g. The fence hits easily. Levin : ff break e fg bc d a. Tony broke the window (with a hammer). b. #Tony broke the hammer against the window. c. Tony

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1 Abstract English has semi-productive lexical processes for alternating the syntactic realization of verb s arguments. A valid lexical semantic theory needs to explain how the semantics of a verb corresponds to its syntax, and how it changes through the course of construction alternations. Introducing a wide variety of alternation phenomena in English, this paper makes two proposals. One is that natural language should have generative mechanisms which enable a speaker to map verb s arguments selectively onto its syntactic structure. The other is that lexical rules should have a form of effecting the value of argument variables, since any lexical operation which converts the semantic structure of a verb cannot be empirically tenable. 1 Fillmore hit break Levin and Rappaport Hovav Levin hit a b cd e f g a. Paula hit the fence (with the stick). b. Paula hit the stick against the fence. c. Paula hit at the fence (with the stick). d. Paula hit Deirdre on the back. (cf. Paula hit Deirdre s back.) e. The stick hit the fence. f. *The fence hit (with a stick).

2 g. *The fence hits easily. Levin : ff break e fg bc d a. Tony broke the window (with a hammer). b. #Tony broke the hammer against the window. c. *Tony broke at the window. d. *Tony broke Mary on the arm. (cf. Tony broke Mary s arm.) e. The hammer broke the window. f. The window broke. g. The window breaks easily. Levin :, hit break LCS 2 a b Lakoff, Guerssel et al., Pinker, b a

3 Keyser and Roeper, Zubizarreta, Levin and Rappaport Hovav, a. The cup broke. b. Janet broke the cup. Levin : a x cause b a. break LCS: y come to be BROKEN Guerssel et al. : Causativization b. break LCS: x cause (y come to be BROKEN) Guerssel et al. : occur exist Kudo true unaccusatives Keyser and Roeper Zubizarreta Levin and Rappaport Hovav lexical binding a. [[x DO-SOMETHING] CAUSE [y BECOME BROKEN]] Lexical Binding b. [[Ø DO-SOMETHING] CAUSE [y BECOME BROKEN]] Levin and Rappaport Hovav : break anti-causativization Rappaport and Levin lexical subordination a. Jack sprayed paint on the wall.

4 b. Jack sprayed the wall with paint. Levin : a. [x cause [y to come to be at z]] Lexical Subordination b. [[x cause [z to come to be in STATE]] BY MEANS OF [x cause [y to come to be at z]]] Rappaport and Levin : Rappaport and Levin a b a a a BY MEANS OF Levin and Rapoport Rappaport and Levin Rappaport and Levin b LCS LCS a y b z Speas Talmya b put pour a. I put books on the table. b. *I put the table with (the) books. Levin : a. Tamara poured water into the bowl. b. *Tamara poured the bowl with water. Levin : isomorphic LCS LCS

5 Pustejovsky break spray break QUALIA = FORMAL = be (e *, y, broken) AGENTIVE = act (e, x) spray QUALIA = FORMAL = move (e *, y, z) be (e *, z, sprayed) AGENTIVE = act (e, x) : : event headedness Pustejovsky : focus of interpretation i ii iii : break e broken * spray y e sprayed e a. Q A : R (e, x) [ vp x [ v v VP]] b. Q F : P (e, y, z) [ VP y [ V V z]] :

6 e e e e a. Q A : act (e, x) shadowed Q F : be (e *, y, broken) [ VP y [ V V broken]] b. Q A : act (e *, x) [ vp x [ v v VP]] Q F : be (e *, y, broken) [ VP y [ V V broken]] a. Q A : act (e *, x) [ vp x [ v v VP]] Q F : move (e **, y, z) [ VP y [ V V z]] Q F : be (e *, z, sprayed) shadowed b. Q A : act (e *, x) [ vp x [ v v VP]] Q F : move (e *, y, z) shadowed Q F : be (e **, z, sprayed) [ VP z [ V V sprayed]] abreak e shadowede The cup broke. b e Janet broke the cup. a spray e Jack sprayed paint on the wall. b e Jack sprayed the wall (with paint). e e * spray e e iii holistic interpretation LCS

7 3 Kudo a. argument abstraction Q: P (e, x, y) Q: P (e, x arb, y) b. argument demotion Q: P (e, x, y) Q: P (e, x^, y) c. argument substitution Q: P (e, x, y) Q: P (e, z, y) d. argument binding Q: P (e, x, y) Q: P (e, x=y, y) a pro arbitrary pro Rizzi Fagan b a. The butcher cuts the meat. b. The meat cuts easily. Levin : Fagan LCS cut cut i cut QUALIA = CONST = i: instrument FORMAL = be (e *, y, cut) AGENTIVE = act (e *, x, i) x x x Q A : act (e *, x, i) Q A : act (e *, x arb, i)

8 i Q A : act e *, x arb, i [ vp pro arb [ v v VP]] Q F : be e *, y, cut [ VP y [ V V cut]] pro Kudo y cf. Hoekstra and Roberts, Matsumoto and Fujita pro x Fagan LCS Kudo cut vp Kudo cut The butcher cuts easily. Levincharacteristic property of agent construction Mary already ate (her lunch). Kudo b Perlmutter and Postal UAH Baker UTAH Kudo

9 UPAH Uniformity of Prominence Assignment Hypothesis UPAH Identical relative prominence hierarchy of semantic arguments is represented by identical structural hierarchy between those arguments at the level of base structure. Kudo : prominence Langacker UPAH cut intermediary instrument act cut UPAH b Q A : act (e *, x, i) Q A : act (e *, x^, i) ^ x i Relational Grammar Perlmutter and Postal x i vp Q A : act (e *, x^, i) [ vp i [ v v VP]] Q F : be (e *, y, cut) [ VP y [ V V cut]] The knife cut the meat. *The knife cut the meat by the butcher. Levin and Rappaport Kudo b

10 a. She baked wonderful bread from that whole wheat flour. b. That whole wheat flour bakes wonderful bread. Levin : bake cut material bake (bread) QUALIA = CONST = m: material FORMAL = be (e *, y, in the world) AGENTIVE = act (e *, x, m) UPAH cut VP V c- V c argument surrogation Kudo fake unergatives walk run x x y walk QUALIA = CONST = walking_manner ( e ) FORMAL = move (e, x, y) AGENTIVE = act (e *, x) e walk e

11 a. John is walking (in place). b. John walked through the door. a walk b through the door walk x x PRO VP Kudo : walk Q F : move (e, x, y) Q F : move (e *, z, y) John walked the dog through the door. awalk a. The general marched the soldiers?? (to the tents). b. The rider jumped the horse? (over the fence). c. We ran the mouse *(through the maze). Levin and Rappaport Hovav : iii walk x John walked the dog through the door.

12 d c Levin and Rappaport Hovav Kudo bvirtual reflexive construction a. The butcher cuts the meat. b. This meat cuts itself. Levin : cut b Q A : act (e *, x, i) Q A : act (e *, x=y, i) Q A : act (e *, x=y, i) [ vp y [ v v VP]] Q F : be (e *, y, cut) [ VP y [ V V cut]] VP y b walk PRO e.g. The problem solved itself.

13 wash shave a. This material won t wash. b. *This material won t wash itself. Hundt : a. Heavy beards don t shave easily. b. *Heavy beards don t shave themselves. Fellbaum : saw slice a. *Soft wood saws itself. b. *These rolls slice themselves. c. *Smooth surfaces paint over themselves. Fellbaum : variable 4

14 Fillmore Jackendoff Pustejovsky : ch. with bake Baker, Mark Incorporation: A theory of grammatical function changing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Fagan, Sarah M. B. The English middle. Linguistic Inquiry : -. Fagan, Sarah M. B. The syntax and semantics of middle constructions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fellbaum, Christiane On the reflexive middle in English. CLS, Part : -. Fillmore, Charles The case for case. In: Emmon Bach and Robert T. Harms eds. Universals in linguistic theory. -. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Fillmore, Charles The grammar of hitting and breaking. In: Roderick Jacobs and Peter Rosenbaum eds. Readings in English transformational grammar. -. Waltham: Ginn. Guerssel, Mohad, Kenneth Hale, Mary Laughren, Beth Levin and Josie White Eagle A crosslinguistic study of transitivity alternation. CLS, Part : -. Hoekstra, Teun and Ian Roberts Middle constructions in Dutch and English. In: Eric Reuland and Werner Abraham eds. Knowledge and language, Vol. 2: Lexical and conceptual structure. -. Dordrecht: Foris. Hundt, Marianne English mediopassive constructions: A cognitive, corpus-based study of their origin, spread, and current status. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Jackendoff, Ray Semantic structures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. -. Keyser, Samuel and Thomas Roeper On the middle and ergative constructions in English. Linguistic Inquiry : -. Kudo, Kazuya The lexical derivation of English middles and event argument suppression. Humanities Reviews ( ): -. The Society of Humanities, Kwansei Gakuin University. Kudo, Kazuya Argument realization and alternations: A theoretical investigation on the syntax-lexical

15 semantics interface. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Kwansei Gakuin University. -. Lakoff, George Irregularity in syntax. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Langacker, Ronald W. Foundations of cognitive grammar, Vol. 2: Descriptive application. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Levin, Beth English verb classes and alternations: A preliminary investigation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Levin, Beth and Tova R. Rapoport Lexical subordination. CLS, Part : -. Levin, Beth and Malka Rappaport Nonevent -er nominals: A probe into argument structure. Linguistics : -. Levin, Beth and Malka Rappaport Hovav Unaccusativity: At the syntax-lexical semantics interface. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Levin, Beth and Malka Rappaport Hovav Argument realization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Matsumoto, Masumi and Koji Fujita The English middle as an individual-level predicate. Studies in English Literature ( ): -. The English Literary Society of Japan. Perlmutter, David M. and Paul M. Postal Toward a universal characterization of passivization. BLS : -. Perlmutter, David M. and Paul M. Postal The -advancement exclusiveness law. In: David M. Perlmutter and Carol G. Rosen eds. Studies in relational grammar 2, -. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pinker, Steven Learnability and cognition: The acquisition of argument structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Pustejovsky, James The generative lexicon. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Rappaport, Malka and Beth Levin What to do with θ-roles. In: Wendy Wilkins ed. Syntax and semantics 21: Thematic relations, -. New York: Academic Press. Rizzi, Luigi Null object in Italian and the theory of pro. Linguistic Inquiry : -. Speas, Margaret Phrase structure in natural language. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Talmy, Leonard Toward a cognitive semantics, Vol. 1: Concept structuring systems. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Zubizarreta, Maria L. Levels of representation in the lexicon and in the syntax. Dordrecht: Foris.

1 ( ) (1) (2) Pattern 1 (P1)// Pattern 2 (P2) (V1 = V2) (alternation) (SPRAY-PAINT alternation/ hypallage) (1) (2) P1: (Z ) X Y V1 P2: (Z ) X Y

1 ( ) (1) (2) Pattern 1 (P1)// Pattern 2 (P2) (V1 = V2) (alternation) (SPRAY-PAINT alternation/ hypallage) (1) (2) P1: (Z ) X Y V1 P2: (Z ) X Y 1 ( ) 1 1.1 (1) (2) Pattern 1 (P1)// Pattern 2 (P2) (V1 = V2) (alternation) (SPRAY-PAINT alternation/ hypallage) (1) (2) P1: (Z ) X Y V1 P2: (Z ) X Y V2 1.1.1 : (1) P2 (3) : (3) [ X [ X [ X ] ] ] [ Y ]