verbs aspect and argument structure

370 Pages·2010·8.54 MB·English

DRAFT OF MAY 4, 2010

V
ERBS

A
SPECT AND ARGUMENT STRUCTURE

William Croft

University of New Mexico
DRAFT OF MAY 4, 2010
A note to the reader of these draft chapters

These are draft chapters of Verbs: aspect and argument structure, to be published by
Oxford University Press. Although they present a (somewhat revised) version of the
model of aspect and argument structure in the draft chapters from 2000 that were
formerly available on my website (http://www.unm.edu/~wcroft), they are almost
completely different in content.

This version is an almost complete draft. Part I on Aspect is little changed from the
February 4 version; additional material remains to be added to chapter 4. Comments on
the draft are very welcome. Please send them to [email protected].

Bill Croft
May 4, 2010
DRAFT OF MAY 4, 2010
Table of Contents

1. Introduction [24pp] [11944]
1.1. Clause structure and meaning
1.2. Approaches to semantics and semantic representations
1.3. Semantic frames
1.4. The question of construal
1.5. Argument structure constructions and construction grammar
1.6. Language form and language function

Part I: Aspect

2. The aspectual structure of events [30pp] [15545]
2.1. Introduction
2.2. Lexical aspectual types (construals)
2.2.1. The Vendler classification and its problems
2.2.2. Alternative construals and new aspectual types
2.2.3. New aspectual subtypes
2.2.4. Summary
2.3. A two-dimensional geometric analysis of aspectual types/construals
2.3.1. Symbolic and phasal analyses of aspectual types
2.3.2. A two-dimensional phasal analysis of aspectual types
2.4. A general framework for aspectual types
2.4.1. Motivating the typology of aspectual types/construals
2.4.2. The two-dimensional model and interval semantics
2.5. Conclusion

3. Change, boundedness and construal [35pp] [15257]
3.1. Boundedness and change
3.1.1. Directed changes, incremental themes, and scales
3.1.2. Event boundaries and the imperfective paradox
3.2. Construal and aspectual potential
3.2.1. The contribution of predicate semantics to aspectual types
3.2.2. Mechanisms of aspectual construal
3.2.3. Aspectual construal in English adverbial and auxiliary verb
constructions
3.4. Conclusion

4. Aspect in other languages [14pp] [5107]
4.1. Russian
4.1.1. Russian verbs of motion and the manner/result distinction
4.1.2. Remarks on the Perfective/Imperfective distinction in Russian
[more languages will be added]
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5. The interaction of grammatical and lexical semantics: quantitative and
qualitative analyses [40pp] [16951]
5.1. Introduction
5.2. A multidimensional scaling analysis of Dahl’s crosslinguistic tense-aspect
data
5.2.1. Multidimensional scaling as an extension of the semantic map model in
typology
5.2.2. Reanalyzing Dahl’s tense-aspect data
5.2.3. The temporal dimension
5.2.4. The aspectual dimension
5.2.5. Grammatical and lexical aspect in Dahl’s data
5.3. The basic tense-aspect constructions of English
5.3.1. The English Present tense construction
5.3.2. The English Progressive construction
5.3.3. The English Past tense construction
5.3.4. Remarks on the English Perfect
5.4. A multidimensional scaling analysis of lexical aspectual potential and
grammatical aspect
5.5. Conclusion

Part II: Argument Structure

6. Toward a force-dynamic theory of argument realization [40pp] [17595]
6.1. Introduction
6.2. Some approaches to argument realization
6.2.1. Thematic roles and thematic role hierarchies
6.2.2. Role designation
6.2.3. Event-based theories of argument realization
6.2.4. Summary
6.3. A force-dynamic (causal) theory of argument realization
6.3.1. The force-dynamic (causal) structure of events and role ranking
6.3.2. Role designation by the verbal profile, and the realization rules
6.3.3. Summary
6.4. Integrating force-dynamic and aspectual representations of event structure
6.4.1. Shortcomings of the event structure representation in Croft (1991)
6.4.2. A three-dimensional representation of causal and aspectual structure
in events
6.5. Event structure decomposition and predicate entailments

7. Causal structure in verbal semantics and argument realization [54pp] [21472]
7.1. Introduction
7.2. The causal chain: directed, acyclic and normally nonbranching
7.2.1. The Causal Order Hypothesis and two types of Obliques
7.2.2. The construal of noncausal (causally undirected) relations: spatial,
possessive and other relations
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7.2.3. The construal of noncanonical (cyclic) causal relations: mental events,
reflexives, reciprocals and comitatives, and commercial events
7.3. Alignment, voice and the verbal profile
7.3.1. Passive voice, ergativity and alignment
7.3.2. Voice systems, topicality and the verbal profile
7.4. Causation type and diathesis (causatives and applicatives)
7.4.1. Causation type and the simple verb
7.4.2. Causatives and inducive causation
7.4.3. Applicatives and Base Object Inertia
7.5. The typology and diachrony of case syncretisms: toward a conceptual space
for participant roles
7.6. Conclusion

8. The interaction of aspect and causal structure in verb meaning [33pp] [12559]
8.1. Introduction
8.2. Inactive actions and force dynamics
8.3. The temporal unity of simple verbal events
8.4. Two types of verbal semantic structures
8.4.1. Manner vs. result, verb-framing vs. satellite-framing, or directed
change vs. undirected change
8.4.2. Manner conflation in simple verbs
8.4.3. Result verbs and directed change
8.5. Conclusion

9. Complex predicate constructions and the semantics of simple verbs [30pp] [12816]
9.1. Introduction
9.2. Two types of resultatives
9.2.1. Temporally dependent vs. independent, adjunct vs. argument, or weak
vs. strong
9.2.2. An aspectual analysis, with a digression on unspecified Objects and
related constructions
9.3. The typology of complex constructions and simple events
9.3.1. Depictive constructions
9.3.2. Serial Verb constructions and Converb constructions
9.4. Conclusion: simple verbs as maximally individuated events

10. Verb meaning and argument structure constructions [31pp] [13958]
10.1. The semantic interaction of verbs and constructions revisited
10.2. The conceptual structure of events in argument structure constructions
10.3. The semantic contributions of verbs and constructions
10.4. A usage-based exemplar model of verb + construction meaning
10.5. Conclusion

11. Envoi [2pp] [653]

Glossary [8pp] [3402]
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References [17pp] [6780]

[Total 358pp] [154039 words]
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1. Introduction

1.1. Clause structure and meaning

A central part of the grammar of every human language is the encoding of events and
their participants in a clause. The analysis of this aspect of grammar has gone under many
names in just the recent history of linguistics: grammatical relations, subcategorization
frames, case roles, thematic roles, argument structure, argument structure constructions,
argument linking, and argument realization, among others. As in every part of grammar,
the basic problem is to get right the balance between uniformity of encoding and
variability in encoding within and across languages.
Grammatical relations—Subject, Object and Oblique—have often been assumed to be
purely formal categories. The chief reason for assuming a purely formal definition of
grammatical relations is that there is a great semantic diversity among events with a
single participant, yet most one-argument events are encoded with a single grammatical
relation, Subject, in most (but not all) languages:

(1) a. We all danced.
b. God exists.
c. I fell.
d. They rejoiced.
e. The girls kissed.
f. The balloons popped.
g. Ira is unhappy.

Likewise there is a great semantic diversity among events with two participants, yet most
two-participant events are encoded with the same two grammatical relations, Subject and
Object.

(2) a. She broke the vase.
b. She broke her arm.
c. I like 15th century polyphony.
d. The pin attaches to the bottom of the shelf.
e. They received the letter.
f. My mother baked some brownies.
g. I ate the brownies.
h. These diodes emit infrared light.
i. She kissed her daughter.

There is relatively little variation in the encoding of the argument of a one-participant
event or the two arguments of a two-participant event in English. Hence it does not
appear that differences in semantic participant role have much to do with the assignment
of grammatical relations, at least in this language.
Even so, just the examples in (1)-(2) suggest that the assignment of grammatical
relations is not completely arbitrary. In two-participant events, the choice of which
argument is encoded as subject and which as object is remarkably uniform across
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languages for many different semantic event types. This consistent asymmetry in the
choice of grammatical relation must be determined by some semantic feature, since that
is what is available equally to speakers of different languages. The cases in which there is
variability in Subject and Object realization also tend to be semantically regular: for
example, as noted above, the coding of experiencers of mental events such as the emotion
event in (2c) tend to vary across languages (§7.3.4). Likewise, not all languages code the
single argument of one-participant events in the same way, but there are significant
semantic regularities regarding which participant roles are encoded (§§7.3.3, 7.3.4).
Also, the variation that does occur, which is not inconsiderable, appears to be at least
partly motivated semantically. We can illustrate this with two examples that date back to
the earliest discussions of argument realization in generative linguistics (Fillmore 1968,
Anderson 1971):

(3) a. John opened the door with a key.
b. The key opened the door (*by John).
c. The door opened (*by John).

(4) a. Janet sprayed paint on the wall.
b. Janet sprayed the wall with paint.

In (3a-c), different participants are encoded as Subject, but that choice limits the
options for the encoding of the other participants, in particular the agent of the action
(§§6.2.1, 6.2.3). In (4a-b), the LOCATIVE ALTERNATION, different participants are encoded
as object, but the alternation correlates with a systematic semantic difference (§8.4.3).
The semantic details will be discussed in later chapters, but these examples indicated to
linguists in the early days of generative grammar that semantics plays a role in
accounting for variability as well as uniformity in argument realization.
Finally, it should be noted that the diversity of semantic roles coded in the sentences
in (1)-(2) is chiefly a problem for a MONOSEMY analysis of the semantics of grammatical
relations. Although it is true that a single general meaning comprising necessary and
sufficient conditions for the subject and object categories in English appears to be
impossible, there is no doubt that the Subject and Object roles for each sentence in (1)-(2)
indicates which referent plays which participant role in the specific event denoted by the
predicate. That is, for each predicate (break, like, attach, receive, bake etc.), the Subject
and Object roles define the appropriate semantic participant role for each predicate: the
Subject of break is the breaker and the Object is the thing broken, the Subject of like is
the person experiencing the emotion and the Object is the thing stimulating the emotion,
and so on. Taken together, the different participant roles are semantically related, in ways
that will be described in later chapters of this book, and English Subject and Object form
polysemous categories.
In this respect, so-called core grammatical relations such as Subject and Object are no
different from various oblique grammatical relations, expressed by English prepositions
such as for, to and with and by case inflections such as Instrumental, Dative and others in
other languages. Adpositions and case inflections (together called CASE MARKING in this
book) are also used for a wide range of participant roles that are nevertheless
semantically related to each other (see, inter alia, Croft 1991, chapter 4; Vandeloise 1991;
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Haspelmath 2003; Levinson et al. 2003; Rice and Kabata 2007). Most analysts do not
treat the two different functions of with in (5a-b) as identical, although many argue that
they are semantically related (e.g. Croft 1991). Likewise, the two different functions of
preverbal arguments in (6a-b) need not be treated as identical, although they are
presumably related:

(5) a. The garden is swarming with bees.
b. Don’t eat peas with a knife.

(6) a. The books fell.
b. Hal tapped the window.

Many theories about the role of meaning in argument realization have been proposed
in the past forty years in American linguistics and beyond. This history is well covered in
Levin and Rappaport Hovav (2005), to which the reader is directed (see also chapter 6).
The most important trend, and the guiding light for the research presented here, is a
general convergence on the idea that event structure is the primary semantic determinant
of argument realization. Hence the focus of attention in argument realization in recent
analyses has been on verbal semantics, or EVENT LEXICALIZATION as it is called by Levin
and Rappaport Hovav.
Given the focus on event structure, what dimensions of event structure are
grammatically relevant? There are two major current contenders: aspectual structure and
causal structure. Aspectual structure can be broadly described as how events unfold over
time. Aspect is manifested in lexical semantics—predicates have different aspectual
types—and in grammatical semantics—various grammatical constructions, such as the
English progressive, specify a particular aspectual structure. On the face of it, it is not
obvious why aspectual structure should play a role in argument realization, although it is
clearly relevant for other grammatical constructions, namely the tense-aspect systems
found in the languages of the world. As a matter of fact, as will be seen in chapter 8,
aspect does appear to play a role in argument realization. Aspect is, however, notoriously
difficult to pin down (one consequence is a confusing array of synonymous and
ambiguous terms for aspectual categories), and a wide range of analyses of aspect are
also found in the linguistic literature. Chapters 2-5 present a general analysis of aspect
that will allow us to specify more precisely the role that aspect plays in argument
realization.
The other dimension of verbal semantics that plays a role in argument realization is
causal or FORCE-DYNAMIC structure (the latter term was introduced by Talmy 1988).
Causal structure can be broadly defined as the causal interactions between participants in
events. Causal analyses are implicit in semantic roles such as Agent and Patient. In Croft
(1991), I argue that causal structure is in fact the primary semantic determinant for
argument realization; some of the major typological arguments for this position are
summarized in chapter 7. However, the semantic representation in that work (and the
attempt to improve it in Croft 1998a) is inadequate to the task of representing the role of
causal structure and its interaction with aspectual structure in argument realization. One
of the chief purposes of this book is to integrate the more sophisticated aspectual analysis
described in chapters 2-5 with the causal analysis of Croft (1991, 1998a). This will allow
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us to develop analyses of what facets of aspectual and causal structure play a role in
various grammatical phenomena, in a way that was not possible in my earlier models.
Those analyses will be the subject of the remaining chapters.

1.2. Approaches to semantics and semantic representations

The analysis of event structure and its role in grammar, particularly in argument
realization but also in other constructions, has been one of the central concerns of
linguistics in at least three different semantic frameworks: formal, generative and
cognitive. Since these research traditions tend to be rather autonomous, there is little
cross-reference between them, particularly between the cognitive and the other two
research traditions. Nevertheless, there are basic analytical insights in each of the three
research traditions (as well as in the work of linguists who do not identify with any of
these traditions), that can be transferred from one tradition to another. Also, there is some
degree of convergence across the three research traditions on the importance of certain
semantic dimensions of event structure, i.e. aspectual and causal structure, for argument
realization.
It is my hope that scholars in all three research traditions will find something of value
in the analyses presented here. In this section, I will describe some salient features of the
three approaches to semantics, and try to situate the analyses to be presented in this book
in the context of those traditions. To some extent, these outlines will be caricatures that
make the approaches look more different than they are in practice; my chief goal is to
highlight the major differences as well as similarities, and to show how analyses of the
same phenomenon in different traditions can be fruitfully compared.
Formal (or logical or model-theoretic) semantics is derived from the philosophical
logical semantic tradition. In formal semantics, the meanings of linguistic sentences is
represented in a logical calculus of some sort, such as propositional logic, which is
governed by a set of well-formedness rules and among other things is intended to
eliminate ambiguities in natural language sentences. This semantic representation is then
related to a model, such that rules of interpretation determine what conditions in the
model a particular statement in the logical calculus actually describe. The model is
usually understood to be a model of the world, in which case the rules of interpretation
determine the truth conditions of the semantic representation, and type of semantic theory
is therefore a truth-conditional model-theoretic semantics. Early formal semantic theories
used first-order propositional logic as the calculus and basic set theory and operations on
sets as the model. As formal semantics has evolved, more complex logics and more
complex mathematical objects have come to be employed for semantic representations
and for the models in which they are interpreted.
Generative approaches to semantics are theories of the semantic component of a
generative grammar, and hence of the mapping from syntax to semantics. Like formal
semantics, the semantic component in generative grammar is typically represented by a
representation language that looks like a logic (or a language), and specific theories have
particular inventories of semantic primitives and rules of combination. Unlike formal
semantics, however, most semantic theorists allied to generative grammar argue that
semantic structures are conceptual structures in the mind, rather than representations of
truth conditions in the world. Hence there is room for a more complex mapping between
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