The Syntax of (Anti-)Causatives: External arguments in the change-of-state contexts (Linguistik Aktuell Linguistics Today, Volume 126)

341 Pages·2008·3.23 MB·English

by  Florian Schafer

The Syntax of (Anti-)Causatives
Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today (LA)
Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today (LA) provides a platform for original monograph
studies into synchronic and diachronic linguistics. Studies in LA confront empirical
and theoretical problems as these are currently discussed in syntax, semantics,
morphology, phonology, and systematic pragmatics with the aim to establish robust
empirical generalizations within a universalistic perspective.
General Editors
Werner Abraham Elly van Gelderen
University of Vienna / Rijksuniversiteit Arizona State University
Groningen
Advisory Editorial Board
Cedric Boeckx Christer Platzack
Harvard University University of Lund
Guglielmo Cinque Ian Roberts
University of Venice Cambridge University
Günther Grewendorf Lisa deMena Travis
J.W. Goethe-University, Frankfurt McGill University
Liliane Haegeman Sten Vikner
University of Lille, France University of Aarhus
Hubert Haider C. Jan-Wouter Zwart
University of Salzburg University of Groningen
Volume 126
The Syntax of (Anti-)Causatives. External arguments in change-of-state contexts
by Florian Schäfer
The Syntax of (Anti-)Causatives
External arguments in change-of-state contexts
Florian Schäfer
University of Stuttgart
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8
American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schäfer, Florian.
The syntax of (anti-)causatives : external arguments in change-of-state contexts / by
Florian Schäfer.
p. cm. (Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, issn 0166-0829 ; v. 126)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Causative (Linguistics) 2. Grammar, Comparative and general. I. Title.
P292.S33 2008
415--dc22 2008008200
isbn 978 90 272 5509 9 (Hb; alk. paper)
© 2008 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands
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Table of contents
Acknowledgements ix
List of abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
chapter 1
The morphological patterns of anticausatives and their interpretation 9
1.1 The causative alternation 9
1.2 The causative alternation in German 10
1.3 Theories about the derivational relation between causatives and
anticausatives 11
1.4 Semantic effects of anticausative morphology 12
1.4.1 Anticausatives in Italian 13
1.4.2 Anticausatives in French 20
1.4.3 Anticausatives in Greek 24
1.4.4 Conclusion and outlook 28
1.4.5 Anticausatives in German 29
chapter 2
The dative causer construction 41
2.1 Datives in the context of unmarked anticausatives
and non-alternating unaccusative verbs 41
2.2 Datives in the context of marked anticausative verbs 45
2.3 The absence of the unintentional causer reading: Semantic blocking? 48
2.3.1 Do marked anticausatives involve external argument
semantics? 53
2.3.2 Causer vs. causing event 57
2.3.2.1 Causative constructions without an external
argument 59
2.3.2.1.1 The adversity causative in Japanese 59
2.3.2.1.2 The desiderative construction in Finnish 62
2.3.2.2 Is the dative causer blocked by a causative event? 63
2.3.3 Interim conclusion 66
2.4 Language comparison: Datives in anticausative structures 67
i The syntax of (anti-)causatives
2.4.1 Introduction 67
2.4.2 The language survey 68
chapter 3
Datives and changes of state 73
3.1 Datives as specifiers of applicative heads 73
3.1.1 Low applicatives 75
3.1.2 Affected datives 78
3.1.3 Unintentional causer datives as high applicatives 81
3.2 Interim summary and some open questions 83
3.3 An alternative view on the unintentional dative causer 89
3.4 A typology of external arguments of causative events 95
3.5 Some crosslinguistic relatives of the dative causer 102
3.6 Conclusions: The syntax and semantics of the unintentional
causer construction 108
chapter 4
The causative alternation 115
4.1 The core theory of (anti-)causatives 115
4.1.1 Problems for derivational analyses 119
4.1.1.1 Morphological marking 119
4.1.1.2 Verb restrictions and selection restrictions 121
4.1.1.3 PP-modification in passives and anticausatives 123
4.1.1.3.1 PP-modification in English 124
4.1.1.3.2 PP-modification in German 125
4.1.1.3.3 PP-modification in Greek 128
4.1.1.4 Crosslinguistic differences in verb restrictions
and selection restrictions 131
4.1.1.5 Interim conclusion 132
4.1.2 On the event decomposition of (anti-)causatives 133
4.1.3 The syntax of (anti-)causatives 139
4.2 Comments on the categorization of Roots 145
4.3 Comments on the decomposition of (anti-)causatives 147
4.3.1 The dative causer revisited 153
chapter 5
The syntax of marked anticausatives: Part I 155
5.1 The origin of anticausative morphology 156
5.1.1 Lexicalist accounts of the causative alternation revisited 157
5.1.2 The marked/unmarked contrast from a typological perspective 159
5.2 The phrase-structural representation of anticausative morphology 163
Table of contents ii
5.2.1 The morpho-syntactic properties of German
marked anticausatives 165
5.2.1.1 Semantic intransitivity 165
5.2.1.2 Syntactic transitivity 166
5.2.1.3 Reflexive anticausatives: Resolving the contradiction 172
5.2.2 A typology of Voice 174
5.3 German marked anticausatives meet the unaccusativity
diagnostics 179
5.3.1 Auxiliary selection 180
5.3.2 Prenominal past participle 182
5.3.3 ‘Was-für’ split 185
5.3.3.1 A further problem with the ‘was-für’ split 188
5.3.4 Split-NPs 191
5.3.5 Topicalization of Subject + Participle II 194
5.3.6 Passive 197
5.3.7 Datives 198
5.3.8 nom-dat order 199
5.3.9 Resultatives 201
5.3.10 The weak/strong reading of indefinites and bare plurals 202
5.3.11 Unaccusativity tests: Conclusion 207
chapter 6
Generic middles 211
6.1 The core characteristics of middles 211
6.2 Syntactic accounts 213
6.3 Pre-syntactic/lexicalist accounts 218
6.4 The source of the middle agent in a non-lexicalist framework 219
6.4.1 The causative alternation and the syntax of marked
anticausatives 221
6.4.2 Middles at the C-I interface 224
6.4.2.1 Agentive Roots and V + Theme combinations 225
6.4.2.2 Verbs forming unmarked anticausatives 226
6.4.2.3 Verbs forming marked anticausatives 227
6.4.3 The source of the agent implicature 229
6.5 Unmarked middles in English and Dutch 235
6.6 A short discussion of impersonal middles 238
chapter 7
The syntax of marked anticausatives: Part II 247
7.1 Introduction 247
7.2 External argument “reduction” within a configurational theta theory 253
iii The syntax of (anti-)causatives
7.2.1 Binding theory 256
7.2.2 Verbal agreement and case 259
7.2.3 The derivations 260
7.2.4 Case under phase theory 263
7.3 Motivating the derivation of non-thematic reflexives 269
7.3.1 Dative causers again 269
7.3.1.1 A further note on dative antecedents 274
7.3.2 Scrambling and raising 276
7.3.3 Long-distance binding 279
7.4 The ‘es-construction’ and the ‘stray accusative construction’ 282
7.4.1 The causative alternation in Icelandic 286
7.4.2 Syntactic transitivity 292
7.4.3 Semantic transitivity 296
7.4.4 The origin of the FATE semantics 299
7.5 Conclusion 302
References 305
Index of names 317
Index of subjects 321
Acknowledgements
The present book grew out of my 2007 doctoral dissertation. I would like to thank
Artemis Alexiadou for her encouragement, help and advice during the time it took
me to develop and complete this work as well as Hubert Haider and Halldór Sig-
urðsson who agreed to participate in my committee.
Further, I would like to thank Werner Abraham and Elly van Gelderen for
giving me the opportunity to publish my work in their series. Many thanks also
to Kees Vaes for guiding me through the production process and to Sandhya Sun-
daresan for checking the English.
During the last years, I had the opportunity to discuss my work with many
people in and outside of Stuttgart. The list is too long to mention them here. I
would like to thank them all for their interest in my work and their comments and
suggestions.
Finally, I would like to thank the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft)
for the financial support which allowed me to carry on the study presented here.