External arguments in transitivity alternations : a layering approach

247 Pages·2015·1.27 MB·English

by  Alexiadou

External Arguments in Transitivity Alternations
OXFORD STUDIES IN THEORETICAL LINGUISTICS
generaleditors
DavidAdgerandHagitBorer,QueenMary,UniversityofLondon
advisoryeditors
StephenAnderson,YaleUniversity;DanielBüring,UniversityofVienna,LosAngeles;NomiErteschik-Shir,
Ben-GurionUniversity;DonkaFarkas,UniversityofCalifornia,SantaCruz;AngelikaKratzer,Universityof
Massachusetts,Amherst;AndrewNevins,UniversityCollegeLondon;ChristopherPotts,StanfordUniver-
sity;BarrySchein,UniversityofSouthernCalifornia;PeterSvenonius,UniversityofTromsø;MoiraYip,
UniversityCollegeLondon
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Foracompletelistoftitlespublishedandinpreparationfortheseries,seepp.233–4.
External Arguments in
Transitivity Alternations
A Layering Approach
ARTEMIS ALEXIADOU,
ELENA ANAGNOSTOPOULOU,
AND FLORIAN SCHÄFER
1
3
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Contents
Generalpreface viii
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xi
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Whatthisbookisabout 1
1.2 Thecausativealternation 2
1.3 Severingtheexternalargumentfromitsverb 5
1.3.1 Kratzer(1996) 5
1.3.2 Agentvs.causerexternalarguments 7
1.3.3 TowardsatypologyofVoice 9
1.4 Buildingverbalmeaning 10
1.5 Outlineofthemonograph 14
2 Eventdecompositionandthecausativealternation 17
2.1 Acommonbaseapproachtothecausativealternation 17
2.2 Anticausativeverbslackagentivitybutincludecausation 19
2.2.1 Anticausativesfailtestsdiagnosingagentivity 19
2.2.2 Causativesandanticausativesdonotdifferinterms
ofeventstructure 22
2.3 Whichverbsalternate? 52
2.3.1 Theunderspecifiedexternalargumentcondition 52
2.3.2 Externalvs.internalcausation 53
2.3.3 Rootsandeventstructure 56
2.4 Summary 60
3 Voicemorphologyandthecausativealternation 62
3.1 Threedistributionalclassesofanticausatives 62
3.2 Reflexivelymarkedanticausativesarenotsemanticallyreflexive 67
3.2.1 Thereflexivizationanalysisofanticausatives 67
3.2.2 SomeproblemsfortheRAoAC 69
3.3 Doesanticausativemorphology/markinghavesemanticeffects? 80
3.3.1 AnticausativesinItalian 82
3.3.2 AnticausativesinGreek 88
3.3.3 AnticausativesinFrench 91
3.3.4 AnticausativesinGerman 93
3.4 Conclusionsandoutlook 95
vi Contents
4 AtypologyofVoice 97
4.1 Introduction 97
4.2 MarkedanticausativescontainVoiceP 98
4.2.1 MarkedanticausativesinGreek-typelanguages 101
4.2.2 MarkedanticausativesinGermanicandRomance 102
4.3 Expletivevs.thematicVoice 108
4.4 ExpletiveVoice,(non-)spontaneousevents,verbclasses,and
individualverbs:adoptingandadaptinginsightsfromtypology 114
4.5 OnsomedifferencesbetweenGreekandEnglish/German
passivesandhowtoaccountforthem 120
4.5.1 RestrictionsontheGreekpassive 120
4.6 Derivingthedifferences:twowaystogopassive 123
4.6.1 Theproposalinanutshell 123
4.6.2 Somerelevantbackgroundonthepassive:Kratzer(1996),
Collins(2005),andBruening(2012) 125
4.6.3 Passivevs.Middle 133
4.6.4 Disjointness 138
4.7 Passiveinnominals 142
5 AdjectivalpassivesandVoice 144
5.1 Introduction:ThedebateonVoiceandthepresentcontribution 144
5.2 ThequestionofVoiceinadjectivalparticiples 147
5.2.1 Typesofadjectivalparticiples 148
5.2.2 Greekvs.German:evidenceforaVoiceparameter 154
5.2.3 Theresultantvs.targetstatedistinctionandVoicein
Greekadjectivalparticiples 157
5.2.4 RevisitingthetraditionalpictureforEnglishandGerman:
isthereaVoiceparameter? 162
5.2.5 EvidenceforVoiceinEnglishandGermanadjectival
participles:the“relevance-to-the-resultantstate”andthe
“sortal”restrictiononmodifiers 163
5.2.6 Controlintopurposeclausesanddisjointreferenceeffects 173
5.2.7 AmorphologicalargumentforthepresenceofVoice
inGerman 178
5.3 Explainingcross-linguisticdifferences:Voice-related
parametrization 180
5.3.1 Resultantstatevs.targetstateparticiplesinGreek 180
5.3.2 Greekvs.German/English 182
Contents vii
5.4 Voiceinresultantstateandtargetstateparticiples 191
5.4.1 Resultantstateparticiples 191
5.4.2 Targetstateparticiples 194
5.5 Summary 202
6 Conclusions 204
References 207
Index 229
General preface
Thetheoreticalfocusofthisseriesisontheinterfacesbetweensubcomponentsofthe
humangrammaticalsystemandthecloselyrelatedareaoftheinterfacesbetweenthe
differentsubdisciplinesoflinguistics.Thenotionof“interface”hasbecomecentralin
grammaticaltheory(forinstance,inChomsky’sMinimalistProgram)andinlinguis-
tic practice: work on the interfaces between syntax and semantics, syntax and
morphology, phonology and phonetics, etc. has led to a deeper understanding of
particularlinguisticphenomenaandofthearchitectureofthelinguisticcomponent
ofthemind/brain.
Theseriescoversinterfacesbetweencorecomponentsofgrammar,includingsyntax/
morphology, syntax/semantics, syntax/phonology, syntax/pragmatics, morphology/
phonology, phonology/phonetics, phonetics/speech processing, semantics/pragmatics,
and intonation/discourse structure, as well as issues in the way that the systems of
grammar involving these interface areas are acquired and deployed in use (including
languageacquisition,languagedysfunction,andlanguageprocessing).Itdemonstrates,
we hope, that proper understandings of particular linguistic phenomena, languages,
languagegroups,orinter-languagevariationsallrequirereferencetointerfaces.
Theseriesisopentoworkbylinguistsofalltheoreticalpersuasionsandschoolsof
thought.Amainrequirementisthatauthorsshouldwritesoastobeunderstoodby
colleaguesinrelatedsubfieldsoflinguisticsandbyscholarsincognatedisciplines.
Attheheartoftheinterfacebetweenlexicalsemanticsandsyntaxliesthealterna-
tion between causative and anti-causative versions of the same verb. The simple
alternations between the door opened and she opened the door, raises fundamental
questions about the nature of the relationship between verbs and their external
arguments.Thismonographarguesthatcausativesandanti-causativesdonotdiffer
inthecomplexityoftheeventtheydenote,butrather(morpho)-syntacticallyinthe
presenceofaVoicehead.ThebookthendevelopsadetailedtypologyofVoiceheads
thatareusedtoexplainsubtlecross-linguisticdifferencesinmorphology,syntax,and
semanticsofvarioustypesofcausative,anti-causative,and passiveconstructions.
DavidAdger
HagitBorer
Acknowledgments
The research reported here has occupied us for a number of years and we are very
happytoseeitcomingtoanend.Inthattime,wehavebenefitedfromthecomments,
questions,andsuggestionsofmanyofourcolleagues. WewouldliketothankJosef
Bayer,NoraBoneh,HagitBorer,BenjaminBruening,CinziaCampanini,EditDoron,
David Embick, Berit Gehrke, Hubert Haider, Heidi Harley, Martin Haspelmath,
Steffen Heidinger, Sabine Iatridou, Gianina Iordachioaia, Kyle Johnson, Dalina
Kallulli,HansKamp,AndrewKoontz-Garboden,HildaKoopman,AngelikaKratzer,
Idan Landau, Ida Larsson, Marika Lekakou, Beth Levin, Bjoern Lundquist, Alec
Marantz, Fabienne Martin, Andrew McIntyre, Gereon Müller, Lea Nash, Despina
Oikonomou,MashaPolinsky,GyörgyRákosi,GillianRamchand,IreneRapp,Malka
RappaportHovav,Ian Roberts, Antje Roßdeutscher, Yota Samioti,Ivy Sichel, Hall-
dor Sigurðsson, Torgrim Solstad, Dominique Sportiche, Arnim von Stechow, Peter
Svenonius,MargotVivanco,JimWood,andKaterinaZombolou.Weareindebtedto
threeanonymousreviewersfortheirinputandcomments,andtoWinfriedLechner,
Terje Lohndal, Marcel Pitteroff, and Giorgos Spathas for providing extensive feed-
backonthismanuscript,toNilsHirschandPatrickLindertforeditorialassistance,
andtoJuliaSteeratOxfordUniversityPressforherguidanceandpatience.
PartsofthematerialsdiscussedherewerepresentedattheworkshoponAdjectival
passives and Voice, DGfS 24 in Mannheim (March 2002), at the XXXI Incontro di
GrammaticaGenerativainRome(February2005),atthe28thGLOWColloquiumin
Geneva (April 2005), at the Linguistics Seminar at the University of Venice (May
2005), at the CGSW 20 at the University of Tilburg (June 2005), at the 36th NELS
conference at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (October 2005), at the
workshoponSyntax,lexicon,andeventstructureinJerusalem(July2006),atthe30th
GLOW Colloquium at the University of Tromsø (April 2007), at the 38th NELS
conference at the University of Ottawa (October 2007), at the 31st GLOW Collo-
quiuminNewcastle(March2008),attheworkshoponMorphologicalVoiceandits
grammaticalinterfacesinVienna(June2010),atGLOW-AsiaVIIIinBeijing(August
2010),atthe41stNELSconferenceattheUniversityofPennsylvania(October2010),
at the workshop on Linguistic Interfaces in Belfast (November 2010), at the 34th
GLOW Colloquium in Vienna (April 2011), at the workshop Approaches to the
Lexicon: Roots III in Jerusalem (June 2011), at the CGSW 26 in Amsterdam (June
2011),attheworkshoponAspectandargumentstructureofadjectivesandparticiples
inLondon(June2012),attheworkshopPerspectivesonargumentalternations,DGfS
35inPotsdam(March2012),attheGLOWworkshopEmptycategoriesinSyntaxin
Potsdam (March 2012), at the CGSW 27 at Yale University (May 2012), at the 43rd