in (3–3), the kindred simple prepositional objoid in (3–4) or a kindred simple adverbial elaborator in (3–5). It would be possible, as already noted, to regard the structures of (3–2) and (3–3) as being related not to S + V + O + PÖ and S + V + PO respectively but to their passive transforms; but this would not seem to take us any further in our analysis, and it would not help us at all with the structures of (3–4) and (3–5). Let us continue to say simply that the

39 It would be more natural in current English to say I acquainted Virginia and Tony, or even better I introduced Virginia and Tony.

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relationship between the stretched structures of (3–2) and (3–3) and their corresponding eventive verb structures involves a restructuring that includes an object/subject interchange of the type found in passivization, but of that of course it also involves nominalization of the kindred simple verb. A further point to note is that all the stretched structures of this type have a prepositional or genitive qualifier attached to the descriptor noun phrase, and this qualifier regularly serves as a carrier of the meaning of the element expressed by the object or prepositional object/objoid of the kindred simple structure. These qualifiers are essentially noun phrase constituents, which do not form direct elaborators (or ‘complements’) of the (thin) verb, but are sub-constituents within the object, where the semantic contribution of the kindred basic verb (i.e. the ‘eventive’ role) is now accommodated. This means that certain kindred simple elaborator functions, like kindred simple object, prepositional object and even subject, are attached to or annexed by the nominal descriptor as its postmodifier, so that the preposition of this prepositional qualifier is selected by the (deverbal) noun, not by the thin verb. This process of annexation or incorporation (indicated by the angled brackets < . . . >) applies consistently in Structure 3, and also plays an important role in Structures 4, 5 and 6. Considered from the point of view of the kindred simple verb structure, these correspondences between kindred structures look slightly different. The structures of (3–1–02–0–0) and (3–3–01–0–0), for instance, can be seen to be related to the same simple structure, namely S + V + PO; the stretched structures differ in whether they retain the same subject as the kindred simple eventive verb structure (as does (3–1–02–0–0)) or transform the kindred prepositional object into a subject, demoting the original subject to the function of prepositional qualifier of the eventive noun in descriptor position. Something similar can be observed by considering the common simple eventive verb structure S + V + O + PÖ shared by (3–2–02–0–1), (3–2–03–0–1) and (3–4–01–0–1); the stretched verb structures differ in that the (3–4–01–0–1) pattern has a subject that corresponds to the kindred simple prepositional objoid, while the (3–2) patterns make the kindred simple object into their subject. The difference between the prepositional qualifier of (3–2–02–0–1) and the genitival qualifier of (3–2–03–0–1) is at least partly explained by the fact that the latter denotes a human being.

II.2.iv Structure 4 patterns: V-ejection to PD (eventive) This stretched structure is also a relatively infrequent pattern. It is characterized by the realization of the event in the form of a preposition phrase acting as a descriptor (= predicative) following a copular verb like be. Using our standard form for indicating the relationship between the

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Types of restructuring 67 simple eventive verb structure and the kindred stretched structure, we can nevertheless note the following variant forms of the pattern: (4–1–01–0–0) S/s + V/ø + PD/v e.g. be in abundance (4–1–01–0–2)

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S/s + V/ø + PD/v (+ Ø/o) e.g. be on the attack

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(4–1–02–0–0)

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kindred with S + V abound

S/s + V/ø + PD/v + PÖ/o e.g. be of assistance [to smbd ]

kindred with S + V + O attack [smbd/smth]

kindred with S + V + O assist [smbd]

(4–1–03–0–0) S/s + V/ø + PD/v e.g. be in acknowledgement of smth be in aid of smbd/smth be in answer to smbd/smth

kindred with S + V + O acknowledge smth aid smbd/smth answer [smbd/smth] 40

(4–1–04–0–0) S/s + V/ø + PD/v kindred with S + V + PÖ e.g. be in accord with smbd/smth accord >with smbd/smth< ally (onslf) >with smbd< be in alliance with smbd 41 be in alternation with smth alternate >with smth/smbd< (4–1–05–0–0) S/s + V/ø + PD/v kindred with S + V + PÖ + PÖ + PÖ/pö e.g. be in agreement >with smbd< agree with >smbd< [about smth] [about smth]

40 with abstract subject only. 41 This example could be treated as belonging to a separate subgroup, being kindred, as it is, with a verb with a reflexive object, in other words with the structure S + V + O + PÖ; but the verb construction ally oneself with smbd has an object that is normally reflexive (like absent oneself ), and this empty object of the simple eventive verb structure has no separate realization in the stretched verb construction. (Sentences like They allied the Serbs with the Croats seem improbable.)

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(4–2–01–0–1) S/o + V/ø + PD/v (Ø/s) e.g. be under anaesthesia be under analysis be on approval be under arrest be under attack

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(4–2–02–0–1)

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S/o + V/ø + PD/v (Ø/s) e.g. be in addition [to smth]

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kindred with S + V + O anaesthetize smbd analyse smth approve smth arrest smbd attack [smbd/smth]

kindred with S + V + O + PÖ add smth [to smth else]

To illustrate the correspondences, it will again be useful to examine examples; and we can restrict ourselves to one example for each subvariety of Structure 4 (as we did in the case of Structure 3): (35) (4–1–01–0–0)

Delicious food was (there) in abundance. (Delicious food abounded (there)).

(4–1–01–0–2)

The Socialists were on the attack. (The Socialists attacked the Opposition.)

(4–1–02–0–0)

Sebastian was of assistance to Olga. (Sebastian assisted Olga.)

(4–1–03–0–0)

The note was in answer to the letter of resignation. (The note answered the letter of resignation.)

(4–1–04–0–0)

His speech was in accord with his earlier comment. (His speech accorded with his earlier comment.)

(4–1–05–0–0)

Sybil was in agreement with Peregrine about the project. (Sybil agreed with Peregrine about the project.)

(4–2–01–0–1)

The data were under analysis. (Government scientists were analysing the data.)

(4–2–02–0–1)

The fee was in addition to the earlier charge. (They added the fee to the earlier charge.)

The various subtypes of Structure 4 all have the verb BE followed by a prepositional descriptor, rather than a nominal one (as in Structure 3). It will be recalled that these preposition phrases (like on the attack or under analysis) are being regarded as ‘descriptors’ (or ‘predicatives’, see section

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I.1.ii) because they do not have any recognizable adverbial function, but rather seem to complement the verb be, here acting as a copular verb like remain or seem. There is a slight problem for the analysis of such phrases as descriptors, in that although such descriptive phrases can occur after be, remain or seem, they seem impossible after become; the ‘change of state’ meaning associated with become seems in these contexts to have to be expressed with come or go, suggesting a direction adverbial (though go also appears before descriptor adjective phrases, e.g. very red, quite mad). Descriptors, whether adjectival or prepositional, have the function of describing the state or condition of the entity designated by the subject, although the simple eventive verb structure may refer to a clear happening. In (4–1–01–0–2) for instance the Socialists are clearly said to have done something in the verb-based sentence, whereas they are merely said to be in a state of activity in the preposition phrase-based sentence, a subtle difference, which is even valid if we convert the verb-based sentence to the progressive form ( . . . were attacking . . . ). The superficial form of the different patterns is similar, any expansion beyond the prepositional descriptor being in the form of a prepositional qualifier, which (as we noted in the case of Structure 3) has the effect of incorporating the element concerned as a subconstituent rather than as a direct elaborator of the verb be. Thus of smbd/smth in be in aid of smbd/smth does not have a direct relationship to the verb be; it has actually been annexed by the (deverbal) noun of the prepositional descriptor. The different (4–1) patterns all retain the subject of the eventive verb construction, whereas the patterns of (4–2) have the eventive verb’s object as its subject, giving it a passive meaning. It is worth noting the prevalence of the preposition under in (4–2–01–0–1); the value of different prepositions will be considered in section III.1.iv. Equally interesting is the contrast between on the attack in (4–1–01–0–2) and under attack in (4–2–01–0–1); the possible relevance of the presence of the definite article will be discussed in Part III. Looking at things from the point of view of the kindred simplex eventive verb structures, we see that both the ‘active’ patterns (4–1–01–0–2) and (4–1–02–0–0) and the ‘passive’ pattern (4–2–01–0–1) relate to the simple structure S + V + O. The difference between (4–1–01–0–2), on the one hand, and (4–1–02–0–0) and (4–1–03–0–0), on the other, is simply that whereas the latter patterns retain a mention of the kindred object in the form of a prepositional objoid (PÖ) or prepositional qualifier (PQ),42 the (4–1–01–0–2) pattern excludes this possibility: it is not normal to add a mention of the person or thing attacked to the construction be on the attack. The difference between (4–2–01–0–1)

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42 This seems to be obligatory or optional according to its status in the kindred simple verb construction, e.g. obligatory in be in aid of smbd/smth but optional in be of assistance to smbd.

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and (4–2–02–0–1), on the other hand, is a matter of a difference in the ‘underlying structure’, (4–2–01–0–1) having only a kindred subject and object to accommodate, while (4–2–02–0–1) also has a prepositional objoid.

II.2.v Structure 5 patterns: V-ejection to PO/PÖ (eventive) The range of possibilities for this stretched verb structure is slightly broader than for Structures 3 and 4. The essential difference between Structure 4 and Structure 5 is that, whereas the former contains a copular verb, prototypically be, the latter contains a classic intransitive verb, although in combination with its following preposition it sometimes gives the appearance of being a prepositional verb. Structure 5 agrees with Structures 3 and 4 in having a variety of different types of correspondence to kindred simplex eventive verb structures. We can note these in the usual way: (5–1–01–0–0) S/s + V/ø + PO/v e.g. indulge in sm acting

kindred with S + V act (‘perform dramatically’)

(5–1–02–0–0) S/s + V/ø + PO/v e.g. arrive at an accommodation [with smbd]

kindred with S + V + O accommodate smbd

(5–1–03–0–0) S/s + V/ø + PO/v kindred with S + V (+ Os) + PÖ e.g. enter into an alliance >with smbd< ally onslf >with smbd< (5–1–04–0–0) S/s + V/ø + PO/v e.g. arrive at an agreement > with smbd< (about smth) enter into an agreement >with smbd< (about smth)

kindred with S + V + PO + PÖ agree >with smbd< [about smth] agree >with smbd< [about smth]

(5–2–01–0–0) S/s + V/ø + PÖ/v e.g. go/move into action

kindred with S + V act (‘be active’)

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Types of restructuring 71 (5–2–02–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/o + PÖ/v e.g. receive smbd with acclaim provide smbd with aid fill smbd with alarm provide smbd with amusement subject smth to an/sm analysis place/put smbd under arrest provide smbd with sm assistance

kindred with S + V + O acclaim smbd aid smbd alarm smbd amuse smbd analyse smth arrest smbd assist smbd

(5–2–02–0–6) S/s + V/ø + O/o + PÖ/v (+ Ø/pö) e.g. bring smth into alignment

kindred with S + V + O align smth >with smth<

(5–2–02–1–0) S/s + V-L/ø + O/o + PÖ/v e.g. put smth up for auction

kindred with S + V + O auction smth

(5–2–03–0–2) S/s + V/ø + O/io + PÖ/v (+ Ø/o) e.g. present smbd with an award

kindred with S + V + O + IO award smth (to smbd)

(5–2–04–0–0) S/s + V/ø + PÖ/v + PÖ/o e.g. lie/wait in ambush [for smbd] break/burst into applause [at smth/smbd]

kindred with S + V + O ambush smbd applaud [smth/smbd]

(5–2–05–0–0) S/s + V/ø + PÖ/v e.g. come to an accommodation with >smbd<

kindred with S + V + O accommodate smbd

(5–2–06–0–0) S/s + V/ø + PÖ/v e.g. come/go to the aid {of smbd} come/go to the assistance {of smbd}

kindred with S + V + O aid smbd assist smbd

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(5–2–07–0–0) S/s + V/ø + PÖ/v kindred with S + V + PÖ + PÖ e.g. come to an agreement >with smbd< agree >with smbd< [about smth] (about smth) get into an argument >with argue (‘quarrel’) >with smbd< smbd< (about smth) (about smth) (5–2–08–0–0) S/s + V/ø + PÖ/v e.g. come to an arrangement >with smbd< [about smth]

kindred with S + V + O + PÖ arrange smth with smbd

(5–2–09–0–0) S/s + V/ø + PÖ/v e.g. come to an accord with smbd about smth

kindred with S + V + PÖ + PÖ accord with smbd about smth

(5–3–01–0–1) S/o + V/ø + PÖ/v (+ Ø/s) e.g. meet with sm acceptance

kindred with S + V + O accept (‘tolerate’) smth/smbd

(5–3–02–0–0) S/o + V/ø + PÖ/v + PÖ/s e.g. come under attack (from smbd)

kindred with S + V + O attack [smbd/smth]

(5–3–02–1–0) S/o + V-L/ø + PÖ/v + PÖ/s kindred with S + V + O e.g. come in for sm abuse from/ abuse smbd at-the-hands-of smbd (5–4–01–0–1) S/pö + V/ø + PÖ/v (+ Ø/s) e.g. go to arbitration

kindred with S + V + PÖ arbitrate between pple

(5–5–01–0–0) S/po + V/ø + PÖ/v kindred with S + V + PO e.g. meet with the approval {of smbd} approve [of smbd/smth]

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Types of restructuring 73 (5–6–01–0–0) S/x + V/ø + O/s + PÖ/v + PÖ/po e.g. call smbd to account (for smth)

kindred with Sx Vx + [S + V + PO] cause smbd to account for smth

(5–7–01–0–1) S/ö + V/ø + PÖ/v (Ø/s) e.g. suffer from an ailment

kindred with S + V + Ö smth ails smbd

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In order to exemplify each subvariety of correspondences, we shall again give a pair of sentences, the first one a Structure 4 sentence, the second one (in parentheses) its kindred structure in a simple eventive verb structure: (36) (5–1–01–0–0) (5–1–02–0–0)

Sybil arrived at an accommodation with Peregrine. (Sybil accommodated Peregrine.)

(5–1–03–0–0)

The Socialists entered into an alliance with the Progressives. (The Socialists allied themselves with the Progressives.)

(5–1–04–0–0)

Sebastian entered into a formal agreement with Priscilla about the children. (Sebastian formally agreed with Priscilla about the children.)

(5–2–01–0–0)

The Secret Service moved into action. (The Secret Service acted.)

(5–2–02–0–0)

Sebastian filled Olga with alarm. (Sebastian alarmed Olga.)

(5–2–02–0–6)

Sybil brought the oar into alignment with the prow. (Sybil aligned the oar with the prow.)

(5–2–03–0–2)

Sybil presented Oscar with an award. (Sybil awarded a medal to Oscar.)

(5–2–04–0–0)

The audience burst into applause at the joke. (The audience applauded the joke.)

(5–2–06–0–0)

Sybil came to Gerald’s aid (= . . . the aid of Gerald). (Sybil aided Gerald.)

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Sebastian indulged in some acting at college. (Sebastian acted at college.)

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Sebastian finally came to an agreement with Priscilla about the will. (Sebastian finally agreed with Priscilla about the will.)

(5–2–08–0–0)

Sybil came to an arrangement with the press about her meeting. (Sybil arranged her meeting with the press.)

(5–2–09–0–0)

Sebastian came to an accord with the Prime Minister about the succession. (Sebastian accorded with the Prime Minister about the succession.)

(5–3–01–0–1)

The scheme met with general acceptance. (People generally accepted the scheme.)

(5–3–02–0–0)

Sybil came under attack from the press. (The press attacked Sybil.)

(5–3–02–1–0)

Sebastian came in for abuse at the hands of the press. (The press abused Sebastian.)

(5–4–01–0–0)

The plan met with Grizelda’s approval (= . . . the approval of Grizelda). (Grizelda approved of the plan.)

(5–5–01–0–1)

Sebastian and Sybil went to arbitration. (The court arbitrated between Sebastian and Sybil).

(5–6–01–0–0)

The authorities called Oscar to account (for the emergency). (The authorities caused Oscar to account for the emergency.)

(5–7–01–0–1)

Sybil is suffering from an ailment at the moment. (Something ails Sybil at the moment.)

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Unlike Structures 3 and 4, which consistently have the verb be, Structure 5 includes a number of different verbs, embracing different valency types. What all the verbs in this stretched structure share, however, is the potential for being complemented by a prepositional object or objoid, because this is the place where the event of the kindred simple verb is manifested. The fact that the thin verb is not be but a verb which in its literal use has an actional meaning has the result that the overall meaning of Structure 5 constructions refers more to an action than the kind of states referred to in Constructions 3 and 4. The verb enter (into) of enter into an alliance in (5–1–04–0–0), for instance, helps give its construction a dynamic value (in

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Types of restructuring 75 this case an inchoative or inceptive value) compared with the Structure 4 phrase be in alliance. An examination of the different patterns of (5–1–01–0–0) through to (5–7–01–0–1) again reveals structural diversity. The patterns of (5–1) differ from the rest in having the event appearing as a prepositional object rather than a prepositional objoid. This means that the deverbal noun, which in the Structure 5 construction expresses the event, can become the subject noun in a corresponding passive sentence; so that (30)(i) and (ii) would be the passive correlates of (36)(5–1–03–0–0) and(5–1–04–0–0) respectively:

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(37) (a) An alliance was entered into by the Socialists with the Progressives. (b) An agreement was entered into by Sebastian with Priscilla about the children. Such passive sentences cannot be formed when the event is expressed in the form of a prepositional objoid, as it does in (29) (5–2–07–0–0), for which the ungrammatical passive correlate would be: (38)

*An agreement was finally come to by Sebastian with Priscilla about the will.

The four patterns of (5–1), then, are the only ones within Structure 5 to have the kindred simplex verb appearing in a true passivizable prepositional object position, the main differences between them being the number of prepositional qualifiers they have (none in the (5–1–01–0–0) pattern, one in the (5–1–02–0–0) and (5–1–03–0–0) patterns, representing a kindred object or prepositional objoid respectively, and two in the (5–1–04–0–0) patten, representing a prepositional object and a prepositional objoid. The remaining patterns of Structure 5, from (5–2) to (5–7), all have an eventive prepositional objoid to represent the kindred simplex verb. They differ from each other in what kindred simplex element the subject represents: in (5–2) the subject corresponds to a kindred simplex subject, in (5–3) to a kindred simplex object, in (5–4) and (5–5) to a kindred simplex prepositional object or objoid respectively, in (5–6) to the subject of an external clause in which the clause containing the kindred simplex verb has been embedded, and in (5–7) to a kindred simplex objoid. This means that in (5–3), (5–4), (5–5), (5–6) and (5–7) there has been a more substantial restructuring: not only does the kindred structure’s verb appear as a prepositional objoid; its subject is also displaced, appearing as an object in (5–6), as a genitival qualifier of the eventive noun in (5–4), possibly as a prepositional objoid in (5–3), and finding no representation at all in (5–5) and (5–7). Within the various subvarieties of (5–2) there is a basic pattern (5–2–01–0–0) with the structure S/s + V/ø + PÖ/v, to cater for kindred intransitive verbs, and different expansions of it, mainly to accommodate

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a kindred simplex object, which appears in the stretched structure as an object in (5–2–02) and (5–2–03), as a prepositional objoid in (5–2–04), as a prepositional qualifier in (5–2–05), and as a genitival qualifier in (5–2–06). The stretched pattern of (5–2–03–0–2) is unusual in that it represents the kindred simplex indirect object as an object, while suppressing the kindred simplex object itself. The (5–2–07–0–0) pattern has two prepositional qualifiers representing a kindred simplex prepositional object or objoid respectively. One pattern, (5–3–02–1–0), has a phrasal verb, a combination of verb-plus-limiter-adverb, as the thin verb, which means that it shows a sequence of relatively empty elements consisting of verb with limiter adverb and following preposition (come in for). Turning now, as we did for the other Structures, to the perspective of the kindred simplex verb patterns, we can now see that the intransitive pattern can only appear as S/s + V/ø + PO/v (= pattern 5–1–01–0–0) or as S/s + V/ø + PÖ/v (= pattern 5–2–01–0–0); this is the pattern at its most basic. Looking at kindred simplex S + V + O types of pattern, we can disregard the PO/v types (5–1–01) to (5–1–04) as relatively uncommon; pattern (5–1–02) , with its compulsorily reflexive object in the kindred simplex structure, is especially rare. This means that stretched structures corresponding to a kindred simplex transitive pattern are basically S/s + V/ø + PÖ/v, with the object then appearing in one of the positions O, or (as we have just noted); the alternative is a semantically passive pattern, in which the kindred simplex object has been switched to subject position, giving the structure S/o + V/ø + PÖ/v (+ Ø/s) of (5–3–01–0–1), with the kindred simplex subject not being expressed. Kindred simplex S + V + PO patterns not surprisingly transform their prepositional object into a PÖ or a , except in the passive pattern (5–4–01–0–1), where it takes over subject position. Perhaps the most interesting pattern of Structure 5 is the complex pattern illustrated in (36) (5–6–01–0–0). The construction call smbd to account for smth is an expression with a less than fully transparent meaning; nevertheless it can be seen as semantically close to the definition ‘cause or require somebody to give an account of something or account for something’. This means that the subject of the simplex verb account for smth is shifted to the object position of the verb call in the stretched structure; the subject in the stretched structure, however, represents an entity not evident in the simplex verb structure, namely an outside causer or instigator. As compared with an embedded structure with a verb of causation like cause, make or have in addition to the verb account itself, the construction call smbd to account for smth has a single verb call that is not a traditional verb of causation but a thin verb specially drafted in for use in this particular pattern. But the fact that the full verb call is frequently complemented with an object and an adverbial or prepositional elaborator (call smbd up, call smbd into the office, etc.) makes it a natural choice.

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II.2.vi Structure 6 patterns: V-ejection to O/Ö (eventive) This is an extremely rich structural type with over eighty different variants, making it clearly the major syntactic type of stretched verb structure. Its distinctive characteristic compared with Structures 3, 4 and 5 (in other words, the others with an eventive deverbal noun) is that the event appears as a noun in object or objoid position. The valency of English verbs in general is such that there are substantially more valency structures that include an object than ones that include a preposition phrase. Table 2.1 had fifteen patterns with O, two with Ö, three with PD, five with PO, and eight with PÖ. This wider range of object structures, combined with the greater involvement of objects in transformational and kindred relations, results in there being a far wider range of different subvarieties for Structure 6, with frequent cases of one simple eventive verb structure appearing in two or three eventive noun structures, creating the stretched equivalent of passive and causative structures. There is a point to bear in mind concerning indirect objects (IO), which only appear in the stretched constructions of Structure 6. By definition (see above, section II.1.ii) indirect objects appear in two different patterns in active sentences, one in which the indirect object includes a preposition (to or for) and follows the (direct) object, the other in which the indirect object takes the form of a bare noun phrase and precedes the (direct) object. When an indirect object occurs as part of a stretched verb construction, it may appear in either form; but for the sake of simplicity of presentation, only one form will be listed below, namely the one with the preposition present and the indirect object following the (direct) object. (This was established in the discussion above as the unmarked version of the pattern.) Thus the example give aid to smbd (listed under 6–1–02–0–6 below) has the alternative form give smbd aid. Amongst the very rich range of possibilities for Structure 6 at the very least the following different subvarieties can be distinguished:43 (6–1–01–0–0)

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S/s + V/ø + O/v e.g. do some acting initiate/take action make an advance gain advancement form an agglomeration

kindred with S + V act (‘perform dramatically’) act (‘be active’) advance (‘progress’) advance (‘be promoted’) agglomerate

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43 It should constantly be borne in mind that the constructions grouped together under the same syntactic subvariety may differ substantially in other respects (such as the type of noun phrase used as object, the value of the thin verb, etc.).

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78 Syntactic restructuring (6–1–01–0–2) S/s + V/ø + O/v (+ Ø/o) e.g. record/register an achievement make an acquisition assume an affectation cause anger practise appeasement make/perform/effect an arrest

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kindred with S + V + O achieve smth acquire smth affect smth anger smbd appease smbd arrest smbd

kindred with S + V + O + PÖ alert smbd [to smth] apply onslf [to smth]

(6–1–01–0–24/26) S/s + V/ø + O/v (+ Ø/o + Ø/nd, pd, pö) e.g. make an appointment 44

kindred with S + V + O + ND/PD/PÖ appoint smbd [(as) smth] appoint smbd [to smth]

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(6–1–01–1–0) S/s + V-L/ø + O/v e.g. put on an act

kindred with S + V act (‘perform dramatically’)

(6–1–01–1–2) S/s + V-L/ø + O/v (+ Ø/o) e.g. put on an affectation bring in an acquittal carry out an arrest

kindred with S + V + O affect smth acquit smbd arrest smbd

(6–1–02–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v + IO/o e.g. give an address [to smbd] 45 give an air to smth give an airing to smth give one’s approval [to smth] give articulation to smth

kindred with S + V + O address (‘speak to’) smbd air (‘dry in the air’) smth air (‘make public’) smth approve smth articulate smth

44 with the meaning ‘assign smbd to a post’ (and not with the meaning ‘arrange a meeting’). 45 cf. deliver an address to smbd under (6–1–12–0–0).

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Types of restructuring 79 (6–1–02–0–4) S/s + V/ø + O/v + IO/o (+ Ø/nd, pd, pö) e.g. give an appointment (‘post’) to smbd

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(6–1–03–0–2)

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(6–1–02–0–6) S/s + V/ø + O/v + IO/o (+ Ø/pö) e.g. give/offer sm aid (to smbd) cause sm amazement (to smbd) afford sm amusement to smbd cause sm amusement (to smbd) cause sm annoyance (to smbd) give one’s approval [to smth] give/render assistance to smbd affer (one’s) assistance to smbd

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kindred with S + V + O + ND/PD/PÖ appoint smbd [(as) smth] appoint smbd [to smth]

S/s + V/ø + O/v + IO/io (+ Ø/o) e.g. give/grant an award (to smbd)

kindred with S + V + O + PÖ aid smbd (with smth) amaze smbd [with smth] amuse smbd (with smth) amuse smbd (with smth) annoy smbd (with smth) approve smth (for smbd) assist smbd (with smth) assist smbd (with smth)

kindred with S + V + O + IO award smth (to smbd)

(6–1–04–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v + IO/po e.g. give one’s assent [to smth] give/pay sm attention [to smth/smbd]

kindred with S + V + PO assent to smth attend to (‘listen to’) [smth/smbd]

(6–1–05–0–2) S/s + V/ø + O/v + IO/pö (+ Ø/o) e.g. give an assignment to smbd give an autograph to smbd

kindred with S + V + O + PÖ assign smth to smbd 46 autograph smth ( for smbd)

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46 This is a difficult case to classify, because the verb assign has at least two different usages for most speakers and also differs between British and American English. The above analysis is based on the usage in which the noun phrase referring to the person to whom something is assigned is always preceded by a preposition and cannot become the subject of a related passive sentence; in other words, it is a prepositional objoid. Other usages would obviously require a different classification.

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80 Syntactic restructuring (6–1–06–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v + IO/pö + kindred with S + V + PO + PÖ PÖ/po e.g. give one’s assent (to smbd) assent [to smth] ( for smbd) [for smth] (6–1–07–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v + PO/po kindred with S + V + PO allow for smth e.g. make an/sm allowance for smth 47 (6–1–08–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v + PÖ/o e.g. heap/shower abuse on smbd hurl/shout sm abuse (at smbd) extend/minister aid to smbd provide aid [for smbd] arouse/cause alarm in smbd cause alienation in smbd provide sm amusement ( for smbd ) induce/produce anaesthesia in smbd make an approach [to smbd] provide assistance [for smbd] render assistance (to smbd) arouse/cause sm astonishment (in smbd)

kindred with S + V + O abuse smbd abuse smbd aid smbd aid smbd alarm smbd alienate smbd amuse smbd anaesthetize smbd approach smbd assist smbd assist smbd astonish smbd

(6–1–09–0–2) S/s + V/ø + O/v + PÖ/io (+ Ø/o) kindred with S + V + O + IO e.g. make/present an award (to smbd) award smth (to smbd) (6–1–10–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v + PÖ/po e.g. suffer agony (‘mental anguish’ ) [with smth] take aim [at smth] make an allusion to smth have an argue >with smbd<48

kindred with S + V + PO agonize about/over smth aim at smth allude to smth argue (‘quarrel’) >with smbd<

47 Note that make allowances [for smbd] ‘forgive smbd a minor annoyance’ cannot be regarded as kindred with allow for. 48 limited to highly informal British and Australian English, cf. Wierzbicka (1982).

Types of restructuring 81 make atonement [for smth] dance attendance on smbd devote one’s attention to smth/smbd focus one’s attention on smth/smbd

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atone for smth attend to smbd 49 attend to smth/smbd 50 attend to smth/smbd 51

(6–1–10–0–2) S/s + V/ø + O/v + PÖ/pö kindred with S + V + O + PÖ (+ Ø/o) e.g. do/perform an abortion (on smbd) abort smth ( for smbd) induce an abortion (in smbd) abort smth ( for smbd) add an attachment [to smth] attach smth [to smth] (6–1–10–1–2) S/s + V-L/ø + O/v + PÖ/pö kindred with S + V + O + PÖ (+ Ø/o) e.g. carry out an abortion (on smbd) abort smth ( for smbd)

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(6–1–11–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v + AE/ae e.g. make an appearance [smwh]

kindred with S + V + AE appear [smwh]

(6–1–11–1–0) S/s + V-L/ø + O/v + AE/ae e.g. put in an appearance [smwh]

kindred with S + V + AE appear [smwh]

(6–1–12–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v e.g. make an abridgement of smth gain/get access to [smth/smwh] find/reach an accommodation >with smbd< provide the accompaniment [for smbd] make an acknowledgement of smth

kindred with S + V + O abridge smth access smth 52 accommodate smbd accompany smbd acknowledge smth

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49 50 51 52

in the sense of ‘wait on smbd’. in the sense of ‘pay attention to smth/smbd’. in the sense of ‘pay attention to smth/smbd’. As already noted above, the verb access was a secondary derivation from the noun access, but its secondary nature is becoming less obvious.

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Syntactic restructuring do/make an adaptation of [smth] deliver an address (‘speech’) [to smbd] make an/sm adjustment [to smth] feel admiration for smbd publish/run an advertisement (for smth) make an affirmation (of smth) cause an/ aggravation 53 [of smth] do/make an alteration [to smth] make an amendment [to smth] provide sm amplification [of/for smth] do/make an analysis of smth make an annotation to smth issue/make an announcement (about smth) provide an answer [to smth] make an appraisal of smth/smbd feel sm appreciation for smth make an ascent [of smth/smwh] commit an assault (on smbd) do/make an assessment [of smth] launch/make/mount/press an attack [on smbd/smth] make an attempt [at smth] do an audit (of smth) calculate an average [of sm things]

(6–1–12–0–6) S/s + V/ø + O/v (+ Ø/pö) e.g. bring/make an accusation [against smbd] (6–1–12–1–0) S/s + V-L/ø + O/v e.g. work out an accommodation >with smbd< carry out an adaptation [to smth] carry out an amputation (of smth) carry out an/the assassination (of smbd)

adapt smth address (‘speak to’) smbd adjust smth admire smbd advertise (smth) affirm smth aggravate smth alter smth amend smth amplify smth analyse smth annotate smth announce smth answer [smth] appraise smth/smbd appreciate (‘be grateful for’) smth ascend smth/smwh assault smbd assess smth attack [smbd/smth] attempt smth audit smth average [sm things]

kindred with S + V + O + PÖ accuse smbd [of smth]

kindred with S + V + O accommodate smbd adapt smth amputate smth assassinate smbd

53 in the sense of ‘worsening’; ‘in the sense of ‘trouble’ aggravation cannot be related to the verb aggravate.

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Types of restructuring 83 carry out an assesssment [of smth/smbd] carry out an attack (on smbd/smth) press home an attack (on smth) work out an average [of sm things] (6–1–13–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v + IO/pö e.g. make an allocation of smth [to smbd/smth] grant an annulment [of smth] [to smbd] give/offer an answer [to smth] (to smbd) give an appraisal of smth (to smbd) give (one’s) approval [ for smth] (to smbd) give/grant authorization [ for smth] (to smbd) grant an adjournment [of smth] (to smbd) (6–1–14–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v + PÖ/pö e.g. make an admission (about smth) (to smbd) make an appropriation (of smth) [ for smbd] make an approach [to smbd] (about smth)

assess smth/smbd attack [smbd/smth] attack [smth] average [sm things]

kindred with S + V + O + PÖ 54 allocate smth [to smbd/smth] annul smth ( for smbd) answer [smth] ( for smbd) appraise smth ( for smbd) approve smth ( for smbd) authorize smth ( for smbd) adjourn smth ( for smbd)

kindred with S + V + O + PÖ admit (‘confess’) smth [to smbd] appropriate smth (for smbd) approach smbd [about smth]

(6–1–15–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v + AE/ae e.g. place/put an advertisement ( for smth) smwh

kindred with S + V + O + AE advertise (smth) (smwh)

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54 Some of the preposition phrases with the kindred verbs in this subvariety (allocate, annul, answer, appraise, approve) may give the appearance of an indirect object, but in fact (with the exception of allocate for some speakers) the phrase concerned cannot normally appear without its preposition before the direct object, nor can it become the subject in a corresponding passive sentence.

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84 Syntactic restructuring (6–1–16–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v kindred with S + V + PO e.g. make an adjudication [between pple] adjudicate [between pple] commit aggression against smbd aggress against smbd 55 file/lodge an appeal [against smth] appeal [against smth] file an application [for smth] apply [ for smth] offer/present/press an argument argue (‘reason’) for smth [ for smth] conduct arbitration [between pple] arbitrate [between pple] make arrangements [for smth] arrange for smth form an association >with smbd< associate >with smbd< (6–1–16–1–0) S/s + V-L/ø + O/v kindred with S + V + PO e.g. carry out an adjudication adjudicate [between pple] [ between pple] carry out aggression (against smbd) aggress 56 against smbd stir up agitation (against smbd/smth) agitate (against smbd/smth) carry out arbitration [between pple] arbitrate [ between pple] drive home an argument argue (‘reason’) for/against smth [ for/against smth] put forward an argument argue (‘reason’) for/against smth [ for/against smth] (6–1–17–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v + kindred with S + V + PO + PÖ IO/pö account for smth (to smbd) e.g. give an account 57 of smth (to smbd) (6–1–18–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v kindred with S + V + PO + PÖ e.g. conclude/make/negotiate/reach an agree >with smbd< [about smth] agreement>with smbd< (about smth) make an appeal (to smbd) appeal 58 (to smbd) [about smth] [about smth]

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55 This is of course an extremely rare verb. But it should be recalled that the ‘underlying’ verb is not being regarded as derivationally primary in any sense; it simply represents a kindred construction. 56 This is, as noted in the previous footnote, a rare verb. 57 where account means ‘explanation’. 58 with the meaning ‘urge to reconsider’.

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Types of restructuring 85 make/submit an application ( for smth) [to smbd]

apply to smbd for smth

(6–1–18–1–0) S/s + V-L/ø + O/v e.g. work out an agreement >with smbd< (about smth) put in an appeal [to smbd] [for/against smth] put in/send in an application to smbd for smth

kindred with S + V + PO + PÖ agree >with smbd< [about smth] appeal 59 [to smbd] [for/against smth] apply for smth

(6–1–19–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v kindred with S + V + PÖ e.g. practise abstinence (from smth) abstain 60 [from smth] form an affiliation >with smbd< affiliate >with smbd< forge/form an alliance >with smbd< ally (onslf ) >with smbd< (6–1–19–0–2) 61 S/s + V/ø + O/v (+ Ø/o) e.g. pronounce absolution [from smth] make an addition [to smth] add an appendage [to smth] make an assumption (about smth/smbd)

kindred with S + V + O + PÖ absolve smbd [from smth] add smth [to smth] append smth [to smth] assume smth (about smth/smbd)

(6–1–20–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v + IO/o e.g. give/grant absolution [from smth] [to smbd] give/grant admission [to smwh] to smbd

kindred with S + V + O + PÖ absolve smbd [from smth] admit (‘let in’) smbd [to smwh]

59 with the meaning ‘urge to reconsider’. 60 in the sense of ‘not eat/drink/etc.’; not in the sense of ‘not vote’. 61 There might well also be a related structure (6–1–19–1–2) with a phrasal verb as the thin verb, but the only example collected so far is strike up an acquaintance with smbd/smth, which is slightly deviant in being kindred with a simplex structure with a reflexive verb, namely acquaint oneself with smbd/smth, and in limiting the use of the stretched verb construction to animate acquaintances.

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Syntactic restructuring give/offer advice (on smth) (to smbd) give applause ( for smth) [to smbd] give an assurance [to smbd] (about smth)

advise smbd (about smth) applaud smbd ( for smth) assure 62 smbd [of/about smth]

(6–1–21–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v + kindred with S + V + PO + PÖ IO/po e.g. make/offer an apology [ for/about apologize [to smbd] smth] [to smbd] [for/about smth] offer one’s apologies [for/about smth] apologize [to smbd] [to smbd] [for/about smth] (6–1–22–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v + PÖ/po e.g. express/make one’s apologies [about/for smth]

kindred with S + V + PO + PÖ apologize [to smbd] [for/(to smbd) about smth]

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(6–1–23–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v + e.g. reach an accord >with smbd< (about smth)63

kindred with S + V + PÖ + PÖ accord >with smbd< (about smth)

(6–1–24–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v e.g. commit/perform an act of a certain kind

kindred with S + V + AE act in a certain way

(6–1–25–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v e.g. arouse the anger {of smbd}

kindred with S + V + O anger smbd

62 in the sense of ‘promise’. 63 It could be argued that the semantic relationship between this construction and its simplex relative is not close enough, because the subject of the verb accord is not so often human (as for the stretched verb construction) but more commonly inanimate or abstract. A better example of this particular structural type would be perhaps reach a compromise >with smbd< (about smth) with its kindred simplex pattern compromise >with smbd< (about smth).

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Types of restructuring 87 (6–1–25–1–0) S/s + V-L/ø + O/v e.g. stir up the anger {of smbd}

kindred with S + V + O anger smbd

(6–1–26–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v e.g. make an attempt [to do smth]

kindred with S + V + I attempt to do smth

(6–1–27–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v + IO/o kindred with S + V + O + I e.g. give/grant authority/authorization authorize smbd [to do (to smbd) [to do smth] smth] (6–1–28–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v <(S-)IC/i> e.g. make an arrangement [( for smbd) to do smth]

kindred with S + V + (S-)I arrange ( for smbd) to do smth

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(6–1–28–1–0) S/s + V-L/ø + O/v <(S-)IC/i> e.g. work out an arrangement [( for smbd) to do smth] (6–1–29–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v e.g. make an affirmation that-Clause make an assertion that-Clause make an assumption that-Clause make an avowal that-Clause

kindred with S + V + F affirm that-Clause assert that-Clause assume that-Clause avow that-Clause

(6–1–30–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v + IO/o e.g. give an assurance that-Clause to smbd

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kindred with S + V + (S-)I arrange ( for smbd) to do smth

64 in the sense of ‘promise’.

kindred with S + V + O + F assure 64 smbd that-Clause

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Syntactic restructuring

(6–1–31–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v + PÖ/pö e.g. make an allegation that-Clause to smbd

kindred with S + V + PÖ + F allege that-Clause to smbd

(6–2–01–0–1) S/o + V/ø + O/v (+ Ø/s) e.g. undergo acclimatization undergo an/sm adaptation get an airing suffer alienation undergo an/sm analysis suffer an awakening

kindred with S + V + O acclimatize smbd adapt smth air (‘make public’) smth alienate smbd analyse smth awaken/wake smbd

(6–2–02–0–0) S/o + V/ø + O/v + PÖ/s e.g. suffer sm abuse ( from/at-thehands-of smbd) take sm abuse ( from smbd) find sm acceptance from smbd suffer an affront ( from/at-thehands-of smbd) receive sm aid ( from smbd) feel sm alarm [at smth] feel sm amusement [at smth] find sm amusement [in smth] suffer annihilation (at-thehands-of smbd) feel sm annoyance [about/at smth/ with/at smbd] suffer sm annoyance [ from/ at-the-hands of smbd] feel sm astonishment [at smth] feel an attraction for smbd

kindred with S + V + O abuse smbd abuse smbd accept smbd affront smbd aid smbd alarm smbd amuse smbd amuse smbd annihilate smbd annoy smbd annoy smbd astonish smbd attract smbd

(6–2–03–0–1) S/o + V/ø + O/v kindred with S + V + O + PÖ (+ Ø/s) e.g. gain/secure admission/admittance admit (‘let in’)smbd [to smth/ [to smth/smwh] smwh] undergo amalgamation >with smth< amalgamate smth >with smth< undergo assimilation [with/into smth] assimilate smth [with/into smth]

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Types of restructuring 89 (6–2–04–0–0) S/o + V/ø + O/v + PÖ/s e.g. receive absolution [from smth] ( from smbd) receive/take advice (about smth) ( from smbd)

kindred with S + V + O + PÖ absolve smbd [from smth] advise smbd [about smth]

(6–2–05–0–0) S/o + V/ø + O/v e.g. receive the approval {of smbd}

kindred with S + V + O approve smth/smbd

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(6–2–06–0–1) S/o + V/ø + O/v (+ Ø/s) e.g. make the acquaintance {of smbd}

kindred with S + V + O + PÖ acquaint smbd >with smbd else< 65

(6–3–01–0–1) S/io + V/ø + O/v + PÖ/s + (+ Ø/o) e.g. receive an award ( from smbd)

kindred with S + V + O + IO award smth (to smbd)

(6–4–01–0–0) S/po + V/ø + O/v + PÖ/s e.g. incur/suffer aggression ( from/ at-the-hands-of smbd) receive attention ( from smbd)

kindred with S + V + PO aggress 66 against smbd attend to smbd 67

(6–4–02–0–0) S/po + V/ø + O/v e.g. find the approval {of smbd} attract/capture/catch/command/ get/hold/retain the attention {of smbd} (without intent)

kindred with S + V + PO approve of smth/smbd attend to smth 68

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65 66 67 68

This is a problematic case, as noted above in the case of example (3–2–03–0–1). This is a rare verb, as already noted under type (6–4–01–0–0). in the sense of ‘treat medically’. in the sense of ‘pay attention to smth’.

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Syntactic restructuring

(6–5–01–0–0) S/pö + V/ø + O/v + kindred with S + V + O + PÖ PÖ/s e.g. get an annulment [of smth] annul smth ( for smbd) ( from smbd) get/receive an answer [to smth] answer smth ( for smbd) ( from smbd) get approval [for smth] ( from smbd) approve smth ( for smbd) (6–6–01–0–1) S/x + V/ø + O/v (+ Ø/s) e.g. stimulate an/sm activity

kindred with S + V act (‘be active’)

(6–6–02–1–2) S/x + V-L/ø + O/v (Ø/o) e.g. spark off applause ( from smbd )

kindred with S + V + O applaud [smbd]

(6–6–03–0–0) S/x + V/ø + O/v kindred with S + V + O e.g. precipitate/provoke an attack attack [smbd/smth] (by smbd) (on smbd/smth) get an answer [to smth] [from smbd] answer [smth] (with intent) (6–6–03–1–0) S/x + V/ø + O/v e.g. spark off an attack (on smbd/smth) (by smbd)

kindred with S + V + O attack [smbd/smth]

(6–6–04–1–0) S/x + V-L/ø + O/v kindred with S + V + PO + PÖ e.g. bring about an agreement agree >with smbd< (about smth) [between pple] (about smth) spark off an argument (between pple) argue (‘quarrel’) >with smbd< (about smth) (about smth)

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Types of restructuring 91 (6–6–05–0–0) S/x + V/ø + O/v + IO/s e.g. give/grant access [to smth/smwh] (to smbd)

kindred with S + V + O access smth/smwh

(6–6–06–0–5) S/x + V/ø + O/v (Ø/po) e.g. attract/capture/catch/command/ get/hold/retain the attention {of smbd} (with intent)

kindred with S + V + PO attend to smth 69

(6–6–07–0–0) S/x + V/ø + O/v + PÖ/po e.g. draw the attention {of smbd} to smth

kindred with S + V + PO attend to smth 70

(6–6–08–0–0) S/x + V/ø + O/v e.g. get/secure/seek/win the approval {of smbd} [ for smth]

kindred with S + V + O approve smth

(6–6–09–0–0) S/x + V/ø + O/s + PÖ/v + PÖ/po e.g. call smbd to account ( for smth)

kindred with S + V + PO account for smth

(6–6–10–0–0) S/x (= o) + V/ø + O/v kindred with S + V + O e.g. inspire the admiration {of smbd } admire smbd (6–6–11–0–1) S/x (= po) + V/ø + O/v kindred with S + V + PO e.g. provoke aggression ( from/ aggress against smbd at-the-hands-of smbd) 69 in the sense of ‘pay attention to smth’. 70 in the sense of ‘pay attention to smth’.

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Syntactic restructuring

(6–6–12–0–0) S/x (= pö) + V/ø + O/v kindred with S + V + O + PÖ + PÖ/s e.g. obtain an annulment annul smth ( for smbd) [of smth] ( from smbd) elicit/get/obtain an answer [to smth] answer [smth] ( for smbd) [ from smbd]

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(6–6–13–0–0)

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S/x (= pö) + V/ø + O/v + PÖ/s e.g. elicit/get/obtain an apology [ for smth] [ from smbd]

kindred with S + V + PO + PÖ apologize [to smbd] [ for smth]

(6–7–01–0–0) S/s + V/ø + Ö/v + PÖ/pö e.g. have an appeal ( for smbd)

kindred with S + V + PÖ appeal to (‘please’) smbd

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(6–7–02–0–0) S/s + V/ø + Ö/v + AE/ae e.g. feel/have an ache (smwh)

kindred with S + V + AE 71 ache (smwh)

(6–7–03–0–0) S/s + V/ø + Ö/v e.g. have an appreciation of smth have an attempt [at smth]

kindred with S + V + O appreciate (‘understand’) smth attempt smth

(6–7–03–0–7) S/s + V/ø + Ö/v kindred with S + V + O + AE (+ Ø/ae) e.g. have an approach (of a certain kind) approach (‘regard’) smth in a [to smth] certain manner

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71 In a further kindred structure the place adverbial and the ‘possessor’ subject are merged to give a joint (semantically complex) subject: thus S/s + V/ø + Ö/v + A/a can be regarded as a stretching not just of S + V + AE but even of S + V, the latter construction appearing, for instance, as My arm aches.

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Types of restructuring 93 (6–7–04–0–0) S/s + V/ø + Ö/v e.g. have an argument >with smbd< [about smth]

kindred with S + V + PO + PÖ argue (‘quarrel’) >with smbd< (about smth)

(6–7–05–0–0) S/s + V/ø + Ö/v e.g. have an alliance >with smbd<

kindred with S + V + PÖ ally onslf with smbd

(6–7–06–0–0) S/s + V/ø + Ö/v e.g. have an aspiration/aspirations (to do/be smth)

kindred with S + V + I aspire to do/be smth

(6–7–07–0–0) S/s + V/ø + Ö/v e.g. have an aim (of doing/being smth) have an attempt [at doing smth]

kindred with S + V + I aim to do smth attempt to do smth

(6–8–01–0–1) S/o + V/ø + Ö/v (+ Ø/s) e.g. have an airing have an application

kindred with S + V + O air smth apply smth

(6–8–02–0–1) S/o + V/ø + Ö/v (Ø/s) e.g. have an acquaintance with smth

kindred with S + V + O + PÖ acquaint smbd with smth

Each structure will now be illustrated as before with an example sentence (followed by a kindred simplex eventive verb structure in parentheses): (39) (6–1–01–0–0) (6–1–01–0–2)

Sybil did some acting in her spare time. (Sybil acted in her spare time.) Sybil recorded some achievements last year. (Sybil achieved some successes last year.)

(6–1–01–0–24/26) Sebastian made an appointment. (Sebastian appointed John (as) his new press secretary.)

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Syntactic restructuring (6–1–01–1–0)

Sybil was putting on an act. (Sybil was acting.)

(6–1–01–1–2)

The jury brought in an acquittal. (The jury acquitted the murder suspect.)

(6–1–02–0–0)

Sebastian gave the problem of taxation an airing. (Sebastian aired the problem of taxation.)

(6–1–02–0–4)

Sebastian gave the appointment to Priscilla. (Sebastian appointed Priscilla his new press secretary.)

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(Cf. (6–1–01–0–24–26).) (6–1–02–0–6)

Switzerland gave aid to Peru. (Switzerland aided Peru.)

(6–1–03–0–2)

The authorities gave an award to Priscilla. (The authorities awarded a scholarship to Priscilla.)

(6–1–04–0–0)

Sebastian paid attention to the details. (Sebastian attended to the details.)

(6–1–05–0–2)

The authorities gave the assignment to an investigator. (The authorities assigned the job to an investigator.)

(6–1–06–0–0)

Sybil gave Idris her assent for the plan. (Sybil assented to the plan for Idris.)

(6–1–07–0–0)

Sybil made allowance(s) for Gerald’s exaggerations. (Sybil allowed for Gerald’s exaggerations.)

(6–1–08–0–0)

Sebastian made an approach to Priscilla. (Sebastian approached Priscilla.)

(6–1–09–0–2)

The committee made an award to Priscilla. (The committee awarded a prize to Priscilla.)

(6–1–10–0–0)

Sebastian took aim at the target. (Sebastian aimed at the target.)

(6–1–10–0–2)

The doctor performed an abortion on the patient. (The doctor aborted the foetus for the patient.)

(6–1–10–1–2)

The doctor carried out an abortion on the patient. (The doctor aborted the foetus for the patient.)

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Types of restructuring 95 (6–1–11–0–0)

Sebastian made an appearance in the hall. (Sebastian appeared in the hall.)

(6–1–11–1–0)

Sebastian put in an appearance in the hall. (Sebastian appeared in the hall.)

(6–1–12–0–0)

Sybil made an adjustment to the volume. (Sybil adjusted the volume.)

(6–1–12–0–6)

Sebastian made an accusation against Priscilla. (Sebastian accused Priscilla of misconduct.)

(6–1–12–1–0)

The team carried out an assessment of the plan. (The team assessed the plan.)

(6–1–13–0–0)

The court granted an annulment of the marriage to Ida. (The court annulled the marriage for Ida.)

(6–1–14–0–0)

Sebastian made an admission about his misconduct to the journalist. (Sebastian admitted his misconduct to the journalist.)

(6–1–15–0–0)

Sybil put an advertisement about the jumble sale in the local paper. (Sybil advertised the jumble sale in the local paper.)

(6–1–16–0–0)

Sebastian made an allusion to the divorce. (Sebastian alluded to the divorce.)

(6–1–16–1–0)

Sybil stirred up agitation against the proposals. (Sybil agitated against the proposals.)

(6–1–17–0–0)

Sybil gave an account of her expenditure to Idris. (Sybil accounted for her expenditure to Idris.)

(6–1–18–0–0)

Sebastian reached a formal agreement with Priscilla about the children. (Sebastian formally agreed with Priscilla about the children.)

(6–1–18–1–0)

Sebastian worked out a formal agreement with Priscilla about the children. (Sebastian formally agreed with Priscilla about the children.)

(6–1–19–0–0)

Sybil practised total abstinence from drink. (Sybil totally abstained from drink.)

(6–1–19–0–2)

Sebastian made an addition to the estate. (Sebastian added a model village to the estate.)

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Syntactic restructuring (6–1–20–0–0)

Sebastian gave advice to Ida about taxation. (Sebastian advised Ida about taxation.)

(6–1–21–0–0)

Sybil offered an apology for her behaviour to Idris. (Sybil apologized to Idris for her behaviour.)

(6–1–22–0–0)

Sebastian made his apologies to his hosts about the outburst. (Sebastian apologized to his hosts about the outburst.)

(6–1–23–0–0)

Sybil reached an accord with the press about the photographs. (Sybil accorded with the press about the photographs.)

(6–1–24–0–0)

Sebastian committed an act of stupidity. (Sebastian acted stupidly.)

(6–1–25–0–0)

Sybil aroused the anger of Gerald/Gerald’s anger. (Sybil angered Gerald.)

(6–1–25–1–0)

Sybil stirred up the anger of Gerald/Gerald’s anger. (Sybil angered Gerald.)

(6–1–26–0–0)

Sebastian made an attempt to persuade them. (Sebastian attempted to persuade them.)

(6–1–27–0–0)

Sybil gave authorization to Idris to sign the documents. (Sybil authorized Idris to sign the documents.)

(6–1–28–0–0)

Sebastian made an arrangement (for her) to cash cheques.72 (Sebastian arranged (for her) to cash cheques.)

(6–1–28–1–0)

Sebastian and Sybil worked out an arrangement to meet once a year. (Sebastian and Sybil arranged to meet once a year.)

(6–1–29–0–0)

Sybil made the assumption that he would agree. (Sybil assumed that he would agree.)

(6–1–30–0–0)

Sebastian gave an assurance to Ida that he would attend. (Sebastian assured Ida that he would attend.)

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72 Such structures with an optional subject noun phrase before the infinitive follow the standard pattern of interpretation in having the same subject as the preceding (catenative) verb when the infinitive lacks an overt subject of its own.

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Types of restructuring 97 (6–1–31–0–0)

Sybil made the allegation to a journalist that Sebastian was dishonest. (Sybil alleged to a journalist that Sebastian was dishonest.)

(6–2–01–0–1)

The data underwent analysis. (The laboratory analysed the data.)

(6–2–02–0–0)

Sebastian felt alarm at the news. (The news alarmed Sebastian.)

(6–2–03–0–1)

Sybil secured admittance to the garden party. (The turnstile operator admitted Sybil to the garden party.)

(6–2–04–0–0)

Sebastian received advice about the problem from Priscilla. (Priscilla advised Sebastian about the problem.)

(6–2–05–0–0)

The strategy received the approval of the government/the government’s approval. (The government approved the strategy.)

(6–2–06–0–1)

Sybil made Gerald’s acquaintance/the acquaintance of Gerald. (Someone acquainted Sybil with Gerald.)

(6–3–01–0–1)

Sybil received an award from the committee. (The committee awarded a prize to Sybil.)

(6–4–01–0–0)

Switzerland suffered aggression at the hands of Peru. (Peru aggressed against Switzerland.)

(6–4–02–0–0)

The plan found the approval of Gertrude/ Gertrude’s approval. (Gertrude approved of the plan.)

(6–5–01–0–0)

Sebastian did not receive an answer to the question from Priscilla. (Priscilla did not answer the question for Sebastian.)

(6–6–01–0–1)

The government stimulated activity in the currency market. (Traders acted in the currency market.)

(6–6–02–1–2)

The incident sparked off applause from the audience. (The audience applauded the acrobat.)

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98 Syntactic restructuring (6–6–03–0–0)

Switzerland provoked an attack on Peru by Qatar. (Qatar attacked Peru.)

(6–6–03–1–0)

Switzerland sparked off an attack on Peru by Qatar. (Qatar attacked Peru.)

(6–6–04–1–0)

Sebastian brought about an agreement about the post between Priscilla and Peregrine. (Priscilla agreed about the post with Peregrine.)

(6–6–05–0–0)

The authorities granted access to the information to Peregrine. Peregrine accessed73 the information.

(6–6–06–0–5)

The speech attracted the attention of Gerald/Gerald’s attention. (Gerald attended to the speech)

(6–6–07–0–0)

The secretary drew the attention of the general (= the general’s attention) to the problem. (The general attended to the problem.)

(6–6–08–0–0)

Sybil got the approval of the authorities (= the authorities’ approval) for her plans. (The authorities approved Sybil’s plans.)

(6–6–09–0–0)

Sebastian called Olga to account for the fire. (Olga accounted for the fire.)

(6–6–10–0–0)

Sybil inspired the admiration of Gerald/Gerald’s admiration. (Gerald admired Sybil.)

(6–6–11–0–1)

Switzerland provoked aggression at the hands of Peru. (Peru aggressed against Switzerland.)

(6–6–12–0–0)

Sebastian obtained an annulment of the marriage from the court. (The court annulled the marriage for Sebastian.)

(6–6–13–0–0)

Sybil elicited an apology from Peregrine. (Peregrine apologized to Sybil.)

(6–7–01–0–0)

Sociology had a strong appeal for Priscilla. (Sociology strongly appealed to Priscilla.)

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73 This is of course a relatively rare word that is still confined to technical language, but the existence of this and similar stretched verb constructions paved the way for its creation. See footnote 34 on p. 57.

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Types of restructuring 99 (6–7–02–0–0)

Sebastian had an ache in his neck. (Sebastian ached in his neck.)

(6–7–03–0–0)

Sybil had an attempt at the jump. (Sybil attempted the jump.)

(6–7–03–0–7)

Sybil had a dynamic approach to politics. (Sybil approached politics in a dynamic manner.)

(6–7–04–0–0)

Sebastian had an argument about money with Priscilla. (Sebastian argued about money with Priscilla.)

(6–7–05–0–0)

Switzerland had an alliance with Peru. (Switzerland allied itself with Peru.)

(6–7–06–0–0)

Sybil had aspirations to enter politics. (Sybil aspired to enter politics.)

(6–7–07–0–0)

Sebastian had the aim of completing the book before the election. (Sebastian aimed to complete the book before the election.)

(6–8–01–0–1)

The subject had an airing at their last meeting. (They aired the subject at their last meeting.)

(6–8–02–0–1)

Sybil had an acquaintance with the procedure. (The lecturer acquainted Sybil with the procedure.)

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As compared with the limited range of Structures 1 to 5, Structure 6 presents a vast array of different patterns. They all agree, however, in including an object or objoid, this being the place where the class of event is specified. The inclusion of an object or objoid means that the verb must be in the broadest sense transitive (i.e. monotransitive or ditransitive, etc.). This means that, while Structure 5, with its intransitive thin verbs (other than be) already has a dynamic meaning (see discussion at the end of section II.2.v), Structure 6 goes beyond this in having a dynamic meaning that somehow gives the impression of being goal-directed, positive, direct and/or decisive. Thus form an alliance with smbd seems more direct and positive than enter into an alliance with smbd (which in turn is more dynamic than be in alliance with smbd); similarly take action seems more decisive and complete than move into action (which is in turn more dynamic than be in action). The appearance of the eventive meaning (of the kindred simple verb) in valency object position in the stretched structure has certain syntactic implications: it becomes a candidate for subject position in a transformationally related passive sentence; it becomes a potential target for relative clause formation; etc. The following examples make these possibilities clear:

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100 Syntactic restructuring (40) (a) (b) (b–x) (b–y)

Sebastian acted. Sebastian took action. Action was taken (by Sebastian). The action Sebastian took ( . . . ) was decisive.

The sentence (40)(a), as a simple intransitive structure, has no possibility of passivization, with the result that the valency subject, Sebastian, must be mentioned; equally, the verb is not a possible basis for relative clause formation. The sentence (40)(b), on the other hand, as a Structure 6 pattern, includes a noun phrase object action, which makes passivization and relative clause formation possible. The potential for passivization is particularly significant, because it permits suppression of subjects, as indicated by the parenthesis of (40)(b–x), thus permitting potentially undesirable information to go unmentioned. The structural diversity of Structure 6 is so wide as to make it difficult to summarize, but a primary division can be made into the subtypes suggested by the labelling system used. All of the (6–1) subvarieties can be regarded as variations on the theme of (6–1–01–0–0) S/s + V/ø + O/v (kindred with S + V), i.e. the combination of thin verb and eventive noun object, with the noun phrase of the subject of the kindred eventive verb retained in subject position, as illustrated by the examples of (39) (6–1–01–0–0) right through to (6–1–31–0–0). The differences between these forty-eight subvarieties partly represent different starting points in terms of the valency patterns of the kindred lexical verb; there seem to seventeen or eighteen different valency structures involved. But it is also a matter of different ways of coping with the problem of stretching a verb valency structure. Having a thin verb, with the specification of the class of event shifted to object position, means that there is often a surplus semantic role to accommodate in the stretched verb structure, most commonly the kindred simplex object. Consider, for instance, the restructuring involved in (39) (6–1–01–0–0), (6–1–01–0–2) and (6–1–02–0–0): the first of these is based on an intransitive verb and therefore there is no kindred simplex object to take care of; the second simply suppresses the kindred simplex object; the third, having its object position already filled by the eventive role, places the kindred simplex object (most frequently with a patient or ‘affected’ role) in indirect object position, with the result that the thin verb must be trivalent (e.g. give, cause). If, on the other hand, beside the direct object in the kindred simplex pattern, there already exists an indirect object, then this has no obvious place to go in the stretched structure. With some minor exceptions, three elaborators (the subject and two others, e.g. object and indirect object) is the normal maximum number of elaborators for lexical verbs, whether in simplex or stretched constructions. It is therefore unsurprising to find subvarieties like (6–1–03–0–2) and (6–1–05–0–2) in which the kindred simplex object is dropped, apparently because the superficial indirect object position is already occupied

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Types of restructuring 101 and the superficial object position already filled by the kindred simplex verb. The restructuring involved in subvarieties (6–1–12–0–0) to (6–1–25–1–0) introduces an important additional dimension, which we have already noted for Structures 3, 4 and 5, that of prepositional and genitival qualifiers. These subconstituents arise through the process of incorporation, by which otherwise independently expressed semantic roles are downgraded to become qualifiers in the noun phrase that has as its head a deverbal noun expressing the eventive role. In Structure 6 this noun phrase is the object or objoid; so we are now considering qualifiers, which in the kindred simple structure would have been independent elaborators of the verb, but which now appear inside the object (or objoid) noun phrase. In (6–1–12–0–0), for instance, the kindred simplex object, finding the object position in the stretched structure to be already occupied by the eventive role, attaches itself to the object as a prepositional qualifier. Thus in example sentence (39) (6–1–12–0–0) to the volume is not an elaborator of the (thin) verb make but has been incorporated as a qualifier of the deverbal noun adjustment in object position and is therefore a subconstituent. The same point applies to the genitival qualifiers of (6–1–25–0–0) and (6–1–25–1–0), and also of (6–2–05–0–0), (6–2–06–0–1), (6–4–02–0–0), (6–6–06–0–5), (6–6–07–0–0) and (6–6–08–0–0); and in these cases the downgrading of the preposition phrase is made even clearer by the possible ‘possessive ’s’ form (e.g. arouse smbd’s anger rather than arouse the anger of smbd). Moreover the infinitival, gerundial and finite clause complements (IC, GC and FC) of (6–1–26–0–0) to (6–1–31–0–0) as well as (6–7–06–0–0) and (6–7–07–0–0) agree in being attached to the object/objoid noun phrase as subconstituents, although they need not undergo any outward change in form. The restructurings of type (6–2) involve a more radical reassignment of functions, formulaically: v ⇒ O; o ⇒ S; s ⇒ Ø or PÖ or GQ. This means that they combine nominalization of the verb with a kind of lexical passivization, as illustrated by the examples (39) (6–2–01–0–1) to (6–2–05–0–0). As previously noted, it can be argued that such stretched structures should be linked to the passive form of the verb rather than to the active: thus feel alarm of (39) (6–2–02–0–0) could be related to be alarmed rather than to the more basic alarm (VERB). But there is no sign that feel alarm is GRAMMATICALLY passive: it has no verb be, no past participle, and it is incapable of expansion with an agentive by-phrase. Once again then it seems preferable to see the stretched verb structures of (6–2–01–0–1) to (6–2–05–0–0) as achieving a similar semantic effect to passivization, but through LEXICAL means. A similar view can be taken of the subvarieties listed under (6–3), (6–4) and (6–5): in these cases it is the indirect object or the prepositional object or objoid respectively that appears as the subject of the stretched verb construction. Again the kindred simple subject is in some cases dropped

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102 Syntactic restructuring (i.e. realized as Ø), in some cases realized as a prepositional objoid (PÖ), and in some cases realized as a genitive qualifier (GQ). The subvarieties of (6–6) represent a still further dimension of grammatical restructuring, that of adding a further actor in the semantic role of causer of the whole activity represented by the kindred simplex complemented verb structure. Comparing the stretched construction and the simple construction of (39) (6–6–05–0–0), for instance, we find that the kindred simplex syntactic functions have been reassigned in the stretched structures as follows: v ⇒ O; o ⇒ ; s ⇒ IO; x ⇒ S (where x represents the kindred simplex subject of an external clause of causation). The downgrading of the kindred simplex object to (the subconstituent) prepositional qualifier is familiar, but if the kindred simplex subject is also demoted (to indirect object position), the stretched structure subject position is left open for the external causer. The same effect is achieved if the kindred simplex subject is moved to the function of genitival qualifier, as in (6–6–07–0–0) and (6–6–08–0–0). The subvarieties of Structure 6 listed under (6–7) and (6–8) virtually all involve the thin verb have. In its use in stretched verb constructions (Sociology had a strong appeal, etc.), as also in its use in a possessive sense (Sybil had a book, etc.), this verb blocks passivization, so that its following noun phrase is an objoid rather than an object in the sense discussed in II.1.ii above, cf. also Allerton (1982: 81–5). This is why the (6–7) and (6–8) varieties have been separated off. The difference between these two subtypes is that (6–8), in addition to the shift of the event to objoid position found in (6–7), also involves a reassignment of the kindred simplex subject and object roles, as in the ‘passive’ restructuring of subvariety (6–2). Some remarks are also required at this point on the variants of Structure 6 (all indicated with the coding ( . . . – . . . – . . . . . . –1– . . . )) that contain a phrasal rather than a simple thin verb. A first point to note is that, although the phrasal verbs involved seem to be clearly identifiable as such, their limiter adverbs do not seem so mobile as those of normal phrasal verbs: thus, whereas put a shirt on and put on a shirt are equally normal elaborated verb structures, the stretched construction put on an act is strongly preferred to (?)put an act on, although the form with pronominal reduction of the latter would certainly be put one on or put it on with the alternative ordering. In other words, the syntactic cohesion of the verbparticle combination is stronger than usual, but still requires an unstressed pronoun to interrupt it. On the other hand, when the deverbal noun is long and/or is accompanied by elaborating phrases, the form of the structure with a final particle is even less likely to occur (cf. (?)put an affectation on, (?)put a brief appearance in at the meeting). This would of course be in accordance with Quirk et al.’s (1985: 1154) principle of ‘end-focus’.74

74 I am grateful to Richard Matthews for highlighting this point for me.

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Types of restructuring 103 As regards the range of Structure 6 constructions found with a phrasal verb, it seems largely to mimic the range of subvarieties with a simple thin verb (e.g. (6–1–01–1–0) mimics (6–1–01–0–0)), except that the rarer varieties are not found. The only other difference is that the corresponding ( . . . – . . . – . . . . . . –1– . . . ) type structure has the closely cohesive limiter adverb bound to the thin verb. This limiter adverb can nevertheless be looked at as an independent element in the elaborated verb structure as a whole. If we analyse the resultant structures of (6–1–01–1–0) etc. in this light, placing the limiter adverb (L) in its more basic position, we come up with the following list (ignoring subconstituents like prepositional qualifiers): (6–1–01–1–0) S+V+O+L

(commonly appearing as S + V-L + O)

(6–1–01–1–2) S+V+O+L

(commonly appearing as S + V-L + O)

(6–1–10–1–2) S + V + O + L + PÖ (commonly appearing as S + V-L + O) (6–1–11–1–0) S + V + O + L + AE (commonly appearing as S + V-L + O + AE) (6–1–12–1–0) S+V+O+L

(commonly appearing as S + V-L + O)

(6–1–16–1–0) S+V+O+L

(commonly appearing as S + V-L + O)

(6–1–18–1–0) S+V+O+L

(commonly appearing as S + V-L + O)

(6–1–25–1–0) S+V+O+L

(commonly appearing as S + V-L + O)

(6–1–28–1–0) S+V+O+L

(commonly appearing as S + V-L + O)

The above list shows how, even with the inclusion of a limiter adverb, the overall pattern of elaborated verb structures for stretched verb constructions remains within the usual framework demanded by normal lexical verbs (cf. the list in Table 2.1 in section II.1.ii). This compliance is partly achieved through the dropping of a kindred simplex object and partly through the ‘annexation’ of an object or a prepositional object or objoid, or, in the case of (6–1–18–1–0), through a double annexation. Finally, for Structure 6, let us consider the range of subvarieties from the perspective of how the different kindred simple structures appear in their different possible stretched forms. Beginning with the simple structure

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104 Syntactic restructuring /s + v\, a relatively rare basic verb structure (because few totally uncomplemented verbs exist), we find unsurprisingly that this basic form of Structure 6 appears as S/s + V/ø + O/v, with S/s + V-L/ø + O/v as an occasional alternative. (The fact that our data only include four or five examples of the first type and only one of the second casts doubt on the view that is sometimes expressed that stretched verb constructions are largely used to give a simple intransitive verb more weight.) A more fertile field for study is the /s + v + o\ simplex structure, which appears to underlie no less than nineteen different stretched verb structures. These structures differ from each other in what realizations they provide for the subject and the object. The standard (‘active’) pattern is for the kindred simplex subject to retain its subject function, in which case the object, as we have just noted, has the possibilities of being dropped or of appearing as an indirect object, a prepositional objoid, or as prepositional or genitival qualifier. Of these different possibilities the kindred simplex object appears as an indirect object in five examples, as a prepositional objoid in twelve examples, and as a prepositional qualifier in thirty-six examples; so the latter is clearly the major pattern. In ‘passive’ stretched verb versions of /s + v + o\ the kindred simple object appears in subject position, which leaves roughly the same possibilities for the kindred simple subject as for the kindred simple object in ‘active’ stretched structures of this type: thus the kindred simple subject either is dropped or appears as a prepositional objoid or (in one case only) as a genitival qualifier. In the ‘causative’ versions of /s + v + o\ the superficial subject position is already taken by the external causer, and the superficial object position is (as usual) already taken by the kindred lexical verb, which leaves the kindred simple subject and object to compete for other superficial functions. In the three subvarieties attested both subject and object of the kindred simple structure appear on the surface as prepositional objoid \PÖ/, whereas only the kindred simple subject appears as indirect object \IO/ or genitival qualifier \/, and only the kindred simple object appears as prepositional qualifier. There also appear to be ‘active’ and ‘passive’ stretched structures corresponding to the simple structure /s + v + po\. In the ‘active’ version, where underlying /s\ is also the stretched structure subject, the kindred simple /po\ may appear on the surface any of the set \IO, PO, PÖ, /. In the ‘passive’ version, on the other hand, where the kindred simple /po\ is in surface subject position, the kindred simple /s\ may appear on the surface as either \PÖ/ or \/. These differences correspond quite well with what happens in simple structures of the /s + v + o\ type. In the only attested ‘causative’ variant of this stretched pattern the kindred simple subject appears as \/, and the kindred simple /po\ appears as \PÖ/. Five examples of stretched structures kindred to /s + v + o + io\ have been found, each exemplifying three different patterns. In the ‘active’

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Types of restructuring 105 ones with the kindred simple subject retained in subject position, the kindred simplex object is dropped in both cases, a phenomenon we have come across regularly. The indirect object, on the other hand, in one case retains its position and in the other appears as a prepositional objoid. In the ‘passive’ examples it is the underlying indirect object that is ‘promoted’ to subject position in the stretched structure, while the kindred simplex object is dropped. Thus of the three elaborator functions, subject, object and indirect object, there is no doubt that it is the object that is most likely to be dropped or downgraded. This may well be because the object has the greatest chance of being non-human. The kindred simplex structure /s + v + o + pö\ appears in fifteen different stretched structures. Both its subject and its object are in some cases dropped, in some cases annexed by the eventive object, and in some cases shifted to indirect object position; moreover the prepositional objoid is sometimes retained and sometimes dropped, while only the object can be shifted to subject position in ‘passive’ stretched structures. Overall stretched structures give great flexibility to this basic pattern, although the choice of possibilities is severely limited by the lexical choice of individual kindred simple verb. Thus assign smth to smbd, allocate smth to smbd and appropriate smth for smbd all give rise to different subvarieties of stretched structure, namely \S + V + O + IO/ (give an assignment to smbd/give smbd an assignment), \S + V + O + IO/ (make an allocation of smth to smbd/make smbd an allocation of smth) and \S + V + O + PÖ/ (make an appropriation of smth for smbd). The rarer underlying structure /s + v + po + pö\ gives rise to five possibilities, which can be summarized as follows: either /po\ or /pö\ or both can be appended as a ; either can appear as \IO/; and either can appear as the other. The remaining underlying structures seem to restructure in ways that are familiar from the cases already discussed.

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II.2.vii General trends of restructuring Having surveyed the diversity of restructuring exhibited by all Structures, and contrasted each with with simplex eventive verb structures, we are entitled to ask what purpose such restructuring potential serves and why a language needs it. If we ask ourselves a similar question about a transformational restructuring like passivization, we might sum up one possible answer as follows, at least so far as it applies to examples like those of (41):

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(41) (a) Sebastian kissed/liked Olga. (b) Olga was kissed/liked (by Sebastian). English passivization, in the first place, shifts the noun phrase Olga, the object in (41)(a) to subject position in (41)(b), with the result that its semantic

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106 Syntactic restructuring role (‘goal’, more specifically ‘affected’ or ‘mental focus’ etc.) is made thematic, in the sense that it comes to represent the viewpoint from which the eventuality under examination (Sebastian’s kissing/liking of Sybil) is described; in the second place, English passivization shifts the kindred simple subject, the noun phrase Sebastian, to the position of perject,75 with the result that its semantic role (‘agent’, ‘mental processor’, etc.) is made more peripheral to the sentence and can be left unmentioned. In passivization, finally, the originally active verb retains its status as verb, although its passive form (be kissed/liked) is an indication of the shifting of roles that has taken place and can even be seen as a representing a redirecting of the action or process. Seen in such a light, the syntactic restructurings involved in stretched verb constructions have equally important effects. In all cases the most dramatic effect is on the semantic role carried by the underlying verb, i.e. the ‘(class of) event’. As we noted in II.1.ii this appears as an Adjectival Descriptor in Structure 1, as a Nominal Descriptor in Structures 2 and 3, as a Prepositional Descriptor in Structure 4, as a Prepositional Object (or Objoid) in Structure 5, and as an Object (or Objoid) in Structure 6. In all cases except Structure 1, therefore, it has the form of a noun phrase, although in Structures 4 and 5 this is incorporated into a preposition phrase. Semantically, this nominalization of the underlying verb may to some extent have the effect of ‘reifying’ (= ‘turning an event or quality into a thing’) the eventive meaning on the basis of its reassignment to the class NOUN. But it seems that grammatical function may have a greater effect on the meaning: the Nominal Descriptors of Structures 2 and 3 suggest a role, characteristic, quality or state that is being ascribed to the Subject; the Prepositional Descriptor of Structure 4 has a similar effect, but perhaps hinting at a less substantial or more temporary quality or state; the same applies to the Prepositional Object/Objoid of Structure 5, which often refers to the beginning or end of such states; finally, the Object/Objoid of Structure 6 most clearly reifies or ‘objectifies’ the event and suggests that some (secondary) activity is directed towards this event. Almost as significant as the syntactic siting of the semantic role of ‘(class of) event’ is the restructuring of the kindred simplex subjects, objects, etc. In the ‘active’ versions of Structure 3 the underlying object or prepositional object is often annexed by the eventive object (as a prepositional qualifier) and thus automatically becomes optional; this means that it is downgraded in importance, cf. abuse smbd (where the object is obligatorily present) with be an abuser (of smbd) or be an abuse of smth (where the prepositional qualifier can be dropped). In the ‘passive’ version of Structure 3, on the other hand, it is the kindred simplex subject that is converted to the status of prepositional qualifier or in some cases is not permitted 75 or ‘agent phrase’. The term ‘perject’ was introduced in section II.1.i.

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Types of restructuring 107 to surface at all, while the kindred simplex object, prepositional objoid or adverbial elaborator is thrust into the limelight of subject position, where it achieves thematic status. The construction be an addition to smth, for instance, produces this effect for the underlying object of the verb add. It is interesting to note that three different statuses (in terms of centrality/ marginality) can be observed for the kindred simplex subject in such cases: in the simplex active it is of course obligatory, in the simplex passive (in the form of a perject, i.e. agentive by-phrase) it is optional, and in the ‘passive’ stretched Structure 3 it is prohibited. Structure 4 is similar in that its ‘active’ version requires an underlying object or prepositional objoid to be downgraded to a prepositional qualifier or dropped altogether, while its ‘passive’ version shifts the kindred simplex object to subject position and dispenses with the underlying subject (cf. the ‘active’ be of assistance (to smbd) and the ‘passive’ be under arrest). Structure 5 has an active variety in which the kindred simplex subject stays put and in some cases the object does too, but the expansion of the verb into a combination of (thin) verb and prepositional objoid can have the effect of changing the syntactic function of other elements: thus while fill smbd with alarm represents an expansion of alarm without reassignment of subject or object, burst into applause at smth has a prepositional objoid for the underlying object of applaud smth. The passive version naturally has the underlying object or prepositional object as surface subject with the original subject either appearing as a genitive qualifier, or simply being dropped (cf. meet with sm acceptance, meet with smbd’s approval/the approval of smbd). The ‘causative’ version of Structure 5, as illustrated by call smbd to account for smth, has a subject that is not present in the kindred simple structure (in this case account for smth) giving, in the chain reaction: x → S, s → O, po → PÖ; all this, in addition to v → PÖ, means a total restructuring, giving a whole new set of semantic perspectives. The most wide-ranging restructurings of all are found in Structure 6. The restructurings found in the major versions of this Structure are now summarized in Figure 2.1. In the ‘active’ version, then, the underlying subject remains in place, but, with the kindred simplex verb taking up object position, some shifts are required in the non-subject elaborators; moreover various reassignments between object, indirect object and prepositional object and objoid are found, one of the options being for the underlying object to be dropped. The alternative possibility for the object is downgrading to prepositional qualifier, an option found in many subvarieties of this pattern (e.g. make an analysis of smth beside analyse smth). In the ‘passive’ subvarieties of Structure 6, on the other hand, the kindred simplex object or prepositional object is promoted to subject position, while the kindred simplex subject has the main possibilities of either shifting to prepositional objoid position, being downgraded to genitive qualifier or simply being dropped. Finally the ‘causative’ versions of Structure 6 (which are not represented in Figure 2.1), like those

108 Syntactic restructuring

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Figure 2.1 Syntactic restructuring.

of Structure 5, involve a series of demotions, with the difference that the underlying subject cannot be demoted to object because that position is already filled by the verb; it therefore appears as an indirect object or as a prepositional objoid. Apart from the re-siting of syntactic semantic roles that is summarized in Figure 2.1, there is one further possible structural difference between a stretched verb construction and its kindred simplex structure that still needs to be considered, namely the obligatoriness or optionality of the constituents. If a given semantic element (such as the agent, or the recipient) is expressed by different structural elements (such as subject, perject, indirect object) in the two structures, this is bound to have repercussions for optionality, because while subjects and verbs are obligatory, objects, for instance, are often optional or even prohibited, prepositional objoids usually freely suppressible, etc. Structure (6–1–01–0–2), for instance, has the form S/s + V/ø + O/v (+ Ø/o), which means that the simplex structure has an object that in some cases is obligatory (e.g. in appease smbd), whereas the stretched structure (e.g. practise appeasement) has no possibility of mentioning the ‘affected’ person. In Structure (6–1–02–0–0), with the form S/s + V/ø + O/v + IO/o, on the other hand, the possibly obligatory object of the simplex structure (as address smbd, articulate smth) can be represented in the stretched construction by an indirect object

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Types of restructuring 109 which is either contextually deletable (as give an address [to smbd] ) or obligatory (as in give articulation to smth). Clearly when there is a radical restructuring, as in patterns of the semantically ‘passive’ type, the optionality status of elements is bound to be affected: thus in pattern (6–2–02–0–0), of the form S/o + V/ø + O/v + PÖ/s, a simplex structure like abuse smbd, with its obligatory subject and object, contrasts with take sm abuse (from smbd), with its freely omissible prepositional objoid, meaning that the ‘abuser’ can but need not be mentioned. Each stretched verb construction thus consists of a sequence of grammatical elements characterized by obligatoriness or a type of optionality partly on the basis of grammatical rules (e.g. ‘Subjects are obligatory’) but partly specified individually for the individual construction. The optionality characteristics of such constructions may indeed be one reason for the speaker to prefer one construction over another. Summing up, amongst the diverse possibilities for syntactic restructuring in all Structures 3, 4, 5 and 6, the following general trends can be discerned: •

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The eventive meaning of the kindred simple verb appears as an Adjectival Descriptor, a Nominal Descriptor, a Prepositional Descriptor, a Prepositional Object/Objoid or an Object/Objoid, giving a range of different semantic slants. The appearance of the eventive meaning in Object or Prepositional Object position allows passivization and consequently the possibility of leaving the agent unmentioned, a possibility not available to simple intransitive verbs. There can be substantial reassignments amongst the non-subject elaborators, such as object and prepositional objoid, often with the effect that obligatory elaborators become omissible (either contextually or in an indefinite sense, cf. II.1.iii above) or vice versa, meaning that individual elaborators can become foregrounded or backgrounded. Semantic roles like ‘agent’, ‘affected goal’, ‘recipient’, can have different grades of (non-)omissibility in their new syntactic functions. There is a general weakening of the object in ‘active’ sentences, so that it is either downgraded to a subconstituent or dropped. ‘Passive’ structures promote the object (to subject position) and give the possibilities of dropping the subject or demoting it (to prepositional objoid position) or downgrading it (to genitival qualifier position). There is the possibility in ‘causative’ subvarieties of introducing an external causer in subject position and consequently demoting all other elements.

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All these possibilities for restructuring clearly provide one important motivation for the existence of stretched verb constructions, in that they allow the basic information of a sentence to be presented from a whole set of different perspectives.

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110 Syntactic restructuring Finally, let us note that stretched verb constructions are not alone in their capacity for syntactic restructuring: passivization, empty reflexives and phrasal verbs also have a part to play in this field. Consider briefly the following different ways in which the compulsorily transitive verb show can be adapted to be used without a (lexically full) object: PASSIVE EMPTY REFLEXIVE PHRASAL VERB STRETCHED VERB CONSTRUCTION

be shown show itself (etc.) show up be on show

Of these possibilities, the passive is purely syntactic and preserves all the semantic possibilities of the basic verb, but the other three all form new but related lexical items; in other words, they are grammatical patterns serving to extend the lexicon. This will be explored further in Part V.

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Part III

The event phrase

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III.1 Eventive and agentive noun phrases: their core

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III.1.i Eventive nouns: their mode of derivation, semantic value and status Stretched verb structures all centre around a noun phrase or an adjective phrase that carries the ‘eventive’ meaning borne by the verb in a simple verb structure but ‘ejected’ from it, to use the terminology of Allerton (1982: 130–1), leaving a thin verb behind. The majority of stretched verb structures (Structures 3, 4, 5 and 6) all centre around a noun phrase that carries the ‘eventive’ meaning. In the case of Structures 4 and 5 the noun phrase that is the new home for the ‘eventive’ meaning, is, of course, embedded in a preposition phrase. Structure 2 has an agentive noun phrase, in which the event is only implicitly mentioned, and Structure 1 has an agentive adjective phrase, which is similar in this respect. It seems natural therefore to concentrate first of all on eventive noun phrases. The head noun of such noun phrases is derivationally related to the kindred simple verb, in the sense that is morphologically derived from it by suffixation or some other formal process. Thus the noun appearance of make an appearance is morphologically derived from the verb stem appear; similarly, the noun action of take action is derived from act. Since different deverbal nominalizing suffixes are used for this purpose, the question obviously arises whether the choice of suffix or other mode of derivation makes any difference to the meaning of the deverbal noun and thus presumably to the stretched verb construction as a whole. A full list of the deverbal nouns found in our sample, classified according to their mode of derivation, is given in Table 3.1. Let us now briefly consider the semantic contribution of these different suffixes, etc., paying close attention to the account given by Marchand (1969: 234–7, 248–9, 259–61, 302–4, 331–2, 350–1, 352–3, 359–89). We need to bear in mind throughout that derivational formatives like -ance and -ion have a certain semantic diffuseness, often involving polysemy, with the result that their global meanings are very unlikely to match perfectly. In Marchand’s view (1969: 214–15) nouns derived from verbs through affixation and/or compounding fall into different types according

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114 The event phrase Table 3.1 Modes of derivation of eventive deverbal nouns Suffixation with -age

Suffixation with -ion

APPENDAGE

ABORTION ACTION ADJUDICATION ADMISSION ‘confession’ ADMISSION ‘entrance’ AFFILIATION AGGLOMERATION AGGRAVATION AGGRESSION AGITATION ALIENATION ALLOCATION ALLUSION ALTERNATION AMALGAMATION ANNIHILATION ANNOTATION APPRECIATION APPROPRIATION ARBITRATION ASSASSINATION ASSERTION ASSIMILATION ASSOCIATION ATTRACTION

Suffixation with -al ACQUITTAL APPRAISAL APPROVAL AVOWAL

Suffixation with -ance/-ence ABSTINENCE ABUNDANCE ACCEPTANCE ACQUAINTANCE ADMITTANCE ALLIANCE ALLOWANCE ANNOYANCE APPEARANCE ASSISTANCE ASSURANCE ‘promising’ ASSURANCE ‘financial protection’ ATTENDANCE ‘being present’ ATTENDANCE ‘waiting, service’

Suffixation with-ation/ -ition/-ution/-tion ABSOLUTION ACCLIMATIZATION ACCUSATION ACQUISITION ADAPTATION ADDITION AFFECTATION AFFIRMATION ALLEGATION ALTERATION APPLICATION ‘effort’ APPLICATION ‘request’ APPLICATION ‘use’ ASPIRATION/S ASSUMPTION ATTENTION ‘concentration’ AUTHORIZATION

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Suffixation with -ing ACTING AIRING AWAKENING

Suffixation with -is ANALYSIS

Suffixation with -ment ABRIDGEMENT ACCOMPANIMENT ACHIEVEMENT ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ADJUSTMENT ADVERTISEMENT AGREEMENT AILMENT ALIGNMENT AMAZEMENT AMENDMENT AMUSEMENT ANNOUNCEMENT ANNULMENT APPEASEMENT APPOINTMENT ‘job’ ARGUMENT ‘quarrel’ ARGUMENT ‘rationale’ ARRANGEMENT ‘agreement’ ARRANGEMENT ‘plan’

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Eventive and agentive noun phrases 115 Table 3.1 (continued) ARRANGEMENTS ASSESSMENT ASSIGNMENT ASTONISHMENT ATONEMENT

‘details’

Suffixation with -ure –

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ANAESTHESIA

Replacement of suffix with -ity AUTHORITY

Replacement of suffix with -y AGONY APOLOGY

Final consonant replacement ABUSE ADVICE APPLAUSE ASCENT

Vowel change – Stress shift

Zero ACCESS ACCLAIM ACCORD ACCOUNT ACHE ACT ‘deed ACT ‘performance’ ADDRESS ‘place of abode’ ADDRESS ‘speech’ ADVANCE ADVANTAGE AFFRONT AID ‘help’1 AIM ‘direction of shooting’ AIM ‘purpose’ AIR ALARM ANGER ANSWER APPEAL ‘attraction’ APPEAL ‘plea’ APPEAL ‘request for adjudication’ APPROACH ARGUE ARREST ASSAULT ASSENT ATTACK ATTEMPT AVERAGE AWARD

Note: 1 Phonologically identical with aide ‘helper’, an agentive noun.

to which ‘aspect’ of the sentence (centring on the verb) they represent: these types would include ‘subject’ (e.g. examiner), ‘object’ (e.g. examinee), ‘adverbial complement’ (e.g. examination room) and, perhaps most importantly, ‘predication’ (e.g. examining, examination). This last type would seem to retain the purely eventive meaning of the verb and thus correspond to the traditional nomen actionis, the deverbal noun in its purest sense, and may be seen as providing a link between the other meanings. This is also the view of Magnusson and Persson (1986: 2–4, 35–8), who refer to the individual related meanings (e.g. employer and employee) as ‘facets’ and the relation between them as ‘categorial hyponymy’; denominal verbs which incorporate such a semantic role into their meaning are then said to function in a particular ‘phase’, e.g. the verb pocket (of pocket the money,

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116 The event phrase etc.) in the Locative phase, the verb pod (of pod the peas, etc.) in the Source phase. For the suffix -age, for instance, which is added to both noun and verb stems (or ‘bases’), Marchand (1969: 234–6) gives meanings like ‘liberty to do smth, right to smth, toll for smth’ (e.g. stowage), ‘condition, state, rank, office of being smth’ (e.g. peerage), ‘abode of smbd’ (e.g. hermitage), ‘collectivity, system, material of smth’ (e.g. baggage), ‘charge, fee for smth’ (e.g. postage), ‘place of doing smth’ (e.g. anchorage), ‘item that is affected by a process’ (e.g. package), ‘item that results from a process’ (e.g. breakage) and, last but not least, ‘act, fact, mode of doing smth’ (e.g. leakage). It is true that only the last four senses are consistently related to verbs, but even they demonstrate a range of meaning that may give rise to semantic imprecision, and even ambiguity. If, however, we take the last sense, which can be called ‘eventive’, as the core meaning, we can see this as relating the other meanings (‘item affected by a process’, ‘place of a process’, etc.) to the underlying meaning of the verb. The noun shrinkage, for instance, has, as one of its meanings ‘the process of shrinking’; as a second sense, it can also mean ‘extent of the process of shrinking’. The noun wastage (cf. also the zero-derived form waste) can mean either ‘the process of wasting’ or ‘material that results from the process of wasting’. A question we shall have to ask is what kind of meaning such deverbal nouns have when they occur in stretched verb combinations like suffer shrinkage or cause wastage/waste. The only example of the suffix -age in our corpus is the word appendage, and it appears only in the combination add an appendage to smth. Considered on its own, the word appendage would seem to have a meaning that is concrete, namely ‘a thing that has been or will be appended’. The expression add an appendage to smth can therefore be understood quite literally to mean ‘add something to be appended to something’. But if we now consider the potential meaning of a non-existent stretched verb construction of the form *do an appending of smth to smth, then as far as can be judged, this would have a meaning that is barely distinguishable from add an appendage to smth. The suffix -al is represented by stretched verb constructions (such as bring in an acquittal, make an appraisal of smth) based on the deverbal nouns acquittal, appraisal, approval and avowal. There is little doubt about the ‘eventive’ sense of these nouns formed with -al (and things are no different in the case of deverbal nouns in -al in general,76 cf. betrayal, betrothal, committal, denial, dismissal, disposal, proposal, recital, removal, survival, upheaval, withdrawal); in fact, they only have a related concrete meaning in a limited number of cases, often where the underlying verb refers to a speech act and the noun refers to a document incorporating the written version of this (e.g. denial, proposal).

76 not all of which necessarily occur in stretched verb constructions.

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Eventive and agentive noun phrases 117 The deverbal suffix -ance/-ence also has a mainly ‘eventive’ sense in the twelve nouns in our data (abstinence, acceptance, acquaintance, admittance, etc., cf. also from Marchand’s general list: adherence, clearance, compliance, conveyance, dependence, deterrence, endurance, entrance, guidance, performance, remembrance, repentance, resemblance, resistance). Marchand describes the general meaning of the suffix as ‘state, act, fact of doing smth’, and expresses the view that ‘hardly any other senses than ‘act’ and ‘action’ occur’ (1969: 249). But amongst our group of -ance/-ence words abstinence, acceptance and annoyance can also denote a mental state induced by the act; acquaintance and alliance can (in slightly different senses) denote a person who is the goal of the act, while appearance can also refer to the manner of the act. The lists of Table 3.1 distinguish formations in -ation/-ition/-ution/-tion (namely absolution, acclimatization, accusation, acquisition, etc. with a total of fifteen nouns.) from those in -ion (namely abortion, action, adjudication, admission, etc. with a total of twenty-four nouns, one with two senses) on the basis that the first group adds the suffix /-ʃən/, usually preceded by a vowel or diphthong, whereas the second group simply adds /-jən/ (sometimes to a stem ending in /-t/, giving rise to a phonetic sequence /-ʃən/). (Cases in which the verbs ends in -ate and the derived noun ends in -ation are naturally assumed to involve the suffix -ion.) Marchand in fact treats both groups together77 giving further examples in his general list like accumulation, civilization, colonization, contemplation, education, expectation, fertilization, flirtation, formalization, glorification, identification, information, magnification, moderation, modification, neutralization, organization, pacification, restoration, starvation, taxation, temptation, translation, verification. As for the meaning of -ation/-ition/ution/-tion and -ion, Marchand declares that ‘-ation falls into the group of impersonal deverbal substantives with their various meanings (see especially -ment)’ (1969: 261). Turning then to -ment itself, we find this represented in our list by some twenty-two deverbal nouns (abridgement, accompaniment, achievement, acknowledgement, etc.), with a total of twenty-five senses, which can be compared with examples like bereavement, bewilderment, embarrassment, development, endorsement, engagement, equipment, fulfilment, involvement, management, measurement, puzzlement, retirement, settlement, statement, treatment in Marchand’s general list. In his view -ment, just like -ation/-ition/-ution/-tion and -ion can have any of the four ‘usual’ meanings of deverbal nouns, which are roughly ‘the act or fact of doing smth’ (the ‘eventive’ sense, e.g. development), ‘smth concrete or material connected with the process’ (e.g. equipment), ‘the state resulting from the process’ (e.g. embarrassment) and ‘the place connected with the process’ (e.g. settlement). But it is not simply a matter of four separate meanings. Taking the ‘eventive’ meaning again as central, we can see that

77 having first distinguished them, as well as separating off -ation after -iz- and after -ific-. But he seems to ignore the forms -ition and -ution.

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118 The event phrase although in some cases this is the only meaning of the noun (as in enactment), in most cases one of the other meanings is also present, so that embarrassment and settlement, for example, have the ‘eventive’ meaning alongside the ‘state’ and ‘place’ meanings, and development has an additional ‘product’ meaning beyond the ‘eventive’ meaning. Moreover, some words, like equipment, have only a secondary meaning; the corresponding primary meaning (in this case ‘act of equipping’) is no longer found. The minor suffixes -ia (of anaesthesia), -is (of analysis), -ity (of authority), -y (of agony, apology) and -ure (not found in our data but in examples like departure, failure) do not seem to throw up any meanings or constellations of meanings not so far discussed. In a way, the most interesting ‘lesser’ suffix is -ing, which mainly appears as the inflectional suffix used to form the gerund (or present participle) of a verb, but which is listed in Table 3.1 as a derivational suffix for the words acting, airing and awakening. The gerund is of course the classic nomen actionis, and naturally has an ‘eventive’ meaning. It is therefore remarkable that it is used so little in stretched verb constructions, the only representatives in our sample being do/indulge in sm acting, give smth an airing, get/have an airing and suffer an awakening. It seems that the simple nomen actionis meaning of ‘act, process, etc. of V-ing’ is involved in all cases, but it is worth noting that whereas acting denotes the act or process of (dramatic) acting in general, the other two nouns, airing and awakening, refer to one specific instance of the act and are therefore countable nouns. The most important remaining way of forming deverbal nouns is zeroderivation, of which twenty-six phonologically distinct examples (access, acclaim, accord, account, ache, etc.) appear in our list (with polysemy in address, act and appeal giving a total of thirty-one different senses). Marchand’s lists of deverbal nouns formed without a clear suffix (i.e. by zero-derivation, final consonant replacement or stress shift) also include the following: bark, belief, bite, burst, buy, call, challenge, chat, collapse, control, cough, delight, desire, doubt, drive, escape, fall, feel, grunt, halt, hate, hiss, hunt, increase, jump, laugh, leap, look, love, moan, nod, promise, push, retreat, ride, ring, rise, run, scream, search, smell, smile, smoke, stay, swim, talk, twist, wait, walk, yawn. With such a wide range of zero-derived deverbal nouns, it is not surprising to find a wide variety of different meanings; indeed, the lack of any overt affix (each associated with a more particular meaning) may even be an encouragement to semantic instability. There can be little doubt that the ‘eventive’ meaning is basic, but it appears in more than one variety: the general meaning ‘process of V-ing’, as represented in our sample by aid, but also to be seen in sleep, talk and work, is found only in a limited number of words referring to physical activities, most of which prefer to express this with the gerund (e.g. acting, arguing); for most zero-derived deverbal nouns with such a meaning we can agree with Marchand that ‘the sense most often implied is that of “single instance illustrative of the active process”’(1969: 374). This means that, unlike nouns in -ing, which are mostly simply (underived)

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Eventive and agentive noun phrases 119 gerunds and therefore uncountable (with odd exceptions, like those mentioned in the previous paragraph), nouns taking the form simply of the bare stem of the verb are mostly countable. Of the long list cited from Marchand, for instance, only control, delight, desire, doubt and love have an ‘eventive’ sense that is uncountable, and even this has a partly mental meaning; most of them accord with Marchand’s statement, e.g. an act, an advance, an affront, an aim (or, from his list, a bite, a burst, a call, a collapse).78 Verbs referring to mental processes behave rather differently in that they generally do offer zero-derived uncountable nouns with the meaning ‘process of V-ing’ in a general sense, examples being accord, alarm and appeal (or, from Marchand’s list, belief (with final consonant replacement), desire, dislike). Most of these also have a countable use, meaning ‘particular instance of V-ing’, e.g. an accord, an appeal (or a belief, etc.); indeed some of them are limited to a countable use, e.g. an affront. It is a small step from the meaning(s) ‘(single instance of) the mental process of V-ing’ to the meaning ‘mental state resulting form V-ing or being V-ed’; and this meaning is found in zero-derived deverbal nouns like alarm, anger (cf. also shock, surprise), which are generally uncountable, needing a measure word to make them countable, cf. (show) some anger, (have) a fit of anger. Nouns formed from verbs denoting physical activities can have an equivalent meaning ‘physical (and mental) state resulting from V-ing or being V-ed’, as in arrest (also boycott, display) as used in be under arrest (or be subject to a boycott, be on display). A related meaning is found in expressions like (have) a velvety feel, (have) a nasty smell (of drains), where the noun is derived from a sensory verb (feel, smell, etc.), which would normally take an adjectival descriptor or prepositional objoid as part of its valency; the meaning of the noun is something like ‘condition V-ed’, so that have a velvety feel means ‘have a condition perceived (through the act of feeling) to be like velvet’. A further meaning that is semantically close to the one just discussed but syntactically distinct from it is that of ‘appearance of condition resulting from the manner of V-ing’, a meaning that more belongs to the field of manner adverbials than to the verb proper; it is found in Marchand’s examples cut (of a suit, etc.) and set (referring to hair). This leads us on to the pure manner adverbial meaning to be observed in Marchand’s examples bark, cough, grin and limp (meaning ‘manner of barking, etc.’) and probably in our example (have an) appeal ‘manner of appealing to smbd’. Other semantic developments of zero-derived deverbal nouns in an adverbial direction include time, place and distance/range. Marchand’s end, finish and start are ambiguous between time and place interpretations, but kick-off has only a temporal value (‘the time of kicking-off’) apart from 78 A further possibility for verbs denoting bodily activities is to have an uncountable plural used with the definite article meaning ‘nervous activity involving repetition of the acts’, e.g. (have) the jitters, (have) the shakes, etc.

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120 The event phrase its basic ‘single instance of the active process’. Words like access, approach (or bend, dump, lounge, stop, etc.), again apart from their ‘eventive’ interpretation, are in some sense locational in meaning (‘a place where V-ing takes place’). Examples like advance (also drop, overlap and sweep), however, usually seem to refer to range or distance rather than to pure location. An adverbial meaning that in a sense refers to a participant in the verbal action is that of ‘instrument for V-ing’; it is found in nouns like aid ‘thing used for aiding smbd’ (which occurs in the stretched verb construction be an aid), cf. also alarm; further examples in Marchand’s list include bait, clip, hoist, rattle and whistle. Since instruments can commonly be reinterpreted as inanimate agents, these examples could also be glossed as ‘thing that V-s’; in other words, they can be seen as occupying a subject position relative to the kindred verb (cf. Clips clip things beside People clip things with clips). Zero-derived deverbal nouns can also extend their meaning towards the valency object of the verb in question, giving a value of ‘person or thing that has been or will be V-ed’: examples offered by Marchand with a human object include convert, discard, pervert and plant, while, as examples for which the kindred verb has an inanimate object, we could cite award alongside brew, design, drink 79 and Marchand’s many other examples, with the effect that, for instance, convert means ‘person who has been or will be converted’ and award means ‘thing that has been or will be awarded’. Some of these zero-derived nouns suggest ‘affected’ objects (e.g. drink), some suggest ‘effected objects’ (e.g. design) and others are ambivalent (e.g. brew). Taking this meaning, give an award, for instance, can be interpreted literally as ‘give something to be awarded’; make an award, on the other hand, is more difficult to interpret with this ‘object-oriented’ meaning for award, and seems rather to require an ‘eventive’ interpretation ‘make/do an act of awarding’. Finally, Marchand points out that the meaning ‘person who V-s’ is found in two slightly differently types of zero-derived noun: in the first type, exemplified by coach, cook, judge, the noun refers to a person with a particular profession or occupation, who regularly carries out the activity, and the relationship to the verb is clearly that of subject, cf. A coach coaches people, etc.; in the second type the subjective or agentive meaning is less intentional and more a matter of the (usually censorious) judgement of others, as in bore, flirt, gossip, sneak, and such nouns are less likely to occur as subjects than as descriptors (i.e. predicatives or subject complements in traditional grammar), cf. Someone who is a bore bores people. Things can be a ‘bore’ just as well as people can; things that affront or delight people can also ‘be an affront’ or ‘be a delight’. In our study such agentive nouns, even though zero-derived, are placed alongside agentive nouns formed

79 Some words, e.g. catch, have a human and an inanimate object-oriented meaning (in addition to the ‘eventive’ meaning).

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Eventive and agentive noun phrases 121 with the suffixes -er and -ist, and are treated under Structure 2, see section III.1.iii, below. It seems then that the range of meanings of deverbal nouns in general, whether derived by suffixation or by zero, covers a semantic range that extends from the process itself (whether generalized or a single instance) through connected time and place as far as instruments, agents and affected entities (= ‘patients’). In our data (limited as they are to words beginning with the letter A) the range of meanings seems to be slightly skewed, with some meanings apparently overrepresented. They are displayed in Table 3.2. Looking more specifically at stretched verb constructions, we find that the deverbal noun may have the basic ‘eventive’ meaning or one of these ‘facet’ meanings, but that in some cases the meaning is unclear. When the noun has only an ‘eventive’ interpretation, it seems natural for it to be partnered with a verb like perform (e.g. an abortion) or practise (e.g. abstinence) or carry out (e.g. an attack). But then how are we to understand make with an appearance, an ascent or an attack, or, for that matter, take with action? Such combinations seem to have a noun with a purely ‘eventive’ meaning but a verb that suggests the need for a noun denoting something created (in the case of make) or something that can be grasped (in the case of take); they must clearly have partly non-compositional meanings. On the other hand, nouns that really have developed a meaning ‘effected object arising from the verbal action’, e.g. make an abridgement, make an analysis, can be interpreted as having a literal compositional meaning that when taken holistically provides the required overall process meaning (cf. also the examples add an appendage to smth and give an award to smbd, discussed above). The most problematic of all deverbal nouns to interpret from the semantic (and also the grammatical) point of view are those involved in two rather special stretched verb constructions, namely:

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(i) do some V-ing with the meaning ‘invest some time in the (useful) activity of V-ing’, e.g. do some cooking/thinking/weeding. (ii) have a V with the meaning ‘carry out a single, limited (but repeatable) act of V-ing’, e.g. have a look/shave/think. Doubts could be expressed as to whether these two structures are true stretched verb constructions on the grounds that, given the appropriate meaning in each case, they are formed with perfect regularity, removing the need to list them in a lexicon. This would mean that they were more like regular TRANSFORMED structures (like passives or cleft sentences) than the semi-irregular KINDRED structures that stretched verb structures were shown to be in Part I. But transformed structures (as defined there) do not effect changes between categories like noun and verb. So is the ‘deverbal noun’ in these cases a true noun? (See further V.1.ii below.) In the first structure (do some V-ing) the word based on the lexical

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122 The event phrase Table 3.2 Additional semantic facets of eventive deverbal nouns Performer1 ACCOMPANIMENT

ALLOWANCE* AWARD

(‘income’)

(Mental) behaviour/attitude2

Service (for beneficiary)8

ABSTINENCE ABUSE* (‘abusing’) ACCEPTANCE* (‘accepting’) ACCORD AGITATION* (‘agitating’) AGGRESSION APPEASEMENT APPLICATION (‘effort’) APPRECIATION APPROVAL* (‘approving’) ATONEMENT

ADVANTAGE AID APPLAUSE ARBITRATION ASSISTANCE ASSURANCE (‘financial

protection’)

Mental focus (of performer)9

Mental experience3

ACQUAINTANCE AIM ‘direction of AIM ‘purpose’ ASPIRATION AVERAGE

AGONY AILMENT

Effected entity – General10

Mental effect4 ABSOLUTION ABUSE* (‘being abused’) ACCEPTANCE* (‘being accepted’) AFFRONT AGITATION* (‘being agitated’) ALIENATION AMAZEMENT AMUSEMENT ANAESTHESIA ANGER ANNOYANCE APPROVAL* (‘being approved’) ASTONISHMENT ATTRACTION* (‘being attracted’)

Physical effect5 ALTERATION* (‘altering effect’) ANNIHILATION

Affected entity (= ‘patient’)6 ACQUISITION ALTERATION* (‘altered item’) APPOINTMENT* (‘appointee’) ARREST (‘arrested person’) ATTACHMENT* (‘thing attached’)

Gift7 ADVANCE* (‘loan’) ALLOCATION ALLOTMENT* (‘share’)

shooting’

ABRIDGEMENT ACHIEVEMENT ACCORD ADAPTATION ADDITION ADVERTISEMENT AFFILIATION AGGLOMERATION AGREEMENT ALLIANCE AMENDMENT ANALYSIS ANNOTATION APPENDAGE APPOINTMENT* (‘job’) ARRANGEMENT ASSOCIATION

Effected speech act11 ACCUSATION ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ADDRESS* (‘speech’) ADJUDICATION ADMISSION* (‘confession’) ADVICE AFFIRMATION ALLEGATION ALLUSION ANNOUNCEMENT ANSWER APOLOGY APPEAL* (‘plea, complaint’)

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Eventive and agentive noun phrases 123 Table 3.2 (continued) APPLICATION* (‘request’) APPRAISAL ASSENT ASSERTION ASSESSMENT ASSURANCE (‘promise’) AUTHORIZATION AVOWAL

Instrument12 ATTACHMENT*

(‘device for

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ACCESS ADMISSION (‘admittance’) ADMITTANCE APPROACH

Degree/range16 ADJUSTMENT ADVANCE* (‘movement ALIGNMENT

forwards’)

attaching’) Location17 –

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Path15

Mode/method13 APPLICATION* (‘use’) APPEAL* (‘attraction’) ATTRACTION (‘mode

Direction18 AIM* (‘targeting’) of attracting’) Reason19

Manner14

ARGUMENT*

(‘rationale’)

ACT ACTION APPEARANCE

Notes: * Noun with more than one interpretation. 1 Smbd who V-s (usually rendered by distinctive lexeme, often in -er or -ist). 2 Behaviour/attitude of smbd who V-s. 3 Experience of smbd who V-s. 4 Mental effect on smbd who is V-ed. 5 Physical effect on smbd/smth that is V-ed. 6 Smbd/smth that is V-ed (usually rendered by a distinctive lexeme, often in -ee). 7 Smth that is given. 8 Act performed for the benefit of smbd. 9 Smbd/smth towards which the mind of the performer is directed. 10 Smth other than a speech act effected, produced or created as a result of the activity of V-ing. 11 Speech act produced through the activity of V-ing. 12 Smth that is used for V-ing (usually rendered by a distinctive lexeme, often in -er). 13 Mode or method of V-ing. 14 Manner, way of V-ing. 15 Method by which or path along which V-ing is achieved. 16 Degree to which or range over which V-ing takes place. 17 Place where V-ing takes place. 18 Direction towards smth is V-ing. 19 Reason for which V-ing is carried out.

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124 The event phrase verb (cooking, etc.) seems to be a rather makeshift noun based on the gerund, which is in any case more noun-like than an infinitive, cf. Allerton (1988). The meaning of the ‘noun’ is therefore purely ‘eventive’, with no other facets of meaning. On the other hand, some is a clear determiner, and other uncountable determiners are possible, e.g. (not) much, (any) more and even the or that. It is true that adjectives are relatively rare in this construction, cf. do some (?careful) driving; do some (?deep) thinking beside the more natural drive carefully; think deeply, give smth sm deep thought, but semantically appropriate adjectives can be used, e.g. do some advanced driving, do some real thinking, do some worthwhile reading. So the V-ing word in this construction does need to be recognized as a noun. In the second structure (have a V) the case for noun status is even more evenly balanced. On the one hand, the word is by definition a pure verb stem with no formal marking of conversion to noun status, and the meaning is again purely eventive; moreover the apparently countable noun is spasmodically pluralizable (cf. have two shaves, (?)have two looks, ?have two thinks). On the other hand, further determiners are found, particularly possessive ones (e.g. I’ve had my look – you can have yours now), and ordinals can be used (e.g. have a second look), as well as appropriate adjectives (e.g. have a quick shave, have a good think). On balance, then, even these bare verb stem words have to be recognized as nouns.

III.1.ii The determiner and the grammatical subclass of eventive noun phrases The problematic status of the noun phrases in constructions like do some thinking or have a think may well prompt us to ask what the essence of a noun phrase is. In a common noun phrase, after the head noun, the second most important element is any determiner or determiners that accompany it; in fact, some grammarians nowadays regard the determiner as more basic and speak of determiner phrases (or ‘DPs’, see, for instance, Abney (1987), Culicover (1996)). Leaving this theoretical issue on one side, we can agree that both noun and determiner are vital to the noun phrase (or determiner phrase). But the deverbal noun phrase of a stretched verb construction has a noun and a determiner as constituents that have differing types of correspondence to the elements of a simplex verb construction, thus: SIMPLEX

STRETCHED VERB CONSTRUCTION

VERB STRUCTURE

Verb (Frequency adv.) Adverb Object (etc.)

corresponds corresponds corresponds corresponds

to to to to

(Deverbal) noun Determiner Adjective Prep. phrase (as noun complement)

e.g. adjust smth once quickly beside make one quick adjustment to smth.

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Eventive and agentive noun phrases 125 Hence, while the noun has the function of carrying the eventive meaning found in the verb in the corresponding simple construction, the function of the determiner is less clear. In early X-bar theory, e.g. Chomsky (1970), Jackendoff (1977), it was proposed that determiners were ‘Specifiers’ and corresponded in their function to auxiliary verbs (such as modals); yet semantically they often rather correspond to adverbs, e.g. frequency adverbs, as in the example just given. To understand the role of determiners in stretched verb constructions better, we need to examine the range of different syntactic types of noun phrase in our data on the basis of their determiner potential. Noun phrases are standardly divided into PROPER and COMMON subclasses, with the latter subclass being subdivided into COUNTABLE (or simply ‘count’) and MASS (also known as ‘uncountable’ or ‘non-count’). The basis for this classification is of course partly semantic, but it has important morphosyntactic implications, cf. Allerton (1987b: 63–9), in particular the possibility of a plural inflection for the noun and the restrictions on the use of determiners to precede it. Disregarding secondary uses, we can say that, whereas common nouns freely occur with the definite article (but also contrastively with other determiners and in some cases without one), proper nouns, such as Manchester, (Lake) Windermere, Tony, The Bible, either fail to occur with the definite article or have it as part of their very form, in which case they cannot occur without it; in either case they have no possibility of a contrastive definite article, and they also lack a contrastive plural form. Common nouns, then, occur not only with the definite article but also with other determiners, but the precise determiners they occur with and whether they occur in the plural is the basis for distinguishing the two subsubclasses. Countable common nouns, such as town(s), lake(s), person(s), pea(s), book(s), occur in the plural but also with the indefinite article, or alternatively with one, two, three, etc., while mass (common) nouns, such as countryside, water, wheat, humanity, literature, though failing to occur in the plural or with these determiners, occur instead with other determiners, like (not) much and unstressed some. Taking due account of complicating factors such as nouns that have more than one use (e.g. a stone beside some stone) and technical uses (e.g. a soup in ‘restaurantese’), the above account corresponds to the scheme described in most modern grammars, e.g. Quirk et al. (1985); but there at least two complications that will concern us. The first complication concerns nouns that apparently only occur in the plural, such as oats, trousers, remains, premises, cf. Allerton with French (1975). Standard mass nouns occur only in the singular, but, unlike countable nouns, they cannot occur with the indefinite article a(n) or the numeral one. Nouns like oats, on the other hand, although occurring in the plural, cannot occur with a numeral, cf. *five oats, *two trousers, *six remains. These nouns, just like normal (singular) mass nouns need a measure word (or ‘classifier’) to help them form a structure with a numeral, cf. five sacks of

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126 The event phrase oats, two pairs of trousers, six sets of remains (which are comparable with five glasses of water, two sacks of wheat). In other words they are just as uncountable in their way, and can reasonably be referred to as PLURAL MASS NOUNS. Sometimes we meet a pair of singular mass noun and plural mass noun, which are both uncountable and which additionally have an irregular semantic relationship, e.g. ash/ashes, content/contents. Our corpus of deverbal eventive nouns contains words of a similar kind: for instance, to send one’s apologies is not simply the plural of (?)to send one’s apology: nor is it possible to use it with a numeral (*to send one’s two apologies). A second complication in the syntactic behaviour of nouns in general concerns the use of nouns without an article or other determiner in contexts in which they would be expected to have one. While mass nouns normally only occur without a determiner (or with zero article/determiner) in the singular (We need water, wheat, etc.), countable nouns normally only occur alone in the plural (We need lakes, peas, etc.). What then are we to make of the use of nouns in expressions like by accident, by car, at school, (go) to work, in which a singular countable noun or a mass noun is used only without a determiner and has no possibility of expansion with a relative clause and little possibility of expansion with an adjective phrase (cf. *by my car, *by unnecessary accident, ?by pure accident, *at school that has gone independent)? Nouns like accident, car, school, work in such constructions seem to combine almost directly with a preposition to form an adverbial, although normally it is only noun phrases that have this capacity. However sometimes an adjective may be added to the noun (e.g. by chauffeur-driven car); so it is probably simplest to regard such nouns (with any accompanying adjective) as constituting a limited kind of noun phrase which then has a preposition attached to it. Indeed some of these nouns also occur alone in noun phrase functions like subject and object (school was unbearable today; I hate school). We shall therefore treat these nouns as forming a special variety of noun phrase, one in which the noun (whether countable or mass) by definition appears alone or SOLO, i.e. without the possibility of a determiner. Such solo nouns are found frequently among stretched verb constructions, commonly in object position (e.g. gain (?legal) admittance) but also in a preposition phrase (e.g. place smbd under (?permanent) arrest). The range of adjectives that may accompany them is strictly limited. We are now in a position to examine the grammatical types of noun phrases that occur in stretched verb constructions. In Table 3.3 the eventive nouns of stretched verb constructions are classified under the heading of ‘countable’, ‘mass singular’, ‘solo’ and ‘specially restricted’; the latter category consists mainly of mass plural nouns and nouns requiring a possessive determiner, but also includes cases of nouns that require a reflexive possessive determiner and those that have a compulsory definite article.

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Eventive and agentive noun phrases 127 Reading the total results as they are given in Table 3.3, we can say that the approximate figures for the major subtypes of noun are as follows: Count Sing./Plur 84

Mass Sing. 32

Solo 37

Specially Restricted 13

(The number of stretched verb constructions found with each type of noun is roughly twice the figure given.) Placing a noun in the countable category is equivalent to saying that it occurs in the singular with determiners like a, any, each, every, one, that, the, this and in the plural with all, any, both, enough, many, more, the, these, those, two, etc. Semantically, such nouns refer to discrete entities that recur as separate individuals and are thus countable. Countable nouns, with this potential for number differentiation, represent about 50 per cent of the eventive nouns in the data. This certainly suggests that countability, a feature found in noun phrases but not in verb phrases or adjective phrases, might be one reason for the existence of stretched verb constructions. If, for instance, we compare accuse smbd [of smth] with make an accusation [against smbd], one thing we see is a kind of restructuring of one of the types discussed in Part II, with its consequent recategorizing of the optionality of elements; but we also see the eventive meaning ‘accusing’ made countable in the stretched construction, so that the number of accusations can and indeed partially must be specified – at least as to singular or plural. The factor of countability is thus bound to influence the speaker’s choice between the two constructions, and whenever the number of individual accusations, achievements, acquisitions, etc. is at the forefront of the speaker’s mind, the noun-based construction is likely to be preferred. But what of the other 50 per cent of constructions, where countability is not involved? Does their ‘raison d’être’ depend entirely on factors outside noun phrase structure, or can the particular subvariety of noun phrase be a positive factor in their selection? Let us now consider these other types. Nouns classified as mass singular have the capacity for occurring in the singular with the determiners all, any, enough, more, much, that, the, this. Semantically they suggest a naturally undivided substance that may be divided for specific purposes, but when it is divided, it still can be seen as samples of the same universal mass, e.g. some water, (not) much pride, or for our eventive nouns, much acclaim, some advice. In our data singular mass nouns are only one third as frequent as normal countable nouns in the function of eventive noun. Moreover, if we check their use against the ‘additional semantic facets’ of eventive nouns displayed in Table 3.2, we find that certain semantic facets never or rarely appear. (While it is true that these are additional semantic features, it can be assumed that they also colour the basic ‘eventive’ meaning found in stretched verb constructions.) Thus eventive nouns linked to an interpretation ‘physical effect’ or ‘affected entity’ of

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abhor abominate abort abridge absolve abstain abound abuse accept access acclaim acclimatize accommodate accompany accord account accuse ache achieve acknowledge acquaint acquire acquit act 8 act 9 adapt add

Underlying verb

an an an an an an an an an an an an an

accord account accusation ache achievement acknowledgment acquaintance acquisition acquittal act action adaptation addition

an accommodation

an abuse

an abominaion an abortion an abridgement

Singular/plural countable noun

sm acting sm action

sm accompaniment

sm acclaim sm acclimatization

sm abuse sm acceptance

sm abstinence

sm abhorrence

Singular mass noun1

1 addition11

action10

acknowledgement6

accord4 account5

access3

abundance

absolution2

Singular solo noun

Table 3.3 Basic determiner potential of eventive nouns (in stretched verb constructions)

smbd’s acquaintance7

Specially restricted noun

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advance advantage advertise advise affect affiliate affirm affront agglomerate aggravate aggress agitate agonize agreement aid ail aim air 21

an an an an an

address12 adhere adjourn adjudicate adjust admire admit13 admit14

affectation affiliation affirmation affront agglomeration aggravation

an ailment an aim an air

an agreement

an an an an an an

an advance an advantage an advertisement

an admission

address adhesive adjournment adjudication adjustment

Singular/plural countable noun

Underlying verb

Table 3.3 (continued)

sm aid

sm agitation sm agony

sm aggravation

sm advice

sm adjustment sm admiration

Singular mass noun1

aim20

agreement17 aid18

aggression16

admission, admittance15

Singular solo noun

smbd’s aid19

Specially restricted noun

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alarm alert alienate align allege allocate allow allude ally alter alternate amalgamate amaze ambush amend amplify amputate amuse anaesthetize analyse anger annihilate annotate announce annoy annul answer

Underlying verb

Table 3.3 (continued)

allegation allocation allowance allusion alliance alteration

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an annulment an answer

an annotation an announcement

an analysis

an amputation

sm annoyance

sm analysis sm anger

sm amusement

sm amplification

sm amazement

sm allowance

sm alienation

sm alarm

Singular mass noun1

answer32

annihilation31

anaesthesia28 analysis29

ambush

alternation26 amalgamation27

alliance25

alignment24

alarm23

Singular solo noun

1

an amendment

an an an an an an

an alert

Singular/plural countable noun

smbd’s anger30

Specially restricted noun

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arrange42 arrange43 arrest articulate ascend aspire assassinate assault assent

an an an an

apologize appeal 34 appeal 35 appear appease append applaud apply appoint appraise appreciate approach appropriate approve arbitrate argument

application appointment appraisal appreciation approach appropriation

an an an an

ascent aspiration assassination assault

an arrest

an argue41 an argument an arrangement

an an an an an an

an appendage

apology appeal appeal appearance

Singular/plural countable noun

Underlying verb

Table 3.3 (continued)

sm appreciation

sm applause

sm appeal

Singular mass noun1

arrest44 articulation

approval38 arbitration40

applause37

appeasement36

Singular solo noun

smbd’s assent/ one’s assent46

sm aspirations45

sm arrangements

smbd’s approval39

one’s apologies33

Specially restricted noun

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an assertion an assessment an assignment

assert assess assign assimilate assist associate assume assure astonish atone attack attempt attend 52 attend 53

an an an an

autograph average avow awake(n) award

sm attention

sm astonishment

sm assistance

Singular mass noun1

authority authorization54

auction

attendance

atonement49 attack50

assimilation47

Singular solo noun

1

average avowal awakening award

an audit an authorization

an attraction

attract auction audit authorize

an attack an attempt

an association an assumption an assurance

Singular/plural countable noun

Underlying verb

Table 3.3 (continued)

one’s autograph

smbd’s attention/ one’s attention

the attack51

smbd’s assistance48

Specially restricted noun

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111 as in arouse smbd’s anger and also arouse the anger of smbd, but not simply *arouse the anger. 31 as in suffer annihilation. 32 as in be in answer to smth. 33 as in offer one’s apologies. 34 in the meaning ‘complain’. 35 in the meaning ‘be pleasing’. 36 as in practise appeasement. 37 as in burst into applause. 38 as in win approval from smbd for smth; be on approval. 39 as in gain smbd’s approval, give one’s approval, but not simply ?gain approval. 40 as in conduct/carry out arbitration. 41 only in informal British and Australian English. 42 in the meaning ‘agreement’ or ‘timetable’. 43 in the meaning ‘plan, timetable’; sm arrangements is a mass plural use. 44 as in be/place smbd under arrest. 45 a mass plural use 46 as in gain smbd’s assent ( for smth) or gain the assent of smbd ( for smth), but not simply *gain the assent; similarly give one’s assent ( for smth) (but not give the assent for smth). 47 as in undergo assimilation. 48 as in come/go to the assistance of smbd, where the determiner is compulsorily a definite article. 49 as in make atonement for smth. 50 as in be under attack, where no determiner is possible. 51 as in be on the attack, where the determiner is compulsorily a definite article. 52 in the sense ‘look after smbd’, only in the rare construction dance attendance on smbd. 53 in the sense ‘occupy oneself with smth’, as in pay sm attention to smth; attract smbd’s attention, give one’s attention to smth. 54 as in give/grant authority/authorization.

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Notes: 1 It goes without saying that normal singular mass nouns (as exemplified in this column) can occur not only with other mass determiners such as (not) much, more, little but also without an overt determiner, whereas ‘solo nouns’ occur only without an overt determiner. 2 as in receive absolution. 3 as gain access to smwh. 4 as in be in accord. 5 as in call smbd to account. 6 as in be in ackowledgement of smth. 7 as in make smbd’s acquaintance, and also make the acquaintance of smbd, but not simply *make the acquaintance. 8 in the meaning ‘perform dramatically’. 9 in the meaning ‘be active’. 10 as in go into action. 11 as in be in addition. 12 in the meaning of either ‘speak to’ or ‘send’. 13 in the meaning ‘confess’. 14 in the meaning ‘allow to enter’. 15 as in gain/grant admission/admittance. 16 as in commit/suffer aggression. 17 as in be in agreement. 18 as in be in aid of smth. 19 as in come to smbd’s aid and also come to the aid of smbd, but not simply *come to the aid. 20 as in take aim. 21 in the meaning ‘complete the drying of [clothes]’. 22 in the meaning ‘make public’. 23 as in fill smbd with alarm. 24 as in bring smth into alignment. 25 as in be in alliance with smbd. 26 as in be in alternation with smbd. 27 as in undergo amalgamation. 28 as in induce anaesthesia in smbd. 29 as in undergo analysis, be under analysis.

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134 The event phrase ‘gift’ or ‘mental focus’ or ‘effected speech act’ or possibly ‘instrument’ are assigned more or less exclusively to the countable category. Looking at it the other way round, we can say that mass nouns are only found with the ‘eventive’ function when they have additional semantic aspects of ‘performer’, ‘mental behaviour or attitude’, ‘mental experience’, ‘mental effect’, ‘service for beneficiary’ and ‘manner or mode’; these all seem to be meanings associated with actors, their mental experiences or their way of doing things. This suggests (on the face of it, surprisingly) a correlation between the semantic features ‘mass/uncountable’ and ‘agency’. Turning to solo eventive nouns, we find them to be slightly more numerous than mass nouns, although they occur in fewer constructions overall. The semantic range of the solo eventive nouns found in our data seems to be subject to restrictions similar to those just described for singular mass nouns. It is therefore tempting to regard solo eventive nouns as simply a special type of singular mass noun, one which limits the determiner range to zero, which is in any case a possibility for singular mass nouns. But even if this view is taken, an explanation is still needed for the fact that solo eventive nouns permit no overt determiners. The most natural explanation for this would be if the nouns concerned were not only uncountable but also unquantifiable (even in a mass sense). If we consider the eventive nouns in our data which occur only in a solo use, namely absolution, abundance, access, admission, admittance, aggression, alignment, alternation, amalgamation, anaesthesia, annihilation, appeasement, arbitration, articulation assimilation, atonement, attendance, auction, authority, authorization, we may detect a general trend towards an absolutive, ungradable type of meaning:80 certainly admittance, alternation, anaesthesia, annihilation and arbitration are scarcely a matter of degree, and although the other eventive meanings may be in some sense gradable (e.g. alignment, assimilation), they are used in an absolute sense in these stretched verb constructions. This point is also linked to the common use of solo eventive nouns after prepositions, to be precise, in prepositional object or objoid position, where their eventive meaning is often slanted in the direction of mental effect on a person (e.g. fill smbd with alarm), or of an effected entity, including speech acts (e.g. burst into applause, receive smbd with acclaim). The fourth column in Table 3.3 includes four minor types of restricted noun phrase, of which the most important is what we are calling ‘definite genitive’. Some noun phrases occur in two forms, one with a possessive determiner (e.g. my anger, the president’s anger), the other with the definite article and a postposed complementing of-phrase (e.g. the anger of the president).81 The stretched verb constructions requiring this kind of noun phrase mainly refer to the action of responding to somebody (go/come to smbd’s 80 In this connection Simatos (1997: 96–8) makes a comparison of the French locutions rendre service and rendre un service. 81 As would be expected, the of-phrase version of this structure is not permitted with pronouns, e.g. *the anger of him.

Eventive and agentive noun phrases 135

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aid/assistance) or, more commonly, of getting a response from somebody (arouse/incur smbd’s anger, gain smbd’s approval/assent, capture smbd’s attention), or a even mutual response (make smbd’s acquaintance). Such actions presumably make it necessary to mention the person involved (other than the agentive subject) and link that person intimately with the action through being the genitive specifier or complement of the eventive noun. A few stretched verb constructions out of our set take a compulsorily reflexive possessive determiner, namely express/offer one’s apologies [about/for smth], give one’s approval [to/for smth], devote one’s attention to smth and focus one’s attention on smth. The determiner one’s is the impersonal reflexive possessive determiner82 and therefore used with a contextually unidentified infinitive; but my, your, his, etc. (depending on the identified subject) are more frequent in actual use. This means that in such constructions the person referred to by the grammatical subject receives a second mention in the determiner position preceding the eventive noun.83 One reason for this could be the personal nature of the actions involved in constructions with the kindred simple verbs apologize [for smth], approve[of smth]. The remaining specially restricted noun phrases are either mass plural or obligatorily accompanied by a definite article. The use of mass plural noun phrases (sm arrangements, sm aspirations) perhaps expresses quantity without the discreteness needed for countability (cf. mass plural words such as amends, arrears, funds, manners, oats, premises, remains). On the other hand the compulsory use of the definite article in stretched verb constructions like be on the attack, go on (to) the attack seems to have no obvious semantic basis and most probably has to be regarded as an arbitrary fixing of the grammatical pattern. In fact, it is not unreasonable to say that in general the selection of basic noun phrase patterns (of determiner and noun) in stretched verb constructions is somewhat arbitrary. But certain semantically motivated patterns have been described above, in particular countable, mass singular, solo and definite genitive noun phrases. What is perhaps a little surprising is that no clear connections seem to exist between these grammatical types of noun phrase and the suffixes used to form the deverbal event noun. If we compare the details of Tables 3.1 and 3.3, we can see correlations between types of word formation and types of determiner potential: for instance, the most common modes of word formation for countable nouns are zero and suffixation with -ment, -ion and -ation, but all of these morphological types also form mass singular nouns and solo nouns; in fact, zero and -ment are among the most common ways of forming mass singular nouns, while zero and -ion are the most common for solo nouns.

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82 at least in British English; some American writers appear to prefer his. 83 It is worth noting that these reflexive determiners have no alternative construction with a postcomplementing of-phrase such as *offer the apologies of oneself.

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136 The event phrase

III.1.iii Agentive nouns and their determiners We noted at the beginning of section III.1.i that Structure 2 patterns have an agentive noun rather than an eventive noun at their core. Agentive nouns (often known as ‘nomina agentis’) obviously have the effect of highlighting the person or other entity seen as the primary participant in the activity rather than focusing directly on the event itself: thus be a helper gives a different perspective compared with be a help, be of help, come to the help of or give help to (or for that matter the simplex verb help). But there cannot of course be an agent without an action, or more generally an event, that is performed by that agent. It might therefore be more prudent to refer to such nouns as ‘agentive-eventive’ rather than simply as ‘agentive’. The range of morphological and semantic possibilities for agentive nouns and their determiners is rather simpler than that of non-agentive eventive nouns. The full range of possibilities is listed in Table 3.4. The nouns of Table 3.4, with the exception84 of addressee, have an agentive-eventive meaning and thus refer to potential subjects of the verb from which they have been derived; but some of them have other meanings. Many have been lexicalized as names or ranks, professions or social roles, e.g. accompanist, actor, administrator, advertiser, advocate, agent, analyst, announcer, arranger, assessor, assistant, assurer, auctioneer, one of them, namely agent, also appearing as a word for a substance that acts chemically; in such uses they can of course appear in other grammatical positions, for instance, as grammatical subject, and with a verb other than a copular one. But several of the nouns of Table 3.4, such as abetter/-or, abhorrer, adorer are more or less limited to use in stretched verb constructions and when cited alone give the appearance of nonce-words artificially extracted from a phrase. Thus, while verb phrases like be an abridger of novels or be an adorer of beautiful women may seem acceptable, abridger and adorer as isolated words seem much less viable. Agentive-eventive nouns are more uniform than standard eventive nouns in their determiner potential: they are all normal countable nouns. This means that they occur in both the singular and the plural, although their number in the nominal descriptor in which they appear is automatically regulated by the subject of the sentence, cf.: (1)

(a) Sebastian was an administrator. (b) Sybil and Sebastian were administrators.

As regards definiteness, a definite determiner will of course be appropriate when the subject is unequivocally identified by the descriptor noun phrase, 84 We noted in the discussion of (33) in section II.2.iii above how addressee and other words with the -ee suffix were something of an exception.

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Eventive and agentive noun phrases 137 Table 3.4 Modes of derivation of agentive-eventive nouns Suffixation with -ant/-ent

Suffixation with -ist/-yst

AGENT APPLICANT ASPIRANT ASSISTANT ATTENDANT

ACCOMPANIST ALARMIST ANALYST

Suffixation with -ive ADHESIVE2

Suffixation with -ee ‘agent’ ABSENTEE

Loss of verb-forming suffix ASSASSIN

Suffixation with -ee ‘recipient’ ADDRESSEE

Suffixation with -eer AUCTIONEER

Suffixation with -er/-or ABETTER/-OR ABHORRER ABRIDGER ABSCONDER ABSTAINER ABUSER ACCUSER ACTOR ADJUDICATOR ADMINISTRATOR ADMIRER ADORER ADVERTISER ADVISER/-OR AGGRESSOR AGITATOR ANALYSER1 ANNOUNCER APPEASER ARBITRATOR ARRANGER ASSESSOR ASSURER ATTACKER AUDITOR AVENGER

Zero (in some cases with stress difference) ADVOCATE AIDE (‘helper’) ALLY ASSOCIATE

Notes: 1 This item tends to refer to machines rather than to human beings, cf. recorder/recordist. 2 This item has an instrumental rather than an agentive meaning in the strict sense.

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138 The event phrase as in (2)(a), but an indefinite determiner will be appropriate otherwise, as in (2)(b): (2)

(a) Sybil was the arranger of the score. (b) Sybil was an/one arranger of the score.

Interestingly, the kindred simplex structure of (2)(c) is ambiguous between these two interpretations; cf.:

1

(2)

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whereas the cleft simplex structure of (2)(d) clearly has a definite interpretation corresponding to (2)(a).

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(c) Sybil arranged the score. (d) It was Sybil that arranged the score.

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III.2 Eventive and agentive noun phrases: modifiers and qualifiers

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III.2.i Adjectival modifications We saw at the beginning of section III.1.ii that noun-based stretched verb constructions have the potential for adjectival expansion before the eventive noun to correspond to adverbial expansion of the corresponding simple eventive verb (as in make a quick adjustment to smth beside adjust smth quickly). The range of adjectives possible with a given eventive noun must therefore at least partly depend on the adverbs that could have occurred in the corresponding eventive verb construction. Adverbs are of course diverse: some of them (such as degree adverbs) are closely linked to the lexical verb and involve collocational restrictions (e.g. deeply disappoint but severely injure); others (such as place) modify the whole verb phrase or predicate, while still others operate at the sentence level. While it is true that adjectives in the noun phrase do need to be ordered relative to each other (e.g. substantial immediate direct legal action rather than, say, ??legal direct immediate substantial action), the important point is that most adjectives in the noun phrase occur simply between the determiner and the head noun. The wide variety of possible adverbs, on the other hand, differ considerably in susceptibility to collocational restrictions, in potential for occurrence in the different sentence positions (including subtle differences in medial position), in replaceability with a preposition phrase, etc. A survey of the range of English adverbials is given in Appendix 1, which largely follows the scheme of Allerton and Cruttenden (1974, 1978). What then is the range of meanings displayed by adjectives in the noun phrases, in particular in those with eventive nouns as heads, and how do these relate to their corresponding adverbs? In their discussion of the general semantics of adjectives Quirk et al. (1985: 434–6) refer to the features STATIVE/DYNAMIC, GRADABLE/UNGRADABLE, and INHERENT/NON-INHERENT. The first of these is not relevant to our study, because it concerns the predicative use of adjectives, prenominal attributive adjectives being invariably stative. The question of gradability is relevant but is alone not sufficient to describe the range of meanings to be found.

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140 The event phrase The third feature, (non-)inherence, is a matter of the regularity of the kindred relationship between adjective-noun constructions and verbadverb constructions, which is a defining characteristic of our stretched verb constructions. In considering the range of meanings found in adjectives premodifying abstract nouns in general, and eventive nouns in particular, we should find it helpful to distinguish four main semantic types:85 (a) (b) (c) (d)

ASPECT/RANGE, e.g. aesthetic (appreciation), QUALITY, e.g. quick (appreciation), EXTENT, e.g. keen (appreciation), FACTUAL STATUS, e.g. actual (appreciation).

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All these types of adjective form combinations with eventive nouns that can be used in a stretched verb construction such as have an appreciation of smth, giving sentences like She had a/an aesthetic/quick/keen/actual appreciation of the piece. The adjective usually corresponds to an adverb in -ly that could modify the corresponding eventive verb. Adjectives of ASPECT/RANGE define a subvariety of the entity denoted by the noun by specifying a particular domain within which it is valid. They are ungradable. They correspond frequently (but not exclusively) to adverbs of viewpoint or respect, in other words to Quirk et al.’s ‘viewpoint subjuncts’ (1985: 566–9) or ‘respect adjuncts’ (1985: 563–4). Thus the expression take legal action normally corresponds to act legally with legally as a viewpoint or respect adverb (‘in the legal sphere’) rather than as a manner adverb (‘in a legal manner’), although use of legally in this sense is just possible. Further combinations of aspect/range adjectives with eventive nouns, which are kindred with verb-plus-viewpoint/respect-adverb constructions, are chemical analysis, educational achievement, historical appeal, medical attention, religious affiliation, technical advice, all of which could be part of a stretched verb construction with adjectival expansion, e.g. make a chemical analysis, take technical advice. Some aspect/range adjectives correspond not to viewpoint or respect adverbs but to some other class of adverb. Thus the adjectives commercial and compulsory in the combinations (place a) commercial advertisement or (make a) compulsory acquisition are clearly aspect/range adjectives, but they correspond to the phrases advertise ( . . . ) commercially and acquire ( . . . ) compulsorily, which contain a method adverb, which refers to the means or method through which the action was carried out rather than to an aspect or the range of the action. One example in the LOB corpus of an aspect/range adjective referring to method has a past participle used as an adjective, namely written advice; such adjectives have no corresponding adverbs, and 85 Examples of collocations of adjective and eventive noun are, in the main, text examples taken from the texts of the LOB corpus. For a fuller list, see Appendix 2.

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its meaning would have to be rendered in the eventive verb construction with an adverbial phrase, such as advise ( . . . ) in writing. Further correlates in verb-based constructions of aspect/range adjectives in noun phrases are place adverbials, goal objects and agentive subjects. In phrases like domestic aid, external assistance and frontal attack the aspect/range adjective corresponds to a place adverbial like at home, outside or at/from the front, although (not unusually) a simple adverb of place with the corresponding meaning does not exist. For phrases like bacterial analysis, musical appreciation or (to take an example from outside our corpus) personal criticism, we can say first that they have a closely related nominal construction with a complement of-phrase representing the semantic goal (analysis of bacteria, appreciation of music and criticism of the person(s)), and second that there is a kindred verb-based construction that has the adjectival meaning of the nominal construction expressed as the object of the verb (analyse bacteria, appreciate music, criticize the person(s)). Analogously, phrases like critical acclaim, divine approval, Ruritanian aggression, specialist advice are closely related to acclaim by the critic(s), approval by the deity, aggression by (the) Ruritanians and advice by one or more specialists respectively (from being a frequent alternative to by when less direct physical agency is involved); but such phrases also have a kindred structure based on an eventive verb, this time with the adjectival meaning represented by the subject of the verb (critics acclaim smth, the deity approves smth, etc.). In summary, then, aspect/range adjectives are noun modifiers corresponding in verb-based structures to adverbs of viewpoint or respect, to adverbials of method, to adverbials of place or to grammatical objects or subjects. They are thus closely associated with the core meaning of the eventive noun and thus largely to the valency of the kindred verb. It therefore comes as no surprise that these adjectives occur closest to the noun, as is clear from the example cited earlier, namely substantial immediate direct legal action, or from a phrase like the expected full meticulous bacterial analysis, in which legal and bacterial respectively are virtually certain to take up the immediate prenominal position. Adjectives of QUALITY form the major subcategory of adjectives. They add a further quality to the basic characteristic(s) of the (deverbal) noun, but it is a quality that is not quite so central as for aspect/range adjectives, but simply an additional description, most commonly of the manner of the process concerned. This quality is gradable, typically with scalar intensifiers such as very, slightly, otherwise with absolutive ones like utterly, only occasionally with telic (or ‘liminal’) ones like only just, cf. Allerton (1987a) and below, section III.3.ii. Typical examples are curious advertisement, dramatic action, excellent advice, intricate adjustment, natural application and satisfactory answer, which have a clear correspondence to the respective combinations of verb and manner adverb advertise ( . . . ) curiously, act dramatically, advise ( . . . ) excellently, adjust ( . . . ) intricately and answer ( . . . ) satisfactorily. These manner adverbs are process-oriented in the sense that the quality

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142 The event phrase they refer to is a quality purely of the process itself. Some manner adverbs, on the other hand, are semantically subject-oriented in the sense that they comment on the way the subject carries out the action rather than on the action alone:86 examples are assert audaciously, accept eagerly, admit gracefully, applaud politely and assume tacitly, all of which have corresponding adjectivenoun combinations (audacious assertion, eager acceptance, graceful admission, polite applause and tacit assumption). Both kinds of manner adverbial, however, represent a quality of the verb’s process that is seen by the speaker as interesting or relevant, and this same meaning is carried by equivalent adjectives modifying an eventive noun. Some quality adjectives correspond to adverbials other than manner adverbials. A few seem to correspond to method adverbs (e.g. experimental (advance), pictorial (allusion)), while rather more have kindred subject adjunct adverbials,87 either of the comitative or of the statal subclass, (e.g. collective (agreement), joint (action); helpless (amazement), open-mouthed (attention)). Still more common are adjectives corresponding to time adverbials, either of relative time, e.g. early (acceptance), future (achievement), present (arrangement), previous (account)), or of duration, e.g. long (association), to which we might add frequency adverbials, e.g. annual (allowance) and serial restrictors, e.g. first (appearance). The most significant correspondence for quality adjectives apart from that with manner adverbials is, however, with sentence adverbials, particularly attitudinal message-oriented ones, which offer a speaker’s comment on the assertion made in the sentence. Consider the example: (1)

(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

They reached an unexpected agreement. They unexpectedly reached an agreement. They unexpectedly agreed. They agreed, which was unexpected. They reached an agreement, which was unexpected.

In (1)(a) we have a stretched verb construction with an adjective (of the type under discussion) modifying the eventive noun. The sentence of (1)(b) has a message-oriented attitudinal sentence adverbial instead of an adjective, but is near-synonymous with the (a) sentence, demonstrating the kindred relationship of the two sentences. The example of (1)(c) shows that

86 This special semantic property is also manifested syntactically in that only subjectoriented manner adverbs can appear in medial (i.e. preverbal) position (and in formal narrative English even in initial position), cf. John cunningly arranged the papers, ?John neatly arranged the papers. 87 This class of adverbials describes the situation (in the broadest sense) of the subject when he/she/it/they performed the activity described by the verb, so that a sentence of the form SENTENCE CORE + SUBJECT ADJUNCT corresponds semantically to a sentence SENTENCE CORE + when he/she/it/they is/are/was/were + SUBJECT ADJUNCT.

Modifiers and qualifiers

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such a sentence adverbial is also possible with a simplex sentence with an eventive verb, whereas it is clear that such sentences cannot allow adjectival expansion (e.g. with unexpected), because there is no eventive noun for the adjective to modify. Finally, sentences (1)(d) and (e) demonstrate the option of a (non-restrictive) sentential relative clause as a further kindred construction, with (d) and (e) corresponding to (c) and (b) respectively; but it is worth noting that (1)(e) is ambiguous according to whether the relative clause is a sentential one or simply a nominal one. Further examples of adjectives of quality corresponding to attitudinal message-oriented adverbials are disastrous (attack), interesting (attempt), necessary (attack), unfortunate (application ‘request for job’), welcome (addition). Some quality adjectives correspond to adverbials of the subject-oriented attitudinal type, which represents a comment on the subject’s behaviour (e.g. characteristic (entity), pathetic (attempt)). A related type of adjective corresponds to a volitional adverbial, i.e. an adverbial that describes the degree of intentionality involved in the subject’s action; adjectives of this type include intentional (action), unconscious (attempt). A further type of adjective is kindred with adverbials of result or ‘outcome’, e.g. abortive (attempt), favourable (answer), successful (application ‘request for job’), unsuccessful (attempt). The third major group of adjectives (which is subject to scalar or absolutive intensification according to the meaning) is those that designate EXTENT, in the sense that they give a quantitative specification of the property expressed by the eventive noun. This implies that they are equivalent to degree adverbs qualifying a corresponding eventive verb; and certainly there is a strong correlation with degree adverbials, as testified by examples such as complete answer, considerable agreement, full assessment, immense amusement, tremendous attraction, wide acceptance. Giving a person a complete answer seems to amount to more or less the same as answering that person completely; but that does not mean that the corresponding expressions are absolutely synonymous, and one aspect of the difference between them lies in the question of whether the completeness is seen as a matter of ‘degree’ in the act of answering or as a matter of ‘extent’ of the product, in this case, of the answer.88 A slightly less numerous set of correspondences can be found between extent adjectives and process-oriented manner adverbs. In these cases the manner adverb describes a way of doing something that will result in a degree of success in completion of the activity: thus align correctly comes to mean ‘align fully’, analyse exhaustively ‘analyse fully’, appreciate keenly ‘appreciate greatly’, and advance spectacularly ‘advance considerably’, with the effect that correct alignment, exhaustive analysis, keen appreciation and spectacular advance

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88 A further difference between the two expressions is due to the presence of the thin verb (give); the semantic contribution of thin verbs is discussed in Part IV. Note that in the above discussion the term EXTENT is reserved for an adjectival quality, while the term DEGREE is reserved for an adverbial meaning.

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144 The event phrase have become, at least partly, extent adjectives. Some subject-oriented manner adverbs, particularly those expressing strength of feelings or emotion, can correspond to extent adjectives in a similar way, e.g. bitterly (cf. bitter attack), convincingly (cf. convincing assurance), vigorously (cf. vigorous argument), the adjective in all three cases having in the collocation a meaning something like ‘big, powerful’. Adverbs of time and place, particularly those subvarieties that have a quantitative meaning, such as duration, frequency and proximity, can also have their corresponding adjectives used in an ‘extent’ function. Phrases like general acceptance, occasional aid and repeated application¸ for instance, have extent adjectives that correspond to frequency adverbs; phrases like brief appearance, constant attention and long account, have extent adjectives corresponding to duration adverbs; finally, phrases like close agreement, nearer approach and universal answer contain extent adjectives corresponding to place adverbs of proximity or density. Minor correspondences of extent adjectives are to conjunctional sentence adverbs like additionally or furthermore (cf. additional aid, further attacks with adjectives meaning ‘supplementary’), also to attitudinal sentence adverbs like remarkably or significantly (cf. remarkable achievement, significant advance, with adjectives meaning roughly ‘big’), and finally to serial restrictors like first or finally (cf. first aim, final authority, with adjectives again meaning roughly ‘main’). The fourth type of adjective assesses the FACTUAL STATUS of the verbal noun; this type thus differs radically from the three other types, because it questions whether the entity described is a genuine specimen of the class designated by the noun or alternatively whether the description covers all cases or only some. In the phrase an apparent adjustment, for instance, the adjective apparent does not so much give further details of the type or extent of the adjustment but rather casts doubt on whether it is an adjustment at all; in the same context the adjective real would have the function of allaying such doubts about membership of the class of entities concerned.89 Such adjectives are commonly related to validity adverbials like actually (cf. actual achievement), apparently (cf. apparent adjustment), implicitly (cf. implicit assumption), really (cf. real agony), ultimately (cf. ultimate aim), giving us correspondences like: (2)

(a) They made an apparent adjustment. (b) Apparently, they made an adjustment. (c) Apparently, they adjusted something.

An alternative kindred adverb for factual status adjectives is the polar restrictor type, including mainly, only, particularly, as exemplified by the 89 Such adjectives are, of course, not limited to eventive nouns and occur with everyday nouns, as in combinations like false friend, in which the adjective in effect largely nullifies the semantic effect of the noun, cf. Allerton (1984a: 24–6).

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adjective–noun combinations main advance, only appearance and particular attention. These adjectives indicate whether the entities referred to by the noun are unique or nearly unique, and thus correspond to the polar restrictors mainly, only, particularly, as shown by the correspondences: (3)

(a) They made their main advance in the west. (b) They made their advance mainly in the west. (c) They advanced mainly in the west.

A third significant group of factual status adjectives correspond to likelihood sentence adverbials, such as definitely, obviously, probably and possibly. They can be exemplified with constructions like definite answer, obvious assumption, probable defeat and possible error, and the correspondences are typified by the sentences: (4)

(a) They have made a possible error. (b) They have possibly made an error. (c) They have possibly erred.

In a similar way, suffer a probable defeat means ‘probably suffer a defeat’ or ‘probably be defeated’. The phrases definite answer and obvious assumption are less clear, because they would also allow interpretation of definitely and obviously respectively as manner adverbs, although, interestingly, this need not change the overall meaning of the sentence significantly. We have seen, then, that the adjectives that qualify the eventive noun in a stretched verb construction extend from adjectives of aspect/range through adjectives of quality and adjectives of extent to adjectives of factual status at the other end of the scale, in the sense that they are furthest away from simply subclassifying the noun by mentioning a secondary characteristic. Table 3.5 sums up their possible correspondences to adverbs. It goes without saying that these four semantic classes are not discrete grammatical categories but semantic types which shade into each other, with many border-line cases; there are even more marginal cases for the corresponding adverbial or verb elaborator types, particularly between viewpoint/respect and method, between agent and location, and between viewpoint/respect and subject (= agent). The difference in semantic value or perspective between adverb and adjective can appear to differ very radically: for instance long account has long with a quantitative meaning of extent, while the corresponding adverb is one of duration. Yet the meaning of duration is still present in the adjective; it is simply that its effect in this collocational context has been adapted to express quantity in a more general sense, in other words ‘extent’. It makes a considerable difference to the meaning of adjective or adverb whether they have an active or passive (or even causative) perspective with respect to the kindred verb: the combination contemptuous amusement, for

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146 The event phrase instance, is understood as ‘contemptuously being amused’ and not as ‘amusing contemptuously’, so that it is not the ‘amuser’ that is being contemptuous, but the ‘amusee’! The classes and kindred relations we have observed for adjectives modifying eventive nouns are probably valid for adjectives found with abstract nouns in general. Thus alongside the examples we have seen above we could place combinations with abstract nouns with no kindred verb such as accident, cf. aerial accident (ASPECT/RANGE), annoying accident (QUALITY), serious accident (EXTENT), apparent accident (FACTUAL STATUS). Even with concrete nouns the same types of adjectives recur, with the only difference that quality adjectives are much more numerous and varied to cope with the different physical properties that concrete things and persons can be endowed with, such as age, colour, shape and size in different dimensions. The modifying adjectives we have discussed so far in this section modify eventive nouns. The agentive-eventive nouns that occur in Structure 2 refer to persons, and the question arises whether the adjectives that typically modify them can be accommodated under the four semantic types we set up above (and referred to in Table 3.5). Apparently they can, as the following examples show:

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musical accompanist, commercial advertiser, political agitator, chemical analyst, external arbitrator. (b) QUALITY: rash accuser, passionate advocate, curious ally, unexpected applicant, cautious assessor, slow assistant, conscientious auditor. (c) EXTENT: total absentee, complete abstainer, outright accuser, great admirer, strong advocate, full associate. (d) FACTUAL STATUS: real abuser, implicit accuser, main agitator, possible ally, obvious appeaser, alleged assassin.

(a)

ASPECT/RANGE:

The personal value of agentive nouns means that they permit a wider variety of quality adjectives than eventive nouns do: they can, for instance, take adjectives denoting physical characteristics (e.g. tall, blond(e), welldressed). Sometimes interesting ambiguities of interpretation arise between an aspect/range adjective and a quality adjective, as in a combination like criminal assessor. Disregarding such minor variations, we can in general discern some differences between the way adjectives modify (standard eventive or agentive-eventive) nouns and the way adverbs modify (eventive) verbs. Adjectives modify nouns that see events as things which can be subclassified on the basis of a number of superficially clear criteria. Adverbs, on the other hand, suggest a wide range of possible background details to an event, such as time, place, manner, method, condition of the agent, viewpoint of the speaker, likelihood, etc., which can be expressed not only with single word adverbs but with preposition phrases of differing degrees of complexity.

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Table 3.5 Correspondences between meanings of adjectives (modifying eventive nouns) and types of adverbial Semantic type of adjective Type of adverbial (etc.)

Aspect/ range

Quality

Extent

Interpretational – subject-oriented

+

+

Interpretational – message-oriented

+

+

Factual status

Interpretational – probabilistic

+

Presentational – validity-oriented

+

Presentational – viewpoint (/respect)

+

Presentational – style-oriented Presentational – honesty-oriented Conjunctional

+

Contingential – cause/result

+

Contingential – contrast Contingential – condition Subject Adjunct – vicariative Subject Adjunct – volitional

+

Subject Adjunct – comitative

+

Subject Adjunct – statal

+

Place Adverbial

+

+

Time Adverbial – timing

+

Time Adverbial – duration

+

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Time Adverbial – frequency

+

+

Degree Adverbial

+

Aspect Adverbial Manner Adverbial – subject-oriented

+

+

+

Manner Adverbial – process-oriented

+

+

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Method Adverbial

+

+

Restrictor – polar

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Restrictor – serial

+

SUBJECT (Agent)

+

OBJECT (Goal)

+

+

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148 The event phrase

III.2.ii Prepositional postqualifiers and thin prepositions It became clear in Part II that an element that appears as a verb elaborator (such as object or prepositional objoid) in a verb-based structure can surface as a preposition phrase complementing the eventive noun in the kindred stretched verb construction, as in (5) or (6) below: (5)

S/s + V/ø + O/v e.g. make an abridgement of smth

(6)

S/s + V/ø + O/v kindred with S + V + PÖ e.g. practise abstinence from smth abstain from smth

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kindred with S + V + O abridge smth

A prepositional qualifier is thus incorporated into the noun phrase with the eventive noun at its core. But what is the semantic role (vis-à-vis the kindred verb) of elements incorporated in this way, and what prepositions are used to introduce them? Before we embark on this study, we should note that some preposition phrases remain unincorporated as prepositional objoids. Usually such prepositional objoids have the same preposition in the stretched verb construction and the kindred eventive verb pattern, as exemplified by (7): (7)

STRETCHED VERB CONSTRUCTION

KINDRED SIMPLEX CONSTRUCTION

make an admission (of smth) [to smbd] make an allegation (to smbd) that-Clause make an appropriation (of smth) (for smbd) add an attachment [to smth]

admit smth [to smbd] allege (to smbd) that-Clause appropriate smth (for smbd) attach smth [to smth]

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In a few cases, however, there is a more radical difference between the two constructions, with a difference in preposition, cf. (8)

STRETCHED VERB CONSTRUCTION

KINDRED SIMPLEX CONSTRUCTION

do/perform/carry out an abortion (on smbd) abort smth (for smbd) induce an abortion (in smbd) abort smth (for smbd) have an appeal ( for smbd) appeal to smbd In all the examples of (7) and (8), however, the preposition phrase in the stretched verb construction remains independent of the eventive noun, so that we do not find sentences like those of (9) but rather those of (10), cf.:

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??An admission of guilt to the court was made. ??An allegation of rape to the police was made. ??An abortion on the woman was performed.

(10) An admission of guilt was made to the court. An allegation of rape was made to the police. An abortion was performed on the woman. We shall therefore count preposition phrases like to the court, to the police and on the woman in (10) as prepositional objoids, and not as prepositional (post)qualifiers of the eventive noun. Some stretched verb constructions have independent prepositional objoids that correspond to objects in simple eventive verb constructions. Consider the examples: (11)

STRETCHED VERB

KINDRED SIMPLEX

CONSTRUCTION

CONSTRUCTION

shout sm abuse [at smbd] heap sm abuse on smbd extend aid to smbd create alarm (among pple) provide amusement (for smbd) arouse sm astonishment (in smbd)

abuse smbd abuse smbd aid smbd alarm pple amuse smbd astonish smbd

The preposition phrases of (11) remain unintegrated with the eventive noun in the stretched verb construction, and remain as a prepositional objoid dependent on the thin verb, as a comparison of the theoretically possible sentences of (12) with the natural ones of (13) demonstrates:

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(12) ??Much abuse at her was shouted. ??Alarm among the spectators was created. (13) Much abuse was shouted at her. Alarm was created among the spectators. As regards the actual choice of preposition, this naturally depends on the semantic role being played by the prepositional objoid. This seems to cover the range from ‘mental stimulus’ through ‘experiencer’, ‘mental goal’ and ‘affected goal’ to ‘recipient’. The precise choice of preposition is not unequivocally determined by the semantic role, with ‘affected goal’, for instance, being expressed by among (for plural noun phrases only), at, for, in, on/upon, to/for, although unequivocal to has the value of ‘recipient’. If anything, there is a stronger influence by the thin verb, as in combinations like shout . . . at, heap . . . on/upon, extend . . . to, provide . . . for.

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150 The event phrase A final group of unincorporated preposition phrases corresponds to the subject of the kindred eventive verb (or the agent of its passive form). They can be exemplified as follows: (14)

STRETCHED VERB

KINDRED SIMPLEX

CONSTRUCTION

CONSTRUCTION

take sm abuse [from smbd] feel sm alarm [at smth] find sm amusement in smth suffer annihilation (at the hands of smbd)

abuse smbd alarm smbd amuse smbd annihilate smth

Once again the non-integration of the preposition phrases can easily be demonstrated: (15) ??Some abuse from the crowd had to be taken. ??Some alarm at the news was felt. (16) Some abuse had to be taken from the crowd. Some alarm was felt at the news. There is some correlation between the choice of preposition and the precise semantic role of the ‘agent-phrase’: from seems to be the most generally available and thus the most neutral in meaning; at-the-hands-of implies physical action by the agent that is detrimental to the entity or entities represented by the passive subject/active object; at suggests a mental stimulus rather than an agent as the active subject. But the choice of in in find amusement in smth would appear to be determined by the choice of the thin verb find. Returning now to the larger numbers of preposition phrases that do become part of the eventive noun phrase, we can see the basic statistics of their semantic roles and choice of preposition given in Table 3.6. A survey of Table 3.6 brings out one or two points, the most obvious of which is that the prepositions used for prepositional qualifiers are not precisely the same as those used for prepositional objoids, or for that matter for indirect objoids or prepositional descriptors. It is true that some prepositions are used in either role (namely at, for, from, on, to and with). But the majority are specialized in the one role or the other: in particular, about, against, between and of are used in prepositional postqualifiers, but rarely if ever in prepositional objoids; whereas the prepositions among, at-the-handsof, in and into (and also to when it is in alternation with zero as in indirect object constructions) are found only in prepositional objoids and the like, but rarely if ever in prepositional postqualifers. The choice of preposition thus partly marks the closeness of syntactic connection between eventive noun and preposition phrase, but it also

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Modifiers and qualifiers

151

obviously says something about the semantic role of the phrase in question. The preposition about, for instance, as it occurs in combinations like make an announcement about smth, make an assumption about smbd/smth, has a fairly consistent meaning that we have given as ‘mental goal/issue’, because it refers to a topic in the subject’s mind that is in some sense the target in the speech-act of announcing, assuming, etc. and is sometimes the object of the kindred eventive verb. The prepositions against, between and of are like about in signalling integrated preposition phrases, but they each cover a wider semantic range. In the case of against the phrases concerned may relate to the issue involved (e.g. accusation/agitation/appeal against) or to an affected goal (aggression against), but in all cases the eventive noun refers to an action from which some negative consequences flow. The preposition between has been analysed as marking either a coagent (agreement between) or an experiencer (arbitration between), but in both cases the noun phrase following the preposition must be plural, and the persons referred to have a reciprocal relationship to each other (and in the latter case also a subordinate relationship to a third party agent). The most important preposition in integrated prepositional postqualifiers is undoubtedly of. Of all prepositions it is the one that is most strongly associated with an adnominal rather than an adverbial role. It is occasionally found in the prepositional objoids of either intransitive bivalent verbs (e.g. die of . . . ) or of transitive trivalent verbs (e.g. free . . . of . . . , rob . . . of . . . ), in which case it seems mainly to have the semantic role that we have termed ‘incubus’, i.e. something that is either an unpleasant aspect of the environment or something (possibly unpleasant) that is separated from a person, or both of these things together. But of is most commonly found with a genitive or associative meaning, linking a head noun with some kind of relational meaning to a noun phrase subordinated to it (e.g. father of the bride, captain of the team, back of the cooker); moreover some of these are morphologically deverbal and/or semantically eventive (e.g. arrival of the president, re-election of the president) and typically correspond to the subject or object of a kindred verb. Considering the examples of of-phrases after eventive nouns in our data, we need to distinguish between those cases where the of-postqualifier corresponds to possessive determiner (e.g. the bride’s father) and cases where it does not (e.g. ?the cooker’s back). Looking at the latter type first, we find that after eventive nouns they generally carry the meaning of ‘affected goal’ or ‘mental goal’, typical roles for a valency object, and in fact they generally correspond to the object or prepositional object of the kindred verb, cf. abridgement of smth, abuse of smth/smbd, analysis of smth, approval of smth/smbd, assassination of smbd, assessment of smth/smbd. We sometimes find this meaning also in cases where the of-phrase is kindred with a possessive determiner, as in arouse the anger of smbd, come to the aid of smbd. But the more basic value of this pattern is as the correlate of the subject of the kindred verb, with a meaning ranging through ‘agent’, ‘subagent’, ‘mental stimulus’ and ‘experiencer’, all

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11 0 (+4)

at 0 (+7)

at-the-hands-of

between

related characterized entity

event

destination 0 (+3)

0 (+1)

0 (+1)

2 (+0)

2 (+0)

0 (+1)

2 (+10)

0 (+17)

from

location

1 (+0)

9 (+3)

27 (+6)

0 (+5)

1 (+2)

1 (+0)

for

3 (+0) 1 (+0)

4 (+3)

5 (+0)

1

incubus

recipient

joint affected goal

affected goal

2 (+0)

6 (+0)

mental goal/issue

mental goal

2 (+0)

experiencer/issue

experiencer

mental stimulus

2 (+0) 0 (+1)

among

2 (+0)

against

subagent

29 (+3)

about

coagent

agent

Semantic role

Table 3.6 Prepositions and semantic roles in prepositional qualifiers (and in other1 prepositional phrases)

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0 (+8)

0 (+10)

Note: 1 i.e. indirect objects, prepositional objoids and prepositional descriptors.

1 (+0) 0 (+2)

event

8 (+6)

11 (+5)

18 (+4)

5 (+0)

1 (+4)

to

related characterized entity 0 (+1)

0 (+1)

12 (+5)

0 (+1)

on

5 (+0)

1 (+0)

5 (+0)

111

destination

location

incubus

recipient

0 (+14)

affected goal

1 (+0)

17 (+0)

mental goal

joint affected goal

3 (+0) 21 (+0)

mental goal/issue

0 (+3)

0 (+4)

experiencer

experiencer/issue

1 (+0)

mental stimulus 5 (+0)

20 (+0)

0 (+2)

subagent

2 (+0)

of/’s

coagent

of 4 (+0)

into

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agent

in

11

Semantic role

Table 3.6 (continued)

0 (+23)

0 (+7)

0 (+4)

0 (+2)

0 (+5)

to/0

0 (+8)

0 (+4)

3 (+0)

4 (+0)

4 (+0)

1 (+0)

2 (+4)

17 (+1)

with

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154 The event phrase typical active subject roles, as in secure the approval of smbd/ smbd’s approval (cf. smbd approves smth), attract the attention of smbd/smbd’s attention (cf. smbd attends to smth). Let us turn finally to those prepositions that introduce both noun-phraseindependent and noun-phrase-integrated preposition phrases; this group comprises at, for, from, on, to and with. In the case of from and with the question of whether the preposition phrase is integrated or not seems to depend on the semantic role of the individual phrase concerned. When from has the semantic value of ‘agent’ or ‘subagent’, as we saw above, it is not integrated as a prepositional postqualifier to the eventive noun, but when it has the meaning that we described above as ‘incubus’, as in pronounce absolution from smth, practise abstinence from smth, integration seems to take place, probably because the meaning is so closely associated with that of the event expressed either in the eventive verb in the simplex verbal construction or in the eventive noun in the stretched verb construction. With other prepositions the situation seems to be somewhat different, as the examples below show: (17) The paramedical staff made an attempt at resuscitation. An attempt at resuscitation was made (by the paramedical staff). (18) The author hurled abuse at the critics. *Abuse at the critics was hurled (by the author). (cf. Abuse was hurled at the critics (by the author).) Why is the preposition phrase with at, which in both cases corresponds to an object with the kindred verb (to attempt resuscitation, to hurl abuse), incorporated into the noun phrase based on the eventive noun in (17) but not in (18)? Presumably there is something about the nature of the phrase at the critics that gives it a basically (direction) adverbial status and links it with the ‘not-so-thin’ verb hurl. Consider now the following examples with for: (19) place an advertisement for smth make an application for smth present an argument for smth

feel an attraction for smbd provide amusement for smbd make allowance for smth

The preposition phrases of the left-hand column stick with the preceding noun when the stretched verb construction is used in the passive, as in example (17); they therefore involve prepositional postqualifiers attached to the eventive noun. The preposition phrases of the right-hand column, on the other hand, remain ‘in situ’ for passivization, suggesting they are noun-independent prepositional objoids dependent if anything on the thin verb; feel and provide certainly seem to retain a certain amount of their basic meaning in these constructions, and feel . . . for and provide . . . for seem

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Modifiers and qualifiers

155

natural collocations, though the example make allowance for can only be explained through the kindred construction allow for. The remaining prepositions, on, to and with, seem to operate like for, in that they sometimes contract a closer link with the eventive noun and become incorporated into its noun phrase, but otherwise remain aloof as semi-independent prepositional objoids loosely connected with a thin verb, which may not be as semantically thin as some. Examples of the two types of preposition phrase with these prepositions are listed below for comparison:

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STRUCTURES WITH INCORPORATED PREPOSITIONAL POSTQUALIFIERS

STRUCTURES WITH NOUNINDEPENDENT PREPOSITIONAL OBJOIDS

commit an assault on smbd carry out an attack on smbd make an adaptation to smth provide an answer to smth reach an agreement with smbd form an association with smbd

focus attention on smth carry out an abortion on smbd give an address to smbd present an award to smbd suffer agony with smth feel annoyance with/at smbd/smth

Like the for-phrases we looked at above, these preposition phrases seem to have a syntactic allegiance that reflects their semantic links: if they are semantically close to the eventive noun (assault/attack on, adaptation/answer to, agreement/association with), they form postqualifiers of the respective noun; but if they are semantically close to the meaning expressed by the thin verb, at least in its core meaning, (e.g. focus . . . on smth, present . . . to smbd, suffer . . . with smth), then they will probably keep the status of nounindependent prepositional objoids, or, in the case of give . . . to smbd, of an indirect object. In considering the question of which prepositions realize which functions in a given stretched verb construction, we have been concentrating on the major pattern, Structure 6, in which the (prepositionless) object position is filled by the event itself. A consequence is of course that object position cannot be filled by the various ‘goal’ meanings, and these have to be accommodated elsewhere, resulting in the general restructuring we saw in Part II. But subject position in the stretched verb construction is not immune to this restructuring and may accommodate something other than the ‘agent’, which in this case can appear as a prepositional objoid introduced by at-the-hands-of, from or as a genitive postqualifier marked with of/’s. Consideration needs to be given, finally, to a type of preposition phrase that cannot belong to the complementation of the eventive noun for one very simple reason: it contains the eventive noun within it! It is a question of Structure 4 patterns that have the eventive noun in a prepositional

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156 The event phrase descriptor after the verb be (as in be of assistance to smbd) or Structure 5 patterns that have the eventive noun in a prepositional objoid after a noncopular thin verb, as in burst into applause at smbd/smth. These eventive preposition phrases, like the non-eventive ones we discussed above, vary according to how clear a semantic contribution they make and according to how close a relationship they have to the thin verb (although they cannot have a close relationship to the eventive noun, since they contain it themselves). As regards the prepositions involved, we find of and on occurring in prepositional descriptors, for, from and into occurring in prepositional objoids, and in, under and with occurring in both types of constituent. Looking more closely first at eventive preposition phrases which appear as prepositional descriptors in Structure 4, we find that constructions with in or of (e.g. be in acknowledgement of smth, be in alliance with smbd, be in answer to smth, be of assistance to smbd) seem to have a stative kind of meaning compared with the kindred simple eventive verb (cf. respectively acknowledge smth, ally onslf with smbd, answer smbd/smth, assist smbd with a more dynamic meaning). The two examples with on (namely be on approval, be on the attack), despite their difference in voice, appear to share the meaning of ‘provisional or temporary action’, a meaning that is clearly connected to the punctual meaning of on in its most basic locational sense. If the preposition on is equivocal as regards voice, the preposition under is definitively passive: the examples be under anaesthesia/analysis/arrest/attack 90 are all clearly related to kindred simple eventive verb patterns but with a passive meaning (cf. be anaesthetized, be analysed, etc.); however whereas such passives are usually ambiguous between a stative and a dynamic reading, the stretched verb constructions only have a stative interpretation. In all of these Structure 4 patterns the very thin verb be unsurprisingly seems unable to contract an especially close relationship to the preposition, which instead appears to form a close bond with any following prepositional modifier, often giving the effect that the combination [preposition + eventive noun + preposition] forms something of a lexical unit, almost a complex preposition, e.g. in aid of, in agreement with. The prepositional objoids of Structure 5 have been found to occur with the prepositions for, from, in, into, to, under and with, the first two of these having only one example each, namely come in for sm abuse from/at-the-handsof smbd, suffer from an ailment. The first of these has a passive sense, which seems to be a regular meaning of come in for in such combinations (cf. come in for criticism, come in for (close) scrutiny), although this is difficult to link to the core meaning of ‘purpose’. The second preposition from seems to have been selected to collocate with the verb suffer in its core meaning, and this is certainly present still to some degree in the stretched verb construction, with the result that the subject is interpreted as the ‘experiencer’, whereas 90 The pair of stretched verb constructions be on the attack versus be under attack shows an especially interesting contrast in the value of the prepositions.

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Modifiers and qualifiers

157

this semantic role appears in objoid position with the simple verb ail (cf. I can see what ails you). The two attested examples with in, namely engage in an activity and come in addition to smth seem to be quite different in nature: the first seems to have its preposition selected by the thin verb (engage in) and to have a ‘progressive’ kind of meaning; the second would appear to have a preposition with a close connection to the eventive noun and form a complex adverb or preposition (in addition (to)). All the examples involving the preposition into (e.g. bring smth into alignment, move into action, get into an argument) have an inceptive meaning. Although some constructions containing to also have this inceptive meaning (namely come/go to the aid/assistance of smbd) two other different patterns with to are also found: the expressions subject smth to analysis and call smbd to account apparently have a semantic feature of ‘deliberateness’ compared with their simple eventive verb alternatives (analyse smth, make smbd account for smth); and the examples come to an accord/agreement/arrangement with smbd have a completive kind of meaning, suggesting the end of a process. The Structure 5 constructions with under (place/put smbd under arrest) are passive in meaning like their Structure 4 counterparts (like be under arrest), but they also seem to have the feature of ‘deliberateness’ noted for the preposition to. Finally the preposition with seems to occur with two different values: in the majority of cases it is apparently collocationally selected by the thin verb (either with an object, as in fill . . . with, present . . . with, provide . . . with, or without an object, as in meet with) and has little clear semantic value, apart from signalling the mental effect produced or service provided; but in one attested example (receive smbd with acclaim) the preposition seems to mark an accompanying manner. The only nominal pattern we have not assessed for prepositional qualifiers is Structure 2, with its agentive-eventive nouns. Here, too, the most popular preposition is of, occurring as it does with nouns like abetter/-or, abhorrer, abridger, abuser, accompanist, accuser, addressee, admirer, adorer, advocate, agent, ally, arranger, associate, avenger, and, with to as an alternative, for assistant. Other prepositions found are against (after aggressor and agitator), between (after arbitrator), for (after advocate, agent and applicant) and from (after absentee and abstainer). The choice of preposition is generally the same as for a kindred eventive noun, e.g. abhorrer/abhorrence of, absentee/absence from, abstainer/abstinence from, abuser/abuse of, aggressor/aggression against, applicant/ application for, arranger/arrangement of. But sometimes there is a change in the choice of, or at least in the preference for, prepositions, cf. admirer of/*for smbd but admiration for/?of smbd; assistant of/(?)to smbd but assistance to/?of smbd. The semantic role of these prepositional qualifiers is usually that of ‘affected entity’ (= ‘patient’) or of ‘mental focus’, the two most typical semantic roles for objects of verbs. This dovetails neatly with the fact that the agentive noun itself, thanks to its agentive suffix (-er, -ant/ent, -ist, etc.) represents the subject. Schematically we can represent this state of affairs as follows:

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11

158 The event phrase kindred e.g. arrang(e)

VERB

+

-er = SUBJECT -er

+

prepositional qualifier = OBJECT of the music

This close syntactic–semantic connection between kindred verb, deverbal affix and preposition phrase perhaps explains why these preposition phrases are commonly incorporated as prepositional qualifiers of the agentiveeventive noun, and not left as prepositional objoids like some preposition phrases after standard eventive nouns, as noted at the beginning of this section. Summing up the functions of prepositions and preposition phrases in stretched verb constructions, we can say that semantically they are relatively thin, but that in many cases their core meanings are at least relevant to the interpretation of the whole construction. Lexically they seem to contract links either with the thin verb (on the basis of its semantically full interpretation) or with the eventive noun at the heart of the construction.

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III.3 Agentive adjective phrases

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III.3.i Agentive-eventive adjectives The stretched verb constructions of Structure 1, unlike all others, involve an adjective-based construction: a copular verb like be combines with an adjective that has an agentive meaning (or, more strictly, an agentiveeventive meaning, i.e. one that describes the quality taken on by a subject performing the event described by the verb). Thus be active, for instance, is a kindred structure to the simplex verb phrase act, with the adjective relying on its morphological derivation from the verb to give it its agentive-eventive meaning. Thus, although an ‘agent’, or some other semantic role associated with the grammatical subject, implies an underlying event, this event is referred to only obliquely, through the quality designated by the adjective. The range of morphological means for forming ‘subject’s role’ adjectives is given in Table 3.7. The data are in one respect untypical: as a result of our decision to concentrate on examples with orthographic initial A, the prefix a- is overrepresented. But in other respects the examples are reasonably representative. It is worth noting that the examples with suffixed -ing and -ed/-en are original present and past verb participles that have been lexicalized as adjectives derived from the verb. This can be demonstrated in two ways: the first is if they take purely adjective premodifiers like very or too; the second is if they are impossible with the object noun phrase that the kindred verb normally requires. Consider these examples: (20) (a) Sebastian fully/*very accommodated our needs. (b) *Sebastian (fully) accommodated. (c) Sebastian was very/*fully accommodating. (21) (a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

The news alarmed Sybil greatly/*very. *The news (greatly) alarmed. The news was very/*greatly alarming. Sybil was very alarmed. Sybil was greatly alarmed.

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160 The event phrase Table 3.7 Modes of derivation of agentive-eventive adjectives Prefixation with a-

Suffixation with -ist

AFLOAT AGAPE AGLEAM AGLITTER AGLOW ALIVE ASLEEP

ALARMIST

Suffixation with -able/-ible ABOMINABLE ACCEPTABLE ACCESSIBLE ACCOUNTABLE ANSWERABLE

Suffixation with -ive ABUSIVE ACQUISITIVE ACTIVE ADHESIVE AGGRESSIVE APPRECIATIVE ARGUMENTATIVE ATTENTIVE ATTRACTIVE

Suffixation with -ous ADVANTAGEOUS

Suffixation with -ant/-ent ABHORRENT ABSORBENT ABUNDANT

Suffixation with -some AWESOME

Suffixation with -y Suffixation with -ed/-en1

ANGRY

ABANDONED ACCUSTOMED ACQUAINTED ANNOYED

Replacement of suffix with -etic APOLOGETIC

Suffixation with -ic(al) ANALYTIC(AL)

Replacement of suffix with -istic

ANTAGONISTIC APOLOGETIC AUTOMATIC

ANTAGONISTIC

Suffixation with -ing 2 ABSORBING ACCOMMODATING ALARMING ALLURING AMAZING AMUSING ANNOYING APPALLING ASTONISHING ASTOUNDING

Zero (in some cases with stress shift) ABSENT ALERT ALTERNATIVE APPROXIMATE ARTICULATE

Notes: 1 when used, not simply as an inflection for the past participle, but to form a new (derived) adjective. 2 when used, not simply as an inflection to form the gerund or present participle, but to form a new (derived) adjective.

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Agentive adjective phrases 161 The examples of (20) illustrate this point for an -ing adjective: thus (20)(a) exemplifies typical use of the kindred verb, which rejects very as a degree adverb to modify it; (20)(b) shows how the verb requires its object to be present;91 (20)(c) makes clear that (scalar gradable) adjectives co-occur with very but reject the appropriate verbal adverbs like fully or greatly. The examples of (21)(a) to (c) make the same point for another -ing adjective. But (21)(d) and (e) demonstrate how things are rather more complicated with -ed/-en adjectives because of the semantic closeness of the verbal and the corresponding adjectival construction: roughly, very in (21)(d) identifies an adjectival construction with the verb be in a stative meaning, while greatly in (21)(e) requires a verbal interpretation, with be + -ed/-en used as a marker of passive. The adjectives in Structure 1 are part of an adjective phrase in the syntactic position referred to in this volume as ‘descriptor’ but often described as ‘predicative’, as opposed to ‘attributive’, i.e. part of a noun phrase. It has already been noted, for instance by Quirk et al. (1985: 428–32), that some adjectives are limited to this position, particularly adjectives of aspect/range (e.g. medical) and of factual status (e.g. principal), but equally that some are limited to predicative position. Among the latter category are all those in Table 3.7 that involve the prefix a-, such as afloat. These adjectives, indeed all agentive-eventive adjectives in predicative position, belong to the semantic subcategory of adjectives of quality. Turning, then, to the semantic value of descriptor adjectives, we find that they describe different aspects or facets of the referent of the subject noun phrase. These facets are summarized in Table 3.8. Of the semantic facets shown in this Table, some are valid for a person or a thing, namely their evaluation (advantageous), their factual status or relevance (e.g. abundant, approximate), their physical nature (e.g. absorbent, automatic), their physical state (e.g. active, afloat, asleep) and their mental effect on a person (e.g. acceptable, alarming), while others only apply to persons, namely their behaviour or attitude (e.g. abusive, apologetic) and their social status or relationship (accountable). What they perhaps all share is that they tell us something about the state or condition of the subject, whereas the corresponding simplex verb pattern typically tells us about an event or situation in which the subject is involved. In most cases the adjective-based constructions of Structure 1 have a subject that corresponds to the subject of the kindred simplex pattern, but in patterns (1–2–02–0–0) to (1–2–04–0–0) there is a restructuring, involving mental effects by a stimulus on an experiencer. In pattern (1–2–02–0–0) (e.g. be acceptable to smbd) there is a mental stimulus as subject and an experiencer as a prepositional objoid, but the simplex verb pattern (e.g. accept 91 Indeed, the way adjectives leave the object of the kindred verb unmentioned is probably one reason for the existence of Structure 1: it gives speakers the option of leaving out something that they do not wish to mention.

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162 The event phrase Table 3.8 Semantic facets of subjects expressed by agentive adjectives as descriptors Social status/relationship (of person) ACCOUNTABLE ANSWERABLE

AGLITTER AGLOW ALIVE ARTICULATE ASLEEP

(Mental) behaviour/attitude1 ABUSIVE ACCOMMODATING ACCUSTOMED ACQUAINTED ACQUISITIVE AGGRESSIVE ALARMIST ALERT ANALYTIC ANGRY ANNOYED ANTAGONISTIC APOLOGETIC APPRECIATIVE ARGUMENTATIVE ATTENTIVE

Mental effect (on person)2 ABHORRENT ABOMINABLE ABSORBING ACCEPTABLE ALARMING ALLURING AMAZING AMUSING ANNOYING APPALLING ASTONISHING ASTOUNDING ATTRACTIVE AWESOME

Physical state of person or thing ACTIVE AFLOAT AGAPE AGLEAM

Notes: 1 behaviour/attitude of smbd who V-s. 2 mental effect on smbd who is V-ed.

Physical nature of person or thing ABSORBENT ADHESIVE AUTOMATIC

Evaluation of person or thing ADVANTAGEOUS

Factual status or relevance ABSENT ABUNDANT ALTERNATIVE ANTICIPATIVE/-ORY APPROXIMATIVE

Situation/location of person or thing ABANDONED ACCESSIBLE

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111

Agentive adjective phrases 163 smth) has the experiencer as subject, with the mental stimulus appearing as object. In pattern (1–2–03–0–0), on the other hand, the adjective-based structure (e.g. be angry about smth) has an experiencer as subject and a mental stimulus as prepositional qualifier, but the simplex verb pattern (e.g. anger smbd) has a mental stimulus as subject, with the experiencer appearing as object.

III.3.ii Agentive adjective modification and complementation We have seen that agentive adjectives are adjectives of quality. As such they may be ungradable or gradable, and if they are of the latter type, they may be scalar, absolutive or telic/‘liminal’. When considering adjectives that modify eventive nouns (see above section III.2.i), we referred briefly to these different kinds of gradability. They can be aptly illustrated with adjectives of size, as follows: (a) ungradable: (b) gradable: (i) scalar: (ii) absolutive: (iii) telic/‘liminal’:

(?very/?absolutely/?only just) jumbo/mini (very/?absolutely/?only just) large/small (?very/absolutely/?only just) huge/tiny (?very/?absolutely/only just) sufficient

Ungradables offer a yes/no choice; scalar gradables assess the distance along a scale with intensifiers like very, rather, slightly; absolutive gradables express a superlative degree and only allow a corresponding intensifier (absolutely, utterly, etc.); finally, telic or ‘liminal’ gradables implicitly refer to a target or threshold which may be reached or missed by a narrow or wide margin, allowing intensifiers like (only just, easily, not quite, nowhere near), often implying a development through time. Which kind or kinds of degree modification, if any, do the adjectives in our database permit? Non-gradable adjectives found in the database are absent, accountable, afloat, alive, alternate, answerable, anticipative/-ory, automatic. These mostly correspond to simplex verbs that designate events which take place or designate relationships which either clearly do or clearly do not hold. Intensifiers of any kind are therefore generally superfluous. The word alive is however sometimes used in a transferred sense (meaning roughly ‘lively, energetic’) with scalar intensifiers, e.g. very alive; but be (very) alive in this sense no longer corresponds to the simplex live and thus cannot qualify as a stretched verb construction. In an analogous way the meaning of automatic can be adjusted from its binary value (‘automatic’ versus ‘manual’) to mean something like ‘effortless, foolproof’, in which sense absolutely or completely could be used as modifiers. The largest group of agentive adjectives is those that are gradable in a scalar sense, i.e. that allow modification with very, etc. Adjectives in this group comprise absorbent, abundant, abusive, accessible, accommodating, active,

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164 The event phrase adhesive, advantageous, aggressive, alarmist, amusing, analytical, angry, annoying, annoyed, antagonistic, apologetic, appreciative, approximate, articulate, attentive, attractive. They can all be queried for their degree with the construction How ADJECTIVE . . . ? This wide range means that they cover all kinds of meaning. Absolutives are rather more limited. They fall into two semantic groups: agape, agleam, aglitter and aglow refer to physical states or processes with a sensory effect, whereas abhorrent, abominable, amazing, appalling, astonishing, astounding, awesome describe a mental or attitudinal response to some person, thing or eventuality. A smaller group of adjectives allow either scalar or absolutive modification (e.g. rather/very absorbing beside absolutely/utterly absorbing); the group comprises absorbing, acceptable, accustomed, alarming, alert. Finally, one adjective, asleep, has telic modification, cf. nowhere near asleep, not quite asleep, only just asleep, well/sound asleep, but shades into scalar modification, thus fast asleep, deeply asleep, lightly asleep. Let us turn now from the intensifiers that premodify the adjectives in Structure 1 constructions to the preposition phrases that follow them as complements. These postqualifiers of adjectives may include any of the prepositions about, at, for, from, of, to, towards and with; some adjectives permit a choice between two of these prepositions. In general, though, the choice of preposition gives an indication of the semantic role of the phrase it introduces. A common semantic role for the prepositional complement is that of ‘mental goal’, i.e. the focus or target of the mind when it experiences the behaviour expressed by the adjective: in the meaning, accountable, accustomed, answerable and attentive require to; alert requires to; and acquainted requires with. The semantic role of ‘mental stimulus’, on the other hand, refers to the phenomenon that causes a particular mental reaction: for this meaning agape takes at; angry and annoyed take about, with or at; accountable takes for; and appreciative takes of. The person or persons who are subjected to the particular kind of behaviour can be described as ‘patients’ (or as ‘affected persons’): they are introduced by the preposition to or its close relative towards following the adjectives abusive, accommodating, aggressive, antagonistic and apologetic. Persons, however, who experience such a mental reaction can, with the appropriate adjective, be referred to in a prepositional complement: this meaning is expressed by to or for after the adjectives abhorrent, abominable, absorbing, acceptable, accessible, advantageous, alarming, alluring, amazing, amusing, annoying, appalling, astonishing, astounding, attractive and awesome. Finally there are some more minor prepositional complements: a location at which someone or something is not present is introduced by the preposition from in the combination absent from; a province, sphere or field is expressed by in in the combination active in; and the entity characterized is expressed also by in in the combination abundant in (e.g. abundant in oil, cf. also oil in abundance). As to the syntactic value of these preposition phrases, a few are integrated as prepositional complements of the object noun, i.e. as elaborators of the adjective, while the majority remain as outer elaborators, qualifying

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Agentive adjective phrases 165 rather the verb or the verb–adjective-complex as a whole. Integrated adjective complements are found in patterns like be appreciative of smth or be attentive to smth, while outer verb phrase elaborators can be exemplified by be alarming to/for smbd, be acceptable to/for smbd, be analytic about smth or be antagonistic towards smbd, cf.: (22) (a) Sybil was very appreciative of Peregrine. (b) ?Of Peregrine Sybil was very appreciative. (c) Peregrine(,) Sybil was very appreciative of.

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(23) (a) Sybil was very antagonistic towards Peregrine. (b) Towards Peregrine Sybil was very antagonistic. (c) ?Peregrine(,) Sybil was very antagonistic towards. As the examples of (22) and (23) show, a preposition phrase that is a complement to a descriptor adjective cannot be naturally fronted as a sentential theme or topic (although its component noun phrase can), whereas a preposition phrase that elaborates an outer verb phrase can readily be thematized, certainly more readily than its constituent noun phrase. These outer verb phrase elaborators mainly refer to persons and have semantic roles like ‘experiencer’ or ‘patient’.

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Part IV

The thin verb

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IV.1 The individual thin verbs, their meanings and collocations

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IV.1.i Thinness and predictability of meaning Apart from the deverbal (eventive) noun phrase (including any qualifiers and modifiers it may have) the other essential constituent of a stretched verb construction is the thin verb that helps stretch the construction to verb phrase status. It is clear that such semantically lightweight elements have a syntactic role to play, and indeed they have to be selected so as to be of a suitable valency for the following noun phrase or preposition phrase: a copular verb is needed for Structures 1, 2, 3 and 4, an intransitive verb for Structure 5, and a transitive verb for Structure 6. But precisely how are the individual thin verbs selected – on a purely syntactic basis, on an arbitrary lexical basis, or on a semantic basis? The ways deverbal eventive nouns combine with thin verbs can be compared with the way such nouns combine with thin prepositions. When we considered this question in the previous section, we found there that a limited number of prepositions is used, and that they are selected partly as a lexical combination with the deverbal noun, but that this choice is in part semantically motivated. In the case of combinations of thin verb with deverbal noun, there is, however, a difference of scale: whereas we found in our corpus about fifteen prepositions combining with a total of about 130 eventive nouns (giving something over 300 combinations), we find the 130 eventive nouns combining with 110 verbs (to give about 350 combinations). It is clear that many more combinations will be found as soon as the database is extended to cover nouns beginning with letters of the alphabet other than ‘A’, and the number of nouns will increase commensurately. The number of prepositions is likely to stay the same, whereas the number of thin verbs will probably rise moderately. The verbs used in Structures 1, 2, 3 and 4 are copular and chosen regularly without any collocational restrictions. For Structures 5 and 6, on the other hand, the situation is different: the thin verb is selected specifically for use in the stretched verb construction and the choice is largely determined by the noun. The basic statistics found for Structures 5 and 6 can be roughly summarized as follows (where noun means ‘deverbal eventive noun’):

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170 The thin verb 132 nouns (some polysemous, giving rise to 143 noun meanings) 15 prepositions 113 thin verbs92 180 or so noun + preposition 350 or so thin verb + noun combinations combinations Projecting the figures to what they might be for the whole of the English lexicon, we might assume that prepositions have virtually reached their peak and thin verbs will no more than double and thus arrive at statistics something like the following: 2,400 nouns (some polysemous, giving rise to 2,600 noun meanings) 15 prepositions 150 thin verbs93 3,000 combinations of noun 7,000 combinations of + preposition thin verb + noun On the face of it, then, the main difference between the two kinds of combination lies in the smaller number of prepositions, which is not so surprising considering their status as grammatical function words. This would suggest that thin verbs, belonging to a larger paradigm, simply have a slightly ‘thicker’ meaning than prepositions. Closer inspection of the statistics, however, reveals a slightly more complex situation. If we look at the overall frequency (combining the figures for postnominal qualifiers and other preposition phrases occurring after deverbal nouns, both eventive and agentive) we find the following figures, counting cases of free variation: to for of with to/0 from

86 56 50 48 41 39

of/’s on in at against

37 21 20 18 10

at-the-hands-of between into among

8 8 5 1

This reveals a range from the very rare among through between, at-the-handsof, into and against with low frequency and at, in and on with middle frequency to the high frequency items about, for, from, of, of/’s, to,94 to/0, and with with no very large breaks along the scale. If we now turn to combinations of thin verbs with a deverbal eventive 92 The figure is based on counting prepositional verbs as instances of the simple verb but counting phrasal verbs (with adverbs) as separate items. 93 The figure is based on counting prepositional verbs as instances of the simple verb but counting phrasal verbs (with adverbs) as separate items. 94 Evidently of and of/’s could be merged to give 87, and to and to/0 could be merged to give 127, but this would not greatly change the overall picture.

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The individual thin verbs 171 Table 4.1 Frequency of thin verbs in structures 5 and 61 (in combination with deverbal nouns in data base) make give have get carry-out feel grant provide receive suffer cause come do offer find undergo form go put-in take work-out arouse commit gain obtain perform present reach

54 29 15 13 10 10 9 9 9 9 8 7 7 7 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 3

TOTAL 360.

secure spark-off add arrive attract bring call capture catch command elicit enter file hold incur induce meet place practise press provoke put put-on render retain stir-up win afford

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assume break bring-about bring-in burst calculate come-in conclude conduct create dance deliver devote draw drive-home effect engage experience express extend fill focus forge heap hurl indulge initiate inspire

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issue launch lie lodge minister mount move negotiate pay precipitate press-home produce pronounce publish put-forward put-up record register run send-in shout shower stimulate strike-up subject submit wait

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(Structures 1, 2, 3 and 4 all have be with a total of 109 occurrences.)

Note: 1 The figure is based on counting prepositional verbs (as in come to the aid of smbd) as instances of the simple verb (here come) but counting phrasal verbs (with adverbs) (as in come in for abuse) as separate items (here come-in).

noun, again for Structures 5 and 6, we find a rather different profile. Consider the data presented in Table 4.1. As a preliminary, it is worth noting the obvious fact that, despite the rough equality of numbers in our data between eventive nouns and thin verbs (just over a hundred of each), they are not equal partners. We have already observed that in a comprehensive database, the eventive nouns would probably rise twentyfold, while the thin verbs would no more than double. Equally importantly, the eventive nouns have a fairly even distribution, with the most prolific of them only achieving combinations with thirteen different thin verbs. The thin verbs, on the other hand, show a rather different picture, in the sense that a small group of items dominate, with the top four verbs covering nearly one third of the instances

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172 The thin verb (111 out of 361), and with half of the verbs (56 out of 111) having only one occurrence each. It is natural enough that thin verbs should ultimately be fewer in number than eventive nouns, because they have a thinner, more grammatical meaning and are the ‘servants’ in a ‘master–servant’ collocation (see Part V and Allerton 1990b: 30–5) But the unevenness in the distribution of thin verbs is a different matter and is in need of explanation. Of course these verbs differ in their valency and thus in which of the different stretched verb structures they appear (this point will be considered in section III.2.ii). But over and above that we can ask the question, to what extent they need to be modified in meaning, compared with their normal use, to fit into a stretched verb construction. We also need to ask if and when they are simply selected by the eventive noun, and whether this selection is arbitrary or based on some kind of semantic congruence between the noun and the verb. In this connection it will be worth paying attention to eventive nouns that take different but apparently nondistinctive thin verbs, and asking whether thin verbs that occur with a wide variety of eventive nouns have a similar meaning in all cases. Building on an earlier discussion of thin verbs, under the label ‘general verbs’, cf. Allerton (1984a: 31–4) we can distinguish different grades according to frequency and freedom of collocation: (i) those of high frequency and freedom of collocation (including get, give, have, make, and also be for Structures 1, 2, 3 and 4); (ii) those of medium frequency and freedom of collocation (such as cause, find, offer and suffer); (iii) those of low frequency and freedom of collocation (such as add, calculate, focus, pay); and (iv) those that are unique or nearly unique to one particular deverbal noun (e.g. dance in dance attendance on smbd, lodge in lodge an appeal).95

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Such a grouping can of course only be approximate and provisional. For one thing, it is not yet clear whether the frequencies listed in Table 4.1 for collocations with eventive nouns beginning with the letter ‘A’ are at all typical for the English lexicon as a whole. A thin verb that occurs only once in our data (which represent perhaps 5 per cent of the whole English lexicon) might occur twenty times in the whole lexicon, but it might not occur again at all. Similarly, some verbs might be over- or under-represented by the statistics given in Table 4.1: there are grounds for believing that the verb take, for instance, occurs rather more commonly than these figures (four occurrences out of 361) suggest (cf. take a bath, take a look, take a ride, take a shower, take a walk; take offence etc.). All thin verbs have a rather general meaning and are semantically more 95 In a few cases the thin verb occurs exclusively in the company of the eventive noun, e.g. curry favour with smbd; this gives the expression in question the status of an idiom.

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The individual thin verbs 173 lightweight than the same verb would have been in a normal context. The difference in semantic value is obviously connected with their relationship to the eventive nouns they combine with, in that an eventive noun selects an appropriate meaning from the range of meanings available for the verb.96 This selection must presumably work out differently according to the frequency and freedom of collocation of the verb in question, since a high frequency verb like do or have, with its typically wide range of meanings to select from, is semantically more flexible than a low frequency verb like add or focus, with its typically narrow range of meaning, from which little or no semantic selection is necessary or even possible. Thus at the two extremes of frequency two radically different strategies of semantic selection seem to be operating: high frequency thin verbs are general enough to fit in with the semantics of a wide range of eventive nouns; low frequency thin verbs are semantically precise, but their very preciseness creates a niche, and their semantic congruence with an individual eventive noun forms a bond with it usually involving a degree of redundancy (as in add an appendix or ask a question).97 Let us begin by considering thin verbs of high frequency, i.e. high frequency in general use, as exhibited by a data-base like the LOB, for which we could take over 1,200 occurrences as a cut-off point for high frequency. On this basis (which corresponds fairly well to the total number of polysemous readings)98 the verbs be, come, do, get, give, go, have, make and go can be considered as belonging to this group. As the following statistics make clear, they are not all equally represented in stretched verb constructions: Thin verb

Text frequency

Submeanings overall

Submeanings in str. vb constr.

Occurrences in str. vb constr.

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BE COME DO GET GIVE GO HAVE MAKE TAKE

41,295 1,607 4,317 1,402 1,469 2,117 13,334 2,471 1,835

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96 As a result, the same verb-plus-noun combination can be found with two different meanings, according to whether the verb is occurring in a normal use or as a thin verb, e.g. take smbd’s notes compared with take notes (for smbd). 97 Such redundancy is particularly obvious in combinations involving morphologically related verbs and nouns, such as so-called ‘cognate objects’ like sing a song. See V. 1. iii. 98 The number and identity of polysemous readings proposed here has taken the lists given in the Cambridge International Dictionary of English as a starting point, but the analysis has been modified considerably and examples have been added.

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174 The thin verb As we might expect, there is a general correlation between text frequency and broadness of meaning, as partly reflected in the number of polysemous readings. What is at first sight less obvious is why the verbs make and give should be rather overrepresented in thin verb use, while go and take are rather underrepresented. A closer examination of individual readings might explain this, for instance by showing that they are the most suited to being thin verbs because they are best able to carry the verbal meaning that remains once the meaning of the deverbal noun has been extracted. In considering this question, we should remember that the semantic basis for using these high frequency verbs seems to be that the verb already has a wide range of meanings, and if one of them is not suitable for combining with the eventive noun, a further related meaning can readily be developed. We should also bear in mind that the list of submeanings given for each verb represents just one attempt to distinguish and enumerate the ‘different’ meanings to be observed; clearly every observer would come up with a slightly different list. But the aim in what follows is to differentiate all meanings that do not always go together (in other languages) and to put together meanings that can be regarded as being predictable from a knowledge of the accompanying subjects (and objects). Listing these separate meanings does not imply that they are unrelated; on the contrary, we shall assume that polysemy rather than homonymy is the norm.99 Submeanings certainly can form at least a chain of linked readings and more commonly a set of meanings with multiple connections between them. It may even be possible to find a common thread running through all the polysemous readings for a given verb, as Ruhl (1989) advocates. In considering the range of meanings of each verb, analysable collocations have been included, but opaque idioms have been excluded. In the lists that follow many examples have been chosen from the Cambridge International Dictionary of English, which uses real text examples and organizes them into polysemous readings in a systematic way (though this does not correspond perfectly to the organization adopted here). The examples quoted are verb phrases, in the sense of verb elaboration structures, and they therefore appear in the (bare) infinitive form. Where ambiguity is a problem, a possible subject noun phrase has been added in square brackets before the verb phrase. Some colloquial or idiomatic expressions have been given as full sentences in quotation marks.

IV.1.ii Thin verbs of high frequency The most common verb, as measured by text frequency, is be, which occurs in Structures 1, 2, 3 and 4, but of course also in a wide range of other uses. Its total range of submeanings for all its uses, with relevant examples, 99 in so far as it is even possible or necessary to make a distinction between them, cf. Aarts and Calbert (1979: 121–3), Cruse (1986: 79–80).

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The individual thin verbs 175 is summarized under (a) to (r) below. (Examples containing instances of the verb be have the relevant one in bold italics.) (a) ‘instantiate a type of event or situation’ (be an accident, be a difficulty, be a shame, etc.); (b) ‘equal/constitute’ ([Two and two] be four, [P. and Q.] be a married couple, etc.); (c) ‘come to be identified as’ (be John/me, be the problem, be the general feeling, etc.); (d) ‘count as a member of a class’ (be a doctor, be a mother, be a metal, etc.); (e) ‘possess the (permanent) characteristic/quality designated as . . . (-ness)’ (be rich, be afraid of the dark, be quiet by nature, be a fool, be self-assured, be able to do smth, be pure gold, be onslf, etc.); (f) ‘pass through the (temporary) state/quality designated as . . . (-ness)’ (be ill, be unhappy, be cold, be hungry, be naked, be in a panic, be being a fool, be certain/sure about smth, be angry, be in trouble again, etc.); (g) ‘behave in a manner that is’ (be (being) nice to smbd, be honest with smbd, etc.); (h) ‘have the function of, play the part of, act as’ (be the author/source of smth, be the brains behind smth/smbd, be a/the front for smbd/smth, etc.); (i) ‘have a particular emotive attitude towards smbd/smth’ (be for/against smth, be in favour of smth, be out of touch with smbd, be at odds with smbd, etc.); (j) ‘cost/measure/weigh’ (be 50p each, be six foot tall, be twenty stone, etc.); (k) ‘find oneself/be found somewhere’ (be there, be in my soup, be on the table, etc.); (l) ‘occur’ (be next Tuesday, be during the rush-hour, etc.); (m) ‘exist’ (cease to be, [There] be no room, [There] be no sound, to be or not to be, etc.); (n) ‘continue in progress’ [ = in PROGRESSIVE construction] (be eating, be being selfish, be studying, be coming back etc.); (o) ‘undergo a process’ [in PASSIVE construction] (be pushed, not be asked, be encouraged to leave, be discovered, be gone into, etc.); (p) (be to) ‘should’ (be to visit Australia in the spring, be never to see smbd again, etc.); (q) (be to) ‘must’ (be to sit in the corner, be not to play near the river, be to do what?, etc.); (r) (be to) ‘can’ (be currently to be seen at the City Gallery etc.). Of these eighteen meanings distinguished for the whole range of be only nine have been found in stretched verb constructions. Submeaning (a) (‘instantiate a type of event or situation’) is found in Structure 3 patterns like be an abuse of smth, be an agreement, be an answer to smth, be an attack on smbd, be an agreement between X and Y. Submeaning (d) (‘count as a member of a class’), by contrast, is seen in Structure 2 patterns like be an

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176 The thin verb assistant/adviser, be an acquaintance of smbd, be an absconder. Submeaning (e) (‘possess the (permanent) quality’) occurs naturally with adjectives and thus with Structure 1 patterns like be abhorrent, be abstinent, be accountable, be acquisitive, be attractive, be authoritative; this also applies to submeaning (f) (‘pass through the (temporary) state/quality designated as . . . (-ness)’) as found in as in be active, be affected, be angry, but this meaning is also found in Structure 4 patterns like be in agreement, be on the attack, be under anaesthesia. A further adjectival submeaning is (g) (‘behave in a manner that is’) as seen in be abusive, be aggressive, be alarmist, be analytic, be apologetic, be appreciative, be argumentative, be assertive and be attentive. The submeaning (h) (‘have the function of, play the part of, act as’) regularly occurs in Structure 2 patterns, as in be an abstainer, be an accompanist, be an accuser, be an actor, be an adjudicator, be an adviser, be an appellant, be an applicant, be an arbitrator, be an assessor, be an assistant. A further source of adjectival structures is meaning (i) (‘have a particular relationship towards smbd/smth’), as seen in be alternate, be accountable to smbd, but this meaning seems to be more common in combinations with preposition phrases including Structure 4, as in be for/against smth, be in favour of smth, be in acknowledgement of smth, be in answer to smbd/smth, be in accord/agreement/alliance with smbd, be in alternation with smth, be in addition to smth. A rare pattern is Structure 3 with submeaning (j) (‘cost/measure/weigh’), as in be an average of smth and smth. Finally submeaning (o) (‘undergo a process’) is found in some Structure patterns with a preposition phrase, cf. be on offer, be under threat, be in use, be under analysis, be on approval, be under arrest, be under attack, all of which have a passive meaning. The range of meanings for the verb be is so wide, that it is not possible to find an overall meaning, however abstract, other than saying that it is a ‘linking’ or ‘connecting’ verb, but the type of connection depends partly on the kind of element with which the subject has been ‘linked’. As we have seen, some of these are adjectives (with various kinds of meaning, including permanent, temporary and actional), some are agentive nouns, but the majority are eventive nouns, and for these predicatives (or ‘descriptors’) the interpretation again depends on whether they take the form of noun phrases or preposition phrases. If we turn to the thin verb come, we again find a wide variety of submeanings, which can be presented as follows: (a) ‘move towards here or towards where the speaker was/is/will be’ (come over (to me), have come (a long way) to this exhibition, come (back (to London)), come (along/away/down/out/over/through) here (from smwh) etc.); (b) ‘reach its/their destination’ ([The post] come at ten, [A train/A report/Money/Produce/The tide] come in, come on (stage), [The time] come, [Results/A visa] come through/in, etc.); (c) ‘achieve, accomplish’ (come to an agreement/arrangement, etc.);

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The individual thin verbs 177 (d) (e) (f) (g) (h) (i)

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‘reach a climax’ (come to fruition, come to a climax); ‘happen’ (come to be here, [An occasion] come round often, come about); ‘receive’ (come into money); ‘be affected by, experience, suffer’ (come up for renewal, come in for abuse, come under attack, etc.); ‘appear on the scene’ (come to smbd’s attention/notice, come to the rescue, come in addition to smth, etc.); ‘change state to be, become’ (come on, come open, come good, come right, come out, come into fashion, come into flower, come (in)to prominence, etc.); ‘start, originate an action’ (come out on strike, come up with an idea, come to smbd’s aid/assistance, etc.); ‘originate from’ (come from smwh/smbd, come out of smwh, etc.); ‘change position from smwh’ (come apart/down/loose/off, etc.); ‘appear in sequence’ (come first/last/nowhere, come before/after smbd/smth, etc.); ‘can be found in context’ (come in three sizes/another colour/all shapes, come in a pink box/with its own wrapping, not come cheap); ‘act like’ (come the innocent, come the anxious parent, come the old soldier, etc.).

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Of these fifteen meanings only four seem to appear in stretched verb constructions. Because of the basic valency of come the only syntactic pattern to occur is Structure 5, which always involves a preposition. Submeaning (c) (‘achieve, accomplish’) is found in combination with the preposition to and the nouns accord, agreement and arrangement; submeaning (g) (‘be affected by, experience, suffer’) occurs with the nouns abuse and attack preceded by (in) for and under respectively; submeaning (h) (‘appear on the scene’) turns up with phrases like in addition and to smbd’s attention, (in)to prominence; finally, submeaning (j) (‘start, originate an action’) is found before the preposition to and the nouns aid and assistance in a possessive construction. Considering now the thin verb do, we again find a great reduction of submeanings compared with the overall meanings available for the verb, roughly as follows: (a) ‘CODE’ [i.e. use as a pro-auxiliary] (‘Do you want to go?’, ‘Where do you work?’, ‘They don’t like beer’, etc.); (b) ‘perform it’ [= ‘pro-VP’] (‘I could do, but I won’t’, ‘Will you do it for me?’, ‘Do so’, ‘I already have done’, etc.); (c) ‘happen’ (‘There’s nothing/something doing’); (d) ‘be acceptable’ ([This room] do, [This behaviour] not do, never do, do smbd very well, etc.); (e) ‘manage’ (do fine/all right in one’s new job, do very well/badly, do well for onslf, etc.);

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178 The thin verb (f) ‘act/behave’ (do as one is told, do as smbd else does, do right/the right thing, do well to . . . , etc.); (g) ‘perform on stage, etc.’ (do a play, have done all the important roles, do James Bond, do a brilliant impression, etc.); (h) ‘perform/carry out’ (be doing smth, do a stupid thing, do smbd harm, do damage to smth, do everything possible, do one’s best, do business with smbd, do smth about smth, do smth for/to smbd, do smth for a living, do one’s homework/a job, etc.); (i) ‘offer service’ (do three for the price of one, do travel insurance as well as flights, do repairs, do food at lunch-time, do smbd good, do smbd a good turn, etc.); (j) ‘treat suitably’ (do the film reviews/the talking, do the dishes/the carrots/the catering, do the garden wall, do the living room, do my shoes, do one’s nails/teeth, do the flowers (beautifully), get one’s hair done, do for smbd, etc.); (k) ‘treat badly, harm’ (do smbd (good and proper), do a house (while the owners are away), have been done, do smbd out of a thousand quid, etc.); (l) ‘study’ (do Chapter 4, do sm Chinese, do History at London University etc.); (m) ‘complete, finish’ (do a puzzle, do a sum, do crosswords, do me twenty photocopies, do a history essay/paper, have done with the scissors, have not done with smbd/talking to smbd, ‘Have you done?’ etc.); (n) ‘achieve time/rate’ (do 200 km an hour, do 50 miles to the gallon/20 km. to a litre, do Paris to Bordeaux in five hours etc.); (o) ‘tour’ (do India, do Nice/Oslo (in a day), do the British Museum etc.); (p) ‘serve sentence’ (do three years, do time, etc.). Of these sixteen meanings only three have been found to occur in stretched verb constructions, although these have a fairly broad meaning, with a relatively wide range of collocants. Submeaning (h) (‘perform/carry out’) can be found with a range of deverbal nouns denoting practical everyday activities, such as the cleaning/cooking/shopping/washing as well as some pastimes, such as sm painting/drawing/exercises, and words denoting damage, e.g. harm/damage/injury. Submeaning (i) (‘offer service’) appears in constructions like do smbd a favour, do smbd the honour of . . . , where the meaning ‘offer a service’ is appropriate. Finally, although the typical object nouns for submeaning (j) (‘treat suitably’) are concrete in meaning, some of them nevertheless are directly formed from verbs and can thus be seen as stretched verb constructions, e.g. do the publicity. Turning to the thin verb get, we find at least the following submeanings (excluding one or two slang uses):

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‘take possession of’ ( get a new job, get the missing prisoner, etc.); ‘come to experience’ ( get a radio station, get smbd to onslf, etc.); ‘fetch, buy’ ( get sm milk, get sm new curtains, get an electrician in, etc.); ‘make ready’ ( get (the) lunch, etc.); ‘deal with’ ( get it ‘answer the doorbell/telephone; pay the bill’);

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The individual thin verbs 179 (f) ‘cause an action or state’ ( get smbd into trouble, get smth ready, get an idea across, get smbd to do smth, etc.); (g) ‘use transport’ ( get a taxi, get the bus, etc.); (h) ‘move/go in particular direction or to a destination’ ( get up/down, get on/off the train, get together, get around, get as far as London, get back to base, get through an exam, etc.); (i) ‘cause smbd/smth to move/go in a particular direction or to a destination’ ( get smbd up the stairs, get smth through the door, get smth down off the shelf, etc.); (j) ‘begin to, come to’ ( get to like smbd, get moving, be getting to be like one’s mother); (k) ‘become’ ( get suspicious, get better, be getting a big boy, etc.); (l) ‘undergo a process’ ( get killed, get shouted at, get married, etc.) [ = PSEUDOPASSIVE]; (m) ‘experience’ ( get a lot of snow, get pleasure from smth, get a bad mark in an exam, etc.); (n) ‘contrive to experience’ ( get good results, get a good job, etc.); (o) ‘receive goods or services’ ( get a good salary, get smth for one’s birthday, get the news, etc.); (p) ‘have available’ ( get time off, get good holidays); (q) ‘understand’ ( get the message/joke, get smth wrong); (r) ‘hit’ ( get smbd (in the leg) ); (s) ‘annoy, confuse, arouse’ ( get smbd [slang uses]). At least four of these meanings are found in stretched verb constructions: submeaning (f) occurs in transitive constructions like get smbd access, get smbd into bother (with a causative meaning), whereas submeaning (l) can be exemplified by corresponding intransitive constructions like get access, get into an argument; submeaning (m) appears in expressions like get an airing with an inanimate subject, while patterns like get an answer, get smbd’s approval are strictly vague as far as the (m)/(n) distinction is concerned. The range of nouns found with the thin verb get could be said to fall into three groups: the largest group are nouns referring to treatment or a service given to a person or to a thing on behalf of a person, such as abortion, absolution, abuse, acclaim, acquittal, advice, aid, airing, answer, apology, applause, approval, assent, assistance, assurance, attention, awakening; a second group refer to an office or power bestowed on a person, such as access, admittance, appointment, authority, award; and a small group refer to a process being begun, such as (get an) ache, (get into an) argument. Overall, the meaning of the thin verb get can be summed up as ‘experiencing something, contriving to experience something or beginning to experience something’. The verb give has a rather narrower range of submeanings, with roughly the following values:

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180 The thin verb (a) ‘pass goods to new owner’ (give smbd a present, give generously to charity, give up one’s seat, etc.); (b) ‘perform a service for others’ (give a concert, give a party, give smbd a hand, etc.); (c) ‘perform an action on a thing or person’ (give the car a push, give the child a wash, etc.); (d) ‘propose a toast to others’ ([I] give [you] the Queen); (e) ‘allow/permit/grant freedom to act’ (give smbd a chance, give smbd three weeks to do smth, etc.); (f) ‘cause others to experience smth’ (give smbd an idea, give smbd an appetite, give (smbd) to understand that . . . , etc.); (g) ‘emit (= cause others to smell/hear)’ (give a snort, give off a smell, give out a noise, etc.); (h) ‘decree (= cause others to suffer a verdict)’ (give smbd three years, give the batsman out); (i) ‘yield’ (give in/way, give ground); (j) ‘stretch, weaken’ (give under the weight of a load, give out, etc.). About half of these meanings are found in stretched verb constructions: the core meaning (a) is rare in this use, appearing in give smbd an award; meaning (b) is probably the most common, as exemplified by give smbd advice, give smbd aid, give smbd an answer, give smbd applause, give smbd an appointment (= ‘appoint smbd’), give smbd an assurance; a close relative of (b) is (c), and this is found exclusively in stretched verb constructions, as in the examples cited or in give the clothes an air, give the subject an airing, give the computer a kick, etc.; the permissive meaning of (e), as in give smbd access, give smbd admission, give smbd authority, is rather less common; meaning (f) ‘cause others to experience smth’ is seen in give smbd one’s attention, give smbd a beating (experiences which are not necessarily of benefit to the ‘patient’; finally, a close relative of the latter meaning, namely (g) ‘emit’ is found in give a bellow, etc. In most cases, though, give as a thin verb suggests action that is beneficial in the sense of facilitating action by other people, informing other people or performing a service for them. Thus whereas make emphasizes the change or product associated with an act, give stresses rather the benefit for other people or the effect on them.100 The range of eventive nouns that collocate with give is in line with the range of submeanings: what is ‘given’ is commonly a right or permission to act (in the form of nouns like absolution, access, admission, approval, assent and authority); alternatively the thing ‘given’ can be information (as evidenced by the nouns account, address (= ‘speech’), answer, appraisal or assurance) or a different kind of service, either a general one (rendered by mass 100 This may explain why we ‘make a statement’ but ‘give an order’; but the meanings are close enough to permit overlap and arbitrary selection between the two thin verbs.

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The individual thin verbs 181 nouns like advice, aid, applause, assistance or attention) or a particular one (rendered by nouns like appointment, bath or blow-wave). The verb go, although not so common as, for instance, come as a thin verb, nevertheless has to be placed in the ranks of verbs of high frequency, as the following suggested list of submeanings demonstrates: (a) ‘move elsewhere’ (go closer, go shopping, go and have a look, go back there again, go to school, go down/up, go for a walk, go into a tunnel, go into a tree, go round to Bill’s, go on ahead, go out to Austria, go to bed, go off at a tangent, etc.); (b) ‘be given/sold to smbd’ ([Notices] go out, [Money] be going to smbd, be going cheap, etc.); (c) ‘lead elsewhere’ ([A road/path] go to Birmingham/through the wood, [Records] go up to 1930, etc.); (d) ‘move, be in motion’ ([The bus, etc.] be going, get the car going, go along at 50 mph, go around (telling people), go around/about together, go around in smbd’s head, [A bug, etc.] be going around, etc.); (e) ‘change to opposite state’ ([The clocks] go back/forward, go down (in smbd’s opinion), [The sun] go in, [Lights] go off/on); (f) ‘become’ (go red, go bald, go senile/blind/deaf, go mad/beserk, go bad/off, go wrong, go bankrupt/out of business, go Tory, [A swelling] go down, go into effect/ service, go into a trance, etc.); (g) ‘become weak/ineffective’ (be starting to go, go at the elbows, ‘The bulb’s gone’, etc.); (h) ‘remain (in a bad state)’ (go hungry, go unreported, etc.); (i) ‘develop, happen, elapse’ (go on, [Time] go (by), go off (well), go well/badly, go and lose one’s watch, etc.); (j) ‘fit, belong’ ([An article of furniture] go against the wall, go nicely into the corner, . . . where everything goes, go together, go with smth, go hand in hand with smth); (k) ‘be acceptable, give advantage’ (go well in the lounge, go with the blue dress, go together, have everything going for one, ‘Anything goes’, etc.); (l) ‘operate’ (‘The watch won’t go’, have been going for 50 years, go it alone, go slow); (m) ‘make physical movement’ (go backwards and forwards (with one’s foot), go [like this] with your hand, go like so, etc.); (n) ‘make noise’ ( ‘go “beep” ’, ‘The door bell went’, ‘The alarm went off ’, ‘go quack’, etc.); (o) ‘sound, run, read, be expressed’ (‘How does that song go?’, ‘It goes smth like this’, ‘The story goes that . . .’, ‘The rumour is going around that . . .’, etc.); (p) ‘take up, start’ (go back to the original plan, go back to one’s old ways, go into journalism, go over to cigars/unleaded fuel, go to war, get going with the proposals, go to smbd’s assistance/help, etc.); (q) ‘take on, accept’ (go to a lot of trouble, go on a diet, ‘I could just go a hotpot!’ (North of England));

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182 The thin verb (r) ‘experience’ (go through a crisis, go off smth/smbd, etc.); (s) ‘behave, respond’ (go with the crowd, go by the name of X, ‘Don’t go telling Dad’); (t) ‘judge’ (go by smth, go on smth, not have much to go on/by); (u) ‘target’ (go at smth/smbd, go after smbd/smth); (v) ‘can be divided’ (go into 12, ‘5 into 11 won’t go’). Of these many different submeanings for the verb go in general, only a few are found in thin verb use: the meaning (f) ‘become’ or perhaps better ‘assume a new state’ is found in expressions like go missing, go into production, the meaning (h) ‘remain (in a bad state)’ can be seen in adjectival patterns of Structure 1 like go hungry, go unreported; the meaning (p) ‘take up, start’ appears in go into action, go to smbd’s aid; finally, the meaning (q) ‘take on, accept’ turns up in go to a lot of trouble, go on a diet. But go is relatively rare in stretched verb constructions, only appearing with four eventive nouns from our limited corpus (action, aid, arbitration, assistance), in all cases with an ‘inceptive’ meaning. In the analysis presented here have, in its overall use, has about a dozen submeanings: (a) ‘hold, possess, own’ (have a dog, have a new car, have no money, etc.); (b) ‘include as a part’ (have black hair, have a new roof, have no entry for a particular word, etc.); (c) ‘be related to smbd who has the role of’ (have two brothers, have a Swiss mother, have a new boss, etc.); (d) ‘be in (a relationship to smbd)’ (have a friendship/pact/etc. with smbd); (e) ‘be characterized by’ (have good qualities, have many advantages, etc.); (f) ‘produce the mental effect on smbd (of V-ing), be the mental goal of smbd’s emotion’ (have an effect on smbd, have an appeal for smbd, have smbd’s approval, have a fascination for smbd [one sense]); (g) ‘intuit, feel, be mentally driven by’ (have a motive for doing smth, have a terror of smth, have the wrong attitude, have an admiration for smbd, have a fascination for/with smbd/smth, etc.); (h) ‘experience (the effects of)’ (have a cold, have a pain, have difficulties, have a marvellous time, etc.); (i) ‘perform the (relevant) action or function involving’ (have a game, have a party, have dinner, have a baby, etc.); (j) ‘receive, accept, consume’ (have letters/news from smbd, have smbd staying, have some more coffee, etc.); (k) ‘suffer the effects of action by others’ (have one’s car stolen, have a request refused, etc.); (l) ‘cause action’ (have the house painted, have (got) smth working, have a tooth out, etc.);

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The individual thin verbs 183 (m) ‘be responsible for completed action’ (have the report ready, have the problem solved, have solved the problem [ = PERFECT]); (n) ‘must’ [in combination with to] (have to go to Manchester, have to be there by six, etc.). Of these meanings rather less than half (six out of fourteen) are found in stretched verb constructions: expressions like have an alliance/association with smbd may be thought of as a variant of (a); constructions like have an appeal could have been placed under (e), but we have placed them under a separate but adjacent submeaning (f); constructions like have an aim, have aspirations can be accommodated under the (g) submeaning; submeaning (h) (‘experience (the effects of)’) occurs in constructions like have an ache, and something very close to it in ‘passive’ stretched verb constructions like have an abortion, have an airing, have an application; a common pattern (at least in British English) is a variety of submeaning (i) with the value ‘perform a single but not necessarily complete action’, as in have an argument, have an attempt, have a bath, have a chat.101 It is difficult to suggest a single general meaning for the thin verb have, because the range of meanings is so broad. In fact, some cases of ambiguity are found, at least in interaction with polysemy in the eventive noun: for instance, have an approach, in addition to the meaning given under (g) ‘intuit, feel, be mentally driven by’ (where approach means roughly ‘attitude’) also appears with the submeaning (k) ‘suffer the effects of action by others’, in uses such as have an unwelcome approach from an unpleasant man (where approach means roughly ‘personal contact’). This fairly wide range of meanings has the consequence that a wide variety of eventive nouns is found with have, about which, it seems, no worthwhile generalization can be made, although particular submeanings obviously restrict the choice. Considering the relative concreteness of its meaning, the thin verb make has an unexpectedly wide range of submeanings, which can be summarized as follows: (a) ‘produce, create, cause to exist’ (make bread, make clothes, make aircraft, make a mess, etc.); (b) ‘transform, produce out of smth/smbd else’ (make an athlete out of smbd, make old paper into cardboard, etc.); (c) ‘free up, cause to be free’ (make time, make a day of it); (d) ‘tidy up’ (make the bed); (e) ‘perfect’ (make smbd’s day, really make the party/event etc.);

101 Constructions with have in meaning (i) ‘perform the (relevant) action or function involving’ will be given a special discussion below (section V.1.iii).

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184 The thin verb (f) ‘cause an individual event, force smbd to do smth’ (make the dog bark, make smbd’s eyes water, make people laugh); (g) ‘perform/cause a type of event’ (make a sound, make an effort, make difficulties); (h) ‘prove, turn out to be’ (make a good teacher, make fascinating reading, etc.); (i) ‘calculate to be’ (make the answer 12, make it 2.37 p.m., etc.); (j) ‘constitute, be’ ([2 + 2] make 4, make a (good) pair, etc.); (k) ‘reach, succeed in arriving in time for’ (make the early train, make the last bus, etc.); (l) ‘go’ (make off, make for the seaside, make a beeline for . . . ); (m) ‘earn, produce money’ (make a profit, make £50,000 a year, etc.). One meaning found in stretched verb constructions is the core meaning (a), as in make an adaptation, make an arrangement; but the more common meaning is (g), as in make an accusation, make an acknowledgement, make an advance, make an agreement, make an allusion, make an approach and many other examples. This meaning (‘perform/cause a type of event’) is clearly related to the core meaning (‘produce, create, cause to exist’) and is at the same time general enough to be compatible with a wide range of eventive noun meanings. The range of eventive nouns found with make seems wide (as a result of the verb’s frequency) but still seems to fall into a small number of groups: in very many cases what is ‘made’ is a legal or official speech act (an accusation, admission, affirmation, agreement, appeal, application, appointment, arrest, assertion or award); in a second, smaller group a personal speech act (an acknowledgement, allusion, annotation, answer or approach) is involved; a third group of eventive nouns are mental judgements (analysis, appraisal, assessment and assumption); the nouns of the fourth group (abridgement, adaptation, adjustment, alteration, amendment) describe a modification made to a thing; in a related group the nouns (acquisition, addition, advance) denote increases of some kind. There are also some nouns that seem semantically isolated, as the range of near-synonymous alternative verbs shows (make (cf. put in) an appearance, make (cf. carry out) an attack, make (cf. do) atonement), but they may all involve an element of physical display. In general, however, make can be said to have a meaning something like ‘carry out a social, linguistic or cognitive act, usually involving a significant change in an object or the situation or the speaker’s view of it’. We come, finally amongst the thin verbs of relatively high general frequency, to the verb take, which in its overall use, has at least the following submeanings: (a) ‘accommodate’ ([A container] take six litres, [A car] take five people, [A camera] take two batteries, etc.); (b) ‘consume’ (take sugar and milk in one’s tea, take the medicine/tablets, etc.);

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The individual thin verbs 185 (c) ‘need, use’ (take (a lot of ) nerve/courage, take size five shoes, take some believing, take ten minutes (to do smth), take smbd all day, take time, take one’s time, take time off work, etc.); (d) ‘receive, agree to accept’ (take a free gift, take £50,000 in the first week, take credit cards, [A school] take boys, take a newspaper, take a cottage in France, take responsibility, take a joke, [A shop] take smth back, take it or leave it, etc.); (e) ‘experience, suffer’ (take a blow to the head, take offence, (sit there and) take it, take it lying down, not be able to take it, ‘Take it as it comes’, etc.); (f) ‘consider/attend to’ (take smth seriously, take the/smbd’s point, ‘Take last week’, take smbd to be smbd, take smbd for smth, take it all back, take it that . . . , take my word for it that . . . , etc.); (g) ‘grasp (hold of)’ (take smbd’s hand/arm, take one egg, take this bag (while . . . ), take (up) a pen, take hold of smth, take smbd unawares, etc.); (h) ‘seize possession of ’ (take smth without paying, take a/smbd else’s baby, take (several) prisoners, take smbd prisoner, take the city, take smbd’s bishop, take the seat from the government, take power, take (up) office, take first prize, etc.); (i) ‘remove, extract’ (take smbd’s clothes/notes/pen, take smth away from smbd, take an idea/plot from a source, take off one’s clothes/the covers, take smth off the shelf, take the seeds out of the fruit, take a lot/it out of smbd, take smbd out of themselves, take smth apart/to pieces, etc.); (j) ‘move to new position’ (take smth smwh, take the book over/down to Mary, take smth with you, take smth back to the shop, take down the curtains, take down/up the hem, etc.); (k) ‘travel by’ (take the train, take the 10.30 flight, take the road on the left, take the bend too fast, etc.); (l) ‘accompany’ (take smbd to do smth, take smbd swimming, take smbd out (to the cinema/for a meal), etc.); (m) ‘teach, lead, select for learning’ (take (smbd for) physics, take the service of thanksgiving, take economics as a main/major subject, etc.); (n) ‘write’ (take notes, take a letter, take down every word, etc.); (o) ‘photograph’ (take sm pictures/snapshots, take smbd performing at the opera, etc.); (p) ‘do item on programme’ (take lunch, take a break, take a holiday/trip, take one thing at a time, etc.); (q) ‘perform/do action’ (take one thing at a time, take it slowly, etc.); (r) ‘react to smth with a particular emotion’ (take it badly, take the failure in one’s stride, etc.); (s) ‘become well attached’ ([Plants] take (in soil), [A skin-graft] take, [The dye] take, etc.).

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Only a limited number of these meanings are found in stretched verb constructions. Submeaning (d) ‘receive, agree to accept’ is found in take advice, with its essentially passive meaning ‘(allow oneself to) be advised’; the closely related submeaning (e) ‘experience, suffer’ can be observed in take abuse, take criticism; examples like take a rest, take a walk probably repre-

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186 The thin verb sent submeaning (q) ‘perform/do action’ is a reading that is especially common with stretched verb constructions, as witnessed by take action/a decision, take a chance/risk, take a bath/shower, take a look/breath, take exercise/a walk, take a seat, take photographs/pictures, have one’s photograph taken; finally, submeaning (r) ‘react to smth with a particular emotion’ is to be seen in examples like take an interest in smth/smbd, take (sm) notice of smth/smbd, take offence, take pity on smbd, take a (critical) view of smth/smbd, take the view that . . . This relatively short but heterogeneous list of meanings has the effect of producing a very broad selection of eventive nouns, as the above examples illustrate.

IV.1.iii Thin verbs of medium frequency We can turn now from our nine high frequency thin verbs to those of medium frequency and freedom of collocation. Although this group has no clear demarcation, we can regard verbs that have between fifty and 1,200 occurrences in the LOB database as falling into this category, which means that the group contains fifty-four verbs. If we limit ourselves to verbs that occur in at least four stretched verb constructions (the minimum we found for our high frequency verbs), we shall need to consider here the verbs cause, feel, find, form, grant, offer, provide, receive and suffer. These verbs have a rather less general meaning, with the result that the degree of polysemy is lower. Let us consider them briefly in alphabetical order. The first verb cause is something of a special case, in that it does not seem to require any semantic adaptation to be used as a thin verb: in its standard use it means ‘bring about’ and is used with object nouns such as accident or problem, which already refer to events or states of affairs; its use with deverbal eventive nouns like aggravation, alarm, alienation, amazement, amusement, anger, annoyance and astonishment is thus a matter of course. On the other hand, the verb feel has relatively many submeanings in relation to its frequency. At least six different polysemous readings may be distinguished: (a) ‘touch, check the tactile sensation of’ (feel a carpet for softness, feel how cold smth is, feel smwh for smth, etc.); (b) ‘seem, give a tactile sensation of’ ([A thing/body part] feel sore, feel cold, feel heavy, etc.); (c) ‘perceive, receive a tactile sensation of’ ([A person] feel smbd’s hot breath, feel sweat on one’s neck, feel the heat/cold, etc.); (d) ‘experience a bodily or mental event’ ([A person] feel fit, feel one’s age, feel for smbd, feel an ache, feel alarm, etc.); (e) ‘be in a particular mood’ ([A person] feel lucky, feel sad, feel weak, etc.); (f) ‘be of the opinion’ (feel the time is right, feel that one is in the way, feel onslf to be inferior, etc.).

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The individual thin verbs 187 The total list of eventive nouns collocating with feel in our data is agony, ache, annoyance, alarm, astonishment, attraction, appreciation, amusement; they thus cover a range from pain through unpleasant emotions to pleasant emotions. They all fit clearly into submeaning (d), and this meaning, in its turn, is well integrated into the polysemy of feel, being close to meanings (c) and (e). Overall the different submeanings of the verb feel means something like ‘have sensory, especially tactile, experience of aspects of the world and react emotionally and intellectually to them’. The eventive nouns listed simply pick out the most appropriate submeaning for their needs.

11 The medium frequency verb find has at least five different submeanings in its overall use:

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(a) ‘successfully seek’ ( find a replacement, find smwh to live, find smbd a flat, find smth smwh, find one’s way, find a way of doing smth, find the/enough money to do smth, find a solution to a crisis, etc.); (b) ‘come across’ ( find a ten-pound note, find a body, find smbd reading/ unconscious, find people doing smth, find onslf smwh, be nowhere to be found, etc.); (c) ‘come to have’ ( find one’s/its own level, find the time/courage to do smth, find one’s feet, find it in onslf/one’s heart to do smth, etc.); (d) ‘experience’ (be found only in the rainforests, find acceptance/application/use, find smbd’s approval, find amusement in smth, find onslf without friends, find onslf, etc.); (e) ‘judge’ ( find smbd (not) guilty, [a jury] find for/against smbd, be found to do smth, find smbd difficult, find smth fascinating, find that . . . , find fault with smbd/smth, etc.). This chain of meaning probably has (b) and (c) at its heart, with the core meaning something like ‘come into physical or mental contact with’. The deverbal nouns that occur with find are the examples acceptance, amusement, approval and application, listed under meaning (d). The combination of find with one of these nouns gives a meaning corresponding roughly to a passive verb, e.g. be accepted. Turning next to form, we see within its uses three rather different meanings, each associated with a different valency pattern: (a) ‘come into existence’ ([A coral reef] formed in the ocean, [A crowd] form around an accident, [A solution] form in one’s mind, etc.); (b) ‘come to have (an idea)’ ( form the impression/opinion/view, form an affiliation with smbd/smth, etc.); (c) ‘(come to) constitute/be’ ( form a normal diet, form the next government, form part of a network, form the basis for smth, form (up) into a square, form a barricade, etc.).

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188 The thin verb Meaning (a) is found with form in an intransitive use, corresponding roughly to a verb like appear; meaning (b) involves a transitive use, roughly equivalent to something like produce; meaning (c) appears in copular uses comparable to be or become. It is nevertheless clear that the core meaning of ‘existence’ runs through all uses. In stretched verb constructions, it is the transitive use, (b), that is involved, with one of the eventive nouns affiliation, agglomeration, alliance and association occurring in object position. The thin verb grant seems in normal use to be limited to the following three submeanings: (a) ‘formally give’ (grant funds to buy machinery, grant smbd travelling expenses, grant smbd an entry visa, etc.); (b) ‘allow, give permission for’ (grant smbd access, grant smbd a favour, grant smbd an audience, etc.); (c) ‘accept another’s opinion, give way in argument’ (grant that smth is the case, take smth for granted, etc.). The appropriate meaning for stretched verb constructions is clearly submeaning (b), which is found with eventive nouns such as absolution, access, admission, annulment, authority, award, all of which refer to official acts or rights. Submeaning (a) is probably the core one, and (b) apparently has a close relationship to it, involving a metaphorical kind of giving. The verb offer can be regarded as having the following five submeanings in general use: (a) (b) (c) (d)

‘volunteer to give’ (offer smbd food/a prize, offer smd a job/chance, etc.); ‘volunteer to do’ (offer to babysit, offer free legal advice, etc.); ‘potentially have’ (offer many advantages, offer scope for improvement, etc.); ‘do, perform’ (offer an apology/one’s apologies, offer (up) a prayer, etc.).

It is this last submeaning that is found in stretched verb constructions, in which nouns like advice, answer and argument are found, with the last two frequently occurring in the negative. The overall meaning of offer in stretched verb constructions is something like ‘do something willingly or because one has agreed to’. The verb provide, across the total range of its uses, appears to have five submeanings:

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(a) ‘supply (needs)’ (provide meals, provide aid, provide for the children, etc.); (b) ‘take precautions, insure against’ (provide against injury, provide for possible accidents, etc.); (c) ‘ensure, make arrangements (for)’ (provide for the detention of terrorists, provide that terrorists be detained, etc.);

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The individual thin verbs 189 (d) ‘cause, make possible’ (provide opportunities, provide amusement, etc.); (e) ‘perform’ (provide the accompaniment/entertainment, etc.). Of these meanings, three are found in stretched verb constructions: for the (a) meaning provide assistance (to) (= ‘assist’) can be cited; for the (d) meaning provide amusement (to/for) (= ‘amuse’) is found; and for the (e) meaning provide the accompaniment (for) (= ‘accompany’) is an example. The range of collocating nouns thus tends to refer to events that can be interpreted as positive services, such as accompaniment, aid, amusement, answer, assistance, and the general meaning of provide as a thin verb is ‘ensure the occurrence of an event by supplying goods or performing a service’. For the verb receive four submeanings have been found somewhere amongst its general uses: (a) ‘benefit from a gift (of goods or money)’ (receive a gift, receive a prize, receive a pay rise, receive an award, etc.); (b) ‘be the recipient of a communication’ (receive a letter, receive news, receive a report, receive a reply/answer, etc.); (c) ‘experience action by others’ (receive education, receive an ovation, receive good/bad treatment, receive attention, receive aid/help, receive someone’s approval/ attention, etc.); (d) ‘welcome, demonstrate pleasure at playing host to’ (receive the guests, receive a deputation, receive the athletes with acclaim, etc.). As these examples show, eventive objects are found with all of the submeanings (a), (b) and (c), although submeaning (c) is probably the most general and the most frequent; submeaning (d) occurs with an eventive prepositional objoid (receive with acclaim). As an antonym of give, the verb receive is probably tailor-made for the function of thin verb in stretched verb constructions with the underlying object as subject, in other words, with an overall ‘passive’ meaning, as in receive good treatment from smbd beside treat smbd well. It seems to occur with eventive nouns denoting experience of action by others (absolution, acclaim, approval, attention), help (advice, aid, assistance) and communication (answer).

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Finally, among thin verbs of medium frequency, we come to the verb suffer, which is more limited in its semantic range, having two basic meanings, (a) and (b) and one transferred meaning (c) that is valid for thin verb use:

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(a) ‘feel pain, depression, etc. at’ (suffer terribly, suffer in the cold, etc.); (b) ‘be affected by illness’ (suffer from asthma/cancer/a cold, etc.); (c) ‘experience smth unpleasant’ (suffer a setback, suffer casualties, suffer the consequences, etc.).

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190 The thin verb Examples of eventive nouns that occur with suffer are abuse, affront, aggression, agony, ailment, alienation, annihilation, annoyance and awakening, all referring to unpleasant experiences, including awakening, which is typically premodified in this use with adjectives like rude and unpleasant.

IV.1.iv Thin verbs of low and very low frequency Turning now to verbs of low frequency and freedom of collocation, i.e. those with less than sixty occurrences in the LOB corpus, we can concentrate on those that occur in more than one stretched verb construction. There are five constructions with undergo, four with put-in, three with arouse, commit, render, secure, work-out, and two with attract, capture, command, file, incur, induce, indulge, practise, put-on, stir-up. It is apparent that these verbs generally have a more specific meaning than those in the middle group. On the question of the number of submeanings, we find (in the CIDE for instance) commit with five meanings, put-on and work-out with four, command and secure with three, practise, put-in and render with two, and arouse, attract, capture, file, incur, induce, indulge, stir-up and undergo with one each. Such verbs obviously have less broadness of meaning and consequently less need for special meanings to be picked out for use in stretched verb constructions. The most common of these low frequency thin verbs in stretched verb constructions, undergo, is worthy of a special note because of its significant role in giving a passive meaning . It has no obvious polysemy apart from the fact that it has a slightly different meaning when it has things rather than persons as a subject: in the latter case the meaning is something like ‘experience a possibly unpleasant process or change’, whereas in the former case there is an even more general meaning along the lines of ‘be affected by the action of an agent’. In either case the meaning is already eminently suited for use as a thin verb with a ‘passive’ meaning. It is found with nouns that designate a process, whether or not they have a kindred verb, such as the following total list of object nouns found in the LOB corpus: change (4), coupling, discipline, examination, experience, experiment, increase, ordeal, process, sentence, spring-cleaning, test, treatment (2). In our stretched verb constructions we find undergo combining with the eventive nouns acclimatization, adaptation, amalgamation, analysis, assimilation. Considering finally very low frequency thin verbs that are unique (or nearly so) to one particular deverbal noun, we find the following examples in our data: add an appendage to smth (cf. append smth to smth else); dance attendance on smbd (cf. attend smbd); drive home an argument (cf. argue for smth); launch an assault/attack on smbd/smth (cf. assault smbd/smth, attack smbd/ smth); lodge an appeal/application (cf. appeal against smth, apply for smth);

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The individual thin verbs 191 minister aid to smbd (cf. aid smbd); put on an act/affectation (cf. act, affect smth). Such thin verbs all have a fairly precise meaning that limits their suitability as partners of (eventive) nouns. Only add, of the examples cited, is used in a concrete sense: adding an appendage is like adding any other kind of addition, though the noun appendage tells us little about the nature of the item added or appended. Though not used in a concrete meaning, put on is at least used in one of its most common figurative meanings (= ‘affect’, as in putting it on). The verbs dance and minister are used with a secondary meaning that means barely more than ‘perform, carry out’ but uses the literal meaning as a hint about the manner of the activity: dancing attendance is a showy or decorative performance, while ministering aid is a serious or devoted performance. The (partly complex) thin verbs drive home, launch and lodge, on the other hand, have abstract meanings that are metaphorically derived from the concrete literal sense, mostly with a meaning that is coloured by ‘Aktionsart’ or verbal aspect (see below, section IV.2.ii). Except for add, these very low frequency thin verbs do not seem to have any special semantic or other reason for their restrictive use. They are simply collocations that have developed. The verb add, on the other hand, is semantically congruent with its eventive noun attachment, and puts us in mind of cognate verb constructions (see section, V.1.iii). Having surveyed the individual semantic contributions of thin verbs and their interaction with eventive nouns, it is time to ask in what ways they may contrast with each other to produce a systematic semantic contribution. The range of thin verbs compatible with a given eventive noun depends partly on the range of different meanings that can be envisaged with that verb. In particular, the following points emerge: deverbal nouns that refer to events involving two or more participants may allow a distinction of VOICE (to be discussed in section IV.2.i); deverbal nouns that refer to events with duration may pick out a difference of PHASE or ASPECT (discussed in IV.2.ii); deverbal nouns that have a meaning that is open to a variety of antonymy (for instance, reversive antonymy) may involve an implicit contrast of POLARITY (discussed in IV.2.iv).

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IV.2 The grammatical meanings of thin verbs

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IV.2.i Thin verbs, verb valency and verbal voice At the very beginning of our discussion of the different basic stretched verb constructions and particularly of what we called Construction 6102 we noted that some stretched verb constructions correspond semantically to simplex active verb patterns, some to simplex passive verb patterns and some to simplex causative verb patterns. Our scheme of types of restructuring in Part II took account of this point. For instance, give one’s attention to smth is active (= ‘attend to’), receive smbd’s attention is passive (= ‘be attended to’), and draw smbd’s attention to smth is most commonly interpreted as causative (= ‘cause smbd to attend to smth = cause smth to be attended to by smbd’). Obviously, the selection of the thin verb must play an important part in determining the ‘verbal voice’ of the stretched verb construction. Two of the commonest thin verbs, make and give, for example, are used almost exclusively in constructions with an active meaning, e.g. make an adaptation (of smth), give advice (to smbd), whereas the verbs undergo and receive are used almost always with a passive meaning, e.g. undergo adaptation, receive advice ( from smbd). The semantics of make and give, involving, as they do, production or transmission of a product, clearly suggest an active meaning, while the semantics of undergo and receive, involving, as they do, suffering or benefiting from an action, clearly suggest a passive meaning. But in some cases the picture is more complex. It should be made clear at the outset that we are not faced here with the relations of ‘active’ and ‘passive’ in the strict grammatical sense, but in the sense of the semantic relations usually associated with them. Thus undergo adaptation is not a passive elaborated verb structure but simply one with a semantic structure that is typically expressed with a passive sentence, because the subject of undergo is ‘affected/patient’, a typical object role for

102 See Table 1.1 and the discussion of it in I.2.i; see also the discussion of Construction 6 in I.2.ii.

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Grammatical meanings of thin verbs 193 a change-of-state verb. Other verbs, however, have different constellations of semantic roles for their noun phrases and preposition phrase elaborators: mental process verbs, for instance, can have an ‘experiencer’ (= ‘human processor’) as subject with the ‘mental focus’ (= ‘phenomenon focused upon’) as object, as do verbs like love, fear; but they can equally have the reverse pattern as in the case of the verbs enthral, frighten. Both patterns are found in the thin verbs in our data: thus feel and suffer (as in feel annoyance, suffer agony) have the ‘experiencer’ as their subject, whereas cause and inflict have the ‘mental focus’ as their subject (as in cause annoyance, inflict agony). The stretched verb constructions they form can be viewed as ‘active’ or ‘passive’ depending on the simple verb they are kindred with, as shown by the following correspondences between verb forms with different patterns: SUBJECT ‘mental focus/stimulus’ + OTHER ELABORATOR*

SUBJECT ‘experiencer’ + OTHER ELABORATOR* ‘mental focus/

‘experiencer’

stimulus’

annoy (smbd) cause annoyance (to/for smbd )

be annoyed (by smbd/smth) suffer annoyance (from smbd)

cause agony to smbd/cause smbd agony inflict agony on smbd

agonize about/over smth/smbd suffer agony (at the hands of smbd)

Note: * i.e. object, prepositional object/objoid or perject (= ‘agent phrase’). An examination of the above data shows that, by comparison with the corresponding simple verb structure, suffer annoyance can be interpreted as semantically ‘passive’, whereas suffer agony must be seen as semantically ‘active’. But the thin verb suffer makes a similar semantic contribution in the two cases, indicating a mental process experienced by the subject. Any voice classification of stretched verb constructions103 must therefore be seen not so much as the assignment of a semantic feature as rather labelling a relationship to the kindred simplex verb construction. What we are discussing here therefore is stretched verb constructions with a passive semantics. Thus: ‘active’ = ‘passive’ =

retention of simplex semantic role distribution reversal of simplex semantic role distribution

The voice labels are thus in principle semantically neutral, although ‘active’ correlates strongly with an ‘agent’ subject and a ‘patient’ object, and

103 The question of a passive syntax for stretched verb constructions will also be considered in section V.2.iii.

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194 The thin verb ‘passive’ with the reverse constellation. Bearing this in mind and noting that cases like agony/agonize are relatively unusual,104 we can nevertheless make some generalizations about the choice of thin verb in ‘active’ and ‘passive’ structures for the majority of cases. This seems to depend on the kind of state, process or event described and the way persons or things are involved in it. In one type of process or event the simplex verb construction has a verb like advise with an ‘agentive’ human subject and a human object or prepositional object or objoid that is ‘affected’; other typical verbs are absolve, admit, apologize to, and the meaning usually involves a speech-act. In the corresponding stretched verb constructions we find give or grant in ‘active’ patterns and find, get, receive or secure in ‘passive’ patterns, e.g. give/grant versus receive absolution; give versus find/get/receive approval. In addition, there are cases of more individually selected thin verbs, such as hurl/shout versus suffer/come in for abuse and commit versus incur aggression. A second group of patterns has a mental process verb like annoy, a ‘mental stimulus’ subject, and an ‘experiencer’ object; other typical verbs include alarm, alienate, amuse, anger and astonish, all verbs of emotion. In the equivalent stretched verb constructions the ‘active’ thin verb is most commonly cause and occasionally meet with, while the ‘passive’ verbs used include feel, find and suffer, e.g. cause ≠ feel alarm; cause ≠ find amusement; cause, meet with ≠ feel, suffer annoyance. Some eventive nouns only occur in ‘passive’ constructions, e.g. find, meet with acceptance (cf. also agreement, application). A third group of patterns correspond to simplex verb constructions with an ‘agentive’ subject (as in the case of the advise group) but this time with an inanimate ‘affected’ object; the verbs involve structural processing of some kind, such as add, adapt, amalgamate, analyse, assimilate. Stretched verb constructions of this kind have make as their ‘active’ thin verb and undergo or be in/under in the corresponding ‘passive’ construction, e.g. make an adaptation ≠ undergo adaptation; make an addition ≠ be in addition; make an analysis ≠ be under analysis. Interestingly, the eventive noun is countable in the ‘active’ construction and uncountable in the ‘passive’ (cf. section III.1.ii, above). The concept of a ‘causative voice’ involves both grammatical and semantic complexities. Strictly speaking, English does not have CAUSATIVE as a morphological category (as Turkish has, with suffixes like -(d)ir-, -(i)t-, -er-, cf. Lewis (1967: 144–6)), nor even as a standard syntactic construction (as French has, with faire + infinitive). Rather it has a number of competing syntactic patterns (all of them involving embedding) with a causative value (cause smbd to do smth, have smbd do smth, make smbd do smth, etc.), and more importantly a lexical feature CAUSATIVE that relates different lexical items (e.g. kill – die) and different polysemous readings for 104 In other words, the vast majority of English mental process verbs (e.g. annoy, surprise) in the active have a ‘mental focus/stimulus’ subject and an ‘experiencer’ object, so that to fill the general need for animate subjects they are mainly used in the passive.

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Grammatical meanings of thin verbs 195 the same lexical item (as in melt – melt the butter, walk – walk the dog). Since this semantic feature is regularly lexicalized in English, it is natural for it to be the basis for a series of stretched verb constructions, e.g. win smbd’s approval for smth (cf. cause smbd to approve (of ) smth), draw smbd’s attention to smth (cf. cause smbd to attend to smth). But causativity is not a simple concept, and we need to ask precisely what meaning or meanings can be involved. A first point to note is that causativity is a matter of degree. The causing agent can be the sole causer, the principal causer or just a joint causer. Moreover, the causing may involve taking action to further the likelihood of an event (cause smbd to do smth) or even overcome the resistance of some other person(s) (make smbd do smth); but in a more limited interpretation, it can simply be a matter of doing nothing to prevent action being undertaken by some other person(s) (permit/enable smbd to do smth). A stretched verb construction like draw smbd’s attention to smth has the first kind of causative interpretation, whereas one like give smbd access to smwh has the second. A further complication involves the interaction between participants. In a classic case the causer C instigates action by the agent A that affects the patient P; thus C makes, causes or permits A to do something to P. We find this meaning in sentences (1)(a) and (b), with a simplex verb in a causative structure in the first case, and with an appropriate stretched verb construction in the second. (1)

(a) Colin got Adrian to apologize to Priscilla. (b) Colin elicited/got an apology from Adrian for Priscilla.

But in a different construction (which we might call a ‘reflexive causative’ construction) C and P are one and the same person, so that C causes or permits A to do something to P. This can be illustrated by: (2)

(a) Colin got Adrian to apologize to him [ = Colin]. (b) Colin elicited/got an apology from Adrian (for himself).

In (2)(b) an unexpressed goal for the apology is taken to be coreferential with the subject-causer. A thin verb that seems to be regularly used in this way is gain in the constructions gain access/admission/admittance. A further complication for causative patterns arises from differences in semantic valency patterns for verbs. Of the patterns listed below we have already noted (3)(a) and (b) (which correspond as semantic ‘active’ and ‘passive’), but we also need to take account of (3)(c) and (d): (3)

‘mental focus/stimulus’ + SECOND ELABORATOR ‘experiencer’ e.g. The affair caused annoyance to the president. (b) SUBJECT ‘experiencer’ + SECOND ELABORATOR ‘mental focus/stimulus’ e.g. The president felt annoyance at the affair.

(a)

SUBJECT

196 The thin verb (c)

‘agent’ + SECOND ELABORATOR ‘mental focus/ stimulus’ e.g. The president gave his attention to the affair. (d) SUBJECT ‘causer-instigator’ + SECOND ELABORATOR ‘experiencer’ (+ THIRD ELABORATOR ‘mental focus/stimulus’) e.g. The official drew the president’s attention (to the affair).

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Concentrating now on the third and fourth of these semantic valency patterns, we see that (3)(c) differs from (3)(b) in having an ‘agent’ rather than an ‘experiencer’ as subject. But (3)(d) differs from (3)(c) in having a ‘causer-instigator’ as subject, with the ‘agent’ relegated to an ‘experiencer’ role, in this case that of genitive qualifier of the eventive noun occurring as object. Some thin verbs occur in both the (a) pattern and in the unexpanded version of the (d) pattern, an example being attract as in: (4)

(a) The affair attracted the president’s attention/the attention of the president [cf. (3)(a)] (b) The official attracted the president’s attention/the attention of the president [cf. (3)(d)].

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In these examples the subject is ‘mental focus/stimulus’ in the (a) sentence but ‘agent’ in the (b) sentence, despite the identity of the thin verb attract. Similarly, the verb cause can have either an ‘agent’ or a ‘causer/instigator’ as subject. The range of thin verbs used in ‘causative’ patterns is not as wideranging as that found in ‘active’ or ‘passive’ patterns, but still reasonably broad. Whether for semantic reasons or as arbitrary collocations, certain combinations of causative thin verbs with eventive noun seem to be favoured as more natural, e.g. bring about an agreement/a collapse, cause an ache, elicit an answer/apology, inspire admiration, precipitate an attack, provoke aggression/an attack, spark off applause/an argument, stimulate activity. We turn finally to examples of stretched verb constructions in which the thin verb is neither active nor passive, nor even causative: we have termed these thin verbs ‘neutral’, and in the data collected so far they seem to be just two in number, have and be, the latter occurring in Construction 4 with the preposition in. The ten examples found seem to fall into four rough semantic types, all of them ‘stative’ in meaning. A first set has a meaning ‘have/be in a cooperative arrangement with others’ (with be in submeaning (f) ‘pass through the (temporary) state/quality designated as . . . (-ness)’ or with have in submeaning (d) ‘be in (a relationship to smbd)’ )105 and encompasses examples like be in accord/agreement/alliance with smbd, have an agreement/alliance with smbd. A second group has a semantic value something like ‘have a policy (for future action)’ (submeaning (g) of 105 See above section IV.1.ii.

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Grammatical meanings of thin verbs 197 have ‘intuit, feel, be mentally driven by’), comprising have an aim/approach, have aspirations. In a different group again is have an appeal (submeaning (f) ‘have the mental effect on smbd (of V-ing)’ above), while be in alternation, expressing one kind of status a person or thing can have, could probably also be fitted under submeaning (f) of the verb be. It is worth noting that the different possibilities for have mean that something like an ‘active’–‘passive’ contrast can be found in pairs like have admiration for smbd (submeaning (g) ‘intuit, feel, be mentally driven by’) and have the admiration of smbd (submeaning (f) ‘produce the mental effect on smbd (of V-ing), be the mental goal of smbd’s emotion’), with the selection of determiner and preposition making a vital semantic contribution (see above, sections III.1.ii and III.2.ii).

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IV.2.ii Thin verbs, ‘Aktionsart’ and verbal aspect Valency and voice characteristics are not the only major contribution that thin verbs make to the meaning of stretched verb constructions; the choice of thin verb also indicates the kind of action, state, etc. involved, or alternatively its phase; in other words, it makes a contribution in the area of ‘Aktionsart’ or ‘verbal aspect’. The terms ‘Aktionsart’ and ‘verbal aspect’ (translating Russian
Д) are used to indicate the different ways the event denoted by the verb phrase (i.e. its action, state, etc.) is mapped on to the dimension of time. These terms are used differently by different writers,106 but it is possible to envisage three levels of description: (i) An underlying semantic level, where the states, processes, etc. of the world of our experience are described; this is the fundamental level at which ‘Aktionsart’ operates. (ii) A lexical level, at which lexical items are selected, each with its individual ‘aspectual character’ (Lyons 1977: 706); for instance, individual verbs can be ‘durative’, ‘inceptive’, or ‘iterative’, etc. (iii) A morphological level, which covers the various ways, derivational, inflectional, and periphrastic, in which a lexeme or lexeme group can be modified to express the appropriate duration, timing, etc. of the state or process; thus a verb (phrase) can be put into the ‘perfective’ or ‘perfect’ or ‘progressive’ aspect. The expression (VERBAL) ASPECT typically refers to this level (iii), i.e. contrasting inflectional and/or periphrastic forms of any verb lexeme like ‘perfect(ive)’, whereas the term ‘Aktionsart’ refers to level (ii), i.e. unchanging semantic qualities of a given verb lexeme (such as ‘durative’, 106 Important contributions include Joos (1964), Vendler (1967), Palmer (1974), Lyons (1977), Dowty (1979), Davidson (1980), Givon (1984), Hopper and Thompson (1984), Langacker (1987), Frawley (1992), Egg (1995).

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198 The thin verb ‘inceptive’, or ‘iterative’) or to level (i), i.e. the situations the verb (phrase) denotes, like ‘states’. But verbal aspect and ‘Aktionsart’ interact in various ways, and both refer to the duration and timing of different states, processes and events. Semantic contrasts of the kind described at level (i) can thus be produced in various ways: at level (ii) by changing the lexical verb (e.g. travel versus arrive), by changing the verbal construction (e.g. tire versus tire out, attack versus be on the attack), or at level (iii) by changing the derivational, inflectional or periphrastic morphology of the verb. In this study the focus is on the first type of contrast, i.e. on ‘Aktionsart’ at the deepest semantic level. Sometimes we talk about single events, but often we group similar events together as repetitions or habitual actions. This obviously complicates the whole question of the duration of events, since an event that has no real duration can acquire some when it is repeated, so that, for instance, while a cough is momentary, a bout of coughing clearly lasts through time. For the sake of simplicity and brevity, this discussion is limited to simple events. Most sentences can be seen as embodying a proposition that refers to a state of affairs or an event, let us say to an ‘eventuality’.107 A verb is typically used to describe the basic type of eventuality, with noun phrases and preposition phrases added to elaborate the meaning: thus freezing, knowing somebody or something, growing, running (a mile) and building something can be seen as different types of eventuality (or ‘situation’). Although actions are often thought of as the classic eventuality-types that verbs designate, some of the most frequently used verbs designate STATES, in other words, internally unchanging ‘conditions’ (such as be (out of touch), feel (unhappy), have (blue hair), like (bananas), lack ( help)) or static ‘positions’ (such as be at home, stay away, live abroad ), in which an entity finds itself. This means that they are compatible with duration adverbials like for six weeks, ( for) a long time, even when they refer to one specific occasion, cf.: (1)

(a) (b) (c) (d)

Sophie was once out of touch for six weeks. Sophie felt unhappy for a long time. Sophie had blue hair throughout the holiday. Sophie lacked help for ages.

(2)

(a) Sebastian was in the garden for twenty minutes. (b) Sebastian stayed at home for hours on end. (c) Sebastian lived abroad for two years.

States of either type (conditions or positions) can thus be seen as having duration, i.e. persisting through time and as unchanging during this period. 107 Many writers prefer the term ‘situation’, but this suggests both a limitation to states rather than events and also a limitation to a particular time and place; the concept of ‘ type of eventuality’ is not limited in either of these ways.

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Grammatical meanings of thin verbs 199 They are therefore static eventuality types. They answer questions like What was the situation? or What state, condition or position was S. in?, whereas all other eventuality-types are ‘happenings’ and answer questions What did S. do? or What happened?. One kind of happening is the second eventuality-type, PROCESSES, which (like states) can persist through time but (unlike states) are ‘dynamic’, in the sense that they involve change through time. They can be interpreted as including not only natural processes, as expressed by verbs like grow, rust, leak, float but also agent-controlled processes like walk, read, play, meditate, which would normally be described as ‘activities’. Both of these kinds of process can cooccur with standard duration adverbials, cf.: (3)

(a) On that occasion the ship floated for two months. (b) After that the ship rusted for years. (c) The ship leaked for twenty minutes before anyone noticed.

(4)

(a) That time Sebastian walked for hours and hours. (b) Then Sebastian played (monopoly) for days on end. (c) On that occasion Sebastian meditated for a while.

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As we have already noted, both kinds of process, natural and agentcontrolled, can be seen as happenings involving the subject. The processes (and activities) we have just considered all have duration, but the extent of this duration has to be specified outside the verb elaboration structure, or alternatively can be queried with a question like For how long . . . . . . ?/How long . . . . . . for?. Some combinations of verb with object of other elaborator specify a limited amount of the process of activity as an elaboration of the verb, so that the verb elaboration structure names a complex eventuality-type, e.g. grow six inches, age ten years, play a match. Such verb phrases are not combinable with normal duration adverbials, cf.: (5)

(a) *Sebastian grew six inches for two years. (b) *Sebastian and Sophie played a game of chess for two hours.

but they can be used with an in-phrase of duration, cf.: (6)

(a) Sebastian grew six inches in two years. (b) Sebastian and Sophie played a game of chess in two hours.

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This is presumably because the scope of the process (or activity) has already been limited by a frame, making a duration adverbial for inappropriate, but one with in natural. Such eventuality types are termed ‘intergressives’ by Egg (1995); but it seems simpler to refer to them simply as FRAMELIMITED PROCESSES (or ‘frame-limited activities’, in the case of those

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200 The thin verb that are agent-controlled). They are also found in more complex verb constructions like have a try, take a breath. States and processes (regardless of whether they are frame-limited) both have duration but differ in that processes are dynamic, i.e. constitute happenings. The third major class of eventuality-type, which is also dynamic, differs from both states and processes in having no duration, i.e. being punctual, at least in the eyes of the language user. This group is given the label ‘achievements’ by Vendler (1967) and Dowty (1979), and is referred to as ‘punctual changes’ by Egg (1995); but to emphasize their suddenness and their capacity for being agent-controlled in some cases but not in others, we shall call them simply STROKES.108 The three major types of eventuality are therefore differentiated thus:

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STATES PROCESSES STROKES

static = unchanging dynamic = changing dynamic = changing

with duration with duration without duration

Strokes are therefore momentary happenings, such as the unplanned blink, have an accident, occur to me, notice the time (which might be called ‘turn-ups’) and the planned wink, climb (a hill), throw a ball, note the time (which might be termed ‘coups’). Strokes of both types are of course very natural with punctual time adverbials like at three-o’clock or after the meeting but are incompatible with duration adverbials, unless they are given an iterative or habitual interpretation, as in: (7)

(a) Sophie blinked/winked for ten minutes. (b) Sebastian noted/noticed the time all morning.

Both of these sentences have to be interpreted with the V-ed word meaning ‘kept on V-ing’. Within the class of strokes there are two groups of verb meanings that, while referring to a momentary or punctual event, locate this at one end of a resulting state or process, at the beginning in the case of INCEPTIONS (as in ignite, join, launch a boat, start a clock, set out for London), at the end in the case of TERMINATIONS (as in close a meeting, arrive home). Inceptions imply the occurrence of a state or process that follows the incipient event: for instance, igniting implies a later process of burning, while setting out (for somewhere) implies a later process of going (somewhere). Similarly, for terminations there is an implied preceding event: closing a meeting implies previously holding or chairing it, while arriving implies going or coming. But both inceptions and terminations can be regarded as sub-varieties of strokes. It may also be useful to recognize a comparable subcategory of CONTINUATIONS, a 108 The term suggests on the one hand unplanned strokes of fortune and on the other planned strokes of genius, etc.

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Grammatical meanings of thin verbs 201 subvariety of processes that implies an earlier process with potential discontinuation: it can be illustrated with verbs like continue and retain. Apart from the three basic eventuality types (states, processes and strokes) and their variants (inceptions, terminations and continuations), there are some compound eventuality types composed of combinations of these. The best known of these is often referred to, following Vendler (1967) and Dowty (1979), as ‘accomplishments’, and can be viewed as a combination of a process (or activity) and an ensuing termination. Verbs or verb phrases that denote processes which come to a climax as their end-point, belong to this category, some being uncontrolled events, like leak out, mature, develop a cold, others being agent-directed, like build a house, catch up (with somebody), learn a poem. Since, however, the term ‘accomplishment’ suggests an agent, we shall use the term CULMINATIONS, as a more neutral term, reserving ‘accomplishment’ for the agent-directed subvariety. Because they simultaneously refer to the process and its climax, culminations allow apparently contradictory sentences like: (8)

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(a) The tree is in the process of maturing, but hasn’t actually matured yet. (b) Sophie’s been catching Olga up for two hours but still hasn’t caught her up. (c) They’ve been building the house for two years but haven’t quite built it yet.

Such sentences are not possible with frame-limited processes, because the frame limit measures the extent of the process or activity without referring to an end-point as the climax. But culminations share with frame-limited processes the possibility of combining with duration adverbials with in, cf.:

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(9)

(a) Sebastian grew six inches in a year. (b) They built a house in a year.

For such duration adverbials no climax is needed; all that is needed is an activity with clear limits, a requirement that both eventuality types fulfil. There is a second type of compound eventuality (one that has so far not been given prominence in the literature) which can be seen as the reverse of culminations; we can term them EXERTIONS. They involve a combination of an inception and a process or state, such that the verb phrase refers both to the initial action of taking up the process or state and to the continuation of it. Verb patterns like stand up, remember (something) and take aim all seem to have this double value, so that we can find uses like (10) that are typical of a stroke (or ‘achievement’) and uses like (11a) or (b) that are typical of a state or process:

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At that moment Sophie suddenly stood up. At that moment Sebastian suddenly remembered the name.

(11) (a) (i) Sophie stood up for ten minutes. (ii) Sebastian remembered the name for ten minutes (but then forgot it again). (b) (i) Sophie’s standing up lasted ten minutes. (ii) Sebastian’s remembering of the name lasted for ten minutes.

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The sentences of (11b) are particularly interesting, in that they are strictly ambiguous between an interpretation referring to the inception part of the exertion (i.e. the act of taking up the required state or process) and the more natural interpretation, in which it is the following state or process that lasts for the time referred to. The context of (11a), on the other hand, is slightly less helpful, because it is also found with purely inceptive verbs that implicitly suggest the following process like obtain (the book), which suggest the meaning ‘(begin to) have’. But true exertion verbs refer to a process or state that, once started, can thus be kept going for some time, with the same verb phrase referring both to the starting and the continuation of the process. The label EXERTION is meant to capture this double value. The two examples of exertions we have considered represent slightly different semantic types. The expression stand (up) represents a physical movement to a new (bodily) position and the retaining of this position for some time: further examples are sit (down), lie (down). The verb remember, by contrast, involves a controlled mental act of retrieving something from the memory followed by the retention of it in consciousness for a certain period; forget covers the reverse process, mostly an uncontrolled one, followed by a state of oblivion. The third example cited earlier, take aim, suggests a combination of the physical and the mental, in that the person represented by the subject takes up a bodily position suitable for perceptual activity and then remains in it as long as necessary; an example of the same type is head (for home, etc.). The examples given so far from this proposed new type of ‘Aktionsart’ have been taken from English, but the phenomenon is not limited to English. Considering the French equivalent of sit (down), we find that taking up of the bodily position would be expressed through s’asseoir, while the state following it would be expressed through être assis; but of course in one sense it is different forms of the same verb that are being used. In German things are somewhat different in that two different, but morphologically related, verbs are used, sich setzen and sitzen. But at least one other language, Swahili, is like French in using different forms of the same verb to express both the change to a new state and the new state itself. In this sense a Swahili verb like -simama ‘stand (up)’ can be said to have a double meaning of ‘completion of action and/or resultant state’, cf. Ashton (1944: 15; 37). The following examples can be considered as typical:

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Grammatical meanings of thin verbs 203 (12) (a) Wanasimama ‘They are standing up [ACTION]’ (b) Wamesimama ‘They have stood up [ACTION] = They are standing up [STATE]’ Further Swahili verbs that follow a similar pattern include -choka ‘be/ become tired’, -furahi ‘be/become happy’, -jaa ‘be/become full’, -kwisha ‘finish, be finished’, -potea ‘be/get lost’, -shiba ‘be/become full with food’ -vaa ‘have/put on (clothes)’. Culminations and exertions are two clear cases of compound eventuality types, but there is possibly a third. Some strokes and processes seem to imply a physical change of state, location or ownership for the entity affected, the so-called ‘patient’ (regardless of whether human or not); indeed this apparently applies to all cases where there is a physical effect on the entity denoted by the object, so that the past participle of the verb also appears naturally as an adjective, cf.: (13) (a) Sophie noticed the window. [cf. *the noticed window] (b) Sophie criticized the window. [cf. ?the criticized window] (14) (a) Sophie cracked the window. [cf. the cracked window] (b) Sophie cleaned the window. [cf. the cleaned window] (c) Sophie borrowed the window. [cf. the borrowed window] The eventuality type found in the examples of (14) might be called ‘treatments’ or ‘strokes/processes with result’, but they can be regarded as a special case of a stroke or process respectively. The full range of eventuality types, both simple and compound, is summed up in Figure 4.1. In examining it we can note that just as ‘activity’ is a label for agent-controlled processes, so ‘act’ is a label for a broad group of agent-controlled eventuality types with a time limitation, ranging from agentive frame-limited activities, e.g. play a match, through agentive culminations (‘accomplishments’), e.g. build a house, to the different kinds of agentive strokes (‘coups’), e.g. wink, join, arrive home. The term ‘event’ is even broader in scope, taking in a comparable range but not limited to agent-controlled types, thus only excluding states and unlimited processes (and activities).109 Finally, ‘Aktionsarten’ are linked to verbal aspect, which for English chiefly means the progressive and the perfect, but cf. Mitchell (1979). These periphrastic forms are in principle possible with all verb lexemes, but in fact the progressive is only natural with verbs denoting processes, because its primary meaning is that a process is or was in progress at a 109 In his discussion of this question, Lyons (1977: 483) defines ‘events’ (including ‘acts’) as momentary; but he takes no account of frame-limited processes (including activities), which are extended in time, although they would normally be thought of as ‘events’.

204 The thin verb

1 EVENTUALITY TYPES

static (by definition also: durative) = STATES [A] (when controlled: → POSITIONS [B])

dynamic = HAPPENINGS

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durative = PROCESSES [C] (when controlled: → ACTIVITIES [D])

unlimited frame-limited (‘intergressives’)

durative-punctual (i.e. process + termination) = CULMINATIONS [E] (when controlled: → ACCOMPLISHMENTS [F])

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punctual-durative (i.e. inception + process) = EXERTIONS [G]

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EXAMPLES [A] S. had blue eyes. [B] S. lived abroad. [C] S. grew (six inches). [D] S. played (a match). [E] S. matured. [F] S. built a house. [G] S. stood up. [H] S. had an accident. [I] S. threw the ball. [J] S. set out. [K] S. carried on. [L] S. arrived.

punctual (i.e. ‘instant change’)

self-sufficient change = STROKE [H] (when controlled: → ACTS [I]) start of process = INCEPTION [J] middle of process = CONTINUATION [K]

end of process = TERMINATION [L] N.B. (i) Agent-controlled subvarieties of [E] (i.e. [F]), [G], [H] (i.e. [I]), [J], [K] and [L] constitute ‘acts’. (ii)Punctual and durative-punctual eventualities (and sometimes limited processes) are said to be ‘telic’.

Figure 4.1 Scheme of eventuality types.

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Grammatical meanings of thin verbs 205 particular point in time. Sentences like those of (15) with a process verb or verb phrase in the progressive are thus perfectly natural: (15) (a) The crowd was applauding Sybil. (b) The crowd was giving Sybil applause. Stative verbs, however, do not naturally occur in the progressive, cf.: (16) (a) ?These results are agreeing with our earlier ones. (b) *These results are being in agreement with our earlier ones. Verbs that are punctual in meaning, i.e. those that refer to strokes, are normally reinterpreted in the progressive to refer (not to an event in progress but) to an event about to happen, cf.: (17) (a) Sebastian was apprehended as he was assassinating the President. (b) Sebastian was apprehended as he was carrying out the assassination.

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In examples (15) to (17) we have observed cases in which a simplex verb construction and a stretched verb construction display the same eventuality type (process, state and stroke, respectively); but in (18) we find a contrast between the simplex verb, which designates a process, and what we have come to call a ‘stretched verb construction’, which designates an inception (a subvariety of stroke), cf.: (18) (a) They were applauding when the explosion took place. (b) They were bursting into applause when the explosion took place. (19)

They were about to applaud when the explosion took place.

The meaning of (18)(b) is closer to that of (19) than to that of (18)(a), because the stretched verb construction burst into applause, referring as it does to a punctual eventuality type, is incompatible with an ‘in progress’ interpretation. One particular ‘stretched verb construction’ – the one we referred to in Part I as Construction 4 – is especially interesting in connection with the progressive, because, as Zhang (1995: 95–6) points out, it has a meaning that is partly similar to that of the progressive. Zhang cites example (20), to which we could add example (21), as evidence for her claim that, while a progressive verb form shares with its non-progressive counterpart a ‘dynamic’ component to its meaning (as opposed to the ‘stative’ value of a prepositional–nominal construction), it shares with the prepositional–

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206 The thin verb nominal construction a ‘localized’ meaning (as opposed to the ‘general’ meaning of the non-progressive verb), cf. (20) (a) (b) (c) (d)

We were in the lead. We were leading (the race). We led the (whole) race. We went into the lead.

(21) (a) The ship was in motion. (b) The ship was moving. (c) The ship moved. It might be better to say that the prepositional–nominal stretched verb construction of the (a) examples simply describes the state or condition of the subject rather than saying what the subject is doing; in other words it conveys a state, i.e. the state of the subject. The simplex verb construction in the progressive (in the (b) examples), on the other hand, clearly describes a process, one that is in progress and that we see neither the beginning nor the end of; in other words, we have only a partial view of this process. The simplex verb construction in the non-progressive form of (20)(c) also refers to a process, but to the whole of it, from start to finish. The stretched verb construction of (20)(d), by contrast, refers only to the inception of such a process. Turning now to (21)(c), which is analogous in form to (20)(c), we see that it does not have an entirely comparable semantic value, since it combines the meanings of inception and following process: in other words, it constitutes an EXERTION. If we examine the simplex verbs corresponding to our collection of stretched verb constructions, we find about a dozen culminations (e.g. analyse, ascend), about half a dozen exertions (e.g. appear), about half a dozen inceptions (e.g. acquire, approach), about three dozen processes (e.g. abuse, advance, alter, applaud), about half a dozen states (e.g. admire) and about four dozen strokes (e.g. achieve, add, allocate, announce, assassinate, award). But to what extent are these eventuality types altered in the corresponding stretched verb constructions? Looking at the ‘Aktionsart’ of each stretched verb construction, we find that in about three-fifths of cases this remains unchanged; in these cases their raison d’être must lie elsewhere. But the remaining two-fifths of stretched verb constructions have an eventuality type that is different from that of the simplex verb construction: the selected thin verb is likely to play the major part in marking this ‘new’ eventuality type. Even in the other threefifths of unchanging ‘Aktionsarten’, the thin verb may partly have the function of reinforcing the chosen ‘Aktionsart’. So to what extent do thin verbs correlate with particular eventuality types? Let us begin with two reservations. First, we saw in the previous

Grammatical meanings of thin verbs 207

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section that thin verbs play a major part in the area of valency and voice; any value they have in the field of ‘Aktionsart’ or aspect will therefore be within this limitation. In addition, we know from the first section of this Part that there are certain verbs, most notably make, give and carry out in ‘active’ patterns and undergo in ‘passive’ patterns, that in any case have a high frequency in stretched verb constructions, making them unlikely to be limited to a single ‘Aktionsart’. Given these limitations, what can be said about the contribution of thin verbs in this semantic area? The most characteristic verbs with an ‘active’ value for the different eventuality types, apart from make, give and carry out, are as follows:

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FRAME-LIMITED PROCESS CULMINATION EXERTION STROKE INCEPTION TERMINATION

be, have conduct, engage in, indulge in, practise, provide, render deliver, have, mount arrive at, come to, do, form, reach, work out assume, inspire, put on add, bring (in), effect, grant, perform, present, record, subject arouse, burst into, go into, induce, initiate, precipitate, spark off, spring into, strike up drive home

In our data there are some eventive nouns that permit a rich enough range of thin verbs to give these the function of distinguishing different aspects, e.g. mount/launch/press home an attack. In stretched verb constructions with a ‘passive’ value there is a less clear marking of ‘Aktionsart’, with (apart from undergo) feel, find and suffer being used for both processes and strokes. With ‘causative’ structures, too, the ‘Aktionsarten’ are less well discriminated, although verbs like promote and stimulate seem best suited to processes, such as activity, while other verbs, like bring about, obtain and secure, are semantically more suited to acts like culminations or strokes. The thin verb is not the only possible place for marking eventuality types: we should recall (from Part III) that the ‘Aktionsart’ of a stretched verb construction can also be signalled by the countability of its noun phrase. Thus while processes predominantly use constructions with a singular mass noun phrase or a solo noun phrase, as in commit aggression, provide aid (to smbd), give applause (to smbd), heap abuse (on smbd), make atonement, suffer agony, other eventuality types favour normal countable noun phrases like carry out the/an attack, make the/their announcement(s). Indeed it can be argued that in some sense the difference between things and substances among nominal entities corresponds to the difference between acts and activities for agent-controlled eventuality types.

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208 The thin verb

IV.2.iii Thin verbs and minor semantic features Roughly one-quarter of the stretched verb constructions in our database have had assigned to them, in addition to their voice and aspectual characteristics, a ‘special’ feature representing an additional facet of meaning not found for the majority of constructions. Such features often account for the existence of a range of thin verbs as potential partners for a given eventive noun. If we consider, for instance, the stretched verb constructions that include the thin verb offer, we find the examples offer an answer to smth, offer an apology to smbd (for smth), offer an argument for smth and offer advice to smbd. The thin verb offer used in these constructions is very close to give in the same context, and this is a meaning that is different from the one found in its most literal uses, where it refers to an act of presenting something to another person as a possible gift or opportunity for them to accept or reject, as in offer a book to smbd, offer a job to smbd. In offer an answer to smth, etc. there is not this sense of a choice for the recipient to receive something later: if one is offered an answer, one can hardly refuse it, because it has already been given. The examples offer aid to smbd and offer assistance to smbd are perhaps border-line cases in this respect, because although theoretically they refer to aid or assistance that is offered and can be refused, very commonly in actual use there is an inference that it will be accepted. Despite these partial exceptions, all stretched constructions that include offer seem to retain a semantic component of tentativeness and, to some extent, potentiality (rather than reality). Offer an answer to smth is not quite synonymous with give an answer to smth, and this TENTATIVENESS feature is the extra element exhibited by the offer construction. A rather similar meaning is found in some stretched verb constructions of Type 4, with the verb be followed by a preposition. The examples found, be in aid of smth, be in answer to smbd/smth, be on approval, although having rather different individual meanings, all seem to share the semantic feature EXPECTATION (rather than actual taking place) of the event. If something is ‘in aid’ of a cause or a project, it is aimed at aiding this cause or project. This is even true in the case of an expression like be in remembrance of smbd/smth, with which the event of remembering involves looking back in time, because the stretched construction refers to intended future remembering. The construction be on approval is similar, except that it has a ‘passive’ meaning: something is on approval, if it has been sent, etc., in the expectation that it will be approved of (and subsequently bought). Expressions with under, such as be under anaesthesia, be under analysis, be under arrest, be under attack are also ‘passive’ but seem to involve a slightly different meaning, roughly ‘be affected at the present time by the effects of the process named by the corresponding verb’. It is not clear whether the process itself is still going on: in the case of analysis it probably still is,

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Grammatical meanings of thin verbs 209 while in the case of anaesthesia and arrest, the process is over but the effects are still present. In either case, we can sum up the meaning with the semantic label ‘persisting effects’, or simply PERSISTING EFFECT. A few stretched verb constructions seem to have a semantic feature that we can call INTENSITY, in the sense that the verbal meaning seems to have an inbuilt degree adverbial modifier corresponding to an adverb like ‘strongly, intensely’: examples are command the attention of smbd (= ‘strongly attract . . .’), focus one’s attention on smth (= ‘strongly direct . . .’), suffer agony/ annoyance (= ‘intensely feel . . .’). A semantically related group including forge an alliance with smbd, secure admission/admittance to smwh, secure/win the approval of smbd, work out an arrangement has a component of meaning that could be summed up as success WITH DIFFICULTY, or, in a word, ‘arduous’. One or two constructions in the collection are characterized by a disapproving attitude on behalf of the language-user: thus the collocations like commit an act and indulge in acting suggest an activity that is viewed very or rather unfavourably. Such cases are be marked as SOCIAL DISAPPROVAL.

IV.2.iv Thin verbs and positive polarity All of the constructions we have considered refer to an actual eventuality rather than its absence. But for many eventive nouns there is a corresponding semantically negative stretched verb construction: for instance, corresponding to give admittance to smbd there is refuse admittance to smbd, and, with a slightly different negative relationship, corresponding to make an allegation there is withdraw an allegation. Since the meaning of our normal semantically positive stretched verb constructions partly depends on their contrast with the corresponding negative construction, it is worth considering briefly the question of the positive-negative contrast, or ‘polarity’, as it is often called. First, it is necessary to distinguish the different kinds of negative meaning illustrated by the examples just mentioned, refuse admittance to smbd and withdraw an allegation: the first of these has the meaning ‘not to (start to) admit somebody’, while the second has the meaning ‘stop alleging something’, put more generally ‘not to (allow to) start an eventuality’ versus ‘(cause to) stop an eventuality’. Some eventive nouns allow just one of these possibilities, others both, and still others neither. Most of them seem to be ‘acts’ (i.e. agentive culminations, exertions, strokes, inceptions or terminations) rather than some other kind of eventuality. We can list the most common examples, compared with their positive counterparts:

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210 The thin verb ‘(CAUSE/PERMIT SMBD TO) PERFORM AN ACT’

give access make an accusation record an achievement give admission/ admittance take advice come to/have an agreement commit aggression give aid call an alert make an allegation feel anger arouse the anger of smbd make/lodge an appeal have sm appeal make/put in an application have an argument make an arrangement give one’s assent give assistance

‘NOT (CAUSE/ PERMIT SMBD TO) PERFORM AN ACT’

refuse access – – refuse admission/ admittance refuse/disregard advice block an agreement – refuse aid – – suppress one’s anger – – – – – – refuse one’s assent refuse assistance

‘(CAUSE/PERMIT SMBD TO) STOP PERFORMING AN ACT’ – withdraw an accusation negate an achievement – – renege on/break an agreement cease aggression suspend/cut off aid call off/cancel an alert withdraw an allegation swallow one’s anger calm smbd’s anger withdraw an appeal lose one’s appeal110 withdraw an application settle an argument cancel an arrangement withdraw one’s assent cut off assistance

An examination of these examples shows that, although refuse is the most common thin verb for the first negative meaning and withdraw is for the second, there is a certain degree of collocational restriction in their choice: potential collocations like, for instance, ?withdraw aggression or ?cancel an allegation would be highly deviant. This partly results from the individual differences in meaning between the types of eventuality referred to, but also involves arbitrarily selected lexical combinations, such as settle an argument. By contrast with both types of negative stretched verb construction, the positive type simply asserts that the eventuality actually did arise. Apart from this obvious point, is there any significance in the existence of the 110 This construction is ambiguous, the meaning intended here being ‘lose one’s attractiveness’. The construction is also exceptional in another way: it refers to a state, in fact to the coming to an end of a state, rather than to an act, as in all the other cases.

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Grammatical meanings of thin verbs 211 contrasting negative constructions? It may well be that if such a negative construction is in the back of the speaker’s mind, a stretched verb construction will be selected in preference to a simplex verb construction. For instance, if the speaker is thinking about and later will talk about ‘settling an argument’ he or she will perhaps favour talking about ‘having an argument’ rather than simply ‘arguing’.

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Part V

The lexical status of stretched verb constructions

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V.1 The semantics of stretched verb constructions

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V.1.i Idioms, metaphors and collocations Having considered stretched verb constructions from the point of view of their internal structure and their relationship to each other, we must now turn to the question of the part they play in the language as a whole. We have seen that they involve certain arbitrary restrictions on the combination of words, a feature that reminds us of idioms; on the other hand, we have analysed them grammatically and semantically, as we would for any normal construction. It therefore seems necessary to consider briefly the range of word combinations that are not freely formed grammatical constructions but rather selected as wholes from the lexicon. The entire field of idioms, established metaphors and collocations is an extremely complex one, and every specialist in the field seems to have a different approach and a different way of dividing up the phenomena, with the result that the technical terms have different meanings for different writers, cf. Welte (1990: especially chapter V). In his general discussion of idioms Makkai (1972: 24–6; 54–8) first distinguishes what he variously calls ‘phraseological idioms’, ‘phraseologically fixed formulas’ or ‘idioms of encoding’ (in which it is a matter of the selection of a particular lexical item to suit a collocational partner, as in our stretched verb constructions, or the selection of a preposition in a non-literal sense) from what he regards as ‘genuine semantic idioms’ (in which the meaning of the whole cannot be deduced from a knowledge of the meaning of the component lexemes). This second broad type of ‘semantic idiom’ covers all cases of irregular semantic combinations, but the two main subtypes he distinguishes are ‘lexemic’ and ‘sememic’ idioms. Although the basis for the distinction lies in the theory of stratificational grammar, in practice ‘lexemic’ idioms operate at the level of words and phrases and are at least partly opaque, whereas ‘sememic’ idioms mainly involve clauses and sentences that are semantically at least semitransparent in meaning.111 Makkai further divides his lexemic idioms (1972: 135–69) into phrasal verbs, ‘tournure idioms’ (a rather mixed bag, including 111 Makkai also envisages ‘hypersememic idioms’, which again operate at the sentence level but in a pragmatic way; however, the boundary between sememic and hypersememic idioms is less than crystal clear.

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216 The lexical status of stretched verb constructions many verb phrases), irreversible binomials, phrasal compound idioms, ‘incorporating verb idioms’ and pseudo-idioms (containing a unique element like cran- or fro). Of the various subvarieties of sememic idioms (1972: 169–79) he lists, the only one that does not involve full sentences is ‘first base idioms’, which apart from their reference to the game of baseball seem indistinguishable from ‘tournure idioms’. In their account of idioms and related phenomena Burger et al. (1982) offer what they call a ‘hybrid structural/semantic classification’, which is partly inspired by scholars in Russian phraseology. Besides stretched verb constructions (‘Streckformen’ or ‘Funktionsverbgefüge’) their subcategories include ‘phraseological wholes’ (roughly, full idioms), ‘phraseological connections’ (in which one element, in connection with the other, receives a special interpretation), ‘pattern formations’ (which follow a stereotyped syntactic pattern and have a standardized meaning), phraseological similes, irreversible binomials, ‘fixed phrases’ (which are sentence-length idioms), and finally proverbs and commonplaces. Stretched verb constructions themselves are defined by the criterion of replaceability with a simplex verb derived from the same stem as the abstract deverbal noun that lies at the heart of the construction. Roos (1989) offers a slightly different analysis, or at least a different terminology. As a general term for all word combinations that are not formed purely by grammatical rule he uses the term ‘fixed expressions’. These he then divides into subtypes that are ‘not always clearly delimited and frequently overlap’ (1989: 217), embracing proverbs, stereotypes and clichés, catchphrases, quotations, slogans and similes or stereotype comparisons, and, apart from idioms, irreversible binomial, social formulae and gambits. Roos also refers to what he calls ‘two productive patterns’, one of which is ‘verb + it’, the other being ‘verbal groups, i.e. expressions with almost empty verbs: have a look, make a move, take care’; the latter are discussed in Dirven (1989: 46–9), an earlier contribution in the same volume, but not under the heading of ‘idioms’ or other expressions characterized by ‘idomaticity’. In her account of the field of ‘phraseology in the broad sense’, i.e. nonliteral expressions, Palm (1995) distinguishes between ‘idiomatic’ and ‘non-idiomatic’ expressions, listing under the latter ‘non-idiomatic wordpairs’ (i.e. binomials), speech-act formulae or clichés, sayings or commonplaces, formulaic expressions of the mass media, standard epithets (‘stehende Epitheta’) and terminological designations (‘terminologische Benennungsstereotype’). Within idiomatic expressions (‘phraseology in the narrow sense’) she distinguishes those that are fully idiomatic as against those that are only partly idiomatic, and her ‘types’ of idiomaticity include transparent metaphors, opaque metaphors and ‘specializations’, i.e. expressions consisting entirely of grammatical words. But stretched verb constructions are apparently excluded from any kind of phraseology because they simply serve to express aspect (1995: 2).

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Mel’cˇuk (1998) refers to all constructions that are not freely and regularly constructed as ‘set phrases’ or ‘phrasemes’. These are divided up according to whether they involve a purely semantic restriction (‘semantic phrasemes’) or whether they also or solely involve a restriction on permitted combinations of individual words or phrases (‘pragmatic phrasemes’ or ‘pragmemes’). Semantic phrasemes are then further subdivided into full phrasemes (i.e. idioms with irregular meaning), quasi-phrasemes or quasiidioms (i.e. combinations that include the expected semantically regular meaning but have an additional unpredictable semantic component), and finally semi-phrasemes or collocations (i.e. constructions in which one free semantic choice is combined with one contingent choice). Collocations, in their turn, are subclassified into four groups depending on the way the contingent form and meaning of the semantically dependent element are selected. Mel’cˇuk also proposes a theory of lexical functions to account for the precise semantic value such dependent items may have: in the field of stretched verb constructions this identifies three semantic types of thin verb112 according to the position of the eventive noun, ‘Oper’ for eventive nouns as objects ( . . . declared war on . . . ), ‘Labor’ for eventive nouns as prepositional objects113 ( . . . went to war with . . . ), and ‘Func’ for eventive nouns in subject position (War broke out between . . . ). Certainly for Mel’cˇuk stretched verb constructions are an important kind of collocation, and collocations are at the heart of phraseology. A more practical approach to phraseological units is represented by the work of Moon (1998). She breaks down non-literal expression into three basic types, each of which has subdivisions: anomalous collocations consist of ill-formed collocations (by and large, etc.), cranberry collocations (to and fro, etc.) and phraseological collocations (in action, on show, etc.); formulae subdivide into simple formulae (you know, in this day and age, etc.), sayings (an eye for an eye, etc.), proverbs (enough is enough, etc.) and similes (as nice as pie, etc.); and finally metaphors are subclassified as transparent metaphors (rock the boat, etc.), semi-transparent metaphors (grasp the nettle, etc.), and opaque metaphors (kick the bucket, etc.). Stretched verb constructions would probably have to be accommodated under phraseological collocations (‘those where there is a limited paradigm operating at one (or more) of the word-slots . . . but the realizations are restricted to a small set that is not fully productive’); but they are also in a sense both ‘formulaic’ and ‘metaphorical’. In the face of this lack of a theoretical and terminological consensus, it seems reasonable to attempt a generally acceptable summary of the facts about non-literal constructions. Such a summary was attempted by Barkema (1996), and the one presented below differs from his mainly in

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218 The lexical status of stretched verb constructions emphasis and terminology. This present account will be set out under the six criteria of semantic analysability, lexical selection, regularity of combination, degree of deviation from linguistic norm, grammatical patterns involved, and pragmatic or textual interpretation (of a sentence). But it goes without saying that they are all interconnected. Probably the most striking feature of a non-literal construction is its SEMANTIC ANALYSABILITY (or irregularity), i.e. the fact that it has a meaning that cannot be totally ascribed to the meanings of its constituent words semantically combined in accordance with the grammatical construction(s) of which they are part. Its semantic analysability is therefore at best only partial. In fact, we can make a distinction between those cases in which the whole construction has a special meaning and those in which one word has a special value in the context of the construction. In the first case the meaning of the construction as a whole is subject to semantic adjustment relative to the regular or ‘natural’ meaning of the phrase, and three kinds of such adjustment can be distinguished, although it is in practice often difficult to draw lines between them, and they should be thought of as prototypes rather than clearly defined categories. In the first subvariety, the basic meaning of the constituents and of the construction is maintained, but with a slight shift in the mean-ing of the whole and of at least one of the parts. This is the typical situation in the case of a compound lexeme, such as black market ‘illegal trading system’ or take a/the hint ‘understand and act on a veiled message’. When, however, the construction involves a shift to another, normally figurative, plane of meaning, as in rough diamond ‘superficially unattractive but fundamentally worthy person’ or draw the line at smth ‘reach the limits of one’s willingness’, we normally speak of an established metaphor or a meta-phorical idiom. Finally, the term pure or opaque idiom is appropriate for those cases in which, for the normal speaker, all semantic links to the ‘natural meaning’ are absent, as in red herring ‘irrelevant issue’ or get smbd’s goat ‘annoy smbd’. The other main type of semantic irregularity is when a single word (rather than the construction as a whole) has an abnormal value in the construction under examination. This may be a special semantic adaptation (to suit the context)114 of the word in question but one that still can be linked to the basic meaning of the word in question, giving rise to a kind of polysemy, as in white wine ‘yellowish-coloured wine’, offer resistance ‘voluntarily perform resistance = resist’; we could call such combinations RESTRICTED COLLOCATIONS. The other possibility is that the word in question has a unique idiomatic meaning only in combination with one partner word and that the meaning is unrelated to the basic meaning, resulting in homonymy, as in tall story ‘improbable story’ or crack a joke ‘make/tell 114 In Allerton (1982: 27–9; 89–90) and (1984a: 21ƒ) the notion of ‘semantic tailoring’ is introduced to describe this.

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a joke’; such combinations could be termed ONE-SIDED IDIOMS. Both of these phenomena can be considered as collocational in a broad sense, and in both cases there is one word that is freely chosen for its meaning, the ‘base’, and another that collocates with it, the ‘collocant’. An alternative terminology, suggested in Allerton (1984a) is ‘master’ and ‘servant’, in the sense that the ‘servant’ word is selected and semantically dominated by its partner ‘master’ word. The BBI Dictionary, i.e. Benson et al. (1986a), which aims to exclude idioms, covers both of these kinds of collocation. An aspect of non-literal expressions that is closely linked to their semantic irregularity is their LEXICAL SELECTIVITY. Of course any semantic limitation within a construction involves a simultaneous restriction on the choice of its constituent words, so that all the semantic phenomena we have just considered, most particularly the latter two, restricted collocation and one-sided idioms, are also lexical in nature; they most commonly involve the interaction between lexical choice in different grammatical categories, for instance choosing the appropriate adjective for a particular noun. But sometimes a lexical item has a very limited contribution to make, because it is partly or even largely redundant in the construction in which it occurs. Such redundant collocants occur mainly in patterns like coordination (safe and sound, aches and pains), similes (as fit as a fiddle) and structures with repetition (man to man, hour after hour), in each of which one element is redundant to some degree. The lexical selection of such redundant elements is partly determined by semantic relations like nearsynonymy, co-hyponymy or exemplification, but partly also by phonological factors like alliteration and assonance (or total identity, in the case of repetition!). A further aspect of idioms, collocations and the like, which partly overlaps with the semantic and lexical aspects we have just considered is the question of their REGULARITY OF COMBINATION. In virtually all of the patterns and examples taken account of so far there has been a grammatically regular construction with lexical or semantic restrictions on the occurrence of one or more of the constituents. We could have a mild degree of grammatical irregularity in the repetitive noun-plus-prepositionplus-(identical) noun constructions like man to man, which have the value of an adverbial, despite their strange internal structure with a preposition in a position where we would expect a conjunction like and. A slightly higher degree of grammatical deviance is to be seen in examples like by and large, in which a coordination of preposition and adjective yields an adverb.115 The use of unique items like the kith of kith and kin, or the lurch of leave in the lurch, could be seen as cases of lexical irregularity.

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115 Normally coordination involves items of the same grammatical class which are combined to give a compound structure still of the same basic class, e.g. hills and valleys (constituents and construction: nouns), above and beyond (constituents and construction: prepositions).

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220 The lexical status of stretched verb constructions No matter how irregular a construction is, it still belongs to the language and is in principle shared by all speakers. But linguistic change is possible at all times, and some speakers, such as poets, comedians or outsider groups, are often at the forefront of such innovations. Any linguistic expression may therefore be absolutely normal or it may show some degree of DEVIATION FROM THE SEMANTIC OR PRAGMATIC NORM. An individualistic poet may produce a new metaphor, for instance, that is so deviant that it makes all readers and listeners pause in puzzlement, for instance, Dylan Thomas’s stained with spilt words. Alternatively we may immediately recognize an expression as new but on a familiar pattern, so that it is novel rather than deviant; this would explain the origin of expressions like in work in bureaucratic or journalistic English (as an antonym for out of work). If, on the other hand, an expression is not only normal but even extremely frequent and perhaps more so than its semantics would justify, then it can be labelled as hackneyed.116 Many idioms, metaphors and collocations would deserve this epithet, but also such relatively unidiomatic expressions as clichés, sayings, proverbs and the like. They would all be located at one end of a scale of deviance or normality running from deviant through novel and normal to hackneyed. Non-literal expressions can be seen then to follow (or in some cases, depart from) standard grammatical patterns. Depending on the size of the unit they represent, they can be said to operate at different LEVELS OF GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURE. Some clearly (regardless of their internal structure) function as phrase-constituents in that they replace or could be replaced by a word of the appropriate class but need partner words to become a phrase: for instance, red herring could be replaced by a noun (e.g. diversion), offer resistance to by a verb (resist), up and coming by an adjective (rising), etc. Others seem to operate at the level of phrases (i.e. potential direct constituents of the sentence), e.g. the end of the road (a noun phrase), go to rack and ruin (a ‘verb phrase’, i.e. an elaborated verb structure), of course (a sentence adverbial). Finally, some expressions appear in the role of sentences, which can be exemplified by one of the many proverbs English has, or by a modern expression like I hear what you’re saying with the meaning ‘I know what you mean’; any grammatical classification of these will need to be textual or pragmatic rather than strictly syntactic. Finally sentence-level expressions need to be described in terms of their PRAGMATIC or TEXTUAL INTERPRETATION, i.e. function in the text or discourse. On the one hand, they can be classified in the usual way according to their grammatical structure, i.e. whether they are formally statements, commands, or questions. On the other, they can be seen grouped according to the kind of speech-act value they have: thus A stitch in time saves nine is obviously a piece of advice, while Pride comes before a fall 116 This use of the term ‘hackneyed’ thus corresponds roughly to Barkema’s (1996) ‘familiar (construction)’ and Pawley and Syder’s (1983: 205) ‘memorized sequences’.

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Semantics of stretched verb constructions 221 is clearly a warning. Finally, such expressions can be seen as making a particular kind of textual contribution, depending on whether they represent conventional wisdom, a witticism, an insult, an official notice, etc. It might be possible to locate here also the kind of pragmatic or sociolinguistic norms that have the effect of making speakers prefer or not prefer eighteen months to a year and a half or one and a half years, and other such preferences discussed as a possible fourth level of cooccurrence restriction by Allerton (1984a). Now that we have surveyed these criteria, we are ready to summarize them in Table 5.1, bearing in mind that further categories might be required. What then is the status of stretched verb constructions relative to other non-literal expressions? They clearly belong to the nominal or the adjectival subclass of restricted collocations, in which a noun or adjective is the base of the collocation; further they belong to the subvariety in which the base noun or adjective is an eventive one and whose collocants include a thin verb and possibly a thin preposition. Moreover, to qualify as full members of the group, their eventive noun or adjective must be morphologically related to a verb, so that, for instance, have an allergy to smth, be an allergy {of smbd}, be allergic to smth all contain an eventive noun or adjective and follow one of the grammatical patterns we have established for stretched verb constructions. But there is no corresponding simplex verb construction, simply because there is no verb *allergize or *allergue or the like. If we apply our criteria rigorously, we can at best regard such cases as examples of a defective stretched verb construction (see section V.1.iv,). We shall be considering the question of the analysability or compositionality of stretched verb constructions in the next section, but it is already clear that, like all restricted collocations (and even semi-idioms), but unlike opaque idioms, they do at least have partial analysability. On the other hand, they are like idioms in being memorized and recalled as wholes from the memory. This leads us to the question whether they can be counted as lexemes or not, a question we will address in section V.2.iii. But already at this stage, we can say that, unlike some collocations (e.g. ADVERBIAL INTENSIFIER + ADJECTIVE, such as very good, absolutely excellent), they seem like single multi-word lexemes in that they might well require a separate entry in a dictionary that attempts to specify all standard unpredictable word combinations. We can sum up this point rather crudely like this:

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Opaque idioms

Stretched verb constructions

Other collocations

Free constructions

in memory in memory not in memory lexeme status no lexeme status no lexeme status semantic analysis semantic analysis semantic analysis

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in memory lexeme status no semantic analysis

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222 The lexical status of stretched verb constructions Table 5.1 Phraseological units – defining criteria for subtypes A. SEMANTIC ANALYSABILITY ( = MEANING OF WHOLE COMPARED WITH PARTS) 1. Whole of construction affected: (a) normal meaning for construction but with additional semantic feature (compound(/complex) lexeme) (b) special figurative meaning for whole construction (= standard metaphor) (c) special opaque meaning for whole construction (= opaque idiom) 2. One constituent affected: (a) specially adapted meaning (→ polysemy) for one constituent (N.B. semantic adaptability of modifiers) (= restricted collocation, cf. B.2(b)) (b) special unique meaning (→ homonymy) for one element (= one-sided idiom) B. 1. 2.

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LEXICAL SELECTIVITY Fixing of lexical choice of ‘minor’ element: N in simile; P in adverbial PP, P after N/Adj/V; thin V in VP; Degree intensifier n AdjP (selection of collocant to fit base in restricted collocation, cf. A.2(a)) Redundant presence of coordinated elements that are ‘similar’ through repetition and/or synonymy and/or phonological similarity (redundancy of element in coordinative or comparative construction, etc.)

C. REGULARITY OF COMBINATION 1. Grammatically regular pattern but restrictions of combination: (a) both elements restricted (cf. A.1(b) and (c)) (b) one element restricted (cf. A.2(b)) (c) one element with neutralization of semantic distinctions (cf. A.2(a)) 2. Grammatically regular pattern but one element unique (lexical deviance) 3. Grammatically irregular pattern (grammatical deviance) D. 1. 2. 3. 4.

DEGREE OF DEVIATION FROM LINGUISTIC NORM Deviant combination (new ‘unnatural’ metaphor (or idiom??)) Original combination (new ‘natural’ metaphor (or idiom??)) Standard combination (lexicalized/established (semi-)idiom, metaphor or collocation) Hackneyed combination (common lexicalized (semi-)idiom, metaphor or collocation; or cliché, saying, proverb)

E. 1 2. 3.

GRAMMATICAL PATTERNS INVOLVED Lexeme level: N, Adj, V, etc. Phrase level: NP, AdjP, VP, etc. Sentence level (See F below)

F.

PRAGMATIC/TEXTUAL INTERPRETATON, i.e. FUNCTION IN TEXT OR DISCOURSE Grammatical structure (statement, command, question) Speech-act type (advice, warning, request, etc.) Textual contribution (conventional wisdom, witticism, insult, etc.)

1. 2. 3.

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Semantics of stretched verb constructions 223

V.1.ii The analysability and malleability of stretched verb constructions Semantic analysability was the first criterion we considered in our general analysis of non-literal constructions. In the case of stretched verb constructions, we can say that, as restricted collocations, they have one element, the eventive noun, as a collocational base with its normal meaning, but other elements, including a thin verb, which are semantically tailored to fit the meaning of the base. Our survey of the meanings of thin verbs (in section IV.1) and thin prepositions (in section III.2.ii) showed this clearly. But semantic analysability implies grammatical analysability. Fraser (1970) and Makkai (1972: 52–4, 150–2) (cf. also Björkman (1978) and Radford (1988: 422–4; 430–1)) discuss the extent to which idioms permit manipulations such as exchanges of words, insertion of additional words, permutations of word order and complex transformations such as passivization. Fraser goes so far as to propose a scale of (in)flexibility in the shape of idioms, a so-called ‘frozenness hierarchy’. This ranges such manipulative ‘operations’ on a scale from (at the one extreme) those, like gerundive nominalization, that are possible for all except maximally frozen idioms, to (at the other extreme) those, like clefting, that are only possible for the most analytic of idioms. An idiom like pluck up courage, for instance, is said to be totally frozen, in that the noun phrase courage cannot be varied (*pluck up bravery), the particle up cannot be postposed (*pluck courage up), and passivization is impossible (*Courage was plucked up). A fixed expression like throw in the towel, on the other hand, allows an alternative noun (throw in the sponge), allows the particle in to be postposed (throw the towel in), and probably permits passivization ((?)The towel was thrown in). If we now consider stretched verb constructions in this light, how malleable or frozen do they turn out to be? If we take an example like put in an application (for the job), compared with the simplex construction apply for the job, we find that a near-synonym can replace the noun (put in a request) that the particle can be postposed (put an application in) and that passivization is possible (The job was applied for). Furthermore, the malleability of the construction is confirmed by other tests, e.g. possible variations in the object noun phrase, cf. put in a new application, put in two applications. In general, then, it is clear that stretched verb constructions, if measured against the scale of frozenness of idiomatic constructions, come at the least frozen end of the scale. But it is worth going one step further and asking precisely which parts of a stretched verb construction are totally flexible and which are subject to restrictions of manipulation. Stretched verb constructions are varied in structure, but they all have a thin verb and an eventive noun as part of its elaboration, which in turn is at the heart of a noun phrase; many of them also contain a thin preposition or a particle adverb (or both). We can therefore compare a typical stretched verb construction like put in the application with a comparable

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224 The lexical status of stretched verb constructions freely rule-generated construction like put out the milk-bottle with respect to grammatical features of this kind: Change in:

FREELY GENERATED CONSTRUCTION

STRETCHED VERB CONSTRUCTION

(BASIC

put out the milk-bottle

put in the application

choice of aspect

be putting out the milk-bottle

be putting in the application

choice of verb

throw out the milk-bottle

?throw in the application

choice of determiner

put out that milk-bottle

put in that application

choice of number

put out the milk-bottles

put in the applications

choice of noun

put out the milk-carton/box

put in the request/*?attempt

noun phrase → coordinate

put out the milk-carton and the milk-bottle

?put in the request and the application

choice of particle

put out/away the milk-bottle (PREDICTABLE MEANINGS)

put in/back the application (UNPREDICTABLE MEANINGS)

clause →relative

the milk-bottle I put out

the application I put in

voice →passive

the milk-bottle was put out

the application was put in

position of particle

put the milk-bottle out

(?) put the application in

FORM)

Looking individually at these tests for flexibility, we find, first of all, that tense and aspect operate as for any other elaborated verb structure. The checks on the grammatical features of the noun phrase (choice of number, determiner) yield positive results in this case and indeed in most cases; but some stretched verb constructions with have (e.g. have a cry, have a read, have a swim, have a wash) seem to have a less nominal meaning in their noun phrase, with the result that such variations in its form are less plausible (e.g. ?have the cry, ?have two cries, cf. further discussion in section, V.1.iii). Varying either the thin verb or the eventive noun alone can bring about an unidiomatic sequence, because they are collocationally restricted, as we

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Semantics of stretched verb constructions 225 know. Similarly the choice of adverbial particle (where there is one) is collocationally linked to the selection of thin verb. It is nevertheless clear, even from a schematic look at one example, that stretched verb constructions like put in a/the application do not fall far short of freely generated constructions in terms of operational malleability. That is why they were given the kinds of syntactic description assigned to them in Part II. Eventive noun phrases often function, for instance, as objects in the strict sense: this is a guarantee for their ability to participate in a corresponding passive sentence or to allow clefting. Stretched verb constructions are, however, sensitive as regards their choice of thin verbs, as well as particles and thin prepositions (wherever these occur). As we saw in Part IV, the choice of these elements is made with special reference to the identity of the eventive noun, which seems to adapt or ‘tailor’ their semantics to suit its own needs. Apart from these issues of semantic analysability, there is also the question of the differential syntactic analysis of the stretched constructions compared with their simple counterparts. One aspect of this concerns the link between adverbial particle and verb within a thin phrasal verb. In all phrasal verbs this is a strong link, and obviously it gets stronger the more opaque the semantics of the phrasal verb is; but this seems to make little difference to the mobility of the particle in normal uses of phrasal verbs, so that, for instance, turn the application down is just as acceptable as turn down the application, despite the opaqueness of turn down ‘reject’. When, however, such opaque phrasal verbs appear inside a stretched verb construction, the combination of selectional restrictions (particle–verb and verb–noun) can have the effect of freezing the mobility of the sequence VERB + PARTICLE + NOUN PHRASE, presumably so that the hearer can process the verb–particle combination before combining it with the eventive noun. As a result a pattern like strike up an acquaintance becomes highly abnormal if given the perfectly normal structural ordering *?strike an acquaintance up. It is also worth recalling the restriction (that we noted in section III.2.ii) on the movement of certain preposition phrases linked to eventive nouns: often the preposition phrase dependent on a verb corresponds to a prepositional qualifier of the eventive noun in the corresponding stretched verb construction (as in commit an assault on smbd, provide an answer to smth), but sometimes it retains its status of prepositional objoid or object (as in focus attention on smth, present an award to smbd). Constructions of the first type are more malleable in that, in passive sentences, the preposition phrase concerned can either follow the eventive noun into subject position or stay put in post-verb position, whereas constructions of the second type are bound to stay put, cf.: (1)

(a) An assault on the prisoner had clearly been committed. (b) An assault had clearly been committed on the prisoner.

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226 The lexical status of stretched verb constructions (2)

(a) ??Abuse at the prisoner had clearly been hurled. (b) Abuse had clearly been hurled at the prisoner.

It is perhaps stating the obvious to note that stretched verb constructions containing a prepositional objoid are less malleable than those with a prepositional qualifier of the eventive noun.

V.1.iii Stretched verb constructions compared with rival patterns Stretched verb constructions appear to have a relatively high degree of semantic and syntactic analysability, and yet they seem to be idiosyncratic enough to need recording in the lexicon. Lexically they will obviously have close links to their kindred simplex verb constructions and to other rival patterns. How then do they essentially differ from these? At the level of individual constructions each one has its own precise meaning which has been individualized to meet a precise semantic need. A simplex verb, as a lexical item, most often involves polysemy, but the eventive noun or adjective related to it is often restricted to one of the polysemous readings. The verb act, for instance, has at least three clearly different but still related meanings, namely ‘perform dramatically’, ‘behave’ and ‘be active’ as found in the phrases act brilliantly, act strangely and act quickly; but when it comes to stretched verb constructions, we see that do some acting has only the first meaning, while take action has only the third meaning. Similarly, whereas the verb absorb can have the literal meaning ‘integrate a substance into a fabric’ but also the figurative meaning ‘occupy the attention of’, the corresponding adjective-based constructions be absorbent and be absorbing can respectively have only the first or only the second meaning. Sometimes the polysemy goes so far that it almost becomes a case of homonymy, as in the meanings of accompany, roughly ‘go somewhere with somebody’ and ‘play a musical instrument in a background role simultaneously with another performer’; and only the second of these interpretations is possible in provide the accompaniment. Selecting a stretched verb construction can therefore have the effect of resolving a possible ambiguity between polysemous readings for a particular lexical item. Can we also say something more general about the different types of stretched verb construction? Let us begin with a comparison with simplex verb constructions. There are two obvious differences between simplex and stretched elaboration structures. The first is that simplex structures present the event in the form of a noun, thus tending to reify it (i.e. make it appear like an entity, rather than a true event that actually takes place); an exception is Structure 1, which turns the event into an adjectival quality. The second obvious difference is that simplex structures are relatively short (in other words, ‘unstretched’), giving them a directness of expression and style,

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Semantics of stretched verb constructions 227 whereas stretched structures are more expansive, a quality that, interestingly, is in most cases associated with a formal style (e.g. hold a conversation), but in some cases with an informal one (e.g. have a chat), as we shall see shortly. There are verbs which only ever appear in a simplex construction, either because they have no kindred eventive noun, or because the existing eventive noun is ‘inert’, in the sense that it does not combine with a thin verb to form a stretched verb construction. Verbs like abscond, afford, allay, amass, amble, ask, assail and astound have no corresponding deverbal noun for describing the kind of eventuality involved, apart from the universally available gerund (which is found in the do sm V-ing construction, discussed below, in section V.1.iii). Verbs such as abdicate, abolish, absorb, abstain, accelerate, accede, accomplish, accumulate adopt, anticipate, arrive, assemble, attain, augment and avoid differ in that they do have kindred nouns (abdication, abolition, absorption, abstention, accession, accomplishment, etc.), but are the same in that they nevertheless do not have any stretched verb construction to offer; it is impossible to say, for instance, *make an abdication, *carry out the abolition of smth or *do an abstention. In all of these cases the speaker has no choice but to use the simplex verb construction; and yet the verbs do not seem to have taken on a broader meaning themselves to compensate for the lack of kindred stretched verb constructions. When we look at the individual types of stretched verb construction, we realize that they each have their own specific meanings, as we saw in Part I. Structure 1 patterns like be helpful (to smbd), with an adjective at their heart, convert the eventive meaning of the simplex verb into a quality in the form of a propensity to perform or undergo the action or state in question. The ‘active’ meaning of a propensity to perform can be seen in examples like be agreeable, be acquisitive, while the ‘passive’ meaning of the tendency to be the target of an activity or process is found in examples like be abhorrent, be abominable. In non-progressive verb forms (e.g. be agreeable, be abominable) a relatively permanent characteristic is suggested, whereas in progressive uses (e.g. be being agreeable, be being abominable) some temporary behaviour is being referred to. Moreover, as we noted earlier, the greater optionality of verbal elaborators in this adjective-based construction means that the person or thing referred to by the object or prepositional objoid in the simplex verb construction is de-emphasized, the subject therefore being more highlighted. For example, in be agreeable (to the proposal) there is less weight on the proposal agreed to than in agree to the proposal. But of course the major difference remains the fact that the verb-based construction refers to an actual activity, while the adjective-based one is concerned with propensities and tendencies. The noun-centred constructions of Structure 2 have an agentive noun at their heart, as in be a helper of smbd; in some cases, with a kind of ‘passive’ meaning, the noun has instead a ‘patientive’ value, as in be the/an addressee. This means that the subject is seen as having a perhaps permanent, perhaps

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228 The lexical status of stretched verb constructions temporary role of causer or of target of the event described by the simplex verb. The event itself therefore tends to be slightly backgrounded in favour of this role relative to the event. As in the case of Structure 1 patterns, other entities connected with the event (corresponding to objects and the like of the kindred simplex verb) are even more de-emphasized. For instance, in using the expression be an assistant, we tend to forget who is being assisted, while in saying be the addressee, we often disregard the issue of who addressed the object implicitly referred to. Turning now to Structure 3 patterns, we should recall that they involve a slight semantic anomaly, in that a copular relationship is suggested between an entity, the subject, and an event, the descriptor (= predicative), so that, for instance, somebody or something is said to be a help or be an addition or be an affront. We assumed above that be needs to be understood either figuratively or in a special sense like ‘cause, give rise to, become a source of’. Although the overall meaning is perhaps slightly problematic, compared with Structures 1 and 2, the grammatical subject’s responsibility for the event and more particularly for its results is brought into focus: the persons in question have done something which has this event (e.g. helping, an adding or an affronting, in the cited examples) as a result. Thus the event is seen as an independent phenomenon but one that has a cause involving the entity referred to by the subject. Coming next to Structure 4, we can appreciate that this still involves a copular verb with a descriptor (= predicative), though in the less well studied form of a preposition phrase, and as such can still be seen as ascribing a quality to the subject. But the presence of a preposition in the pattern seems to give an indirectness of meaning, suggesting not so much a major actor as a background circumstance like place, time, or indirect or partial cause. As we noted above, to be of help suggests something weaker or less definite than to help, and to be in the lead something more temporary and transitory than to lead. The precise interpretation of the preposition phrase varies from construction to construction because each has an individually lexicalized interpretation, though this must of course be compatible with the semantic range of the preposition and of the deverbal noun. The examples of (3) give the main semantic structures: (3)

SUBJECT

‘ACTIVE’

+

be +

‘agent, cause’ on, of, in e.g. be on the attack, of assistance, in control

‘NEUTRAL’ ‘characterized entity’ e.g. be in accord ‘PASSIVE’

PREPOSITION

in

‘affected entity’ under e.g. be under attack, under control

+

NOUN

‘process’ ‘state’ ‘process’

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Semantics of stretched verb constructions 229 As we noted above, copular verbs other than be are used, such as remain, seem, and when a change of state has to be expressed, this is done with the dynamic verbs get, come and go (but not become), in some cases with a change of preposition, such as in to into, and on to on to. This means that there has been a shift to our Structure 5. Structure 5, then, (like its close relative Structure 6) includes a noncopular verb, i.e. one that fundamentally denotes a happening (rather than a state), although the basic event is rendered by the deverbal noun. How is it possible to have an event expressed in two places? If we compare examples like go on to the attack or present smbd with an award with their kindred simplex constructions, we can see the thin verbs go and present as semantic components that have been extracted from the meaning of the verbs attack and award respectively. The thin verbs extracted in this way in Structure 5 patterns can be divided into three semantic groups: some constructions have a verb of motion with a preposition of destination (e.g. come/go to smbd’s aid, come to an agreement, go to arbitration, move into action); a second group has verbs of activity with a preposition suggesting ‘local environment’ (e.g. indulge in some acting, fill smbd with alarm); a final group with a ‘passive’ meaning has verbs of experiencing with a preposition interpretable as source or cause (e.g. meet with acceptance, suffer from an ailment). In all cases the event is presented as a noun and therefore reified as an entity, but as one that is only linked to the verb of motion, activity or suffering via a preposition, with the result that event comes to be interpreted as a kind of circumstance, rather than a directly involved entity. Structure 6 patterns, by contrast, have the event appearing as an entity that forms part of the valency of the thin verb, giving the impression that the event is experienced more directly. Since it is the largest group, it is not surprising that the range of thin verbs used is much wider, as will be recalled from Table 4.1 in Part IV. The most frequent verbs used in Structure 6 include: make, give, carry out, cause, grant, provide, offer, do, form, put in, take, arouse, commit, gain, go, perform, present, render, secure, work out (with an ‘active’ value); have, get, come, take (with a ‘neutral’ or variable value); and receive, suffer, feel, undergo, find (with a ‘passive’ value). The use of this pattern is thus well-suited to expressing the idea of an event as an entity, and as such one that has been performed by somebody and has affected somebody or something, with either of these primary participants in the event appearing in subject position, depending on the particular construction, and especially on the choice of thin verb. Some Structure 6 patterns may need to be accorded special status, most particularly those involving have followed by an object noun phrase consisting of the indefinite article with a zero-derived deverbal noun, in which the latter has not become a true noun but retains its essential verb status, as in have a taste, have a swim. This pattern was subjected to intensive investigation by Wierzbicka. She suggests that a distinction can be made between the have an N pattern and the have a V pattern (1982: 757f ),

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230 The lexical status of stretched verb constructions such that the first has a true derived noun, possibly with a suffix, and the second has such an ad-hoc converted verb–noun, as seen in the contrast between have an argument and have an argue. The crux of the distinction comes with verbs that have a normal derived noun formed by zero-derivation, so that the noun and the crypto-verbal pseudo-noun look identical; such a pair would be exemplified by give a talk compared with have a talk (except that the first construction has give rather than have). The talk of give a talk is clearly a lexicalized noun with its own specific meaning (‘informal lecture’), whereas the talk of have a talk is very close to the meaning of the verb. Wierzbicka tries to distinguish these two nouns talk by saying that the second one in some sense remains a verb, and regularly displays certain semantic features, roughly agentivity, a time limitation, experiential consequences only for the performer, and (at least potential) repeatability. In practice, however, she claims that this general semantic value is subject to a number of more specific semantic restrictions, for which Wierzbicka’s semantic formulae could be simplified as follows: (i)

‘aimless and/or recreational, self-beneficial activity’ (have a walk, have a swim, have a lie-down, etc.); (ii) ‘intentional insignificant knowledge-seeking perceptual action’ (have a look, have a smell, etc.); (iii) ‘tentative insignificant knowledge-seeking action’ (have a try, have a look for smth, have a think, etc.); (iv) ‘semi-voluntary possibly self-beneficial action’ (have a cough, have a yawn, have a cry, etc.); (v) ‘pleasurable partial (oral) consumption of things’ (have a bite, have a lick, have a chew, etc.); (vi) ‘(oral-nasal) consumption of substances’ (have a drink of smth, have a smoke, have sniff of smth, etc.); (vii) ‘possibly pleasurable activity involving another entity’ (have a kick of smth, have a throw of smth, have a read (of smth), etc.); (viii) ‘possibly appearance-enhancing self-directed activity’ (have a wash, have a shave, have a bath, etc.); (ix) ‘mutually pleasurable joint bodily activity’ (have a kiss, have a cuddle, have a dance, etc.); (x) ‘possibly pleasurable joint speech activity’ (have a chat, have a gossip, have a laugh, etc.). If this analysis is correct, even with one or two amendments of detail, it represents a chain of polysemous variants of one construction. The meaning of the construction as a whole would be something like ‘a finite, short or self-contained action, completed or broken off, repeatable, and carried out either as an experiment or for the benefit of the subject’. A more important issue, probably, is Wierzbicka’s claim that this proposed construction represents a distinguishably different construction

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Semantics of stretched verb constructions 231 from the one we have in the main been dealing with, because the verbderived word, although nominal in appearance, does not become a full noun but retains a partly verbal character. What is the evidence for this? The identity of form with the verb is not sufficient to make the word in question into a verb, since zero-derived deverbal nouns well outside the bounds of this construction are quite common in English (of which countable examples are (an) ache, (an) alarm, (an) attack. A more plausible basis for differentiation is in the measurable countability or enumerability of the events described in the noun phrase: it does not seem normal to ask if somebody is going to have ‘one cough or two coughs’, ‘one wash or two washes’, etc. Equally, the choice of adjectives with this ‘noun’ is somewhat limited: one can ‘have a good cough’, for instance, but whether one can (in a similar sense) ‘have a loud cough’ or ‘have a long cough’ is rather more doubtful. The problem is that such criteria seem to be a matter of degree, and each example tested in this way seems to give slightly different results. It seems unsure, therefore, whether Wierzbicka’s label ‘have a V ’ for such constructions can be fully justified; something like ‘have a [V + Ø]N’ would be more appropriate, since no clear grammatical line can be drawn between, say, have a dance in Wierzbicka’s sense and have a dance (together) in the sense of ‘dance the next waltz, etc. (together)’. There is of course a semantic difference between the two, for instance in the meaning of have; but this difference is no greater than that between have in have a dance and have in have a shock, although the latter takes a subject that is not even an ‘agent’ but rather an ‘experiencer’ or a ‘patient’. It would therefore appear necessary to regard all of these haveconstructions as stretched verb constructions, subdividing them according to various criteria. If we do this for have-constructions, we shall certainly want to do it also for do-constructions, although patterns like do sm advertising, do sm dancing, do sm knitting do seem very close to the simplex patterns advertise, dance, knit, with very little possibility of insertion of an adjective before the pseudo-noun advertising, dancing, knitting. One thing that Wierzbicka’s ‘have a V ’ and what she could have called ‘do sm V-ing’ have in common is their openness to new formations, their informal style and thus the fact they are thus less likely to be recorded in dictionaries. Having considered how individual stretched verb constructions differ from each other and from simplex verb constructions, we should now compare them with possible rival constructions. There are two main candidates, verbs with cognate or semantically predictable objects (such as give/present a gift/present), and phrasal verbs (such as hand in/over). Let us consider them in that order. Constructions consisting of a verb and an object (or other form of complementation) that are closely related, in a morphological and/or semantic sense, can be regarded as a special case of stretched verb constructions. In a standard stretched verb construction the verb is thin (or ‘light’) in the sense that either it already has a broad range of meaning including

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232 The lexical status of stretched verb constructions polysemy or it has developed a special semantically weak sense in constructions of this kind. In our discussion of thin verbs in Part IV we distinguished four grades of frequency, of which the lowest was very low frequency verbs that are unique (or nearly so) to one particular deverbal noun. In some cases this limitation seems to be arbitrary (e.g. lodge an appeal/application), but in two cases the choice was, from a semantic point of view, highly appropriate, namely add an appendage to smth, put on an act/affectation. If we extend our exemplification beyond words with initial A- we find many further examples, including strike a blow, eat food, play a game, teach a lesson, lead a life, swear an oath, paint a picture, give a present, ask a question, tell a story. With their tight semantic coherence, such combinations are felt by native speakers to be very natural, and they occur with high frequency. Somewhat less natural are combinations in which the verb and the noun are not only semantically close but also morphologically related. These are verbs with so-called ‘cognate objects’, such as those of (4), which to a greater or lesser degree are unusual in everyday use and have a rather literary flavour: (4)

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die a tragic/miserable death, do a good/the deed, dream a strange dream, give a gift, grin a friendly grin, laugh a nervous laugh, live a life, paint a painting, see a (strange) sight, sing a song, smile a mischievous smile.

These constructions seem odd partly because of what Bolinger (1979) calls the ‘chime’ effect, but partly also for syntactic reasons. The most unnatural of them seem to be those in which the verb most commonly occurs in the intransitive pattern, i.e. die, dream, grin, laugh, live, smile; in these cases the construction would be limited to special registers, such as poetic and religious English or archaic proverbs. This same limitation seems to apply, however, to some of the grammatically regular patterns, like give a gift, see a sight; the obvious alliteration (or, in some cases, total repetition) is associated in language-users’ minds with special poetic effects, and if these are not intended, the expression is best avoided. Sometimes a synonymous verb or noun is the obvious alternative, as in the examples of (5): (5)

COGNATE VERB

live a life paint a painting tell a tale do a good deed give a gift

SYNONYMOUS VERB

→ → → → →

lead a life (or have a life) paint a picture tell a story do a good turn give a present, present a gift

In a few cases the verb with ‘cognate’ object is perfectly normal, e.g. sing a song, and, although an unusual case, this still requires an explanation. It may appear strange that such combinations occur at all, if the object is

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Semantics of stretched verb constructions 233 in any case semantically redundant, but usually either the verb or the noun has shifted its semantics slightly, so that the two do not constitute a perfect match. Sometimes the noun has a more specialized meaning, so that the verb naturally allows other objects, for example, there are other things to sing than a song (as in sing an aria, sing a hymn, sing a nursery rhyme); but even if the meaning of the noun is a perfect semantic match for the cognate verb, it is usually possible to distinguish subvarieties of the object (as in paint a painting but also paint a portrait). In other cases the verb has developed polysemy and its other meanings allow other objects, cf. paint a door beside paint a painting/picture. An example with a clearly Latin eventive noun is add an addendum to smth, which could be compared with add an appendix to smth. Apart from cognate object constructions, the other construction that rivals stretched verb constructions117 is that of PHRASAL VERBS (in the narrower sense, i.e. combinations of verb and adverbial particle). They constitute another way of forming a new lexeme, as an alternative to derivation and compounding, but also to stretched verb constructions. Amongst others, we could consider the following examples: (6)

PHRASAL VERB

KINDRED SIMPLEX VERB CONSTRUCTION

act up act out add smth in/on/up answer smbd back average smth out

act ‘behave’ act ‘perform dramatically’ add smth to smth else answer smbd average smth

An inspection of these examples shows that such phrasal verbs differ from the simplex construction in one of two ways: they may add an extra semantic feature, as in the last two examples, and perhaps also resolve polysemous vagueness, as in the first two examples; or they may bring about a minor syntactic restructuring, as in the add examples, where the particle of the phrasal verb (in/on/up) structurally replaces the prepositional objoid phrase (to smth else). But we rarely find the more substantial kinds of syntactic restructuring we discussed for stretched verb constructions in Part II. Phrasal verbs also differ in that they lack the nominalization (or adjectivalization) value that we find in stretched verb constructions. Finally, phrasal verbs tend to belong to informal English, whereas the majority of stretched verb constructions belong to the formal end of the stylistic spectrum. The third type of non-simplex alternative to stretched verb constructions is the structure usually referred to as ‘catenative patterns’. Palmer 117 A further rival construction is that of verbs with redundant opaque idiomatic objects, such as argue the toss beside the simplex argue (with smbd) and the stretched verb construction have an argument.

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234 The lexical status of stretched verb constructions (1974: 21–5; 166–7) defines catenatives as non-auxiliary verbs (because they fail the four tests of auxiliaries, Negation, Interrogation, ‘Code’ and Emphasis) which are followed by non-finite verb forms and allow recursion; the category is thus displayed in patterns with a gerund like come dancing, go skating, start speaking, carry on smoking, finish writing, succeed in escaping, or with an infinitive like come to agree, manage to escape. It has become clear that stretched verb constructions are patterns in which the event is not expressed through the main verb but through some dependent of it, and only some catenative patterns have this characteristic, including the examples already cited. These seem to fall into a number of discrete types. The pattern of come/go + GERUND seems to be limited in its first element to one of the two cited verbs (thus excluding *walk dancing, *rush skating) and in its gerund to verbs denoting organized pleasurable physical activity, typically sport or self-entertainment, cf. also go drinking/shopping/climbing, but not *go eating/sleeping/reading. Although this structure apparently has a semantic basis, it is clearly limited in its potential, and it can be seen as giving rise to restricted collocations, which can be compared with stretched verb constructions like go for a walk, have a swim. A second type has a verb of phase beginning, continuing or finishing followed by gerund in all cases or an infinitive of beginning or continuing, thus start speaking/to speak, continue speaking/to speak, finish speaking. Such constructions can be compared semantically with the stretched verb constructions we discussed above under the heading of ‘Aktionsart’ (section IV.2.ii); thus start applauding can be compared with burst into applause, or finish attacking can be compared with drive home an attack. But this kind of catenative pattern remains a productive syntactic pattern, without any real lexical limitations. A final group of examples involve a verb that describes success or fate followed by the infinitive or gerund, such as succeed in escaping, come to agree, manage to escape, chance to fall. This pattern, too, must be seen as a normal syntactic structure with no limitation on the choice of the non-finite verb, but, like stretched verb constructions, it does involve a displacement of the semantic event from the main verb position, which is filled instead by what Palmer (1965: 161) refers to as an ‘adverbial’ use of the verb.

V.1.iv Defective stretched verb constructions Stretched verb constructions, in the sense defined in Part I, are elaborated verb structures containing a thin verb and a deverbal noun or adjective, such that there is a simpler kindred construction with the underlying verb at its heart. In this sense a ‘stretched verb construction’ is a construction in which the eventive meaning expressed in a simplex construction by the verb alone has been stretched out over the thin verb and its accompanying eventive noun or adjective. But another way of interpreting the expression ‘stretched verb construction’ is to regard it as including any verb elaboration structure that is ‘stretched’ in the sense of ‘non-minimal’,

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i.e. ‘consisting of more than just a simple intransitive verb’. In this interpretation there would be no requirement for a kindred simplex construction. Constructions of our type that only fit into this broader category can be termed DEFECTIVE STRETCHED VERB CONSTRUCTIONS. A construction such as make an effort (to do smth) is superficially similar to a stretched verb construction like make an attempt (to do smth); but, whereas the latter construction has a corresponding simplex construction attempt (to do smth), such a possibility is lacking for make an effort (to do smth), because it has no related verb. Similarly defective constructions can be found that are adjective-based: for instance, unlike be ablaze (or be afloat) which corresponds to the verb blaze (or float), the pattern be adamant (or be adequate) has no kindred simplex verb construction. It almost goes without saying that pairs of nounbased and adjective-based constructions can even be found that still have no corresponding simplex verb construction: one such is have an apoplexy and be apoplectic, which have no kindred verb, unlike have an argument (with smbd) and be argumentative, which have the corresponding simplex construction argue (with smbd). A list of all these types,118 indicating the Construction type and a putative non-existent kindred verb, is displayed in Table 5.2. If we examine the range of patterns exemplified in Table 5.2 we find all of the Structures 1 to 6 represented, although Structures 4, 5 and 6 are perhaps slightly underrepresented compared with their frequency in normal stretched verb constructions. These are the structures with the clearest eventive meaning, and thus the closest semantic relationship to the verb; so their underrepresentation is not so surprising. Defective stretched verb constructions have no kindred lexical verb, and it is therefore impossible to identify an ‘underlying’ syntactic structure. This obviously means that they cannot be classified according to the syntactic restructuring scheme used in Part II. But is the proposed form for the hypothetical verbs suggested in Table 5.2 so unrealistic? In some cases (e.g. *apprentice) they are actual verbs of former times that have fallen into disuse. For other cases we know that in the past some new verbs have been analogically formed through so-called BACK-FORMATION, i.e. cancellation of a suffix or vowel change, such as British English burgle formed from burglar¸ or, more recently, originally in computer English, the verb access formed from the noun access. All such reconstructed verb forms are based on the reversal of regular morphological patterns (mainly suffixation, vowel-change or zero-formation, see section III.1.i, especially Table 3.2). The hypothetical verb form can indeed be regarded as a UNIQUE MORPHEME, cf. Hockett (1958: 126–7), Allerton (1979: 50). It provides just the sort of patterning that native speakers can (and in the future most

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118 i.e. cases of ‘verbless’ constructions that are noun-based, adjective-based or both. It is also worth noting that cases can be found of the converse situation, i.e. of an eventive noun that has a kindred verb but does not form any stretched verb constructions, e.g. deceleration; such nouns can be referred to as INERT DEVERBAL NOUNS.

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236 The lexical status of stretched verb constructions Table 5.2 List of defective stretched verb constructions (numbered according to their construction type) Stretched verb constructions

Hypothetical verb1

be an aberration (3) be in abeyance (4) be able to do smth (1), have the ability to do smth (6) be abnormal (1), show abnormalities (6) have/take up an abode (6) be absurd (1), be an absurdity (3) be an accomplice (2) be accidental (1), be an accident (3)

*ABER *ABEY

be accurate (1) be adamant that . . . (1) be addictive (1) (‘active’); be addicted (1), be an addict (2), have an addiction (6) (all ‘passive’) be adulterous (1), be an adulterer (2), commit adultery (6) be adversarial (1), be an adversary (2) be an aesthete (2), practise aestheticism (6) have an affinity with smth/smbd (6) be affluent (1), live in affluence (5), enjoy affluence (6) cause an affray (6) be afraid (1) be agnostic (1) be ajar (1) be an alcoholic (2) have allegiance to smbd (6) be allergic (1), have an allergy (6) be alluring (1) have an altercation with smbd (6) be an amateur (2), practise amateurism (6) be amorous (1) be ambiguous (1), show ambiguities (6) be ambitious (1), have (an) ambition (6) make amends (6) draw/make an analogy (6) be anecdotal (1), tell anecdotes (6) do sm angling (6)

*ABLE *ABNORMALIZE/-IFY °ABIDE *ABSURDIFY *ACCOMPLE *ACCIDE, *ACCIDENTALIZE *ACCURE *ADAM(E) *ADDICT (verb) *ADULTER *ADVERT *AESTHETICIZE/-IFY *AFFINE *AFFLU(ENC)E *AFFRAY *FRAY *AGNOST(IC)IZE *JAR *ALCOHOLIZE *ALLIEGE *ALLERGE *ALLURE2 *ALTERCATE *AMATE *AMORE *AMBIGUE *AMBIT °AMEND *ANALOGIZE *ANECDOTIZE °ANGLE3

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Semantics of stretched verb constructions 237 Table 5.2 (continued) Stretched verb constructions

Hypothetical verb1

cause anguish (6) be antipathetic (1), feel/show antipathy (6) be the antithesis (3) be anxious (1), feel/suffer anxiety (6) be apathetic (1), feel apathy (6) be apoplectic (1), suffer apoplexy (6) make an appointment with smbd (6) be apprenticed (1), be an apprentice (2) receive approbation (6) be arrogant (1), show arrogance (6) be artistic (1), be an artist (2), do art (6) be assiduous (1), show assiduity (6) be asthmatic (1), have asthma (6) be athletic (1), be an athlete (2), do athletics (6) be attached to smbd (1), feel/form an attachment for smbd (6) be audacious (1), have audacity (6) be austere (1), practise austerity (6) be an author (2) be autocratic (1), practise autocracy (6) do autocross (6) carry out/do an autopsy (6) be auxiliary (1), be an auxiliary (2) be averse to smbd/smth (1), have an aversion for smbd/smth (6) be aware of smth/smbd (1), show awareness of smth/smbd (6) be awesome (1), be awed (1), inspire awe (6)

*ANGUISH (verb) *ANTIPATHIZE *ANTITHESIZE *ANXIE *APATHIZE *APOPLEX °APPOINT *APPRENTICE *APPROB(AT)E *ARROGUE/°ARROGATE *ARTIFY *ASSIDUE *ASTHMATIZE *ATHLETICIZE °ATTACH *AUDACE *AUSTERIFY *AUTH *AUTOCRAT(IC)IZE *AUTOCROSS *AUTOPSIZE *AUXILIARIZE °AVERT *WARE *AWE4

Notes: 1 Non-existent verbs are marked with an asterisk; extant verbs with a different meaning are marked with a raised circle. The suggested form of non-existent verbs is of course purely speculative, although based on existing patterns. Some of the forms may already have been used. 2 The verb allure(d ) is recorded in some dictionaries but only has only nine occurrences in the BNC. 3 The verb exists in earlier English with appropriate meaning, ‘fish (for)’, but as a verb now only seems to be used in this sense in the fixed expressions such as go angling and do sm angling. 4 The verb is given in several dictionaries, but only a handful of clearly verbal instances are attested in the BNC.

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238 The lexical status of stretched verb constructions probably will) use to form new verbs, though admittedly some do not seem to yield particularly natural forms (e.g. be agnostic, be austere) and will probably retain their anomalous position. New verbs that have been formed by back-formation (such as burgle and access) have been given a syntactic character; so should it not be possible to foresee the syntactic possibilities of the hypothetical verbs of Table 5.2? In some cases the morphological form of the eventive noun or adjective strongly suggests an underlying form that is a hypothetical intransitive verb, such as be an aberration (*aber), be in abeyance (*abey), take up one’s abode (°abide ‘live’). In other cases it is more difficult to judge, particularly between verbs that could have a prepositional object or objoid, such as have an altercation with smbd (*altercate with smbd), be antipathetic towards smbd (*antipathize? with/? against smbd). In still other cases the hypothetical verb is clearly transitive, e.g. receive approbation (*approb(at)e). With time, then, defective stretched verb constructions can become normal ones through the establishment of a fully operative verb. But there is no reason for language change to move just in the direction of providing verbs for more and more eventive nouns. Things might just as well go in the opposite direction, that of verbs disappearing and giving way to the more extensive use of (increasingly defective) stretched verb constructions. This direction of change was indeed recommended by C. K. Ogden in his Basic English: he recommended, for instance, replacing all verbs outside the eighteen basic ones he retained with complex verb structures, including stretched verb constructions (e.g. put in motion, give a push to, cf. Ogden (1968: 26)) and also phrasal verbs. It is also the direction taken by some languages, in which stretched verb constructions are more commonly used than in English. We shall consider this point in section V.2.i.

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V.2 Stretched verb constructions and the lexicon

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V.2.i The cross-language status of stretched verb constructions It was made clear as early as section I.1.i that stretched verb constructions need to be recorded in the lexicon of a given language, because they represent a phenomenon that is partly arbitrary and language-specific. Languages may have similar construction potentials, but each language seems to make its own selection between its constructions for any individual construction, and this takes on its own specific meaning. To recall some examples, English has run the risk of smth but not *run (the) danger of smth, whereas German has precisely the equivalent of this, namely Gefahr laufen; or, in English there is make or lodge a complaint, while French has the equivalent of *carry/put down a complaint, namely porter/déposer une plainte, and German has *put in/raise a complaint, namely eine Beschwerde einlegen/ erheben. Despite these differences the general pattern is similar in these cases, and so we are naturally led to ask just how similar and how different languages are both in their potential for the general pattern and in their actual occurrence of individual stretched verb constructions. As we noted in Part I, stretched verb constructions are a welldocumented phenomenon in German, where the excessive use of them has been criticized as bad (bureaucratic) style. Attention has been given both to constructions with an eventive accusative noun phrase, i.e. our Structure 5 (e.g. eine Entscheidung treffen/fällen, literally ‘hit/fell a decision’), and to expressions with an eventive preposition phrase (e.g. zur Entscheidung kommen/gelangen, literally ‘come/reach to the decision’). In his wellexemplified discussion Heringer (1989: 106–13) also discusses degrees of grammaticalization and of idiomaticity, and points to differences in valency and in phases of an action. In French too such constructions have long been recognized. For instance, Dubois (1969: 24), under the general heading of ‘transformations’ and of ‘correspondances’, identifies constructions with faire, e.g. faire des calculs ‘do some calculations’, faire ses lavages ‘do one’s washing’, faire un sourire ‘do (= give) a smile’, faire du tapage ‘make noise(s)’, all of which

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240 The lexical status of stretched verb constructions correspond to simple verbs (in these cases, calculer, laver, sourire and taper respectively). Björkman’s (1978) corpus-based study is limited to cases in which the eventive noun appears without an article, e.g. accorder attention à quelque chose (literally ‘accord attention to smth’) or faire signe à quelqu’un (literally ‘make sign to smbd’). It is true that these two types, with and without an article in the eventive noun phrase, are more clearly distinguishable in French than in English, with its zero article for plural countable and mass nouns (Simatos 1997). The question also arises for French grammarians what relationship both of these types have to what we have termed ‘defective stretched verb constructions’, such as faire honte à quelqu’un ‘make (= cause) shame to smbd’, or, for that matter to idiomatic expressions like faire part à quelqu’un ‘inform’. All such constructions are found particularly in formal language (e.g. legal texts) apparently just as much in French as in German, cf. François and Grass (1997), also Cortès (1997). They can also be found in radio announcements, e.g. Vous êtes à/sur l’écoute de France Musiques ‘You are listening to France Musiques (literally, you are on the listen to France Musiques’). Turning to other Romance languages, we find Spanish stretched verb constructions dealt with by Pottier (1972: 81) and Gutiérrez (1993: 128–9) under the label ‘lexía compleja’. Examples mentioned include: hacer falta ‘be lacking’ (literally ‘do/make a lack’) corresponding to the simplex verb faltar ‘lack’, and hacer une pregunta ‘ask a question’ (literally ‘do/make a question’) corresponding to the simplex verb preguntar ‘ask’. (Both examples also illustrate a tendency some languages have to make more extensive use of a verb corresponding to do/make as a thin verb.) For Italian, unpublished research by E. Mombelli reveals a wide range of examples, even with the limitation to orthographical initial A, including Structure 1 (e.g. essere alterativo ‘be changeable’), Structure 2 (e.g. essere un affascinatore ‘be a fascinator, i.e. fascinate’), Structure 4 (e.g. essere/stare in adorazione di qualcuno ‘be in adoration of smbd, i.e. adore’), Structure 5 (e.g. prendere qualcuno in adozione ‘take in adoption, i.e. adopt’), and Structure 6 (e.g. piantare l’accampamento (‘plant the camp, i.e. pitch camp’). A glance at any Russian dictionary quickly reveals examples of nounbased stretched verb constructions: some of these have thin verbs corresponding to those in the equivalent English expression, e.g. prinmátj rjesˇénije ‘take (a) decision’ (cf. rjesˇátj ‘decide’), zadavátj voprós ‘put (a) question’ (cf. voprosˇátj ‘question (VERB)’), or nahodjítj udovoljstjvje ‘find contentment’ (cf. udovljetvorjátjsja ‘content oneself’); others have a different verb selection, e.g. djélatj doklád ‘do/make a lecture/report’ (cf. dokládivatj ‘lecture/report (VERB)’). Preposition phrase structures can also be found, e.g. prjihodjítj k soglasˇénno ‘arrive at an agreement’ (cf. soglasˇátjsja ‘agree’). The situation is possibly not very different in Modern Greek, where, according to Mackridge (1987: 356–9) many ‘idioms’ (some of which are probably stretched verb constructions) make use of a few common verbs, such as vázo ‘I put’, vlázo ‘I take out/off’, ékho ‘I have’, káno ‘I do’.

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Stretched verb constructions and the lexicon 241 In Persian and in Turkish stretched verb constructions, whether standard or defective, seem to be widely used. As regards Persian, Lambton (1953: 85–93) writes as follows: Many verbs are formed with a Verbal Noun and a simple verb such as kardan. The tendency in Modern Persian is to use such constructions rather than the simple verb. Lambton quotes examples like radar kardan (rather than rada∫tan) ‘persuade, oblige’, and ku∫e∫ kardan (rather than ku∫idan) ‘try, strive’. He particularly mentions lists a dozen verbs including kardan ‘do, make’, but also namudan ‘show’, da∫tan ‘have, possess’, dadan ‘give’ and eight or so others, which all act as thin verbs. In Turkish, on the other hand, one thin verb predominates, namely etmek (‘do, make’) or its ‘detransitivized’ equivalent yapmek, cf. Lewis (1967: 154–7). Some of these constructions apparently go back to an originally Turkish pattern, e.g. yardan etmek ‘help (VERB)’, literally ‘do help’. But the pattern really seems to have come into its own with nouns borrowed from Arabic, e.g. kabul etmek ‘accept’, literally ‘do/make acceptance’, or mukayese etmek ‘compare’, literally ‘do/make comparison’, and in many cases only the Arabic noun, not its kindred verb, was borrowed into Turkish. Later the pattern was extended to loans from European languages, e.g. organize etmek. Stretched verb constructions can also be found in at least some languages of southern and eastern Asia. With regard to Hindi, Snell and Weightman (1989: 191–4) refer to a category of ‘conjunct verbs’, for some of which ‘the noun component retains its function as a noun’. For Chinese, Scurfield (1991: 16–18, 92–3) reports numerous verb–noun constructions formed, for instance, with daˇ ‘strike, hit’ (e.g. daˇha¯qian ‘snore (VERB))’ or with ch¯ı ‘eat’ (e.g. ch¯ıj¯ıng ‘be shocked’). Similar expressions can be found in Japanese, such as koi o shite ‘love ACC. do = love (VERB)’, or juuatsu ni kurishin ‘pressure DAT. suffer = suffer pressure’, cf. also Miyamoto (1999). Swahili is one African language that seems to have stretched verb constructions, both standard ones and defective ones. In the role of thin verb we find, for instance: -fanya ‘do, make’ (e.g. -fanya jaribio ‘make an attempt’ beside -jaribu ‘attempt (VERB)’); -piga ‘hit, strike’ (e.g. -piga mbio ‘strike a run = run beside’; -kimbia ‘run away’). Further common thin verbs are -choma ‘pierce, stab’; -enda ‘go’; -funga ‘close’; -ona ‘see’; -pata ‘get’; -tia ‘put’; -toa ‘put out, offer’. Such verbs probably form as many defective stretched verb constructions (e.g. -fanya kazi ‘do work (NOUN) = work (VERB)’; -piga makuu ‘do pride = be arrogant’) as they form standard ones. More generally, we could say that it is easier to imagine a language with defective stretched verb constructions and no simplex ones than a language with the reverse situation. As noted earlier, Ogden’s Basic English came close to having this characteristic, since its few lexical verbs had the

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242 The lexical status of stretched verb constructions main function of forming constructions with nouns as their objects, and most of these nouns were abstract. We could easily imagine a more extreme form of Basic English (that we could call ‘One-Verb English’) in which there would be just one lexical verb with the meaning ‘do’ (in the broadest possible sense), and every action, process, state, etc. would be expressed through a verb phrase consisting of this unique verb combined with an appropriate eventive noun, e.g. do laughter (for laugh), do a trip (for go), do existence (for be), etc. Presumably different eventive nouns would need to be found to represent active and passive viewpoints for the same event, but some of these are already available, e.g. do a victory (for win, defeat) beside do a loss, do a defeat (for lose, be defeated). Such a language, though improbable, is conceivable and may even be found as a stage foreign learners of a language go through. At any event, it would be a language whose verb phrases included no intransitive verbs, but only defective stretched verb constructions. A language of the reverse type is more difficult to imagine; this would have to be a language which had no defective stretched verb constructions, only simplex ones. It might also be that for every stretched verb construction there were a kindred simplex verb, and vice versa; this seems a less plausible possibility, because it would involve such a luxuriant lexicon. Against this general background, English seems to have a moderate mixture of defective and standard stretched verb constructions, as well as inert simplex verbs (without a corresponding stretched verb construction).

V.2.ii The psycholinguistic and cognitive status of stretched verb constructions How do language users process stretched verb constructions? In particular, do they deal with them differently compared with the way they deal with other word patterns? Language-users need to process sentences both as hearers or readers, i.e. as language-receivers, and as speakers or writers, i.e. as language-producers. When language-receivers perceive phonetic or graphic sequences representing a particular sentence, in order to interpret these semantically, they need to recognize both the lexical units and the grammatical patterns they appear in, before they go on to combine these into a global meaning for each sentence. Language-producers, on the other hand, start from a global meaning for the sentence they want to produce (although they may not have all the details worked out at the outset) and then have to select both the most suitable lexical units and appropriate grammatical patterns, before realizing these in the form of sequences of speech-sounds or graphemes. The vital question for us is how far these processes need to be specially adapted to accommodate stretched verb constructions and other multiword lexical units. Are such constructions exceptions to the general pattern

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Stretched verb constructions and the lexicon 243 or simply special cases of it? For instance, although it is known that for the vast majority of human beings most language-processing takes place in the left hemisphere of the brain, there is evidence, according to Obler and Gjerlow (1999: 86–7) that right-brain-damaged patients find use of non-literal language difficult: Brownell et al. (1994), for instance, showed that such patients have problems with sarcasm and metaphorical meaning. The reasons why non-literal language presents difficulties for the language-receiver are clear: successful semantic interpretation of such linguistic patterns entails going beyond single-word lexemes and/or standard grammatical rules, and may necessitate keeping open two widely different readings for an opaque idiom like get smbd’s goat, for a standard metaphor like skate on thin ice, or even for a stretched verb construction like raise taxes.119 This may give rise to parallel processing of two semantic interpretations until one of them can be safely discarded. In any case, some kind of ‘on-line’ processing is called for: listener–readers cannot possibly wait until the end of a sentence before developing possible interpretations of it; they must use clues like grammatical requirements and collocational restrictions of words already processed to predict what is to come. The processing problems of speaker–writers are somewhat different: they have to select semantically appropriate lexical units, no matter whether of one word or more, the difference being that the latter type has a preprogrammed complex lexico-grammatical structure (which incidentally makes certain demands on their memory and easily gives rise to errors of form and to blends). One level of structuring that seems to be particularly important for language producers is the topic–comment or theme–rheme division, which in English is closely associated with the subject–predicate division, cf. Halliday (1970), Allerton (1978, 1980). It has often been pointed out that most metaphors and idioms appear in the predicate rather than in the subject, presumably because the subject most commonly needs to make an unequivocal identification of the entity that constitutes the topic of the sentence and non-literal language is generally not the best way of doing this. (This even applies to nominal metaphors and idioms like rough diamond or red herring, which are only suitable as descriptors, not as identifiers.) Although stretched verb constructions are only partly idiomatic, they are certainly verb phrase structures, and although Mel’cˇuk (1998) includes subject–verb combinations in his lexical functions, there are relatively few tight collocation restrictions for such combinations (e.g. day breaks but night falls, cf. above, section I.2.ii.). From the stand-point of both speaker–writer and hearer–reader, nonliteral expressions clearly require special treatment, but the progression

119 The expression is ambiguous between an interpretation as a stretched verb construction meaning simply ‘tax (VERB)’ and a literal interpretation meaning ‘increase taxes’.

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244 The lexical status of stretched verb constructions from opaque idioms through standard metaphors to stretched verb constructions is like a sliding scale. Stock et al. (1993: 229 et passim) argue that there is no need to envisage a straight choice between opaque, unanalysable idioms treated as ‘big words’ on the one hand, and transparent analysable metaphors treated as modified metaphors on the other. Instead, idioms could be recorded in the mental lexicon as ‘sequences of individual entries which have particularly strong associative links holding between them’ (Garman 1990: 242). But each idiom would at the same time have a global meaning which could be directly accessed, so that go through the motions, for instance, would on the one hand have a simple meaning (roughly ‘carry an action out in a purely superficial way’) but at the same time a constructed meaning rather like that of, say, go through the plans, which would require a selection of the meaning of go in the context of through, a recognition of the meaning of motion, an identification of a given set of motions, etc. Ultimately this analytic processing will not of course be relevant for the semantic interpretation of go through the motions, but this fact does not finally become clear until the last word of the expression, motions, has been processed. This double analysis of idioms and metaphors obviously imposes a greater load on the decoding hearer–reader, and it is only in the case of semantically transparent expressions that the word-by-word analysis pays off. Figure 5.1 presents a simple schematic model for the hearer–reader’s processing of free expressions, metaphors and different kinds of idiom. The psycholinguistic map of Figure 5.1 could obviously offer different processing routes for different kinds of expression. It assumes a word lexicon, a phrase lexicon and a grammar, all of them connected and all containing semantic specifications (for words, fixed phrases and grammatical constructions respectively). The input to it (0) (which would be a sequence of words in a particular arrangement, i.e. with particular inflectional marking, a particular sequence, etc., and a regularly constructed pattern) would pass through the word lexicon, consult the grammar, emerging with a literal meaning (1), after which it would proceed to the pragmatics, where it would receive a pragmatic interpretation. An ungrammatical idiom, such as by and large, would enter the word lexicon, but would then be rejected by the grammar and consequently barred from further lexical processing for literal meaning and forced out (2) into the opaque part of the phrase lexicon, where it would pick up an idiomatic meaning. An opaque idiom like make no bones about smth, although grammatically acceptable, would be rejected as involving a semantic anomaly (due to the incompatibility of its constituent lexical meanings) and again be passed directly (2) to the opaque part of the phrase lexicon. A transparent metaphorical idiom, like ride for a fall, would likewise be rejected but would be rerouted (3) to the transparent part of the phrase lexicon. Expressions that are acceptable both grammatically and semantically, such as skate on thin ice or get smbd’s goat, will first be processed in the usual way

Stretched verb constructions and the lexicon 245

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semantic interpretation (0)

(1)

phonological input

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(1)

(4)

(3) PRAGMATICS

pragmatic interpretation

GRAMMAR

semantic anomaly (4A)

semantic clue

(4B)

(3) (3/4B)

transparent

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literal meaning pragmatic anomaly

(2)

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WORD LEXICON

PHRASE LEXICON (2)

opaque

metaphorical meaning idiomatic meaning (2/4A)

Figure 5.1 Schematic model of semantic processing by the reader–hearer.

by the word lexicon and the grammar to give a fully acceptable literal meaning, and it is only when this literal meaning proves pragmatically doubtful that the expression will be returned for an alternative interpretation to the phrase lexicon, to the opaque part for the first example (4A), and to the transparent part for the second (4B); such expressions will thus have two interpretations that can be processed in parallel. Finally, restrictive collocations, i.e. grammatical expressions that include a superficial semantic incompatibility between two of its component words, such as swallow one’s pride, could be forced (as in the case of the metaphorical idiom ride for a fall) (3) into the transparent part of the phrase lexicon for semantic reinterpretation of one (or occasionally both) of these words, normally the semantically more flexible one, in this case the verb swallow. Since stretched verb constructions can be considered as a subvariety of this pattern, we shall assume that they receive a similar treatment and follow this path (3).

V.2.iii The lexicographic status of stretched verb constructions Although words like ‘lexicon’ and ‘grammar’ are used by some linguists to refer indiscriminately to an aspect of psycholinguistic competence or performance and to language reference works aiming to help the language user, there is little clear evidence of a close correspondence between the two senses of the words. How then do things look in the world of books that are tools for language users? The grammatical patterns of a language are described in a grammar. The words of a language are listed alphabetically in a dictionary and semantically in a thesaurus. Idioms and other

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246 The lexical status of stretched verb constructions fixed expressions have special dictionaries devoted to them, e.g. Cowie et al. (1975/1983), Wood and Hill (1979); but increasingly they are being included in standard dictionaries, and they have always been included in thesauruses. Where then are stretched verb constructions and similar restricted collocations to be found? To a limited extent they are also recorded in normal modern dictionaries, but not so consistently as idioms are.120 Dictionaries of idioms, however, usually exclude them. The only work attempting to list them comprehensively is the BBI Combinatory Dictionary i.e. Benson et al. (1986a); but, as noted in Part I, this dictionary covers less than half of the constructions found in our database, and, more importantly, they are simply listed as verb–noun combinations, without further grammatical or semantic specification. So would a dictionary that listed stretched verb constructions and described their grammatical and semantic characteristics be feasible or desirable? It would certainly be possible and worthwhile to compile a full list of these constructions, and to specify for each one the kind of grammatical and semantic information discussed in this volume. Indeed such a book would represent a major contribution to the academic study of English (and even general) linguistics. But would it correspond to the needs of the native speaker of English or to the learner of it as a foreign language? Two different uses of a compilation of stretched verb constructions can be envisaged, use by language-producers (i.e. speakers or writers) and use by language-receivers (i.e. listeners and readers). What, first, are the needs of language-producers, more particularly of writers, when they have an idea and wish to express it appropriately, possibly through a stretched verb construction? They can comb through a dictionary, or preferably a thesaurus or dictionary of synonyms (as indeed many of us often do), but as we have noted these contain relatively few restricted collocations, such as stretched verb constructions. If they turn to the BBI Combinatory Dictionary they will need to start from some actual linguistic item (rather than ‘pure meaning’), and they will find many collocations,121 but they will have no means of differentiating them semantically from each other or from the kindred simple lexical item. This is also the essential problem for readers or hearers of such expressions: they can check in the BBI dictionary that the expression they have come across exists, but they will themselves need to intuit its meaning by combining the meanings of the constituent words. A non-native learner of English is not given the vital information that, whereas take a guess and take a throw have to be understood in an ‘active’

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120 The excellent Collins English Dictionary, for instance, includes the metaphorical idioms draw a blank and draw the line under both the noun and the verb in each case, but not the stretched verb constructions draw an analogy or draw a comparison under either the verb or the noun. 121 Collocations are only locatable via their head word, not through their collocating word.

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be a help [to smbd]

be of help [to smbd]

come/go to the help {of smbd}

give help to smbd

receive/get help (from smbd)

help out

be an accomplice of smbd (Structure 2),

give succour to smbd (Structure 6)

give a hand to smbd,

Structure 3

Structure 4

Structure 5

Structure 6 ‘active’

Structure 6, ‘passive’

Phrasal verb

Defective stretched

verb construction

Idiom

give a lift to smbd (BRITISH

lend a hand to smbd,

be a helper [of smbd]

Structure 2

COLLOQUIAL)

–

receive/get assistance (from smbd)

give/render assistance [to smbd]

come/go to the assistance {of smbd}

be of assistance [to smbd]

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be an assistant (of smbd)

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be helpful [to smbd]

Structure 1

assist smbd

help smbd

Structure 0

–

–

–

–

be an abettor of smbd

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abet smbd

–

–

receive/get aid (from smbd) –

give aid [to smbd]

come/go to the aid {of smbd}

–

be an aid

–

–

aid smbd

Table 5.3 Range of structures in the semantic field (‘benefit some other person(s) by undertaking or joining some work on their behalf’)

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248 The lexical status of stretched verb constructions sense (as roughly ‘guess’ and ‘throw’ respectively), take a call and take a knock have ‘passive’ meanings (roughly ‘be called’ and ‘be knocked’ respectively). Or, to take an example from the field of noun complementation, the BBI dictionary gives for and to as prepositions that follow the word example, but fails to say that these introduce a phrase designating the ‘experiencer’, i.e. the person for whom the discussed entity is an example; but in German the corresponding preposition für ‘for’ is commonly used to introduce a phrase designating the ‘phenomenon exemplified’, for which English uses the of, a preposition not listed by the BBI. Thus despite the great benefits this dictionary has brought, its listing of collocations largely without meanings has its limitations. How can such needs be met? What the writer or speaker looking for some kind of verb needs is not a separate list of stretched verb constructions but, for every semantic field, a thesaurus-like list of all relevant lexical items, whether simple verbs, derived verbs, stretched verb constructions, cognate or predictable object constructions, phrasal verbs or verbal idioms. Within the list for each field, every item should have a full grammatical specification, to ensure its correct use, and a comprehensive semantic description, to enable speaker–writers to distinguish their meaning and use. For example, the verbs show and explain would need to be distinguished grammatically in that show appears in the constructions show smbd smth and show smth to smbd, while explain only appears in the construction explain smth to smbd; equally the two verbs would need to be distinguished semantically, in that while show can be through words or actions, explain can only be through words. No comprehensive semantic map of the world of our experience has yet been devised; so access to a lexical item being searched for will, for the present, still need to be through other lexical items that are semantically related to it. In the case of multi-word lexical items access can, as one option, be through their constituent words. For instance, put up resistance, will need to be accessed through resistance, because the basic meaning is something like ‘resist’, and indeed the noun resistance may already be in the speaker’s mind; on the other hand, it may be that put up (as the earlier word in the string) is what comes to mind first, and a list of eventive nouns, both deverbal and non-deverbal, that collocate with it (such as resistance, fight, defence, case) will be useful.122 This means that the proposed dictionary-thesaurus will need to have lexical entries with multiple access, through semantic category, through near-synonyms, through kindred

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122 It seems natural to assume that a deviant collocation should be corrected by changing the collocant rather than the base word, but some of the non-native speaker examples cited by Howarth (1998: 177–85) should probably be corrected by changing the eventive noun rather than the thin verb (or ‘delexical verb’ to use Howarth’s term), e.g. when the reward is attained should probably be corrected to when the objective is attained rather than to when the reward is received.

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Stretched verb constructions and the lexicon 249 constructions, through head word, through minor word, etc. Such multiple access could obviously be achieved more efficiently, if the reference work were in electronic form. Let us finally consider briefly and very provisionally what kind of information the proposed (electronic) ‘panlexical’ dictionary-thesaurus could contain in one part of one semantic field, that of helping, assisting and aiding a person in some task. A caveat required right at the outset is that, given the polysemy of words and the partial overlapping of their meanings, the semantic field selected for analysis is by no means clearly delimited. The polysemy of the verb help is such that, as well as referring to a person’s acting alongside the person in need, to lighten a task or difficulty (as in help the doctor with the operation), it also refers to cases in which the person in need is inactive so that the helper has to take over (as help an accident victim); a further meaning refers to the useful role a person or thing can have of making a task or difficulty easier (as help (protect) against arthritis). None of the stretched verb constructions and none of the nearsynonymous simplex verbs assist, aid, abet has quite this broad range of meaning. The full range of lexical items to be considered is given in Table 5.3. It includes the simple verb lexemes abet, aid, help and assist, as well as a range of stretched verb constructions based on them, a phrasal verb, two idioms and two defective stretched verb constructions. Assuming that similarity in form suggest some similarity of meaning, we can begin by considering the semantic differences between the four basic verbs. They all refer to a process of beneficial action to the advantage of someone with a task or problem, but the context of the event or the way it is viewed differs. In the case of help, it may be any kind of context, including a personal one; with assist it is in a general organizational context, normally in a minor role; with aid it is mainly in a medical or financial context; and with abet it is in an activity that is seen as undesirable. Stylistically, help is neutral, but assist is slightly formal, and abet and aid are very formal, the latter much more so than its noun homonym. The grammatical potential of these four verbs also differs, affecting their meaning. The differences can be clarified by listing their possible constructions more fully:

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help smbd assist smbd aid smbd abet smbd

help smbd with smth assist smbd with smth – –

help smbd in smth assist smbd in smth – abet smbd in smth

help smbd to do smth – – –

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The pronoun smbd in the above patterns represents the direct object, which means that each of the patterns has an alternative passive from, e.g. be helped (by smbd). The patterns show that, whereas help, assist and abet can be used with an in-phrase denoting an enterprise, only help and assist can

250 The lexical status of stretched verb constructions

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be used with a with-phrase to denote the task or difficulty; it also shows that only help can occur with an infinitive suggesting the task was completed, while assist and abet have in plus a gerund as their only non-finite clause option. Turning now to the stretched verb constructions, and beginning with Structure 1, we find that help is the only verb represented, with the pattern be helpful [to smbd]. As an adjective-based construction, Structure 1 assigns a meaning that relates to a quality of the subject, in this case the subject’s attitude or intention: the subject is a person who is trying to engage in some (usually minor) activity that might further the activity under discussion and is making these efforts externally evident. There are two examples of Structure 2 patterns, namely be a helper of smbd and be an assistant of smbd. Structure 2 regularly has the meaning ‘have the particular role, function or duty of helping or assisting’ and therefore by implication also of probably carrying out some of these duties, especially if there is a mention of the task or the time it was due to be carried out. But the action associated with this role is only inferred, not asserted, so that it is quite possible for a helper or an assistant not to help or even be helpful. The meaning of the noun assistant seems to be directly related to that of the verb assist, because it refers to someone who helps in an organizational capacity. The case of helper is slightly different in that, rather than just having the general meaning of ‘person who helps’, it seems to suggest ‘a person who helps informally or temporarily’. Finally, for Structure 3, we should note the defective stretched verb construction be an accomplice, which has clearly negative connotations, in that it suggests that the activity being furthered is undesirable or even criminal. In this sense it fills the gap left by the absence or rarity of a construction ?be an abettor of smbd.123 It will be recalled that Structure 3, exemplified by be a help and less commonly by be an aid,124 is semantically anomalous in suggesting that a person (the subject) can be an event, but that through some metaphorical interpretation it comes to mean that the person causes the action concerned or its results. In this case it is the act of helping or aiding that is involved, and the emphasis seems to be on the effectiveness of the contribution, rather than on the actor or the act itself. It is worth noting that to be a great help and to be no help are more common than to be a slight help or to be some help, so that it tends to be seen in terms of black and white, rather than various shades of grey. Our next pattern, Structure 4, can be based on either of the verbs help or assist, appearing in the forms be of help and be of assistance. Compared

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123 The noun abettor is only represented by a single instance in the BNC, and this is in the formal legal phrase as an aider and abettor. 124 In the English of recent sports reporting a noun assist has developed with the meaning ‘pass, etc. that contributes to a goal’, but it is not predicated of a personal subject.

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Stretched verb constructions and the lexicon 251 with the expression be a help, its rival be of help is a more formal expression, which is typically used in polite offers to do something for somebody on a person-to-person basis, but the contribution that is being offered is not very substantial. The meaning is something like ‘help in a minor way’. The corresponding expression with assistance, with its slightly formal stylistic tone, is even more limited in the contribution suggested. The expressions come/go to smbd’s help/assistance/aid are examples of Structure 5, in which the eventive noun appears in prepositional objoid position. For this pattern there is no doubt about the substantial contribution being made by the person designated by the subject; indeed, come/go to smbd’s help implies that extra efforts have to be made by the agent, not necessarily travelling (as a literal interpretation of come/go would suggest) but at least going to special lengths to help someone who is in serious need of help. It is clearly implied then that the person to be helped is in a difficult position, although the precise kind of help required seems more matter-of-fact in the case of the assist-based expression, but more dramatic in the case of come/go to the aid of smbd, which comes close to come to the rescue of smbd. The choice between come and go seems to depend on whether the speaker identifies with the person helped (come) or not (go). The final type of stretched verb construction is Structure 6, in which the eventive noun, in this case, help, assistance or aid, is the direct object of the verb. In the ‘active’ version of the construction the verb is give (or render, especially with assistance) and the person helped, assisted or aided is in indirect object position, whereas in the ‘passive’ version the verb is receive (or, more informally, get) and the receiver of help, etc. appears as an indirect objoid introduced by from. Apart from this kind of ‘lexical passivization’ achieved through the change of thin verb, it is also possible to subject the pattern with give to the syntactic transformations of indirect object shift and/or passivization. This means that corresponding to a simplex verb sentence like (7) there is the whole range of Structure 6 possibilities given in (8) and (9): (7)

(a) (b)

Agnes helped Peter. Peter was helped by Agnes.

(8)

(a) (i) (ii) (b) (i) (ii)

Agnes gave help to Peter. Agnes gave Peter help. Help was given to Peter (by Agnes). Peter was given help (by Agnes).

(9)

(a) (b)

Peter received help from Agnes. Help was received by Peter from Agnes.

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The differences in meaning between these different possibilities are a matter of the perspective from which the information is presented – what the

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252 The lexical status of stretched verb constructions starting point is, what is emphasized or de-emphasized, etc. Regardless of format, all of these Structure 6 patterns agree in stressing the voluntary contribution made by the helper (Agnes in the examples of (7), (8) and (9)), stressing that the act was by no means a matter of course. The constructions tell us much less about how effective the help was or even to what degree it was really accepted by the intended beneficiary, a doubt that does not arise in the case of the simplex construction with the verb help. When Structure 6 contains the noun assistance (rather than help), the meaning goes in the direction of the weaker, more formalized help that we have already noted. With the noun aid, on the other hand, it goes in a more idiosyncratic direction: give aid to smbd (unlike go to the aid of ) in Modern English strongly suggests medical or financial aid (as noted above), probably because the aid has been used so frequently with this meaning in official and mass media language. By contrast, the defective stretched verb construction give succour to smbd, which also follows Structure 6, is highly formal, literary and archaic, but it is not limited to the medical or financial fields. Phrasal verbs are an alternative kind of kindred construction, which manages to achieve through the addition of a single limiter adverb what stretched verb constructions do through more extended expansion and restructuring. There is only one (non-transparent) phrasal verb in the semantic field we are considering, namely help out in the sense of ‘give informal help in a temporary mild emergency’. When the verb help is used with other adverbial particles, as in help smbd in, help smbd out (in a literal sense, e.g. out of a door), help smbd up, etc., the construction can be regarded as a literal but polysemous use of help with the meaning ‘assist to go somewhere’. Apart from help out, the only other combination of this type with a partly non-literal meaning is help smbd through (a difficulty, etc.), but the meaning is transparently metaphorical. In the semantic field of helping and assisting there is also a common idiom, namely give smbd a hand; it generally refers to practical help and is typically used informally amongst friends. A more formal variant, is lend smbd a hand. In contemporary British English slang there is the further informal invariant give smbd a lift. These stylistic limitations of social register are an aspect of the use of stretched verb constructions and other nonliteral expressions that has not been given sufficient attention in this book. It is clear that some stretched verbs constuctions (e.g. meet with acceptance, bring in an acquittal, afford sm amusement to smbd) are highly formal, but that others, particularly the special ones we noted with have and do (e.g. have a smell/go, do sm knitting/tidying up) are informal. These limitations of use should of course be recorded in any future dictionary, just as they should be for other items of vocabulary. This brief survey of the main lexical options in the semantic field of helping, assisting, etc. should have given an indication of the grammatical semantic complexity of the possibilities and what points need to be borne

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Semantics of stretched verb constructions 253 in mind in distinguishing them. As was noted at the outset, the field is not clearly delimited, and many lexical items could have been included from adjacent fields (e.g. serve smbd, be of service to smbd, support smbd (in smth), give/lend support to smbd); but the survey is illustrative of the kind of material that needs to be described and how difficult it is to describe it. This only serves, however, to underline the challenge that lies ahead for lexicographers, lexicologists, semanticists and grammarians in this field. They need to unite in the task of producing really comprehensive usable dictionary-thesauruses for more sophisticated language users.

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A final thought

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‘Die Sprache ist ein Gewölke, an dem jede Phantasie ein anderes Gebilde erblickt.’ [Language is a bank of cloud in which every imagination detects a different pattern.] (Jean Paul)

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Appendix 1 A classification of English adverbials

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I. Sentence adverbials (= clause modifiers) 1. Interpretational adverbials (a) attitudinal subject oriented: wisely, characteristically (b) attitudinal message-oriented: surprisingly, interestingly (c) probabilistic (message-oriented): possibly, obviously

111 2. Presentational adverbials (a) (b) (c) (d)

validity-oriented: superficially, really, ultimately viewpoint-oriented: legally, chemically, sexually style-oriented: briefly, metaphorically honesty-oriented: honestly, frankly, confidentially

3. Conjunctional adverbials: incidentally, firstly, moreover

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4. Contingential adverbials (a) cause/result: because of the fog, on my account; to no avail, with success (b) concession: despite the fog, nevertheless (c) condition: in the event of rain, otherwise

II. Setting adverbials (= clause constituents) 5. Subject(/Object) adjuncts (a) (b) (c) (d)

vicariative: for me, on Mary’s behalf volitional: (un)willingly, (un)intentionally comitative: alone, with John, together statal: drunk, smiling, with a hat on

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256 Appendix 1 6. Place adverbials (a) locational: in Switzerland, on the floor, there (b) directional (i) origin: from Geneva, from there (ii) path: along the motorway (iii) destination: to Zurich, there (c) distance-indicating: for 50 miles 7. Time adverbials (a) timing (i) absolute: yesterday, at two-o’-clock (ii) relative: soon, already, later, during the meal (iii) event-oriented: for the dance, for dancing (b) duration: briefly, for two hours, interminably (c) frequency: occasionally, often, three times a week 8. Environmental adverbials in the rain, in fog, in the dark

III. Word-modifying adverbials (= phrase constituents) 9. Lexical verb modifiers (a) aspect/range: medically, formally (b) method: automatically, with a hammer, without any tools (c) manner (i) subject-oriented: carefully, slowly (ii) process-oriented: beautifully, secretly (d) degree: greatly, so much, slightly, to a certain degree, partially 10. Adjective(/adverb) modifiers (a) aspect/range: medically, formally (b) manner: beautifully, secretly (c) degree: very, so, slightly, partially 11. Particle modifiers (a) adverb-modifying: right, just, about (b) preposition-modifying: right, just, fully, close (c) numeral-modifying: roughly, exactly

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Classification of English adverbials 257

IV. Universal qualifiers (= phrase appendages) 12. Restrictors (a) polar: only, too, mainly, particularly (b) serial: first, next, last, finally

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Appendix 2 Types of adjective modifying deverbal nouns – their correspondences1 to adverbial types (according to collocations found in the LOB)

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ASPECT/RANGE (‘subcategory of N’) Corresponding to VIEWPOINT/RESPECT

medical (advice, attention ‘treatment’) military (advice) ministerial (action, advice) morphemic (analysis) morphological (analysis) personal (achievement, adjustment, affront, appeal, appraisal) physical (attack ‘assault’, attraction) poetic (achievement) political (action, advance, alliance, argument ‘quarrel’) preventive (action) probabilistic* (approach) religious (affiliation) respiratory* (action) ritual (authority ‘authorization’) scriptural (argument ‘rationale’) semantic* (analysis) sensory (adaptation) sexual (assault, attack ‘assault’) social (achievement, action, adjustment, advance, appraisal) spiritual (annihilation, authority ‘authorization’)

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aesthetic (appreciation) chemical (analysis, attack ‘chemical deterioration’) civil* (authority ‘authorization’) clinical (approach) commercial (agreement, arrangement) constitutional (advance) economic (achievement, aid) educational (achievement) financial (aid, assistance) grammatical (analysis, approach) historical (appeal) industrial* (achievement) intellectual (approval) lawful (authority ‘authorization’) legal (action, attack ‘criticism’, authority ‘authorization’) liberal (approach) linguistic (analysis) logical (analysis, approach)

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1 Examples marked with an asterisk have been assigned to their corresponding adverbial type in a more indirect way, in the sense that there is no corresponding simple adverb in -ly but that an adverbial can be found that is lexically related, e.g. the adjective old corresponds to in the old days but not to *oldly.

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Types of adjective modifying deverbal nouns 259 structural (analysis) syntactic (analysis) technical (advice, approach, assistance) thematic (appeal) theoretical (approach, assumption) thermal (analysis) tribal (authority ‘authorization’) verbal (adjustment) visual (attention ‘concentration’) Corresponding to

METHOD

administrative (abuse) atomic* (attack ‘assault’) commercial (advertisement) compulsory (acquisition) functional (application ‘use’) intercrystalline* (attack ‘chemical deterioration’) nuclear* (attack ‘assault’) one-way* (analysis) opening* (address) spectrographic (analysis) statistical (analysis) two-handed (attack ‘assault’) written* (advice) Corresponding to PLACE Danish* (allocation) domestic (aid) external (assistance, attack ‘assault’) foreign* (aid, assistance) frontal (attack ‘assault’) international (arrangement) national (average)

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Corresponding to AGENT/ STIMULUS (i.e. SUBJECT) American* (achievement, aggression)

Anglo-Russian* (agreement) atmospheric* (attack ‘chemical deterioration’) bilious* (attack ‘illness’) Chinese* (agitation) critical* (acclaim) divine* (approval) human* (agony) international (agreement, assistance) Marxist* (analysis) mutual (annihilation) national* (agony, agreement) oppositional* (approach) parental* (assistance) personal* (attendance ‘service’) professional (assistance) royal* (assent) Russian* (aggression, answer) professional* (assistance, attention ‘treatment’) specialist* (advice) Western* (alliance) Yugoslav* (approval) Corresponding to GOAL (i.e. OBJECT) bacterial* (analysis) communist* (affiliation) musical (appreciation) personal (attack ‘criticism’) popular (appeal)

(‘additional quality of N’)

QUALITY

Corresponding to ATTITUDINAL – SUBECT-ORIENTED audacious (assertion) characteristic (abstinence) pathetic (attempt)

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260 Appendix 2 Corresponding to ATTITUDINAL – MESSAGE-ORIENTED classical (assumption) conventional (allowance) common (assumption) disastrous (attack ‘assault’) due* (allowance) essential* (achievement, action) excellent* (agreement) famous* (advice) important (advance, aim, anger, assumption) interesting (attempt) much-needed* (addition) necessary* (action, adjustment) plausible (assumption) radical (alliance) reasonable (agreement, average) striking (agreement) sudden (attack ‘illness’) uncongenial* (acquaintance) unexpected (agreement, attention ‘concentration’) unexplained* (attack ‘illness’) unfortunate (application ‘request for job’) unjustified (assumption) unreasonable (attack ‘criticism’) unthinkable (action) welcome* (addition) well-known* (attack ‘criticism’) Corresponding to

VOLITIONAL

adventitious (attraction) conscious (assistance) deliberate (attempt) intentional (action) unconscious (attempt) Corresponding to

RESULT/

OUTCOME

abortive (attempt) affirmative (answer)

corrosive (attack ‘chemical deterioration’) favourable (answer) successful (application ‘use’, assault) unsuccessful (attempt) useful (attempt) Corresponding to MANNER PROCESS-ORIENTED balanced* (advance) best* (advice, aid, answer) blatant (assessment) complicated* (agitation, argument ‘rationale’) convulsive (agony) curious (advertisement, argument ‘rationale’) delayed* (action) delightful (adaptation, approach) different (account) direct (action, answer, application ‘use’) dramatic (action) effective (action, arrangements, assessment) excellent (advice) false (account, assumption) familiar* (ache) formal (agreement, announcement, application ‘submission’) fraudulent (application ‘use’) good* (action, advice, agreement) gradualist (approach) graduated* (addition) hidden* (authority ‘authorization’) improved* (agreement) insidious (argument ‘rationale’) intricate (adjustment) irregular (association) natural (application ‘use’) official (announcement) plain* (application ‘submission’)

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Types of adjective modifying deverbal nouns 261 poor (attempt) practical (application ‘use’) proper (adjustment, advice) public (appearance) rapid (action) ready (application ‘use’) restrictive (amendment) right* (approach) satisfactory (answer) scurrilous (attack ‘criticism’) separate (access, application ‘use’, assessment) shabby (attack ‘criticism’) similar (application ‘submission’) simplifying* (amendment) sound (advice) special (appeal ‘plea’) specific (action, arrangements) starring* (appearance) straight* (acting, answer) straightforward (adaptation) suitable (appointment ‘nomination for job’) sweet (agony) valuable (assistance) wholesome* (advice) working* (arrangement) wrong (answer) Corresponding to MANNER – SUBJECT-ORIENTED aggressive (action) bland (assumption) brisk (action) careful (analysis, application ‘use’) clever (arrangement) concerted (action) constructive (attention ‘concentration’) contemptuous (amusement) cool (aim ‘targeting’) crazy (attack) decisive (action) determined (attempt)

disagreeable (accompaniment) discreet (answer) discriminatory (action) disinterested (assessment) doctrinaire (attack ‘criticism’) eager (acceptance) earnest (appreciation) expert (advice) feeble (attempt) flattering (assumption) friendly* (advice) genuine (agreement) graceful (admission ‘confession’) grumbling (action) happy (association) humble (address) inborn* (appreciation) interpretive* (analysis) melancholy* (assessment) menacing (anger) meticulous (account) mysterious (appeal ‘attraction’) nagging (authority ‘authorization’) natural (act) objective (appraisal) painstaking (account) parochial (assessment) pathetic (appeal ‘plea’) pious (act) polite (applause, attempt) positive (action, approach, assessment) practical (approach) purposive (action) quick (appreciation) quiet (attention ‘concentration’) rapt (attention ‘concentration’) realistic (acting, adjustment, approach) reflective* (acting) reliable (answer) righteous (anger) ruthless (action) sardonic (attention ‘concentration’)

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262 Appendix 2 silent (agony) slow (advance) sudden (anger) superficial (account) successful (adjustment) sympathetic (approach) systematic (account) tacit (assumption) undogmatic (approach) uneasy (astonishment) unquestioning (acceptance) violent (attack ‘assault’) wicked (amusement) Corresponding to

METHOD

experimental (advance) pictorial (allusion) smoothed* (average)

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immediate (action, aid, aim, answer) last-moment* (adjustment) later (amendment) latest* (acquisition, addition) modern* (attempt) new* (addition, advice, approach, attempt) old* (ache) present (agreement, arrangement) present-day* (arrangement) previous (account, acquaintance, appearance, assumption) prior* (agreement, assumption) prompt (appearance) subsequent (affirmation) timely* (assistance) corresponding to

Corresponding to SUBJECT ADJUNCT (Comitative and Statal) collective (agreement) common (agreement, approach) helpless (amazement) joint (account, action) mutual (agreement) open-mouthed (attention ‘concentration’) near-panic* (action) petrified* (amazement) Corresponding to

TIME

TIME

–

DURATION

fifty-year-old* (association) long* (answer, association) long-term* (agreement, aid, aim) short* (answer) short-term* (agreement) temporary (assumption) twelve-minute* (appearance) Corresponding to

TIME

–

FREQUENCY

–

annual (allowance) yearly* (average)

RELATIVE

current (attack ‘criticism’) earlier* (act) early* (acceptance) following* (analysis) foregoing* (analysis) fresh* (agony) future* (achievement)

corresponding to

SERIAL

RESTRICTOR

first (action, analysis, appearance, assault, assumption, attempt) final (act, action, agreement, approach, ascent)

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Types of adjective modifying deverbal nouns 263 last (analysis, assertion, attendance ‘presence’) next* (attempt) second (assumption, attempt) EXTENT (‘quantitative specification of N’)

Corresponding to

DEGREE

adequate (access) big* (amalgamation, award) biggest* (achievement) complete (agreement, answer, assurance) considerable (agreement, appeal ‘attraction’, application ‘use’, attention ‘concentration’, authority ‘authorization’) elementary* (account) full (account, agreement, allowance, analysis, assessment) fuller* (account) fully-fledged* (action) great* (achievement, affront, argument ‘quarrel’, attention ‘concentration’, authority ‘authorization’) greatest* (application ‘use’) growing* (anger) higher* (authority ‘authorization’) immense (amusement) little* (annotation) long* (account, addition) major* (aggression, agitation, attack ‘criticism’) maximum* (allocation, assimilation) modest (addition) powerful (appeal ‘attraction’) scant* (attention ‘concentration’)

sharp (attention ‘concentration’) substantial (agreement) sufficient (answer) supreme* (act of courage) 2 tremendous (attraction) utmost* (assurance) whole (approach, attention ‘concentration’) wide (acceptance) wider (amalgamation) Corresponding to CONJUNCTIONAL

additional (aid) further* (assistance, attack ‘assault’) other* (= ‘more’) (attack ‘assault’) Corresponding to ATTITUDINAL – MESSAGE-ORIENTED noteworthy* (achievement) remarkable (achievement) significant (advance) Corresponding to ATTITUDINAL – SUBJECT-ORIENTED reasonable (acceptance) Corresponding to MANNER – SUBJECT-ORIENTED bad* (attack ‘illness’) bitter (argument ‘quarrel’) convincing (assurance) concentrated (attention ‘concentration’) emphatic (appeal ‘plea’) vigorous (argument ‘quarrel’)

2 The corresponding adverb supremely modifies not the underlying verb act, but the underlying adjective of the noun in the preposition phrase modifying the noun courage.

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264 Appendix 2 Corresponding to MANNER – PROCESS-ORIENTED best* (argument ‘rationale’) close (association) comprehensive (account) correct (alignment) detailed* (account, appraisal, approval, argument ‘rationale’) exhaustive (analysis) free (access, admission ‘entrance’) good* (attendance ‘presence’) heavy* (attendance ‘presence’) intimate (acquaintance) keener (appreciation) large* (attendance ‘presence’) prominent (attention ‘concentration’) radical (advance) spectacular (achievement, advance) true (alignment) valid (argument ‘rationale’) Corresponding to

PATH

direct (access) Corresponding to

Corresponding to

FREQUENCY

common (agreement) general (acceptance, acknowledgement, agreement, approval) habitual (acceptance) numerous* (amendments) occasional (aid, attack ‘illness’) regular (allowance, attendance ‘presence’) repeated (application ‘use’, attempt) single (application ‘use’, attack ‘illness’) usual (assumption) Corresponding to

SERIAL

RESTRICTOR

first (aim) final (authority ‘authorization’)

PLACE

close (agreement, approach, attention ‘concentration’) closer* (attention ‘concentration’) continental* (advance) nearer* (approach) universal (agreement, answer) widespread* (advance, agreement, amazement, assent) Corresponding to

preliminary (arrangements) short* (account, attack)

DURATION

brief (account, appearance) constant (attention ‘concentration’) long* (account, addition)

FACTUAL STATUS (‘normal/ questionable member of the category N’)

Corresponding to

VALIDITY

actual (achievement, appreciation) apparent (adjustment) fundamental (assumption) general (aim) implicit (assumption) implied* (affirmation) overall* (authority ‘authorization’, average) real (agony) token* (appearance) traceable* (attempt) true (alignment) ultimate (aim)

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Types of adjective modifying deverbal nouns 265 Corresponding to

LIKELIHOOD

definite (answer) likely* (arrangements) obvious (assumption) possible (adjustment, appointment ‘nomination for job’) proposed* (alteration) undoubted (authority ‘authorization’) Corresponding to

POLAR

RESTRICTOR

central (aim) main (advance, argument ‘rationale’, attraction ‘concentration’) mere (act) only* (appearance)

particular (assessment, attention ‘concentration’) primary (aim) principal (assumption) special (assessment, attention ‘concentration’) single* (act) proposed* (alteration) Corresponding to MANNER – PROCESS-ORIENTED approximate (coverage) imprecise (analysis) moving* (average) Corresponding to MANNER – SUBJECT-ORIENTED genuine (agreement)

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Appendix 3 Potential of eventive3 nouns for thin verbs4

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ABHORRENCE ABOMINATION ABORTION

ABRIDGEMENT ABSOLUTION

ABSTINENCE ABUNDANCE ABUSE

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ACCEPTANCE ACCESS

feel be carry-out do induce perform make give grant pronounce receive practise be be come-in (for) heap hurl shout shower suffer take find meet (with) gain get give grant

ACCLAIM ACCLIMATIZATION ACCOMMODATION

ACCOMPANIMENT ACCORD

ACCOUNT

ACCUSATION ACHE ACHIEVEMENT ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ACQUAINTANCE

receive undergo arrive (at) come (to) find reach work out provide be (in) come (to) reach call (to) give render bring make feel have record register be make be have make strike-up

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3 Agentive nouns are excluded, because they (together with agentive adjectives) regularly take a copular verb (be, become, etc.). 4 Phrasal verbs are spelt with a hyphen to mark their unity as one lexical item. Prepositional verbs are recorded with the preposition in parentheses. When a thin verb is used in two different constructions with the same eventive noun, this is recorded as ‘× 2’.

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Potential of eventive nouns for thin verbs 267 ACQUISITION ACQUITTAL ACT ‘deed’ ACT ‘performance’ ACTING ACTION

11 ACTIVITY

11 ADAPTATION

ADDITION

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ADDRESS ADJOURNMENT ADJUDICATION ADJUSTMENT ADMIRATION

make bring-in commit perform put-on do indulge (in) go (into) initiate move (into) take engage (in) stimulate carry-out do make undergo be be (in) come (in) make deliver give grant carry-out make make feel inspire

AFFECTATION AFFILIATION AFFIRMATION AFFRONT AGGLOMERATION AGGRAVATION AGGRESSION

AGITATION AGONY

AGREEMENT

ADMISSION

‘confession’

make

ADMISSION

‘entrance’

ADMITTANCE ADVANCE ADVANTAGE ADVERTISEMENT

ADVICE

gain give grant secure gain secure make give place publish put run give

AID

AILMENT AIM ‘purpose’ AIM ‘direction

shooting’

offer receive take assume put-on form make × 2 be suffer form cause carry-out commit incur provoke suffer stir-up experience feel suffer arrive (at) be be (in) bring out come (to) conclude enter have make negotiate reach work-out be (in) come (to) extend give go (to) minister offer provide × 2 receive suffer (from) have

of take

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268 Appendix 3 AIR AIRING

ALARM

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ALERT ALIENATION

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ALIGNMENT ALLEGATION ALLIANCE

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ALLOCATION ALLOWANCE ALLUSION ALTERATION ALTERNATION AMALGAMATION AMBUSH AMAZEMENT AMENDMENT AMPLIFICATION AMPUTATION AMUSEMENT

ANAESTHESIA

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ANALYSIS

give get give have arouse cause create feel fill (with) call cause suffer bring (into) make be (in) enter (into) forge form have make make be make do make be (in) undergo lie (in) wait (in) cause make provide carry-out afford cause feel find provide × 2 be (under) induce produce be be (under) do make

ANGER

ANNIHILATION ANNOTATION ANNOUNCEMENT ANNOYANCE

ANNULMENT

ANSWER

APOLOGY

‘attraction’ ‘plea’ ‘request for adjudication’

APPEAL APPEAL APPEAL

APPEARANCE APPEASEMENT APPENDAGE APPLAUSE

subject (to) undergo arouse cause incur show stir-up suffer make issue make cause feel suffer get grant obtain be be (in) elicit get × 2 give make obtain offer provide receive elicit express get × 2 make × 2 obtain offer × 2 have make file lodge put-in make put-in practise add break (into) burst (into) give

Potential of eventive nouns for thin verbs 269

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APPLICATION

spark-off show

‘effort’ APPLICATION

‘request’

file make put-in send-in submit APPLICATION ‘use’ be find have APPOINTMENT ‘job’ give make APPRAISAL give make APPRECIATION feel have APPROACH have ‘attitude’ APPROACH make ‘contact’ APPROPRIATION make APPROVAL be (on) find get × 2 give × 2 meet (with) receive secure win × 2 ARBITRATION carry-out conduct go (to) ARGUE have ARGUMENT get ‘quarrel’ have spark-off ARGUMENT be ‘rationale’ drive-home offer present press put-forward

ARRANGEMENT

‘agreement’ ARRANGEMENT

‘timetable’ ARRANGEMENTS

‘prepare’ ARREST

ARTICULATION ASCENT ASPIRATION/S ASSASSINATION ASSAULT ASSENT ASSERTION ASSESSMENT

ASSIGNMENT ASSIMILATION ASSISTANCE

ASSOCIATION ASSUMPTION ASSURANCE ASTONISHMENT

ATONEMENT ATTACHMENT ATTACK

come (to) make work-out make be (under) carry-out effect make perform place (under) give make have carry-out commit give × 2 make carry-out do make give undergo be (of) come (to) give go (to) offer provide provide (with) render form make × 2 give × 2 arouse cause feel make add be be (on) be (under) carry-out launch

270 Appendix 3

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ATTEMPT ATTENDANCE

make mount precipitate press press-home provoke spark-off have × 2 make × 2 put-in

ATTRACTION AUCTION AUDIT AUTHORITY

AUTHORIZATION

‘being present’ ATTENDANCE

‘service’ ATTENTION

‘concentrate’

dance attract × 2 capture × 2 catch × 2 command × 2 devote draw focus get × 2 give hold × 2

AUTOGRAPH AVERAGE

AVOWAL AWAKENING AWARD

pay receive × 2 retain × 2 feel put-up (for) do give grant grant × 2 give × 2 grant × 2 give be calculate work-out make suffer be give grant make present × 2 receive

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Appendix 4 Complete list of stretched verb constructions5 found indicating obligatoriness/optionality with brackets distinguished in section II.1.iii

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be ABANDONED be an ABETTER/-OR of smbd feel sm ABHORRENCE [at smbd/smth] be ABHORRENT (to smbd) be an ABHORRER of smth be ABOMINABLE (for smbd) be an ABOMINATION carry-out an ABORTION (on smbd) do an ABORTION (on smbd) induce an ABORTION (in smbd) perform an ABORTION (on smbd) be an ABORTIONIST be ABORTIVE be an ABRIDGER of smth make an ABRIDGEMENT of smth be an ABSCONDER be ABSENT [from smth] be an ABSENTEE [from smth] give ABSOLUTION [from smth] (to smbd) grant ABSOLUTION [from smth] (to smbd) pronounce ABSOLUTION [from smth]

receive ABSOLUTION [from smth] (from smbd) be ABSORBENT be ABSORBING (to/for smbd) be an ABSTAINER practise sm ABSTINENCE (from smth) be in ABUNDANCE be ABUNDANT be an ABUSE [of smth] come-in for sm ABUSE (from/at the hands of smbd) heap ABUSE on/upon smbd hurl ABUSE (at smbd) shout sm ABUSE (at smbd) shower ABUSE on/upon smbd suffer sm ABUSE (from/at the hands of smbd) take sm ABUSE [from smbd] be an ABUSER (of smbd) be ABUSIVE [to/towards smbd] be ACCEPTABLE [to smbd] find sm ACCEPTANCE [from smbd] meet with sm ACCEPTANCE [from smbd]

5 N.B. (1) Indirect objects are always given in their prepositional form (cf. section II.1.ii), but the non-prepositional form can be deduced following the model give an ADDRESS to smbd implies give smbd an ADDRESS, on the understanding that it applies only to the verbs cause, give, grant, make and offer with the prepositions to and for. (2) In noun phrases the indefinite article a(n) + NOUN implies the possibility of a plural noun phrase; similarly the possibility of sm + NOUN imples the possibility of Ø + NOUN, but not vice versa.

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272 Appendix 4 gain ACCESS [to smth/smwh] get ACCESS [to smth/smwh] give ACCESS [to smth/smwh] (to smbd) grant ACCESS [to smth/smwh] (to smbd) be ACCESSIBLE (to/for smbd) receive smbd with ACCLAIM undergo ACCLIMATIZATION be ACCOMMODATING [towards/to smbd] arrive at an ACCOMMODATION [with smbd] come to an ACCOMMODATION [with smbd] find an ACCOMMODATION [with smbd] reach an ACCOMMODATION [with smbd] work out an ACCOMMODATION [with smbd] provide the ACCOMPANIMENT [for smbd/smth] be an ACCOMPANIST {of smbd} be in ACCORD >with smbd/ smth< come to an ACCORD >with smbd< [about smth] reach an ACCORD >with smbd< [about smth] call smbd to ACCOUNT (for smth) give an ACCOUNT of smth (to smbd) render an ACCOUNT of smth (to smbd) be ACCOUNTABLE (to smbd) [for smth] bring an ACCUSATION [against smbd] make an ACCUSATION [against smbd] be an ACCUSER of smbd be ACCUSTOMED to smth make smbd ACCUSTOMED to smth feel an ACHE (smwh)

have an ACHE (smwh) record an ACHIEVEMENT register an ACHIEVEMENT be in ACKNOWLEDGEMENT of smth make an ACKNOWLEDGEMENT of smth be an/the ACQUAINTANCE {of smbd} have an ACQUAINTANCE with smbd/smth make the ACQUAINTANCE {of smbd} strike-up an ACQUAINTANCE >with smbd< make smbd ACQUAINTED with smth make an ACQUISITION be ACQUISITIVE bring-in an ACQUITTAL commit an ACT of a certain kind perform an ACT of a certain kind put-on an ACT do sm ACTING indulge in sm ACTING go into ACTION initiate ACTION move into ACTION take ACTION be ACTIVE engage in an/sm ACTIVITY stimulate an/sm ACTIVITY be an ACTOR carry-out an ADAPTATION [to smth] do an ADAPTATION [to smth] make an/sm ADAPTATION [to smth] undergo an ADAPTATION be an ADDITION [to smth] come in ADDITION [to smth] make an ADDITION [to smth] deliver an ADDRESS [to smbd] give an ADDRESS [to smbd] be an ADDRESSEE [of smth]

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Stretched verb constructions 273 be an ADHESIVE (for smth) grant an ADJOURNMENT of smth carry-out an ADJUDICATION [between people] make an ADJUDICATION [between people/things] be an ADJUDICATOR [between people] make an ADJUSTMENT [to smth] feel ADMIRATION for smbd inspire the ADMIRATION {of smbd} be an ADMIRER {of smbd} gain ADMISSION [to smwh/ smth] give ADMISSION [to smwh/smth] to smbd grant ADMISSION [to smwh/smth] to smbd make an ADMISSION (of/about smth) (to smbd) secure ADMISSION [to smwh/ smth] gain ADMITTANCE [to smwh/ smth] secure ADMITTANCE [to smwh/ smth] be an ADORER of smth/smbd make an ADVANCE be an ADVANTAGE [to smbd] give an ADVANTAGE to smbd be ADVANTAGEOUS (to/for smbd) place an ADVERTISEMENT (for smth) smwh publish an ADVERTISEMENT (for smth) put an ADVERTISEMENT (for smth) smwh run an ADVERTISEMENT (for smth) give sm ADVICE (about smth) [to smbd] offer sm ADVICE (about smth) [to smbd]

receive sm ADVICE (about smth) (from smbd) take ADVICE (about smth) (from smbd) be an ADVOCATE of smth assume an AFFECTATION put-on an AFFECTATION form an AFFILIATION >with smbd< make an AFFIRMATION (of smth) make an AFFIRMATION (to the effect) that + Clause be an AFFRONT [to smbd] suffer an AFFRONT (from/at-thehands-of smbd) be AFLOAT be AGAPE at smbd/smth be an AGENT {of/for smbd} form an AGGLOMERATION cause an/sm AGGRAVATION [of smth] carry-out AGGRESSION (against smbd/smwh) commit AGGRESSION (against smbd/smwh) incur AGGRESSION (from/ at-the-hands-of smbd) provoke AGGRESSION (from/ at-the-hands-of smbd) suffer AGGRESSION (from/ at-the-hands-of smbd) be AGGRESSIVE (towards smbd) be an AGGRESSOR against smbd stir-up AGITATION (against smbd/smth) be an AGITATOR (for/against smth) be AGLEAM be AGLITTER be AGLOW experience sm AGONY [with/about/over smth] feel sm AGONY [with/about/over smth]

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274 Appendix 4 suffer sm AGONY [with/about/ over smth] arrive at an AGREEMENT >with smbd< [about smth] be an AGREEMENT [between sm pple] be in AGREEMENT >with smbd/smth< [about smth] be in AGREEMENT [with smth] bring about an AGREEMENT >between people< [about smth] come to an AGREEMENT >with smbd< [about smth] conclude an AGREEMENT >with smbd< [about smth] enter into an AGREEMENT >with smbd< [about smth] have an AGREEMENT >with smbd< make an AGREEMENT >with smbd< [about smth] negotiate an AGREEMENT >with smbd< [about smth] reach an AGREEMENT >with smbd< [about smth] work-out an AGREEMENT >with smbd< [about smth] be in AID of smth/smbd come to the AID {of smbd} extend sm AID to smbd give sm AID (to smbd) go to the AID {of smbd} minister sm AID to smbd offer sm AID [to/for smbd] provide sm AID [for smbd] provide smbd with sm AID receive sm AID (from smbd) render sm AID to smbd suffer from an AILMENT have an AIM (of doing/being smth) take AIM [at smbd/smth] give an AIR to smth get an AIRING give an AIRING to smth have an AIRING

arouse sm ALARM (in smbd) cause sm ALARM (in smbd) create sm ALARM (among pple) feel sm ALARM [at smth] fill smbd with ALARM be ALARMING (for smbd) be ALARMIST be an ALARMIST be ALERT (to smth) make smbd ALERT to smth call an ALERT cause ALIENATION (in smbd) suffer ALIENATION bring smth into ALIGNMENT be ALIVE make an ALLEGATION (that + Clause) (to smbd) be in ALLIANCE >with smbd< enter into an ALLIANCE >with smbd< forge an ALLIANCE >with smbd< form an ALLIANCE >with smbd< have an ALLIANCE >with smbd< make an ALLOCATION [of smth] to smbd make an/sm ALLOWANCE for smth be an ALLUSION to smbd/smth make an ALLUSION to smbd/ smth be an ALLY {of smbd} do an ALTERATION [to smth] make an ALTERATION [to smth] be ALTERNATE be in ALTERNATION >with smth/smbd< undergo AMALGAMATION >with smth< cause sm AMAZEMENT (to smbd) be AMAZING to/for smbd lie in AMBUSH [for smbd] wait in AMBUSH [for smbd] make an AMENDMENT [to smth] provide sm AMPLIFICATION [of /for smth]

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Stretched verb constructions 275 carry out an AMPUTATION (of smth) afford sm AMUSEMENT to smbd cause sm AMUSEMENT (for smbd) feel sm AMUSEMENT [at smth] find sm AMUSEMENT [in smth] provide sm AMUSEMENT (for smbd) provide smbd with sm AMUSEMENT

be AMUSING (for smbd) be under ANAESTHESIA induce ANAESTHESIA (in smbd) produce ANAESTHESIA in (smbd) be an ANALYSIS [of smth] be under ANALYSIS do an ANALYSIS of smth make an ANALYSIS of smth subject smth to an/sm ANALYSIS undergo an/sm ANALYSIS be ANALYTIC(AL) (about smth) arouse the ANGER {of smbd} cause sm ANGER incur the ANGER {of smbd} show sm ANGER stir-up the ANGER {of smbd} be ANGRY (with/at smbd) (about/ at smth) make smbd ANGRY suffer ANNIHILATION (at-thehands-of smbd) make an ANNOTATION [on smbd/ smth] issue an ANNOUNCEMENT (about smth) make an ANNOUNCEMENT (about smth) cause sm ANNOYANCE (to/for smbd) feel sm ANNOYANCE [with/at/about smbd/smth] suffer sm ANNOYANCE (from/ at-the-hands-of smbd) be ANNOYED (with/at smbd) (about/at smth)

make smbd ANNOYED be ANNOYING (for smbd) get an ANNULMENT [of smth] (from smbd) grant an ANNULMENT [of smth] [to smbd] obtain an ANNULMENT [of smth] (from smbd) be an ANSWER [to smth] be in ANSWER to smth elicit an ANSWER [to smth] [from smbd] get an ANSWER [to smth] [from smbd] – with intent get an ANSWER [to smth] [from smbd] – without intent give an ANSWER [to smth] (to smbd) make an ANSWER [to smth] (to smbd) obtain an ANSWER [to smth] [from smbd] offer an ANSWER [to smth] (to smbd) provide an ANSWER [to smth] receive an ANSWER [to smth] [from smbd] be ANSWERABLE (to smbd) [for smth] be ANTAGONISTIC towards smbd be APOLOGETIC [about smth] (to smbd) elicit an APOLOGY [for smth] [from smbd] express one’s APOLOGIES [about/for smth] (to smbd) get an APOLOGY [for smth] [from smbd] – with intent get an APOLOGY [for smth] [from smbd] – without intent make an APOLOGY [for/about smth] [to smbd] make one’s APOLOGIES [about/ for smth] (to smbd)

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276 Appendix 4 obtain an APOLOGY [for smth] [from smbd] offer an APOLOGY [for/about smth] [to smbd] offer one’s APOLOGIES [about/ for smth] be APPALLING (for smbd) have an/sm APPEAL (for smbd) make an APPEAL to smbd (about smth) file an APPEAL [against smth] [with smbd] lodge an APPEAL [against smth] [with smbd] put-in an APPEAL [for/against smth] [to smbd] make an APPEARANCE [smwh] put-in an APPEARANCE [smwh] practise APPEASEMENT add an APPENDAGE [to smth] break into APPLAUSE (at smth) burst into APPLAUSE (at smth) give sm APPLAUSE (for smth) [to smbd/smth] spark off APPLAUSE (from smbd) be an APPLICANT [for smth] be an APPLICATION [for smth] file an APPLICATION [for smth] find sm APPLICATION have an APPLICATION make an APPLICATION [for smth] (to smbd) put-in an APPLICATION [for smth] send-in an APPLICATION [for smth] submit an APPLICATION [for smth] (to smbd) show APPLICATION give an APPOINTMENT to smbd make an APPOINTMENT give an APPRAISAL of smth (to smbd) make an APPRAISAL of smth feel sm APPRECIATION for smbd/smth

have an APPRECIATION of smth be APPRECIATIVE [of smth/smbd] have an APPROACH [to smth] make an APPROACH [to smbd] (about smth) make an APPROPRIATION (of smth) [for smbd] be on APPROVAL find the APPROVAL {of smbd} get APPROVAL [for smth] [from smbd] get the APPROVAL {of smbd} [for smth] – with intent get the APPROVAL {of smbd} – without intent give (one’s) APPROVAL [for smth] [to smbd] give (one’s) APPROVAL [to smth] meet with the APPROVAL {of smbd} receive the APPROVAL {of smbd} secure the APPROVAL {of smbd} [for smth] seek the APPROVAL {of smbd} [for smth] win APPROVAL [for smth] [from smbd] win the APPROVAL {of smbd} [for smth] be APPROXIMATE be an ARBITRATOR (between pple) carry-out ARBITRATION [between people] conduct ARBITRATION [between people] go to ARBITRATION have an ARGUE >with smbd< spark off an ARGUMENT (between people) (about smth) get into an ARGUMENT >with smbd< (about smth) have an ARGUMENT >with smbd< (about smth) be an ARGUMENT for/against smth

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Stretched verb constructions 277 drive-home an ARGUMENT [for smth] offer an ARGUMENT [for smth] present an ARGUMENT [for smth] press an ARGUMENT [for smth] put-forward an ARGUMENT [for smth] be ARGUMENTATIVE come to an ARRANGEMENT >with smbd< [about smth] make an ARRANGEMENT [(for smbd) to do smth] work-out an ARRANGEMENT [(for smbd) to do smth] make (sm) ARRANGEMENTS [for smth] be an ARRANGER (of smth) be under ARREST carry-out an ARREST effect an ARREST make an ARREST perform an ARREST place smbd under ARREST put smbd under ARREST be ARTICULATE (about smth) make smth ARTICULATE give ARTICULATION to smth make an/the ASCENT [of smwh/ smth] be ASLEEP be an ASPIRANT to smth have an ASPIRATION (to be/ do smth) carry-out an/the ASSASSINATION [of smbd] commit an ASSAULT (on smbd) give one’s ASSENT (to smbd) [for smth] give one’s ASSENT [to smth] make an ASSERTION [that-Clause] carry-out an ASSESSMENT [of smth/smbd] do an ASSESSMENT [of smth/ smbd]

make an ASSESSMENT [of smth/ smbd] give an ASSIGNMENT to smbd undergo ASSIMILATION >with/(in)to smth< be of sm ASSISTANCE [to smbd] come to the ASSISTANCE {of smbd} give sm ASSISTANCE [to smbd] go to the ASSISTANCE {of smbd} offer sm ASSISTANCE [to smbd] provide sm ASSISTANCE [for smbd] provide smbd with sm ASSISTANCE

render sm ASSISTANCE [to smbd] be an ASSISTANT {of smbd} be an ASSOCIATE >of smbd< form an ASSOCIATION >with smbd< make an ASSUMPTION (about smbd/smth) make an ASSUMPTION (that-Clause) give an ASSURANCE [about/of smth] [to smbd] give an ASSURANCE [that-Clause] [to smbd] be ASTONISHING (to/for smbd) arouse sm ASTONISHMENT (in smbd) cause sm ASTONISHMENT (in smbd) feel sm ASTONISHMENT [at smth/smbd] be ASTOUNDING (to/for smbd) make ATONEMENT [for smth] add an ATTACHMENT [to smth] be an ATTACK [on smbd/smth] be on the ATTACK be under ATTACK carry-out an ATTACK (on smbd/ smth) come under ATTACK

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278 Appendix 4 launch an ATTACK (on smbd/ smth) make an ATTACK (on smbd/smth) mount an ATTACK (on smbd/ smth) precipitate an ATTACK (on smbd/ smth) (by smbd) press an ATTACK (on smbd/smth) press-home an ATTACK (on smbd/ smth) provoke an ATTACK (on smbd/ smth) (by smbd) spark off an ATTACK (on smbd/smth) (by smbd) have an ATTEMPT [at doing smth] have an ATTEMPT [at smth] make an ATTEMPT [at smth] make an ATTEMPT to do smth put in an ATTENDANCE [at smth] dance ATTENDANCE on smbd be an ATTENDANT attract the ATTENTION {of smbd} – human subj attract the ATTENTION {of smbd} – inanimate subj capture the ATTENTION {of smbd} – human subj capture the ATTENTION {of smbd} – inanimate subj catch the ATTENTION {of smbd} – human subj catch the ATTENTION {of smbd} – inanimate subj command the ATTENTION {of smbd} –human subj command the ATTENTION {of smbd} – inanimate subj devote one’s ATTENTION to smth/smbd draw the ATTENTION {of smbd} to smth focus one’s ATTENTION on smth/smbd

get the ATTENTION {of smbd} – human subj get the ATTENTION {of smbd} – inanimate subj give sm/one’s ATTENTION to smth/smbd hold the ATTENTION {of smbd} – human subj hold the ATTENTION {of smbd} – inanimate subj pay sm ATTENTION [to smth/ smbd] receive ATTENTION (from smbd) receive the ATTENTION {of smbd} retain the ATTENTION {of smbd} – human subj retain the ATTENTION {of smbd} – inanimate subj be ATTENTIVE [to smbd/ smth] feel an ATTRACTION for smbd/ smth be ATTRACTIVE (to/for smbd) put smth up for AUCTION do an AUDIT (of smth) give AUTHORITY [to do smth] (to smbd) grant AUTHORITY [to do smth] (to smbd) give AUTHORIZATION [for smth] (to smbd) give AUTHORIZATION [to do smth] (to smbd) grant AUTHORIZATION [for smth] (to smbd) grant AUTHORIZATION [to do smth] (to smbd) give one’s AUTOGRAPH (to smbd) be AUTOMATIC make smth AUTOMATIC be an AVENGER be an AVERAGE [of sm things]

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Stretched verb constructions 279 calculate an AVERAGE [of sm things] work-out an AVERAGE [of sm things] make an AVOWAL (that-Clause) suffer an AWAKENING be an AWARD [to smbd]

give an AWARD [to smbd] grant an AWARD [to smbd] make an AWARD (to smbd) present an AWARD [to smbd] present smbd with an AWARD receive an AWARD (from smbd)

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Glossary

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(AE): an adverbial required by the valency of a verb, e.g. (live) abroad/in the country; (last) long/for two hours.

ADVERBIAL ELABORATOR

AUXILIARY VERB STRUCTURE:

the total range of elements (tense, primary and modal auxiliaries) that can help specify a lexical verb in a finite clause for tense, modality, etc.

DESCRIPTOR:

(also called ‘predicative/complement’) an elaborator of a copular verb (e.g. be, become, seem), the subvarieties being ADJECTIVAL DESCRIPTOR (= AD, e.g. (be) doubtful ), NOMINAL DESCRIPTOR (= ND, e.g. (be) a doubter) and PREPOSITIONAL DESCRIPTOR (= PD, e.g. (be) in doubt).

ELABORATED VERB STRUCTURE:

a lexical verb together with all the

elaborators its valency requires. ELABORATOR:

a phrase that (partially) satisfies the valency requirements of a verb, adjective or noun.

EVENTIVE NOUN:

a noun denoting a type of state or happening (e.g. amendment, answer, arrival), normally derived from a verb and traditionally referred to as ‘nomen actionis’. (OF NOUN) (FC): a finite clause required by the valency of a noun, e.g. (allegation) that the arrangement is dishonest.

FINITE CLAUSE COMPLEMENT

(F): a finite clause required by the valency of a verb, e.g. (allege) that the arrangement is dishonest.

FINITE CLAUSE ELABORATOR

(GQ): a noun qualifier that may take the form of either a preposed possessive noun phrase or a postposed of-phrase, e.g. Sebastian’s (attention) or (the attention) of Sebastian.

GENITIVAL QUALIFIER

(OF NOUN) (GC): a structure of preposition plus gerund clause used to complement (i.e. complete the valency of) a noun, e.g. (the habit) of singing late at night.

GERUND COMPLEMENT

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(G): a gerund clause (possibly including its own independent subject) that is acting as an elaborator of a verb, e.g. (anticipated) (her) singing a wrong note.

GERUND ELABORATOR

(IO): an elaborator of a verb that is a second object, i.e. occurs in addition to a direct object, which it either precedes or follows with the preposition to or for, like us/to us in the sentence: Tony brought us a piano/brought a piano to/for us.

INDIRECT OBJECT

(IÖ): an elaborator of a verb that is a second objoid, i.e. occurs in addition to a (direct) objoid, which it precedes, like us in the sentence: The piano cost us fifty pounds.

INDIRECT OBJOID

(OF NOUN) (IC): a gerund clause used to complement (i.e. complete the valency of) a noun, e.g. (the tendency) to sing late at night.

INFINITIVE COMPLEMENT

(I): an infinitive clause (possibly including its own independent subject) that is acting as elaborator of a verb, e.g. (wanted) (her) to sing a wrong note.

INFINITIVE ELABORATOR

(L): an adverbial particle that is used as part of the valency of a lexical verb, combining with it (possibly also with an object) to give a phrasal verb, e.g. ( fall) over, ( put smbd ) off.

LIMITER ADVERB

(= DIRECT OBJECT) (O): a noun phrase that is part of the valency (= elaboration) of a verb (which it directly follows, except in structures with ‘fronting’ or with a prepositionless indirect object) and that corresponds to the subject of the related passive sentence with the same verb, e.g. the piano in Tony brought (us) the piano, corresponding to The piano was brought ((to) us) by Tony.

OBJECT

(= DIRECT OBJOID) (Ö): a noun phrase that is part of the valency (= elaboration) of a verb (which it directly follows, except in structures with ‘fronting’) but that does not correspond to the subject of the related passive sentence with the same verb, e.g. (The piano cost (us)) fifty pounds (with no corresponding sentence: *Fifty pounds were cost by the piano).

OBJOID

(OO): a noun phrase elaborator of a verb that is optionally preceded by a preposition and that occurs after the object but unlike the indirect object cannot be moved to the position before the direct object, e.g. Tony envied Margaret ( for) her longevity.

OBLIQUE OBJECT

( J): a by-preposition phrase that occurs in a passive sentence with the same meaning (of agent, experiencer, stimulus, etc.) as the subject in the corresponding active sentence, e.g. by Tony in: The committee was organized/admired/impressed by Tony (corresponding to Tony organized/admired/impressed the committee).

PERJECT

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282 Glossary (PO): a noun phrase in a preposition phrase that is not adverbial but determined by the valency of the verb (with the choice of preposition determined by the verb) such that this noun phrase can act as subject in a corresponding passive sentence, e.g. The committee looked at/ objected to/interfered with the proposal (corresponding to The proposal was looked at/objected to/interfered with by the committee).

PREPOSITIONAL OBJECT

(PÖ): a noun phrase in a preposition phrase that is not adverbial but determined by the valency of the verb (with the choice of preposition determined by the verb) such that this noun phrase cannot act as subject in a corresponding passive sentence, e.g. The committee differed from/clashed with the minister (with no corresponding sentences *The minister was differed from/clashed with by the committee).

PREPOSITIONAL OBJOID

(PQ): a constituent of a noun phrase that follows and qualifies the head noun and that takes the form of a postposed preposition phrase in which the choice of preposition is determined by the individual noun, e.g. (attention) to detail beside (interest) in detail.

PREPOSITIONAL QUALIFIER

STRETCHED (ELABORATED) VERB STRUCTURE/CONSTRUCTION:

a non-minimal elaborated verb structure in which the verb itself is ‘thin’ (i.e. has a ‘lighter’ or ‘weaker’ meaning than usual) and the eventive meaning (normally carried by a verb) is expressed in a noun phrase or adjective phrase, e.g. give us some help, come to our help, be of help to us, be helpful to us.

(S): an obligatory noun phrase elaborator of a lexical verb that normally directly precedes it and determines its number/person concord and that, when pronominal, occurs in the nominative form; the perject in a passive sentence is said to be the ‘deep’ or ‘underlying’ subject because it corresponds to the subject of a related active sentence.

SUBJECT

THIN VERB:

a lexical verb used with a meaning that is ‘lighter’ or ‘weaker’ than usual because the ‘eventive’ meaning verbs normally carry is expressed by an elaborating noun phrase or adjective phrase, e.g. give, make, come (to) in give an answer, make a statement, come to an agreement.

VALENCY:

the requirement or potential that a lexical word (verb, adjective or noun) has for the presence of one or more structures whenever it occurs, in the way that a classic intransitive verb requires a subject but does not tolerate an object.

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Bibliography 287 Firth, J. R. (1957). Papers in Linguistics 1934–1951. London: Oxford University Press. Fodor, J. R. and Katz, J. J. (eds) (1964). The Structure of Language, Readings in the Philosophy of Language. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Fontenelle, T. (1998). ‘Discovering significant lexical functions in dictionary entries’. In: Cowie, A. P. (ed.), Phraseology: Theory, Analysis and Applications. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 189–207. François, J. and Grass, T. (1997). ‘Les constructions à verbe support en lexicographie juridique bilingue (allemand/francais)’. In: Fiala, P., Lafon. P. and Piguet, M.-F. La locution: entre lexique, syntexe et pragmatique, identification en corpus, traitement, apprentissage. (Publication di l’INALF, collection ‘Saint Cloud’). Paris: Klincksieck, 183–98. Fraser, B. (1970). ‘Idioms within transformational grammar’. Foundations of Language 6, 22–42. Frawley, W. (1992). Linguistic Semantics. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum. Garman, M. (1990). Psycholinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gibbs, R. and Nayak, N. (1989). ‘Psycholinguistic studies on the syntactic behaviour of idioms’. Cognitive Psychology 21, 100–38. Gibbs, R., Nayak, N., Bolton, J. and Kapper, M. (1989). ‘Speakers’ assumptions about the lexical flexibility of idioms’. Memory and Cognition 17, 58–68. Gibbs, R., Nayak and Cutting, C. (1989). ‘How to kick the bucket and not decompose: analysability and idiom processing’. Journal of Memory and Language 28, 567–93. Givon, T. (1984). Syntax: a Functional–Typological Introduction I. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Gläser, R. (1986). Phraseologie der englischen Sprache. Leipzig: Verlag Enzyklopädie; and Tübingen: Niemeyer. Goldberg, A. C. (1995). Constructions: a Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago: University of Chicago. Greenbaum, S. and Quirk, R. (1970). Elicitation Experiments in English: Linguistic Studies in Use and Attitude. London: Longman. Gross, G. and Kiefer, F. (1995). ‘La structure événementielle de substantifs’. Folia Linguistica 29, 43–65. Gross, M. (1981). ‘Les bases empiriques de la notion de prédicat sémantique’. Language 63, 7–52. Gross, M. (1994). ‘Constructing lexicon-grammars’. In: Atkins, B. T. and Zampolli, A. (eds), Computational Approaches to the Lexicon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 213–63. Gutiérrez, M. L. (1993). Estructuras sintácticas del español actual, 4th edition (1st edition 1978). Alcobendas (Madrid): Sociedad General Española de Librería. Haas, W. (1966). ‘Linguistic relevance’. In: Bazell, C. E., Catford, J. C., Halliday, M. A. K. and Robins, R. H. In Memory of J. R. Firth. London: Longman, 116–47. Haas, W. (1980). ‘Sentence meanings and truth-values’. In: Brettschneider, G. and Lehmann, C. (eds), Wege zur Universalienforschung. Tübingen: Narr, 65–75. Halliday, M. A. K. (1966). ‘Lexis as a linguistic level’. In: Bazell et al. In Memory of J. R. Firth. London: Longman, 148–162. Halliday, M. A. K. (1970). ‘Language structure and language function’. In: Lyons, J. (ed.), New Horizons in Linguistics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 140–65. Halliday, M. A. K. (1985). An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold. Harris, Z. S. (1957). ‘Cooccurrence and transformation in linguistic structure’. Language 33. 283–340. (Reprinted in Fodor and Katz (1964: 155–210) and in Householder (1972: 151–85).)

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290 Bibliography Moon, R. (1998). ‘Frequencies and forms of phrasal lexemes in English’. In: Cowie, A. P. (ed.), Phraseology: Theory, Analysis and Applications. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 79–100. Mustajoki, A. (2000). ‘Functional syntax as a basis for contrastive analysis’. Paper given to the “Linguistikkreis” of the University of Basle, 11 April, 2000. Nagy, W. (1978). ‘Some non-idiom larger-than-word units in the lexicon’. Papers from the Parasession on the Lexicon. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society, 289–300. Nattinger, J. R. and DeCarrico, J. S. (1992). Lexical Phrases and Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Newman, J. (1996). Give: a Cognitive Linguistic Study. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Nickel, G. (1968). ‘Complex verbal structures in English’. IRAL 6, 1–21. Obler, L. K. and Gjerlow, K. (1999). Language and the Brain. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. Ogden, C. K. (1968). Basic English: International Second Language, revision prepared by E. C. Graham. New York: Harcourt Brace. Olsson, Y. (1961). On the Syntax of the English Verb (Gothenburg Studies in English 12). Gothenburg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis. Palm, C. (1995). Phraseologie: eine Einführung. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. Palmer, F. R. (1965). A Linguistic Study of the English Verb. London: Longman. Palmer, F. R. (1974). The English Verb. London: Longman. Paradis, C. (1997). Degree Modifiers of Adjectives in Spoken British English. Lund: Lund University Press. Pawley, A. and Syder, F. H. (1983). ‘Two puzzles for linguistic theory: nativelike selection and nativelike fluency’. In: Richards, J. C. and Schmidt, R. W. (eds), Language and Communication. London: Longman, 191–226. von Polenz, P. (1985). Deutsche Satzsemantik, Grundbegriffe des Zwischen-den-Zeilen-Lesens. Berlin: de Gruyter. Pottier, B. (1972). Introduction à l’étude linguistique de l’espagnol. Paris: Hispanoamericanes. Poutsma, H. (1904–26). A Grammar of Late Modern English. Groningen: Noordhoff. Quirk, R. (1995). Grammatical and Lexical Variance in English. London: Longman. Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G. and Svartvik, R. (1972). A Grammar of Contemporary English. London: Longman. Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G. and Svartvik, J. (1985). A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman. Radford, A. (1988). Transformational Grammar: a First Course. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Radford, A. (1997). Syntax: a Minimalist Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rensky´, M. (1964). ‘English verbo-nominal phrases: some structural and stylistic aspects’. Travaux Linguistiques de Prague 1, 289–99. Roos, E. (1989). ‘Idioms’. In: Dirven, R. and Putseys, Y. A User’s Grammar of English: Word, Sentence, Text, Interaction, Part A. Frankfurt-am-Main: Lang, 215–41. Rosch, E. (1977). ‘Human categorization’. In: Warren, N. (ed.), Advances in CrossCultural Psychology, vol. 1. London: Academic Press. Rosch, E. (1978). ‘Principles of categorization’. In: Rosch, E. and Lloyd, B. B. (eds) Cognition and Categorization. Hillsdale; New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, 27–48. Rose, J. H. (1978). ‘Types of idioms’. Linguistics 203, 55–62.

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Bibliography 291 Ruhl, C. (1989). On Monosemy: a Study in Linguistic Semantics. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press. Schenk, A. (1994). Idioms and Collocations in Compositional Grammars. Utrecht: Research Institute for Language and Speech. Scurfield, E. (1991). Chinese. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Siller-Runggaldier, H. (1996). Das Objektoid: eine neue syntaktisch-funktionale kategorie, aufgezeigt anhand des italienischen. Wilhelmsfeld: Gottfried Egert. Simatos, I. (1997). ‘Référence et argumentalité du GN dans les locutions verbales’. In: Fiala, P., Lafon, P. and Piguet, M.-F. La locution: entre lexique, syntexe et pragmatique, identification en corpus, traitement, apprentissage. (Publication di l’INALF, collection ‘Saint Cloud’). Paris: Klincksieck, 77–102. Sinclair, J. McH. (1966). ‘Beginning the study of lexis’. In: Bazell, C. E., Catford, J. C., Halliday, M. A. K. and Robins, R. H. In Memory of J. R. Firth. London: Longman, 410–30. Sinclair, J. McH. (ed.) (1987). Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary. London: Collins. Sinclair, J. McH. (1991). Corpus, Concordance, Collocation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Snell, R. and Weightman, S. (1989). Teach Yourself Hindi. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Sommerfeldt, K.-E. and Schreiber, H. (1996). Wörterbuch der Valenz etymologisch verwandter Wörter: Verben, Adjektive, Substantive. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Stein, G. (1991). ‘The phrasal verb type “to have a look” in Modern English’. IRAL 29, 1–29. Stock, O., Slack, J. and Ortony A. (1993). ‘Building castles in the air: some computational and theoretical issues in idiom comprehension’. In: Cacciari, C. and Tabossi, P. (eds), Idioms: Processing Structure and Interpretation. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Erlbaum, 229–47. Strevens, P. D. (ed.) (1978). In Honour of A. S. Hornby. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stubbs, M. (1995). ‘Collocations and semantic profiles: on the cause of the trouble with quantitive studies’. Functions of Language 2, 23–55. Stubbs, M. (1996). ‘ “Eine Sprache idiomatisch sprechen”: Computer, Korpora, kommunikative Kompetenz und Kultur’. In: Mattheier, K. (ed.), Norm und Variation. Bern/Frankfurt: Lang, 151–67. Stubbs, M. (1998). ‘A note on phraseological tendencies in the core vocabulary of English’. Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 33, 399–410. Svartvik, J. (1992). Directions in Corpus Linguistics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Svensson, P. (1998). Number and Countability in English Nouns. Umeå: Umeå University. Tannen, D. (1989). Talking Voices: Repetition, Dialogues and Imagery in Conversational Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tesnière, L. (1959). Éléments de syntaxe structurale. Paris: Klincksieck. Trnka, B. (1928). ‘Analysis and synthesis in English’. English Studies 10, 138–44. Tschichold, C. (1996). ‘English Multi-Word Units (= MWUs) in a lexicon for natural language processing’. Basle: Doktorarbeit der Universität Basel. Tutin, A. (1997). ‘Codage des constructions à verbe support pour un lexique de TALN’. Actes de TALN ’97 (Grenoble). Ungerer, F. and Schmid, H.-J. (1996). An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics. London: Longman. Vendler, Z. (1967). ‘Verbs and times’. In: Vendler, Z. Linguistics in Philosophy. New York: Cornell University Press, 97–121.

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292 Bibliography Vogel, P. M. (1996). Wortarten und Wortartenwechsel: zu Konversion und verwandten Erscheinungen im Deutschen und in anderen Sprachen. Berlin: de Gruyter. Welte, W. (1990). Englische Phraseologie und Idiomatik. Frankfurt/Berne: Lang. Wierzbicka, A. (1982). ‘Why you can have a drink when you can’t *have an eat’. Language 58, 753–99. Wood, R. T. and Hill, R. J. (1979). The Macmillan Dictionary of English Colloquial Idioms. London: Macmillan. Zhang, L. (1995). A Contrastive Study of Aspectuality in German, English and Chinese. New York: Lang.

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Aarts 30 Abney 124 Abrahamsen 8 absolutive adjective 163 abstract noun 65 achievements 200 actional meaning 74 active (voice) 10, 11, 38 active meaning 192 activities 203 adjectival descriptor 119 adjective 13, 24, 25 adjective meaning 59 adjective-based stretched verb structure 23 adjectives in -ed/-en 161 adverb-based stretched verb structure 23 adverbial 45, 126, 141 adverbial elaborator 45 affirmative 10 affixation 113 -age 116 agentive adjective 32, 113, 163 agentive noun 23, 25, 32, 59, 227 agentive-eventive meaning 136 agentive-eventive noun 146 Akimoto 5 Aktionsart 234 -al 116 Algeo 5 Allerton 7, 17, 27, 36, 38, 39, 42, 43, 46, 102, 113, 124, 125, 139, 141, 172, 219, 221, 235, 243 alliteration 219, 232 ambiguity 116, 226

analysability 221 analysability, semantic 218 -ance/-ence 113, 117 Arabic 241 arbitrariness 6 Aronstein 5 article, definite 125 article, indefinite 53, 125, 229 Ashton 202 aspect 115, 224 aspect adjective 140, 141 -ation/-ition/-ution 117 attributive 14 auxiliary verb 7, 125 back-formation 238 Barkema 217 base 219 Basic English (Ogden) 238 BBI dictionary 32, 219, 246, 248 Bechtel 8 behaviourism 30 Benson 8, 219, 246 binomial 216 Björkman 5, 223, 240 BNC 32 Bolinger 232 Brinton 5 Brown corpus 32 Brownell 243 Burger 216 Cameron 32 case 39 catenative pattern 233 causative voice 194

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294 Index causativity 195, 196 Chinese 241 Chomsky 8, 9, 125 classifier 125 clause 46 clefting 12, 17, 42, 121, 223 cognate object 232 cohesion 102 collocant 219 collocation 7, 11, 28, 30, 54, 172, 191, 196, 215, 217, 245 collocational restrictions 139, 210 common noun 125 complement 41 complementation 4, 25 complex sentence 17 composite predicate 5 compound 218 compounding 113 concord 39 concrete nouns 178 connectionist approach 8 Construction Grammar 8 context 30 continuations 201 conversion 4 cooccurrence restrictions 11, 22, 221 coordination 219 copular verb 26, 27, 43, 54, 59, 66, 159, 228, 229 corpora 30 corpus-based approach 30 Cortès 240 Cottrell 8 countability 207 countable noun 119, 125, 127, 136, 231 coups 200, 203 Cowie 246 Cruse 3 Cruttenden 139 Culicover 124 culminations 201, 203 DeCarrico 5 definite genitive NP 134 demotion 108 derivation 4, 113, 159, 197 derivational suffix 118

descriptor 23, 28, 39, 42, 59, 63, 66, 69, 161, 228 determiner 6, 124, 136, 224 determiner phrase 124 deverbal noun 8, 75, 102, 113, 115, 121, 178, 216 deviance 220 dictionary 8, 31, 36, 221, 245 dictionary, electronic 248 direct object see object Dirven 216 discourse 220 do-constructions 231 Dowty 200, 201 Dras 7 Dubois 239 duration 198 duration adverb 144 duration adverbial 199 dynamic meaning 24, 29 Egg 199, 200 elaborated verb structure 4, 20, 22, 24, 59 elaboration 4 elaborator 47, 49, 52, 54, 100, 105 elicitation tests 31 ellipsis 52 end-focus 102 Engelen 5 epithet 216 errors 26, 30, 243 eventive adjective 54 eventive meaning 99, 109, 118 eventive noun 20, 26, 32, 52, 66, 100, 127, 171, 217 eventive object 105 eventive verb 21, 29, 66, 69, 77 eventuality 198, 199, 201, 203, 205, 209 exemplification 219 exertion 202, 206 expanded predicate 5 expectation 208 experiencer 27, 193 extent adjective 143 factual status adjective 144 Fillmore 8, 23

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Index 295 finite clause 46 finite complement 47 Firth 30 fixed expression 216 flexibility 224 formal style 29, 227 formula 217 François 240 Fraser 223 French 7, 194, 202, 239 frequency 172, 186 frequency adverb 144 frequency adverbial 142 frequency of stretched verb constructions 31 fronting 40, 165 function words 170 functional categories 49 Funktionsverbgefüge 5, 216 Garman 244 generative grammar 8 genitival qualifier 47 genitive qualifier 102 German 5, 6, 24, 25, 202, 239, 248 gerund 118 gerund complement 47 gerund structure 46 Gjerlow 243 Goldberg 8, 17 gradability 139 gradable adjective 163 grammatical restructuring 102 Grass 240 Greek 240 Greenbaum 31 Gutiérrez 240 Haas 3, 9 hackneyed phrase 220 Halliday 30, 41, 243 happenings 199, 200 Harris 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 have-constructions 229, 231 head 23 Heringer 5, 239 heteronymy 3 Hill 246 Hindi 241

homonymy 174, 218, 226 hyponymy 115 -ia 118 idiom 5, 16, 174, 215, 243 idiomaticity 239 inanimate subject 179 inception 200, 205 inceptive meaning 75, 157, 182 inchoative meaning 75 incorporation 101 incubus 151 indirect object 76, 77, 100, 104, 251 indirect objoid 44 infinitive complement 47 infinitive structure 46 inflection 197 informal style 29, 227, 231, 233 -ing 118 inherence 140 intensifier 141, 163 intensity 209 interference 24 intergressives 199 intransitive verb 70, 100, 104 introspection 31 intuition 26 intuition-based approach 30 -ion 117, 135 -is 118 Italian 240 -ity 118 Jackendoff 125 Japanese 241 Jespersen 5, 7, 42 Johnson 7 Keller 5 key word 7 kindred relation 13, 17 Kirchner 5 Kjellmer 31 Koya 27 Kruisinga 5 Lambton 241 Leech 30 Lewis 194, 241

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296 Index lexical function 7, 22, 217 lexical gap 25 lexical irregularity 219 lexical item 36, 197 lexical passivization 101, 251 lexical phrase 5 lexical selectivity 219 lexical verb 7, 24, 28, 100 lexicalist approach 8 lexicon 4, 7, 16, 17, 172, 215, 226, 244 light verb 7 limiter adverb 102, 103 LOB corpus 32, 173, 186 location 120 locution verbale 5 Lyons 197 Mackridge 240 Magnusson 115 Makkai 215, 223 manner adverb 143 manner adverbial 119 Marchand 113, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120 mass noun 125, 127, 207 master word 219 Matthews 17 meaning differences 6, 9, 15, 20 meaning of thin verbs 172 Mel’cˇuk 7, 22, 217, 243 -ment 117, 135 metaphor 27, 215, 243 method adverb 142 Michaelis 8 Mitchell 30, 203 Miyamoto 241 modal verbs 125 Moon 217 morphology 16, 198 native speaker 26, 31, 32, 246 Nattinger 5 negative 10, 188 New Collins Concise Dictionary 32 nomen actionis 115 nomen agentis 136 nominal paraphrase 5 nominalization 66, 101, 106, 223

noun-based stretched verb structure 23 number of stretched verb constructions 31, 32, 170 numeral 125 object 6, 8, 23, 27, 39 object position 35, 77 objoid 23, 43, 99, 102 Obler 243 obligatoriness 39, 49, 108 oblique form 39 oblique object 44 obsolete verbs 235 Ogden 238, 241 omission 49 optionality 49, 106, 108, 109, 127 overrepresented verbs in stretched verb constructions 174 Palm 216 Palmer 233 particle 225 partitive construction 29 passive (voice) 10, 11, 38, 45, 121 passive meaning 69, 156, 190, 192, 229 passivization 17, 36, 66, 100, 101, 105, 110, 154, 223 see also lexical passivization patient 164, 203 performance 26, 30 periphrasis 197, 203 perject 36, 106 Persian 241 persisting effect 209 Persson 115 phase 197 phrasal verb 5, 45, 76, 102, 110, 215, 225, 233 phrase lexicon 244 phraseme 217 phraseology 16, 215, 216 place adverb 144 place adverbial 27 plesionymy 3 polarity 209 polysemy 17, 113, 118, 174, 186, 218, 226 possessive 134, 151, 177

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Index 297 potentiality 208 Pottier 240 Poutsma 5 Prague school 5 predication 115 predicative 14, 25, 26, 29, 39, 42, 54, 120, 161 prefixation 4 preposition 25, 26 preposition phrase 45 prepositional object 225 prepositional objoid 37, 59, 66, 69, 74, 75, 102, 104, 107, 108, 119, 148, 154, 225 prepositional qualifier 47, 69, 104 prepositional verb 70 process 199 processes 203 productivity 17, 26 progressive 205, 206 pronominalization 11 proper noun 125 proverb 216, 220, 232 pseudo-idiom 216 qualifier 66, 101 quality adjective 141, 142, 161 Quirk 7, 22, 24, 31, 41, 102, 125, 139, 140, 161 quotation 216 Radford 223 range adjective 140, 141 rare verbs 23 see also thin verb, unique reciprocal verb 52 relative clause 100 restrictor 145 Roos 216 Ruhl 174 Russian 240 scalar adjective 163 scalar modification 164 Scurfield 241 semantic contribution 7 semantic feature 127, 195, 209, 233 semantic role 6, 100, 101, 105, 106, 109, 148, 151, 164, 193 semantic selection 173

sensory verb 119 sentence adverb 144 sentence adverbial 142, 145 servant word 219 Simatos 240 simile 216, 219 simplex elaborated verb structure 24 simplex verb construction 20 Sinclair 30 slogan 216 Snell 241 social disapproval 209 solo eventive noun 134 solo noun 126, 207 Spanish 240 speech-act ·184, 194, 216, 220 static meaning 29 stative meaning 24, 196 Stein 5, 7 Stock 244 stratificational grammar 215 strokes 200, 203 Structure 0 22, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 48 Structure 1 24, 25, 26, 27, 48, 54, 58, 59, 62, 63, 106, 113, 159, 161, 164, 176, 182, 226, 227, 228, 240, 250 Structure 2 23, 25, 26, 27, 48, 59, 62, 113, 121, 136, 146, 157, 175, 227, 240, 250 Structure 3 26, 27, 48, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 69, 106, 176, 228, 250 Structure 4 27, 28, 48, 66, 68, 70, 73, 75, 106, 107, 155, 156, 157, 176, 228, 240, 250 Structure 5 29, 48, 70, 74, 75, 76, 99, 106, 107, 108, 156, 169, 177, 229, 239, 240, 251 Structure 6 23, 29, 31, 35, 48, 77, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 106, 107, 155, 169, 229, 240, 251, 252 style see informal/formal style subject 6, 14, 39, 65, 225, 227 subject adjunct adverbial 142 subject complement 120 success with difficulty 209 suffix 16, 26, 157 suffixation 4, 113 support verb 7

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298 Index Swahili 202, 241 synonymy 3, 15 syntax 17, 24 telic adjective 163 telic modification 164 tense 224 terminations 200 textual contribution 221 that-clause 46 thematic status 107 theme-rheme 243 thin verb 7, 217 neutral 196 unique 172 thin verbs add 191, 207 arouse 207, 229 arrive at 207 assume 207 attract 196 be 174–6, 207 bring (in) 207 bring about 196, 207 burst into 207 carry out 229 cause 186, 193, 194, 196, 229 come 176–7, 229 come in for 194 come to 207 commit 194, 229 conduct 207 dance 191 deliver 207 do 177–8, 207, 229 drive home 191, 207 effect 207 elicit 196 engage in 207 feel 186, 193, 194, 207, 229 fill 229 find 187, 194, 207, 229 form 187, 207, 229 gain 195, 229 get 178–9, 194, 229 give 179–81, 189, 192, 194, 229 go 181–2, 229 go into 207 grant 188, 194, 207, 229

have 182–3, 196, 207, 224, 229 hurl 194 incur 194 induce 207 indulge (in) 207, 229 inflict 193 initiate 207 inspire 196, 207 launch 191, 207 lodge 191 make 183–4, 192, 194, 229 meet 229 meet with 194 minister 191 mount 207 move 229 obtain 207 offer 188, 208, 229 perform 207, 229 practise 207 precipitate 196, 207 present 207, 229 press home 207 promote 207 provide 188, 207, 229 provoke 196 put in 229 put on 191, 207 reach 207 receive 189, 192, 194, 229 record 207 refuse 210 render 207, 229 secure 194, 207, 229 shout 194 spark off 196, 207 spring into 207 stimulate 196, 207 strike up 207 subject 207 suffer 189, 193, 194, 207, 229 take 184–6, 229 undergo 190, 192, 194, 229 withdraw 210 work out 207, 229 time adverbial 142, 200 -tion 117 transformation 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 17, 35, 43, 105, 121, 223

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Index 299 transitive verb 99 translation 24 treatments 203 Trnka 5 Turkish 194, 241 Tutin 7 uncountable noun 119 underrepresented verbs in stretched verb constructions 174 ungradable adjective 163 unique morpheme 235 -ure 118

111

111

111

Weightman 241 Welte 215 Wierzbicka 7, 229, 230, 231 Wood 246 word formation 4, 8, 16, 135, 235 X-bar theory 125 -y 118

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111

valency requirement 45 Vendler 200, 201 verb meaning 6, 48 verbo-nominal phrase 5

valency 22, 25, 26, 27, 36, 38, 48, 74, 77, 119, 141, 169, 172, 187, 239

zero derivation 27, 118, 135, 231 Zhang 205