The Syntax and Semantics of Manner Modification: Adjectives and Adverbs

231 Pages·2015·1.35 MB·English

The Syntax and Semantics of
Manner Modification:
Adjectives and Adverbs
Sascha Alexeyenko
(Oleksandr Alyeksyeyenko)
Ph.D. Dissertation
Institute of Cognitive Science
University of Osnabrück
January 2015
Contents
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv
Notation conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Object of study and scope of inquiry . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Core proposal and thesis organization . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 Basic underlying assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.3.1 Verbal predication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.3.2 Non-verbal predication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.3.3 Modification and gradability . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2 From intensions to manners 23
2.1 Intensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.1.1 Substitution failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.1.2 Intensional analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.1.3 Problems and open questions . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.1.3.1 Heterogeneity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.1.3.2 Intensionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.2 Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.2.1 Connoting a verbal structure . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.2.2 Eventive analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
2.2.2.1 Croft (1984) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
2.2.2.2 Larson (1998). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
2.2.2.3 Noun semantics as source of event . . . . 52
2.3 Manners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
2.3.1 Introducing manners as a semantic type . . . . . . 61
2.3.2 Manner-based analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
2.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
References iii
3 Decomposing manner adverbs 75
3.1 Adverbs as a category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3.1.1 Inflectional and derivational analyses . . . . . . . . 76
3.1.2 PP analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
3.1.2.1 Nominal nature of morpheme –ly . . . . . 81
3.1.2.2 Internal structure of –ly adverbs . . . . . 93
3.1.2.3 Overview of arguments . . . . . . . . . . 100
3.2 Semantics of manner adverbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
3.2.1 Lexical preposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
3.2.2 Functional projection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
3.3 Syntax of manner adverbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
3.3.1 Positions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
3.3.2 Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
3.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
4 Manner adjectives across noun types 129
4.1 Event nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
4.1.1 Licensing of adjectives and adverbs . . . . . . . . . 130
4.1.2 Internal structure of event nouns and gerunds . . . 134
4.1.2.1 Perfect vs. imperfect nominals . . . . . . 137
4.1.2.2 ACC-ing vs. POSS-ing gerunds . . . . . . 143
4.1.3 Manner pre-modifiers of event nouns . . . . . . . . 153
4.1.3.1 AP-movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
4.1.3.2 Type shift. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
4.2 Individual nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
4.2.1 Semantics of at/in-gerunds as source of event . . . 162
4.2.2 Internal structure of at/in-gerunds . . . . . . . . . 168
4.2.3 Predicative position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
4.2.3.1 Derivation with type-shifted manner AP . 174
4.2.3.2 Derivation with unshifted manner AP . . 180
4.2.4 Attributive position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
4.2.4.1 APs with complements or adjuncts . . . . 183
4.2.4.2 Modification of –er nominals . . . . . . . 189
4.3 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
5 Conclusion 195
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Acknowledgments
This work wouldn’t have been possible without the support and encour-
agement of many people. First of all, I am very grateful to Peter Bosch,
my advisor, who has taught me so much in these years. For having been
understanding, patient, andsupportiveinvariousacademic andpersonal
matters, and for having been so generous with your time—danke, Peter!
The thesis has benefited a lot from the comments and suggestions of
many fellow linguists. In this connection, my thanks go first of all to my
former and present colleagues in the Computational Linguistics group in
Osnabrück: Martin Aher, Maria Cieschinger, Cornelia Ebert, Stefan Ev-
ert,StefanHinterwimmer, GabriellaLapesa,MingyaLiu,MikkoMäättä,
Umesh Patil, and Carla Umbach.
Inthewinterterm2009/10,Ihadachancetospendaresearchsemes-
ter at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem under the supervision of Edit
Doron. I would like to express my deep gratitude to Edit for all the time
she spent with me in meetings and discussions, as well as for her general
support since then. I would also like to thank Nora Boneh, Olga Kagan,
Malka Rappaport Hovav, and Ilona Spector for making me feel welcome
atHUJI.Toward theendofmy stay inJerusalem, I metYaelGreenberg,
with whom I had a chance to collaborate for the next several years, and
whom I particularly thank for making me try to see “the big picture”.
Further,IamgratefultoDavidAdger,ArtemisAlexiadou,BobanAr-
senijević, Nicholas Asher, Ariel Cohen, Joseph Emonds, Antonio Fábre-
gas,BeritGehrke,DanielHole,LouiseMcNally,AnitaMittwoch, Marcin
Morzycki, Barbara Partee, Ingo Plag, Martin Schäfer, Peter Svenonius,
MyriamUribe-Etxebarria, SusiWurmbrand, RobertoZamparelli, Hedde
Zeijlstra—for their feedback on my work on various occasions and at dif-
ferent stages.
Acknowledgments v
Thisthesiswouldhavebeenmuchmoredifficultwithoutthecompany
of my Osnabrück friends: Katya Ovchinnikova and Konstantin Todorov,
MikkoMäättäandFilipaMaya,MartaCastellano,IanKavanagh,Hazem
Toutounji, aswell asUmeshPatil. Mygratitudefortheirsupportgoesof
course also to my friends elsewhere, in particular, in Ukraine and Israel:
to Graham Lawson, Vicky Lichtman, Dana Ochstein, Karina Seryakova,
Nastya Smirnova, Alik Troitsky, and Yulia Tsukerman. And I would also
like to specially thank Alexander Tschumakow, my teacher and friend,—
for inspiring me to become a linguist.
Finally, this work would have been unimaginable without my family:
my parents’ encouragement from far and Gabriella’s constant love, care,
andsupportineverything inthelonglastyears—this iswhat truly made
this dissertation doable. It is to them that I dedicate it.
Notation conventions
Logical notation
∧ conjunction
∨ disjunction
⊂ proper subset relation
> greater-than relation
≺ temporal precedence
◦ temporal overlap
∈ is an element of
∼ truth-conditional equivalence
type shift
≫ has scope over
Type-theoretic notation
type variables
truth values t
individuals e x,y,z,... (singular)
X,Y,Z,... (plural)
events v e,e′,e′′,... (singular)
E,E′,E′′,... (plural)
degrees d d,d′,d′′,...
times i t,t′,t′′,...
manners m m,m′,m′′,...
worlds s w,w′,w′′,...
entities ε ε,ε′,ε′′,...
1
CHAPTER
Introduction
This thesis is concerned with the syntax and semantics of both adverbial
and adjectival manner modification. Section 1.1 below will introduce the
main challenges that manner adverbs and adjectives pose for a semantic
and syntactic analysis, thus outlining the scope of inquiry of this disser-
tation.Thecoreoftheanalysisproposedinthethesiswillthenbebriefly
presented insection1.2,inparallelwithadescription oftheorganization
of the thesis. Finally, section 1.3 will sketch the key background assump-
tions concerning syntax and semantics which this thesis builds upon.
1.1 Object of study and scope of inquiry
A peculiarity of manner adjectives is that they can occur in a number of
different semantico-syntactic environments, illustrated in (1.1) and (1.2)
below.
(1.1) a. The way John drives
b. John’s driving  is careful.

c. This driver
(1.2) John drives carefully/in acareful way.
The examples in (1.1) show that manner adjectives can modify or be
predicatedofnominalsofdifferentsemantictypes.Morespecifically,they
2 1.1. Object of study and scope of inquiry
are equally compatible with what I will refer to throughout this thesis as
manner(-denoting),event(-denoting), and individual(-denoting)
nominals, as in careful way of driving, careful driving, and careful driver,
respectively. This fact raises the question of the semantics of manner ad-
jectives,becauseitisnotimmediately clearwhat theydenote: properties
of manners, events, individuals, or something else.
Moreover, (1.2)shows thatmanneradjectives alsoappearasthebase
adjectives of manner adverbs formed with –ly, as well as in the structure
ofprepositional manneradverbials oftheform in a(n) A way.Thisposes
afurtherchallenge foratheory ofmannermodification: Itshouldbeable
to derive the semantics of manner adverb(ial)s based on the semantics of
thecorrespondingadjectives;inotherwords,toprovideaunifiedaccount
of adjectival and adverbial manner modification.
As faras manner adverbs, such as carefully, are concerned, itis fairly
standard to assume, following Reichenbach (1947) and Davidson (1967),
that they are co-predicated of the event variable introduced by the main
verb. More precisely, the denotation of a manner adverb is usually taken
to be the event predicate corresponding to the respective adjective, such
that,forinstance, carefully contributes theproperty ofevents carefulto
logical form. In other words, the suffix –ly is assumed to be semantically
insignificant, and its presence is simply ignored.
Thisevent-semanticanalysis,accordingtowhichmanneradverbsand
theiradjectivalcounterpartshaveidenticaldenotationsofpredicatesover
events, covers, in addition to manner adverbs, manner adjectives applied
to event nouns, as in (1.1b) above. However, it cannot straightforwardly
account forcases involving manner nominals and individual nominals, as
in (1.1a) and (1.1c). Thus, even if it is on the right track, the analysis in
terms ofpredicates of events cannot betheentire story,unless,ofcourse,
manner adjectives are simply assumed to be ambiguous across their uses
withindividual,event,andmannernouns—hardlyanadequateapproach
in the light of the obvious relatedness between their meanings on all the
three uses.
This thesis aims to develop a theory of manner modification that ac-
counts for the issues raised above while keeping the semantics of manner
adjectives constant across their uses. Inparticular, it will be argued that
manner adjectives denote properties of manners of events, rather than of
events themselves.Thismeans thattheiroccurrences withmanner nomi-
nals, as in (1.1a), present in fact the most transparent syntax–semantics
mapping, whereas their occurrences with event and individual nominals,
illustrated in(1.1b) and(1.1c),involve mismatches between overt syntax
Introduction 3
and logical form. Accordingly, it will beshown in the course of the thesis
(i) how the manners specified by manner adjectives are formally “linked”
tothe events introduced by event nouns, and(ii) where theevents whose
manners are specified by manner adjectives come from in the context of
individual nouns.Finally,alsothebaseadjectives ofmanner adverbs will
be analyzed in terms of properties of manners. Accordingly, even though
manner adverbs asawholewillbestandardly assumedtodenote proper-
tiesofevents,theirsemanticstructurewillbearguedtobemorecomplex
than just the predicates contributed by the baseadjectives. Importantly,
thismorecomplexsemanticswillalsobemotivatedon(morpho)syntactic
grounds, insofar as –ly adverbs will be shown to have a complex internal
structureofnull-headed PPs;asaresult,boththesyntacticfunctionand
the semantic contribution of the morpheme –ly will be accounted for.
In section 1.2 below, the main elements of the proposal made in this
thesis will be outlined in some more detail. Before, however, let me first
define more precisely the scope of the thesis, and also indicate what will
not be addressed in it.
Firstofall,letusdefinewhatisamanneradjective/adverb. Iwilluse
prepositionaladverbialsoftheformin a(n) A manner/way/fashion
as a diagnostic for belonging to this class, as formulated below.
(1.3) An adjective A is a manner adjective if it can occur in a PP
adverbial of the form in a(n) A manner/way/fashion.
An adverb A-ly is a manner adverb if it can be paraphrased
as a PP adverbial of the form in a(n) A manner/way/fashion.
Accordingly, (1.4)lists someexamples of common manner adjectives,
or, more precisely, adjectives that have manner readings.1
(1.4) active,brave,careful,clear,clever,clumsy,consistent,diplomatic,
fair, fast,good, just, loud, passionate, patient, polite, quick, quiet,
rude, skillful, slow, tactful, violent
However, this dissertation will not be concerned with the entire class
of manner adjectives/adverbs, but only with a subset of it, namely, with
1Adjectivessuchasgood andskillful aresometimesputintoaseparatecategoryof
evaluative adjectives,differentfromthatofmanneradjectives(see,e.g.,Asher,2011);
however,Iwillnotmakethisdistinction.NotealsothatIwillavoidusingbeautiful in
examples(exceptinexamplesfromotherauthors):Althoughithasamannerreading,
itisidiosyncraticinanumberofrespects;e.g.,itdoesnoteasilyallowforthemanner
reading in thepredicative position and, importantly,it does not takeat/in-gerunds.
4 1.2. Core proposal and thesis organization
what I will refer to as agent-oriented manner adjectives/adverbs, such
as careful in careful driver, skillful in skillful teacher, fast in fast runner,
and the corresponding adverbs (note that in fact all the adjectives listed
in (1.4) above are agent-oriented). The term ‘agent-oriented’ reflects the
fact that the referential argument of the modified noun of such an adjec-
tive is the agent in some implicit event whose manner is specified by the
adjective.2 Manner adjectives of this variety have several special proper-
ties that they do not share with other manner adjectives. First, they can
take gerundive PPs headed by at or in, which I will call ‘at/in-gerunds’
(cf. skillful at teaching). Second, when they are transformed into manner
adverbs, the adverb occurs in an active sentence which has the modified
nounoftheadjectiveinthesubjectposition(cf.skillfulteacher ∼teacher
who teaches skillfully). These properties distinguish agent-oriented man-
neradjectives fromthe restof manner adjectives,mostimportantly from
theme-oriented manner adjectives like easy in easy text or comfortable in
comfortable chair, which take to-infinitives and can be transformed into
manneradverbsthatoccurinmiddles.Thus,thisthesiswillbeconcerned
only with agent-oriented manner adjectives and adverbs, even though its
main claims hold in fact for other sub-classes as well (for a discussion of
various thematic orientations, see, e.g., Platt & Platt, 1972).
Finally,letmealsopointouttheaspectsofmannermodificationthat
will not be dealt with in this thesis. First, I will not discuss the question
of whether manner modification of states is possible (see, e.g., G. Katz,
2000, 2008; Mittwoch, 2005; Maienborn, 2007, for a discussion) and will,
therefore, only use non-stative predicates. Second, it is outside the scope
of this thesis to address the issue of scope-taking manner adverbs (see,
e.g., Piñón, 2007; M.Schäfer, 2008; cf.section 3.2.2). Third, I will not be
concerned with the so-called clausal readings that such manner adverbs
as carefully or stupidly have (see, e.g., Jackendoff, 1972; Wyner, 2008).
1.2 Core proposal and thesis organization
This section briefly outlines the main elements of the analysis of manner
modification developed in this thesis. It does so on a chapter-by-chapter
2So-calledagentive/agent-specific/agent-sensitive/agent-oriented/subject-oriented
adverbs,which areoften discussed in theliterature,are similar toagent-oriented ad-
verbsinthesenseofthisthesis,butareusuallyunderstoodasadverbsthatsomehow
invokepropertiesoftheagent(cf.Fellbaum,1986;Wyner,1998;Lekakou,2005).Note
furthermorethatmyagent-orientedandtheme-orientedmanneradjectivescorrespond
to A ’s and A ’s in Vendler(1963, 1968), cf. section 2.2.1.
3 4