C o n s t r u c t io n s

Cognitive Theory o f L an gu age and Culture

A series edited by G illcs Fauconnier.

G eorge Lakoff, and Eve Sweetser

Co n st r u c t io n s
A Construction Grammar

Approach to

Argument Structure

Adele E. Goldberg

The University of Chicago Press

Chicago and London
A dele E. G oldberg is assistant professor o f linguistics at the University or
California, San Diego.

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637

The University o f Chicago Press, Ltd., London
K 1995 by The University o f Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 1995
Printed in the United Stales of America
04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97 96 95 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN (cloth): 0-226-30085-4
ISBN (paper): 0-226-30086-2

Library o f Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data

Goldberg, Adele E.
Constructions : a construction grammar approach to argument structure /
Adele E. Goldberg.
p. cm. — (Cognitive theory of language and culture)
Originally presented as the author's thesis (Ph.D.)— University of California,
1992.
Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index.
ISBN 0-226-30085-4 (cloth). — ISBN 0-226-30086-2 (pbk.)
I. Grammar, Comparative and general— Syntax. 2. Semantics.
3. Generative grammar. 1. Title. II. Series.
P29I.G 65 1995
4 15— dc20 94-20705
CIP

© The paper used in this publication meets (he minimum requirements of the
American National Standard for Information Scicnccs— Pcrmancncc of Paper for
Printed Library M aterials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

ToAli
 Contents

Acknow ledgm ents ix

t Introduction 1
1 .1 T h e C o n c e p t o f C o n s tru c tio n s I
1.2 A B rie f In tro d u c tio n to C o n s tru c tio n G ra m m a r 6
1.3 A n A ltern ativ e A cco u n t: L e x ic o se m a n tic R u le s 7
1.4 A d v an tag es o f th e C o n s tru c tio n A c c o u n t 9
1.5 T ra d itio n a l M o tiv a tio n s for L exical R u les 21

2 The Interaction between Verbs and Constructions 24

2.1 F ra m e se m a n tic s 25
2 .2 T h e N atu re o f V erb M e an in g 27
2 .3 T h e N a tu re o f C o n s tru c tio n a l M e a n in g 31
2.4 T h e In teg ratio n o f V erb a n d C o n s tru c tio n 43
2.5 P o ssib le R e la tio n s b etw een V erbs an d C o n s tru c tio n s 59
2 .6 C o n c lu sio n 66

3 Relations am on g Constructions 67
3.1 R elev an t P sy ch o lo g ica l P rin c ip le s o f L a n g u a g e O rg a n iz a tio n 67
3.2 M o tiv atio n 69
3.3 R e p re se n tin g M o tiv atio n by In h e rita n c e 72
3 .4 R e la tin g P a rtic u la r C o n s tm c tio n s 81
3 .5 M u ltip le In h e rita n c e 97
3.6 In h e rita n c e w ith in C o n s tru c tio n s 98
3.7 C o n c lu sio n 99

4 O n Linking 10 1
4.1 T ra n s fo rm a tio n a l A p p ro a c h e s o f A rg u m e n t S tru c tu re 101
4 .2 G e n e ra liz a tio n s a c ro ss C o n s tru c tio n s 108
4 .3 C o n c lu s io n 1 19

5 Partial Productivity 120

5.1 In tro d u c tio n 120
5.2 In d irect N eg ativ e E v id e n c e 122
5 .3 C irc u m sc rib in g V erb C la sse s 125
5.4 E x c e p tio n s 129
5.5 A cco u n tin g fo r the E x c e p tio n s: A U sa g e -b a se d A c c o u n t 133
5.6 C o n c lu sio n 139

v ii
viii Contents

6 The English Ditransitive Construction 14 I

6.1 Introduction 141
6.2 The Existence of the Construction 141
6.3 The Semantics 142
6.4 Conclusion 151

7 The English Caused-Motion Construction 152

7.1 Introduction 152
7.2 The Existence of the Construction 153
7.3 The Various Interpretations 161
7.4 Semantic Constraints 164
7.5 The Load/Spray Alternation 175
7.6 Conclusion 179

8 The English Resultative Construction 180

8.1 Introduction 180
8.2 The Status of the Postverbal N P 182
8.3 Middle Formation 183
8.4 Other Accounts 185
8.5 The Existence of a Resultative Construction 188
8.6 Constraints on the Resultative Construction 193
8.7 Conclusion 198

9 The Way Construction 199

9.1 Introduction 199
9.2 The Existence of the Construction 199
9.3 The Semantics of the Way Construction 202
9.4 Semantic Constraints 212
9.5 The Lexical Complex Predicate Approach 214
9.6 Relation to Resultatives 215
9.7 Conclusion 217

10 Conclusion 2 19
10.1 Other Constructional Approaches 219
10.2 Summary 224

Notes 229
Bibliography 243
Index 261
 Acknowledgments

This book grew out o f my Ph.D. thesis (G oldberg 1992b), which was
completed at the University o f California, Berkeley. An enorm ous debt is owed
to my advisor, George Lakoff, for his w isdom , enthusiasm , and encourage­
ment, his ever-ready exam ple and counterexam ple, and for sharing his time
and his deep insights with incredible generosity.
I'd like to thank Charles Fillmore for instilling in me a deep respect for the
com plexities o f the data, and for sharing his wisdom. His enduring insights
have profoundly influenced this work in innum erable ways. I ’m also grateful
for his spearheading the developm ent of the theory o f C onstruction Gram m ar,
on which the present work is based.
Work in Construction G ram m ar includes, for exam ple, Fillm ore, Kay and
O 'C onnor’s analysis o f the let alone and the more, the m errier constructions
(1988), Brugman’s analysis o f have constructions (1988), K ay’s work on even
(1990), the “ W hat, me w orry?” construction o f Lam brecht (1990). and Sweet-
ser’s analysis o f modal verbs (1990). C onstruction G ram m ar is also developed
in R llm ore (1985b, 1987. 1988. 1990), Fillm ore & Kay (1993), Filip (1993),
Jurafsky (1992), Koenig (1993), and M ichaelis (1993). The present work owes
its greatest debts to Lakoff's in-depth study of there constructions (1984) and
to Fillmore (1987), who suggested that the m eaning o f an expression is arrived
at by the superim position o f the meanings o f open class words with the m ean­
ings o f gramm atical elements.
I’m grateful to Dan Slobin for his encouragem ent and guidance, and for
providing a reality check on the plausibility of psychological claim s. In the
final stages o f w riting my dissertation, I was fortunate enough to work closely
with Annie Zaenen. 1 am imm ensely grateful for her advice, her many leads to
relevant literature, and for our many interesting and helpful discussions, which
have deeply influenced my work.
Other members of the Berkeley faculty contributed in countless ways to my
education. Eve Sweetser tirelessly read and offered valuable com m ents on
many papers; Paul Kay provided much helpful input, and was consistently w ill­
ing to lend an ear and a critical eye; R obert W ilensky offered many helpful
discussions and some wonderful data. Len Talmy was always w illing to discuss
all manner o f ideas. Visitors Don Form an, Knud Lam brecht, M inoko Nakau,

IX
x A c k n o w le d gm e n ts

Frederika Van der Leek, and Robert Van Valin offered different perspectives
and very helpful discussions.
I’d like to offer personal thanks to C laudia Brugman. M ichele Emanatian,
Hana Filip, Jean-Pierre Koenig, and Laura M ichaelis for support o f every kind,
including countless enlightening discussions on topics related to alm ost every
aspect o f this m onograph. I’m also grateful to Jess Gropen, Beth Levin. Steve
Pinker, and Ray Jackendoff, for theirow n inspirational work and for their help­
ful feedback and discussion.
D uring the w riting and rewriting o f this m anuscript, I was able to spend a
good deal of tim e at Berkeley, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Stanford, and
the University o f California. San Diego, so there are many people to thank for
very helpful suggestions and discussions, including Farrell Ackerm an, Joan
Bresnan, Tony Davis, Jane Espenson, G illes Fauconnier. Joe Grady, Marti
H earst, Kyoko Hirose, Rolf Johnson, Dan Jurafsky. Suzanne Kemmer, Yuki
Kuroda, Ron Langacker, M aarten Lem mens, John M oore, Terry Regier, Hadar
Shem-Tov, Eve Clark, C leo Condoravdi, Mark Gaw ron, Jess Gropen, Geoff
N unberg, Ivan Sag, Tom Wasow, Ali Yazdani, and Sandro Zucchi. Several
UCSD students carefully read the m anuscript and made very helpful sugges­
tions, particularly Kathleen A hrens, M ichael Israel, and Bill Morris. For help
preparing the manuscript I would like to thank Kathleen Ahrens, Bill Byrne,
and N itya Sethuram an. Finally, for editorial assistance I thank G eoff Huck and
Karen Peterson, and for the m ost careful, w ell-informed copy-editing 1 could
have imagined, I thank C hristine Bartels.
E xcerpts o f this book first appeared, in different form, as articles or book
chapters. I thank the publishers for perm ission to include revised material from:
“ The Inherent Sem antics o f A rgum ent Structure: The Case o f the English
D itransitive C onstruction,” Cognitive Linguistics 3 ( l) : 3 7 - 7 4 , 1992; “ A Se­
m antic Account o f Resultatives,” Linguistic A nalysis 2 1 :6 6 - 9 6 , 1991; “ It
Can’t Go Down the Chim ney Up: Paths and the English Resultative,” BLS 17;
“ M aking O ne’s Way Through the D ata,” in A. Alsina, J. Bresnan, and P. Sells
(eds.), Com plex Predicates, CSLI Publications, forthcoming; “ Another Look
at Some Learnability Paradoxes,” in Proceedings o f the 25th A nnual Stanford
Child Language Research Forum. CSLI Publications.
For providing financial support, com fortable offices, and stimulating envi­
ronm ents, I’d like to thank the Sloan Foundation, who funded the Cognitive
Science Institute at Berkeley, the International Com puter Science Institute
(1CSI), the C enter for the Study o f Language and Information (CSLI), and
Xerox PARC.
A crucial debt is owed to my family: my mom, Ann Goldberg, for being a
voice o f reason on topics related to this monograph and on all others; my sib­
 A c k n o w le d g m e n ts xi

lings, Ken G oldberg and Elena G oldberg Man, and my grandparents. Harry
and Birdie Goldberg and Rose W allach, for their consistent loving support, and
just for being themselves. I am also deeply grateful to the memory of my father,
Melvin Goldberg, for his unparalleled courage, curiosity, and com passion.
Finally, I am im m ensely grateful to Ali Yazdani, for always being there, even
though there have been many miles between us. This book is dedicated to him.
1 Introduction

i. i Th e C o n c e p t of C o n s t r u c t io n s

What is it children learn when they learn to speak a language? W hat is

the nature of verb m eaning and what is its relation to sentential m eaning? How
and 10 what extent are novel utterances based on previously learned utterances?
Those questions are addressed here through a study o f basic sentence
typc.s— the “ simple sentences” of traditional gram m arians. A central thesis of
this work is that basic sentences of English are instances o f constructions—
form -m eaning correspondences that exist independently o f particular verbs.
Fhat is. it is argued that constructions them selves carry meaning, indepen­
dently of the words in the sentence.
The notion construction has a tim e-honored place in linguistics. Traditional
gramm arians have inevitably found it useful to refer to properties of particular
constructions. The existence of constructions in the gram m ar was taken to be
a self-evident fact that required little com m cnt. In the early stages o f transfor­
mational gram m ar (Chom sky 1957, 1965), constructions retained their central
role, construction-specific rules and constraints being the norm. In the past two
decades, however, the pretheoretical notion o f construction has com e under
attack. Syntactic constructions have been claim ed to be epiphenom enal, arising
solely from the interaction of general principles (C hom sky 1981, 1992); the
rejection o f constructions in favor o f such general principles is often assumed
now to be the only way to capture generalizations across patterns.
At the same time, the rising tide of interest in sem antic and pragm atic prop­
erties has led to a renewed focus on the idiosyncratic properties of particular
sentence patterns (cf. Levin 1993, for exam ple). In order to reconcile the theo­
retical desire for construction-independent principles with the em pirical neces­
sity of recognizing pattern-specific properties, all such idiosyncratic properties
have been attributed to individual lexical items, lexical entries being the last
refuge of the idiosyncratic.
There is no question that a large am ount of inform ation is contributed by
individual lexical items (cf. chapters 2 and 5). However, in this work it is ar­
gued that an entirely lexically-based, or bottom -up, approach fails to account
for the full range of English data. Particular sem antic structures together with
their associated formal expression m ust be recognized as constructions inde­
pendent o f the lexical items which instantiate them.

i
2 Chapter O n e

T his m onograph thus represents an effort to bring constructions back to their

rightful place on center stage by arguing that they should be recognized as
theoretical entities. Single-clause patterns hold a special interest because these
cases clearly lie at the heart o f any theory o f grammar. If it can be shown that
constructions are essential to a description o f the domain o f simple clauses, then
it must be recognized that constructions are crucial to the description o f lan­
guage. Chapters 3 and 4 argue that em pirical generalizations across construc­
tions can in fact naturally be captured within a construction-based framework.
A nother goal of this monograph is to explicate the semantics associated with
particular clausal patterns. T he semantic properties to be discussed must be
accounted for by any framework, regardless of where the semantics is encoded
or w hat o n e’s assum ptions about the lexicon and syntax are.
It has long been recognized that differences in com plem ent configuration arc
often associated with differences in meaning. For example, the dilransitive re­
quires that its goal argum ent be anim ate, while the same is not true o f para­
phrases with to:

(1) a. I brought Pat a glass o f water, (ditransitive)

b. I brought a glass of water to Pat.
(2) a. *1 brought the table a glass o f water, (ditransitive)
b. I brought a glass o f water to the tabic. (Partee 1965:60)

Fillm ore (1968, fn. 49) noted that sentences such as the following differ in
meaning:

(3) a. Bees are sw arm ing in the garden,

b. The garden is swarm ing with bees.

(3b) suggests that the w hole garden is full o f bees, whereas (3a) could involve
bees in only a part o f the garden.
A nderson (1971) observed that the follow ing sentences also differ in
meaning:

(4) a. I loaded the hay onto the truck,

b. I loaded the truck with the hay.

W hile (4b) implies that the truck is entirely filled with hay (or at least relevantly
affected), no such im plication exists in (4a).
W orks by G reen, Oehrle, Bolinger, Borkin, and W ierzbickaand by Interpre­
tive Sem anticists such as Chom sky, Partee, and Jackendoff have drawn atten­
tion to system atic differences in m eaning between sentences with the same
lexical items in slightly different constructions.' Borkin (1974), for exam ple,
provides the following contrast:
 Introduction 3

(5) a. When 1 looked in the files, 1 found that she was M exican.
b. ?W hen I looked in the files I found her to be M exican.
c. *W hen I looked in the files I found her M exican.

Borkin argues that the pattern in (5c) is only possible with verbs o f proposition
when the proposition expressed is considered to be a m atter of judgm ent, as
opposed to a m atter o f fact. The pattern in (5b) prefers but does not require
the proposition to express judgm ents, and the full clausal form with that-
com plem entizer in (5a) freely allows matters o f judgm ent or fact.
W ierebicka (1988) contrasts (6a) and (6b):

(6) a. I am afraid to cross the road.

b. 1 am afraid of crossing the road.

Only in (6a) is the speaker presumed to have som e intention o f crossing the
road. This difference in interpretation is argued to account for why (7a) is in­
felicitous unless the falling is interpreted as som ehow volitionally intended:2

(7) a. #1 am afraid to fall down.

b. I am afraid o f falling down.

Similar observations o f subtle differences in m eaning led B olinger to con­

clude: “ A difference in syntactic form always spells a difference in m eaning”
(1968:127). T he same hypothesis— which we may term the Principle of No
Synonymy of G ram m atical Form s— has been form ulated by Givon (1985),
K irsn er(1985),L angacker(l985), Clark (1987), and W ierzbicka(1988). It will
be adopted here as a w orking hypothesis.3

In this monograph, 1 explore the idea that argum ent structure construc­
tions are a special subclass o f constructions that provides the basic means of
clausal expression in a language/ Exam ples o f English argum ent structure co n ­
structions to be discussed here include the following:

1. Ditransitive X causes Y to r e c e iv e Z Subj V Obj Obj2

Pat faxed Bill the letter.
2. Caused Motion X c a u s e s Y to m ove Z Sub V Obj Obi
Pat sneezed the napkin off the
table.
3. Resultative X c a u s e s Y to becom e Z Subj V Obj Xcomp
She kissed him unconscious.
4. Intrans. Motion X m oves Y Subj V Obi
The fly buzzed into the room.
4 C hapter O n e

5. Conativc X d ir e c t s a c t io n at Y Subj V Oblu,

Sam kicked at Bill.

On a constructional approach to argum ent structure, systematic differences

in m eaning between the same verb in different constructions are attributed di­
rectly to the particular constructions. We will see that if we consider various
constructions on their own term s, interesting generalizations and subtle seman­
tic constraints em erge. Several constructions can be shown to be associated
with a fam ily o f distinct but related senses, much like the polysemy recognized
in lexical items. Moreover, these constructions them selves are shown to be
interrelated.
The analysis I am going to propose draws on research in Construction G ram ­
m ar (cf. Fillm ore 1985b, 1987, 1988, 1990; Fillmore & Kay 1993; Lakoff
1987; Fillmore, Kay & O ’C onnor 1988; Brugman 1988; Kay 1990; Lambrecht
1990, 1994; G oldberg L991a, 1992a; M ichaelis 1993; Koenig 1993; Filip
1993). A ccording to Construction Grammar, a distinct construction is defined
to exist if one or more of its properties are not strictly predictable from knowl­
edge o f other constructions existing in the gram m ar:5

C is a c o n s t r u c t io n iff*, C is a form -m eaning pair < F„ S ,>

such that some aspect of F, or some aspect of S, is not strictly predict­
able from C ’s component parts or from other previously established
constructions.

C onstructions are taken to be the basic units o f language. Phrasal patterns are
considered constructions if som ething about their form or m eaning is not
strictly predictable from the properties o f their com ponent parts or from other
constructions.6 T hat is, a construction is posited in the gram m ar if it can be
shown that its m eaning and/or its form is not com positionally derived from
other constructions existing in the language (cf. section 1.2). In addition, ex­
panding the pretheoretical notion o f construction somewhat, morphemes are
clear instances o f constructions in that they are pairings o f meaning and form
that are not predictable from anything else (Saussure I9 I6 ).7 It is a conse­
quence o f this definition that the lexicon is not neatly differentiated from the
rest o f grammar.
Constructions can be understood to correspond to the “ listem es” o f Di-
Sciullo and W illiam s (1987)— that is, the entities o f gram m ar that m ust be
listed. However, our view o f the collection o f listem es is radically different
from theirs. They state categorically: “ If conceived of as the set of listemes,
the lexicon is incredibly boring by its very nature. It contains objects o f no
single specifiable type (words, VPs, m orphem es, perhaps intonational patterns.
 Introduction b

and so on), and those objects that it does contain are there because they fail to
conform to interesting laws. The lexicon is like a prison— it contains only the
lawless, and the only thing that its inm ates have in com m on is law lessness”
(p. 3). This view o f the lexicon, or w hat might be better term ed the construc-
ticon, following Jurafsky (1992), is rejected in the present work. The collection
of constructions is not assum ed to consist o f an unstructured set of independent
entities, but instead it is taken to constitute a highly structured lattice o f inter­
related information. The reb u o n s between constructions are discussed in ch ap ­
ters 3 and 4.
A basic axiom that is adopted is: know ledge o f language is knowledge.
Many o f the findings of the follow ing chapters are thus expected, particularly
that linguistic constructions display prototype structure and form networks o f
associations. Hierarchies o f inheritance and sem antic networks, long found
useful lor organizing other sorts o f knowledge, are adopted for explicating our
linguistic knowledge (cf. Q uillian 1968; Bobrow & W inograd 1977; Fahlman
VST)9, 'WWensV^ \9?>6, Norv'ig &. LaVoff lurafsVy \99T).
On the basis of research on language acquisition by Clark (1978), Slobin
(1985), and Bowerman (1989), together with the findings presented here, it is
hypothesized that

Simple clause constructions are associated directly with semantic

structures which reflect scenes basic to human experience.’

In particular, constructions involving basic argum ent structure are show n to be

associated with dynam ic sccnes: experientially grounded gestalts, such as that
of someone volitionally transferring som ething to som eone else, som eone
causing som ething to move or change state, som eone experiencing som ething,
som ething moving, and so on. It is proposed that the basic clau.sc types of a
language form an interrelated network, with sem antic structures paired with
particular forms in as general a way as possible.

♦
This book is structured as follows. The rest o f this chapter presents ar­
guments for adopting a constructional approach to argum ent structure.
Chapter 2 analyzes the nature of verb m eaning, the nature of constructional
meaning, and the relation between the two. C hapter 3 suggests an account of
how to capture relations am ong constructions and generalizations across co n ­
structions; an inheritance hierarchy o f constructions is posited, and the inheri­
tance links themselves are treated as objects in the system. In chapter 4, the
idea of a monostratal theory is defended, and the way linking generalizations
are to be captured within a constructional approach is discussed. C hapter 5
6 C hap ter O n e

presents an account o f the partial productivity o f constructions; this work

adapts insights from Pinker (1989) to a system w ithout lexical rules.
Chapters 6 - 9 involve more specific analyses o f several English construc­
tions: the ditransitive construction (e.g., C hris fa x e d her the news), the
“ caused-m otion" construction (e.g., Sally sneezed the napkin o ff the table), the
resultative construction (e.g., Sam talked him self hoarse), and the way con­
struction (e.g., B ob elbow ed his way through the crowd). Specific arguments
for the existence o f each o f these constructions are given in those chapters.

1.2 A B r ie f I n t r o d u c t i o n to C o n s t r u c t io n G rammar

The basic tenet o f C onstruction G ram m ar as developed in Fillm ore &

Kay 1993, Fillm ore, Kay & O ’C onnor 1988, Lakoff 1987, Brugman 1988,
Lam brecht 1994, is that traditional constructions— i.e., form -m eaning corre­
spondences— arc the basic units o f language.
T heorists w orking within this theory share an interest in characterizing the
entire class o f structures that make up language, not only the structures that are
defined to be part o f “ core gram m ar." This interest stem s from the belief that
fundam ental insights can be gained from considering such non-core cases, in
that the theoretical m achinery that accounts for non-core cases can be used to
account for core cases. In addition, much o f actual corpus data involves such
non-core cases. C onstruction G ram m arians also share an interest in accounting
for the conditions under which a given construction can be used felicitously,
since this is taken to be part o f speakers’ com petence or know ledge of lan­
guage; from this interest stems the conviction that subtle semantic and prag­
m atic factors are crucial to understanding the constraints on gramm atical
constructions.
These tenets, which in m any respects hearken back to G enerative Semantics
(e.g. L akoff 1965, 1970a,b, 1971, 1972,1976; Lakoff & Ross 1976; Langacker
1969; Postal 1971;D ow ty 1972; Keenan 1972; M cCawley 1973,1976) are also
shared by the theory o f C ognitive G ram m ar (Langacker 1987a, 1991), the
framework im plicit in much o f W ierzbicka’s work (e.g., W ierzbicka 1988), and
by many functionalist approaches to gram m ar (e.g., B olinger 1968; DeLancey
1991; Giv6n 1979a,b: Haim an 1985a; Foley & Van Valin 1984). Work in G en­
eralized Phrase Structure G ram m ar (GPSG ) and in Head-Driven Phrase Struc­
ture G ram m ar (HPSG ) (G azdar et al. 1985; Pollard & Sag 1987, 1994) also
em phasizes the central role o f the sign in gramm ar. In many ways, aspects o f
the proposals made here are also com patible with recent work by Levin (1985),
Levin & Rapoport (1988), Pinker (1989) and Jackendoff (1990a). Some sim i­
larities and differences are discussed below.
Ow ing in part to the fact that Construction G ram m ar has grown largely out
 'n troau ccion 7

of work on frame semantics (Fillm ore 1975, 1977b, 1982, 1985a) and an ex-
perientially based approach to language (Lakoff 1977, 1987), the approach to
semantics that is adopted by the theory is one that crucially recognizes the
importance of speaker-centered “construals” of situations in the sense of
Langacker (1987a, 1991). This approach to sem antics is discussed in chapter 2.

♦
In Construction Grammar, no strict division is assum ed between the lexi­
con and syntax. Lexical constructions and syntactic constructions differ in in­
ternal complexity, and also in the extent to which phonological form is
specified, but both lexical and syntactic constructions are essentially the same
type of declaratively represented data structure: both pair form with meaning.
It is not the case, however, that in rejecting a strict division. Construction
Gram m ar denies the existence o f any distinctly m orphological or syntactic con­
straints (or constructions). Rather, it is claim ed that there are basic com m onali­
ties between the two types o f constructions, and moreover, that there are cases,
such as v erb -p article com binations, that blur the boundary.
A nother notion rejected by Construction G ram m ar is that o f a strict divi­
sion between semantics and pragm atics. Inform ation about focused constitu­
ents, topicality, and register is represented in constructions alongside semantic
information.
Construction G ram m ar is generative in the sense that it tries to account for
the infinite num ber of expressions that are allowed by the gram m ar w hile at­
tempting to account for the fact that an infinite num ber of other expressions
are ruled out or disallowed. C onstruction G ram m ar is not transform ational.
No underlying syntactic or sem antic forms are posited. Instead, C onstruction
G ram m ar is a monostratal theory o f gram m ar like many other current theories,
including Lexical Functional G ram m ar (LFG ) (Bresnan 1982), Role and Ref­
erence G ram m ar (Foley & Van Valin 1984). GPSG (G azd aret al. 1985), HPSG
(P o llard & S ag 1987, 1994), and C ognitive G ram m ar (Langacker 1987a, 1991).
The rationale for this and some consequences are discussed in chapter 4.
It is perhaps easiest to explore the constructional approach by first contrast­
ing it with the relevantly sim ilar proposal described in the follow ing section.

1.3 A n A l t e r n a t iv e A c c o u n t : L e x ic o s e m a n t ic R ules

The recognition o f subtle sem antic differences between related syntactic

(subcategorization) frames has been growing, and there has also been increas­
ing focus on the fact that there appears to be a strong correlation between the
meanings of verbs and the syntactic fram es they can occur in, leading many
researchers to speculate that in any given language the syntactic subcategori­
8 Chapter O n e

zation frames o f a verb may be uniquely predictable from the verb's lexical
sem antics (e.g.. Levin 1985; Chom sky 1986; C arter 1988; Levin & Rapoport
1988; Rappaport & Levin 1988; Pinker 1989; Gropen et al. 1989).
T he following factors have led these theorists to postulate lexical rules which
are designed to operate on the sem antic structures o f lexical items: ( I) overt
com plem ent structure appears to be predictable by general linking rules that
map sem antic structure onto syntactic form, and (2) the same verb stem often
occurs with more than one com plem ent configuration.
For exam ple. Pinker (1989) proposes that the prepositional/ditransitive al­
ternation (the “ dative" alternation) results from a semantic rule rather than
being the product o f a syntactic transform ation. Specifically, he suggests that
productive use o f the ditransitivc syntax is the result o f a lexicosem antic rule
w hich takes as input a verb with the sem antics ‘X causes Y to go to Z ’ and
produces the sem antic structure X c a u s e s Z to h a v f Y \ The double object
syntax, he argues, is then predictable from near-universal linking rules m ap­
ping the argum ents o f a verb with the m eaning X c a u s e s Z to h a v e Y ' into
the ditransitive form . In this wav. Pinker argues that the dative rule produces a
“ conceptual gestalt shift,” — that it is, in effect. a semantic operation on lexical
structure (cf. also Gropen et al. 1989).
T he general approach can be outlined as follows:
la. The syntactic com plem ent configuration o f a clause is taken to be
uniquely predictable from the sem antic representation o f the matrix verb.
The m apping from sem antic representations to particular com plem ent
configurations is perform ed via universal, or near-universal, linking
rules.
lb . Different syntactic com plem ent configurations therefore reflect differ­
ences in the sem antic representations of the main verb.
2. Different sem antic representations o f a particular verb stein, i.e., different
verb senses, are related by generative lexical rules which take as input a
verb with a particular semantics and yield as output a verb with a differ­
ent semantics.
3. D ifferences in sem antics are not necessarily truth-functional differences,
but may represent a different construal of the situation being described:
that is, the relevant sem antics is speaker-based.
These principles are detailed m ost explicitly in Pinker 1989. but are also shared
by Levin 1985, Levin & Rapoport 1988, and Gropen ct al. 1989.
By postulating rules that operate on sem antic structure, as opposed to rules
or transform ations that arc purely or prim arily syntactic, these theories manage
to incorporate im portant insights. As was discussed above, different construc­
tions are typically, possibly always, accom panied by slightly different sem an­
tic interpretations: these sem antic differences are respected as soon as the
 Introduction 9

forms are learned (Bowerman 1982; Gropen et al. 1989). By postulating

sem antics-changing rules, as opposed to syntactic rules with additional sem an­
tic constraints, such theories capture the insight that changes in com plem ent
configurations arc crucially semantic. Regularities in the syntax are captured
by linking rules m apping the semantic structure to surface form.
To a large degree, as will become apparent below, the lexical rule approach
is directly com parable to the approach being proposed here. They share the
em phasis on sem antic differences am ong different com plem ent configurations.
The strongest differences between the two approaches stem from the increased
focus o f the present approach on the nature o f the relation between verb and
construction (the lexical rule approach represents this relation only im plicitly
in the iatem ent o f the rule itself). By recognizing constructions and verbs to
be nterrelated but independent, the nature o f constructional meaning, the prin­
ciples that relate verb and construction, and the relations am ong constructions
are brought to the foreground. These topics are the focus o f m uch of the pres­
ent work. In addition, on the present approach it is not necessary to posit an
additional verb sense for each new syntactic configuration in which the verb
appears. Several general reasons to prefer the constructional approach to the
lexical rule approach just described are detailed in the following section. S pe­
cific arguments for the existence o f each construction analyzed in chapters 6 - 9
are provided in those chapters.

1.4 A dvantages of the C o n s t r u c t io n A ccount

i a. i Implausible Verb Senses Are Avoided

The constructional approach avoids the problem o f positing im plausible
verb senses to account for exam ples such as ihe following:

(8) He sneezed the napkin off the table.

(9) She baked him a cake.
( 10) Dan talked him self blue in the face.

In none of these cases docs the verb intuitively require the direct object com ­
plement. To account for (8), for exam ple, a lexicosem antic theory would have
to say that sneeze, a parade exam ple ol an intransitive verb, actually has a three-
argument sense. ‘X c a u s e s Y to m o v e Z by sneezing’. To account for (9), such
a theory would need to claim that there exists a special sense o f bake that has
three arguments: an agent, a theme, and an intended recipient. This in effect
argues that bake has a sense which involves som ething like ‘X in t e n d s to
c m 's i Y to have Z \ To account for (10), the theory would need to postulate a
special sense o f talk, 'X causes Y to bhcom e Z by talking’.
If additional senses w ere involved, then it would follow that each o f these
10 C hapter O n e

verbs is am biguous between its basic sense and iis sense in the syntactic pattern
above. Therefore we would expect that there would be some language that dif­
ferentiates between the two senses by having two independent (unrelated) verb
stems. For exam ple, alongside the equivalent o f the English word sneeze we
might expect to find another stem say, m oop— that meant ‘X causus Y to
move Z by sneezing’. However, to my know ledge there is no language that has
distinct verb stems for any o f the m eanings represented by exam ples (8 -1 0 ).
On a constructional approach, we can understand aspects of the final inter­
pretation involving caused m otion, intended transfer, or caused result to be
contributed by the respecti ve constructions. That is, we can understand skeletal
constructions to be capable o f contributing argum ents. For example, we can
define the ditransitive construction to be associated directly with agent, patient,
and recipient roles, and then associate the class o f verbs o f creation with the
ditransitive construction. We do not need to stipulate a specific sense o f bake
unique to this construction. In general, we can understand the direct objects
found in the above exam ples to be licensed not directly as argum ents o f the
verbs but by the particular constructions. This idea is discussed in more detail
in chapter 2.
O ther exam ples where it is im plausible to attribute the com plem ent configu­
ration and the resulting interpretation directly to the main verb include the
following:

(11) “ Despite the President’s efforts to cajole or frighten his nine million sub­
jects into line . . . ” (N ew York Times, 29 May 1993)
(12) “ My father fro w n ed away the com plim ent and the insult." (Stephen
M cCauley, Easy Way Out, 1993)
(13) “ Sharon was exactly the sort o f person w ho’d intimidate him into a
panic.” (Stephen M cCauley, Easy Way Out, 1993)
(14) “ 1 cannot inhabit his mind nor even imagine my way through the dark
labyrinth of its distortion.” (Oxford University Press corpus)
(15) Pauline sm iled her thanks. (Levin & Rapoport 1988)
(16) The truck rum bled down the street. (Levin & Rappaport Hovav 1990b)

T he suggestion being made here is to account for these cases, in which the
w hole is not built up from the lexical items in a straightforward way, by pos­
tulating a construction that is itself associated with meaning.

i .4.2 Circularity Is Avoided

A nother im portant advantage of the construction-based approach is that
it avoids a certain circularity o f analysis resulting from the widespread claim
in current linguistic theories that syntax is a projection o f lexical requirements.
 Introduction I I

This claim is explicit in the Projection Principle o f G overnm ent and Binding
Theory (GB) (Chomsky 1981), the Bijection Principle of Lexical Functional
Gram m ar (Bresnan 1982), and in all current accounts w hich attem pt to predict
overt syntax from sem antic roles or theta role arrays. In all of these fram e­
works, it is the verb w hich is taken to be of central im portance. T hat is, it is
assumed that the verb determ ines how many and w hich kinds o f com plem ents
will co-occur with it. In this way, the verb is analogized to the predicate of
formal logic, w hich has an inherent num ber o f distinct argum ents. The verb is
taken to be an n-place relation “ w aiting” for the exactly correct type and num ­
ber of arguments. But note, now, that an ordinary verb such as kick can appear
with at least eight distinct argum ent structures:
1. Pal kicked the wall.
2. Pat kicked Bob black and blue.
3. Pat kicked the football into the stadium.
4. Pat kicked at the football.
5. Pat kicked his foot against the chair.
6. Pat kicked Bob the football.
7. The horse kicks.
8. Pat kicked his way out o f the operating room.
Theories which assum e that the verb directly determ ines particular com ple­
ment configurations are forced to claim that kick is a binary relation with agent
and patient argum ents and therefore occurs with transitive syntax, except in
Pat kicked Bob the football, in w hich it is a ternary relation with agent, recipi­
ent, and patient argum ents and therefore occurs in the ditransitive construction,
and in Pat kicked the fo o tb a ll into the stadium, where kick is again ternary, but
now with agent, theme, and goal argum ents, and must “ therefore” occur with
the direct object and prepositional com plem ents; and so on. Thus both the evi­
dence for the claim that kick has a particular «-argum ent sense and the expla­
nation for kick having the corresponding com plem ent configuration com e from
the fact that kick can occur overtly with a particular n-com plem ent construc­
tion. That is, it is claim ed that kick has an n-argum ent sense on the basis of the
fact that kick occurs with n com plem ents; it is sim ultaneously argued that kick
occurs with n com plem ents because it has an /(-argument sense. This is where
the circularity arises.
A constructional approach to argum ent structure allow s us to avoid the cir­
cularity o f arguing that a verb is an n-ary predicate and “ therefore” has n
com plem ents when and only when it has n com plem ents. Instead, the ternary
relation, for exam ple, is directly associated with the skeletal ditransitive con­
struction. The verb, on the other hand, is associated with one or a few basic
senses w hich must be integrated into the m eaning o f the construction. Under
12 C hapter O n e

what conditions this is possible is the subject o f the following chapte:. Instead
o f positing a new sense every time a new syntactic configuration is encountered
and then using that sense to explain the existence o f the syntactic configuration,
a constructional approach requires that the issue o f the interaction between verb
m eaning and constructional m eaning be addressed.

1 .4.3 Semantic Parsimony

Levin (1985) suggests that evidence for different verb senses does exist.
For exam ple, she argues that “ there is evidence that when the verb slide is
found in the double object c o n stru c tio n ,. . . its sense is not the purely physical
transfer sense o f slide but rather a transfer o f possession sense” (p. 35). She
cites the fact that “ the goal argum ent o f a change of possession verb must
denote an entity capable o f ow nership, but the goal argum ent o f a change of
location verb need not," as illustrated by her exam ples (17a, b).

(17) a. She slid Susan/*the door the present,

b. She slid the present to Susan/to the door.

Thus two distinct senses of slide would be posited to account for the contrast
in (17). O ne sense o f slide, ‘slid e,’, would constrain its goal to be animate,
while the other, ‘slide2\ would have no such constraint. The two different
syntactic realizations are claim ed to follow from universal or near-universal
linking patterns m apping sem antic argum ent structures to overt com plem ent
configurations. The linking rules would be sensitive to the fact that ‘slid e,’
requires its goal to be anim ate, as follows:

‘slid e,’: < ag t, pat, g o alan.....‘s lid e /: < ag t, pat, go al>

I Linking Rules J,
She slid Susan the present. She slid the present to Susan.

However, general linking rules do not insure that ‘slid e,’ will only occur with
the ditransitive construction, as is desired. Verbs which uncontroversially lexi­
cally constrain their goals to be anim ate— such as give or hand— can be used
with both syntactic patterns:

hand: < ag t, pal, g o a l ....:ilr> ( ~ 'slid e ,’ )

./ \
Joe handed his m other a letter. Joe handed a letter to his mother.

T hat is, we would need to stipulate that ‘slid e ,’ may only occur with the ditran­
sitive construction. Instead o f positing both an additional sense of slide and
a stipulation that this sense can only occur in the ditransitive construction.
 Introduction 13

we can attribute the constraint that the goal m ust be animate directly to the
construction.
Still, it might be argued that ' s l i d e i s not actually constrained to appear
ditransitively, and that it is this sense which (just like give and hand) appears
in expressions such as (13):

(18) She slid the present to Susan.

(The reason we might assum e that (18) involves an unconstrained sense o f

slide is that She slid the present to the door is also acceptable.) This does not
alleviate the problem , however; we still need to insure that the ditransitive con­
struction can only occur with ‘slid e,’. T hat is, instead o f needing to stipulate
that ‘slid e,’ can only appear ditransitively, we would now need to posit a con­
straint on the construction that perm its it to only occur with verbs which co n ­
strain their goals to be animate. But with this constraint in place, there is no
need to posit an additional verb sense.
More generally, I concur with Levin that the sem antics o f (and constraints
on) the full expressions are different w henever a verb occurs in a different con­
struction. But these differences need not be attributed to different verb senses;
they are more parsim oniously attributed to the constructions themselves.

t .4.4 Compositionality Is Preserved

A construction is posited in the gram m ar if and only if som ething about
its form, meaning, or use is not strictly predictable from other aspects o f the
grammar, including previously established constructions. In order to under­
stand this principle, we must first consider the notion o f compositionality.
Frege is generally acknow ledged to have originally form ulated the idea that
sem antics need be com positional: the m eaning of every expression in a lan­
guage must be a function of the m eanings o f its im m ediate constituents and the
syntactic rule used to com bine them.
M ontague stated the analogous condition that there must be a hom om or­
phism from syntax to semantics: that is, there m ust be a structure-preserving
m apping from syntax to semantics. Letting a be a function from syntax to
semantics, ’ + a rule of syntactic com position, and ‘ + wm<omp’ a rule of
semantic com position, the following is claim ed hold:

(19) a (x jyn-comp y ) = v {x ) Mrni comp <r(y)

The meaning o f the expression is therefore taken to result from applying to the
meanings o f the imm ediate constituents a sem antic operation w hich directly
corresponds to the relevant syntactic operation.
14 Chapter O n e

D owty (1979) observes that the claim is intended to imply that the relation
between syntactic expression and sem antic representation is straightforward
and direct. That is, ‘ or syntactic com position, must be straightfor­
wardly related to ‘ + ^.comp’. or sem antic com position. The same principle, that
the sem antic rules o f com bination must directly reflect the syntactic rules of
com bination, is expressed by G azdar et al. (1985), also w orking within the
M ontague G ram m ar tradition: “ We assum e that there exists a universal m ap­
ping from syntactic rules to sem antic translations . . . . We claim that the se­
m antic type assigned to any lexical item introduced in a rule . . . and the
syntactic form o f the rule itself are sufficient to fully determ ine . . . the form of
the sem antic translation rule” (1 9 8 5 :8 -9 ) .
Because the rules o f com bination are so widely regarded as transparent, it is
easy to overlook the fact that there are any substantive rules at all. For example,
one researcher states: “ In a strictly com positional language, all analytic content
com es from the lexicon, and no sem antic rules . . . are needed to a c c o u n t. . .
[for the m echanism o f| adding m eaning to the sentence which is not directly
contributed by some lexeme o f the sentence.” 9
Even Jackendoff, w ho in fact does recognize nonlexical m eaning (cf. sec­
tion 10.1.1), states in the introduction to his 1990 monograph Sem antic Struc­
tures: “i t is widely assum ed, and 1 will take for granted, that the basic units out
o f which a sentential concept is constructed are the concepts expressed by the
w ords in the sentence, that is, lexical concepts” (Jackendoff 1990a:9). The
transparent rule o f com position for verbs that is typically assumed goes back
to Frege (1879): the m eaning o f a verb is a predicate with a fixed arity n that
takes n argum ents and yields a proposition. In this way, the verb is taken to be
the sem antic head o f the sentence, the element w hich determ ines the basic
sem antic structure of the clause.
This sam e idea is im plem ented in recent unification-based gram m ars (cf.
Shieber et al. 1984; Shieber 1986), for exam ple, LFG, GPSG, and HPSG,
w hich m ake explicit the critical assum ption that sem antic features o f the head
percolate upward to the phrasal level; in particular, sem antic features of the
verb are assum ed to percolate upward to determ ine the sem antic features o f the
sentence (this is made explicit in the Head Feature Convention of GPSG and
HPSG, and in the [T = I ] feature o f heads in L FG ).10
This view o f the principle o f com positionality can be shown to be inade­
quate. M ore substantive principles o f com position— viewed here as construc­
tions - a r e needed. This can be dem onstrated by the existence o f cases in
w hich the requirem ents o f the construction are in conflict with the requirem ents
o f the main verb. Tw o cases are discussed below: the Dutch impersonal passive
construction and the English wwy construction.
 Introduction 15

The Dutch Impersonal Passive Construction

Zaenen (1991) provides an argum ent for a constructional account o f the
Dutch impersonal passive. There is a constraint on the impersonal passive that
the described situation be atelic:

(20) *E r werd opgestegen.

There was taken off.
(21) Er werd gelopen.
There was run.
(22) *?E r werd naar huis gelopen.
There was run home.

She notes that the acceptability o f the sentence can be altered by the addition
o f particular adverbs:

(23) Van Schiphol wordt er de hele dag opgestegen.

From Schiphol there is taking off the w hole day.
(24) if. werd voordurend naar huis gelopen.
There was constantly run home.

Thus the constraint on the impersonal passive seem s to be a constraint on the

aspect of the entire expression, rather than one directly on the A ktionsart o f the
main verb. However, this being the case, the construction cannot be said to be
lexically governed: the constraint m ust be associated with the construction as
a whole.
Recognizing the controversial nature o f such a proposal, Zaenen explicitly
argues against the alternative m ove— postulating dual senses o f each verb, one
telic and one atelic. Her argum ent is based on the fact that another phenom enon
in Dutch, auxiliary selection, crucially relies on the inherent A ktionsart o f the
main verb and can not be altered by adverbial m odification. The auxiliary zijn
is choscn when the verb’s A ktionsart is telic, regardless of w hether the senten­
tial expression is telic or atelic.

(25) Hij is opgestegen.

It has taken off.
(26) Hij is dagelijks opgestegen.
It has taken off daily.
I
rhe auxiliary hebben, on the other hand, is choscn when the verb’s A ktionsart
is atelic. A theory which posited two lexical items, with opposite A ktionsart
specifications, would not be able to predict these facts about auxiliary selection.
One could conceivably add further features to the description o f the main
16 Chapter O n e

verbs, but such a move would only be motivated by the desire to avoid recog­
nizing the effect o f contextual factors independent o f the verb. A more satis­
factory solution is to posit a single verb sense and allow the impersonal passive
to be sensitive to factors outside the main verb.

The Way Construction

A nother exam ple arises from the constraints on the way construction,
exem plified in (27) and discussed in chapter 9.

(27) a. Pat fought her way into the room.

b. Volcanic material blasted its way to the surfacc.
c. The hikers clawed their way to the top.

Levin & Rappaport Hovav (1992), following M arantz(1992), have argued that
the way construction is associated only with unergative verbs. At the same
time, they have argued that verbs o f directed motion are unaccusative (Levin
& Rappaport Hovav 1992). On a lexical account, in which syntactic frames are
projected from the verbs’ lexical sem antics, there is an inconsistency here. All
verbs appearing in this construction would have to be considered directed mo­
tion verbs, since way expressions specifically assert motion along the desig­
nated path. This would lead one to the conclusion that such verbs are both
unergative (since they occur in the way construction) and unaccusative (since
they are directed motion verbs)."
A lternatively, one might postulate a constraint that the verbs involved must
be unergative before they undergo a lexical rule which turns them into unac­
cusative verbs as expressed in this construction. But this would be an odd kind
o f constraint: one must worry about not only w hether the verb is of the relevant
kind as the output o f the rule, but also w hether the verb was derived in a par­
ticular way, in order to determ ine w hether it will occur in this syntactic pattern.
Typically, if a verb m atches the output o f a particular lexical rule, then it be­
haves like other verbs that have undergone the rule, whether or not it underwent
the rule itself (see, e.g., Pinker 1 989:65ff.). By contrast, given the more com ­
plicated constraint needed here, one would need to know the derivational his­
tory o f a particular item before one could determ ine whether it could take part
in the argum ent structure o f the way construction.

By recognizing the existence of contentful constructions, we can save com ­

positionality in a weakened form: the m eaning o f an expression is the result of
integrating the m eanings o f the lexical item s into the meanings of construc­
tions.12 In this way, we do not need to claim that the syntax and sem antics of
the clause is projected exclusively from the specifications o f the main verb.
 Introduction 17

1.4.5 Supportive Evidence from Sentence Processing

Certain psycholinguistic findings reported by Carlson and Tanenhaus
(1988) suggest that uses o f the same "core m eaning” o f a verb in different
syntactic frames do not show the same processing effects that cases of real
lexica! am biguity do. For example, notice that set truly has two different
senses:

(28) a. Bill set the alarm clock onto the shelf,

b. Bill set the alarm clock for six.

Load, on the other hand, although it can readily appear in the alternate co n ­
structions in (29), according to Carlson and Tanenhaus’s hypothesis (as well as
the cuiTent account) retains the same core lexical m eaning in both uses:

(29) a. Bill loaded the truck onto the ship,

b. Bill loaded the truck with bricks.

Carlson and Tanenhaus reasoned that if a reader or hearer initially selects an

inappropriate sense o f an am biguous word like set, a garden path will result,
effecting an increased processing load. On the other hand, if an inappropriate
constructional use ( “ them atic assignm ent” on Carlson & T anenhaus’s account)
is selected, the reanalysis will be relatively cost free since the sense o f the verb
remains constant and the verb’s participant roles ( “ them atic roles" on Carlson
and Tanenhaus's account) are already activated.
Sentences such as those in (28) and (29) were displayed on a CRT, and sub­
jects were asked to decide as quickly as possible w hether a given sentence
“ made sense." It was expected that subjects would anticipate an inappropriate
sense o f set or an inappropriate use o f toad approxim ately half the lime. A
theory which posits two distinct senses o f load to account for the two uses in
(29), analogous to the situation with set in (28), would presum ably expect the
two cases to work the same way. Carlson and Tanenhaus found, however, that
misinterpreted lexical am biguity creates a more marked processing load in­
crease than m isinterpreted uses of the sam e verb. The load increase was w it­
nessed by subjects’ longer reaction tim e to decide w hether sentences such as
(28) involving a true lexical am biguity made sense, vis-a-vis sentences such as
(29), as well as by a marked increase in the num ber o f “ n o ” responses to ihe
question whether a given sentence made sense when a truly am biguous verb
was involved.13 The data from 28 subjects are presented in the table below
(adapted from Carlson & Tanenhaus 1988): mean reaction tim es in msec to
those sentences judged to m ake sense are given; the percentages o f sentences
judged to make sense appear in parentheses:
18 Chapter O n e

T ype o f verb

T ype o f am biguity Am biguous Control

Sense (e.g. set) 2445 (77% ) 2290 (94% )

V ariable con stru ctio n s ( “ T hem atic am biguity,"
e.g. lo a d ) 2 239 (92% ) 2168 (93% )

W hen sentences are divided into preferred and non-prefcrred sense or con­
struction for a given pair o f sentences, the difference in reaction times between
different senses and different constructions is even more striking:

T ype o f verb

A m biguous C ontrol

S ense am biguity
P referred sense 2277 2317
L ess-p referred sense 2613 2264
V ariable co n stru ctio n s ( “ T hem atic am b ig u ity ” )
Preferred assignm ent 2198 2177
L ess-p referred assignm ent 2268 2158

This finding is difficult to account for if one holds the view that different
uses o f a verb actually reflect lexical am biguities. That is, on such a view it is
difficult to distinguish different uses from different senses, since each different
use would entail a different sense (and conversely, each different sense would
entail a different use). On the other hand, the distinction found between verbs
like set and those like load is not unexpected on the constructional approach
proposed here, since it is claim ed that different uses o f the same verb in various
constructions do not entail different senses o f the verb. Thus w e would not
expect the sam e verb in different constructions to have the same effect as cases
o f real lexical ambiguity.

1 .4.6 Supportive Evidence from Child L a n gu a ge Acquisition

By recognizing that the m eanings o f verbs do not necessarily change
when these verbs are used in different syntactic patterns— that the meaning of
an expression also depends on the inherent sem antics of the argum ent structure
constructions— certain findings in language acquisition research can be made
sense of.
Landau and G leitm an (1985) note that children acquire verb m eanings with
surprising ease, despite the fact that the situations in which verbs are used only
constrain possible m eanings to a very lim ited degree (cf. also Quine 1960). For
 Introduction IV

example, they note that their congenitally blind subject learned the m eanings
o f look and see w ithout undue difficulty, despite the fact that these meanings
are nonphysical and, for this child, not directly experientially based. They pro­
pose that children rely on syntactic cuing, or syntactic bootstrapping, as they
acquire verbal meaning. In particular, they argue that children make use o f the
set o f syntactic frames that a verb is heard used with in order to infer the m ean­
ing of the verb. They argue that this is possible because syntactic fram es are
surface reflexes of verbal meanings: “ The allow able subcategorization frames,
taken together, often tell a sem antically quite transparent story, for they mark
some of the logical properties o f the verb in question” (p. 140). Further, they
assert that the use of a verb in a particular syntactic fram e indicates that the
verb has a particular com ponent o f m eaning, one associated with that syntactic
frame. Certain experim ental work by other researchers substantiates the idea
that syntactic frames aid in the acquisition o f word m eaning (see Brown 1957;
Katz, Baker & M cN am ara 1974; N aigles 1990; Fisher et al. 1991; G leitm an
1992; Naigles e ta l, 1993).'“
However, Pinker (1989) rightly criticizes Landau and G leitm an’s form ula­
tion of the claim. He notes that if different syntactic fram es are assum ed to
reflect different com ponents of the m eaning o f verbs, as Landau and G leitm an
assume, then taking the union of these different com ponents o f m eaning across
different syntactic frames will result in incorrect learning. For exam ple, if the
appearance o f an m w -phrase in The ball flo a ted into the cave is taken to imply
that float has a motion com ponent to its m eaning, then the child will incorrectly
infer that it will not be possible to float w ithout moving anywhere.
This is indeed a general problem for Landau and G lcitm an's form ulation.
The occurrence of kick in the ditransitive construction (e.g., Joe kicked M ary
a ball) cannot be taken as evidence that kick's m eaning has a transfer com po­
nent, as their account would seem to imply. As we saw above in section 1.4.2,
kick can occur in eight different syntactic patterns, m ost o f w hich do not in ­
volve transfer.
Pinker’s criticism rules out the possibility that even adult speakers could use
the set of syntactic frames a verb is heard used with to determ ine the verb’s
meaning. It does so because each distinct syntactic frame is taken to reflect a
different sense o f the verb. This apparent paradox can be resolved by recogniz­
ing that syntactic frames are directly associated with sem antics, independently
o f the verbs which may occur in them. Thus it is possible to recognize that to a
large extent, verb m eaning rem ains constant across constructions; differences
in the meaning of full expressions are in large part attributable directly to the
different constructions involved. On this view, kick has the sam e sense in each
o f the eight argum ent structures listed in section 1.4.2. The interpretations—
20 Chapter O n e

such as, ‘X a c t s ’ , ‘X acts o n Y ’, ‘X d i r e c t s a c t i o n a t Y \ ‘X c a u s e s Y to

u ndergo a ch an g e of s t a t e ’ — are associated directly with the particular

constructions involved. In this way, Landau and G leitm an’s insight can be
slightly reinterpreted. W hat the child hypothesizes, upon hearing a verb in a
particular previously acquired construction, is not that the verb itself has the
com ponent o f m eaning associated with the construction, but rather that the verb
falls into one o f the verb clusters conventionally associated with the construc­
tion (cf. chapter 5).
H earing a verb used in different constructions may then indeed aid in the
acquisition o f verb meaning. One way this might be accom plished is by trian­
gulating the verb class that the verb must belong to. For example, if a child
hears an unfam iliar verb occur in a particular construction that is known to be
associated with, say. eight verb clusters, and the child also hears the verb used
in a different construction that is known to be associated with, say. ten verb
clusters, only som e o f w hich are shared with the former, the child can narrow
down the possible class o f verbs by exam ining only the intersecting clusters.
C ontextual inform ation is undoubtedly added into the equation, allowing the
child to further narrow down the possible verb classes. That is, language learn­
ing does not take place in a vacuum. It is generally accepted that children’s first
understanding o f lexical m eaning is tied to the situations in which a word is
heard used.15
O nce constructions are recognized, the idea that the syntactic frames a verb
is heard in can aid in determ ining verb m eaning is made coherent. However, as
it stands, this account presupposes that the child already knows certain verb
classes to be conventionally associated with certain constructions; that is, this
account presupposes that a fair num ber o f verbs have already been learned, and
so would not provide an account o f bootstrapping from ground zero. Construc­
tions would be allowed to aid in the acquisition o f the meanings o f novel verbs
once a fair num ber o f verbs had already been learned, but they would not be
useful in acquiring the m eanings o f the first verbs as Landau and Gleitman have
proposed.
C onstructions could be claim ed to play a more central role in the acquisition
of verbal sem antics if it were possible to delim it a priori the potential range o f
verb classes that might be associated with a construction. And in fact it seems
there arc only a handful o f ways that verb m eaning and constructional meaning
can be related (cf. section 2.5). T he necessity o f triangulating the relevant verb
cluster could be avoided then, since the m eaning o f the verb would be assumed
to be related to the m eaning o f the construction in one o f a small num ber of
possible ways. W hat is crucial is that the verb’s m eaning need not directly re­
flect the m eaning associated with the construction. The ch ild ’s task would be
 Introduction 21

to determ ine whether the verb’s m eaning in fact did elaborate the m eaning of
the construction, or w hether the verb coded, say, the means, manner, or result
associated with the m eaning o f the construction.16
To sum m arize, by recognizing skeletal syntactic constructions as m eaning­
ful in their own right, it is possible to allow for m ultiple syntactic frames to be
used as an aid in the acquisition o f verb meaning. This is because it is not
necessary to assume that every use o f a particular lexical item in a different
syntactic frame entails a different sense o f the verb involved.
In the follow ing section, traditional motivations for positing lexical rules to
account for variability in syntactic expression are discussed, and it is argued
that they are ultimately not persuasive reasons for rejecting a constructional
approach.

1.5 T r a d it io n a l M o t iv a t io n s f o r L e x ic a l R u l e s

T here are a num ber o f different types o f lexical rule accounts w hich deal
with the issue o f variability o f overt expression. Lexicalists argue that much of
the work that had been done by syntactic transform ations is better done in the
lexicon. For example, they claim that transform ations such as passive, causa-
tivization, and dative shift are better captured by lexical rules (Freidin 1974:
Bresnan 1978; M chom bo 1978; Foley & Van Valin 1984; M arantz 1984; Pol­
lard & Sag 1987, 1994).'7
One proposed m otivation for adopting a lexical approach to alternations is
that many alternations seem to be sensitive to lexical items, particularly verbs.
The notion of lexically governed rules goes back to L akoff (1965), w ho recog­
nized that no alternation seems to be exceptionless, and that the verb involved
largely determ ines w hether a given alternation applies o r not. H e states: “ In
some sense the verb 'governs' the passive transform ation: it is central to the
operation o f the rule . . . . There are a num ber o f other clear cases where it is
obvious which item it is that governs the rules. M ost o f these involve verbs”
(p. 28). However, in a passage im m ediately follow ing this suggestion o f a no­
tion o f governm ent, Lakoff candidly recognizes: “ G o v ern m en t. . . is not yet a
com pletely well-defined notion, and we can offer no proposal for an adequate
definition o f it.” In point o f fact, the verb alone often cannot be used to de­
term ine w hether a given construction is acceptable. C onsider the follow ing ex ­
amples:

(30) a. Sam carefully broke the eggs into the bowl.

b. *Sam unintentionally broke the eggs onto the floor, (cf. section 7.5.1)
(31) a. This room was slept in by G eorge W ashington.
b.?*This room was slept in by Mary. (Rice 1987b)
22 Chapter O n e

(32) a. Joe cleared Sam a place on the floor.

b. *Joe cleared Sam the floor. (Langacker 1991)

H olding the verb constant, the (a)-sentences are better than the corresponding
(b)-sentences. There is no natural way to capture these types o f constraints in
the lexical sem antics o f the main verb. On a constructional account, however,
it is possible to associate constraints on the com plem ents or on the overall
interpretation o f the expression directly with the construction. For example.
Rice (1987b) argues that prepositional passives such as those in (31) are more
felicitous when the surface subject argum ent is construed as affected. Similarly,
the problem with exam ple (32b) can be seen to be that the ditransitive construc­
tion im plies that the argum ent designated by the first object com es to receive
the argum ent designated by the second object. In this case Joe doesn’t “ re­
ceive” the floor, w hereas in (32a) he does “ receive" a place on the floor.18
A second m otivation often cited for a lexical account stems from the fact
that the lexicon is viewed as the reccptacle of all idiosyncratic information.
T herefore the existence o f idiosyncratic properties is taken as evidence for a
lexical phenom enon (Jackendoff 1975; W asow 1977; Dowty 1979). However,
if the lexicon is defined as the w arehouse o f idiosyncratic inform ation, it must
contain inform ation about particular gram m atical constructions that are phrasal
and even clausal. For exam ple, each of the following is idiomatic in the sense
that som e aspect o f its form and/or m eaning is not strictly predictable given
know ledge o f the rest o f grammar.

(33) a. W hy paint your house purple? (Gordon & Lakoff 1971)

b. The m ore you stare at it, the less you understand. (Cf. Fillmore, Kay
& O ’C onnor 1988)
c. He cried him self to sleep. (Cf. chapter 8)

Therefore evidence that a phenom enon is idiosyncratic is not evidence that it

is lexical, unless “ lexical” is defined so as to describe all and only idiosyn­
cratic items. But once the definition o f “ lexical” is extended to this degree, the
inevitable consequence is that the lexical is no longer neatly delim ited from the
syntactic (cf. DiSciullo & W illiam s 1987).
A third motivation is that crosslinguistically, many alternations are accom ­
panied by m orphological m arking on the verb. For exam ple, applicatives, cau­
satives, and passives crosslinguistically tend to involve overt morphology on
the verb stem. The m orphological m arkers are taken to be evidence for a lexical
rule that changes the inherent subcategorization (or sem antic representation) of
the verb stem. However, the approach suggested here can account for these
cases w ithout appealing to any type o f lexical rule. On the present account, the
closed-class gram m atical m orphem e is analogous to the English skeletal con­
 Introduction 23

struction; the verb stem plays the role o f the main verb. The sem antic integra­
tion of m orphem e and verb stem is analogous to the integration o f construction
and verb in English. Since m orphem es are constructions, and since no strict
division is drawn between the lexicon and the rest o f gram m ar, the analogy is
quite strong. In fact, Em anatian (1990) has proposed an account along these
lines for the Chagga applicative m orphem e, as has M aldonado Soto ( 1992) for
the Spanish reflexive m orphem e se.
A final motivation is that "'output” verbs undergo word form ation processes,
which are generally supposed (since Chom sky 1970, A ronoff 1976) to be a
result of lexical rules. Bccause lexical rules and syntactic rules are taken to be
independent, and because lexical rules are assum ed to be ordered before syn­
tactic rules, evidence that a rule R feeds a lexical rule is taken as evidence that
R is a lexical rule. For exam ple, Bresnan (1982) argues that passive m ust be a
lexical rule since the output o f passive is the input to a lexical “conversion"
rule of adjective formation. The conversion rule takes passive participles and
changes them into adjectives, w hich are then available as adjectival passives;
this accounts for the identity o f form between verbal and adjectival passives.
Given the lexical nature o f the conversion rule, Bresnan concludes: “ Since it
is assumed that the rule systems o f natural language are decom posed into com ­
ponents o f lexical rules [and] syntactic r u le s ,. . . which are subject to autono­
mous sets o f constraints, this constitutes the strongest possible kind of evidence
that Passivization is a lexical rule” (p. 16). However, there is reason to think
that the partition between lexical rules and syntactic rules is not so clearcut (cf.
Stowell 1981: Sproat 1985: le Roux 1988; Ward, Sproat & M cKoon 1991).
Even if we do assum e that it is possible to neatly divide gram m ar into separate
com ponents, the lexical and the syntactic— an assum ption that Construction
Gram m ar explicitly rejects— it is further necessary to assum e that these m od­
ules must interact serially, and that syntactic phrases can never feed word for­
mation rules, in order for the type o f argum ent given above to be persuasive.
But there are in fact cases o f phrasal form s that appear to serve as input to word
formation processes. Lieber (1988), for exam ple, argues that the following
exam ples involve phrasal form s which act as the input to lexical com pound
formation: a punch-in-the-stom ach effect, a G od-is-dead theology, a thinking-
about-it wink, a connect-the-dots puzzle, a win-a-M azda com petition, and a
stick-it-in-your-ear attitude (pp. 2 0 4 -2 0 5 ).
Thus traditional motivations for accounting for variable syntactic expression
in terms o f lexical rules are ultimately not persuasive reasons to reject a co n ­
structional approach. In the following chapters, such an approach is outlined in
more detail.
 2 The Interaction between Verbs
and Constructions

The constructional approach to argum ent structure brings several tricky ques­
tions to the fore. If basic sentence types are viewed as argum ent structure con­
structions, and we wish to claim that essentially the same verb is involved in
m ore than one argum ent structure construction, we need to deal with the fol­
lowing questions:
1. W hat is the nature of verb m eaning?
2. W hat is the nature o f constructional meaning?
3. W hen can a given verb occur in a given construction?
A lthough 1 have argued that constructions have m eaning independently of
verbs, it is clearly not the case that the gram m ar works entirely top-down, with
constructions sim ply im posing their m eaning on unsuspecting verbs. In point
o f fact, there are reasons to think that the analysis must be both top-down and
bottom -up. As will be discussed m ore fully below, the m eanings o f construc­
tions and verbs interact in nontrivial ways, and therefore some cross-reference
between verbs and argum ent structures will be necessary.
It might be w orthw hile to note that the general idea o f invoking two sim ul­
taneous m echanism s has been recently challenged by Baker (1987), who ar­
gues sim ply that involving two separate m echanism s as opposed to a single
m echanism should make learning more difficult— bccausc some mediation be­
tween the two m echanism s would be necessary— and should therefore be dis-
preferred as a psychologically plausible account.
This view, although having some degree o f intuitive appeal, has been shown
to be false in other dom ains o f cognitive processing. The clearest evidence
com es from the domain o f vision. For exam ple, it is well known that the per­
ception o f depth docs not follow from a single principle but from the integra­
tion o f inform ation o f many kinds. Perhaps the most im portant mechanism is
stereopsis, the fusing o f the two disparate images from the two retinas into a
single image. However, stereopsis alone is not the only mechanism by which
we determ ine depth (as can be dem onstrated clearly by closing one eye: the
perception of depth rem ains for the most part intact). O ther cues include occlu­
sion and differences in gradients o f texture (Gibson 1950).
A nother exam ple that dem onstrates the need for sim ultaneous mechanisms,
and in particular, both top-down and bottom -up processing, com es from letter
recognition tasks. W heeler (1970) and others have shown that letters are more

24
 Tne Interaction betw een Verbs a n d Constructions 25

quickly recognized in the context o f a word than in isolation. This indicates

that the recognition of the word (top-down processing) aids the recognition o f
the letters that m ake it up. At the sam e tim e, recognition o f individual letters
(bottom -up processing) is a prerequisite to recognition o f the word. Recent
connectionist m odels have had success in trying to model this type o f interac­
tive mechanism (M cClelland, Rum elhart & Hinion 1986).
These counterexam ples to B aker’s argum ent from the dom ain o f human vi­
sion and from word recognition tasks should m ake it clear that the type of
interactive system that is being proposed here has am ple precedent and should
not be dispreferred on unem pirical claim s o f w hat is “ sim pler.” However, be­
fore we can move on to discuss the m eanings associated with constructions and
verbs, it is necessary to describe the type o f sem antics that will be adopted.

2 .t Frame Semantics
Meanings are relativized to scenes.
C h a r le s F illm o r e 119 7 7 a )

Many researchers have argued that w ords are not exhaustively decom ­
posable into atomic prim itives (e.g., Fodor, Fodor & G arrett 1975; Fodor et al.
1980). However, it is not necessary to conclude that m eanings have no internal
structure. Instead, it has been argued that m eanings are typically defined rela­
tive to some particular background fra m e or scene, which itself may be highly
structured. I use these term s in the sense o f Fillmore (1975, 1977b) to designate
an idealization o f a “ coherent individuatable perception, memory, experience,
action, or o bject” (1977b: 84).
The point is made in the following passage by Austin:
Take the sense in which I talk of a crickct bat and a crickct ball and a
cricket umpire. The reason that all are called by the same name is
perhaps that each has its part— its own special part— to play in the
activity called cricketing: it is no good to say that cricket simply means
“ used in cricket” : for we cannot explain what wc mean by “crickct”
except by explaining the special parts played in cricketing by the bat,
ball, etc. (Austin 1940:73)

Consider the difference between ceiling and roof. The top o f a single-story
building is a ceiling if construed with respect to the interior o f a building, but
a ro o f if construed with respect to the exterior. Thus a central difference be­
tween the two terms is that their background fram es are different.1 Fillm ore
(1977b) com pares land and ground. Land is used to denote solid ground as
opposed to the sea, whereas ground also denotes solid ground but as opposed
to air. These term s are distinguished, therefore, prim arily on the basis of the
frames in which they are defined.
26 Chapter Tw o

A nother Fillm orian exam ple is bachelor, often defined sim ply as ‘unmarried
m an’. Fillm ore points out that bachelor is in fact defined relative to a back­
ground frame o f cultural knowledge. For that reason, it is odd in many cases to
ascribc the term bachelor to particular unm arried men. For example, is the
Pope a bachelor? Is a gay man a bachelor? Is Tarzan? Is a herm it? O r a recently
bar m itzvahed young man? In these cases, whether the term applies or not is
unclear, because certain aspects o f the background frame in which bachelor­
hood is defined arc not present.
Som etim es the background frame is fairly sim ple, and yet the same crucial
point can be made. Langacker (1987a) gives the exam ple o f hypotenuse, which
can only be defined with reference to a right triangle, which in turn can only
be understood by assum ing a notion o f hypotenuse. Such an exam ple provides
a sim ple case for w hich to explain the notion o f profiling (Langacker 1987a,
1991). D ifferences in profiling correspond to differences in the prominence of
substructures within a sem antic frame, reflecting changes in our distribution of
attention.
W hile both hypotenuse and right triangle are defined relative to the same
background fram e (or “ base,” according to Langacker’s term inology), the
m eanings o f the term s differ in that different aspects o f the frame are profiled.
The different term s can be characterized by the following Langacker-style
representations:

H ypotenuse R ight T riangle

F ig u re 2 . 1

Fram es in the sense being used here date back to the “ schem as” of Bartlett
(1932) and have been reintroduced more recently by researchers in Artificial
Intelligence including M insky (1975) and Schank and Abelson (1977). Frames
are intended to capture useful chunks o f encyclopedic knowledge. Such frame-
sem antic know ledge has been im plem ented in FRL (Roberts & Goldstein
1977) and K RL (Bobrow & W inograd 1977) in term s o f a hierarchy of data
structures (or “ fram es” ), each with a num ber o f labeled slots (see W ilensky
1986 for discussion and critique o f various actual im plem entations; see Gaw-
ron 1983 for an application o f Al frames to lexical semantics).
Lakoff (1987) argues that certain concepts are defined in terms o f a cluster
 The Interaction be tw e en Verbs a n d Constructions 27

o f distinct frames, or “ idealized cognitive m odels.” He gives the exam ple of

mother, which is defined via the following models:
a. The birth model: the person who gives birth
b. The genetic model: the female w ho contributes genetic material
c. The nurturance model: the fem ale who nurtures and raises a child
d. The marital model: the wife of the father
e. The genealogical model: the closest female ancestor
Lakoff argues that the concept m other normally involves a com plex model in
which all of the above basic models are com bined. But he notes that oftentim es
there is pressure to pick one of the m odels as criterial, the one that “ really”
defines the concept, and that which model is picked varies according to circum ­
stance and individual choice:

I was adopted, and I don't know who my real m other is.

I am not a nurturant person, so 1 don’t think 1 could ever be a real
m other to any child.
My real m other died when I was an em bryo.
I had a genetic m other w ho contributed the egg that was planted in the
w om b of my real m other (1 987:75)

Lakoff goes on to analyze the concept o f m other as representing a radial c ate­

gory: a category with a central subcategory (w hich in this case com bines all of
the above models) and noncentral extensions from that prototype (including
adoptive mother, birth mother, fo ste r mother, surrogate mother, etc.).

2.2 The N a t u r e o f V e r b M e a n in g

So far the discussion o f frame sem antics has centered around nominal
examples, but the sem antics of nouns and verbs cannot be argued to involve
qualitatively different types o f know ledge, since nouns are often extended for
use as verbs (cf. Clark & Clark 1979). Verbs, as well as nouns, involve frame-
semantic meanings; that is, their designation must include reference to a back­
ground frame rich with world and cultural knowledge.
It is typically difficult to capture fram e-sem antic know ledge in concise para­
phrase, let alone in formal representation or in a static picture. Still, it is indis­
putable that speakers do have such knowledge, as a m om ent o f introspection
should make clear. Consider the following (oversim plified) definitions:

ren eg e; to change one’s mind after previously having made a prom ise or
com m itm ent to do som ething
m a rry : to engage in a ritualized cerem ony with a partner, resulting in a
change in legal status, with the assum ed intention o f engaging in co n ­
jugal relations and rem aining with said partner until one of the two dies
28 Chapter Tw o

b o y co tt: to avoid buying goods and/or services from a company with the aim
o f expressing disapproval or causing the com pany to change one or
more o f its policies o r to go out o f business
rio t: for three or m ore people, acting as a group, to engage in activities
outside o f cultural norm s in an unruly and aggressive manner, often
with the intention o f effecting political consequences

O ther exam ples of verbs requiring aspects o f com plex world know ledge are
not difficult to com e by. C onsider the rich fram e-sem antic knowledge neces­
sary to characterize the m eanings of: languish, laminate, saunter, divorce,
avenge, prom ote, subpoena. In order to capture the richness o f these meanings,
verbs must be able to refer to conceptual structure, broadly construed (cf. Fill-
m ore 1975, 1977b; LakolT 1977, 1987; Langacker 1987a; Jackendoff 1983,
1987, 1990a).2
T he idea that lexical entries should make reference to world and cultural
know ledge is not w ithout challengers. W hile many current theorists using se­
m antic decom positional structures, such as ‘X c a u s e s Y to r e c e i v e Z ', ‘X
a c t s ,' or ‘X causes Y to m ove Z ’, readily recognize that such paraphrases do
not capture all o f w hat is intuitively the verb’s m eaning (e.g., LakolT 1965;
Foley & Van Valin 1984; Levin 1985; Pinker 1989), they argue that such para­
phrases are adequate for capturing the “ syntactically relevant aspects o f verb
m eaning.” The syntactically relevant aspects o f verb m eaning are defined to be
those aspects which are relevant for determ ining the syntactic expression of
argum ents via linking rules. Sim ilar proposals have been made by researchers
w ho claim that the theta role arrays associated with lexical entries constitute
the only syntactically relevant aspects o f verb m eaning (e.g., Kiparsky 1987;
Bresnan & Kanerva 1989).3
O n the account proposed here, the sem antic decom positional structures cor­
respond to constructional meanings. Only in the lim iting case do verbs have
such skeletal m eanings (e.g., give, do, make). Since the mapping between se­
m antics and syntax is done via constructions, not via lexical entries, that there
should be a class o f “ syntactically relevant aspects o f verb m eaning” follows
from the existence o f constructions, w hich are independently motivated (cf.
chapter 1).
M oreover, by distinguishing verbal sem antics from constructional sem an­
tics, we can predict an observation noted by Pinker as to the nature o f “syntac­
tically relevant aspects o f verb m eaning,” or what is here claim ed to be
constructional meaning. Pinker (1989) observes that such syntactically relevant
aspects o f verb m eaning resem ble the m eanings o f closed-class elements. That
is, Pinker notes that the sem antic features that are used to predict overt syntactic
structure (via linking rules) are the same types o f semantic features that have
 The Interaction Detw een Verbs a n d Constructions 29

been shown to be associated with closed-class items, for instance m otion, cau­
sation, contact, and change o f state (Talmy 1978, 1983, 1985a; Bybee 1985).
On a constructional account Pinker’s observation is predicted. W hat needs
to be recognized is that what Pinker takes to be the “ syntactically relevant”
aspects o f verbal m eaning are aspects o f constructional m eaning. C onstructions
are closed-class elem ents, so they are predicted to have the sem antics o f
closed-class elements.
A further reason to distinguish the sem antics o f argum ent structure construc­
tions from the verbs w hich instantiate them, and to allow the verbs to be as­
sociated with rich fram e-sem antic meanings, is the need to account for novel
uses of verbs in particular constructions. For exam ple, consider the following
expression,

(1) Sam sneezed the napkin off the table.

In order to interpret (or generate) this expression, one needs to know that sneez­
ing involves the forceful expulsion o f air. This would not be captured by a
skeletal decom positional lexical entry for sneeze such as, for exam ple, ‘X
ACTS,’
It is also clear that richer aspects o f verb m eaning are required for aspects of
linguistic theory other than predicting the syntactic expression o f arguments.
For example, frame sem antics is needed in order to account for the distribution
o f adverbs and adjuncts, to account for the process of preem ption (defined
below), to allow for the possibility of meaningful interpretation and translation,
and to predict correct inferences. Each of these motivations is discussed in turn.
The particulars of the m anner designated by verbs are typically taken to be
opaque to syntax (whereas w hether the verb encodes a m anner or not is taken
to be part of the syntactically relevant aspects o f verb meaning). For exam ple,
with respect to the verb roll, Pinker notes: “ The idiosyncratic inform ation
about the topography of rolling is a black box as far as gram m ar is concerned,
and we need not be concerned about decom posing it, whereas the inform ation
that there is a m anner specified, or a m anner and a path, is som ething that
gram m ar cares about” (1989:182).
While it may be true that the syntactic expression o f argum ents is not con­
cerned with specific manners, such specifics are clearly relevant to other as­
pects of language. In order to account for the distribution o f adverbs and
adjuncts, reference to the nature of the m anner designated by the verb is essen­
tial. For example, to predict the distribution o f the adverb slowly, reference to
particulars of manner is required:

(2) a. Joe walked into the room slowly.

b.??Joe careened into the room slowly.
30 Chapter Tw o

T hat is, one m ust know that careening im plies quick, uncontrolled motion;
therefore (2b) is contradictory. Similarly, in order to predict the distinctions
between the follow ing exam ples, reference to the particulars of m anner is
essential:

(3) a. Joe walked into the room with the help o f a cane.
b. ?Joe m arched into the room with the help o f a cane.
c.??Joe rolled into the room with the help o f a cane.
d. *Joe careened into the room with the help of cane.

T hus the question that is often asked is, w hat aspects o f meaning are relevant
for a particular highly circum scribed dom ain? It is pointed out here that if we
wish to ultim ately account for a w ider domain o f language than the syntactic
expression o f argum ents, we will need to appeal to a much richer notion of
sem antic structure.
A nother reason to include fram e-sem antic know ledge in lexical entries is in
order to account for the phenom enon o f preem ption, or “ blocking.” It is
w idely recognized that children readily stop using overgeneralized forms upon
learning an irregular form with the same meaning. For exam ple, children tend
to overregularize go to goed; but once they realize that went is synonymous,
they cease to produce goed. Thus, went is said to preem pt goed. Similarly,
speakers do not generalize the pattern exemplified by teacher, fighter, listener,
doer to form * cooker, because cooker is preem pted by cook.
In order for preem ption to occur, the hypothesized regular form and the
irregular form must have identical semantics. We would not expect fle w to
preem pt soared, because their m eanings are not identical. But in order to de­
term ine that soared is in fact not synonym ous with flew, the child must know
w hat soared and fle w mean. It is not enough to know that they are motion verbs
with a m anner com ponent; the entirety o f the fram e-sem antic knowledge as­
sociated with them must be recognized (their phonological dissim ilarity is not
enough to distinguish them conclusively, since went preem pts g oed despite
phonetic dissim ilarity).
It should also be im m ediately clear that in order to even have a hope of
accounting for interpretation or translation, we need to make reference to
fram e-sem antic know ledge associated with lexical entries. Interpretations that
only involve the “ syntactically relevant” aspects o f verb meaning would leave
us with severely underspecified interpretations. For exam ple, consider the fol­
lowing (very) short story:

(4) Hershel kissed Bolinda. Bolinda slapped Hershel. Hcrshel slunk away.

This story would be interpreted as:

 The Interaction Detw een VerDs a n d Constructions 31

(5) Hershel ACTED ON Bolinda in an M , manner. Bolinda A CTED ON

Hershel in an M 2 manner. H ershel M OVED in an M , manner.

We might know that M, ^ M ,, for all i £ j, but clearly such an interpretation

is missing an intolerable am ount o f inform ation. T ranslation would be rendered
impossible, since there would be no m eans by w hich to determ ine correspon­
dence between words.
Finally, it should be obvious that general fram e-sem antic know ledge is re­
quired to account for correct inferences, as has been am ply shown by Bartlett
(1932), Minsky (1975), Schank and Abelson (1977), and Bobrow and Wino-
grad (1977). To make the case specifically for verbs, contrast the follow ing, for
example:

(6) a. Sally skipped over the crack in the ground. (-> she didn’t touch the
crack)
b. Sally crawled over the crack in the ground. (-* she did touch the
crack)

This type o f inference is required to determ ine the acceptability o f the

following:

(7) a. Sally, playing a child's gam e, avoided touching the crack by skipping
over it.
b.??Sally, playing a child’s gam e, avoided touching the crack by craw ling
over it.

In order to know whether or not to infer that Sally made contact with the crack,
one needs to know exactly what m anner o f motion is involved in skipping and
crawling; the know ledge of the specific manners involved is part of our fram e-
semantic understanding of what these term s mean. It is not enough to know
simply that these verbs encode som e manner.
To sum m arize, rich fram e-sem antic know ledge associated with verbs is nec­
essary for (1) felicitous use o f adverbs and adjuncts, (2) interpretation and
translation, (3) the process of preem ption, or “ blocking," and (4) making cor­
rect inferences. Unless we decree that the distribution o f adverbs and adjuncts,
preemption, interpretation, and inferences are not within the dom ain o f gram ­
mar, lexical entries m ust have access to such knowledge.

2.3 Th e N ature of C o n s t r u c t io n a l M e a n in g

2 .3.1 Polysemy
Constructions are typically associated with a family o f closely related
senses rather than a single, fixed abstract sense. G iven the fact that no strict
division between syntax and the lexicon is assum ed, this polysem y is expected.
32 Chapter Tw o

since m orphological polysemy has been shown to be the norm in study after
study (W ittgenstein 1953, A ustin 1940; B olinger 1968; Rosch 1973; Rosch et
al. 1976; Fillmore 1976, 1982; Lakoff 1977, 1987; Haiman 1978; Brugman
1981, 1988; Lindner 1981: Sweetser 1990; Emanatian 1990). That is, since
constructions are treated as the same basic data type as morphem es, that they
should have polysem ous senses like m orphem es is expected. It is worth d is­
cussing a particular exam ple o f such constructional polysemy.
D itransitive expressions in English typically imply that the agent argument
acts to cause transfer o f an object to a recipient. It is argued below that this case
o f actual successful transfer is the basic sense o f the construction.
At the same tim e, it is widely recognized that many ditransitive expressions
do not strictly imply that the patient argum ent is successfully transferred to the
potential recipient. For exam ple, a so-called “/o r-d a tiv e” expression such as
Chris baked Jan a cake does not strictly imply that Jan actually received the
cake. It may happen that C hris was mugged by cake thieves on the way over to
Jan’s. In general, expressions involving verbs of creation (e.g., bake, make,
build, cook) and verbs o f obtaining (e.g., get, grab, win. earn) do not strictly
imply that the agent causes the potential recipient to actually receive the patient
argum ent. Transfer is rather a ceteris paribus implication. W hat is implied by
Chris baked Jan a cake is that Chris baked a cake with the intention of giving
the cake to Jan. In fact, many of the verb classes associated with the construc­
tion can be seen to give rise to slightly different interpretations.
Expressions involving verbs which imply that the agent undertakes an obli­
gation (e.g., prom ise, guarantee, owe) also do not strictly imply transfer. For
exam ple. Bill prom ised his son a car does not imply that Bill actually gave his
son a car, or even that Bill intended to give his son a car. Rather, transfer is
implied by the “ conditions o f satisfaction" associated with the act denoted by
the predicate (Searle 1983). A satisfied prom ise, for example, does imply that
the “ prom ise" receives whatever is promised.
Expressions involving verbs o f future having (e.g., bequeath, leave, refer,
forw ard, allocate, allot, assign) imply that the agent acts to cause the referent
of the first object to receive the referent of the second object at som e future
point in time. This class differs from the last two classes in that no intention or
obligation o f future action on the part o f the referent o f the subject is implied;
the agent’s role in the transfer is accom plished by the action referred to by the
predicate.
Expressions involving verbs o f perm ission (e.g., permit, allow) imply
merely that the agent enables the transfer to occur, by not preventing it— not
that the agent actually causes the transfer to occur. For example, Joe allow ed
Billy a popsicle im plies only that Joe enabled Billy to have a popsicle or did
 The In fr a c t io n betw een Verbs a n d Constructions 33

not prevent him from having one— not that Joe necessarily caused Billy to have
a popsicle.
Expressions involving verbs o f refusal (e.g., refuse, deny) express the nega­
tion o f transfer, for exam ple in Joe refused Bob a raise in salary and His
mother denied Billy a birthday cake. Here transfer is relevant in that the pos­
sibility for successful transfer has arisen, but the agent is understood to refuse
to act as the causer of it.
Because of these differences, the sem antics involved can best be represented
as a category of related meanings. T hat is, the ditransitive form is associated
with a set o f system atically related senses. Thus the ditransitive can be viewed
as a case of constructional polysem y: the sam e form is paired with different
but related senses. By accounting for these differences in term s o f construc­
tional polysemy, as opposed to positing a collection o f lexical rules, for ex ­
ample. we can capture the relations between the different senses in a natural
way. In particular, a polysem ous analysis allow s us to recognize the special
status of the central sense of the construction.
The central sense o f the ditransitive construction can be argued to be the
sense involving successful transfer o f an object to a recipient, with the referent
o f the subject agentively causing this transfer. There are several reasons to
adopt this view. The central sense proposed here involves concrete rather than
metaphorical or abstract (here: potential) transfer, and concrete m eanings have
been shown to be more basic both diachronically (Traugott 1988; Sw eetser
1990) and synchronically (Lakoff & Johnson 1980). Further, this is the sense
most metaphorical extensions (as described in chapter 6) are based on. For
example, consider (8) and (9):

(8) M ary taught Bill French.

(9) Mary taught French to Bill.

(8) implies that Bill actually learned som e French, that the m etaphorical trans­
fer was successful. This is in contrast to (9), in w hich no such im plication is
necessary. Similarly, com pare (10) and (11):

( 10) Mary showed her m other the photograph,

(11) Mary showed the photograph to her m other (but her nearsighted m other
couldn't see it).

(10) implies that her m other actually saw the photograph, w hereas for many
speakers, no such implication is given in (11).
These facts can be accounted for once we recognize actual successful trans­
fer as the central sense o f the construction; we need only stale that m etaphorical
extensions have as their source domain this central sense.4 Finally, successful
34 Chapter T w o

transfer is argued to be the central sense because the other classes o f meanings
can be represented m ost econom ically as extensions from this sense.
At the sam e tim e, the various senses are not predictable and must be conven­
tionally associated with the construction. For example, it is not predictable
from know ing the rest o f English that verbs o f creation will be allowed in the
ditransitive construction in the first place; moreover, it is not predictable that
ditransitive expressions involving verbs o f creation will imply intended trans­
fer instead o f actual transfer or general benefaction. Because o f this, the various
different possible senses need to be listed.
The suggestion here o f allow ing for a fairly specific central sense o f the
construction and postulating separate related senses w hich make reference to
specific verb classes can be contrasted with the possibility o f postulating a
single abstract sense for the construction and allowing the verbs’ sem antics to
fill out the meaning. Since the latter approach is attractive in being more
sim ple, let me take tim e to dem onstrate why such an abstractionist account fails
to adequately account for the data.
Several researchers (e.g., W ierbicka, 1986; Paul Kay, personal com m unica­
tion; Frederike Van der Leek, personal com m unication) have suggested that
there is a sim ple uniform m eaning associated with the ditransitive, namely, that
there is some kind of special effect on the first object. It is claimed that the
nature of this effect is inferred pragmatically. This proposal is attractive in its
clegance, but there are several facts w eighing against it. For one, the ditransi-
tivc construction does not system atically imply any particular special effect on
the first object referent that the corresponding prepositional passive does not
imply. M any ditransitive expressions do not entail that the first object referent
is affected at all. M oreover, there are pragm atically possible interpretations of
“ affected” which are not possible interpretations of ditransitive expressions.
To illustrate the first point: there is no noncircular reason to think that the
first object is any m ore affected in the following (a)-cases than in the corre­
sponding (b)-cases:

(12) a. C hris baked Pat a cake.

b. Chris baked a cake for Pat.
(13) a. Chris prom ised Pat a car.
b. Chris prom ised a car to Pat.
(14) a. C hris kicked Pat the ball.
b. Chris kicked the ball to Pat.

In fact, there is no obvious definition for “ affected” which im plies that Pat is
necessarily affected in (15):
 The interaction be tw e en Verbs a n d Constructions 35

(15) Chris baked Pat a cake.

Pat may never receive Ihe cake, and in fact may never even know about it.
In addition, it is not possible to construe the first object as affected in just
any pragmatically inferable way. For exam ple, even if we know that there are
an agent, a patient, and a goal involved (using the definitions o f the thematic
roles on, e.g.. K ay’s account), it is possible to pragm atically infer that the way
the goal is affected is by the agent throwing the patient at the goal. However,
the following cannot be interpreted this way:

( 16) Pat threw Chris the ball.

(17) Pat hit Chris the ball.

That is, these exam ples cannot be interpreted to mean that Pat threw or hit the
ball at Chris. They can only mean that Pat threw or hit the ball so that Chris
would receive it— in this case, so that Chris would catch the ball. C onse­
quently, we cannot felicitously say:

(1 8 )# ln an attempt to injure C hris. Pal threw Chris the ball.

This fact is unexplained by the abstractionist “ affectedness” account.

Another abstractionist analysis that has been offered (G oldsm ith 1980) is
that the thematic role o f the first object be described as prospective possessor.
thus allowing the sem antics to be abstract enough to cover all o f the possible
interpretations o f transfer— actual, intended, future, o r refused. However, this
suggestion as well, and in fact more generally, any abstractionist account, is
subject to several criticisms.
One problem is that an abstractionist account cannot capture the intuition
that the notion o f transfer in general, and giving in particular, is basic to the
construction, since by virtue of positing only a single very abstract sense, alt
instances instantiate the construction equally. Give, however, is the m ost pro­
totypical ditransitive verb because its lexical sem antics is identical with w hat
is claim ed here to be the construction's sem antics. This intuition seem s to be
strong enough to be worth w orrying about. In fact, 1 perform ed an inform al
experiment to gauge the strength o f the intuition that give codes the most basic
sense of the construction. I asked ten nonlinguists w hat the nonsense word
topam ased meant in the following sentence:

(19) She topamased him something.

A full six out of ten subjects responded that topam ased m eant “ give.” This
fact cannot be attributed sim ply to effects o f general word frequency because
36 Chapter T w o

there are several other w ords allowed in this construction that are more frequent
than give. Thus, according to Carroll, Davies, and Richm an's (1971) Word Fre­
quency Book, w hich used a 5,000,000-word corpus, give occurred 3,366 times
in that corpus, while tell occurred 3,715 tim es, take 4,089 times, get 5,700
tim es, and m ake 8,333 times. O f these other words, only tell was given as a
response in my survey, and it was only given by one speaker. None o f the other
w ords were given. O ne might raise the objection that while give is not the most
frequently occurring word overall, it is nonetheless the most frequently occur­
ring word in this construction. However, the point o f the experim ent was ex ­
actly to test w hether speakers were aware o f the close relation between give
and the ditransitive construction; the results seem to indicate that they are.
A related problem stem s from the fact that not all ditransitive expressions
are equally acceptablc. There are certain benefactive ditransitives, to be de­
scribed in section 6.3.4 in terms o f a system atic metaphor, which arc acceptable
to varying degrees for different speakers. Exam ples o f this type include (Green
1974):

(20) Hit me a hom e run.

(21) Crush me a m ountain.
(22) Rob me a bank.

These expressions are severely restricted in their use, as pointed out by

Oehrle (1976). O ehrle observes that they are noticeably more felicitous as
com m ands:

(23) a. Hit me a hom e run.

b. ?A lice hit me a hom e run.

And, they are more acceptable when the recipient is referred to by a pronoun.
C ontrast (23a) with (24):

(24) ?H it Sally a hom e run.

On the present account, we can understand these cases to be a lim ited extension
o f the basic sense; we do not need to put them on a par with other ditransitive
exam ples, yet we can still treat them as related to the rest o f the ditransitives.
However, on an abstractionist account, we have to choose w hether to include
them as ditransitives o r exclude them from the analysis. If we include them, we
have no way to account for their marginal status and the special constraints
they are subject to. If we exclude them, we fail to capture the obvious similarity
they bear to other ditransitives, both in their syntax and in their semantics.
A nother problem is that it is not predictable that verbs of creation will com ­
 The inrerjcnon berw een Verbs and Constructions 37

bine with the ditransitive to imply intended, instead o f actual or future transfer.
For example, consider (25):

(25) Chris baked M ary a cake.

This sentence can only mean that Chris baked the cake with the intention of
giving it to Mary. It cannot mean that Chris necessarily gave, o r will give, the
cake to Mary.
Finally, an abstractionist analysis does not readily allow us to account for
the fact, m entioned previously, that m etaphorical extensions are based on ac­
tual transfer, not potential or intended transfer (but cf. note 4 again). T hat is, if
we only postulate an abstract constraint on the first object position, we have no
natural way o f accounting for the fact that the m etaphorical extensions imply
this first object to be an actual recipient, not a prospective recipient o r goal.
However, on our constructional polysem y account we can say that the m eta­
phorical extensions have as their source dom ain the central sense o f actual
transfer.
These problem s arise for any abstractionist account; therefore, any such
account can be seen to be unsatisfactory. Instead, a polysem ous sem antics is
warranted. The related senses o f the ditransitive construction can then be
diagrammed as in figure 2.2. Each of the links extruding from the central sense
in this diagram can be motivated by show ing that the sam e relation holds in
other areas o f the grammar. In fact, rem arkably sim ilar patterns o f polysem y
arc shown to exist for the caused-m otion construction discussed in chapters 3
and 7. The related senses involve a category o f force-dynam ical Iy related types
of causation as has been described by Talmy (1976, 1985b) and Jackendoff
(1990a).
It might be tem pting to think that by positing constructional polysemy, we
are simply adding com plexity to the construction which would otherw ise be
attributed to the verb. T hat is. it m ight be thought that w hile we avoid polysemy
of lexical items by not postulating separate input and output senses of verbs
that undergo lexical rules, we create polysem y o f the construction instead.
However, that is em phatically not the case. The polysem y attributed to con­
structions is polysemy that exists independent o f our decision as to how verb
meanings should be represented, since it corresponds to polysem y across out­
puts o f what is generally taken to be a single lexical rule on traditional ac­
counts. For exam ple, the ditransitive construction is typically captured by a
single lexical rule which creates a new verb sense, ‘X causes Y to r e c e iv e Z ’.
However, we have seen that ditransitive expressions do not necessarily imply
‘X causes Y to r e c e iv e Z ', but may m erely imply ‘X in t e n d s to cause Y to
38 ChapterTwo

E. Agent enables recipient

to receive patient
Verbs of permission:
permit, allow

D. Agent acts to cause recipient

F. Agent intends to cause recipient to receive patient at some
to receive patient future point in time
Verbs involved in sccnes of creation: Verbs of future transfer:
bake, make, build, cook, sew, leave, bequeath, allocate, resen'e,
knit,... grant,...
Verbs of obtaining:
get, grab, win, earn,...

A. Central Sense:
Agent successfully causes recipient to receive patient
Verbs that inherently signify acts of giving:
give, pass, hand, serve, feed,...
Verbs of instantaneous causation of ballistic motion:
throw, toss, slap. kick, poke, fling, shoot,...
Verbs of continuous causation in a deictically specified direction:
bring, take,...

B. Conditions o f Satisfaction imply

that agent causes recipient
to receive patient
Verbs of giving with associated C. Agent causes recipient not
satisfaction conditions: to receive patient
guarantee, promise, owe,... Verbs of refusal:
refuse, deny

Figure 2.2
 The Interaction Detw een Verbs a n d Constructions 39

Z ’ (leave, grant)', alternatively, it may be the case that only the con­
r e c e iv e

ditions of satisfaction associated with the act designated by the verb imply ‘X
causes Y to r e c e i v e Z ' ( prom ise, owe) or ‘X c a u s e s Y not to r e c e i v e Z ’
(deny, refuse). Thus on a lexical rule account, a family o f lexical rules, each
with a slightly different output, would need to be postulated. We may conclude
that irrespective o f whether we posit distinct verb senses or w hether we attrib­
ute the resulting sem antics to an interaction of verb and construction, it is nec­
essary to account somehow for the observed differences in the resulting
semantics.

2 .3.2 Hum anly Relevant Scenes

In the previous section, it was argued that the English ditransitive con­
struction has as its central sense “ successful tran sfe r"— som eone causes som e­
one to receive something. In fact, each o f the basic clause-level constructions
to be discussed can be seen to designate a humanly relevant scene, for ex ­
ample, som ething causing som ething to change location (the caused-m otion
construction), an instigator causing som ething to change state (the resultative
construction), or an instigator moving despite difficulty (the way construction).
Thus we can form the following hypothesis:

Scene Encoding Hypothesis: Constructions which correspond to basic

sentence types encode as their central senses event types that are basic
to human experience.

Languages are expected to draw on a finite set o f possible event types, such as
that of someone causing som ething, som eone experiencing som ething, som e­
thing moving, som ething being in a state, som eone possessing som ething,
som ething causing a change o f state or location, som ething undergoing a
change o f state or location, someone experiencing som ething, and som ething
having an effect on someone. These event types are quite abstract. We do not
expect to find distinct basic sentence types which have as their basic senses
semantics such as som ething turning a color, som eone becom ing upset, so m e­
one oversleeping.
The idea that constructions designate scenes essential to human experience
is reminiscent o f Fillm ore’s original motivation for the existence o f a particular,
fixed set o f case roles: “The case notions com prise a set o f universal, presum ­
ably innate, concepts w hich identify certain types o f judgm ents hum an beings
are capable o f making about the events that are going on around them, ju d g ­
ments about such matters as who did it, who it happened to, and w hat got
changed” (1968:24),
40 Chciprer Tw c

Particular com binations o f roles which designate humanly relevant scenes

are associated with argum ent structure constructions, which therefore serve to
carve up the world into discretely classified event types. Verbs, on the other
hand, are associated with richer fram e-sem antic meanings. As discusscd in
chapter 5, some cross-rvference between verbs and constructions is also nec­
essary, so verbs will in effect be annotated with inform ation about which event
types they can be associated with.
In this vein, Langacker (19 9 1) argues that language is structured around cer­
tain conceptual archetypes: “Certain recurrent and sharply differentiated as­
pects o f our experience em erge as archetypes, which we normally use to
structure our conceptions insofar as possible. Since language is a means by
which we describe our experience, it is natural that such archetypes should be
seized upon as the prototypical values o f basic linguistic constructs” (pp. 2 9 4 -
95). He goes on to suggest that these archetypes are extended in various ways
for the follow ing reason: "E xtensions from the prototype o c c u r . . because of
our proclivity for interpreting the new or less fam iliar with reference to what is
already well established: and from the pressure o f adapting :■ limited inventory
o f conventional units to the unending, ever-varying parade of situations requir­
ing linguistic expression” (p. 295).
Support for the hypothesis that the central senses o f argum ent structure con­
structions designate scenes which are sem antically privileged in being basic to
human experience com es from certain language acquisition facts. In pa: iicular,
verbs that lexically designate the sem antics associated with argument structure
constructions are learned early and used most frequently (Clark 1978); certain
gram m atical m arkers are applied earliest to “ prototypical” .scenes— that is,
scenes w hich are claim ed to be associated with the central senses o f construc­
tions (Slobin 1985): and children’s first utterances are about the particular
scenes claim ed to he associated with constructions (Bowerman 1989). Each of
these pieces of evidence is discussed in turn.
Clark (1978) observes that “ general purpose verbs” such as go, put, make,
do, and get are often am ong the first verbs to be used. These verbs designate
m eanings that are rem arkably sim ilar to the m eanings associated with argu­
m ent structure constructions. For exam ple, go has the m eaning associated with
the intransitive motion construction; p u t has sem antics very close to that o f the
caused-m otion construction; m ake has the sem antics associated with the rcsul-
tative construction. Possible constructions that are correlated with the m ean­
ings of the other high frequency verbs are not explicitly discussed here, but do
could be said to correspond to the m eaning associated with the basic sense of
the sim ple intransitive and/or simple transitive construction, (le t may well
 The Interaction ln-tween Verbs ana Constructions

code the sem antics o f yet another construction, that instantiated by verbs such
as receive, have. lake.
Clark cites other studies which have shown that w ords corresponding to
these concepts are am ong the first to be used crosslinguistically as well (e.g.,
Bowerman 1973 for Finnish; G regoire 1937 for French; Sanches 1978 for
Japanese; and Park 1977 for Korean). Children appear to be using these verbs
with a general m eaning close to that o f adults. Clark provides the follow ing
interpretations for children’s early uses in her data:

do: “ perform an action,” generally occurring with an agent noun phrase and
sometim es with an additional patient argum ent
go: "m ove,” often accom panied by a locative phrase or particle
make: “ construct,” “ produce." or “cause som e state to com e into being or be
produced”
put: "cause to be or go in some place”

Not only are these general-purpose verbs learned early crosslinguistically,

they are also the m ost com m only used verbs in children’s speech. C lark cites
the raw tabulations o f verbs used by four children w hose mean length o f utter­
ance was 2.5 words, collected by Bloom, Miller, and Hood (1975) and Bloom
and Lahey (1978) from a fixed database. The data she presents are given in
table 2.1. Clark concludes that "go, put, get, do. and m ake (plus sit) are far
more frequent than any other verbs” (1 9 7 8 :48).5 The fact that these “ light
verbs,” which are drawn from a small set o f sem antic m eanings crosslinguis­
tically, are learned earliest and used most frequently is evidence that this small
class o f abstract m eanings is cognitively privileged. These are the particular
meanings directly associated with argum ent structure constructions.

Table 2 .1
U ses o f first verbs in fixed data bases (C lark 1978)

A ction T okens L ocative A ction T okens

g et 252 8° 417
do 169 put 287
m ake 132 sit 129
read 86 fi‘ 65
play 85 lake 48
fin d 69 fa ll 30
eat 60 go bye-bye 28
fix 59 aw ay 26
draw 52 com e 25
hold 50 get 25
42 C hapter Tw o

It has also been observed that children with Specific Language Impairment
rely heavily on the same set of light verbs, including go. gel, do, put. and make,
in their production o f sentences. For exam ple, sentences such as I'm doing
two balloons com m only replace the more appropriate I ’m using/playing w ith/
bouncing two balloons (Rice & Bode 1993; cf. also Watkins, Rice & Moltz
1993).
Slobin (1985) observes that children’s first uses o f certain gramm atical mark­
ings are applied to “ prototypical scenes” : “ In Basic Child Grammar, the first
Scenes to receive gram m atical m arking are “ prototypical,” in that they regu­
larly occur as part o f frequent and salient activities and perceptions, and
thereby becom e organizing points for later elaboration . . (p. 1175). He illus­
trates this claim by arguing that the gram m atical marking o f transitivity is first
used to describe what he term s the “ m anipulative activity scene.” This scene
corresponds to the experiential gestalt o f a basic causal event, in which an agent
carries out a physical and perceptible change of state in a patient by means of
direct manipulation. That is, m arkers o f transitivity, both object markers in
accusative languages and subject m arkers in ergative languages, are first ap­
plied to the argum ents o f verbs involving direct physical action, e.g., give,
grab, take, hit, and not to those o f verbs such as say. see. call out. In Kaluli
(Schieffelin 1985) children do not overextend ergative inflection to the subjects
o f intransitive verbs, not even when these verbs have an active meaning, like
run, ju m p; Slobin thus concludes that children are not gram m aticizing the no­
tion o f actor in general, but are gram m atically marking manipulative activity
scenes.
W hile Slobin considers the acquisition o f gram m aticalized morphem es, his
observations directly carry over to the lexically unfilled constructions in E n­
glish which are studied here: the m orphem es that mark transitivity in other
languages correspond to the English skeletal transitive construction, although
the latter has no overt m orphological marking.
Bow erm an (1989) observes m ore generally that the content o f children's first
utterances revolves around the general concepts claim ed to be associated with
constructions: “ Regardless of the language being learned, children’s first sen­
tences revolve around a restricted set of m eanings to do with agency, action,
location, possession and the existence, recurrence, nonexistence, and disap­
pearance o f objects (Bloom 1970, Bow erm an 1973, Brown 1973, Schlesinger
1971, Slobin 1970)’’ (p. 137). Thus we may conclude that data from language
acquisition gives us some independent evidence for the claim that the events
encoded by constructions are in some sense basic to human experience.
If it is correct that syntactic ( “ subcategorization") frames are associated d i­
rectly with m eanings, then what children learn when they learn the syntax of
 The Interaction be tw e en Verbs a n d Constructions 43

simple sentences is the particular way certain basic scenarios o f human expe­
rience are paired with forms in their language. That is, we assum e that children
have already mastered the concepts o f transfer between an agent and a w illing
recipient, causation of motion or change of state, and so forth, and that they
come to the task o f learning language trying to learn how to encode these b a­
sic concepts. Constructions are then extended in various ways allow ing the
speaker to apply the fam iliar pattern to new contexts in principled ways, as we
saw in the previous section. These patterns of extension are further discussed
in the following chapters as well.
At the same time, it is not being claim ed that all clause-level constructions
encode scenes basic to human experience. N onbasic clause-level constructions
such as cleft constructions, question constructions, and topicalization construc­
tions (and possibly passives) are prim arily designed to provide an alternative
inform ation structure o f the clause by allow ing various argum ents to be topi-
calized or focused. Thus children must also be sensitive to the pragm atic infor­
mation structure of the clause (Halliday 1967) and m ust learn additional
constructions which can encode the pragm atic inform ation structure in accord
with the message to be conveyed. T hese cases are not discussed further here
(cf. Lam brecht 1987, 1994).

2.4 T h e I n t e g r a t io n of V erb a n d C o n s t r u c t io n
2 .4 .i Participant Roles of Verbs
Part of a verb's frame sem antics includes the delim itation o f participant
roles. Participant roles are to be distinguished from the roles associated with the
construction, which will be called argum ent roles. T he distinction is intended
to capture the fact that verbs are associated with fram e-specific roles, w hereas
constructions are associated with more general roles such as agent, patient,
goal, which correspond roughly to Fillm ore’s early case roles or G ruber’s the­
matic roles.6 Participant roles are instances o f the more general argum ent roles
and capture specific selectional restrictions as well.
A useful heuristic for determ ining the basic m eaning o f a verb is to interpret
the verb in gerundial form in the following frame:

N o _____ ing occurred.

The num ber and type o f participant roles im plicitly understood to be involved
in the interpretation o f this expression correspond to the num ber and type of
participant roles in the frame sem antics associated with the verb. For exam ple:

(26) a. No kicking occurred, (tw o-participant interpretation)

b. No sneezing occurred, (one-participant interpretation)
44 Chapter T w o

c. No rum bling occurred, (one-participant [sound em ission] inter­

pretation)
d. No ham m ering occurred, (one-participant [sound em ission] or two-
participant [impact] interpretation)
e. No painting occurred, (tw o-participant interpretation— either cre­
ation or coloring interpretation)
f. No giving occurred (three-participant interpretation)

In som e cases, the verb cannot be used in this fram e unless accom panied by
certain com plem ents:

(27) a. *No putting occurred.

No putting o f cakes into the oven occurred.
b. *N o devouring occurred.
No devouring o f cupcakes occurred.

In these cases, the necessarily expressed com plem ents are taken to correspond
to participants associated with the verb.7
N otice that several o f the above exam ples have more than one interpretation,
indicating more than one verb sense. We know from extensive studies of po­
lysemy that lexical items are typically associated with a set o f related meanings
rather than a single abstract sense (Austin 1940; W ittgenstein 1953: Bolinger
1968; Rosch 1973; Rosch et al. 1976: Fillm ore 1976, 1982; Lakoff 1977, 1987;
Haiman 1978;B rugm an 1981, 1988: Lindner 1981; Sweetser 1990). Therefore
the existence of two, three, or more distinct but related verb senses is expected.
These polysem ous senses can be explicitly related by appealing to the frame
sem antics associated with each o f them. W hat is avoided, though, is a system
w here a new sense is posited in an unrestrained way for each new syntactic
configuration that is encountered.

Lexical Profiling of Participants

As was the case with nouns, verbs lexically determ ine which aspects of
their fram e-sem antic know ledge are obligatorily profiled. Lexically profiled
roles are entities in the frame sem antics associated with the verb that are obliga­
torily accessed and function as focal points within the scene, achieving a spe­
cial degree o f prom inence (Langacker 1987a). These profiled participant roles
correspond to those participants which are obligatorily brought into perspec­
tive, achieving a certain degree of "salien ce” (Fillmore 1977b). Profiling is
lexically determ ined and highly conventionalized -it cannot be altered by
context.
In some cases differences in profiling capture the primary difference be­
tween verbs. Fisher et al. (1991) appeal to a process that corresponds to profil­
 The interaction betw een Verbs a n d Constructions 45

ing to distinguish take and give. They note: "iVlovie directors m ake an art o f
distinguishing such notions visually. They can zoom in on the receiver’s grate­
ful mien, the giver out o f focus, or off the frame com pletely. Using the word
take rather than give is a linguistic way o f m aking the same distinction” ( 1991:
8). Similar exam ples o f verbs which seem to invoke the sam e sem antic frame
but differ in the participant roles profiled include loan/borrow, buy/sell (see
Fillmore 1977b for discussion), and substitute/replace (see Landau & G leit­
man 1985 for discussion).
The test for profiled status that will be used here is that profiled participant
roles are those roles w hich are norm ally obligatorily expressed in finite clauses.
The “ norm ally” -caveat is intended to allow for two types of exceptions: cases
where the verb occurs in a construction w hich serves the purpose o f avoiding
the overt expression of a particular argum ent, for exam ple, a passive or middle
construction, and (2) cases in which the profiled argum ent may be unexpressed
under certain identifiable contextual circum stances. T hese two possibilities are
discussed in section 2.4.5.

A n Example: Rob vs. Steal

Rob and steal at first glance appear to be synonym ous, despite their d if­
fering syntactic realizations:

(28) a. Jesse robbed the rich (of all their money).

b. * Jesse robbed a million dollars (from the rich).11
(29) a. Jesse stole money (from the rich),
b. * Jesse stole the rich (o f money).

However, the differences in the expressions of their argum ents can be ac­
counted for by a sem antic difference in profiling. In the case o f rob. the target
and the thief are profiled, while in the case o f steal the valuables and the thief
are profiled. Representing profiled participant roles in boldface, we might ex­
press the difference between rob and steal thus:

rob < th ief target g oods>

steal < th ief target goods>

The different syntactic realizations of participant roles will be show n to follow

from differences in profiling, since profiled participant roles must be fused with
argument roles that are realized as direct gram m atical functions (how this is
done is discussed in section 2.4.2).
It might be objected that this putative sem antic difference is only postulated
to hide an idiosyncratic syntactic difference in the expression o f participants.
That is, it might be argued that we are only accounting for the fact that the
46 Chapter T w o

goods role of steal and the target role o f rob must each be linked to OBJ.
Indeed, if we needed to stipulate profiling differences as entirely idiosyncratic
aspects o f lexical entries in order to predict the syntactic expression o f argu­
ments, lexical profiling could not be considered a great advance over stipulat­
ing the syntactic expression o f argum ents directly. Either way we would have
a stipulation, the only difference being that one stipulation would be semantic
and the other syntactic. The differences between the two accounts could then
be represented thus:

Syntactic Stipulation:
rob < th ie f target g o o d s> steal < ta rg e t g o o d s>
I I
OBJ OBJ

Profiling Difference:
rob < th ief target g o o d s> steal < th ief target goods>

However, it can be dem onstrated that rob and steal do in fact differ seman­
tically, and that this difference allows us to predict a difference in profiling.
Rob necessarily entails that the robbed person is seriously negatively affected:
this is not true o f steal. N otice the contrast between (30a) and (30b):

(30) a. I stole a penny from him.

b. *1 robbed him o f a penny.

If the victim is indeed negatively affected by the theft, however, use of rob
becom es acceptable, as can be seen in the follow ing sentence:

(31) I robbed him o f his last penny.

Similarly, (32a), in which a rather serious negative effcct on the victim is im­
plied, is acceptable, while (32b), in which the effect on the victim is not nec­
essarily serious, is unacceptable:

(32) a. I robbed him o f his pride/his livelihood/his nationality,

b. *1 robbed him o f his m oney/a lock o f his hair.

Steal, on the other hand, does not require any effect on the victim.

(33) 1 stole a penny/m oney/a lock o f his hair from him.

Steal focuses on the fact that the stolen goods are not legitim ately the thief’s
property, rather than the fact that they are actually som eone else's. The victim
is often left vague or unknown:

(34) He stole jew els for a living.

 The Interaction between Verbs an a Constructions 47

Pinker (1 9 8 9 :3 9 6 ) p rov id es an ex a m p le w hich e x p lo its this sem an tic d istin c ­

tion betw een rob and steal:

(35) “ S he could steal but she co u ld n o t ro b ” (T h e B eatles, “ S he C a m e in

through the B athroom W in d o w ” )

T his line plays on the fact that rob profiles the v ictim w hile steal p ro files the
stolen goods. A person c a p ab le o f stealin g , b u t not rob b in g , is d eem ed re la ­
tively less crim in al sin ce stealin g fo cu ses on the sto len g o o d s and not the
victim .
A n analo g o u s differen ce e x ists betw een the nom inal c o u n te rp a rts o f th ese
verbs, robbery and theft ( “ the a ct o f ste a lin g " ). R ob b ery is a m o re serio u s
o ffense than theft becau se it en tails th at the c rim e is c o m m itte d against so m e ­
one: the victim has to be p resen t.’ T h is is not true o f theft. T h e d ifferen ce is
exem plified in the follow ing:

(36) T hey charged her w ith * ro b b ery /th e ft for sh o p liftin g a ja c k e t.

(37) W ith an U zi, the d isg ru n tle d citiz e n co m m itte d m any ro b b e rie s/* m a n y
thefts.

Figure 23 sum s up grap h ically the d ifferen ces in se m a n tic s b etw een steal
and rob.

F ig u re 2.3

A D e e p e r E x p la n a tio n

1 have claim ed that the se m a n tic d ifferen ces betw een rob and steal are
eq u ivalent to a differen ce in profiling. A stro n g er sta tem en t w ould be to say
that the p rim ary distin ctio n is in the v erb s’ sem an tic fram es, and that this d is­
tinction underlies o r m o tiv ates the d ifferen ce in profiling. T h u s it m ig h t be
argued that the scen es asso ciate d w ith rob and steal are d istin g u ish e d by m o re
than a difference in profiling. O ne piece o f e v id en c e fo r this is the fact that the
target role o f steal is not req u ired to be a p erson at a ll— only a so u rc e — as we
m ight ex p ect given its sy n tactic en co d in g .
46 Chapter T w o

(38) He stole money from the safe.

T he same is not true o f rob:

(39) *He robbed the safe o f its contents.

We might distinguish rob and steal by distinguishing their sem antic frames,
and thus their participant roles, as follows:

rob < r o b b e r victim g o o d s>

steal < s tc a le r source g o o d s>

Participant roles such as “ victim ,” w hich imply direct affectedness by the ac­
tion denoted by the verb, are instances o f the more general role “ patient,”
which is a prim e candidate for profiled status across lexical items and across
languages. “ Source,” on the other hand, is rarely lexically profiled, although
occasional exam ples with apparent lexical profiling do exist, as is the case o f
depart. 10
There are certain generalizations about what types o f participants are gen­
erally profiled. In particular, participants which are instances of the more gen­
eral categories “ agent” or “ patient” tend to be the best candidates for profiled
status. C iting Greenfield and Smith (1976), C lark (1978) suggests that agent-
or patient-like entities are the m ost salient to children and are learned earliest:
“ M ost o f the object categories nam ed in children’s early vocabularies are sa­
lient or attractive to them for various reasons: they move on their own, can
move other objects, or can be m anipulated by children. Notice that they name
agents or m overs— people and a n im a ls.. . . They also name a variety o f sm all­
ish objects that are m ovable or can be m anipulated. . . . In contrast, children
hardly ever nam e places, instrum ents or goals” (1978:35). Fillm ore (1977b)
also discusses various attributes which tend to cause a participant to be
“ brought into perspective.” U nfortunately a full exploration o f the question o f
which participants tend to be profiled would take us too far afield o f the present
work, and I do not attem pt it here.

2 .4.2 Representing the M e an in g of Constructions

The Constructional Profiling of Argum ent Roles
Phrasal constructions, as well as lexical items, specify which roles are
profiled. C onstructional profiling occurs as follows:

Every argument role linked to a direct grammatical relation (SUBJ,

OBJ, or O BJ2) '' is constructionally profiled.
 The interaction betw een Verbs a n d Constructions 49

The definition o f constructional profiling em bodies the claim that direct gram ­
matical relations serve to distinguish certain argum ents sem antically and/or
pragmatically; that is, direct gram m atical functions profile particular roles as
being either sem antically salient or as having som e kind of discourse prom i­
nence, for instance, being particularly topical or focused (see Keenan 1976,
1984; Com rie 1984; Fillm ore 1977b; Langacker 1987a, 1991 for argum ents to
this effect). These gram m atical relations are distinguished in most theories as
the set of functions which are “ term s,” or w hich correspond to “ core,” “ nu­
clear," or “ direct" argum ents. Like profiled participant roles, profiled argu­
ment roles will be indicated by boldface.
It is important to note that the profiling o f participant roles discussed above
and the profiling o f argum ent roles are not o f the exact sam e kind. The criterion
for determ ining w hich o f a verb’s participant roles are profiled is that all and
only obligatorily expressed participant roles are profiled. The test for which of
a construction’s argum ent roles are profiled is different. In the case o f argum ent
roles, all and only roles w hich are expressed as direct gram m atical relations are
considered profiled.
Thus the ditransitive construction is associated with the sem antics ‘X cause

Y to rf . c e i v e Z ’, which will be represented as

CAUSE-RECEIVE < a g t rec p a t>

The semantics of the construction is expressed in term s o f a list o f roles simply

because this facilitates the statem ent o f the relation between constructional
roles and participant roles. However, it should be recognized that neither the
constructional roles nor the participant roles constitute an unstructured list of
atomic elements. Rather, roles are sem antically constrained relational slots in
the dynam ic scene associated with the construction or the verb (cf. Jackendoff
1983, 1987, 1990a; Foley & Van Valin 1984; R appaport& Levin 1988; Pinker
1989; Gropen et al. 1991; and Fillmore & Kay 1993 for argum ents that roles
are not primitives, but are derived from richer sem antic structures). Therefore
the particular labels that are used to identify these roles have no theoretical
significance.
Constructions must specify in which ways verbs will com bine with them;
they need to be able to constrain the class o f verbs that can be integrated with
them in various ways (to be discussed in follow ing chapters), and they must
also specify the way in which the event type designated by the verb is inte­
grated into the event type designated by the construction. These “ principles of
integration” between verbs and constructions w arrant som e discussion.
50 Chapter T w o

The Fusion of Participant Roles and Argument Roles

If a verb is a m em ber o f a verb class that is conventionally associated

with a construction, then the participant roles o f the verb may be semantically
fu s e d with argum ent roles o f the argum ent structure construction. The term
“ fusion” is borrow ed from Jackendoff (1990a), who uses it to designate the
com bining o f sem antic constraints on distinct but coindexed slots within a
given lexical entry. I am using the term som ew hat differently here, insofar as
fusion is m eant here to capture the sim ultaneous sem antic constraints on the
participant roles associated with the verb and the argum ent roles o f the con­
struction, as opposed to denoting fusion o f slots within a single lexical entry.
In addition, the possibility o f roles fusing is not determ ined by w hether a single
role filler can sim ultaneously fill both roles, but rather by whether the roles
them selves are o f com patible types.
W hich participant roles are fused with which argum ent roles is determined
by two principles:
1. The Sem antic Coherence Principle: Only roles which arc sem anti­
cally com patible can be fused. Tw o roles r, and r 2 are semantically com pat­
ible if either r, can be construed as an instance o f r 2, or r , can be construed
as an instance o f r , . For exam ple, the kicker participant o f the kick frame may
be fused with the agent role o f the ditransitive construction because the kicker
role can be construed as an instance o f the agent role. W hether a role can be
construed as an instance o f another role is determ ined by general categoriza­
tion principles.
2. The Correspondence Principle: Each participant role that is lexically
profiled and expressed m ust be fused with a profiled argum ent role o f the
construction.12 If a verb has three profiled participant roles, then one o f them
may be fused with a nonprofiled argum ent role o f a construction.13 For ex ­
am ple, the ditransitive construction can be represented as:

Ditransitive Construction

Sem CAUSE-RECEIVE < agt rec p at >

R -------- Fusion
R: instance, PRED < > of roles
means
f
Syn / SUBJ OBJ OBJ2

Figure 2.4
 The Interaction betw een Ve rbs a n d Constructions 51

The semantics associated directly with the construction is ‘CA U SE-REC EIV E
< a g t pat r e c > ’. PRED is a variable that is filled by the verb when a particular
verb is integrated into the construction. The construction specifies which roles
o f the construction are obligatorily fused with roles o f the verb; these are indi­
cated by a solid line between the argum ent roles and the verb’s participant role
array. Roles which are not obligatorily fused with roles o f the verb— that is,
roles which can be contributed by the construction— are indicated by a dashed
line. The construction also specifies the way in w hich the verb is integrated into
the construction— w hat type o f relation R can be (see section 2.5 for discus­
sion). Sometimes a specific relation, e.g., means or instances, replaces R in the
diagram s below.
Figure 2.4 shows a pairing between a semantic level and a syntactic level o f
grammatical functions. There is more to say about this linking pattern (cf.
chapter 4), but for the moment it is sim ply stated as a brute force stipulation.
The typical case is one in which the participant roles associated with the verb
can be put in a one-to-one correspondence with the argum ent roles associated
with the construction. In this case, the constructional m eaning is entirely re­
dundant with the verb’s m eaning and the verb m erely adds inform ation to the
event designated by the construction. For exam ple, the verb hand is associated
with three profiled participants: hander, handee, handed. The particular la­
bels of these roles are of no theoretical significance; they are only intended to
identify particular participants in the verb’s frame sem antics.
The three profiled participants o f hand can be put in a one-to-one correspon­
dence with the profiled argum ent roles o f the ditransitive construction:

Composite Fused Structure: Diransiiive + hand

Sem CAUSE-RECEIVE < agl rec pat >

R I I I
R: instance, HAND < hander handee handed >
means

Syn V SUBJ OBJ OBJ,

Figure 2.5

The com posite structure corresponds to w hat is traditionally taken to be an

additional or derived lexical m eaning o f the main verb. On the present ac­
count, however, the com posite structure is just that, a com posite structure. A l­
lowing for the constraints specified by individual constructions (which are dis­
52 C hapter Tw o

cussed in som e detail in chapters 6 - 9 ) , new com posite structures can be freely
constructed.

2 .4.3 Mism atches of Roles

Profiling Mismatches

The caused-m otion construction is instantiated by expressions such

as (40):

(40) Joe squeezed the rubber ball inside the jar.

It can be represented as follows:

Caused-Motion Construction

Sem CAUSE-MOVK < cause goal them e >

lR
R: instance, PRED
means

Syn V SUBJ OBL OBJ

Figure 2.6

Explicit argum ents that a construction is required for this case are given in
chapter 7.
The participant roles o f put are fused with the argum ent roles o f the caused-
motion construction as follows:

Composite Fused Structure: Caused-M otion + pul

Sem CAUSE-MOVE < cause goal them e >

I
PUT
I i I
< p u tte r put.place puttee >

I I I
Syn V SUBJ OBL OBJ

Figure 2.7

In this case, the caused-m otion construction’s cause argum ent fuses with the
“ putter” role of put, since a putter is a type of cause. The theme argument
fuses with the “ puttee,” or put-thing, role o f pul, since the roles o f theme and
 The If ii i-raction betw een Verbs a n d C onstructions 53

put-thing are com patible. The goal (or perhaps more generally, location) argu­
ment fuses with the “ put.place” role because the "put.place" role is a type
of goal.
The goal argument role of the caused-m otion construction is not profiled (we
can tell because it is linked to an oblique function), although the “ put.to” role
is (we can tell because it’s obligatory). The C orrespondence Principle allows
for one participant role to be linked to a nonprofiled argum ent role in cases in
which the verb lexically profiles three participant roles. This allow s the pro­
filed participant role “ put.to” to be fused with the nonprofiled argum ent role
“goal.”
The integration o f m ail and the ditransitive construction is an opposite case.
M ail has three participant roles, two of which are lexically profiled:

send < m a ller mailed m ailee>

Thus m ail differs from hand in that only two o f its participant roles are
obligatory:

(41) a. Paul mailed a letter,

b. *Paul handed a letter.

When m ail integrated with the ditransitive construction, the construction im ­

poses a profiled status on the “ sendee” role:

Composite Fused Structure: Dilransitive + mail:

Sem C A U S E - R E C E IV E < agt rec p al >

lR I I I
R: instance MAIL < m ailer mailee m ailed >

Syn V SUBJ OBJ O BJ;

Figure 2.8

In general, if a verb’s participant role is fused with a profiled argum ent role,
the participant role inherits the profiled status.

Mismatches in the Number of Roles

Notice that the Correspondence Principle is stated only in one direc­
tion: The profiled participant roles must be fused with profiled argum ent roles
(except in the case of three profiled participant roles); that is, all profiled par­
ticipant roles must be accounted for by the construction. However, it is not
54 Chapter T w o

necessary that each argum ent role of the construction correspond to a partici­
pant o f the verb. As is argued in more detail in chapters 7 - 9 , the construction
can add roles not contributed by the verb.
For exam ple, the participants o f kick are kicker and kicked, and the argu­
ments o f the ditransitive construction arc agent, patient, recipient. The ditran­
sitive construction therefore contributes a recipient role not associated with a
participant role o f the verb. The roles are fused as follows:

Composite Structure: Ditransitive + kick:

Sem CAUSE-RECEIVE < agt rec p at >

|r I I I
R: means KJCK < kicker kicked >

,,
Syn V SUBJ OBJ OBJ,

Figure 2.9

The participant roles cannot fuse with the argum ent roles in any other way
because o f the Sem antic Coherence Principle. The kicker role can only fuse
with the agent role, because the agent role is the only role it is semantically
com patible with. A kicker is neither a type o f recipient nor a patient. The
kicked role is an instance o f the patient role but not an instance o f the recipient
ro le.'4 Crucially, the recipient role is contributed by the construction. This
structure yields sentences like (42):
(42) Joe kicked Bill the ball.
O ther cases we have seen work similarly. Sneeze, for example, has a single
profiled participant role, a sneezer. It integrates with the caused-motion con­
struction as follows:

Composite Structure: Caused-Motion + sneeze:

Sem CAUSE-MOVE < causc goal them e >

1 R: means
I*
SNEEZE
I
< sneezer
S I >

-
Syn V SUBJ OBL OBJ

Figure 2.10
 The Interaction betw een Verbs a n d Constructions 55

The com posite fused structure licenses expressions such as (43):

(43) He sneezed the napkin off the table.

O ther cases in which constructions contribute roles which do not correspond

to participant roles associated directly to the verbs include constructions and
verbs exemplified by the following:

(44) "M y father fro w n ed away the com plim ent and the insult.” (Stephen
McCauley, Easy Way Out, 1993)
(45) "Sharon was exactly the sort o f person w ho’d intim idate him into a
panic.” (Stephen McCauley, Easy Way Out, 1993)
(46) "1 cannot inhabit his mind nor even im agine my way through the dark
labyrinth o f its distortion." (Oxford University Press corpus)
(47) Pauline sm iled her thanks. (Levin & R apoport 1988)
(48) The truck rum bled down the street. (Levin & Rappaport 1990b)

Other Kinds of Mismatches

In all the cases considered so far, the participant roles have been indepen­
dently classifiable as instances o f more general argum ent roles. However, in
other cases, this is not so. For exam ple, consider the verb send when integrated
into the ditransitive construction. It is assum ed that the same sense o f sen d is
involved in both (49) and (50):
(49) Joe sem Chicago a letter.
(50) Joe sent a letter to Chicago.

The difference in sem antics, namely that in (49) Chicago is necessarily con­
strued as standing m etonym ically for certain people in Chicago, is attributed
to an effect of the ditransitive construction, since the construction im poses the
constraint that the “ send.goal” role must be a recipient, and therefore animate.
The integration of send into the ditransitive construction is represented
below:

Composite Fused Structure: Ditransitive + send:

Sem CAUSE-RECEIVE < agt rec pat >

lR I i I
R: instance SEND < sender send.goal sent >

Syn SUBJ OBJ O BJ2

Figure 2.11
56 C hap ter Tw o

Recall that the Sem antic Coherence Principle was stated as follows: two roles
are sem antically com patible iff one role can be construed as an instance o f the
other. The send goal role can be construed as a type o f recipient even though it
is not necessarily a recipient in and o f itself.

Distinct Verb Senses

O ccasionally verbs have distinct senses which are system atically related
by a difference as to which participant roles are profiled. For example, lease
and rent can occur with either the tenant or the landlord profiled, in addition to
the property being profiled:

(51) a. C ecile leased the apartm ent from Ernest, (tenant, property)
b. Ernest leased the apartm ent to Cecile. (landlord, property)
(52) a. C ecile rented the apartm ent from Ernest, (tenant, property)
b. Ernest rented the apartm ent to Cecile. (landlord, property)

It might be tem pting to think that we could analyze these cases along the lines
o f the other cases discussed above: we could try to underspecify the meaning
o f the verb and allow the particular constructions to impose a profiled status on
particular roles. In particular, we might try to postulate a single sense of lease
with the property role as the only lexically profiled participant role. However,
our test for profiled participant roles is that all and only roles which are obliga­
torily expressed in finite sentences arc profiled. Given this test, it is not possible
to sim ply say that lease only has one profiled role, the property, because the
verb cannot occur wilh only the property role:

(53) *The property leased.

Therefore, to account for these eases, we posit two distinct senses o f the verb:

lease, < te n a n t property landlord>

lease, C tenant property lan d lord >

A lthough I have generally tried to avoid positing additional verb senses to

account for each possible syntactic pattern, I do not rule out the possibility
that som e alternations must be accounted for by postulating distinct but re­
lated verb senses. It should be borne in mind that what we have here is an
instance of polysemy, not homonymy, because o f the fact that the two senses
share the same background sem antic frame. They only differ in which roles
are profiled.

2 .4.4 Unexpressed Profiled Participant Roles

The specific conditions under which a profiled participant role may fail
to be expressed are: ( I ) the verb occurs in a construction which specifically
 The interaction betw een Verbs a n d Constructions 57

shades, cuts, or m erges the role, or (2) the verb lexically specifies that the role
may be unexpressed with a definite interpretation. These topics in them selves
could be the subject of a monograph; I do not claim to do them justice here,
but I will discuss them briefly in this section.

Shading. The term "shading” is intended to evoke the m etaphor su g ­

gested by Fisher et al. (1991), that profiling is in som e ways analogous to a
movie cam era focusing on certain participants. Shading denotes a process
whereby a particular participant is “ put in the shadow s,” and thus no longer
profiled. The passive construction serves to shade the highest ranked partici­
pant role associated with the verb. Shading m ight as well have been term ed
“ dcprofiling,” except that it is not necessary that the shaded participant is o th­
erw ise lexically profiled. Shading is analogous to the suppression o f argum ents
in GB and LFG, although these theories do not make any claim s about the
sem antic/pragm atic effects o f passive. A shaded participant may be expressed
by an adjunct. The statem ent o f the passive requires reference to a them atic
hierarchy, versions of which have been proposed, for exam ple, by Fillm ore
(1968), Jackendoff (1972), Kiparsky (1987), and G rim shaw (1990). T he fol­
lowing hierarchy is assumed:
agent, cause > recipient, experiencer > instrum ent > patient, them e >
location, source, goal
The roles expressed by the hierarchy are argum ent roles, or role types in the
sense of Dowty 1986. That is, they are more general than the verb-specific
participant roles. Since participant roles are typically instances o f one o f these
roles, the hierarchy serves to define a p artial ordering o f all roles. For exam ple,
the “ hitter” role is higher on the hierarchy than the “ hittee" role. But the fact
that the ordering is partial means that not all roles are ordered with respect to
each other. Passive applies only to verbs which are associated with two or more
roles, one o f which is higher than the others.

Passive

role, role2 (ro lej)

I
Deprofile
r o le ,> role„ n * l |
_________________ 1
Figure 2.12

Cutting. The term “cutting” is intended to invoke the notion o f a direc­

tor cutting one o f the participants out o f the picture. Stative constructions in
58 Chapter Tw o

Bantu (M chom bo 1992), impersonal passive constructions in German, and the

middle construction in English serve to cut a profiled participant. The differ­
ence between a shaded participant role and a cut participant role is that the
latter cannot be expressed. For exam ple, the agent role is cut in the English
middle construction:

(54) *This bread cuts easily by Sarah.

R ole m erging. Reflexive constructions, for instance in Romance, serve

to m erge one participant role with another. The merged participant roles are
fused with a single argum ent role, and are then linked with a single gram m ati­
cal function.15

Null com plem ents. Fillm ore (1986) distinguishes two distinct ways in
which verbs may lexically specify that a certain participant role can fail to be
expressed. In the first type o f case, the unexpressed role receives an indefinite
interpretation; the referent’s identity is either unknown or irrelevant. These are
indefinite null com plem ents. For exam ple, the objects o f eat and drink are not
expressed in (53), and their referents’ identities— that is, w hat was eaten or
dru n k — are irrelevant.16

(55) After the operation to clear her esophagus, Pat ate and drank all evening.

The unexpressed source role in the following is similar:

(56) Chris drove across the country.

W hile it is entailed that Chris drove from som ew here, the identity of the source
need not be recoverable by either speaker or hearer; it is left indefinite. A
sim ilar case involving an unexpressed path argum ent is given in (57):

(57) She ran for two hours.

Since the unexpressed role in each o f these exam ples has no special prom i­
nence and is nonsalient, these are clear cases o f nonprofiled roles. That is, the
food and drink participants o f eat and drink, respectively, are participant roles
but are not lexically profiled. T he same is true o f the source (and goal and path)
roles o f drive and run.
The second type o f unexpressed com plem ent discussed by Fillmore is differ­
ent: the referent’s identity in this case m ust be recoverable from context. This
is the definite null com plem ent. Exam ples o f this type include the following
(the square brackets are used to indicate where the absent role would normally
be expressed):
 The Interaction betw een Verbs a n d Constructions 59

(58) a. Chris blamed Pat [ ].

b. Lee found out [ ].
c. Jo won [ ]!

Only in contexts in which both speaker and hearer can be expected to be able
to recover the unexpressed argum ents are these cases Felicitous; it is in this
sense that they are definite null com plem ents. Since the contextual constraint
ensures that the participant role in question is accessed and salient (in order to
be identified), the definite null com plem ent is considered profiled.
Fillmore provides a test to distinguish the two types o f unexpressed roles.
He notes that while it is perfectly acceptable for a speaker to adm it ignorance
of the identity of a m issing indefinite argum ent, it sounds odd for a speaker to
admit ignorance of a m issing definite com plem ent:

(59) a. He found out! #1 wonder what he found out. (definite null

com plem ent)
b. He was running. I w onder where he was running to. (indefinite null
com plem ent)

Fillmore observes that in English, w hether a verb allows an argum ent to be un­
expressed with a definite interpretation is a lexical specification. T his assum p­
tion is necessary in order to account for distinctions o f the follow ing k in d :17

(60) (Why did you marry her?)

Because M other insisted/*required/*dem anded. (1 9 8 6 :9 8 )

Only insist allows a definite null com plem ent; the closely related require and
dem and do not. Ai the same time, many other languages, including Japanese,
Korean, and Hungarian, allow definite null argum ents freely. In these lan­
guages, often only the verb is overtly expressed: all o f the verb’s participants
may receive a definite interpretation in context. Below, profiled definite om is­
sible participant roles will be represented by the role nam e in boldface su r­
rounded by square brackets: [role].
To sum m arize, there are several ways in which profiled participant roles can
be accounted for w ithout being overtly expressed. The verb may occur in a
construction which specifically shades, cuts, or merges a certain role or. in
languages like English, the verb may lexically designate that a particular role
may be unexpressed if it receives a definite interpretation.

2.5 P o s s ib l e R e l a t io n s betw een V erbs a n d C o n s t r u c t io n s

On a constructional approach to argum ent structure, in w hich the sem an-

ics of the verb classes and the sem antics o f the constructions are integrated to
60 Chapter T w o

yield the sem antics o f particular expressions, the question arises as to what
range o f verb classes can be associated with a given construction.
C ould any verb class in principle be conventionally associated with a par­
ticular construction?18 For exam ple, if we accept that the ditransitive construc­
tion is directly associated with a particular semantics, roughly, ‘X causes Y to
r e c e iv ) Z ', then why would it not be possible in principle for, say verbs of
mood like sadden, anger, regret to be used with the ditransitive construction
as in (61) to imply the resulting em otional state?

(61) *Joe angered Bob the pink slip.

( “ Joe gave Bob a pink slip, causing Bob to become angry.’’)

O bviously we w ant to rule out such a possibility.

In order to circum scribe the possible types o f verb classes that can be as­
sociated with particular constructions, we need to exam ine more closely the
types o f relations that the verb’s sem antics may bear to the sem antics of the
construction.
Com m only, the event type designated by the verb is an instance o f the more
general event type designated by the construction. For exam ple, consider the
use o f hand in (62):

(62) She handed him the ball.

H and lexically designates a type o f transfer event; at the same time, transfer is
the sem antics associated with the ditransitive construction. A nother example
of this kind is put, used as in (63):

(63) She put the phone on the desk.

Put lexically designates a type of caused-m otion event, and caused motion is
of course the sem antics associated with the caused-m otion construction.
O ther system atic relations between verbs and constructional meanings have
been discussed under the heading o f “ conflation patterns” (Talmy 1985a). In
our term s, conflation patterns correspond to m ism atches between the semantics
o f the verb and the sem antics designated by the construction. The mismatches
can be o f several types.
As had been implicit in much o f the generative sem antics literature (e.g.,
Lakoff 1965; M cCawlcy 1973) and has more recently been recognized by
Talmy (1985), Levin and Rapoport (1988), and Jackendoff (1990a), verbs
w hich do not directly denote the m eaning associated with the construction of­
ten denote the m eans by w hich the action is perform ed. T his is the relation that
verbs of ballistic motion bear to the m eaning o f the ditransitive construction.
For exam ple, in (64) kicking is the means by which transfer is effected.
 The Interaction betw een Verbs a n d Constructions 61

(64) Joe kicked Bob the ball.

( “Joe caused Bob to receive the ball by kicking it.” )

In the case of causative constructions, the verb designates the result associ­
ated with the construction. The construction supplies an agent argum ent which
does not fuse with any of the participant roles associated with the verb. For
example, consider the Chichewa causative m orphem e its in (65) (from A lsina
& M chom bo 1990):

(65) N'ungu i-na-phik its-a maungu kwtf kidzldzi.

9 porcupine 9s-ps-cook-CAUSE-fv 6 p u m p k in s to 1 ow l.
'T he porcupine had the pum pkins cooked by the ow l.'

Alsina (1993) analyzes this morphem e as having the following sem antic
representation:

(66) CAUSE < a g t pat PRED < . . . »

The causative morpheme is thus a construction, into which the verb’s sem antics
(represented by PRED) integrates. This m oiphological construction is quite
analogous semantically to the lexically unfilled English constructions that
have been discussed so far. T he verb stem and the causative m orphem e must
integrate, just as the English verb must integrate into the various English
constructions.

The Causal Relation Hypothesis

Croft (1991) proposes a general constraint on possible conflation pat­
terns. He suggests that “ individual lexical items appear to denote only causally
linked events” (p. 160) (see also M atsum oto 1991 for discussion o f the cen ­
trality of causality in this respect). To illustrate his point, Croft cites the follow ­
ing exam ple adapted from Talmy (1985a):

(67) The boat sailed into the cave.

He argues that the sailing m anner and the implication o f motion can only be
conflated if the activity o f sailing causes the motion. That is, the follow ing is
unacceptable:

(68) *The boat burned into the cave.

Example (68) cannot mean that the boat entered the cave while b urning.1'’
C roft’s claim can be restated in term s of the present account in the follow-
ng way:
62 Chapter T w o

Causal Relation Hypothesis: The meaning designated by the verb and

the meaning designated by the construction must be integrated via a
(temporally contiguous) causal relationship.

Evidence supporting C roft's claim com es from the distribution of verbs of

sound em ission w ith constructions that designate motion. Such verbs can be
used freely when the sound is a result o f the motion and occurs sim ultaneously
with the motion:

(69) a. The wooden-legged man clum ped into the room.

b. The train screeched into the station.
c. The fly buzzed out o f the window.
d. The truck rumbled down the street. (Levin & Rappaport 1990b)
e. The elevator creaked up three flights.

For instance, the clum ping noise of (69a) is a result o f the man’s moving. For
m ost speakers verbs o f sound em ission cannot be used for coincidentally co­
occurring (or characteristic) sounds, where no causal relationship is involved:

(70) a. *The bird chirped out o f the cage.

b. *The dog barked into the room.
c. *The rooster crowed out of the barn.
d. *The man laughed out o f the room.

However, Croft's claim is not sufficient to account for all cases. This brings us
to the following section.

Violations of the Causal Relation Hypothesis

T here are several types o f violations of the Causal Relation Hypothesis
that are allowed by particular constructions. The construction exemplified by
(71) allow s verbs which designate events not causally related, at least to a lim ­
ited extent (cf. chapter 9).

( 7 1) She kicked her way out of the room.

For exam ple, the follow ing exam ples from the O xford University Press corpus
involve only the m anner o f m otion, not the m eans o f motion (cf. Levin &
R apoport 1988; Jackendoff 1990a):10

(72) a. “ ‘I knitted my way across the A tlantic,’ he reveals.”

b. “ . . . w ithout a party to go to, he nods and winks his way through the
set cram m ed with seaside sing-alongs.”
c. . . [anyone] watching would have thought he was scowling his way
along the fiction shelves in pursuit o f a book.”
 The Interaction be tw e en Verbs a n d Constructions 63

Interestingly, the way construction tends to be used with pure m anner verbs
only when the manner is particularly salient and em phasized. This is reflected
in the fact that, not uncom monly, m anner cases involve two or three conjoined
verbs, as in exam ple (72b).
Returning to verbs o f sound em ission again, it seem s that they can m argin­
ally be used in the motion construction when the verbs do not designate a sound
resulting from the motion. In particular, if the sound is the m eans of identifying
the path o f motion, the expressions seem at least m arginally acceptable:

(73) a. ?The police car scream ed down the street,

b. ?Thc train whistled into the station.

The conative construction exemplified by (74) also perm its exceptions to the
Causal Relations Hypothesis:

(74) a. Ethel struck at Fred,

b. Ethel shot at Fred.

In this case the verb designates the intended result o f the act denoted by the
construction. The sem antics of the construction can be represented roughly as
‘X d ir e c t s a c t io n at Y ’. T hat is, Ethel does not necessarily strike Fred, but
striking him is the intended result o f the directed action. The construction can
be represented as follows:

Conative Construction

Sem D1RECT-ACTION-AT < agl theme >

R: intended
lR
PRED <
I I >
result + motion
+ contact
I
Syn V

Figure 2.13

The fact that a verb that is related to the construction by the intended-result
relation m ust be (+ motion, + contact] serves to allow verbs such as shoot, hit,
kick, and cut, w hile correctly ruling out verbs such as *m ove (no contact) and
*touch (no motion) (Guerssel et al. 1985; Laughren 1988). This constraint is
captured by restricting the class o f verbs which can instantiate PRED when the
R-rclation is one of intended result.
64 Chapter T w o

T his representation allow s us to assim ilate expressions such as (74a, b)

above to other related expressions, for instance those in (75):

(75) a. Fred looked at Ethel,

b- Ethel aimed at Fred.

Look and aim are not [ + motion, + contact] verbs,21 and yet they bear an obvi­
ous sim ilarity to the cases above. They differ from these earlier cases in that
now the verb’s sem antics is an instance o f the semantics o f the construction.
T hat is, ‘look' and ‘aim ’ are instances of ‘D IR ECT-A C TIO N -A T’. For ex­
am ple, aim fuses with the conative construction as follows:

Composite Structure: Conalive + aim

Sem DIRECT-ACTION-AT < agt theme >

lR 1 1
R: instance AIM < a im e r target >
1 1 1
Syn V SUBJ OBL..J,-.

Figure 2.14

T he m eaning o f the construction rem ains constant, regardless o f whether the

verb designates an instance or the caused result; it is the relation between the
m eaning o f the verb and the m eaning o f the construction— the R -relation—
which is different. Particular R-relations m ust be able to refer to classes o f
verbs in order to capture the [ + motion, + contact] constraint. The conalive
construction can be represented as follows:

Conative Construction

Sem DIRKCT-ACTION-AT < agt theme >

|r I |
R: instance, PRED < >
intended
result [+ motion
+ contact] u ir i'
Syn V SUBJ O BL-a, ••

Figure 2.15
 The Inter.icnon betw een Verbs a n d Constructions 65

Verbs may also code particular preconditions associated with the sem antics
of the construction. For exam ple, creation verbs designate an act of creation,
which is a precondition for transfer. C onsider (76):

(76) Sally baked Harry a cake.

This sentence does not entail that the baking itself was causally related to the
transfer. The baking does not cause the transfer, and the transfer does not cause
the baking. However, the creation o f the cake is a necessary precondition of the
transfer.
An im portant question is, why should these relations be privileged? W hy
should means, preconditions, and to a lesser extent, the m anner involved in an
event be more likely candidates for use in a construction w hich im plies the
entire event than, say, the mood o f one o f the participants?
This deeper question is difficult to answer, but if we consider certain verbs’
inherent sem antics to bear a m etonym ic relationship to the sem antics of the
construction, we may find a partial explanation. The sem antics associated with
the construction defines a sem antic frame, and the verb m ust inherently desig­
nate a particular salient aspect o f that frame.

The Fusion of Roles

M atsumoto (1991) notes that when two verbs are com bined to form a
com plex motion predicate in Japanese, they must share at least one role. He
labels this constraint the Shared Participant Condition. In our term s, this con­
straint can be translated into the claim that at least one participant role and
argument role m ust be fused; thus not all o f the argum ent roles can be contrib­
uted by the construction.

Summary of the Relations between Verb Semantics and

Construction Semantics

Let e c be the event type designated by the construction, and e , the event
type designated by the verb.
I. e , must be related to e c in one o f the following ways:
A. e y may be a subtype o f ec
B. e v may designate the means o f e c
C. e , may designate the result of et
D. e v may designate a precondition o f e c
F.. To a very limited extent, e v may designate the m anner of e c, the
means o f identifying ec, or the intended result of ec
II. e c a n d e , must share at least one participant (M atsum oto 199I).22
66 C hapter T w o

D o all o f the possible relations in (I) have equal status? Clearly not. That e v
may be a subtype o f e c is prototypical and universal. The possibility that c. may
code the means o f cc seems to be a language-specific parameter: English,
D utch, and C hinese allow this relation; Rom ance. Semitic, and Polynesian
languages apparently do not (Talmy 1985a). O ther relations, for exam ple that
e w may designate the precondition, manner, or result o f e t , are construction
specific.
The result o f integrating the verb with the construction must be an event type
(E) that is itself construable as a single event. That is, only a single event can
be expressed by a single clausc. Some of the constraints on exactly what this
entails are discussed in chapters 7 and 8.

2.6 C o n c l u s io n

In this chapter, I have attem pted to argue for som e o f the basic claims
underlying this m onograph, and have laid out some o f the m achinery needed
to make these claim s precise. Follow ing the discussion in chaplcr 1, where it
was argued that constructional m eaning exists independently o f verb meaning,
the type o f sem antics associated with verbs and constructions has been dis-
cusscd in more detail.
Verbs and other lexical item s have been argued to be associated with rich
fram e-sem antic knowledge. Basic sentence-level constructions, or argument
structure constructions, have been argued to designate scencs which are in
som e sense basic to human experience (cf. also Fillm ore 1968, Langacker
1991). That is, it is claim ed that the set o f basic clause types o f a language are
used to encode general event types such as those denoting that someone did
som ething to som eone, som ething moved, som eone caused som ething to
change stale, som eone experienced som ething, som eone possessed something,
and so forth. Evidence for the idea that these event types have a privileged
status com es from certain language acquisition facts noticed by Clark (1978),
Slobin (1985), and Bow erm an (1989).
in addition it has been argued that these basic senses are extended in various
ways so that particular syntactic frames are associated with a family of related
m eanings. This idea has been explicitly contrasted with the idea that the se­
m antics associated with a construction is ultimately generalized, or that it is
abstracted to a single m ore general sense.
Finally, constraints on the types o f potential relations between verbs and
constructions have been suggested, extending observations by Talmy (1985a),
C roft (1991), and M atsum oto (1991).
3 Relations among Constructions

The repertoire o f constructions is not an unstructured set. There are sys­

tematic generalizations across constructions. In this chapter, several organi­
zational principles are discussed and applied to the constructions analyzed in
this work. It is argued that constructions form a network and are linked by
inheritance relations w hich motivate many o f the properties o f particular co n ­
structions. T he inheritance network lets us capture generalizations across con­
structions w hile at the sam e lim e allow ing for subregularities and exceptions.
Before explicating the nature of the relations between the constructions we
have looked at, it is im portant to describe the general psychological principles
of language organization that will be assumed.

3.1 R e l e v a n t P s y c h o l o g ic a l P r in c ip l e s of La n g u a g e O r g a n iz a t io n

Each o f the following principles is stated in term s o f constructions, since

constructions are the basic units in our system. All o f these principles have
direct analogues in various functionalist frameworks.
I. The Principle o f M axim ized M otivation: If construction A is related to
construction B syntactically, then the system o f construction A is m oti­
vated to the degree that it is related to construction B sem antically (cf.
Haiman 1985a; Lakoff 1987). Such m otivation is maximized.
II. The Principle o f No Synonymy: If two constructions are syntactically
distinct, they musi be sem antically or pragm atically distinct (cf. Bolin-
ger 1968; Haim an 1985a; Clark 1987; M acW hinney 1989). Pragm atic
aspects of constructions involve particulars o f inform ation structure, in­
cluding topic and focus, and additionally stylistic aspects o f the co n ­
struction such as register (cf. discussion in section 1.1).
Corollary A: If two constructions are syntactically distinct
and S(em antically)-synonym ous. then they must not be
P(ragm atically)-synonym ous.
Corollary B: If two constructions are syntactically distinct
and P-synonym ous, then they must not be S-synonym ous.
III. The Principle o f M axim ized Expressive Power: The inventory o f con­
structions is m axim ized for com m unicative purposes.
IV. The Principle o f M axim ized Economy: The num ber of distinct construc-

67
68 C hapter Three

tions is m axim ized as much as possible, given Principle III (Haiman

1985a).
In support o f these principles, consider the analogy Haiman (1985a) pro­
poses between the form of a language and a diagram such as map or a musical
score. Haiman suggests that w hile a map dcpicts geography and a musical
score depicts a melody, language depicts our construal of reality.
There are several relevant facts about diagram s. Haiman notes that in an
ideal diagram , every point should correspond to some point in the reality being
depicted. He refers to this property as isomorphism, which also seems to imply
that every point in the geography or in the melody corresponds to a unique
point on the map or musical score, respectively. Moreover, every relation be­
tween two points on a diagram should correspond to a relationship between
points in reality. This second property is referred to as motivation. Haiman
notes that w orking against strict adherence to these two properties is the fact
that diagram s are designed to sim plify: they only need to represent, not repro­
duce. For exam ple, a map does not show all o f the details o f the territory being
represented and a musical score diagram does not uniquely determ ine the way
the music is to be played. Moreover, diagram s often contain certain distortions:
G reenland is represented loo largely in most maps, and a low note in treble clef
notation is higher than a high note in bass clef.
However, the general principles o f isom orphism and motivation arc ob­
served to a large degree: each point o f a map corresponds roughly to one point
in the world, each representation o f a musical note corresponds to only one
pilch most o f the lime. Also, Ihe distance between two points on the map is
generally greater when the corresponding distance in the world is greater;
within the sam e clef, higher notes are higher than lower notes.
T he analogy to natural language runs as follows. T he principle of iso­
m orphism covers two aspects. On the one hand, differences in form imply d if­
ferences in m eaning (or pragm atics), as dem anded by the Principle of No
Synonym y (cf. section 1.1). Haiman attributes this principle to H um boldt, Ven-
dryes, O gden, and R ichards, and it has been echoed more recently by. among
others, B olinger 1968, Clark 1987, and M acW hinney 1989. Conversely, a dif­
ference in m eaning or pragm atics should lead to a difference in form, in accor­
dance with w hat we have called above the Principle o f M aximized Expressive
Power.
Noting a need for sim plification, H aim an allows for derivations from iso­
m orphism . He suggests that deviations from this rule in natural languages oc­
cur in cases o f polysem y and homonymy, but that such exceptions can be
attributed to a general need for sim plification, just as in the case o f diagrams.
This observation is captured by the Principle of M aximized Economy.
 Relations a m o n g Constructions 69

Therefore, while the Principle o f M axim ized Econom y w orks lo constrain

the multitude of constructions, the Principle o f M axim ized Expressive Power
works in the opposite direction, creating the tendency for more distinct form s;
that is, a maximally expressive system w ould have a distinct label for every
distinct item in the user’s world. These two principles mutually constrain each
other.
With one possible exception, all of the functional principles listed above are
widely assumed and are sufficiently intuitive so that a more extended defense
o f them is not attem pted here. The one principle which is som ew hat less widely
adopted within linguistics is the Principle of M axim ized M otivation. Since this
principle plays an important role in the discussion of the relations between
constructions, it is w orthwhile discussing it in m ore detail.

3.2 M o t iv a t io n

The term “ m otivation” was introduced into linguistics by Saussure. In

the Cours he provides the exam ple o f d ix -n e u f'nineteen’, noting that w hile the
parts of this word are arbitrary signs, the com plex taken as a w hole is m oti­
vated. It is clear that it is not predictable that d ix-n eu f should take the form it
does. A unique m orphem e could have been introduced to signify the concept
‘nineteen’, or n eu f-d ixcould have been used. Still, there is an obvious sense in
which the term is not arbitrary.
Motivation in this sense lies between predictability and arbitrariness. In an
intuitive sense, it often constitutes explanation. If a (som ew hat hapless) French
child were to ask, “ Why is this many [pointing to nineteen things] referred to
by ' d ix -n e u f'T ' a natural response would be to point out that n e u f means ‘n in e’
and dix means ‘ten’ and that nine plus teen is nineteen.
Haiman argues that making generalizations and sim plifications is a neces­
sary function of language, because it would be im possible in our finite world,
with our finite m em ories, to have distinct nam es for the infinite num ber of
actual distinctions in the world. Rather than recognizing an infinity o f sounds
and concepts, human language recognizes a finite inventory of phonem es and
morphemes. In order to reveal the im portance of motivation in gram m ar, H ai­
man recounts J. L. B orges’s tale o f “ Funes the M em orious" (1962). B orges’s
hero, Funes. has undergone an accident that has left him with a perfect memory.
Funes can rem em ber "the outlines o f the foam raised by an oar in the Rio
Negro the night before the Q uebracho uprising.” Since he has a perfect m em ­
ory, he devises his own language, in which every sense experience and every
concept he recognizes is given a separate name: “ It bothered him that a dog at
3:14 (seen from the side) should have the sam e name as the dog at 3:15 (seen
from the front)." Funes scorns the use of m nemonic classification: “ In place of
70 Chapter Three

7,013, he would say M axim o Perez; in place o f 7,014, he would say. The rail­
road; . . . in place o f five hundred, he would say nine."
By rejecting principles of organization, Funes's language is not motivated.
Every difference is a com plete difference; there is no motivation to code gen­
eralizations and sim ilarities. It is adm ittedly often not predictable which gen­
eralizations or sim ilarities a language will encode; however, unless the ne­
cessity o f motivation in a gram m ar is recognized, we cannot account for the
fact that F unes’s language is an inconceivable human language.
L angacker (1987a) has also stressed the im portance o f a notion between
predictability and arbitrariness. He notes that our inability to predict what pat­
tern a language uses does not entail that the choice has no semantic basis. For
exam ple, he observes that w hile the fact that scissors, pants, glasses, and bin­
oculars have the form o f plurals is not predictable from their designations, it is
nonetheless motivated by the bipartite character o f the type o f object the words
designate (1987a: 47).
L akoff (1987) suggests a precise definition for the term “ motivation” in
gramm ar. A given construction is m otivated to the degree that its structure is
inherited from other constructions in the language. On Lakoff's (1987) account
o f f/iere-constructions, the “ based-on” relation is o f central importance. It is
said to be an asym m etric inheritance relation, so that if construction A is based
on construction B, then A inherits all o f B's properties that do not specifically
conflict with its own specifications. Lakoff suggests that the more the proper­
ties o f a given category are redundant, the more it is motivated and the better it
fits into the system as a whole. An optim al system is a system that maximizes
m otivation. There may be many optim al gram m ars since motivation can be
m axim ized in many ways.
R esearchers in child language acquisition are also arguing against the idea
of a strict dichotom y between predictability and arbitrariness. M ore and more
they are advocating learning m echanism s in which there is no sharp division
between obligatory rules and probabilistic tendencies (e.g.. Bates & Muc-
W hinney 1987; M acW hinney 1989. 1991; Pinker 1987).
Evidence that a relation in form aids in the acquisition of concepts which are
related in m eaning com es from studies o f children’s learning o f taxonomic re­
lations. G elm an, W ilcox, and C lark (1989) have shown that children learn the
nam es o f subordinate term s more easily when those term s are com pounded
with basic level term s that the child already knows. For exam ple, children were
m ore likely to learn the nam e for a new type o f car when it was called a fep -
ca r than when it was sim ply called a fep. This finding is not obvious, since it
would seem on the face of it that a child would have to learn more in learning
the com pound term than in learning the uncom pounded novel term. However,
 Relancns amona Consrnjaions 7I

when motivation is taken into account as an aide in learning, the findings can
be seen to be natural. Children learn new term s for concepts which are related
to other, already familiar concepts more easily w hen the new term s are syste­
matically related to the term s for the fam iliar concepts.1
A recognition o f the importance o f m otivation-like reasoning is grow ing in
the field of Artificial Intelligence. Abduction, or reasoning to the best ex p la­
nation. has been argued to be useful in attem pts to model human inferences
(W ilensky 1982). Typically one must know the outcom e in order to perform
abduction, which distinguishes it from deduction. In critical respects, the seek­
ing out o f linguistic motivation can be understood to be abductive inferencing
applied to language learning, whereas predictability corresponds to the result
o f applying deductive reasoning. That is, abductive reasoning involves after-
the-fact inferencing to determ ine why a given sequence o f events should have
occurred as it did. The given sequence o f events is not, however, a priori pre­
dictable. Similarly, while speakers cannot predict w hether or to what extent two
related concepts will be related formally, it is claim ed that they nonetheless
search for such relations in order to “ m ake sense o f” the input forms, fitting
the new forms into the network of interrelated constructions that constitutes
their knowledge ol language. This idea has been suggested by, for exam ple,
Bates and M acW hinney (1987), who propose that relations between forms,
meanings, and fo rm -m e an in g pairs are (unconsciously) observed and pon­
dered in their own right. If W ilensky is right in arguing that people seek out
abductive explanations—that is, m otivation— in trying to account for se­
quences o f events, then this would give us reason to suspect that speakers m ight
unconsciously apply the same principles in trying to acquire language.
Connectionist representations also make no sharp division between what is
predictable and what is arbitrary, instead allow ing there to be correlations o f
varying strength (cf. Rum elhart & M cClelland 1986). Individual correlations
can be interpreted as m otivating factors: they may influence the system in a
certain direction but they are not in isolation predictive. Such m odels have
begun to be applied to linguistic phenom ena. In these system s violable con­
straints— constraints which add to the naturalness (or unnaturalness, if framed
negatively) o f a given expression— are o f central im portance. This ideas has
given rise to constraint optim alization theories in phonology (Smolensky 1986;
Legendre, M iyata & Smolensky 1990; Prince & Sm olensky 1991; G oldsm ith
1993).
More generally, in connectionist networks, item s o f new inform ation are
more easily incorporated when analyzed as variations on known inform ation;
new patterns are autom atically assim ilated to old patterns as much as possible.
Optimization in such systems therefore produces m otivated structures.
72 Chapter Three

Incorporating motivation into the gram m ar captures a fundamental structur­

alist insight w hich has been overlooked by most formal linguistic theories. This
insight is that elem ents in a system influence each other even when they do not
literally interact. Evidence for this kind o f influence is abundant in the domain
o f phonology, for exam ple in the phenom ena o f analogic extension and resto­
ration, back form ations, push and drag chains, paradigm atic leveling, and in
the very fact that, to a striking degree, sound change is regular. These phe­
nom ena attest to the fact that speakers (unconsciously) seek out regularities
and patterns, and tend to impose regularities and patterns when these are not
readily available.
T he idea o f explicitly linking constructions that are related in various ways
is in accordance with w hat is known about the lexicon. Current research over­
w helm ingly rejects the idea that the lexicon is sim ply a list of unrelated facts
or com pletely independent pieces of knowledge. Instead, memory in general,
and the lexicon in particular, have been shown to involve a richly intercon­
nected web o f inform ation. Various psycholinguistic prim ing experim ents have
shown that form and m eaning relations between lexical items are cognitively
real (e.g., M eyer & Schvaneveldt 1971; Ratcliff & M cKoon 1978; Anderson
1984).

3.3 R e p r e s e n t in g M o t iv a t io n b y I n h e r it a n c e

To capture relations of m otivation, asym m etric inheritance links are pos­

ited between constructions which are related both sem antically and syntacti­
cally. T hat is, construction A motivates construction B iff B inherits from A.
Inheritance allow s us to capture the fact that two constructions may be in some
ways the same and in other ways distinct.
The idea o f using inheritance as a method of capturing generalizations origi­
nated in com puter science, as a way to represent data structures in as general a
form as possible (cf. Fahlman 1979;Touretzky 1986). Inheritance has since been
found to be useful in many program m ing and know ledge representation sys­
tems, including FRL, KRL, KL-ONE, KODIAK, SM ALLTALK, FLAVORS,
L O OPS, ADA, and object-oriented LISP. By postulating abstraction hierar­
chies in which lower levels inherit inform ation from higher levels, information
is stored efficiently and made easily modifiable.
Use of the concept of inheritance is also currently growing as a way to cap­
ture linguistic generalizations, for exam ple in work by Bobrow and Webber
(1980), Hudson (1984), Lakoff (1984), Flickinger, Pollard, and Wasow (1985),
W ilensky (1986), Pollard and Sag (1987), Jurafsky (1992), Thom ason (1992).
Davis (1993). T he follow ing inheritance system draw s on aspects o f cach of
these theories.
 Relations a m o n g Constructions 73

Following Lakoff 1984, W ilensky 1986, and Jurafsky 1992, the data struc­
tures in our system are constructions. Constructions are specified as to which
other, more abstract constructions they inherit from, or equivalently— to use
the term inology o f W ilensky 1986— w hich other constructions they are d o m i­
nated by.

3.3. i General Properties of Inheritance

Notation
An inheritance relation between two constructions C, and C : such that
C. inherits from C, will be represented as follows:

C 2 inherits from C,

C | dominates Ci

C | motivates C j

I = inheritance link
Figure 3 .1

inherited inform ation will be represented in italics; that is, all inform ation
which is shared between the dom inating and dom inated node is italicized in
the dominated construction. As before, profiled inform ation is written in
boldface.

Multiple Inheritance Is Allowed

In accord with all o f the linguistic applications o f inheritance cited above,
multiple inheritance paths are allowed. T hat is, inheritance system s may re­
semble tree diagram s if each child has only one parent, but in the general case
they are “ tangled” and can be represented as ‘D irected Acyclic G raphs’
(DAGs). This allow s a given construction in the hierarchy to inherit from more
than one dom inant construction.

Normal M ode Inheritance

Following Flickinger, Pollard and Wasow (1985) the norm al m ode o f
inheritance is distinguished from the com plete mode. The normal m ode is d e­
signed to allow for subregularities and exceptions, and is the only type to be
used here. In the normal mode, inform ation is inherited from dom inant nodes
transitively as long as that inform ation does not conflict with inform ation
specified by nodes lower in the inheritance hierarchy. Lakoff (1984), in his
analysis of r/iere-constructions, refers to this type of inheritance as "in h eri­
74 Chapter Three

tance with overrides" (cf. also Zadrozny & M anaster-R am er 1993). Normal
inheritance is simply a way o f stating partial generalizations.
The com plete mode o f inheritance, which is not exploited here, is designed
to capture purely taxonom ic relations and constraints. In the com plete mode,
all inform ation specific to every node which directly or indirectly dominates a
given node is inherited Inform ation from one node may not conflict with that
of a dom inant node w ithout resulting in ill-form edness. This is the type o f
inheritance norm ally assum ed in unification-based gram m ars (e.g., Kay 1984;
Fillm ore & Kay 1993).

Real Copies; Full-Entry Representations

Fahlman (1979) distinguishes real copying from virtual copying o f in­
form ation. In real copying, dom inated constructions contain all the information
that the dom inating constructions do: each construction is fully specified, but
is redundant to the degree that inform ation is inherited from (i.e., shared with)
dom inating constructions. This is the type o f inheritance em ployed here. Jur-
afsky (1992) likens this type o f inheritance to the ‘'luJI-entry" theory o f redun­
dancy rules, as opposed to the "im poverished-entry” theory (cf. Jackendoff
1975). Thus the inheritance m echanism o f our system is not an on-line process,
but rather a static relation defined by shared inform ation (cf. Jackendoff 1975;
A ronoff 1976; Bresnan 1978, 1982; Hudson 1984; Lakoff 1984; and Pollard &
Sag 1987 for related m echanism s).
In virtual copying, on the other hand, dom inated constructions are only par­
tially specified: inherited inform ation is only stored with the dom inating con­
struction. U nder this m echanism , inferences are com puted by searching up the
inheritance tree to determ ine the full specifications of a given construction.
This type of inheritance is not exploited here.
A llow ing each construction to be fully specified would seem to be an inef­
ficient way to store inform ation; however, this inefficiency is not necessary,
depending on the particular im plem entation adopted. A connectionist system
can capture the redundancy w ithout inefficiency by allow ing inherited infor­
mation to be shared inform ation; that is, instead o f stating the specifications
twice, aspects o f the patterns that are inherited are shared by two overlapping
patterns. Similarly, in a sym bolic system, it is possible to avoid fully specifying
particular inform ation twice by allow ing particular specifications within con­
structions to have pointers to other inform ation.

3.a.2 Inheritance Links as Objects

So far we have not said how inheritance links make explicit the particular
types of relations that may hold am ong elem ents of constructions. That is, in­
 Relations a m o n g Constructions 75

heritance links capture the fact that all nonconflicting inform ation between two
related constructions is shared. However, we have not said anything about how
to distinguish am ong various different types o f inheritance relations.
In order to make explicit the specific ways that constructions may be related,
we will adopt another idea from com puter science, that o f object-oriented d e­
sign.1 In particular, the inheritance links themselves will be treated as objects
in our system (cf. also W ilensky 1991). Like constructions, they are assumed
to have internal structure and 10 be related hierarchically. Links can be of sev­
eral types, with various subtypes each. This idea is useful because various
kinds of relations am ong constructions recur in the gram m ar; in order to ca p ­
ture these generalizations, it is useful to be able to explicitly notate inheritance
links as being of specific types. Moreover, as discussed below, by treating links
as objects we are able to represent the fact that extensions may be created
productively.
Four m ajor types of inheritance links are distinguished: polysem y links,
metaphorical extension links, subpart links, and instance links.3

Polysemy |IP) Links

Polysemy links capture the nature o f the sem antic relations between a
particular sense of a construction and any extensions from this sense. The syn­
tactic specifications o f the central sense are inherited by the extensions; there­
fore we do not need to state the syntactic realization for each extension— such
specifications are inherited from the dom inating construction. T he same gen­
eral type o f link is posited to capture m orphological polysemy.
Each particular extension is related by a particular type of I P-link. For e x ­
ample, in chapter 2 it was argued that the ditransitive syntactic pattern is asso­
ciated with a family of related senses, rather than a single abstract sense. The
following pattern of polysemy was observed:
1. 'X causes Y to r e c e iv e Z ' (central sense)
Example: Joe gave Sally the ball.
2. Conditions of satisfaction imply 'X causes Y to r e c e iv e Z’
Example: Joe promised Bob a car.
3. ‘X ENABLES Y to R EC EIVE Z’
Example: Joe perm itted Chris an apple.
4. ‘X causes Y not to r e c e iv e Z’
Example: Joe refused Bob a cookie.
5. *X IN T E N D S to C A USE Y 10 R E C E IV E 7 '
Example: Joe baked Bob a cake.
6. ‘X ac is to cause Y to r e c e iv e Z at some future point in tim e’
Example: Joe bequeathed Bob a fortune.
76 C hapter Three

The caused-m otion construction has a strikingly sim ilar pattern o f polysemy:
1. ‘X c a u s e s Y to m o v e Z ’ (central sense)
Exam ple: Pat pushed the piano into the room.
2. Conditions of satisfaction imply ‘X c a u s e s Y to move Z'
Exam ple: Pat ordered him into the room.
3. ‘X enables Y to move Z’
Exam ple: Pat allowed Chris into the room.
4. ‘X causes Y not to m o v e from Z’
Exam ple: Pal locked C hris into the room.
5. ‘X h e l p s Y to m o v e 7.'
Exam ple: Pat assisted Chris into the room.
In both cases, several o f the extensions involve the type o f family of related
causal relations discussed by Talmy (1976, 1985a, 1985b) under the rubric of
“ force dynam ics.” In particular, enablem ent, resistance, and aiding are con­
cepts force-dynam ically related to causation, which is a central com ponent of
the central senses o f the two constructions. Each o f these concepts involves
two entities w hich are construed as interacting via transm ission o f energy ei­
ther in the sam e or in opposing directions (cf. also Jackendoff 1990a for
discussion).
Extensions 2, 3, and 4 o f the two constructions are quite analogous. The
particular verbs involved are different, but the relations between the central
sense o f transfer or caused motion and the entailm ents of these extensions is
the same. Jackendoff’s (1990a) analysis o f the infinitive (or “eq u i") pattern
indicates that it, too, has a rem arkably sim ilar pattern o f interpretations.
At the same tim e, the full patterns o f polysem y in the two constructions
analyzed above are not identical. For exam ple, while the caused-m otion con­
struction can be used to entail ‘X h e l p s Y to m o v e Z ’, no such interpretation
is possible for the ditransitivc construction:

( I) *She helped him the prize.

(Intended meaning: She helped him to get the prize.)

Therefore the patterns o f polysem y m ust in general be learned for each indi­
vidual construction.
Each o f the extensions constitutes a m inim ally different construction, moti­
vated by the central sense; that is, each sense can be represented by a construc­
tion that is m inim ally different from that o f the central sense. The semantic
relations are captured by particular U-links, and all inform ation about syntactic
specifications is inherited from the central sense.
For exam ple, the fifth extension o f the ditransitive, sometim es called the
 Relations a m o n g C onstructions 77

"benefactive” construction, can be represented thus, with inform ation that is

inherited from the central sense italicized:

Diransitive Consluclion

Sem CAUSE-RECEIVE < agt rec pat >

1 1 i 1
1 1 : 1
PRED < >

Syn V SL'BJ OBJ OBJ,

lP: intended causation

Benefactive-Ditransitive
Construction

Sem INTEND C A U SE-R EC EIV E < agt rec pat >

precondition | I
1
PRED < >

Syn V SU BJ O BJ o b j2

Figure 3.2

The Ip-link between the central sense and the benefactive extension is one that
relates causation to intended causation. It licenses expressions such as Bob
baked M ary a cake.
Since links are objects in the present system, a type o f link that recurs often
throughout the gram m ar can be said to have a high type frequency (i.e., there
are many instances o f the same general type o f link) and is therefore predicted
to be productively applied to new cases which share the relevant factors asso­
ciated with the existing cases (cf. chapter 5). Thus, if a polysem y link or any
other type o f link occurs frequently between distinct constructions with a
shared set o f characteristics, then that link will be applied to newly learned
constructions as a productive form o f extension. In this sense, a highly recur­
rent motivation link is quite analogous to a rule: the existence o f one construc­
tion will predict the existence o f an extension related by the productive link.
78 Chapter Three

Subpart (lsJ Links

A subpart link is posited when one construction is a p roper subpart of
another construction and exists independently. For example, the intransitive
motion construction is related to the caused-m otion construction by a subpart
link. The syntactic and sem antic specifications o f the intransitive motion con­
struction are a subpart o f the syntactic and sem antic specifications o f the
caused-m otion construction. The link relating the resultative and intransitive
resultative construction is also a subpart link, since the transitive construction
and intransitive construction are related in exactly the same way here. This type
o f relation is diagram m ed as follows:

Caused-Motion Construction

Sem CAUSE-MOVE < cause them e goal >

I I i i
PRED < >

'' "
Syn V SUBJ OBJ OBL

Is : cause
Intransitive
Motion
Construction

Sem M O V E < llieme goal >

I I ;
PRED < >

Syn V SUBJ O BL
 Relations a m o n g Constructions 79

Resultative Construction

Sem CAUSE-BECOME < cause goal Iheme >

I I i I
PRED < >

Syn SU B J OBLpp/Ap OBJ

Is : cause
Intransitive Resultative
Construction

Sem B EC O M E < Iheme goal >

I
PR E D <
I >
i

I Syn V SU B J O BLp p / a p

Figure 3.3

Instance (I,) Links

Instance links are posited when a particular construction is a special case
of another construction; that is, an instance link exists between constructions
iff one construction is a more fully specified version o f the other. Particular
lexical items which only occur in a particular construction are instances o f that
construction, since they lexically inherit the syntax and sem antics associated
with the construction. These cases are therefore treated as partially lexically
filled instances o f the construction. For exam ple, there is a special sense of
drive which only occurs in the resultative construction. This sense of drive
constrains the result-goal argum ent to mean 'c ra z y ':4

(2) a. Chris drove Pat m ad/bonkers/bananas/crazy/over the edge,

b. *Chris drove Pat silly/dead/angry/happy/sick.

The relationship between this sense o f drive and the resultative construction is
represented as follows:
80 Chapter Three

Resultative Construction

Sem CAUSE-BECOME < a »t resul t-goal pjIt >

1
PRED < >

Syn V S I BJ OBL pp/Adj Ol3J

I.
drive- ‘crazy’

Sem C A U SE-BEC O M E < af ;l result -goal pal >

1
drive < dri rer ‘era z y ' >

1 1
Syn V SU B J O BLf P/Adj 0 BJ

Figure 3.4

D rive's sem antics is categorized to be an instance o f the c a u se -beco m e se­

m antics o f the resultative construction. A gain, all inherited information is rep­
resented by italics.
Because o f the way instance and subpart links are defined, every construc­
tion C , which is an instance o f another construction C 2, and thus is dom inated
by C 2 via an instance link, sim ultaneously dom inates C 2 by a subpart link. That
is, the resultative construction is a subpart of the drive lexical construction:

Resultative

Figure 3.5
 Re'arions a m o n g Constructions 81

This entails that instances o f a particular construction and the construction it­
self mutually motivate each other.-' This makes sense insofar as a productive
construction is easier to learn given the existence o f several instances, while at
the same time, conventionalized instances are more likely to exist given the
existence of a productive construction.
Because an instance link always entails an inverse subpart link, only instance
links will be represented in the diagram s that follow.

Metaphorical Extension (lMJ links

When two constructions are found to be related by a m etaphorical m ap­
ping, a m etaphorical extension link is posited between them. This type o f link
makes explicit the nature o f the mapping. The way the dom inating co nstruc­
tion’s semantics is m apped to the dom inated construction’s sem antics is speci­
fied by the metaphor. By treating links as objects, it is possible to capture
relations among systematic m etaphors and ultim ately relate the m etaphors via
an inheritance hierarchy (cf. Lakoff 1993), quite analogous to the hierarchy of
constructions. A case o f m etaphorical extension is discussed in the following
section.

3.4 R e la t in g P a r t ic u la r C o n s t r u c t io n s
3.4.1 The Caused-Motion and Resultative Constructions
A Metaphorical Analysis
In Goldberg (1991b), it is argued that the resultative construction cru­
cially involves a metaphorical interpretation o f the result phrase as m etaphori­
cal type of goal. Therefore the resultative construction itself, exem plified in
(3), can be seen to be a m etaphorical extension of the caused-m otion construc­
tion, exemplified in (4), which involves literal caused motion (see chapter 7 for
discussion).

(3) Pat ham mered the metal flat.

(4) Pat threw the metal off the table.

The idea that these two constructions are related is not new; they are often
assumed to be instances of a single more abstract construction.6 T he argum ents
from Goldberg (1991b) for a m etaphorical analysis are sum m arized below.
The metaphorical analysis allows a wide variety o f co-occurrence restric­
tions to be accounted for. For exam ple, resultatives cannot occur with direc­
tional phrases regardless o f sequence;

(5) a. *Sam kicked Bill black and blue out o f the room.
*Sam kicked Bill out o f the room black and blue.
82 Chapter Three

b. *Sam tickled Chris silly off her chair.

*Sam tickled Chris off her chair silly.

At the sam e time, resultatives can occur with prepositional com plem ents that
arc not directionals:

(6) a. Lou talked him self blue in the face about his latest adventure.
b. Joe loaded the wagon full with hay.
c. He pried the door open with a screwdriver.

A nother constraint on the occurrence o f resultatives is that they cannot be ap­

plied to the them e argum ent o f ditransitive expressions, as (7) shows:

(7) *Joe kicked Bob a suitcase open.

(Intended meaning: Joe kicked the suitcase to Bob, causing the suitcase
to fly open.)

Also, two distinct resultative phrases cannot co-occur:

(8) a. *She kicked him bloody dead,

b. *H e wiped the table dry clean.

Finally, as Sim pson (1983) and Rappaport and Levin (1991) have pointed out,
resultatives cannot occur with directed-m otion verbs when used literally. For
example:

(9) a. * She ascended sick.

(Intended meaning: The ascension made her sick.)
b. * Jill took the child ill.
(Intended meaning: The child becam e ill because o f the traveling.)

All o f the above restrictions can be explained in the sam e way as the follow­
ing, more straightforw ard example:

(10) *Shirley sailed into the kitchen into the garden.

We need only recognize one fundamental constraint:

Unique Path (UP) Constraint: If an argument X refers to a physical

object, then no more than one distinct path can be predicated of X
within a single clause. The notion of a single path entails two things:
(1) X cannot be predicated to move to two distinct locations at any
given time t, and (2) the motion must trace a path within a single
landscape.
 Relations a m o n g Constructions 83

In the case of literal motion o f an object, this constraint is unremarkable.

However, the UP Constraint applies not only to literal motion but to m etaphori­
cal motion as well.
The stipulation that the motion m ust occur within a single landscape is
meant, then, to rule out exam ples which would com bine literal and m etaphori­
cal motion, such as the following:

(11) *The vegetables went from crunchy into the soup.

The relevance of the U P constraint to resultatives becom es clear if resulta­

tives are understood as coding a m etaphorical change o f location. The neces­
sary metaphor is a general system atic m etaphor that involves understanding a
change o f state in terms of movement to a new location. The mapping involved
is simply this:

motion —> change

locatio n ----- > state

English expressions reflecting this m etaphor include:

(12) a. The jello went fro m liquid to solid in a m atter o f m inutes.

b. He couldn't m anage to p ull h im self out o f his m iserable state.
c. No one could help her as she slid into madness.

By allowing that resultatives code a m etaphorical change of location, and u n ­

derstanding the UP Constraint to apply to m etaphorical changes of location as
well as literal ones, we can explain the co-occurrence restrictions described
above. For instance, a resultative is now restricted from occurring with a direc­
tional because the directional, coding a change o f physical location, will code
a path distinct from that coded by the change-of-state resultative. T he argum ent
in question is prevented from being understood to sim ultaneously move to two
distinct locations.
Similarly, on this view, the fact that resultatives cannot occur with arrive,
ascend, bring, and other verbs which imply a physical path stem s from the fact
that the change-of-state resultative would code an additional, distinct path that
would also be predicated of the theme argum ent.
At ihe same time, many verbs o f directed motion can be used m etaphorically
to code changes o f slate. This fact in itself is motivated by the existence o f the
path metaphor. When used in this way, verbs of directed motion do not neces­
sarily code a distinct path and, as we would expect, can occur felicitously with
resultatives as long as a single path is designated. C onsider ( 13a, b):
04 Chapter Three

(13) a. Bob fell asleep,

b. Bob went crazy.

E xam ple (13a) doesn’t mean that Bob literally fell anywhere, but that he meta­
phorically fell into sleep. Similarly, (13b) doesn’t mean that he literally went
anyw here, but that he m etaphorically moved to a state o f insanity.
To sum m arize, we can account for the fact that resultatives cannot occur with
directionals, that two resultatives cannot co-occur, that resultatives cannot oc­
cur with ditransitives, and that resultatives cannot occur with verbs of motion
w hen used literally, but can occur with motion verbs when those verbs are used
to imply a change o f state, by postulating that the resultative is a metaphorically
interpreted goal phrase.
A m etaphorical account o f resultatives allows us to explain the lack of po­
lysemy o f this construction— the fact that resultatives do not allow the range
o f extensions exhibited by the caused-m otion construction (or the ditransitive
construction). For instance, resultatives cannot be used to imply an intended,
or potential, change o f state:

(14) a. *She allowed it green.

(M eaning: She enabled it to become green.)
b. *She locked him dead.
(M eaning: She prevented him from becom ing dead.)

C aused-m otion expressions do have these extensions:

(15) a. She allowed him into the room.

(M eaning: She enabled him to move into the room.)
b. She locked him out o f the room.
(M eaning: She prevented him from moving into the room.)

This is expected on a m etaphorical account since, as was discussed above, m eta­

phorical extensions have as their source domain the central sense o f the con­
struction. T he resultative construction is a m etaphorical extension of the central
sense o f the caused-m otion construction, which is associated with the seman­
tics ‘X causes Y to move Z ’. Given the m etaphorical connection between
m ovem ent and change o f state, resultative expressions entail ‘X ( A i'its Y to
become Z ’, and not ‘X enables Y to becom e Z ’ or 'X in t e n d s lo r <\ush Y
to become Z ’.

Alternative Analyses
It may be suggested that we can avoid appealing to any metaphorical
interpretation o f resultatives by reform ulating the UP Constraint as a target
 Relations a m o n g C onstructions 85

domain constraint. That is, it may be suggested that the constraint be stated as
follows:

Unique Change o f Siate Constraint: If an argument X refers to a physi­

cal object, then no more than one distinct change of state can be
predicated simultaneously of X within a single clause. Specifically,
this means that (I) X cannot be predicated to undergo two distinct
changes of slate aL any given time t. and (2) any sequence of changes
must be understood to involve the same type of change.

This constraint is relevantly sim ilar to that proposed by Levin and Rappaport
Hovav (1990a), w ho follow Tenny (1987) in arguing that resultatives act as
delimiters or bounders of events, and that a clause can only be delim ited once.
In order for this form ulation to account for the co-occurrence restrictions
between resultatives and directionals, it is necessary that we consider changes
of location to be instances of changing state. W hat had up to now been ana­
lyzed as involving two distinct paths would be reanalyzed as involving two
distinct changes of state. In this way, we could try to account for the data cited
above w ithout recourse to metaphors.
However, there is reason to prefer the Unique Path form ulation to the Unique
Change o f State form ulation. In order for the latter to be viable, we would need
to consider all changes o f location as instances of changing state, not only
those which specify a final destination. For exam ple, in (16) the direct object.
Bob, would necessarily be understood to undergo a change of slate:

(16) Joe moved Bob toward the door.

But if we generalize the notion o f “ change o f state’’ to this degree, it seems

that undergoing any kind o f effect would entail a change of state. This would
mean that Bob also undergoes a change o f state in (17), for example:

(17) Joe kicked Bob.

Consequently the proposed Unique C hange o f State Constraint would be vio­

lated by sentences such as (18):

(18) Joe kicked Bob into the room.

Moreover, it has not been argued that all o f even the clear instances o f changes
of state involve the change-of-state metaphor. There is no evidence I know of
that simple causative verbs involve this metaphor. For exam ple, although break
is a causative verb, we have no reason to think that it is necessarily understood
06 Chapter Three

in term s o f ‘X causes y to move to a broken state’. And if we let the LTP C on­
straint be our guide, then there is good reason to think that in fact it does not
involve the metaphor. In particular, we find that break can occur with a literal
directional:

(19) He broke the w alnuts into the bowl.

Further militating against Levin and Rappaport H ovav’s (1990a) and Tenny's
(1987) form ulation o f the constraint as one against multiple delim iters is the
fact that directionals do not always serve to delim it the event. Directionals can
be used to specify a direction w ithout im plying any endpoint or delim iting
point, as in (20):

(20) She kicked him toward the door.

However, these nondelim iting directionals are also restricted from occurring
with resultatives:

( 2 1) *Sam kicked Bill black and blue toward the door.

Presumably we would like to have the same constraint account for both (5a),
*Sam kicked B ill black and blue out o f the room, and (21).
For these reasons, I have chosen to adopt the Unique Path Constraint rather
than the Unique Change o f State Constraint.
The account presented here o f the co-occurrence restrictions described
above can also be contrasted with an account proposed by Simpson (1983).
She suggests that the co-occurrence restrictions against resultatives occurring
with directionals are accounted for by the principle that only one X com p— one
predicative com plem ent— can appear in a given clause. H er account takes both
resultatives and prepositional directionals to be Xcomps. In the case o f prepo­
sitional directionals, this is a move away from their more traditional categori­
zation as O BL, but it is a reasonable move since directionals can be understood
to predicate the theme argum ent. By distinguishing directionals from other
prepositional com plem ents, Sim pson’s account can satisfactorily explain why
resultatives can occur with other prepositional com plem ents but specifically
not with directionals. At the same tim e, depictive predicates are analyzed as
Xadjuncts, so they are not subject to the same constraint.
However, Sim pson’s account fails to predict the fact that resultatives cannot
occur with ditransitive expressions. T hat is, ditransitive expressions are ana­
lyzed as involving a Subj, an Obj, and an O bjfl; the fact that the resultative
Xcom p cannot be added is not explained. Moreover, this analysis does not
 Relations a m o n g Constructions 87

account for why directed-m otion verbs, when used literally, cannot occur with
resultatives, but can when used m etaphorically to code a change o f state. Fi­
nally, this account leaves unexplained why it is that two directionals can co­
occur as long as a single path is designated. For exam ple, consider (22):

(22) Ken drove to L A. from Pittsburgh.

Notice, we cannot readily claim in this exam ple that a single constituent is
involved. W hat argues against that claim is that only can have as its focus
anything in its sister constituent (M cCaw ley 1986), yet we find that only cannot
have as its focus Pittsburgh in the following variant:

(23) * Ken drove only [to L A. from Pittsburgh].

This fact argues strongly against treating to L A . fro m Pittsburgh as a single

constituent.
One might think that once we decide that resultatives are a m etaphorical
extension o f the caused-m otion construction, nothing more needs to be said.
However, there are several reasons for analyzing the resultative and the caused-
motion construction as two related but distinct constructions. O ne reason to keep
the constructions distinct is that certain verbs are com patible with only one or
the other. For example, m ake only occurs in the resultative construction.7

(24) a. It made him sick/into a belter man.

b.?*It made him into the room.

Move, on the other hand, cannot occur with the resultative construction:

(25) a. He moved it onto the top shelf/away,

b. *He moved it black.

Moreover, it will be argued in chapter 8 that resultatives can only apply to

argum ents which potentially undergo a change of state as a result of the action
denoted by the verb; that is, resultatives can only apply to argum ents w hich
can be categorized as patient argum ents. This constraint alone serves to distin­
guish resultatives from caused-m otion expressions. D irectionals do not require
that the argum ent which they predicate be a patient, only that it be a theme:

(26) a. Joe moved it onto the table,

b. Joe ran out of the room.

That these argum ents are not patients can be dem onstrated by their failure to
pass Lakoff’s (1976) test for patienthood:
88 Chapter Three

(27) a.??W hat Joe did to it was he moved it.

b.?*What happened to Joe was he ran.

In addition, resultatives are subject to several specific constraints that do

not hold o f caused-m otion expressions. For exam ple, it will be argued that
resultatives m ust code an end o f scale (section 8.7). The same is not true of
directionals:

(28) a. He threw it toward the door,

b. He put it near the table.

Capturing the Relation

We can represent the relation between the two constructions as follows:

Caused-Motion Constuction

Sem CAUSE-M OVE < cause goal them e >

I I i i
PRED < > (e.g., “Joe kicked the bottle
into the yard.")
'f
Syn V SUBJ OBLpp OBJ

I M: Change of State
as Change o f Location

Resuliative-Consiruciion

Sem CAUSE-BECOME < agt result-goal pat >

I
PRED (e.g., “Joe kicked Bob
black and blue.")

Syn S U B J O B L pp /a p O BJ

Figure 3.6

As noted above, m etaphorical extension inheritance links, or IM links, are a

certain type o f inheritance link: the m etaphor— in this case, Change of State as
 Relations a m o n g Constructions 89

Change of Location— accounts for the relation between the sem antics o f the
two constructions. The syntactic specifications o f the m etaphorical extension
are inherited from the caused-m otion construction.

3.4.? The Ditransitive and Its Prepositional Paraphrase

Many ditransitive expressions can be paraphrased using to:

(29) a. John gave M ary an apple,

b. John gave an apple to Mary.

The question that arises, on the account presented here, is not w hether verbs
are allowed to undergo a lexical or syntactic rule that alters their sem antic
structure or subcategorization frame, as it is typically taken to be. Rather, the
question becomes: How are the sem antics o f the independent constructions
related such that the classes o f verbs associated with one overlap with the
classes o f verbs associated with another? The answ er to this question is the
subject o f this section.
There is a m etaphor that involves understanding possession as the " p o s­
sessed" being located next to the “ possessor,” transferring an entity to a re­
cipient as causing the entity to move to that recipient, and transferring
ownership away from a possessor as taking that entity away from the possessor.
Evidence for the existence of this m etaphor includes expressions such as the
following:

(30) a. They took his house away from him.

b. He lost his house.
c. Suddenly several thousand dollars cam e into his possession.

As has previously been suggested by G ruber (1965) and Jackendoff (1972),

this metaphor, which we might call “ Transfer o f O w nership as Physical T rans­
fer." motivates expressions such as the following:

(31) The judge awarded custody to Bill.

(32) Bill gave his house to the Moonies.

This m etaphor is itself motivated by the fact that giving prototypically co rre­
lates with m ovement from a possessor to a recipient; however, it is clear that
such motion is not literally implied by the transfer-of-ow nership exam ples
( 31 -3 2 ). Custody does not literally move from the judg e to Bill; neither does
the house literally move to the Moonies.
The relation between the caused-m otion construction and this m etaphorical
extension can be represented as follows:
90 Chapter Three

Caused-Motion Consiuction

Sem CAUSE-M OVE < cause goal theme >

I I I I
PRED < > (e.g., “Joe kicked the bottle
into the yard ")

Syn SUBJ OBL OBJ

I M: Transfer of Ownership
as Physical Transfer
T ransfer-Caused-Molion
Construction

Sem CAUSE-RECEIVE < agt rec pat >

1 1 !
PRED < > (e.g., "Joe gave his house
to the Moonies.’’)

Syn V S U B J O BL O BJ

Figure 3.7

T he m etaphor allow s the caused-m otion construction to be used to encode the

transfer o f possession. This is ju st the sem antics associated with the ditransitive
construction (cf. chapter 2). We can represent the relation between the caused-
motion construction, its extension— labeled Transfer-Caused-M otion C on­
struction— and the ditransitive with the following more com prehensive
diagram:
 Relations a m o n g C onstructions 9 1

Caused-Motion Constucuon

Sem CAUSt.-M OVE < cause goal them e >

1 1 >
PRED <

Syn V SUBJ OBL OBJ

1M: Transfer of Ownership

as Physical Transfer

Oiiransitive Construction

Sem CAUSE-RECELVE < agt rec pat >

I I I I
PRED < >

Transfer-Caused-Motion Syn SUBJ OBJ OBJ2

Construction

Sem C 4 (/S £ -R E C E IV E < agt tec pat >

/ S-synonymous
I I ! ! / ’ (—► - P-synonymous)
PRED < >

Syn S U B J O BL O BJ

Figure 3.8

The semantic extension (via m etaphor) of the caused-m otion construction is

S(emantically) synonym ous with the ditransitive construction.1' Since the d i­
transitive construction and the caused-m otion construction are not related syn­
tactically, their semantic synonym y (represented by a dashed line in the
diagram above) does not constitute a m otivation link.
By Corollary A o f the Principle o f No Synonymy, the two constructions
must not be P(ragm atically)-synonym ous; that is, the sem antic synonym y be­
tween them implies a pragmatic difference. And in fact, such a pragm atic dif­
ference does exist.
92 Chapter Three

E rteschik-Shir ( 1979) argues that the ditransitive construction is used when

the recipient is nonfocused or “ nondom inant” (to use E rteschik-Shir’s term i­
nology), com m only encoded by a personal pronoun; the transferred object
tends to be the focus, and is com m only encoded by an indefinite noun phrase.10
W hen these constraints are violated, the expressions are infelicitous:

(33) a. #She gave an old man it.

b. (She gave it to an old man.)
(34) a. #She sold a slave trader him.
b. (She sold him to a slave trader.)

On the other hand, the m etaphorical extension o f the caused-m otion construc­
tion is used when the focus is on the goal or recipient instead. For instance,
exam ple (35) is odd because the transferred object (the house) is the focused
inform ation and the recipient is nonfocused.

(35) a. #M ary gave a brand-new house to him.

b. (M ary gave him a brand-new house.)

N ote that exam ples such as the follow ing are acceptable even though the
transferred object is focused and the recipient is nonfocused:

(36) Sally threw a football to him.

(37) Sally handed a scented letter to him.

However, these cases imply physical motion as well as m etaphorical motion;

that is, they imply that the football or the letter actually moves from Sally to the
recipient. Therefore these cases do not require the m etaphorical extension of
the caused-m otion construction but can be based on the literal caused-motion
construction itself. Since the ditransitive construction is not S-synonym ous with
the literal caused-m otion construction, no difference in pragm atics is required
by the system and no particular pragm atics is claim ed here."
We can represent the difference between the ditransitive construction and
the m etaphorical extension of the caused-m otion construction as follows:
 Relations a m o n g C onstructions 93

Caused-Motion Constuciion

Sem CAUSE-MOVE < cause goal theme >

I ; i
PRED < >

Syn V SUBJ OBL OBJ

I M: Transfer o f Ownership
as Physical Transfer

Ditransitive Construction

Sem CAUSE-RECEIVE < agt rec pat >

I 1 : 1
PRED < >

Prag focus

Transfer-Caused-Motion Syn V SUBJ OBJ OBJ2

Construction

Sem C4f/5£-RECEIV E < agt rec pal >

I I I !
PRED < >

Prag focus

Syn S U B J O BL O BJ

Figure 3.9

The difference in pragm atic structure between the m etaphorical extension o f

the caused-m otion construction and the ditransitive construction can be used
to explain the puzzle as to why som e m etaphorical extensions are not felicitous
in the prepositional construction. Typically, system ic m etaphors w hose source
dom ains are com patible with the sem antics o f a construction license expres-
94 Chapter Three

sions w hich instantiate the construction. T hat is, general m etaphors may apply
to constructions w hich have the relevant sem antics.13
However, there are potential m etaphorical extensions which do not occur.
For exam ple, we have a m etaphor that involves understanding an action d i­
rected at a person as an object given to the person. This m etaphor is evidenced
by the following sort o f examples:

(38) a. She threw him a parting glance.

b. She shot him a keep-quiet look.
c. She gave him a w ink/kiss/w ave/finger/bow .
d. She let him have it.

Notice that this m etaphor is som ew hat productive:

(39) Bob gave Joe a nudge/a ja b /a karate kick to the jaw /a high five/a peck on
the cheek.

It is not neccssary for a speaker to have heard each o f these expressions in order
for him to spontaneously generate them or recognize them as acceptable sen­
tences o f English. However, we will need to constrain the use o f the metaphor
to prevent the follow ing (a)-expressions, which involve the caused-motion
construction:

(40) a. *She gave a kick to him.

b. (She gave him a kick.)
(41) a. *She gave a kiss to him.
b. (She gave him a kiss.)
(42) a. *She threw a parting glance to him.
b. (She threw him a parting glance.)

Som ething sim ilar holds for another com m on m etaphor— causation as physi­
cal transfer— that is observed in the exam ples in (43):

(43) a. The idea presented her with an opportunity.

b. The missed ball handed his opponent an opportunity on a silver
platter.
c. T he noise gave me a headache.
d. T he music lent the party a festive air.

Again, the following are not acceptable:

(44) a. *She gave a headache to him.

b. (She gave him a headache.)
(45) a. T h e trial gave a lot o f grief to her.
b. (The trial gave her a lot o f grief.)
 Relations a m o n g C onstructions 95

T he fact that these m etaphorical extensions cannot readily occur with the
prepositional construction can be attributed to a difference in their pragmatic
specifications. M etaphorical expressions such as give a kick focus attention on
the action denoted by the nominal, here a kick. This is, in fact, w hat distin­
guishes give a kick from the verbal form kick, w hich can readily be used when
the focus is not on the action perform ed. Similarly, in the m etaphorical expres­
sions involving the effecting o f some result, the result is typically new or
focused information. Therefore the pragm atic properties of the ditransitive ar­
gument structure are particularly well suited to expressions such as give a kick
or give a headache, while the pragm atics associated with the caused-m otion
construction are less well suited.13 In other words, the m etaphorical extension
is better motivated as an extension o f the ditransitive construction, since as
such it can inherit more inform ation; in particular, it can inherit the specifica­
tion that the action (the m etaphorical “ transferred thing” ) and not the recipient
is the focused element:
Caused-Moiion Constuciion

Figure 3.10
 Relations a m o n g Constructions 97

Notice that the metaphors can be expressed in the caused-m otion construction
when the inform ation structure is made more com patible:

(46) When your father com es home, he's really going to give it to you.
(47) Bill gave Mary a kiss and she was so happy that she gave one to everyone
she ran into lhat day.

Thus we find lhat w hether the inform ation structure o f a particular m etaphori­
cal expression is com patible with the inform ation structure o f a particular con­
struction or not plays a role in w hether the m etaphorical instance is felicitously
expressed in that construction. Specifically, the fact lhat certain m etaphorical
expressions are not readily expressed in the m etaphorical extension o f the
caused-m otion construction, despite the fact that they readily occur in the d i­
transitive construction, is attributable to the difference in pragm atics between
the two constructions.

3.5 M u l t ip l e I n h e r it a n c e

M ultiple inheritance allows us to capture the fact that instances of som e

construction types seem to resist being uniquely categorized in a natural way
(cf. Borkin 1974; Lakoff 1984). For exam ple, B olinger (1971) has observed
that some instances o f the resultative construction pass a test often used as a
criterion for the v erb -p artic le construction, in that the resultative phrase can
occur either before or after the postverbal NP. He cites exam ples such as the
following:

(48) a. He cut short the speech,

b. He cut the speech short.
(49) a. Break the cask open,
b. Break open the cask.

One might be tempted to sim ply collapse the distinction between resultatives
and v erb -p artic le constructions to account for this overlap. However, this
move would sim ply replace one question with another: Why is it that the m a­
jority of resultative expressions cannot occur with the resultative phrase placed
before the postverbal NP? C onsider (50):

(50) a. *He talked hoarse himself.

b. *He ham mered flat the metal.
c. *He closed shut the door.

Moreover, the v erb -p article construction allows particles with an aspectual

interpretation, which are not a predicate on the NP argument:
90 Chapter Three

(51) He cleaned the m ess up.

T he mess is up.

On the present account, exam ples such as (4 8 -4 9 ) above are understood to

inherit from two independently existing constructions:

V erb-Particle Construction Resultative Consirucuon

Figure 3.11

A llow ing m ultiple normal m ode inheritance links raises the issue of the need
for conflict resolution rules. That is, a particular construction may inherit from
two other constructions w hich have conflicting specifications; normal mode in­
heritance allows for partial inheritance o f inform ation when the dom inated con­
struction itself has conflicting specifications, but conflict resolution rules would
seem to be required for cases in w hich two or more dom inating constructions
have conflicting specifications, in order to determ ine w hich— if any— o f the
specifications are inherited.
However, this issue is only relevant if we conceive o f inheritance as an on­
line process that is used to predict the specifications o f a dom inated construc­
tion given those o f the dom inating construction. If instead, as discussed above,
each construction is fully specified, any conflict is resolved by an overt speci­
fication in the dom inated construction.

3.6 I n h e r it a n c e w it h in C o n s t r u c t io n s

C onstituents o f constructions are also treated as objects in the system —

that is, as constructions— and can therefore inherit from other constructions as
well (cf. W ilensky 1986). For exam ple, many clausal consiructions will have a
slot for a OBJ gram m atical function. Since we allow the constituents to be
constructions them selves, generalizations across constructions as to the seman­
tic and/or syntactic representation o f the dircct object can be captured by allow­
ing the OBJ function in particular constructions to inherit from a free-standing
OBJ construction.
 Relations a m o n g C onstructions 99

The special sense of drive that occurs in the resultative construction inherits
from the basic sense of drive, since the two senses are related via the m etaphor
Change o f State as C hange o f Location described above. T hus an l M-link is
posited between them:

Resultative Construction

3.7 C o n c lu s io n

In this chapter, it has been argued that generalizations about relations

among constructions can be captured by conceiving of the entire collection of
constructions as form ing a lattice, with individual constructions related by spe­
cific types of asym m etric normal mode inheritance links. If construction A
inherits inform ation from construction B, then B m otivates A.
Cases of system atically related form and system atically related m eaning are
formally related by inheritance links. The input and output o f some traditional
lexical rules are related by inheritance links; an exam ple are the causative and
inchoative versions o f constructions. In addition, cases not norm ally related by
10 0 Chapter Three

lexical rule arc sim ilarly related by inheritance links. For example, the caused-
motion construction is related to the resultative via an IM-link. In this case, the
m etaphor C hange o f State as C hange o f Location, discusscd above, constitutes
the system atic relation between form and meaning. In other words, the resul­
tative construction is motivated by the caused-m otion construction.
C onstructions with unrelated forms, whether or not they encode the same or
closely related m eanings, arc not related by motivation links. For example, kill
and die, although sem antically related, are not related directly by an inheri­
tance link. Similarly, the ditransitive construction and its prepositional para­
phrase are not related by an inheritance link: neither construction motivates the
other.
By allow ing inheritance to hold of constituents internal to particular con­
structions we can capture generalizations about the internal structure of con­
structions. By allow ing multiple inheritance we account for instances which
appear to be sim ultaneously motivated by two distinct constructions.
M oreover, the links them selves are objects in the system, and so they too can
inherit from other objects. For exam ple, m etaphors which constitute links be­
tw een constructions can them selves be captured via an inheritance hierarchy
(cf. Lakoff 1993). Also, when we treat links as objects, different links can be
said to have different type frequencies, depending on how many distinct con­
structions they relate. A particular link which recurs often throughout the gram ­
m ar is said to have a high type frequency and, as discusscd in chapter 5, is
predicted to be productively applied to new cases which share the particular
sem antic and/or syntactic factors associated with the existing cases. That is, if
a link relating pairs o f constructions occurs frequently, then that link will be
applied to newly learned pairs o f constructions which share semantic and/or
syntactic characteristics with the existing cases as a productive form of exten­
sion. In this sense, a highly recurrent motivation link is analogous to a rule: the
existence o f one construction will predict the existence o f an extension related
by the productive link.
G eneralizations about the way argum ents are mapped onto syntactic struc­
ture are discussed in the following chapter.
4 On Linking

In this chapter, the nature of the relation between sem antic structure and
overt syntactic structure is discussed, and it is argued lhat m any generalizations
m ust be slated at the level o f the construction.
In section 4.1, approaches which involve syntactic transform ations or d eri­
vations are presented— in too broad strokes, no doubt— and the idea of stating
linking generalizations in a nontransform ational way is defended. In section
4.2, ways to capture generalizations across constructions are discussed.

4. i T r a n s f o r m a t io n a l A pproaches to A rgum ent Structure

4.1.1 The Transformational Tradition
In an effort to constrain the application o f potentially all-powerful trans­
formations as conceived by Chom sky (1957), Katz and Postal (1964) hypothe­
sized that transform ations must be constrained so that they necessarily preserve
meaning. Thus the deep structure o f a sentence would m irror its sem antic struc­
ture. Generative Sem anticists (e.g., Lakoff 1968, 1972; Langacker 1969;
McCawley 1973; Postal 1971; Keenan 1972; Dowty 1972) accepted the hy­
pothesis lhat transform ations preserve m eaning and extended it to the position
that all and only sentences which are paraphrases o f each other should have the
same deep structures. Thus upon observing that two sentences bore the same
(truth-functional) meaning, researchers set out to derive the two sentences from
a single underlying form.
Lakoff (1965) and Partee (1965) presented som e o f the earliest attem pts to
derive a systematic symbolic relationship between sim ple active sentences with
systematically related sem antics. Lakoff proposed deriving ( lb ) from ( la ) by
an optional “ flip” transformation;

(1) a. I like it.

b. It pleases me. (p. 126)

Partee suggested deriving sentences such as (2b) from structures such as (2a)
by an optional transformation:

(2) a. John sm eared paint on the wall.

b. John sm eared the wall with paint, (p. 85)

101
102 Chapter Four

She also proposed a transform ational relationship between (3a) and (3b):

(3) a. John annoyed M ary with his persistence,

b. John's persistence annoyed Mary. (p. 36)

Fillm ore (1971) proposed deriving caused-m otion expressions such as I hit
the ball over the fe n c e from an underlying structure consisting o f two proposi­
tions, roughly captured in this case by “ My hitting the ball caused it to go over
the fence.”
Early versions o f what was later published as Lakoff (1976) and Lakoff &
Ross (1976), giving rise to the tradition o f G enerative Semantics, proposed that
sem antic structures actually underlie syntactic structures, and lhat the base
com ponent o f gram m ar generates the set o f well-form ed semantic structures.
A large body o f analyses developed this proposal further, essentially arguing
that sem antic structure needed to be taken into account in order to predict sur­
face structure (e.g. Lakoff 1965, 1968, 1970b; Fillmore 1968; R. Lakoff 1968;
M cCaw ley 1968a,b, 1973; Ross 1969. 1970; Postal 1971).
T he idea that two forms with the same sem antics should be identical at some
level o f representation has more recently been made explicit in the theory o f
Relational Gram m ar, (RG), within which Perlm utter and Postal (1983a) pro­
posed the Universal A lignm ent H ypothesis (UAH):

Universal Alignment Hypothesis: There exists some set of universal

principles which will map the semantic representation of a clause onto
the initial grammatical relations.

A lthough the UAH is not uncontroversial (cf. Rosen 1984), a more specific
version o f it has been echoed within G overnm ent and B inding Theory (GB) in
B aker’s (1988) Universal T heta A ssignm ent H ypothesis (UTAH):

Universal Tlieta Assignment Hypothesis: Identical thematic relation­

ships between items are represented by identical structural relation­
ships between those items at the level of D-structure.

These and other more recent proposals are som ew hat more constrained than
the G enerative Sem antics analyses were, because transform ations or deriva­
tions are generally taken to be relevant only in cases o f (reasonably) productive
m orphology (e.g.. B aker 1988).'
A lthough these theories differ in many substantive ways, they share the as­
sum ption that m orphologically related, (truth-functionally) synonymous sen­
tences must share a level o f representation. This assum ption has guided much
o f the work in transform ational or derivational accounts o f argum ent structure
expression. Thus argum ents for transform ations often run as follows: because
 O n U n k in g 103

the initial level of representation m ust be the sam e for all synonym ous sen­
tences, if two synonymous expressions are distinct on the surface, one or both
must be derived from this shared level o f representation.
Generative Semantics and these RG and GB theorists share the important
insight that semantics plays a crucial role in determ ining (underlying) struc­
ture. Lakoff states this insight thus: “ Syntax and sem antics cannot be sepa­
rated, and the role o f transform ations and of derivational constraints in general
is to relate semantic representations and surface structures” (1971, note 1.65).

4. t .2 W eaknesses of the Transformational Approach

Many of the early proponents o f transform ations noted sem antic differ­
ences between forms that were taken to be derived from the sam e underlying
structure (e.g., Partee 1965; Fillmore 1968). They assum ed, however, that co m ­
plete synonymy was not required in order to posit an underlying level o f shared
representation.
O ftentimes a notion of truth-functional synonymy was and is invoked as the
criterion for relating two form s (e.g., Partee 1971). However, with the growing
recognition that many aspects o f w hat is intuitively called "m ean in g ” are not
captured by truth conditions alone (cf. Fillm ore 1975; Fauconnier 1985; Jack ­
endoff 1983; Lakoff 1977, 1987; Langacker 1987a; Pinker 1989; Talmy 1978,
19 85a)2 it is not at all clear why truth-conditional synonymy should have a
privileged status in the grammar.
In any case, many expressions com m only related by transform ations do not
have identical truth conditions. For exam ple, the sem antic differences between
the following sentences results in a difference in truth conditions;

(4) a. He sprayed the wall with paint,

b. He sprayed paint onto the wall.

Only in (4a) is it entailed that the wall is som ehow “ holistically” affected by
the paint spraying (Anderson 1971); the most natural interpretation o f (4a) is
that the wall is covered with paint. By contrast, (4b) would be true if used to
refer to a situation in which only a drop o f clear paint is sprayed on the wall
and the wall is not affected in any way by the paint.
Similarly, the following Chichew a exam ples adapted from Baker (1988) in­
volve a difference in m eaning although they are claim ed to be related trans­
formationally;

(5) Mayi a-n ach it-its-a kuti m tsu k o u-gw -c.

w om an 3sg-ps-do-CAUSE-mood th a t w aterp o t 3 sg -fall-m o o d
The woman made the w aterpot fall.’
104 Chapter Four

(6) M ayi a-n a-g w -e ts-a m tsuko

w om an 3sg-ps-fall-CA USE-m ood w aterpot.
‘The woman felled the w aterpot.’

As Van Valin (1992) notes, the two sentences are not synonymous: only (6)
entails that the causation is “ direct.” That is, (5) does not entail (6). For in­
stance, M chom bo (personal com m unication) observes that (5) could be felici­
tously uttered in a context where a woman was chasing her daughter, and the
daughter stum bled over the waterpot as she tried to run away. (6) cannot be
felicitously uttered in the same context; the sentence requires that the woman
actually makes physical contact with the w aterpot.5
Sem antic differences, when acknow ledged, have been accounted for by pos­
iting sem antic constraints on the application o f transform ations. However,
w hile adding sem antic constraints to syntactic transform ations can capture se­
mantic differences, the m otivation for postulating syntactic transform ations in
the first place is often underm ined by the existence o f these semantic differ­
ences. That is, w ithout the assum ption o f semantic synonymy, many arguments
for a derivational relationship lose their force.
T his fact was recognized as a w eakness o f G enerative Sem antics analyses.
Ultimately, the G enerative Sem antics fram ew ork died out in part because of
the recognition that rough synonym y was not enough to justify a trans­
formational relationship. In addition, aspects o f surface form were shown to be
necessary for sem antic interpretation (Bresnan 1969; Jackendoff 1969, 1972;
Chom sky 1970).
However, the underlying assum ption that two forms that are related seman­
tically are necessarily derived from the same underlying form is still implicitly
adopted by many theorists (for discussion, see Jackendoff 1990b; Van Valin
1992). To take a fairly recent exam ple, consider D ryer’s (1986) in-depth argu­
ment for an A ntidative analysis. D ryer proposes lhat ditransitives that can be
paraphrased with to are in fact m ore basic than their prepositional paraphrases,
and that the latter are derived from the former. For exam ple, (7b) is taken to be
derived from (7a):

(7) a. Bob gave Sam an apple, (base generated)

b. Bob gave an apple to Sam. (derived)

A m ajor aim o f D ryer’s argum entation is to defend the existence o f two gram­
m atical relations, Prim ary O bject (PO) and Secondary O bject (SO). The PO
corresponds to the direct object o f transitive clauses and the first object of di­
transitive clauses; the SO corresponds specifically to the second object of di­
 O n Linking I OS

transitive clauses. The central argum ent for the existence o f these categories is
based on an appeal to what D ryer calls the “ Natural Class P rinciple,” which
states that if many languages have rules that apply specifically to a certain
form, then this form should be treated as a natural class.1 Since passive and
object marking are sensitive to the PO in many languages, the Natural Class
Principle implies that the PO exists as a natural class. Further evidence for the
existence of distinct categories PO and SO com es from word order and case
marking facts. Let us assum e the following (partial) ordering, which takes the
distinction between PO and SO into account:

(8) Subj > DO

Abs > Erg
D O > 10
PO > SO 3

The principles governing English word order and case marking facts can now
be stated quite simply: All and only term s (i.e., Subj, DO, 10, PO, SO) are not
marked with prepositions; the word order must be: Subj-V -PO /D O -SO /lO -
nonterms.
Dryer goes on to argue that this fact— the sim plification o f word order and
case marking descriptions given the existence o f the categories PO and S O — is
evidence for his A ntidative analysis. But in order for this fact to substantiate
his claim that prepositional paraphrases with to are derived from ditransitive
expressions. Dryer must assum e ( I ) that the two form s necessarily share a level
o f representation, and (2) that derivations cannot create gram m atical relations
(therefore, if PO and SO exist, they must be base generated). If we do not
assume ( I), with its im plication that either the ditransitive or the prepositional
paraphrase is derived, there is no reason why the two form s cannot both be
base generated. T hat is, the argument as to w hether the categories PO and SO
exist in English has no bearing on the question w hether an alternation account
is warranted or not; D ryer provides no independent evidence for the deriva­
tional analysis.6
Not all transform ational or derivational accounts rely crucially on an under­
lying shared representation between pairs of expressions that share a rough
semantic equivalence (e.g., Perlm utter 1978; Perlm utter & Postal 1983b; Ais-
sen 1983; Farrell 1991). However, there are other reasons to avoid a transfor­
mational relationship between related constructions if possible.
Bowerman (1982) and Gropen et al. (1989) show that in child language ac­
quisition, semantic restrictions are operative as soon as certain constructions
are produced, there being no period o f unconstrained overgeneralization on the
10 6 C hap ter l-our

basis o f a purely syntactic relation.7 For exam ple, Gropcn et al. (1989) show
that the sem antic restriction that the recipient o f a ditransitive must be animate
is operative as soon as the ditransitive syntax is produced. Thus none of the
following possible types o f overextensions were ever uttered by any of the
children they observed:

(9) *Amy took Chicago Interstate 94. (Amy took Interstate 94 to Chicago.)
(10) * Betty threw the tree the box. (Betty threw the box to the tree.)
(11) * Alex put his head a gun. (Alex put a gun to his head.)
(12) *Babs took fun a trip. (Babs took a trip for fun.) (Gropen et al. 1989:218)

As G ropen et al. note, this calls into question the idea that the dative rule is
fundam entally a syntactic operation; there is no clear reason why a syntactic
operation would be instantaneously constrained by an arbitrary semantic con­
dition. Moreover, since an unconstrained rule would be easier to leam and rep­
resent and would provide more expressive power (Pinker 1989), it is not clear
why the sem antic constraint on this putative syntactic rule is not ignored by
new generations o f speakers.
A nother problem with approaches that rely on transform ations is that they
posit an often unw arranted asym m etry between two constructions that are
thought to be related. In the case o f the ditransitive. H e gave the book to her is
usually supposed to be more basic than He gave her the book (contra Dryer
1986). A typical reason given is that the verbs w hich allow ditransitives are a
proper subset o f those that allow prepositional paraphrases. However, this is
not actually so: refuse and deny do not have paraphrases with to or for, and
neither do many m etaphorical expressions. For example:

(13) a. She gave me a headache/a kiss/an idea.

b. *She gave a headache/a kiss/an idea to me.

M oreover, O ehrle (1976) has argued that there is no principled way to distin­
guish those cases which have prepositional paraphrases from those that do not.
D evelopm ental data (Gropen et al. 1989) show s that the ditransitive and
prepositional paraphrases occur at roughly the same time in children s speech,
with neither construction reliably preceding the other, so that evidence for an
asym m etry cannot be grounded in evidence from children’s acquisition o f the
forms.
C onsider also the English locative alternation. In general, the pattern asso­
ciated with (14) is supposed lo b e more basic than that associated with (15) (cf.
Channon 1980; Perlm utter & Postal 1983a).
 O n U n k in g 107

(14) He loaded hay onto the wagon.

(15) He loaded the wagon with hay.

However, when different verbs are exam ined, this claim o f asym m etry is not
clearly warranted. So, although stack and plaster allow both argum ent struc­
tures, there is no intuition that the onto variant is more basic than the with
variant. That is, the follow ing appear to have equal status in term s o f being
basic or unmarked:

(16) a. He stacked the shelves with boxes,

b. He sacked boxes onto the shelves.
(17) a. He plastered the wall wtih posters,
b. He plastered posters onto the wall.

M oreover, adorn, blanket, block, cover, dam, enrich, fill, dirty, titter,
smother, soil, trim, endow, garnish, imbue, pave, riddle, saturate— to name a
few— only occur with the with variant. In fact, in a detailed study o f locative
verbs, Rappaport and Levin (1985) found that out o f 142 verbs studied, only
34 alternated, with exceptions existing in both directions (Pinker 1989).
On a constructional approach, we need not assum e an asym m etrical relation­
ship between two constructions that are found to be related. We can describe
instances o f partial overlap o f syntax, sem antics, or pragm atics as such, without
necessarily assuming that one of the constructions involved is basic, the other
derived. For example, we can state that the sem antics associated with the di-
transitive construction is related to the sem antics o f the paraphrase with to; we
do not need to assum e the prim acy o f one over the other. And we can describe
similarly the relations between paraphrases with to and other instances o f the
caused-motion construction, for instance between the following (a) and (b)
expressions:

(18) a. Ethel brought the w rench to Fred.

b. Ethel brought the w rench toward Fred.
(19) a. Ethel threw the ball to Harry.
b. Ethel threw the ball over Harry.

These cases are discussed in chapter 7.

To summ arize, accounts of argum ent structure which relate one construction
to another by a syntactic transform ation that derives one from the other have
several drawbacks:
I. Expressions lhat are claim ed to share a level o f representation are not
fully synonymous. This raises the following problems:
108 Chapter Four

(a) W hich aspects o f sem antics are relevant to determ ining semantic
equivalence, and thus a shared level o f representation, has never
been adequately detailed.
(b) In many cases the only m otivation (often implicit) for proposing a
derivational relationship in the first place is semantic synonymy.
2. The sem antic distinctions are learned as early as the forms themselves,
w hich casts doubt on the idea that the transform ations are basically or
prim arily syntactic.
3. Such accounts postulate an asym m etry between the two forms in ques­
tion. However:
(a) T here are typically lexical item s that only have the output form o f a
putatively optional transform ation.
(b) The two forms are often learned at roughly the same age (with nei­
ther one reliably preceding the other).
W hile transform ational accounts explicitly represent semantic relations
am ong constructions, the constructional approach, as we saw in the previous
chapter, takes a different view. On the constructional approach, semantic sim i­
larities that do not coincide with formal sim ilarities are captured implicitly,
because o f a relation between the specified sem antics, but are not explicitly
notated in the gramm ar. The intuition is that the existence o f a given form with
a particular m eaning in no way m otivates the existence o f a different form with
a closely related meaning. Therefore, inheritance links are not posited between
constructions that are not related formally. Only relations involving both form
and m eaning (or som etim es ju st form; cf. Fillm ore & Kay 1993) are explicitly
represented by positing inheritance links.
An apparent benefit to transform ational approaches is that they allow the
relationship between underlying form and m eaning to be stated in a straight­
forward. and often transparent, way." The question arises, how arc cross-
linguistic generalizations about the relationship o f sem antic representation to
over/ syntactic expression to be captured within a constructional approach'7
T his is the subject o f the following section.

4.2 G e n e r a liz a t io n s a c r o s s C o n s t r u c t io n s

G eneralizations across constructions concerning word order facts, case-

m arking properties, and links between sem antics and gram m atical relations can
all be captured by stating these generalizations at a sufficiently high node in an
inheritance hierarchy o f constructions. Thus, such generalizations are inherited
through dom inated constructions, unless a particular construction prevents
such inheritance by having a conflicting specification. The following is an
overview of all the relations discussed in the previous chapter:
 O n L in k in g 10 9

Leaving the polysemy and m etaphorical extensions out o f the diagram , we can
represent som e o f the more general relations am ong constructions as follows:

Subj.-Pred. Construction

F igure 4 .2
110 C hap ter Four

The fact that English is an SVO language can be captured by specifying a word
order constraint on the top node o f the diagram, at the level of the su b ject-
predicate construction. Certain constructions further down the inheritance
hierarchy, such as the topical ization construction or the locative there construc­
tion (not shown), can override the word order constraint with construction-
specific constraints. Thus generalizations about word order can be captured
while at the same tim e other constructions with exceptional word orders are
perm itted. Subregularities arc expressed sim ilarly by stating a generalization at
a node that is interm ediate on the hierarchy.
It should be stressed that if a generalization is construction-specific this does
not entail that it is not part o f a recurring pattern crosslinguistically. We know
that many languages have constructions closely analogous to, for instance, the
English transitive, ditransitive, loeative, and topicalization constructions. It is
quite possible that there is a universal inventory o f possible argument structure
constructions relating form and meaning, and that particular languages make
use o f a particular subset o f this inventory.
A long with many other theories o f thematic roles, ours makes no assumption
that them atic roles are prim itives (cf, Jackendoff 1972, 1983, 1987; Foley &
Van Valin 1984; Rappaport and Levin 1988; Gropen et al. 1989; Pinker 1989;
Van Valin 1990b). Instead, roles are taken to be slots in relational semantic
structures. A rgum ent roles are defined to be slots in the semantic representation
of particular constructions and participant rotes are defined to be slots in the
rich sem antic representation o f predicates (cf. chapter 2). The linking o f se­
m antics to syntactic expression is claim ed to be generally determined within
constructions, that is, at the level o f argum ent roles. At the same time, excep­
tional linking patterns may be stated as part o f particular lexical entries (cf.
Fillm ore & Kay 1993).

4.2. i Empirical W eaknesses of Construction-Independent

U n k in g Rules
It m ight be tem pting to think that individual constructions are not the
right level at which to capture generalizations about syntactic expression, and
that instead very general linking rules m apping particular roles onto gram m ati­
cal relations or syntactic configurations should be a priori preferable.
Such general linking theories have been proposed for some time. For ex­
am ple, Fillm ore (1968) suggested that subject selection was determ ined with
reference to a fixed them atic role hierarchy; the highest available role on the
hierarchy would be m apped onto the subject. More recent attem pts to relate
argum ent structure and overt syntactic form in a general way can be found in,
for exam ple, Foley & Van Valin 1984, C arter 1988. Pinker 1989. and Rappa-
 O n L in k in g I I I

port & Levin 1988. Such linking theories are motivated by the fact that there
are intra- and inter-language generalizations about the kinds o f com plem ents
particular predicates have. The attem pt, then, is based on the fact that clearly,
syntactic form is not related in an arbitrary way to the sem antics o f predicates.
In this section, 1 first review evidence that in a m onostratal account, con-
slruction-specific linking rules are required— that it is not possible to state all
linking generalizations in a construction-independent way: certain m appings o f
semantic arguments to gram m atical forms are only relevant to particular co n ­
structions (cf. also Koenig 1993). The two argum ent roles discussed are those
of recipient and theme.

Recipients
In English, recipient argum ents (or the first argum ent o f an abstract
predicate HAVE or RECEIV E) can be linked to three different gram m atical
relations. W hich gram m atical relation is actually expressed depends on the
construction at hand. For exam ple, in the ditransitive construction recipient
arguments are expressed as objects:
(20) Sam gave M ary a cake.
Subj V Obj O bj2
They also appear in oblique phrases in the transfer-caused motion con­
struction:9
(21) Sam gave the piece o f land to his son.
Subj V Obj Obi
Recipient argum ents are also som etim es expressed as subjects:
(22) Sam received/got/acquired a package.
Subj V O bj,

What we have then is the situation diagram m ed below. The sam e generally
defined argument occurs overtly in different syntactic positions (bearing differ­
ent gramm atical relations). W hich syntactic position is actualized is determ ined
by the construction, not by the them atic role in isolation.

Recipient

/N
Obj | Subj Obi

Figure 4 .3

Thus the mapping from sem antics to gram m atical relations is not determ ined
by a function that is based solely on the them atic role to be expressed. Instead,
we find cases wherein the syntactic expression is construction specific.
1 12 C h a p re r F o u r

Themes

C onsider what the “ them e" argum ent would be mapped onto in a con­
struction-independent account if the “ them e” is defined to be an argument
which undergoes a change of slate or location. A specific attem pt at such an
argum ent has been form ulated within the monostratal linking theory o f LFG
by L. Levin (1987), A lsina and M chom bo (1990), Bresnan and Kanerva
(1989), Bresnan and Moshi (1989), Bresnan and Zacncn (1990), and Ackerman
(1990). This theory is chosen here for discussion because to my knowledge it
is the m ost detailed attem pt at a linking theory within a monostratal framework.
In this theory, gram m atical relations are predicted from the argument structure
o f particular predicates. A rgum ent structures are represented by argument
(theta) role arrays, although there is no strong assumption that the argument
roles are prim itives instead o f being derived from a richer decompositional
sem antics. In fact, most proponents o f this theory suppose that the roles are
shorthand for different argum ent places in some logical decomposition in the
style made fam iliar by G enerative Sem antics (see Jackendoff 1972, 1983.
1987; Foley & Van Valin 1984; Rappaport and Levin 1988; Gropen et al. 1989;
and Pinker 1989 for argum ents that thematic roles are not primitive).
Tw o abstract features are postulated, [r] and [o], which categorize four types
o f gram m atical relations:

SUBJ [ —r, - o ] O BL0 [+ r, - o ]

OBJ [ —r, -fo] O B J0 [ + r, + o ]

(O BJ0 denotes the second object o f dilransitives.) The feature [r] stands for
(sem antically) restricted; [o] stands for objective or objeci-like. Thematic roles
are assigned features in two ways. On the one hand, they have an intrinsic
classification (IC), w hich is said to be based on their inherent sem antic prop­
erties. A first approxim ation o f this basic classification is given below.

Intrinsic Classification ( first approxim ation):

• theme roles: [ —r]
• all other roles: [ - o j

On the other hand, roles receive a default assignment: the highest theta role on
the proposed hierarchy receives a [ —r] feature as a default, the rest receive
[ + r] (Bresnan & M oshi 1989; Alsina & M chom bo 1990). The hierarchy that
is adopted is:

agent > beneficiary > goal > instrum ent > theme > location

A lsina and M chom bo (1990) propose that applicatives in Chichewa are formed
 O n I in k in g I 13

by a lexical rule which adds a “ dependent” argum ent to the argum ent structure
o f the matrix verb; (23) illustrates this for co o k:w

(23) cooku < a g t p a t> => cook, < a g t p a t>

The “ dependent” -subscript on the theta role ‘0 ' is intended to capture a se­
mantic property that is claim ed to be loosely correlated with affectedness.
O ther LFG accounts have described this sem antic property as “ applied” (B res­
nan & Moshi 1989), “ patient-like” (Bresnan 1990)yjr “ affected” (Ackerm an
1990). Unfortunately, this attribute is not fully explicated in any o f these analy­
ses. For the sake of consistency, 1 will refer to it as “ dependent” throughout.
The rule in (23) is analogous to the sem antics-changing lexical rules pro­
posed in Levin & Rapoport 1988 and Pinker 1989. Several difficulties stem ­
ming from the semantic claims inherent in this type of approach have been
discussed in chapter I. The prim ary focus within LFG , however, is on the link­
ing between lexical sem antics and surface syntax; it is this aspect o f the ap­
proach which is considered here.
Alsina and M chom bo (1990) state the intrinsic classification assignm ent for
the applicative construction in general term s:11

(24) W hen there is a theme and a(nother) dependent argum ent, then one will
receive ( —r] and the other will receive [+ o ] (in languages that allow
only one direct object, like Chichew a and English).

Dependent recipient roles have a special status, since when present, they must
occur directly after the verb, can be expressed as an object-m arkeron the verb,
and can be passivized, whereas the co-occurring theme argum ent cannot (M o-
rolong & Hyman 1977; Alsina & M chom bo 1990). In these ways the recipient
dependent argum ent is direct-object-like, and like other direct objects may ap ­
pear as subject in passives. These facts are accounted for if a dependent recipi­
ent is necessarily either a surface SUBJ or OBJ. A lsina and M chom bo therefore
propose that dependent recipient roles must receive a [ —r] classification,
which distinguishes SUBJ and OBJ relations from other relations.
We thus have the following revised list o f intrinsic classifications now:

Intrinsic Classification (revised):

• them e/patient roles: [ —r] or [+ o ]
• “dependent” recipient role. [ —r]
■ other dependent roles: [ - r] or [+ o ]
• all other roles: [ - o ]

A nother exam ple o f a sem antics-changing lexical rule is proposed by A ck­

erman (1990) in order to account for the locative alternation involving verbs
such as “ spray” and “ load” in Hungarian (exam ples are A ckerm an’s):
I 14 C h a p t e r (-our

(25) a paraszt ( r a = )ra k ta aszen at a s z e k e rre

the p easan t (onto)loaded-3sg/D F.F the hay-ACC the w agon-suB L
‘T he p easan t Ioaded0 the hay o n to the w ag o n .’
(2 6 ) a paraszt m eg = rakta aszek eret szendval
the p easan t PERF-loaded-3sg/DEF the w a g o n -A rc hay-lNSTR
‘T he p easan t load ed , the w agon with hay.’

T he locative argum ent o f meg = rakta in (26) is a dependent argument, which

gets the intrinsic classification [ - r ] just as dependent arguments do on Alsina
and M chom bo's account. Thus we have the following:

(2 7 ) “ load0” < a g t loc them e> “ lo ad ,” < a g t lo c ^ ,,^ ,., them e>

T he with variant given in (2 6 ) seems to fit squarely within the domain o f gen­
eralization in (24), which would predict that the them e argum ent should receive
a [+ o ] intrinsic classification, ultim ately resulting in its being linked to an
OBJ« relation like the theme argum ent in applicative constructions. However,
as (2 6 ) shows, the theme argum ent in the presence o f another dependent argu­
ment is not linked to OBJ„ but rather mapped to OBL. In order to avoid the
conclusion that locatives should be expressed in a way directly parallel to ap-
plicatives, A ckcrm an stipulates that the them e argum ent does not get the intrin­
sic classification [+ o ], but instead receives [+ r] as intrinsic classification and
then [ - o] as a default.12
For languages that have ditransitive (or applicative) expressions and both
form s o f the locative alternation, for exam ple, English and Chichew a,l, we now
need to postulate the following intrinsic classifications:

Intrinsic Classification (final formulation):

1. If there is another dependent role which is a recipient, thcme/patient
role: [+ o ]
2. If there is another dependent role which is a locative, theme/patient
role: [+ r]
3. If th ere is no o th e r d e p e n d e n t ro le, th e m e /p a tie n t: [ — r]
4. dependent recipient role: [ - r]
5. all other roles: [ - o ]

T hese rules are in part language specific, since not all languages have all of the
relevant constructions. More crucially for our purposes, observe the three fea-
ture-assigning rules ( 1 - 3 ) involving the theme role. Each of these rules is sen­
sitive to other roles present in the argum ent structure. This context sensitivity
is expected on a constructional approach to linking, bur may have been
precisely w hat the LFG linking theory had specifically wanted to avoid
(M chom bo, personal com m unication).
 O n L in k in g I 15

Taking the A lsina & M chombo and A ckerm an analyses together, we find
that the theme can receive the intrinsic classification [ - r ] , [ + o], or l + r] (de­
pending on what other roles are assigned), that is, all but one possible assign­
ment ( [ - o ] ) . It becom es difficult to see w hat is supposed to be m eant by
“ intrinsic classification.” T hat is, w hat is called “ intrinsic classification" is
assigned not on the basis o f intrinsic properties o f the argum ent, but rather on
the basis o f properties o f other, co-occurring arguments. Moreover, as A cker­
man ( 1992, note 21) observes, this assignm ent o f features still does not account
for the expression of themes as subjects in the intransitive m otion construction.
Adding to this difficulty o f too w ide a range of possible intrinsic classifica­
tions for a given role is the fact that these classifications are not assigned on
the basis o f independent evidence. W hat determ ines which o f the possible clas­
sifications is actually assigned is w hat construction is supposed to be predicted.
In this way, the classifications becom e circular: the recipient is dependent, and
thus [ - r] as opposed to [ - o], just in case it is supposed to be the OBJ in the
ditransitive construction. Since the notion “ dependent” is never adequately
defined, no independent criterion for the assignm ent o f dependent status is o f­
fered. In short, since the linking theory can by its nature capture the necessary
facts— because the abstract features [r] and [o] are all that is needed to code
the gramm atical relations— unless independent criteria for assigning gram ­
matical relation features are found, the formalism only serves to code the syn­
tactic structure that is supposed to be predicted.
The general point is that the linking o f the theme role to an overt gram m ati­
cal relation crucially depends on w hat other argum ents are present. The same
point can be made equally well with English data. The theme argum ent, that is,
the entity whose motion or location is at issue, can occur as subject in the
intransitive motion construction:

(28) The boy ran home.

As object in sim ple transitives:

(29) Pat moved the bat.

As oblique in a version of the locative alternation:

(30) Pat loaded the truck with hay.

And as the second object in ditransitives:

(31) Pat threw Chris the ball.

W hich gram m atical relation is actually realized depends on which construction

is expressed.
I 16 C hap ter Fo u r

4 .2.2 Capturing Linking Generalizations with Constructions

O nce we recognize the large num ber of construction-specific linking

rules, the question arises w hether there are any more general linking rules. In
this section, D ow ty’s (1991) account o f linking generalizations is discussed,
and it is shown that his observations can be adapted to the present framework
quite naturally.
Dowty (1991), follow ing the spirit o f Foley and Van Valin (1984), suggests
two general m acro-role types: Proto-Agent and Proto-Patient (cf. Foley & Van
Valin’s “ A ctor” and “ U ndergoer” ). These roles are defined as prototype con­
cepts, m uch like the prototypes discussed by Rosch and her colleagues (e.g.,
Rosch and M ervis 1975). The lists o f Proto-Agent and Proto-Patient properties
draw in part on the em pirical findings o f Keenan (1976, 1984), who detailed
many properties associated with Subject and O bject crosslinguistically.

Proto-A gent properties:

1. volitional involvem ent in the event or state
2. sentience (and/or perception)
3. causing an event or change o f state in another participant
4. m ovem ent (relative to the position of another participant)
5. exists independently o f the event named by the verb

Proto-Patient properties:
1. undergoes change o f state
2. increm ental theme
3. causally affected by another participant
4. stationary relative to m ovem ent o f another participant
5. does not exist independently o f the event, or not at all.

G iven these definitions o f Proto-Patient and Proto-Agent properties, Dowty

proposes the following principle:

Argument Selection Principle: In predicates with grammatical subject

and object, the argument for which the predicate entails the greatest
number of Proto-Agent properties will be lexicalized as the subject;
the argument for which the predicate entails the greatest number of
Proto-Patient properties will be lexicalizcd as the direct object.

Proto-roles reflect higher-order generalizations about lexical meanings. There­

fore, the principles above allow for a small num ber o f lexical exceptions (e.g.,
undergo, sustain, tolerate, receive, inherit).14
 O n L in k in g I 17

In syntactically ergative languages, for exam ple Dyirbal (Dixon 1972), cer­
tain Mayan languages including Mann (England 1983) and Q uiche (Treschsel
1982), the subject in transitive clauses is the argum ent with more Proto-Patient
properties. For these languages Dowty reverses the syntactic association. He
notes, however, that “what we do not find, even in split ergat/vity, is ‘random ’
alignment from one verb to another, e.g. ‘build’ with A gent absolutive but ‘kill’
with Patient absolutive” (p. 582).
It Lurns out that D ow ty’s linking generalizations are naturally accounted for
in the present framework. Notice the dom ain of application o f D ow ty’s prin­
ciple: “ In predicates with gram m atical subject and object. . . .” Clearly the
principle is only relevant if the transitive construction is involved. Therefore,
the generalization that if there is a SUBJ and an OBJ, then the role that is more
agent-like, the “ pioto-agent,” is linked with SUBJ and the “ proto-patient” role
is linked with OBJ, can be captured by specifying these linking rules within a
skeletal transitive construction, and allow ing other constructions to inherit
from this construction.

Transitive Construction

Sem proto-agent proto-patient

I I
( Syn SUBJ OBJ

Figure 4 .4

In syntactically ergative languages, the transitive construction has the re­

verse linking, so that SUBJ is linked with the proto-patient role and OBJ is
linked with the proto-agent role; these linkings are then inherited by other con­
structions as long as those constructions' specifications do not conflict.
Just like D ow ty’s proposal, the constructional account allow s for a limited
number of lexical exceptions. Exceptions are cases which do not inherit from
(i.e., are not motivated by) the transitive construction, or cases which inherit
only the form but override the meaning o f the construction. The num ber of
exceptions is limited because such non-m otivated (or less well m otivated)
cases exist at a cost to the overall system, in accord with the Principle o f M axi­
mized M otivation (cf. chapter 3). Thus the inheritance hierarchy allow s us to
capture the relevant generalizations w hile at the same tim e allow ing for a lim ­
ited num ber o f lexicalized exceptions.
118 C h a p te r F o u r

4.2.3 Som e Speculations on the Semantics of the

Transitive Construction
By being posited as a unitary structure with sem antics consisting merely
o f two abstract “ proto-roles,” the transitive construction in figure 4.4 is repre­
sented as if it had a single, very general abstract meaning. It may well turn out
that this construction is more like the others discussed in this monograph in
that it may be m ore felicitous to assign a fam ily o f related m eanings lo it, with
the prototypical “ transitive scene” (cf. L akoff 1977; H opper & Thompson
1980; Rice 1987a,b) being the central sense. In this case, the central sense
would be quite specific, being that o f a volitional actor affecting an inanimate
patient— a causative event.'5 Extensions from the prototype would license a
w ider range o f transitive expressions.
O ne indication that m ultiple senses may be involved stem s from the fact that
there exist clusters o f cases which are not instances o f the general semantic
tem plate given in figure 4.4. For exam ple, alongside the “exceptional” receive
and inherit, we find the closely related verbs have, own, acquire, get. The ex­
istence o f so many cases m ilitates against the idea that they are in fact excep­
tional. On a m ultiple-sense view, it is possible to posit additional senses o f the
transitive construction, for exam ple a sense ‘h a v e (X, Y )’ (cf. Pinker 1989).
A nother benefit o f the m ultiple-sense view is that it is able to capture the
generalization, discussed in chapter 2, that crosslinguistically language learn­
ers apply transitive m arkers first to expressions designating prototypical tran­
sitive scenes, before extending them to less prototypically transitive ex ­
pressions (Slobin 1985).
Languages differ in how and to what extent the transitive construction is
extended to express nonprototypical sem antically transitive scenes. In recog­
nizing distinct senses, we might be able to develop a model in which we would
be able to isolate the true crosslinguistic generalizations. In other words, lan­
guages differ in how they express noncanonical transitive predicates, such as
predicates o f possession ( “ have” , “ ow n” ), but languages express semantically
canonical transitive predicates by m eans o f a transitive construction."’ Lan­
guage-specific idiosyncrasies would arise, according to this view, in just how
languages extend their inventory o f gram m atical argum ent structure construc­
tions to cover expressive requirem ents.
Linking generalizations apply to the basic senses o f constructions. A ddi­
tional senses o f the transitive construction, related to it by polysemy links (cf.
chapter 3), would inherit the linking specifications o f the construction they are
dom inated by. Therefore, once we posit extensions o f the basic transitive con-
 O n U n k in g I 19

siruction, the fact that these extensions have the sam e syntactic expression
would follow.

4.3 C o n c l u s io n

To summ arize, this chapter has presented general argum ents for a m on­
ostratal approach to the relation between overt syntactic expressions and se­
mantic representations. It has been suggested that the degree o f regularity in
the relation between sem antic role types and overt syntactic expression is
sometimes exaggerated, and that many linking generalizations are construction
specific. The cross-constructional generalizations that do exist are naturally
captured in the present fram ework by slating the relevant regularities at a high
node in the hierarchy o f constructions; subregularities or m inor patterns are
captured by stating the respective generalizations at interm ediate nodes. Ex­
ceptions are allowed to exist, but only at a cost to the overall system.
5 Partial Productivity

If you invent a verb, say greem, which refers to an intended act of

communication by speech and describes the physical characteristics
of the act (say a loud, hoarse quality), then you know . . . it will be
possible to greem, to greem for someone to get you a glass of water,
to greem to your sister about the price of doughnuts, to greem “ Ecch"
at your enemies, to have your greem frighten the baby, to greem to me
that my examples are absurd, and to give a greem when you see the
explanation.
Arnold Zwicky (1971)

5. i In t r o d u c t io n

It has been a long-standing puzzle that many constructions are used

som ew hat productively (as implied by the above quotation),' yet resist full pro­
ductivity. This chapter addresses the issue of partial productivity for the most
part by exam ining the ditransitive construction as an example. In section 5.5.2
other constructions, which can be seen to be either more productive or less
productive, are considered.
The ditransitive construction can be used som ew hat productively; that is, the
construction can be extended to new and hypothetical verb forms (e.g., Wasow
1981). For exam ple, the new lexical item fa x can be used ditransitivcly as
in (1):

(1) Joe faxed Bob the report.

Also, hypothetical lexical item s are readily adapted to the ditransitive syntax.
As M arantz (1984) notes, if we define a new verb, shin, to mean “ to kick with
the shin,” it is quite natural for us to allow this new verb to be used ditransi­
tivcly, as in (2):

(2) Joe shinned his team m ate the ball. (p. 177)

Experim ental evidence confirm s the fact that speakers extend constructional
patterns for use with novel verbs (Pinker, Lebeaux & Frost 1987; Pinker 1989;
M aratsoset al. 1987; Gropen et al. 1989, 1991; Braine ct al. 1990).
At the same time, the ditransitive pattern is not com pletely productive within
any generally defined class of verbs. Seem ingly closely related words show

120
 Partial Productivity 12 1

distinct differences as to w hether they allow ditransitive syntax. T he following

contrasts exist in many dialects:

(3) a. Joe gave the earthquake relief fund $5.

b. *Joe donated the earthquake relief fund $5
(4) a. Joe told Mary a story.
b. *Joe whispered Mary a story.
(5) a. Joe baked M ary a cake.
b. *Joe iced Mary a cake.

Brown and Hanlon (1970) have argued that children are neither corrected nor
miscomprehended more often when they speak ungram m atically, so that they
have no recourse to "negative evidence” that could allow them to either un­
learn or avoid learning the above type o f ungram m atical sentences (cf. Braine
1971; Baker 1979).
The standard solution to the no-negative-evidence problem in the case of
vocabulary learning is to assum e that there is indirect negative evidence in the
form of attested input, assum ing a principle that synonym y is avoided (cf. d is­
cussion in chapter 3). That is, a child may overgeneralize the past tense co n ­
struction to produce coined as the past tense of come, but upon learning that
came is synonymous, the child will expunge corned from her vocabulary, since
she will assume that the language does not have two term s corned and cam e
which are synonymous. Such indirect evidence is not forthcom ing in an o bvi­
ous way in the case of alternative syntactic patterns. It is not likely that the
child simply expunges (6) upon hearing (7) because many verbs (e.g., give) do
occur in both forms.

(6) *H e w hispered the woman the news.

(7) He whispered the news to the woman.

Moreover, as noted above, experim ental evidence shows that children do not
learn how to use syntactic patterns entirely conservatively, that is to say, solely
on the basis o f the input. If properly prim ed, they are w illing to extend their
use of verbs to previously unheard but related patterns.
An apparent paradox arises then, since if speakers have a productive m echa­
nism that allows them to extend the use of the ditransitive syntax to new and
novel verbs, it is not clear w hat prevents them from overgeneralizing to pro­
duce the above ill-formed exam ples (3 b -5 b ).
This paradox is often sidestepped in linguistic theories. Thus, w hether
relation-changing lexical rules are intended to be purely redundant generaliza­
122 C h a p r e r F iv e

tions over stored item s in a fixed lexicon, or rather generative rules which
produce new forms productively, is often not made entirely clear.
Jackendoff (1975), for example, states that his lexical rules are intended only
to account for existing regularities (both m orphological and sem antic) within
the lexicon. These rules are represented by two-way arrows which encode the
sym m etric relation “ is lexically related to.” This aspect o f Jackendoff’s ac­
count is crucial, since he argues explicitly against L akoff’s (1965) proposal that
productive rules generate “ hypothetical lexical entries.” However, Jackendoff
also suggests that “ after a redundancy rule is learned, it can be used genera-
tively, producing a class o f partially specified possible lexical entries” (p. 668).
Bresnan (1982) also attem pts to find a middle ground between nonproduc­
tive and fully productive rules. W hile the lexical rules o f LFG are explicitly
conceived o f as “ redundancy rules,” the m etaphor o f a lexically changing pro­
cess is pervasive. The following is Bresnan's early description o f the passive
lexical rule:

Passivization in English
Functional change: (SUBJ) —» 0 / (BY OBJ)
(OBJ -> (SUBJ)
M orphological change: V —» V|Par1|

The use o f single-headed arrows and the word “change” indicate that the rule
is a generative relation-c/iangm g rule. In fact, the notion o f a "redundancy
rule" itself is slightly oxym oronic, since a redundant statem ent o f regularity is
not in any normal sense rule-like.
In the rem a in d ero f this chapter, a resolution o f the paradox o f partial produc­
tivity is suggested, involving two types o f learning mechanisms. The first is a
certain type o f indirect negative evidence; the second m echanism , presumably
working in tandem with the first, draws largely on work by Pinker (1989) and
Levin (1993) and the related experim ental evidence o f Gropen et al. (1989).

5.2 In d ir e c t N e g a t iv e E v id e n c e

1 do not attem pt to survey the full range o f efforts to suggest that some
type o f indirect negative evidence is available here (see Bowcrman 1988 and
Pinker 1989 for detailed discussion o f the problem and critiques o f many pos­
sible solutions), but there is one possibility (raised in Pinker 1981, 1984, and
then rejected in Pinker 1989) that deserves further study.
Since we have assum ed that no two constructions are entirely synonymous
both sem antically and pragm atically (cf. chapter 3), it should be possible to
find contexts in which a given construction is the most preferred. If the pre­
 Partial P ro d u c tivity 12 3

ferred form is not used, then the child is able to tentatively infer that that form
is disallowed. The inference would have to be tentative, since it is unrealistic
to expect speakers to system atically use the most felicitous form in all contexts.
However, if the situation repeats itself several tim es, the ch ild ’s tentative hy­
pothesis may becom e a fairly strong conviction. In this way, children would
have the opportunity to unlearn certain ovcrgeneralizations.
A simple case that may illustrate this is lexical and periphrastic causatives.
It is well known that lexical causatives are used for cases o f direct causation,
whereas periphrastic causatives may be used for indirect causation (cf. 7.4.2).
Therefore, for exam ple, after seeing a m agician m ake a bird disappear, the
child may expect to hear a lexical causative as in (8), given that the causation
is direct:

(8) *The m agician disappeared the bird.

Instead, however, the child may hear a periphrastic causative:

(9) Look! The magician m ade the bird disappear.

The child may now tentatively hypothesize that the lexical causative is un­
available. That is, since the causation is direct, the lexical causative would be
preferable if it were an option.
As another example, consider a child's strategy in determ ining w hether a
given verb can occur in the ditransitive construction. As noted by Erteschik-
Shir (1979), and discussed in section 3.4.2 above, the ditransitive and its prepo­
sitional paraphrase with to differ in the inform ation structure o f the clause. In
particular, the ditransitive construction requires that the recipient argum ent
be nonfocused (or “ non-dom inant” in E rteschik-Shir’s term inology) and the
transferred entity be focused ( “dom inant” ). Prepositional paraphrases prefer
the opposite information structure: the recipient tends to be focused, the trans­
ferred entity nonfocused. Both o f these generalizations are motivated by the
fact that focused information tends to com e at the end o f the nuclear clause.
If the recipient is nonfocused and the transferred entity is focused, we find
the ditransitive more acceptable than the prepositional paraphrase:

(10) a. Sally gave him a brand-new red Volkswagen. >

b. Sally gave a brand-new red Volkswagen to him.

If the recipient argum ent is focused and the transferred entity nonfocused, we
find the reverse situation:

(11) a. Sally gave that to a charm ing young man. >

b Sally gave a charm ing young man that.
124 C h a p t e r Five

W hen using verbs which can occur in both constructions, speakers are free to
exploit the difference in pragm atic structure. There is, in fact, evidence that
children are sensitive to these pragm atic factors (Gropen et al. 1989).
Indirect evidence would arise, then, from situations in which the discourse
context m atches a certain form but the speaker nevertheless uses a less felici­
tous form. For exam ple, speakers use the prepositional form for w hisper even
when the inform ation to be conveyed more closely matches the information
structure o f the ditransitive construction. Thus, if a child hears (12) instead o f
(13), when the latter might be expected given the fact that the news is the
focused inform ation, the child will infer that the ditransitive form is not a pos­
sibility for whisper.

(12) Sally w hispered som e terrible news to him.

( 13) *Sally w hispered him some terrible news.

Pinker raises this possibility in several places (Pinker 1981, 1984:400).

However, he ultim ately rejects the idea that this m echanism could be sufficient
for learning to disallow particular form s, for two reasons (Pinker 1989:16).
The first objection he raises is that children’s sensitivity to discourse contexts
is statistical, not absolute. T hat is, children do not treat discourse effects as a
determ inant factor in choosing alternate argum ent structures; they are more
likely to use the argum ent structure with the better-suited pragm atics, but they
do not always do so (G ropen et al. 1989). However, the very fact that children
are more likely to use the construction with better-suited pragm atics is suffi­
cient to show that they do have an im plicit know ledge o f the inform ation struc­
ture and are able to attend to it. For instance, it is possible that a child wouldn't
notice the first time that whisper was used with the focus on the transferred
entity, or the second time. But eventually, the child would presum ably notice;
at that tim e she would be able to use the input evidence to form the hypothesis
that whisper cannot be used in the ditransitive form.
Even if we strengthen P inker’s first objection and assume that adult's sensi­
tivity to discourse contexts is also only statistical and not absolute, we do not
underm ine this strategy. That is, even if we concede that neither adults nor
children can be assum ed to always use the most felicitous form, this strategy is
not ruled out. All that is required is that the child be capable o f recognizing a
statistical correlation in the input data (K apur 1993).
T he second objection Pinker raises stem s from his assum ption that other
focusing devices such as pronouns, cleft constructions, and contrastive stress
can be used to override the default differences in inform ation structure between
alternative argum ent structures. On that view, adult speakers would be able to
com pensate for using less-preferred argum ent structures by overlaying these
 Partial P rod u c tivity 125

less-preferred argument structures with various focusing devices (e.g., pro­

nouns, focus constructions, and stress), thus altering the inform ation structure
encoded by particular argument structures as a default. Assuming that speakers
make use o f these strategies, the input would be for the most part optim al, and
children would have no reason to infer that the speaker in a given situation
would have used a different argum ent structure if he could have.
However, this suggestion is ultimately not persuasive, since focusing devices
are not able to alter or override the inform ation structure of the clause but
instead are required to obey the independently existing inform ation structure
o f the clause. For exam ple, pronouns are preferred in nonfocus positions:

(14) a. She gave it to a woman. >

b. *She gave a woman it.
(15) a. She gave her a brand-new house. >
b. #She gave a brand-new house to her.

Similarly, focus has been argued to only pick out argum ents that are in focus-
able positions as defined for a given construction. For exam ple, as m entioned
above. Erteschik-Shir (1979) has argued that the recipient argum ent of the d i­
transitive construction is not available as focus because the construction re­
quires that argument to be nonfocused (or “ non-dom inant” ):

(16) a.??W ho did you give the book?

b.??lt was M ary you gave the book.
c.??W as it Mary you gave the book?

Finally, stress is also more felicitous on argum ents that are in focus position,
thereby generally em phasizing the inform ation structure rather than overriding
it. Thus exam ple (17a) is more felicitous than (17b):

(17) a. She gave that to A W O M A N SHE JU ST MET. >

b. #She gave A W OM AN SHE JU ST M ET that.

Therefore, focusing devices might well be lim ited to giving the child addi­
tional evidence for the inform ation structure o f the clause, rather than serving
to dilute other evidence by providing ways for the adult speaker to circum vent
the inform ation structure associated with a particular argum ent structure. Since
two constructions generally differ either sem antically or pragm atically, the hy­
pothesis that indirect negative evidence is inferred from hearing a verb in a
less-than-optim al construction deserves further study.

5.3 C ir c u m s c r ib in g V erb C lasses

Pinker (1989), arguing against any negative evidence (direct or indirect),

ultimately provides a different, com pelling resolution o f the paradox of partial
12 6 C h a p t e r hive

productivity. A broad-range rule is proposed to capture the necessary condi­

tions for a verb’s occurrence in additional syntactic frames. In the case o f the
ditransitive, Pinker posits a broad-range rule that slates in effect that a “ pro­
spective possessor” must be involved— that is, the first object referent must be
understood to be a prospective possessor. This general rule does not provide
sufficient conditions, however, there being many verbs that can be understood
to involve a prospective possessor w hich do not allow ditransitive syntax (e.g.,
donate, contribute, pull, shout, choose, credit, say).
D rawing on work by G reen (1974) (and Levin 1985 and Rappaport & Levin
(1985) for the locative alternation), Pinker suggests that sufficient conditions
are determ ined by a set o f narrow-range rules w hich classify verbs into nar­
rowly defined sem antic classes. The specific classes that Pinker proposes are
the follow ing (cf. also Gropen et al. 1989; Levin 1993);

1. Verbs that inherently signify acts o f giving: e.g., give, pass, hand,
sell, trade, lend, s e n r , fe e d
2. Verbs o f instantaneous causation of ballistic motion: e.g., throw,
toss, flip, slap, poke, fling, shoot, blast
3. Verbs o f sending: e.g., send, mail, ship
4. Verbs o f continuous causation o f accom panied motion in a deicti-
cally specified direction: bring, take
5. Verbs o f future having (involving a com m itm ent that a person will
have som ething at som e later point): e.g., offer, prom ise, bequeath, leave,
refer, forw ard, allocate, guarantee, allot, assign, advance, award, reserve,
grant
6. Verbs o f com m unicated message: e.g., tell, show, ask, teach, pose,
write, spin, read, quote, cite
7. Verbs o f instrum ent o f com m unication: e.g., radio, e-mail, tele­
graph, wire, telephone, netmail, fa x
8. Verbs o f creation: e.g., bake, make, build, cook, sew, knit, toss (when
a salad results),/!* (when a meal results), p o u r (when a drink results)
9. Verbs o f obtaining: e.g., get, buy, find, steal, order, win, earn, grab

It may seem that if we adm it the possibility o f indirect negative evidence as

suggested above, there is no need to adopt Pinker’s suggestion that narrowly
defined sem antic classes also play a role in the acquisition o f argument struc­
ture. However, circum scribing narrowly defined classes o f verbs to be associ­
ated with a particular construction will allow us to account for extremely
low -frequency or novel non-alternating verbs (since the assumed notion o f in­
direct negative evidence presupposes hearing the verb in a non-optimal con­
struction on several occasions).3 For exam ple, taking Z w icky’s exam ple of a
 Partial P ro d u c tivity 127

novel verb greem, defined as a m anner-of-speaking verb referring to speech o f

a loud, hoarse quality, speakers presumably know that they cannot say (18):

(18) *He greemed her the news.

This knowledge cannot be attributed to any kind of indirect negative evidence,

because the verb is novel; speakers would not have had a chance to unlearn or
avoid learning it in this use. O ther situations in w hich the type of indirect nega­
tive evidence suggested above would not be an aid to acquisition m ight include
cases in which the construction in question is so low-frequency that the child
can never with any modicum o f confidence expect its occurrence, and cases in
which there is no construction which is closely enough related sem antically to
the target construction so that the child would be able to infer that the speaker
would have used the target construction if possible.3 Moreover, the generaliza­
tions Pinker describes are real; it is necessary to account for the fact that verbs
which are used in particular argum ent structures do often fall into sim ilarity
clusters (cf. Levin 1993). There is no reason not to believe that children exploit
multiple sources of evidence for learning argum ent structure; it is suggested
here that they m ake use o f narrowly defined verb classes as well as appealing
to some degree o f indirect negative evidence as described above.
Before continuing with Pinker's argum ent, we might make several small
com ments on the particular set o f subclasses he proposes, listed above. The
fifth subclass, “ verbs o f future having," can be seen to conflate three distinct
subclasses. Some of the verbs are used in expressions which imply that the
subject argument actually acts to cause the first object argum ent to receive the
second object argum ent at som e later point in tim e (e.g., bequeath, leave, fo r ­
ward, allocate, assign). In other cases, only if the conditions o f satisfaction
(Searle 1983) associated with the act denoted by the predicate hold does the
subject argum ent cause the first object argum ent to receive the second object
argum ent at som e later point in tim e (e.g., prom ise, guarantee, owe). Finally,
some verbs are used in expressions w hich imply that the subject argum ent only
enables the first object argum ent to receive the second object argum ent (e.g.,
permit, allow) (cf. discussion in section 3.3.2).
The sixth class, “ verbs of com m unicated m essage,” should be understood
to include verbs whose inherent sem antics involves a com m unicative act, in
order to distinguish this class from sim ilar verbs such as say. assert, claim, and
doubt which might be described as verbs o f propositional attitude. U nderstood
in this way, several o f the verbs listed by Pinker seem to be misclassified; for
example, pose and spin do not obviously fall into the class o f “ verbs o f co m ­
municated m essage,” and accordingly (at least in my dialect) are not readily
dativizable:
12 8 C h a p t e r F ive

(19) a.?*Bill posed him a problem .

b.?*Bill spun her a fairy tale.

Both this class and the seventh class, “ verbs o f instrum ent o f com m unication,”
should be classified as m etaphorical classes since they are based on a system­
atic m etaphor that involves understanding com m unicated inform ation as being
linguistically packaged and exchanged between interlocutors (Reddy 1979).
Finally, at least one additional subclass should be added to the list, namely,
verbs o f refusal such as refuse, deny. Expressions involving these verbs, like
(20a, b), imply that the subject argum ent refuses to causc the first object argu­
ment to receive the second object argument.

(20) a. Bill refused Joe a raise.

b. The com m ittee denied him a prom otion.

In any case, we need only accept the spirit of Pinker’s analysis— that there
is a need to identify narrowly defined sem antic subclasses— in order to accept
his conclusion that this type o f narrow circum scription allow s us to capture the
fact that subclasses o f verbs w hich refer to the same kinds o f general events as
the ones listed, but do not fall into any o f the above particular classes, fail to
dativize. His exam ples o f such nondativizing classes are as follows:

1. Verbs o f fulfilling (X gives som ething to Y that Y deserves, needs,

or is w orthy of): * / presented him the award; * I credited him the discovery.
* B ill entrusted/trusted him the sacred chalice; * / supplied them a bag o f gro­
ceries. (I would also include in this class concede, furnish, and donate.]
2. Verbs o f continuous causation o f accom panied motion in some m an­
ner: *1 pulled/carried/pushed/schlepped/lifted/low ered/hauledJohn the box.
3. Verbs o f m anner o f speaking: * John shouted/scream ed/m urm ured/
whispered/yodeled B ill the news.
4. Verbs o f proposition and propositional attitudes: *1 said/asserted/
questioned/claim ed/doubted her something.
5. Verbs o f choosing: * / chose/picked/selected/favored/indicatedher
a dress.

Gropen el al. (1989) provide experim ental evidence to show that speakers
are sensitive to certain m orphophonological constraints. In particular, verbs
with particular m orphem es such as per-, con-, -mil, -sume and polysyllabic
verbs with non-initial stress are disallow ed from participation in the ditransitive
construction. These constraints largely coincide with distinctions between Lat-
inate and native vocabulary, and between specialized and more basic vocabu­
lary; however, we clearly would not w ant to ascribe recourse to etymological
 Partial P ro d u c tivity 12 9

information to children, and the experim ents in support o f these particular

constraints controlled for sem antic inform ation. Therefore, the constraints are
stated in term s o f morphophonology. They are used to explain the following:

(21) Chris b o u g h t/* p u rch ased /* o b tain ed /* co llected h im some food.

(22) Jan to ld /* ex p la in e d /* re p o rted /* a n n o u n ce d C h ris a story.

However, the constraints do not apply to every narrowly defined class o f verbs.
Verbs of future having, in particular, are not subject to them:

(23) Chris assigned/allotted/guaranteed/bequeathed him the tickets.

The class o f instrum ent-of-com m unication verbs and the class o f creation
verbs also include verbs which are exceptions to the m orphophonological
constraints:

(24) Chris e-m ailed/radioed/arpanetted him a message.

(25) Chris xeroxed/therm ofaxed/nroffed him a copy.

Gropen et al. suggest that each o f the verbs in (2 4 -2 5 ) is classified, indepen­

dently o f the morphological criteria, as a special kind o f com plex stem having
a noun or name as its root. They cite evidence that tacit know ledge of a w ord’s
stem being from another syntactic category allow s it to be treated specially
with respect to morphological processes (cf. Pinker & Prince 1988). To account
for these cases, we can state the generalization that a verb from any class which
is understood to have a noun or nam e as its root is not constrained by the
morphophonological constraints.
The narrowly defined subclasses o f verbs together with the m orphophono­
logical constraints provide a high degree o f predictive power. A new or non­
sense verb which falls into one o f the recognized narrow classes o f verbs and
which, if applicable, obeys the m orphophonological constraints is autom ati­
cally licensed to be used ditransitively (but see the next section). Verbs in co n ­
flict with these requirem ents are ruled out. This circum scription o f narrow
domains in which the ditransitive is productive goes a long way toward ac­
counting for the apparent paradox that Pinker set out to resolve: that the ditran­
sitive syntax can be extended to new and novel verbs, but at the sam e tim e is
not available to all verbs o f any broadly defined class.

5.4 E x c e p t io n s

The above generalizations are com pelling, and in fact every researcher
who has studied the sem antics o f the ditransitive construction in any detail has
found it necessary to classify verbs which occur in the construction as belong­
ing to narrowly defined subclasses as a descriptive device (cf. G reen 1974;
13 0 C h a p te r Five

Oehrle 1976; W ierzbicka 1986). Still, there are various kinds of exceptions to
the generalizations ju st described. First, there are a couple o f members in some
subclasses which do occur, yet the subclasses are not fully productive. Second,
there is at tim es a certain degree of variability in judgm ents for verbs which are
supposedly within the same narrowly defined class. Finally, there are excep­
tional verbs such as envy and forgive w hich do occur in the ditransitive con­
struction although they do not entail the relevant semantics.
Each of these cases is discussed in turn. In section 5.3, an interpretation of
the nature o f the verb classes is suggested which can naturally account for all
o f these seem ingly problem atic phenom ena.

5.4.1 Unproductive Subclasses

The small classes of verbs of perm ission (permit, allow) and verbs of
refusal ( refuse, deny) are unique in not form ing productive subclasses:

(26) Sally perm itted/allow ed/* let/*enabled Bob a kiss.

(27) Sally refu sed /denied/*prevented/*disallow ed/*fo rb ad eh im a kiss.

These classes actually have a slightly different status in the theory proposed by
Pinker (1989), because the verbs in these classes do not alternate with prepo­
sitional paraphrases. Thus on Pinker’s account, these sem antically related verbs
are not eligible to undergo the lexical rule. However, since we are not postulat­
ing a lexical rule, we cannot appeal to the sam e solution. We need another way
to account for their lack o f productivity.

5 .4.2 Differences in Judgm ent w ithin Classes

An expected source o f idiosyncrasy stems from the fact that the deter­
mination o f the narrowly defined class w hich a given verb belongs in is not
always entirely clear-cut. For exam ple, I have suggested that bequeath falls
into the dativizing class o f verbs o f future having, along with leave, forw ard,
allocate, etc. However, it seem s that on sem antic grounds it might be equally
plausible to instead classify bequeath in the nondativizing class of verbs of
fulfilling (X gives som ething to Y that Y deserves, needs, or is worthy of),
along with present, credit, entrust, donate, etc. Because o f these two classifi­
cation possibilities, we would expect bequeath in fact to dativize in some dia­
lects and not to dativize in others. In general, in the case of verbs that on the
basis o f their m eaning may fall into one o f two classes, one which can appear
dilransilively and one which cannot, we would expect to find some dialectal
variation as to w hether these verbs can be used ditransitively.
A nother source of lexical idiosyncrasy is evidenced by the fact that speak­
 Partial P ro d u c tivity 13 1

ers occasionally report different degrees o f gram m atically even am ong verbs
which are uncontroversially within the sam e narrow -range class. For exam ple,
throw and blast both fall within the class o f “ verbs o f instantaneous causation
of ballistic motion” (Pinker 1989; cf. above), yet (28) is decidedly better for
many speakers than (29):

(28) She threw him a cannonball.

(29) *She blasted him a cannonball.

Similarly, (30) is judged to be more gram m atical than (31), although both d e­
sign and create should fail to dativize because o f the verbs’ non-initial stress.

(30) ?Sally designed him a sculpture.

( 3 1)??Sally created him a sculpture.

These facts are not obviously accounted for on Pinker’s proposal, since accord­
ing to his theory the productive rule should operate blindly within narrowly
defined classes; there is no reason to expect som e instances to be judged more
acceptable than others.4

5.4.3 Positive Exceptions

There are a few ditransitive expressions that do not entail any associated
transfer. Some uses o f ask can be fit into the pattern described above if they are
interpreted as instances of the m etaphor involving understanding inform ation
as traveling from speaker to hearer (cf. Reddy 1979). For exam ple, (32) can be
understood to mean that Amy caused Sam to “ receive" a question:

(32) Amy asked Sam a question.

However, other uses o f ask are clearly exceptional; consider (33):

(33) Amy asked Sam his nam e/his birthday/his m arital status.

This type o f exam ple clearly does not imply that Sam potentially receives his
name, his birthday, or his marital status. G rim shaw (1979) discusses these
“concealed questions" at some length. She argues that noun phrases such as
those above, which are questions semantically, can appear as argum ents o f
any verb which subcategorizes for an NP in that position and which selects
for a question com plem ent. Thus exam ple (33) is motivated by factors that
are independent of the ditransitive construction, resulting in a case o f “ target-
stm cture conspiracy” in the sense o f G reen (1973).5
Forgive and especially envy, as used in (34) and (35), respectively, are also
exceptional:
13 2 C h a p t e r F ive

(34) He forgave her her sins.

(35) He envied the prince his fortune.

The subjects in these cases arc not causal, and no reception is involved. How­
ever, these predicates have illum inating semantic histories. Forgive and envy
historically had senses that were closely related to give. Forgive used to mean
“ to give or g ran t” (OED). Envy used to mean “ to give grudgingly” or “ to
refuse to give a thing to” (OED). This of coursc is not evidence that fo rg ive or
envy are part o f the synchronic sem antic pattern outlined above. But the his­
torical facts do suggest that these predicates were at least at one time associated
with this sort of pattern. Correspondingly, these facts also suggest that a con­
struction can occasionally be frozen without continuing reference to the origi­
nal semantics.
However, it seem s reasonable that syntactic change should tend toward pat­
terns that are more transparent to the speaker. If the construction with the se­
m antics outlined here is psychologically real, then it would be natural for odd
cases o f ditransitives involving fo rg ive and envy to drop out of use. I myself
find archaic-sounding scntcnces involving fo rg ive and envy much more ac­
ceptable than m odern-sounding sentences; for example:

(36) a. She forgave him his sins.

b.?*S he forgave him his goof.
(37) a. She envied him his vast fortune.
b.?*S he envied him his extensive stock portfolio.

And in fact, other speakers are even less accepting o f these constructions. In
attem pting to explain the idea o f positive exceptions to a class o f undergraduate
cognitive science students, I wrote sentence (36a) and (37a) on the board. In
response an audible groan arose from the class. W hen asked what was wrong,
the students said they didn’t find those sentences acceptable (this judgm ent was
held by more than half o f them). Thus it seems indeed that envy and forgive
are dropping out o f the language (at least am ong speakers under twenty-one),
ju st as we would expect if the sem antics associated with the ditransitive pattern
were synchronically real.
N onetheless, envy and fo rg ive have been exceptions for som e time, and have
been learned as such by generations o f speakers. Thus an adequate account of
gram m ar must allow for some degree o f lexical idiosyncrasy, despite the pow­
erful effect o f sem antic m otivations (cf. also Lakoff 1965; Fillmore 1977b;
Rosen 1984; M ithun 1991; Dowty 1991). N ote that these cases are unproble­
matic from the point o f view o f learning, since the child has positive evidence
that the verbs in question are used in the ditransitive construction, and can
therefore learn them on an instance-by-instance basis as idioms.
 Partial P rod uctivity 133

5.s A c c o u n t in g f o r t h e E x c e p t i o n s .-A U s a g e -b a s e d A ccount

5.5. i Productivity Defined by Verb Clusters

In the preceding sections, we have seen that even after em bracing the
idea of narrowly defined verb classes to account for the partial productivity of
the ditransitive construction, there rem ains a residue o f lexical idiosyncrasy.
There are small subclasses which are not productive, varying degrees of ac­
ceptability within seem ingly productive subclasses, and positive exceptions to
the semantic generalizations, such as envy and forgive.
This idiosyncrasy is in fact expected if one considers certain experim ental
findings. Gropen et al. (1989) suggest that speakers “ tend to be conservative”
in their use of lexical items. Specifically, they show that people tend to use
lexical items in the sam e constructions in which they have heard those items
used by others, but that they can, if properly prim ed, extend the uses to new
patterns.6 This phenom ena would be im possible if people did not store in
memory the specific syntactic patterns that a word is heard used with (see also
Bybee 1985 and Langacker 1987a for particular usage-based models o f gram ­
mar). This being the case, a certain degree o f lexical idiosyncrasy is to be
expected.
However, the existence o f som e degree of lexical idiosyncrasy should not be
taken as counterevidence against the existence o f narrowly defined sem antic
subclasses o f verbs that occur in the ditransitive construction. Although the
exact form ulation of these classes has differed, their existence as such has been
recognized by every researcher w ho has looked in any detail at the verbs oc­
curring in this construction. And, as has ju st been discussed (and is spelled out
in more detail in Pinker 1989), the existence o f such classes helps to explain
the phenom ena o f partial productivity.
These two facts— that there are narrowly defined productive verb classes,
and that at the same time wc find scattered positive exceptions and varying
degrees o f acceptability within these narrowly defined classes— can be rec­
onciled by recognizing verb classes to be im plicitly represented speaker-
internally as generalizations over learned instances. Because m em ory is
associative, sim ilar verbs used in the same constructions are classified together
by general categorization processes. Therefore the claim is that speakers at­
tempt to categorize learned instances.
Narrowly defined verb classes, then, are implicitly represented as clusters of
semantically related verbs known to occur with a given construction. New or
previously unclassified verb forms are attracted to existing clusters on the basis
o f sim ilarity to existing cases. However, judgm ents o f sim ilarity are notori­
ously variable across speakers and contexts, and two activities can alm ost al­
ways be said to be sim ilar in som e respect. Therefore, in order to adequately
13 4 C h a p te r Five

defend the idea that the use o f new and novel senses is determ ined by similarity
to existing cases, one must be able to define the sim ilarity metric which is to
be used as the basis o f com parison. On the present account, the characteriza­
tions o f the verb classes them selves can be viewed as providing a sim ilarity
m etric. For exam ple, if one o f the verb classes associated with the ditransitive
is “ verbs o f ballistic m otion,” then we can consider shin to be relevantly like
kick in that it is a verb o f ballistic motion.
The determ ination o f w hich verb classes arc relevant, or alternatively, what
features o f sim ilarity are important, requires em pirical crosslinguistic study,
and I do not claim to provide an account here (but cf. Pinker 1989 and Levin
1993 for discussion and suggestions, and M ufw ene 1978 for an early discus­
sion on this subject). Only by looking at which distinctions are made crosslin-
guistically can we determ ine w hat the scm antically (or m orphophonologically)
relevant aspects o f verb m eaning arc that determ ine the basis of the clustering
into subclasses.
On this view, frequency is expccted to affect the classification o f new verbs.
Tw o kinds o f frequency inform ation need to be distinguished. On the one hand
there is token frequency, which refers to the num ber o f times a given instance
(e.g., a particular word) is used in a particular construction; on the other hand
there is type frequency, which refers to the num ber o f distinct words that occur
in a particular construction. M acW hinney (1978) and Bybee (1985) have ar­
gued that it is the type frequency o f a particular process (or a particular con­
struction) that plays a crucial role in determ ining how likely it is that the
process may be extended to new forms: the higher the type frequency, the
higher the productivity.
To see the relevance o f the type/token frequency distinction for productivity,
consider the following exam ple cited by Bybee (1 9 8 5 :1 3 2 -1 3 3 ). She notes
that G uillaum e (1927) docum ented the fact that French-speaking children most
frequently overgeneralize the use o f first-conjugation suffixes with verbs of
other conjugations. He also observed the num ber o f verbs o f each conjugation
used spontaneously in children’s speech. Bybee cites the following table, which
shows the num ber o f occurrences o f each conjugation class and the num ber of
verbs used from each class:

Conjugation Class Number o f Uses Number o f Verbs

First ( ch a n ter) 1.060(36.2% ) 12A (76.07c)

Second (fin ir) 173 (6%) 10(6.1% )
Third (vendre) 1,706 (57.8%) 29(17.9% )
 Partial P ro d u c tivity 13b

Although more than half o f the num ber o f tokens ( “ uses” ) o f verbs were
of the third conjugation, the num ber of different verbs that occurred in this
class was much sm aller than the num ber that occurred in the first conjugation.
Correspondingly, the first conjugation was seen to be much more productively
used.
The proposal to implicitly represent verb classes as sim ilarity clusters can
perhaps be made more clear by the follow ing rough-and-ready representation
(which does not take morphophonological sim ilarity into account):

o
forgive

o
envy

Figure 5.1

Each circle represents a lexical entry; the entries are projected onto two
dimensions, with sem antically closer verbs being represented by physically
closer circles. By way of dem onstration, one or more instances within a given
cluster have been labeled. T he circles representing bake and cook, for exam ple,
are close together to indicate their being in the same narrowly defined class.7
Type frequency can be discerned by considering the num ber o f circles in a
given cluster. Clusters containing m ore circles are m ore likely to be productive.
Subclasses with only two m em bers such as the verbs o f refusal (deny, refuse)
are expected not to be productive, bccause of their low type frequency.
The idea that verbs are represented this way in an associative m em ory is of
course inspired by recent connectionist representations. However, the diagram
need not be construed us necessarily presupposing a connectionist model o f
memory; all that is needed is an associative memory (e.g., as proposed in work
in the dom ain of morphology o f Pinker and Prince (1991)).
This view o f the way new verbs are attracted to learned instances makes
136 C h a p t e r f iv e

several predictions. First, it predicts that subclasses with few members will not
contain enough instances to create a sim ilarity class, and so will not be produc­
tive. Secondly, it predicts the possibility of differences in judgm ents within
sim ilarity classes. Such differences will result from (1) the degree o f similarity
between the case being judged and other cases within the subclass, and (2) the
relative type frequency that the relevant cluster displays. It is not necessary (or
possible) to exhaustively list all the verbs that can potentially occur in a given
construction. Novel cases are analogized to previously learned cases on the
basis o f their sim ilarity to these fam iliar cases and the type frequency o f these
fam iliar cases.
O ccasional positive exceptions (such as envy and forg ive for the ditransitive
construction) are tolerated because speakers simply associate the words with
the constructions idiosyncratically. There is no danger o f productive extensions
from these outliers because they, like subclasses o f fewer than two members,
do not constitute a cluster, and therefore do not attract novel cases.
T he representation in figure 5 .1 entails that the knowledge that certain verbs
are used in a particular construction is part o f a speaker’s com petence. How­
ever, it is not necessary that each new entry be stored as an additional member
o f a cluster, throughout the speaker's life. It is possible that once a critical
num ber o f instances in a particular cluster is learned— insuring that novel in­
stances that fall into the class will be included— new cases are no longer stored
in memory since they would provide only entirely redundant information. It is
also possible that learned instances are not necessarily stored as discrete,
clearly individuated cases; rather, the edges o f learned instances that form a
cluster may blend into each other, delim iting an area in semantic space without
specifically retaining each individual instance within.

5 .5.2 Varying Degrees o f Productivity

The ditransitive provides a good exam ple of a construction with associ­

ated verb classes. T he degree o f productivity o f other constructions can be seen
to form a cline between those constructions which are not fully productive even
within narrowly defined verb classes and those which approach full produc­
tivity as long as general constraints are obeyed. An exam ple of the first case,
that o f very lim ited productivity (at least in som e dialects), is the resultative
construction. As discussed in chapter 8, there is a large degree o f idiosyncrasy
as to w hich verbs can occur with which resultatives, Notice the following
contrasts:

(38) a. She shot him dead. >

b.??She blasted him dead.
 Partial P rod u c tivity 13 7

(39) a. She cried herself to sleep. >

b. She cried herself asleep. >
c.??She wept herself to sleep/asleep.
(40) a.??He ate him self asleep.
b.??He cried him self sick.

At the same time, it is clear that resultatives are not entirely idiom atic and do
occasionally occur productively. For example:

(41) a. “ I cried m yself well-nigh blind." (Tennyson, “ G randm other X ”

(1884); cited by V isser 1963)
b. “ Drive your engine clean" (M obil ad; cited by Rappaport Hovav &
Levin 1991)
c. “She could wonder herself crazy over the human eyebrow.” (R. L.
Stevenson, “ Virginibus Puerisque” (1881))

The particular factors which underlie the limited productivity o f this construc­
tion must include semantic factors of the type outlined in chapter 8. In addition,
morphophonological factors, such as the ones Gropen et al. (1989) found to be
relevant in the case o f the ditransitive, and the token frequency of the analogi­
cal source may need to be taken into account. T he role o f each of these factors
remains an issue for further research.
An exam ple at the opposite end of the continuum is the way construction
discussed in chapter 9. This construction appears to be alm ost entirely produc­
tive. The following exam ples com e from the O xford U niversity Press corpus:

(42) a. “ But he consum m ately ad-libbed his way through a largely secret
press m eeting.”
b. “ . . . nasty gossip about me now sludging its way through the intes­
tines of the society I know . . . ”
c. ". . . their custom ers snorted and injected their way to oblivion and
som etim es died on the stairs.”
d. “ . . . [they] hoped they too could massage their way to keeping
power."
e. “ Lord King craftily joked and blustered his way out o f trouble al the
m eeting."

As discussed in chapter 9, the few non-occurring verbs (such as the vanilla

motion verbs go, walk, m ove) can be accounted for by general semantic co n ­
straints on the construction. Interestingly, the token frequency of this construc­
tion is low, with one exam ple occurring approxim ately every 4 0 ,0 0 0 - 56,000
words in the Lund Corpus o f conversational texts and the Wall Street Journal.8
This provides support for the idea that productivity has little to do with token
frequency and more with type frequency.
13 8 C h a p t e r Five

The range o f differing productivity illustrated by these exam ples is exactly

what wc would expect given the usage-based model o f gram m ar described
above. T hat is, learned and thus stored resultative cases are few and only dot
the sem antic landscape; little or no clustering o f exam ples is attested. Therefore
novel extensions sound novel and are not fully idiom atic, unlike such exten­
sions o f the ditransitive cases as fa x or M arantz’s novel verb shin.
At the same time, attested way construction exam ples seem to span the spec­
trum o f sem antic space, given the general constraints imposed by the construc­
tion. Since the construction has such a high type frequency o f attested verbs,
novel verbs are freely used in it.

5.5.3 Productive Links

As discusscd in chapter 3, relations between constructions, represented
by various types o f inheritance links, are also objects in our system. Different
instances o f a given link occur with different type frequencies, ju st as different
instances o f a particular construction occur with different type frequencies.
For exam ple, the causative-inchoative relation, which is represented by a
kind o f subsum ption inheritance link, occurs between the caused-m otion and
intransitive motion constructions, the resultative and the intransitive resultative
constructions, and the sim ple causative and simple inchoative constructions.
Therefore this particular link would be said to have a type frequency o f at least
three.
Som e o f the polysem ous extensions we have seen occur in both the ditran­
sitive construction and the caused-m otion construction. The type frequency of
each o f these polysem y links is increased with every construction which is
extended in the same way. Bccause productivity is directly correlated with type
frequency, the higher the type frequency, the more likely a particular inheri­
tance link will exist between pairs o f new constructions that are relevantly sim i­
lar to the pairs o f existing constructions which the inheritance link already
relates. In the lim iting case, a link will apply fully productively, yielding exten­
sions every time a novel construction is encountered, as long as that construc­
tion satisfies the particular sem antic characteristics o f the existing instances. In
this case, the link between the two constructions is quite analogous to a rule,
in that the existence o f one form can be used to predict the existence o f the
other form.
For exam ple, the passive construction, discussed briefly at the end of
chapter 2, is instantiated by many different particular versions, each corre­
sponding to an active construction with the relevant sem antics (the active con­
struction m ust have at least two argum ents, with one being higher on the role
hierarchy than the other). Because the type o f link between active and passive
 Partial P ro d u c tivity 13 9

constructions occurs between so many different active and passive pairs, it has
an extremely high type frequency. Therefore the passive link is, in effect, rule-
like in its application.

5.6 C o n c lu s io n

The account proposed here to explain the partial productivity o f co n ­

structions involves two types o f learning m echanism s. The first is a type o f
indirect negative evidence, based on the hypothesis that every construction
contrasts with every other construction. Therefore, upon hearing a verb in a
construction that must be considered non-optimal given the current context,
the learner tentatively hypothesizes that the verb cannot occur in w hat would
be the preferred construction. The reasoning is roughly, “ If that construction
could have been used, I guess it would have been used; therefore maybe it can’t
be used.” Upon w itnessing the verb in a non-optim al construction, given the
context, a num ber o f times, the learner’s hypothesis that the verb cannot occur
in the optim al construction is strengthened. This strategy was first proposed by
Pinker (1 9 8 1); his later rejection o f this strategy (Pinker 1989) was argued here
to have been unwarranted.
The second learning m echanism , presum ably working in tandem with the
first, draws largely on recent work by Pinker (1989) and the related experim en­
tal evidence o f Gropen et al. (1989). Specifically, the need to circum scribe
narrowly defined sem antic subclasses characterized by local productivity is
acknowledged.
The account proposed here differs som ew hat from Pinker’s and G ropen’s in
that on the present account, the narrowly defined subclasses are understood to
be clusters defined by sem antic and m orphophonological sim ilarity that are
conventionally associated with the construction, as opposed to subclasses that
are conventionally allowed to undergo a lexical rule. Moreover, on the account
presented here, the verb classes are interpreted as im plicit generalizations over
learned instances in order to account for small nonproductive subclasses, dif­
ferences in judgm ents even within narrowly defined classes, and the existence
of positive exceptions such as envy and forgive. Viewing verb classes as clus­
ters of cases in an associative memory also allows us to assim ilate other con­
structions which involve markedly more or less productivity. In particular, it
was shown that we might actually expect the fact that the resultative co nstruc­
tion is productive only to a limited degree, w hereas the way construction is
almost fully productive.
It may seem that by allowing the know ledge o f whether a verb is used in a
particular construction to be stored, we underm ine the existence o f the con­
struction as an independent entity. That is, if we need to posit the fact that kick
140 C h a p r e r F iv e

can be used with the ditransitive construction as a separate piece o f gram ­

matical knowledge, why not instead posit a new sense o f kick, along the lines
suggested by sem antics-changing lexical rule accounts (cf. the discussion in
chapter 4)?
The reason for postulating constructions is analogous to the reason why
other researchers have wanted to postulate a lexical rule: in order to capture
generalizations across instances. Moreover, it is claim ed here that what is
stored is the know ledge that a particular verb with its inherent meaning can be
used in a particular construction. This is equivalent to saying that the com posite
fused structure involving both verb and construction is stored in memory. By
recognizing the stored entity to be a com posite structure, we gain the benefits
described in chapter 1 over a lexical rule account. For exam ple, we avoid im­
plausible verb senses such as “ to cause to receive by kicking." It is the com ­
posite structure o f verb and construction that has this meaning. We also allow
other syntactic processes to refer to the inherent lexical sem antics of the verb.
Thus we do not lose the inform ation conveyed by the verb, because the verb is
not changed into a new verb with a different sense.
6 The English Ditransitive Construction

6. i In t r o d u c t io n

The dilransiiive construction has already been discussed with respect to

its polysem y (chapter 2) and its partial productivity (chapter 5). In this chapter,
I concentrate on particular sem antic constraints and m etaphorical extensions
o f the construction. Highly specific sem antic constraints are associated directly
with the ditransitive argum ent structure, revealing a m ore specific sem antic
structure than is generally acknowledged. In particular, the central sense is
argued to involve transfer betw een a volitional agent and a w illing recipient.
Several system atic metaphors are identified and associated with the construc­
tion, show ing that expressions such as M ary gave Joe a kiss and M a ry ’s b e­
havior gave John an idea, w hich arc often assum ed to be idiosyncratic, are
instances o f a large and productive class o f expressions that are based on sys­
tematic metaphors.
Before getting to those constraints, however, evidence that a construction is
indeed required in this case is reviewed.

6.2 T h e E x is t e n c e o f the C o n s t r u c t io n

Following the program laid out in previous chapters, we need to show

that aspects o f the syntax or sem antics o f dilransiiive expressions are not pre­
dictable from other constructions existing in the gramm ar. First, to see that
the construction contributes sem antics not attributable to the lexical item s in­
volved, consider the verb bake when used ditransilively:

(1) Sally baked her sisler a cake.

This expression can only mean that Sally baked a cake with the intention o f
giving it to her sister. It cannot mean that Sally baked the cake so that her sister
w ouldn't have to bake it; nor can it mean that Sally baked the cake as a d em ­
onstration o f cake-baking, or that she baked a cake for herself because her sister
wanted her to have one. Unless we associate the “ intended transfer” aspect of
m eaning to the construction, we are forced to say that bake itself m eans som e­
thing like ‘X intends to cause Y to receive Z by baking.’ This “ transfer sen se”
o f bake would be posited only to avoid attributing aspects o f the sem antics to
the construction. The positing o f such ad hoc verb senses w hich only occur in
a particular construction was argued against extensively in previous chapters.

141
14 2 C h a p t e r Six

In addition, as was noticed by Partee (1 965:60) and Green (1974:103), the

goal argum ent o f ditransitives must be anim ate— that is, it must be a recipient:

(2) a. She brought the b o ard er/* th e border a package, (cited by Gropen
et al. (1989), attributed to J. Bresnan)

As has been argued in chapters 1 and 4, this sem antic constraint is most parsi­
m oniously attributed to the construction.
D itransitive expressions arc syntactically unique in allow ing two nonpredi-
cativc noun phrases to occur directly after the verb; the fact that English will
allow such a configuration is not predictable from other constructions in the
language. In addition, this is the only construction which links the recipient
role with the OBJ gram m atical function.
The construction was represented in figure 2.4, repeated here as figure 6.1.

Dilransiu've Construction

Sem CAUSE-RECEIVE < agt rec p al >

|r
PRKD <
R:instance,
means i,

Syn V SUBJ OBJ OBJ2

Figure 6.1

The construction’s agent and patient roles must be fused with independently
existing participant roles o f the verb (represented by the PRED variable), as is
indicated by the solid lines between the agent and patient argument roles and
the predicate’s participant role array, w hich is unfilled in the above diagram.
The recipient role may be contributed by the construction; this is indicated by
the dashed line between the recipient argum ent role and the array of predicate
participant roles.

6.3 T h e S e m a n t ic s

The sem antics o f the ditransitive construction has not been understudied,
and this work owes a large debt to previous analyses, in particular to Cattell
(1984), G reen (1974), and O ehrle (1976) for their detailed discussion o f hun­
dreds o f ditransitive expressions.
 T h e L n g lis h D itran sitive C o n st r u c tio n 14 3

6 .3.1 Volitionality of the A ge n t

There are certain sem antic constraints on the ditransitive syntax which
have not been incorporated into most theories o f argum ent structure. The rea­
son these constraints are often overlooked is that there appear to be exceptional
cases. However, the exceptional cases form a delim itable class that can be seen
to involve a general systematic m etaphor (of the type described in Lakoff &
Johnson 1980). It will be shown that the constraints do in fact hold in the source
domain of the metaphor.
To identify the first constraint, notice that each o f the verbs described so far
independently selects for a volitional subject argum ent. This generalization can
be captured by assigning a constraint on the nature of the subject argum ent
directly to the construction.
The volitionality m ust extend so that not only is the action described by the
vert) perform ed agentively, but also with the relevant transfer intended. For
example, in (3) below, Joe must be understood to intend to give the picture
to Sally. It cannot be the case that Joe painted the picture for som eone else and
later happened to give it to Sally.

(3) Joe painted Sally a picture.

Similarly, in (4) it cannot be the case that Bob told the story to som eone else
and Joe just happened to overhear.'

(4) Bob told Joe a story.

This constraint also accounts for the ill-form edness of the follow ing exam ples:

(5) *Joe threw the right fielder the ball he had intended the first basem an
to catch.
(6) * Hal brought his m other a cake since he didn’t eat it on the way home.
(7) *Joe took Sam a package by leaving it in his trunk where Sam later
found it

This is not to say that the first or second object argum ents o f the ditransitive
cannot be given a transparent interpretation. The description used to pick out
the argument referents may be understood to be the speaker’s description, not
the subject argum ent’s. For exam ple, consider (8):

(8) Oedipus gave his m other a kiss.

This sentence is felicitous despite the fact that O edipus did not realize he was
kissing his mother. Likewise for (9):

(9) Joe gave Mary a sw eater with a hole in it.

144 C h a p t e r Six

This statem ent is acceptable even if Joe did not intend to give M ary a defective
sweater. A lso, it is not necessarily contradictory to use “ accidcm ally" in di-
transitive expressions; for exam ple:

(10) Joe accidentally loaned Boh a lot o f money [by m istaking Bob for Bill,
his twin; w ithout realizing that Bob would skip bail with it; instead o f
giving the money as a gift as he had intended].

W hile I do not attem pt to untangle the relevant issues here, I appeal to the fact
that the same possibilities o f interpretation occur with other expressions that
are generally agreed to require volitional subject arguments. For example, m ur­
d er is a verb w hich is universally recognized as selecting for a volitional sub­
ject argum ent. Still, it is possible to say the following without contradiction:

(11) M ary accidentally murdered Jane [although she had m eant to m urder
Sue; although she had only m eant to knock her unconscious].

W hat 1 am suggesting, then, is that w hatever notion o f volitionality is adopted

to deal with verbs such as m urder should also be used to capture the semantic
requirem ent o f the subject position o f the ditransitive construction.
T he existence o f this constraint has been obscured by exam ples such as
these:

(12) a. The m edicine brought him relief.

b. The rain bought us some lime.
c. She got me a ticket by distracting me w hile I was driving
d. She gave m e the flu.
c. The music lent the party a festive air.
f. The m issed ball handed him the victory on a silver platter.

In these exam ples the subject argum ent is not volitional. Even when the subject
argum ent is an anim ate being, as in (12c, d), no volitionality is required How­
ever. these exam ples form a delim itable class o f expressions, as they are all
instances o f a particular conventional system atic metaphor, namely, "causal
events as tran sfe rs."2 This m etaphor involves understanding causing an effect
in an entity as transferring the effect, construed as an object, to that entity.
Evidence for the existence o f this m etaphor independent of the ditransitive con­
struction com es from the follow ing expressions:

(13) a. The Catch-22 situation p resented him with a dilemma.

b. T he unforeseen circum stances laid a new opportunity at our feet.
c. The docum ent supplied us with som e entertainm ent.
d. The report fu rn ish ed them with the inform ation they needed.
 T h e L n g lis h D itran sitive C o n st r u c tio n 145

Further evidence, both for the existence o f the m etaphor and for it motivating
the ditransitive exam ples in (12), com es from the polysem y o f each o f the
predicates involved in those exam ples. The predicates bring, buy, get, give,
lend, and hand arc used to imply causation, but on their basic sense they each
involve transfer from an agent to a recipient. The link between these senses is
provided by the metaphor. Bring, buy, get, give, lend, and hand here involve
the metaphorical transfer o f effect; each o f the exam ples in (12) im plies that
the subject argum ent is the cause o f the first object argum ent being affected in
some way by “ receiving” the second object argum ent.
This class can be represented as an extension o f the central sense as follows:

Ditransitive Construction

Scm CAUSE-RHCEIVE < ugt rec pi>1 >

R. instance,
l«
PR ED <
1 1 >
means

Syn V SUBJ OBJ 0£ Wj

1M: Causal Events

as Transfers

Sem C A U S E -"R E C E IV E " < cau se a ff e fT >

1* 1 1
R: instance, P K ED < >
m eans

Syn V SU B J ORJ Oi 3J2

Figure 6 .2

Recognizing the m etaphor allow s us to divorce ourselves from the often-m ade
but erroneous claim that exam ples such as those in (12) are idiosyncratic.
Returning to the statem ent o f the constraint that the subject argum ent m ust
intend the transfer, w e can see the necessity o f acknow ledging the role o f this
metaphor. It is this m etaphor w hich licenses the exceptional cases: we can rec­
ognize that the volitionality constraint is satisfied in the source dom ain of the
metaphor. At the same time, this m etaphor differs from other m etaphors to be
14 6 C h a p t e r Six

described below in not m apping volitionality to the target domain. This follows
from the fact that the target dom ain is concerned with abstract causes. Abstract
causes cannot be necessarily volitional because they are not necessarily human.
Each o f the metaphors described below, on the other hand, involves human
actors in the target dom ain as well as in the source dom ain, and in each o f the
target dom ains the volitionality constraint is respected.

6.3.2 Semantic Constraints on the Recipient

As noted above, it has long been realized that the referent designated by
the first object m ust be an animate being. However, this constraint, ju st like the
constraint that the subject argum ent must intend the transfer, is somewhat
obscured by expressions licensed by the causal-events-as-transfers metaphor.
C onsider (1 4 -1 6 ):

(14) The paint jo b gave the car a higher sale price.

(15) The tabasco sauce gave the baked beans some flavor.
(16) The music lent the party a festive air.

In none o f these exam ples is the first object an anim ate being; however, in the
source dom ain o f the m etaphor the affected party is understood to be a recipi­
ent, and thus indeed an anim ate being. Again we find that a constraint can be
satisfied in the source but not the target dom ain o f the metaphor.
An additional sem antic constraint is that the first object be understood to be
a beneficiary, or a willing recipient.3 This constraint is needed to account for
the follow ing exam ple from Green (1974):

(17) *Sally burned Joe som e rice.

Exam ple (17) is unacceptable even if m alicious intentions are attributed to

Sally; however, it is acceptable in the context that Joe is thought to like burnt
rice. Furtherm ore, one cannot felicitously say either o f the following:

(18) * Bill told M ary a story, but she w asn’t listening.

(19) * Bill threw the com a victim a blanket.

In these exam ples, the first object is not understood to be a w illing recipient;
accordingly, they are unacceptable.
This constraint may also be responsible for the slight difference in meaning
between the follow ing two exam ples provided by Robert W ilensky (personal
com m unication):

(20) a. She fed lasagna to the guests,

b. She fed the guests lasagna.
 T h e E n g lis h D itran sitive C o n st r u c tio n 14 7

Most speakers find the first exam ple to be som ew hat less polite than the second.
Since fe e d is normally used with reference to the food intake o f babies or ani­
mals, the impoliteness o f the first exam ple is not surprising; what requires ex ­
planation is the fact that the second exam ple is interpreted to be relatively more
polite. The constraint that the first object must be construed as a w illing recipi­
ent can account for this, since the ditransitive version has the effect o f im posing
the interpretation that the guests are w illing agents, thereby according them
more respect.
T hat the recipient is expected to be w illing should not be confused with the
idea that the recipient is expectcd to benefit from the transfer. Thus, w hile (21)
below does not imply that Jane will benefit from im bibing the m artini, it does
presuppose that she is expectcd to willingly drink the martini.

(21) Jack poured Jane an arsenic-laced martini.

In some cases, however, the issue of the recipient’s w illingness or unw illing­
ness is irrelevant to w hether transfer is successful. These involve expressions
in which actual successful transfer is im plied:4

(22) Bill gave the driver a speeding ticket.

(23) Bill gave Chris a headache.
(24) Bill gave Chris a kick.

Nonetheless, all cases in which the first object is required to accept the trans­
ferred object in order for transfer to be successful imply that the first object is
assumed to be a willing recipient.

6.3.3 O n the N otion "Recipient"

I have been referring to the sem antic role of the first object position
as “ recipient” instead of as “goal" or “ possessor.” In view o f the above co n ­
straint - th a t this argum ent be anim ate— “ recipient” is clearly m ore accurate
than “ goal.” At the same time, “ recipient” is preferable to “ possessor” b e­
cause many o f the m etaphors involving transfer (to be described below) do not
map the implication that the recipient actually possesses the transferred entity
after reception. C onsider (25):

(25) Jo gave Mary an insult.

This sentence does not imply that M ary “ possesses” an insult, only that M ary
“received” an insult. Sim ilarly with (26):

(26) Jan gave Chris a punch.

M8 Chapter Six

This exam ple does not imply that Chris "possesses” a punch but only that he
“ received” one. If we describe the role in question as that of “ recipient" in­
stead o f “ possessor,” these facts pose no problem . The fact that a possessive
relationship i > usually im plied follows autom atically from the fact that w hat is
received is norm ally subsequently possessed.
N oticing that a recipient is involved in ditransitive expressions may be a first
step toward m otivating the double object syntax of the construction. Beginning
with Jakobson, those interested in the sem antics o f the direct object have noted
that recipients o f force and effect make for good direct objects (Jakobson 1938;
for recent discussion see, e.g., Langacker 1987;® Rice 1987a). (O f course this
is not to say that all direct objects are recipients; clearly the objects of cogni­
tion verbs such as believe, see, and know would present difficulties for such a
claim .)
Finally, the construction has been show n to be associated with a scene of
transfer. D escribing the first object as a "recipient" rather than "possessor”
more adequately captures the dynam ic character o f this semantics.

6.3.4 Other Metaphors

The system atic m etaphor o f causal events as transfers is just one o f sev­
eral m etaphors w hich license the use o f the ditransitive construction. Other
m etaphors can be understood to license other extensions. The source domain
o f each o f these metaphors is the central sense o f actual successful transfer.
The “ conduit m etaphor,” described and nam ed by M ichael Reddy (1979).
involves com m unication traveling across from the stim ulus to the listener. The
listener understands the com m unication upon "reception." F.vidence for the
m etaphor includes:

(27) a. He got the ideas across to Jo.

b. His thoughts came across fro m his speech.
c. Jo received the inform ation from Sam.
d. Jo got the information from Bill.

This m etaphor licenses the follow ing examples:

(28) She told Jo a fairy tale.

(29) She wired Jo a message.
(30) She quoted Jo a passage.
(31) She gave Jo her thoughts on the subject.

A related m etaphor involves understanding perceptions as entities which

 The English Ditransitive Construction 149

move toward the perceiver. The perception is understood to occur upon “ recep­
tion." Evidence for the m etaphor includes the following:

(32) a. The view knocked me over.

b. I caught a glim pse o f him.
c. I missed that sight.
d. 1 had a view o f the orchestra.
e. He let me have a look.

This m etaphor licenses the follow ing examples:

(33) He showed Bob the view.

(34) He gave Bob a glimpse.

A nother m etaphor involves understanding actions that are intentionally d i­

rected at another person as being entities which are transferred to that person.
Evidence for the m etaphor includes:

(35) a. He blocked the kick.

b. He caught the kiss she threw to him.
c. All he got from her was a goodbye wave.
d. Joe took a punch from Bill.
e. She couldn’t get a smile out o /h im .
f. She threw a parting glance in his direction.
g. She targeted him with a big smile.
h. Bob received a slap/kick/kiss/sm ile from Jo.

This metaphor licenses the following expressions:

(36) She blew him a kiss.

(37) She shot him a keep-quiet look.
(38) She gave him a wink.
(39) She gave him a punch.
(40) She threw him a parting glance.

A nother m etaphor extends the use o f the ditransitive to the speech act
domain. This m etaphor is used in reference to a situation w here a person insists
on certain facts and assum ptions. T he m etaphor involves understanding these
facts and assumptions as objects which are given to som eone who is making
an argument, to be used in the construction o f the argum ent. (The idea o f con­
structing an argument assum es yet another metaphor, that o f argum ents as
constructed objects). We can title this m etaphor “ Facts and A ssum ptions as
150 Chapter Six

O bjects which are G iven." Evidence for the metaphor includes the following
expressions:

(41) a. I ’ll let you have that much.

b. I don’t w ant to give up that assumption.
c. Accept that as a given.
d. If you take that assum ption away, you don’t have a great argument.
e. If you don’t have that assum ption, you’re not left with much.
f. Even granted that, your argum ent is still full o f holes.

This m etaphor licenses the following:

(42) I’ll give you that assum ption.

(43) I ’ll grant you that much o f your argument.

The final m etaphor to be discussed here licenses ditransitive expressions

w hich are often assum ed not to involve a possessor at all. The following ex ­
am ples com e from G reen 1974:

(44) Crush me a mountain.

(45) Cry me a river.
(46) Slay m e a dragon.
(47) T hey’re going to kill Reagan a commie.

These expressions can be seen to involve m etaphorical transfer once the fol­
lowing m etaphor is recognized: actions which are perform ed for the benefit of
a person are understood as objects which are transferred to that person. The
m etaphor is exemplified in the following expressions:

(48) a. He owes you many favors,

b. By slaving away quietly for him, she has given more than he
deserves.
c. The senator claim ed never to have received any favors.
d. He always gets what he wants out of people.
e. She graciously offered a ride to the airport.

The m apping o f this m etaphor is different from that of the others in that the
source dom ain o f this m etaphor is not 'X c a u s e s Y to r e c e i v e Z ’ as it was for
each o f the others. In particular, it is the action perform ed rather than the sec­
ond object argum ent that is the received object in the mapping. This m eta­
phor, then, represents an extended use of the ditransitive. And, as we might
expect, there is w ide dialectal variation in the degree o f acceptability o f these
expressions. In fact, these cases are subject to their own special constraints. As
noted by O ehrle (1976), they are more acceptablc as com mands:
 The English Ditransitive Construction 15 1

(49) a. Cry me a river.

b. ?Sally cried me a river.

They are also more acceptable with pronouns in first object position. C ontrast
(49a) with (50):

(50) ?Cry Joe a river.

To summ arize, these cases can be seen to be a lim ited extension from the cen­
tral sense of the construction. The source dom ain o f this m etaphor is not ‘X
causes Y to r e c e iv e Z ’ as it was in each of the other m etaphors; rather, it is
‘X c a u s e s Y to r e c e i v e an o b j e c t (not necessarily designated Z ).’ The target
domain is ‘X Performs an Action for the Benefit o f Y.’ Z is mapped to the
object acted on by X.

6.4 C o n c l u s io n

In this chapter the central sense of the ditransitive construction has been
argued to be associated with a highly specific sem antic structure, that o f suc­
cessful transfer between a volitional agent and a w illing recipient. In addition,
several systematic m etaphors that license extensions from the basic sense have
been identified.
7 The English Caused-Motion
Construction

7 .1 In t r o d u c t i o n

In this chapter the “ caused-m otion” construction is discussed in some

detail, and argum ents that a particular construction o f this kind is required in
the gram m ar are m ade explicit. In particular, it is argued that such a construc­
tion must be specified in the gram m ar to account for certain cases in which
the sem antic interpretation cannot plausibly be attributed to the main verb and
other m eans o f deriving the sem antics com posilionally also fail.
T his construction can be defined (in active form) structurally as follows
(w here V is a nonstative verb and O BL is a directional phrase):

[SUBJ [V OBJ OBL]]

This definition is meant to cover the following types o f expressions:

( 1) They laughed the poor guy out o f the room.

(2) Frank sneezed the tissue off the tabic.
(3) M ary urged Bill into the house.
(4) Sue let the w ater out o f the bathtub.
(5) Sam helped him into the car.
(6) They sprayed the paint onto the wall.

T he basic sem antics o f this construction as described in chapter 3 is that the

causer argum ent directly causes the theme argum ent to move along a path des­
ignated by the directional phrase: that is. X c a u s f s Y to m o v e Z '. The v a r i o u s
extensions from this basic sense will be discussed in more detail below.
Q uite specific sem antic constraints on the types o f situations that can be
expressed by this construction arc proposed, revealing principled patterns
w here there is apparent idiosyncrasy. Each of these constraints intuitively falls
under the heading o f “ direct” causation, or under what can count as a single
event; therefore the constraints can be viewed as beginning to provide a more
specific characterization o f these notional terms.
A discussion o f the classic load/spray alternation follows in section 7.6. It
is argued that the m ajority o f verbs show ing this alternation— by occurring in
both o f the constructions below — can be accounted for without positing addi­
tional verb senses.

152
 The English Caused Motion Construction 153

(7) a. I’at loaded hay onto the truck,

b. Pal loaded the truck with hay.

7.2 T h e E x is t e n c e o f t h e C o n s t r u c t i o n

Again, in order to show that a distinct construction is required, it is nec­

essary to show that its semantics is not com positionally derived from other
constructions existing in the gramm ar. For exam ple, it is necessary to show
that some aspect o f the construction is not com positionally derived from the
lexical items (i.e., lexical constructions) w hich instantiate it. [t is also necessary
to show that the particular com bination o f lexical items does not inevitably lead
to ihe particular interpretation in question. In this section, attem pts to derive
the semantics of the caused-m otion construction from the verb's inherent se­
mantics, the preposition’s sem antics, o r the sem antics o f the com bination o f
verb plus preposition are critically discussed.
Several observations in the literature lead to the conclusion that the verb in
isolation docs not inherently encode the caused-m otion sem antics. As Fillm ore
(1971), Talmy (1976), and Randall (1983) have noticed, many verbs are not
causative verbs independently o f this construction. For exam ple, kick and hit
in (8) and (9) do not have causative interpretations:

(8) Joe kicked the wall.

(9) Joe hit the Lable

Yet, when these verbs are used in the caused-m otion construction, a causal
interpretation is implied:

(10) Joe kicked the dog into the bathroom .

(-> He caused the dog to move into the bathroom )
(11) Joe hit the ball across the field.
(—» He caused the ball to move across the field)

As has been noticed by Aske (1989), it is also the case that many verbs do not
necessarily code motion independently o f this construction. A ske provides the
following contrast, and notes that it is im plausible to posit a distinct m otion
sense for the predicate squeeze:

( 12) a. Frank squeezed the ball.

(-b The ball necessarily moves.)
b. Frank squeezed the ball through the crack.
( - » The ball necessarily moves.)

Also, as has been noted by G reen (1973), Randall (1983), and H oekstra (1988),
many transitive verbs which can occur in this construction do not bear the same
154 Chapter Seven

sem antic relation to theirdirect object as they do in simple transitive sentences.

C onsider (13a—c):

(13) a. Sam saw ed/tore/hacked/ripped a piece off the block.

b. Sam rinsed/cleaned the soap out of her eyes.
c. Sam stirred the paint thinner into the paint.

These do not entail (1 4 a-c):

(14) a. Sam saw ed/tore/hacked/ripped a piece.

b. Sam w ashed/rinsed/cleaned the soap.
c. Sam m ixed/stirred the paint thinner.

Verbs can som etim es appear in this construction that do not independently li­
cense direct object com plem ents at all:

(15) The audience laughed the poor guy off o f the stage.
(16) Frank sneezed the napkin off the table.
(17) In the last Star Trek episode, there was a woman who could think people
into a different galaxy.

The m ove to postulate novel causative motion senses for each of these verbs,
thereby positing the m eaning o f the w hole in the m eaning o f the parts by stipu­
lation, has been argued against in chapter 1. Several other proposals to account
for the caused-m otion interpretation by com positionally deriving the meaning
from the com bination o f verb and preposition are critically discussed below.

♦
Several authors have proposed accounts that avoid positing rampant lexi­
cal polysem y to account for the caused-m otion construction and the related
resultative construction (see chapter 8). Gawron (1985, 1986), Pustejovsky
(1991a), Rappaport Hovav and Levin (1991), and H oekstra (1992), for ex ­
am ple, have argued that the m eanings o f resultatives and/or caused-motion ex­
pressions such as those in exam ples ( 1 - 6 ) above do not require positing
additional verb senses. T hese authors argue that the m eaning of the entire sen­
tence can be com positionally derived from com posing the m eanings o f the con­
stituent parts.
A general problem with com positional accounts such as these stems from
the far-reaching conclusion drawn from the fact that we may be able to prag­
m atically infer the m eaning of the construction. If one knows that a construc­
tion has a particular form, then it is som etim es the case that one may reasonably
infer that it has the particular interpretation that it has. However, it is fallacious
to argue that because we may be able to pragm atically infer the m eaning of a
 The English Caused-Monon Construction 155

construction, its existence is therefore predictable rather than conventionalized.

Such reasoning is based solely on a model o f interpretation, yet we also m ust
account for production. For instance, w hile we may be able to infer that ex ­
pressions of the form exem plified in ( 1 - 6 ) have the sem antics they do, we
cannot predict that constructions o f this type will exist. In fact, Talmy (1985a)
points out that this pattern of expression is not available as a productive form
in Romance, Sem itic, or Polynesian language families, although it does occur
in Chinese as well as in Dutch and English.'
M akkai's (1972) distinction between “ idioms o f encoding” and "idiom s of
decoding” can be used to make the point. Decoding idioms are idiom s which
a listener would be unable to confidently interpret without having learned the
idiom separately. Encoding idiom s are idiom s whose m eaning may be infer­
able; all the same, without having heard the idiom a speaker would have no
way of knowing that it was a conventional way o f saying w hat it says. Fly by
night, by and large are exam ples o f decoding idioms; serial killer, sofa bed are
examples o f encoding idioms. By referring to both kinds o f terms as idioms,
M akkai makes the point that neither kind is predictable from general pragmatic
principles. Still, it is worth exam ining the com positional accounts m entioned
above on their own terms.
Gawron (1985, 1986) argues that caused-m otion expressions consist o f two
predicates— a verb and a preposition —and that both o f these retain their nor­
mal meanings. The relation between the two predicates, if not determ ined in­
dependently by the verb’s sem antics, is said to be pragm atically inferable from
the possible relations that can hold in general between predicates in a single
clause. A new way for com plem ents to be sem antically conjoined with verbs is
introduced to account for some expressions sim ilar to those in exam ples ( I -7 ):
“ c o -p r e d ic a tio n The verb and the preposition act as co-predicators, sharing
one argum ent and com bining sem antically in pragm atically inferable ways.
For example, John broke the hammer against the vase is analyzed roughly
as ‘Break(John.the-ham m er). Against(lhe-ham m er, the-vase)’. The preposi­
tion against is claim ed to be responsible for the interpretation that the ham m er
com es into forceful contact with the vase.:
Pustejovksy’s (1991a) account is relevantly similar. He suggests that the
verbs involved in caused-m otion or resultative expressions are lexically tran­
sitive process verbs that are com bined with independent PPs (or, in the case
o f resultatives, APs). The PP is associated with its own event structure: that
o f a state. The com position process-plus-state is claim ed to inevitably yield a
transition (accom plishm ent) interpretation, namely that of a caused motion or
caused change o f state.
Pustejovsky claim s that the PP or AP is an adjunct. However, the syntactic
I 56 Chapter Seven

attachm ent o f the PP or adjectivc is not that o f an adjunct. This is true regard­
less of w hether the PP is sister to the verb as claim ed here or is part o f a small
clause that is sister to the verb. M oreover, it is not possible to attribute adjunct
status to the result phrase and claim that the causative interpretation is inferred,
because there exist cases w hich do not receive a causative interpretation. These
are the w ell-know n depictive predicates as well as standard PP adjuncts.’

(18) D epictives
a. T he w itch-hunters burned her alive.
b. Sam passed Bob the towel wet.
(19) Adjunct PPs
a. Lisa slept under the bridge.
b. Joe played in the house.

A problem for both G aw ron’s and Pustcjovsky’s approach is the existence

o f caused-m otion expressions that involve predicates w hich cannot occur tran­
sitively at all. For exam ple, we cannot account for (16) repeated here as
(20), in term s of ‘Snee7.e(Fred,the-napkin),O ff(the-napkin,thc-iable)\ because
the first predication— ‘Sneeze(Fred,the-napkin)’— is nonsensical (cf. also ex­
am ples (15, 17)).

(20) Fred sneezed the napkin off the table.

T his tyi>c o f exam ple is not discussed by Pustejovsky or Gawron. Presumably,

both accounts would require a three-argum ent sense for verbs such as sneeze,
thereby resorting to the kind o f polysem y they had otherw ise sought to avoid.
H oekstra’s (1992) account actually focuses on the type o f resultative found
in exam ples (13), (20), and those below:

(21) a. Fred mixed the paint thinner into the paint,

b. Fthel w ashed the soap out o f her eyes.

N otice that in exam ples (21a, b) the verb does not bear its normal relation to
the direct object com plem ent. H oekstra analyzes such resultatives as involving
an intransitive process verb com bined with a small clause stative predicate.4
This is sim ilar to a proposal m ade by Rappaport Hovav and Levin (1991) to
account for this type o f resultative. They also propose that the verb is lexically
intransitive— in particular, that it is unergative— and that it is com bined with
an independent small clause com plem ent.5
Both H oekstra's and Rappaport Hovav and Levin’s analyses require some
way to join the main verb and the small clausc. They cannot simply say that
the verb selects for (or theta-m arks) the small clause com plem ent, since this
 The English Caused-Motion Construction IS 7

would imply an additional sense for each verb, som ething they wish to avoid.
For exam ple, they wish to avoid positing a new sense o f drink that has an agent
and a state argum ent to account Tor (22):

(22) She drank him under the table.

Rappaport Hovav and Levin suggest that the verb case-m arks the NP of the
small clause. But case m arking norm ally applies to NPs inside small clause
arguments o f the verb. Since Rappaport Hovav and Levin do not wish to claim
that the sm all clause is an argum ent, they do not, as far as I can tell, explain
what licenses the occurrence o f the sm all clause itself. To account for the re-
suluitive interpretation, Rappaport Hovav and Levin suggest that because the
small clausc XP is attached at the lowest bar level w ithin the VP, it has to be
semantically integrated into the “ core eventuality" nam ed by the verb. H ow ­
ever. norm ally only lexically-subcategorized-for com plem ents are attached at
the lowest bar level within the VP; therefore the sem antic generalization hinges
on a syntactic constraint that is left unexplained.
Hockstra proposes a new way to syntactically com pose the verb and small
clause. To do this, he needs to rely on rather nonstandard and often seem ingly
unmotivated assum ptions. A critical assum ption o f his is that points o f time
associated with verbs are theta-m arked. In the case o f an activity predicate
like drink, a final tim e point /„ may be theta-m arked through binding the
“e-position" o f the small clause w hich denotes a state.® The resultative inter­
pretation is claim ed to be determ ined by the way in which the sm all clause is
licensed, namely, through the final point in the event structure o f the m atrix
verb (p. 162). However, H oekstra claim s that the resultative can only occur
with atelic activity verbs;7 a priori it would seem that there is no “ final point”
o f time associated with atelic predicates. H oekstra docs not make d e a r how or
why it is that such a final point is available.
To sum m arize, there is a general problem with attem pts to account for
caused-m otion and resultative expressions by means o f a sim ple concatenation
of two independently existing predicates, the sem antic interpretation being ar­
rived at by general pragm atic principles. Such analyses do not account for the
fact that such concatenation is allowed in the language in the first place. Unless
we treat the secondary predicate as an argum ent or an adjunct, there are no
preexisting means by which to concatenate the two predicates. T reating the
secondary predicate as an argum ent o f the m atrix verb is tantam ount to creating
an extended sense o f the verb, a m ove that all o f these accounts wish to avoid
and which has been argued against in chapter 1. Treating the secondary pred i­
cate as an adjunct K not a viable solution either, because its syntactic position
I 58 Chapter Seven

(w hether sister to the verb or part o f a small clause) is not that o f an adjunct;
moreover, the sem antic interpretation is different than that of other adjunct sec­
ondary predicates such as depictive predicates and PP adjuncts. H oeksira’s
suggestion o f a new way to join verb and secondary predicate is not well m o­
tivated, and Gawron's proposal requires additional verb senses for some cases
and non-argum ent PP phrases for others. In the latter case, the burden of the
change in m eaning falls onto the preposition. This raises the question whether
the preposition in itself could be held responsible for the caused-motion se­
m antics (cf. also Aske 1989).
A m ajor problem with attributing the burden o f the sem antic interpretation
o f caused motion to the preposition is that many prepositions which appear in
this construction favor a locative interpretation:

(23) Fred stuffed the papers in the envelope.

(24) Sam pushed him within arm ’s length o f the grenade.
(25) Sam shoved him outside the room.

It might be suggested that these prepositions are system atically am biguous in

English, being able to receive either a locative or a directional interpretation.
However, such a proposal fails to account for the intuition that prepositions
such as inside, in, outside, and within do not intuitively code motion on either
use. M ore to the point, these term s are not am biguous in all contexts. For ex ­
am ple, when fronted they can only receive a locative interpretation:

(26) a. Into the room he ran, quick as lightning.

b. *Inside the room he ran, quick as lightning, (on the directional reading
that he ran into the room)
c. *W ithin the room he ran, quick as lightning, (on the directional
reading)

An account relying on an am biguity o f these term s would need to specify in

exactly w hich contexts the am biguity could arise.
In response to the possible suggestion that we might attribute the motion
interpretation to either the verb or the preposition, but that one or the other
m ust lexically specify m otion, consider exam ples such as the following:

(27) Sam squeezed the rubber ball inside the jar.

(28) Sam urged Bill outside o f the house.

In these eases, neither the verbs squeeze or urge nor the prepositions inside or
outside independently code motion.
 1he English Caused-Motion Construction 159

Therefore, since the causal interpretation cannot be system atically attributed

to either the verb or the preposition or their com bination, and since system ati­
cally attributing the motion interpretation to the preposition requires that seem ­
ingly locative prepositions such as within are said to be am biguous although
they are dem onstrably not am biguous in other contexts, we attribute the caused-
motion interpretation to a construction w hich com bines the verb and direc­
tional preposition yielding a particular, conventionalized interpretation.
The possibility o f allow ing “ basically” locative, nondirectional PP's in this
construction raises a question for our account, since we have specified that the
construction must contain a PP coding a directional phrase. However, we noted
that terms which are intuitively locative cannot receive a directional interpre­
tation in all contexts. W hat needs to be recognized to account for these cases
is a particular process o f accommodation (cf. Talmy 1977; C arter 1988) or
coercion (M oens & Steedman 1988; Croft 1991; Pustejovsky 1991b; Sag &
Pollard 1991) by which the construction is able to coerce the locative term into
a directional reading.
On the view taken here, coercion is not a purely pragm atic process; rather, it
is only licensed by particular constructions in the language. T hat is, coercion
is only possible when a construction requires a particular interpretation that is
not independently coded by particular lexical items. To the extent that the o c­
curring lexical items can be coerced by the construction into having a different
but related interpretation, the entire expression will be judged grammatical."
On this view, the locative term s are not independently am biguous, but instead
are capable o f being coerced by particular constructions into having the related
directional meaning. In the case at hand, we can understand the locative term s
to be coerced into having a directional m eaning by the caused-m otion construc­
tion itself.
In order for coercion to be possible, there needs to be a relationship between
the inherent m eaning o f the lexical items and the coerced interpretation. Clearly
it is not possible for ju st any lexical item to be coerced into receiving a direc­
tional interpretation. The relationship between the m eaning of the locative term
and the directional interpretation it receives is one o f endpoint focus (Brngm an
1988). That is, the location encoded by the locative phrase is interpreted to be
the endpoint o f a path to that location.
To summ arize, because attem pts to attribute the m eanings o f entire expres­
sions of caused motion to the m eanings o f individual lexical item s fall short of
accounting for the data in a natural way, a construction is posited in the gram ­
mar. The construction can be represented as follows;
160 Cnnpu?r Seven

Cauied-M olion Construction

Sem CAUSE-MOVE < cause goal them e >

PRED
1 <
1 >
1
Syn V SUBJ OBL
i OBJ

Figure 7.!

A distinct but related construction must be posited to account for intransitive

motion cases; this construction can also add a motion interpretation to verbs
that do not lexically code m otion;’

(29) The bottle floated into the cave. (Talmy 1985a)

T he intransitive m otion construction is related to the caused-m otion construc­

tion as follows:

Caused-Moiion Construction

Sem CAUSE-M OVE < cause goal (hem e >

PRED < >

Syn V SUBJ OBL OBJ

ls : cause

Intransitive
Motion
Construction

Sem MOVE < them e goal >

1 >
PRED <

Syn V SUBJ OBL

Figure 7.2
 The English C.n isen -Mot, on Construction 16 1

7.3 T h e V a r i o u s In t e r p r e t a t i o n s
7 .3.1 Overview
As discussed in chapter 3. the caused-m otion construction is associ­
ated with a category o f related senses. The various senses that occur are the
following:

A. *X c a u s e s Y lo m o v e Z \ Exam ples include:

(30) Frank pushed it into the box.

(31) Frank kicked the dog into the bathroom .
(32) Frank sneezed the tissue off the nightstand.
(33) Sam shoved it into the carton.

B. T h e co n d itio n s o r sa tisfactio n asso ciated w ith th e act d en o ted by

the p re d ic a te en tail: ‘X causes Y to m ove Z \ Included in this class are forcc-
dynamic verbs (Talmy 1985b) that encode a com m unicativc act. Exam ples of
this class are the following:

(34) Sam ordered him out o f the house.

(35) Sam asked him into the room.
(36) Sam invited him out to her cabin.
(37) Sam beckoned him into the room.
(38) Sam urged him into the room.
(39) Sam sent him to the market.

These exam ples differ from the previous cases in that motion is not strictly
entailed. For exam ple, Sam ordering som eone out o f the house does not nec­
essarily entail that the person moves out o f the house. However, motion is
entailed by the “conditions o f satisfaction" (Scarle 1983) associated with the
actions denoted by the particular predicates. If in exam ple (34) the order is
satisfied, the person will leave the house. Similarly, if the request in (35) or
invitation in (36) is satisfied, the person will move along the designated path.

C. ‘X e n a b l e s Y to m o v e Z \ This class includes force-dynam ic verbs

that encode the removal o f a barrier, such as allow, let, free, release. For
example:

(40) Sam allowed Bob out o f the room.

(41) Sam let Bill into the room.

In general, “enablem ent" is understood force-dynam ically to involve either the

I b2 Chapter Seven

active removal o f a barrier or the failure to im pose a potential barrier (Talmy

1976; Sw eetser 1990). However, this construction allow s only the former type
o f enablem ent, w hereby the enabler retains some aspect o f agentivity. That is.
enablement that does not actively involve the removal o f a barrier is not ac­
ceptable in caused-m otion expressions:

(42) a. *Sara let Bill into the room by leaving the door open.
b. (Sara let Bill com e into the room by leaving the door open.)

0 . ‘X.PB.tVC.HTS\ CCQTO.V\OVVHCiCQWVVW-
by contrast to the one above, can be described in term s o f the force-dynamic
schem a o f im position o f a barrier, causing the patient to stay in a location d e­
spite its inherent tendency to move. The class includes verbs such as lock, keep,
barricade. For example:

(43) H arry locked Joe into the bathroom .

(44) He kept her at arm 's length.
(45) Sam barricaded him out o f the room.

The path argum ent o f this class, argum ent Com p(Z), codes the complement of
the potential motion. Thus (43) implies that Harry prevented Joe from moving
out o f the bathroom .

E. ‘X h e l p s Y to m o v e Z \ T his class o f cases involves ongoing assis­

tance to move in a certain direction. Exam ples include:

(46) Sam helped him into the car.

(47) Sam assisted her out o f the room.
(48) Sam guided him through the terrain.
(49) Sam showed him into the livingroom .
(57) Sam w alked him to the car.

7 .3 .2 Relating the Senses

Sense A (e.g.. He pushed the box into the room) can be argued to be the
central sense of the construction. It involves m anipulative causation and actual
m ovem ent, the scene to w hich transitive m arkers are applied earliest cross-
linguistically (Slobin 1985) and which has been suggested as the most basic
causative situation (Talmy 1976). Moreover, the other extensions are most eco­
nom ically described as extensions o f this sense.
The entire category o f related senses can be diagram m ed as follows:
Figure 7.3
164 Chapter Seven

The close parallel between the links required for this construction and the links
previously suggested for the ditransitive construction indicates that these pat­
terns o f extension are quite systematic. It seems that patterns o f constructional
extension, like patterns o f polysem y generally, em body subregularities (Wil-
ensky 1991); that is. patterns of polysem y recur, although not strictly predict­
ably so. At the very least it should be clear that the links are not being posited
on an ad hoc basis.

A F u r th e r E x tension. Finally, there are a few verbs which do not fit

into any o f the above patterns, in that the subject is not interpreted to cause,
enable, or prevent the them e’s motion. For exam ple, consider the verb accom­
pany as used in (51):

( 5 1) Sam accom panied Bob into the room.

Here accompany, although sim ilar to uses o f escort, walk, and show, does not
necessarily entail any assistance on the part o f the agent. Also, follow, trail,
and tail, w hile sim ilar to the unexceptional use o f chase in (52), differ in that
they do not entail that the them e’s motion is caused or aided by the agent.

(52) Ann chased the squirrel out o f her house.

T his entire group o f exceptions can be characterized as involving a subclass of

verbs which entail that the agent argum ent as well as the them e argum ent move
along the specified path. Thus this class can be recognized as a further exten­
sion o f the pattern.

7.4 S e m a n t ic C o n s t r a in t s

In section 7.2 we argued for the existence o f the caused-m otion construc­
tion independently o f the verbs w hich instantiate it. One o f our primary moti­
vations for doing so was to avoid arbitrary lexical stipulations on each verb that
could potentially occur in the construction. Still, if we were to find that there iv
ram pant lexical idiosyncrasy associated with the construction, our motivation
for postulating it would be partially underm ined, since the arbitrary lexical
stipulation we were trying to avoid would then be necessary anyway. Therefore
it is w orthw hile to see how much can be accounted for in a principled way by
paying close attention to sem antic constraints.
At first glance, there does appear to be a large degree o f idiosyncrasy. Con­
sider the following minimal pairs:

(53) a. Pat coaxed him into the room.

b. *Pat encouraged him into the room.
 The English C-msed-Motion Construction 165

(54) a. He hit the ball over the fence.

b. *He struck the ball over the fence, (adapted from Jackendoff 1990a)
(55) a. Please chop the kindling into the bin provided for it.
b.??Please don't chop the kindling onto the rug. (Paul Kay, personal
com m unication)
(56) a. Pat asked him into the room,
b. *Pat begged him into the room.

However, in w hat follows it will be argued that each o f these pairs can be
accounted for in a principled way, once careful attention is paid to the sem an­
tics of the construction.

7.4.1 A Constraint on the Causer Argument

There is a particular constraint on the causer argum ent o f the caused-
motion construction. The cause argum ent can be an agent or a natural force:

(57) Chris pushed the piano up the stairs.

(58) The wind blew the ship off course.
(59) The rain swept the ring into the gutter.

But it cannot be an instrum ent (cf. Gawron 1986 for a sim ilar constraint):

(60) a. *Thc ham m er broke the vase into pieces.

b. *The ham m er broke the vase onto the floor.
c. (The ham m er broke the vase.)
(61) a. * His cane helped him into the car.
b. (His cane helped him get around.)

The fact (hat the choice o f argum ent encoded as subject plays a role in the
acceptability o f caused-m otion expressions dem onstrates that the sem antics of
the construction must m ake reference to that argum ent, and that it cannot be
stated as a VP construction.

7 .4.2 Constraints on Direct Causation

It has long been recognized that there is a difference in interpretation
between lexical causatives such as kill and melt and periphrastic causatives
such as cause to die and cause to melt (Fodor 1970; Shibatani 1973, 1976;
Lakoff 1977; M cCawley 1978; Gergely & Bever 1986). Lexical causatives
have been argued to prim arily involve causation that is "prototypical” (Lakoff
1977). “efficient” (Gaw ron 1985, 1986), or “ direct" (Fodor 1970; Shibatani
1973; McCawley 1978). It has also been suggested that single-clause causa­
tive expressions can only express a single event, via an iconic principle (e.g..
166 Chapter Seven

H aim an 1980). In this chapter, specific constraints on what kinds o f situations

can be encoded by the caused-m otion construction are discussed with an aim
at explicating these notions. Each o f these constraints intuitively falls under the
more general heading o f “ direct causation,” or alternatively under the principle
o f “one event per clause,” but each provides a more specific principle by which
to characterize such notions.

N o Mediating Cognitive Decision

The first thing we might try to explain is the difference in judgm ents
between the follow ing two examples:

(62) a. Sam coaxed Bob into the room.

b. *Sam encouraged Bob into the room.

N otice that convince, persuade, instruct pattern like encourage in not appear­
ing in the caused-m otion construction:

(63) *Sam convinced/persuaded/encouraged/instructedhim into the room.

Each o f these verbs can occur in a different construction with an infinitival

com plem ent:

(64) Sam convinced/persuaded/encouraged/instructed him to go into the

room.

W hat all o f these verbs have in com m on is that they entail that the entity de­
noted by the direct object m akes a cognitive decision. This is in distinction to
verbs such as the ones used in (6 5 -6 7 ):

(65) Sam frightened Bob out o f the house.

(66) Sam coaxed him into the room.
(67) Sam lured him into the room.

Frighten, coax, and lure, although referring to psychological states, do not en­
tail the existence o f a cognitive decision. That is, they can apply equally well
to rodents w ithout any anthropom orphizing:

(68) Sam frightened/coaxed/lured the m ouse out o f its hiding place,

(69)?#Sam encouraged/convinced/persuaded the mouse to move out o f its hid­
ing place.

O ne might argue that this is a coincidence— that verbs which occur with this
construction ju st happen not to entail any cognitive decision on the part of the
theme argum ent and that the “constraint” is an epiphenom enon of particular
idiosyncratic lexical facts. However, a piece of evidence weighing against such
 The English Causect-Motion Construction 167

an account and suggesting instead that it is indeed the construction that prohib­
its a mediating cognitive decision com es from an exam ination o f verbs which
occur in more than one construction, together with the distribution of the ad ­
verb willingly. Lakoff (1970a) noticed that willingly can be applied to both
logical (i.e., underlying) and surface subjects:

(70) a. Chris, sold the slave willingly;,

b. Chris sold the slave, willingly,.
(71) a. The slave, was sold willingly, by Chris,
b. The slave was sold willingly, by Chris,.

According to many theories, the direct object argum ent is the logical subject o f
the predicative PP. Yet we find that willingly cannot apply to the direct object
argument o f caused-m otion expressions:

(72) a. *He asked her, into the room willingly,.

b. He asked her, to go into the room willingly,.

This is generally true of the passive form s of the caused-m otion construction
as w ell:10

(73) a. *She, was asked into the room willingly,.

b. She, was asked to go into the room willingly,.

A general constraint against a m ediating cognitive decision in the caused-

motion construction allows us to prevent willingly from applying to the therne
argument on semantic grounds, despite the fact that the them e argum ent may
well be considered a logical subject.
The constraint can be stated as follows:

Generalization I: No cognitive decision can mediate between the

causing event and the entailed motion.

The Implication of Actual Motion

Another source o f apparent idiosyncrasy is the following. There are two

subclasses associated with the construction that do not strictly entail actual
motion. In the first class, only the conditions o f satisfaction associated with the
act denoted by the verb entail that the theme argum ent actually moves. Expres­
sions in this class include:

(74) Sam asked him into the room.

(75) Sam invited him onto the deck.
(76) Sam urged him into the room.
168 Chapter Seven

The second class involves a specific case o f enablem enr an agent actively re­
moves a barrier to moiion. Expressions in this class includc:

(77) Sam allowed him into the room.

(78) Sam perm itted him into the house.

T hese classes do seem to allow a cognitive decision on the pari o f the them e lo
be implied if the theme argum ent actually moves, but they can be distinguished
from the cases discussed in the previous section in lhat actual motion is not
entailed by the expression.
N otice that alongside the acceptable (79) we find the unacceptable (80)
and (81):

(79) Sam asked Joe into the room.

(80) *Sam begged Joe into the room.
(81) *Sam pleaded Joe into the room.

W hat needs to be noticed in this case is lhat the them e's ultim ate direction must
be presum ed to be the one determ ined by the subject; no contrary tendency can
be implied. To see this, com pare (82a, b):

(82) a. #Sam asked Harry into the jail cell.

b. Sam asked H arry to go into the jail cell.

If the them e's motion is not strictly entailed, it m ust be presum ed as a ceteris
paribus im plication that the theme argum ent will actually move on the path
specified. In the case o f beg or plead — or in (82a), in w hich there are prag­
m atically given reasons why H arry may not w ant to go into the jail cell—
m otion cannot be presum ed.
N otice that it is not necessary for the Iheme argum ent to actually want to
m ove along the specified path, only lhat it be presum ed to do so:

(83) Sam ordered Bob into the jail cell.

We can sum m arize these observations as follows:

Generalization II: If motion is not strictly entailed, it must be pre­

sumed as a ceteris paribus implication.

Conventionalized Scenarios

Certain cases seem to flout the general constraint that there can be no
interm ediate causation. As Shibatani (1973) noticed, activities w hich are con­
ventionally accom plished in a particular way may be expressed as simple cau­
 The fcnglisM CauserJ-Moiion Construction 169

satives, even when the causation is indirect insofar as there is in actuality an

intermediate cause. For exam ple, consider (84 -8 7 ):

(84) The invalid ow ner ran his favorite horse (in the race).
(85) Chris cut her hair at the salon on University Avenue.
(86) She painted her house, (when in fact the painters did the painting)
(87) Farm er Joe grew those grape vines.

It is a conventional way to have one’s hair cut to go to a salon, a conveniional

way to have one's house painted to have professional painters do it, and so
forth. That is, simple causatives can be used to imply conventionalized causa­
tion lhat may in actuality involve an interm ediate cause. It seem s that conven­
tionalized scenarios can be cognitively “ packaged” in such a way that their
internal structure is ignored.
Notice that many o f the same scenes described above cannot occur with
directionals:

(88)??Farm er Joe grew those vines onto his roof.

(89) *T hc invalid ow ner ran his favorite horse onto the field.

However, we would not w ant to say that these are ruled out because conven­
tional causation is not acceptable in the caused-m otion construction, but rather
that Ihcsc scenes as wholes are not conventional. T hat is, planting and w atering
is not a conventional way lo grow plants onto the roof, and arranging for your
horse to run in a race is not a conventional way to have your horse run onto the
field. Expressions which do express indirect but conventional caused motion
arc allowable in the caused-m otion construction as well:

(90) The com pany flew her to Chicago for an interview.

This is acceptablc since paying for and arranging a ticket for som eone else are
conventional ways to have som eone travel for interviews.
To sum up this constraint:

Generalization III: Conventionalized scenarios can be cognitively

packaged as a single event even if an intervening cause exists.

In the next sections, it will be argued that the action denoted by the verb,
perform ed by the causer on the causee. m ust be understood to com pletely d e­
termine both the effect o f m otion and the particular path o f motion.

The Effect of M otion

The exam ples below involve a seem ingly idiosyncratic difference be­
tween the verbs hit and strike that has been noticed by Jackendoff ( 1990a):
170 ChapterSeven

(91) a. He hit the ball across the field.

b. *H e struck the ball across the field.

W hen a w ider class o f verbs is considered, a pattern em erges. Notice lhai the
verbs slap, smack, whack, knock pattern like hit, whereas the verbs assault,
sock, spank, clobber, slash, bludgeon, impact pattern like strike. W hat distin­
guishes these two classes o f verbs o f forceful im pact is whether the impacted
entity is necessarily affected in a way that does not involve motion (cf. Fillmore
1970). All o f the verbs o f the strike-c\ass require that the impacted entity be
affected :"

(92) a. *W ith an open hand, the toddler struck the tree,

b. The toddler struck his playmate.
(93) a. *The disgruntled player socked the wall.
b. The disgruntled player socked the coach.
c. *Joe assaulted/bludgeoned/im pacted the steel block.

The verbs o f the /i/r-class, by contrast, which do allow the directional to be

specified, allow their direct objects to be either unaffected generally (hit, slap)
or unaffected except for the particular effect of motion (knock).

(94) Sam hit the table.

(95) Sam slapped/sm acked the table.
(96) Sam knocked off the lid.

To m ake this point m ore clear, consider also the verb shoot, which allows either
the im pacted entity or the trajectory as direct object:

(97) a. Pat shot Sam.

b. Pat shot the bullet.

N otice that w hen a path argum ent is present, the direct object can only be in­
terpreted as trajectory; it cannot be viewed sim ultaneously as trajectory and
im pacted entity:

(9 8 )* P at shot Sam across the room, (unacceptable on the interpretation that

Pat shot Sam and the bullet forced him across the room)

This exam ple is explained on our account, because if the bullet is understood
to penetrate Sam , then Sam is necessarily affected in a way that does not in­
volve m otion, and so a path o f motion cannot be specified.
The constraint, then, can be tentatively stated as follows:

If the action denoted by the verb implies an effect other than motion,
then a path of motion cannot be specified.
 The English Caused-Motion Construction 17 I

This generalization will need to be slightly revised, however, in view o f the

examples in the following section.

C h a n g e-o f-S tate V erbs

Consider the following examples:

(99) The butcher sliced the salami onto the wax paper.
(100) Joey clumped his potatoes into the middle o f his plate.
(1 0 1) Joey grated the cheese onto a serving plate.
(102) Sam shredded the papers into the garbage pail.

Each of these exam ples implies a definite effect on the them e argum ent quite
apart from the motion that is implied. However, these change-of-state verbs
can be distinguished from the strilce-class o f verbs ju st discussed, which also
entail a definite effect on the direct object argum ent, in the follow ing way. The
action denoted by each o f the verbs in (9 9 -1 0 2 ) as perform ed by the agent
argument on the theme argum ent typically implies som e predictable incidental
motion. For example, in slicing salam i, the salam i norm ally falls away from
the slicer; in clum ping potatoes into a pile, the potatoes are moved; the act of
grating cheese normally implies that the cheese falls away from the instru­
ment used. It is the path of this incidental motion that can be specified by the
directional.
It might be observed that it is not a necessary part of the m eaning o f slice
that the sliced object necessarily moves. One can im agine a m echanical bread-
slicer lhat slices bread w hile the bread is contained in a supporting container,
not allowing the bread to fall away after being sliced. Similarly, one can im ag­
ine a paper shredder which shreds paper that is fixed in place. However, it is
clear that in the neutral context, in which the action is done in the conventional
way, the action does entail incidental motion. Thus, in order to account for
these cases, we have to appeal not to necessary truth conditions holding o f the
action denoted by the verb, but rather to the conventional scenario associated
with the particular act denoted by the verb.
This class of cases is further constrained. C onsider the follow ing contrasts:

(103) a. *Sam unintentionally broke the eggs onto the floor,

b. Sam carefully broke the eggs into the bowl.
(104) a.??Please don’t chop that kindling onto the rug. (said to som eone who
is chopping kindling on a chopping board in the living room)
b. Please chop that kindling into the bin provided for it. (exam ple from
Paul Kay, personal com m unication)
172 Chapter Seven

In the (b)-cases, (he ensuing motion is intended and the exam ples are accept­
able. In the (a)-cases, however, the motion is interpreted as unintentional and
they are unacceptable.
The relevant generalization seems to be as follows.

Generalization IV: If the activity causing the change o f state (or ef­
fect), when performed in the conventional way. cfTects some incidental
motion and, moreover, is performed with the intention of causing the
motion, then the path o f motion may be specified.

In understanding this generalization, it is im portant to realize lhat the change

o f slate (or effect) m ust cause incidental m otion as a result. not that incidental
m otion is involved as a means o f causing the change o f state. This is important,
because the follow ing are unacceptable:

(105)* She filled w ater into the tub.

(106)* He covered the blanket over Mary.

In these cases, m otion is im plied in the sccncs associated with fill and cover,
insofar as w ater m ust move into the tub and the blanket must move over Mary.
However, the motion in these cases occurs as the means o f accom plishing the
change o f state; it is not an incidental cffect o f the changc o f state.

The Path of M otion

A constraint related to the previous one can be recognized by considering
the following:

(107) a. *H e nudged the ball down the incline, (unless there are repetitive
nudges)
b. He nudged the golf ball into ihe hole.

Exam ple (107a) is unacceptable despite the faci that the nudging o f a ball at
the top o f an incline can cause the ball to roll down the incline.
The crucial fact is that the causal force initialed by the agent argum ent in
this case does not in itself determ ine the path o f motion; gravity is necessary
as an interm ediary cause. If the causal force initiated by the agent argument
does determ ine the path o f m otion, the sentence is acceptable:

(108) He shoved the cart down the incline.

U nder many circum stances, a specific path is not determ ined by the activity
described; the direction o f force only im plies that the theme argum ent moves
out of, or away from, its present location. Accordingly, more specific paths
cannot be predicaled. This observation can account for the following:
 The English Caused-Motion Construction 173

(109) a. #They laughed the poor guy into his car.

b. They laughed the poor guy off the stage.
c. They laughed the poor guy out o f the auditorium .

Similarly, it can explain the following contrast:

( 1 10) a. #Sam frightened Bob under the bed.

b. Sam frightened Bob out o f the house.
c. Sam frightened Bob away from the door.

The following generalization is claim ed to hold:

Generalization V: the path of motion must be completely determined

by the causal force.

Therefore, while traditionally there has only been a two-way distinction made
between "o n set” and “ continuous" causation (Talmy 1976),12 what we see
here suggests that “ onset” may cover two distinguishable types o f causation.
The first type is that in which the causing event determ ines the entire path of
motion, even though actual physical contact is not m aintained over the entire
path. This is the only type of onset causation which is acceptable in caused-
motion expressions. T he second type o f onset causation is that in w hich the
causing event initiates motion but does not itself determ ine the full subsequent
path. This type o f onset causation is evident in the following:

(111) Joe’s nudging the ball at the top o f the incline caused the ball to roll all
the way down to the bottom.

W hich paths count as being “com pletely determ ined" is in part a m atter of
pragmatics. For exam ple, imagine a group o f teenagers crow ded around a man
who is standing by the door o f his car wailing for a friend. The teenagers are
intimidating the man by making jokes about him and laughing. In this context,
it is felicitous to say the following:

(112) They laughed the poor guy into his car.

Similarly, imagine that Sam is playing a gam e with a child who is lying on the
floor next to the bed. The gam e involves putting on a scary mask and taking it
off again. Each time Sam puts on the mask the child predictably shrieks and
rolls under the bed in mock fear. In this context, one can felicitously say the
following:

(,113) Sam, stop frightening Bobby under the bed!

In general, if the action is interpreted to be the driving force determ ining the
174 Chapter Seven

particular path of motion, the motion can be said to be “ com pletely deter­
m ined” by the action.

To sum m arize the constraints lhat have been argued for in this section:
I. No cognitive decision can m ediate between the causing event and the
entailed motion.
II. If the caused motion is not strictly entailed, it must be presumed as a
ceteris paribus im plication.
III. Conventionalized scenarios can be cognitively packaged as a single
event even if an intervening cause exists (Shibatani 1973).
IV. If the verb is a change-of-state verb (or a verb o f effect), such that
the activity causing the change o f state (or effect), when perform ed in a con­
ventional way, effects some incidental motion and, moreover, is performed
with the intention o f causing the motion, the path o f motion may be specified.
V. The path o f motion must be com pletely determ ined by the action d e­
noted by the verb.

7 .4 .3 The Nature of the Constraints on Direct Causation

On the analysis presented here, the difference in directness between
"lex ic al” causatives and periphrastic causatives cannot be attributed simply to
the lexical items them selves, since we have argued that many of the lexical
item s are not causative independently o f this construction. For example, it is
not possible to attribute direct causation to kick if we acccpt that kick does not
itself encode any kind of cause. Moreover, many of the verbs that occur in this
construction also occur in constructions w hich do not entail direct causation
(o ra l least do not obey the constraints outlined here). For example, force, push,
ask, invite can occur with an infinitival com plem ent, and expressions involving
infinitives do not necessarily involve direct causation. Thus expressions with
infinitival com plem ents do allow the theme to make a cognitive decision:

(114) Sam convinced/persuaded/encouraged/instructed him to go into the

room.

Also, they do not presuppose that the them e will actually move along the speci­
fied path:

( 1 15) Sam asked/begged him to go into the jail cell.

Therefore, the constraint o f direct causation m ust be attributed to the caused-

m otion construction, or more generally, to a principle stating that only direct
causation can be expressed within a single clause.
 The English Caused-Monon Construction I 75

Several o f the constraints described here require access to contextual infor­

mation and general world know ledge com bined with certain specifications of
particular lexical items. For exam ple, we saw that change o f state (or effect)
verbs could occur in the caused-m otion construction as long as the activity
perform ed was associated with a conventional scenario that implied incidental
motion.
Another exam ple o f the influence o f pragm atic considerations was seen with
respect to the constraint that the causal force must com pletely determ ine the
path o f motion. As was noted above, context plays a role in w hat kinds of
actions can “com pletely determ ine” a given path.
The fact that a com bination o f real-world and situational know ledge together
with knowledge o f lexical specifications plays a role in the possibilities o f ar­
gum ent structure has serious repercussions for theories that make a strict divi­
sion between semantics and pragmatics. The expression o f argum ent structure
is generally taken to exclusively involve sem antics (if not exclusively syntax),
not pragmatics. Yet these cases suggest that pragm atics, in the sense o f gen­
eral world knowledge, does play a crucial role in argum ent structure (see also
Dinsmore 1979; Jackendoff 1983; L angacker 1987a; Zaenen 1991).

7.5 The L o a d / S pr a y A l t e r n a t io n

A num ber o f verbs, including the well-known exam ples load and spray,
can occur in two alternate syntactic patterns:

(116) a. Pat sprayed paint onto the statue,

b. Pat sprayed the statue with paint.

(cf., e.g., Partee 1965; Fillm ore 1968; A nderson 1971; Rappaport & Levin
1988; Gropen et al. 1991). Exam ple (116a) is actually an instance of the
caused-m otion construction, and in fact can occur with a w ide variety o f path
phrases besides onto:

( 1 17) Pat sprayed the paint toward the w indow /over the fence/through the
woods.

As Anderson (1 9 7 1) first observed, the v«7/t-variant is associated with some

kind o f “ holistic” effect. T hat is, ( 1 16b) is interpreted to mean that Pat com ­
pletely covered the statue with paint, or perhaps that Pat vandalized the statue.
This observation follows from an analysis which treats (116b) as an instance
of the causative construction. On this analysis, the w/f/i-phrase is an adjunct,
closely related to the with -phrase of instrum entals (see Rappaport & Levin
1985 for a discussion of the differences between this wt'/fc-adjunct and the in­
1/6 Chapter Seven

strum ental phrase). A causative analysis is also suggested by Gropen et al.

(1991), w ho argue that in exam ples such as ( 1 16b) a change o f state is the
“ highlighted feature o f the event” (p. 6 ).1:1
Pinker (1 9 8 9 :1 2 6 - 127), draw ing on work by Rappaport and Levin (1985)
suggests five narrowly defined classes o f verbs w hich can occur in both con­
structions (see chapter 5 for discussion o f the relevance o f narrowly defined
classes):
1. Slather-class: sim ultaneous forceful contact and motion o f a mass
against a surface: slather, smear, brush, dab. daub, plaster, rub, smear,
smudge, spread, strea k. ..
2. Heap-class: vertical arrangem ent on a horizontal surface: heap, pile,
sta c k . . .
3. Spray-class: force is im parted to a mass, causing ballistic motion in
a specified spatial distribution along a trajectory: spray, spatter, splash, splat­
ter, inject, sprinkle, sq u irt. . .
4. Cram -class: mass is forced into a container against the limits o f its
capacity: cram, pack, crowd, jam, s tu ff ..
5. Zx>«d-class: a mass o f a size, shape, or type defined by the intended
use o f a container (and not purely by its geom etry) is put into the container,
enabling it to accom plish its function: load, pack (of suitcases), stock (of
s h e lv e s). . .'5
Verbs o f the slather-class require all three participant roles to be expressed.
Notice, for exam ple, that one can say either (118a) or ( 1 18b):

( 1 18) a. Sam slathered shaving cream onto his face,

b. Sam slathered his face with shaving cream.

None o f the follow ing exam ples, with one role unexpressed, are allowed:

( 119) a. *Sam slathered shaving cream.

b. *Sam slathered his face.
c. *Shaving cream slathered onto his face.

This is represented by profiling all three roles:

slather (slatherer, thick-mass, target)

Slather is com patible with both the caused-m otion construction and the
causative-plus-vw7/i-adjunctconstructions in the follow ing way. Both construc­
tions allow all three roles to be expressed, so there is no problem satisfying the
constraint that profiled roles are obligatory. Since there are three profiled par-
 The English Caused Motion Construction 177

licipants, one may be fused wilh a nonprofiled argum ent role, in accord with
the Principle o f Correspondence discussed in section 2.4.2.
The verb’s participant roles are fused with each of the construction’s argu­
ment roles in accord with the Principle of Sem antic C oherence, also discussed
in section 2.4.2, as follows. T he verb’s participant roles fuse with the caused-
motion construction’s argum ent roles in that the slatherer can be construed as
a cause, thick-mass as a type o f theme since it undergoes a change of location,
and the target as a type o f goal-path. Slather is com patible with the causative-
plus- wj'f/i-adjunct since the target can be construed as a type o f patient, in that
the entity which is slathered on can be construed as totally affected. The with-
phrase is obligatory even though it is an adjunct, because the profiled status of
the verb’s thick-mass role requires that the role be expressed.
Verbs o f the heap- and cram-classes are similar. Thus both full variants of
the alternation are acceptable with heap:

( 120) a. Pat heaped mash potatoes onto her plate,

b. Pat heaped her plate with mash potatoes.

But again, none of the verb’s roles may be left unexpressed:16

( 121) a. * Pat heaped mash potatoes.

b. *Pat heaped her plate.
c. *The mash potatoes heaped onto her plate.

The same is true o f cram:

(122) a. Pat cram m ed the pennies into the jar.

b. Pat cram m ed the ja r with pennies.
(123) a. *Pat cram m ed the pennies.
b. *Pat crammed the jar.
c. *The pennies cram m ed into the jar.

Thus, like the slather- class above, verbs of these classes must have three pro­
filed participant roles:

heap (heaper, location, heaped-goods)

cram (crammer, location, crammed-goods)

The load-class o f verbs also occurs in both constructions:

( 124) a. She loaded the wagon with the hay.

b. She loaded the hay onto the wagon.

It is not as clear in this case lhat all roles need be overtly expressed. W hile the
178 Chapter Seven

agent and container roles are obligatory, as (125) shows, load can occur w ith­
out an overtly expressed theme role, as in (126):

(125) a. *The hay loaded onto the truck.

b.??Sam loaded the hay.
(126) Sam loaded the truck.

Can we still claim for this case that all roles are profiled? Notice that if the
theme role is unexpressed, its filler m ust be presum ed to be known to both
speaker and hearer. T hat is, unless the context tells us what was loaded onto
the truck, exam ple (126) is infelicitous. Thus the theme role is allowed to be a
definite null complement as discussed in scction 2.4.5; this type o f argument
was argued to be lexically profiled despite the fact that it is not obligatorily
expressed; it is indicated below by square brackets. T he load-class therefore
has three profiled roles as well:

load (lo ad e r, c o n ta in e r, [loaded-them e])

Verbs o f the load-c lass mark their theme roles as profiled, but optionally
om issible if licensed by context to receive a definite interpretation.
Verbs o f the spray-class, including spray, splash, splatter, sprinkle, work
slightly differently. In the case o f splash, both liquid and target roles must be
expressed:

(127) a. Chris splashed the w ater onto the floor,

b. Chris splashed the floor with water.
(128) a. *C hris splashed the water,
b. *C hris splashed the floor.

Spray itself allows the liquid role to be unexpressed if it is given a definite

interpretation:

(129) The skunk sprayed the car [ |.

In this exam ple, the unexpressed liquid role is available to speaker and hearer
through contextual given-ness; it is therefore still considered lo be profiled.
Both these verbs can occur w ithout an overtly expressed agent, as in (130):

( 130) a. W ater splashed onto the lawn,

b. W ater sprayed onto the lawn.

T he follow ing lexical entries capture these observations:

splash (splasher, ta rg e t, liquid)

spray (sprayer, ta rg e t, [liquid |>

 The English Caused-Motion Construction I 79

The fact that the target can be construed as a type o f patient, in that the entity
which is sprayed can be construed as totally affected, allow s spray's roles to
fuse with the argum ent roles o f the causative construction. In particular, spray
is licensed to occur in the caused-m otion construction since the sprayer can
be construed as a cause, the liquid as a type o f theme, and the target as a type
of goal-path. Similarly, the fact that the agent is not obligatory (i.e., non­
profiled) allows spray to occur in the intransitive m otion construction instan­
tiated by ( 130).17

7.6 C o n c l u s io n

It has been argued that the argum ent structure associated with the inter­
pretation of directly caused motion needs to be recognized as an English con­
struction, independently o f the lexical items w hich instantiate it. The evidence
came from the fact that several aspects of the m eaning o f caused-m otion ex­
pressions (causation, motion) and o f their form (e.g., the direct object com ple­
ment) are not generally predictable from lexical requirem ents or from other
constructions.
The construction discussed in this chapter has as its basic sense a causer or
agent directly causing a theme to move to a new location. The basic sense is
extended in various ways, allow ing the construction to appear with a variety of
systematically related interpretations. As noted in section 3.3.2, this polysem y
is strikingly sim ilar to the polysem y argued to exist for the ditransitive con­
struction in chapter 2.
In addition, specific sem antic constraints have been proposed in an attem pt
to show principled patterns where there is apparent idiosyncrasy. These specific
constraints can be interpreted as beginning to provide necessary conditions on
the notion of “direct causation” (or o f a “ single event"). These constraints
have been argued to involve a com bination o f lexical sem antics and general
world knowledge.
Finally, the load/spray alternation was discussed, and it was shown that both
variants could be accounted for by understanding a single verb m eaning to be
able to fuse with two distinct constructions, the caused-m otion construction
and a causative construction plus with- adjunct.
8 The English Resultative Construction

8.1 In t r o d u c t io n

In this chapter the resultative construction, which was argued to be a

m etaphorical extension o f the caused-m otion construction (cf. chapter 3), is
discussed in more detail. A great deal o f attention has been focused recently on
attem pting to delim it the class of expressions to which resultatives can be ap­
plied (Bresnan and Zaenen 1990; C arrier & Randall 1992; Hoekstra 1988;
Rappaport Hovav & Levin, 1991; Jackendoff 1990a; Levin & Rappaport 1990b;
Napoli 1992; Randall 1983; Sim pson 1983; Van Valin 1990a).
T his chapter defends the position that the necessary constraint on the appear­
ance o f resultatives can be stated in sem antic terms; the resultative can only
apply to argum ents that potentially (although not necessarily) undergo a change
o f state as a result o f the action denoted by the verb. Such arguments are tra­
ditionally identified as patients. The traditional test for patienthood is that the
expression can occur in the following frame (Lakoff 1976):

( 1) a. W hat X did to (patient) w a s ,. ..

b. W hat happened to (patient) w a s ,. . .

T his idea would seem to be intuitive, given the fact that resultatives code a
change of state caused by the verb. And in fact, this proposal has been approxi­
mated recently by Bresnan and Zaenen (1990), Jackendoff (1990a), and Van
Valin (1990a). However, the existence o f so-called “ fake object” cases has
been taken as an exception to the sem antic constraint. Cases involving "fake
o bjects,” so named by Sim pson (1983), include exam ples such as the following
(the attested exam ples here and below com e from V isser 1963):

(2) a. “ Paulo, w ho had roared him self hoarse, was very w illing to be si­
lent.” (OED: Mrs. Radcliff. Italian vii (1797))
b. *H e roared himself.
(3) a. “The G erm ans c ri’d their throats dry with calling for a general
Council.” (OED: Leighton (1674) in L auderdale Papers (1885))
b. *The G erm ans cried their throats.

The postverbal N P in these cases is said to bear no sem antic relation to the
main verb, and therefore is viewed as being exceptional to the semantic con­
straint o f patienthood. The existence o f these cases has led several researchers

180
 The English Resuliative Construction 18 1

to conclude lhai the phenom enon m ust be stated in syntactic term s (Sim pson
1983; C arrier & Randall 1992; Rappaport Hovav & Levin 1991).
In what follows, I will continue to refer to these as “ fake object” cases d e­
spite the fact that I will argue that the “ fake object” should be treated as a
semantic argument. In w hat follows, I restrict my attention to adjectival resul­
tatives, although I intend the term “ resultatives” to cover expressions which
encode a resultant state with a PP as well.
The facts which must be accounted for are the following:
1. Resultatives apply to direct objects o f som e transitive verbs:

(4) “This nice man probably just wanted M other to . . . kiss him uncon­
scious.” (D. Shields, Dead Tongues (1989))
(5) “ I had brushed my hair very sm ooth.” (Ch. Bronte, Jane Eyre (1847))
(6) “ You killed it stone-dead.” (W. Som erset M augham , “ A ltogether"
(1910))

2. But they do not apply to direct objects o f others:

(7) *He watched the TV broken.

(8) *He believed the idea powerful.

3. Resultatives apply to subjects o f passives which correspond to ac­

ceptable actives:

(9) "I charged with them, and got knocked silly for my pains.” (R ider H ag­
gard, “ King Solom on’s M ines” (1889))
( 10) The tools w ere wiped clean.

4. They apply to the subjects o f particular intransitive verbs, often asso­

ciated with unaccusativity:

(11) The river froze solid.

(12) It broke apart.

5. But they do not apply to the subjects o f other intransitive verbs, o f­

ten associated with unergativity:

(13)* He talked hoarse.

(14) *At his wedding, he smiled sore.
(15) *He coughed sick.

6. Finally, as mentioned above, resultatives occasionally occur with so-

called fake objects— that is, postverbal NPs that do not bear the norm al argu-
182 Chapter ITight

meni relation to the m atrix verbs. Some additional exam ples are the following
(see also section 8.6):

(16) “ W hose whole life is to eat, and drink . . . and laugh them selves fa t "
(OED: Trapp, Com m , and Epist. and Rev. (1647))
(17) “The dog would bite us all mad." (Dougl. Jerrold, Mrs. C audle’s Curt.
L ect 4 (1846)) (This does not necessarily imply that the dog would bite
us all)
(18) “ She laughed herself crooked.” (Benson. “ Mr. Teddy" (1910))

8.2 T h e Status o f the Po stverbal NP

Follow ing Simpson (1983), many researchers have assumed that the
postverbal NP in the case o f fake object resultatives is not an argument of the
verb, w hereas the postverbal NP o f transitive resultatives is (Rappaport Hovav
& Levin 1991; Bresnan & Zaenen 1990; Jackendoff 1990a; Napoli 1992). Car­
rier and Randall (1992) explicitly argue this point. They observe that some
processes that are taken to apply only to direct internal argum ents do not apply
to fake object resultatives, although they do apply to regular resultative expres­
sions. Specifically, they argue lhat m iddle formation, adjectival passive for­
mation, and process nom inalization apply lo direct internal arguments. These
processes are said to apply to “ transitive" resultatives:

(19) Transitive Resultative: He ham m ered the metal (flat).

a. M iddle Formation: This meial ham m ers flat easily.
b. Adjectival Passive: the ham m ered-flat metal
c. N om inalization: the ham m ering o f the metal flat

However, they do not apply to fake objcct resultatives:

(20) Fake O bject Resultative: He drove his tires *(bald).

a. M iddle Form ation: *T hose tires drive bald easily.
b. Adjectival Passive: *the driven-bald tires
c. Nominalization: *lhe driving o f the tires bald

Notice, though, that none o f these constructions occurs across the board with
all transitive resultatives either. For exam ple, the following middles are based
on transitive verbs, yet they pattern exactly like fake object cases in being
ungram m atical:

(21) M iddle Construction with transitive verbs

a. *Pat kicks black and blue easily.
b. *The w asher loads full easily.
c. *H is face w ashes shiny clean easily.
 The Fnglish Resultative Construction 183

And, as Jackendoff (1990a) has pointed out, m ost if not all adjectival passives
and nominalizations based on transitive resultatives are also ungram m atical;
this is exemplified in (22) and (23), respectively:

(22) Adjectival Passive of Transitive Verbs

a. * the w ashed-shiny-clean face
b. *the shot-dead man
c. *the kicked-black-and-blue dog

(23) Nominalization o f Transitive Verbs

a. *the shooting of the man dead
b. *the washing of the face shiny clean
c. *the driving o f him crazy

Notice we cannot claim that these facts provide evidence that even transitive
resultatives do not have an internal argum ent since as (19) show ed, som e tran ­
sitive resultatives do occur in these constructions. Exam ples with uncontro-
versial direct internal argum ents differ on w hether they can occur in these
constructions. For example:

(24) M iddle Construction

a. This movie watches easily.
b. *This movie sees easily.
(25) Adjectival Passive Construction
a. the murdered man
b. *the killed man (Lakoff 1965:46)
(26) NominaJization Construction
a. the persuasion o f people to new faiths
b. *the persuasion o f people to be quiet

Therefore, although there may well be an implication that if X occurs in the

middle construction and adjectival passive construction and nominalization
construction, then X is an argum ent, the converse is clearly false. So we cannot
use these constructions to argue that fake object cases are not argum ents. N ei­
ther Carrier and Randall nor the other researchers cited above provide other rea­
sons for, or benefits to, attributing a non-argum ent status to the postverbal NP.
Each of the above constructions should be considered independently to see
why some resultatives are com patible with them and others are not. To make
this point, we will consider the case of middle form ation in som e detail below.

8.3 M id d l e F o r m a t io n

M iddles require that the unexpressed agent argum ent be indefinite, inter­
preted as “ people [or w hatever the agent is] in general.” M iddles also require
184 Chapter Eight

that the patient subject argum ent have a particular inherent quality which makes
it prim arily responsible for the property expressed in the predicate phrase (van
O osten 1977, 1984). Moreover, the unexpressed agent argum ent is typically
interpreted as volitional, intending the result (if a result is entailed) as well as
intending to perform the action denoted by the verb. To illustrate the fact that
m iddles are norm ally interpreted as involving an (indefinite) volitional agent,
notice the contrast between (27a, b) and between (28a, b):

(27) a. T his car drives with the greatest o f ease,

b. #T his car drives with the greatest difficulty.
(28) a. This wine drinks like it was water, (van O osten 1977)
b. #T his wine drinks like it was vinegar.'

The same sem antic features which are characteristic of middles can be captured
by an appropriate paraphrase. For exam ple, consider (29):

(29) T he metal ham m ers fiat easily.

T his sentence is interpreted to mean:

(30) People can ham m er the metal flat easily because o f an inherent quaiity
o f the metal.

Several factors conspire to m ake fake object cases (as well as many transitive
resultatives, and in fact, many sim ple transitives) incom patible with the middle
construction. For one, fake object cases occur most readily with objects that
are coreferential with the subject (Jackendoff 1990a); for example.

(31) He cried him self asleep.

(32) He talked him self blue in the face.

T he restriction on middles that the unexpressed agent argum ent be indefinite

suffices to rule the corresponding middles ungramm atical:

(33) * He cries asleep easily.

(34) *He talks blue in the face easily.

A nother source o f incom patibility stems from the constraint that the patient
argum ent m ust be interpreted to have a particular inherent quality that makes
the predicate true. Fake object cases, however, are often used as hyperbole tn
express the idea that the action perform ed was done to excess; in this use, it
would be anom alous to attribute the predicate's holding to some particular
property o f the fake object referent. For exam ple, consider (35):

(35) The joggers ran the pavem ent thin. (C arrier & Randall 1992)
 The Tnglish Resultative Construction 185

This statem ent would not be used to describe an actual change in the thickness
of the pavement, let alone to convey the idea that the pavement bore som e kind
o f particular property which caused it to becom e thin from people running on
it. Notice that the sem antically analogous paraphrase (36c) is as unacceptable
as the middle form (36b) itself:

(36) a. #People can run that pavement thin easily because of an inherent qual­
ity of the pavement,
b. #T hat pavem ent runs thin easily.

M oreover, the fact that m iddles are typically used when the unexpressed indefi­
nite agent is understood to be volitional serves to render other possible fake
object cases infelicitous. This is intuitively expected since fake object cases are
often used to express a negative outcom e; therefore assigning volitionality to
the unexpressed agent results in anomaly.
Given the right context, we find that m iddles with fake objects can be greatly
improved. For example, imagine lhat people in charge o f props on a movie set
are asked to drive fifty tires bald for a stunt. Insofar as speakers find (37) ac­
ceptable. the corresponding m iddle form (38) is also acceptable:

(37) He drove fifty tires bald.

(38) Go buy some cheap tires for that scene, those inexpensive tires drive bald
really quickly.

Similarly, imagine lhat a farm er has had such trouble with stray dogs attacking
his chickens that he breeds the chickens such that they wake up easily upon
hearing any barking. In this context, insofar as speakers I have checked with
accept (39), they also report (40) to be acceptable:

(39) The dog barked the chickens aw ake.2

(40) His chickens bark awake easily.

Thus, once closer attention is paid to the particular sem antics associated with
the middle construction, we can account for why fake object resultatives are
not normally acceptable as middles, and we find that it is possible to concoct a
context in which the sem antics o f a particular expression in fact is com patible
with the middle construction.

8.4 O ther A ccounts

In the previous chapter (section 7.2), proposals by Pustejovsky ( 1991a),

Rappaport Hovav and Levin (1991), and H oekstra (1992) lo com positionally
derive the m eaning of resultative expressions from their com ponent parts were
186 Chapter Eight

critically discussed. In this section, several additional accounts which are in

som e way related to the present proposal are reviewed.

8.4.1 Jackendoff 1990a

Jackendoff, although rejecting C arrier and R andall’s specific arguments,
also rejects the idea that the postverbal N P is an argum ent, instead suggesting
that it is an adjunct. However, the postverbal NP fails traditional tests for ad-
juncthood. For instance, it can appear as the subject o f passives:

(41) The baby was barked awake every m orning by the neighbor’s noisy dog.

It m ust occur directly after the verb, with no intervening material:

(42) *The dog barked ferociously the baby awake.

O m ission o f the postverbal N P results in a radical change o f meaning. Also,

only one postverbal N P can occur in a given clause:

(43) *The dog barked us them awake.

T herefore the claim that the postverbal NP of fake object cases is an adjunct
and not an argum ent is unwarranted. In postulating an “ adjunct rule” which
can add the postverbal NP to the basic sem antics of the verb, Jackendoff does,
however, capture the basic insight that particular lexical items can be viewed
as “ fitting into” a construction with its own inherent semantics. A detailed
com parison o f Jackendoff’s general approach and the one suggested here is
presented in section 10.1.1.

8.4.2 Bresnan and Zaenen 1990

Bresnan and Zaenen (1990) argue that the critical factor is lhat the resul­
tative be predicated o f an argum ent that is intrinsically marked with the [ —r]
( ‘unrestricted’) feature (cf. discussion in section 4.2.1). This feature is taken to
be shared by subjects and direct objects, distinguishing them from preposi­
tional objects and secondary objects. The [ - r] feature is assigned as an intrin­
sic classification in either o f two cases: ( I ) the argum ent bears the thematic role
o f patient (or “ them e"), or (2) the argum ent is not assigned a thematic role by
the verb.
T he first case, the argum ent bearing the them atic role o f patient, accounts
for the m ajority o f resultatives: those that are predicated o f the direct objects
o f transitives, the subjects o f passives, and the subjects o f unaccusatives. The
second case, lhat the argum ent is assigned no sem antic role by Ihe verb, is
designed to account for fake object cases. Fake objects are assumed to be un­
 The English Resuitanve Construcnon 187

subcategorized for by the verb; therefore they are claim ed to bear no thematic
role, and are assigned the critical ‘unrestricted’ feature.
The problem with this account is that not only is the fake object not assigned
a thematic role by the verb, it is not norm ally an argum ent of the verb, whether
semantically empty or not; that is, it does not norm ally correspond to a com­
plement o f the verb. Bresnan and Zaenen fail to account for how it is that the
internal object makes its way into the argum ent structure of the verb in order
to receive its critical [ - r] marking.
Both the approach and the problem with it can be stated more generally.
Bresnan and Zaenen propose treating the verb with its fake object as a raising
verb and, consequently, treating the postverbal NP as a com plem ent but not as
an argument. The question is how to account for the existence of this postverbal
complement.
In order to deal with this issue, one could postulate a lexical rule which
would add the internal argum ent to the argum ent structure o f the verb (as has
been done for applicatives in A lsina & M chom bo 1990) and for the resultative
adjective itself within Bresnan and Zaenen’s theory. And, if this were done, the
additional argum ent could be assigned the thematic role o f patient, since it is in
all cases an affected argum ent. Providing thematic roles to argum ents yielded
by lexical rule is uncontroversial. This would allow Bresnan and Zaenen’s ac­
count to reduce to the straightforw ard sem antic constraint proposed here: re­
sultatives can only be predicated of patient arguments.

8.4.3 Van Valin 1990a

The claim that resultatives can only be applied to patient argum ents
sounds on the face o f il much like the account recently proposed by Van Valin
( 1990a). Van Valin argues that the resultative must be predicated o f an “ under-
goer." However, he notes lhat “ the label ‘undergoer’ should not be taken lit­
erally” (p. 226, fn. 6). In particular, undergoers do not correspond to patients
in that it is not necessary that they potentially undergo a change of state: in­
stead, in English any argum ent which can be passivized is taken to be an un­
dergoer.3 Therefore the undergoer condition is underconstrained with respect
to resultatives. and would falsely predict exam ples which have undergoer but
nonpatient argum ents to be acceptable.
There is a more serious problem with Van Valin’s account. He claim s that
“ the constructions allow ing resultative phrases are either accom plishm ents or
achievements, all o f which code a result state as part of their inherent meaning.
Activity verbs, which are inherently atelic and therefore cannot in principle
code a result state or have an undergoer argum ent, do not take resultative predi­
180 Chapter tight

cates" (p. 255). The problem stem s from the fact that when Van Valin tries
to exem plify the claim that resultatives only occur with accom plishm ents or
achievem ents, he cites the resulting construction, not the construction before
the resultative is added. For exam ple, he notes that (44) is an accom plishm ent
and that (55) is an achievement:

(44) Terry w iped the table clean in/* for five minutes.
(45) The river froze solid.

He then argues that unergative verbs do not allow resultatives. citing the fol­
low ing example:

(46) He talked * in/for ten minutes.

However, this exam ple is not parallel to the earlier exam ples since those al­
ready contained resultative phrases. There is no disagreem ent about the fact
that expressions with a resultative are accom plishm ents or achievements, since
the resultative phrase itself serves to bound the event. However, it is not the
case that only such independently classifiable accom plishm ents or achieve­
m ents occur with resultative predicates. For exam ple, push in the following is
an activity verb:

(47) Terry pushed the door * in an hour/for an hour.

And yet push can occur with a resultative:

(48) Terry pushed the door shut.

Also, talk is an activity verb, and yet the following is sim ply ungrammatical:

(49) *H e talked himself.

In short. Van Valin’s account begs the question o f accounting for which predi­
cates can occur with resultatives, and o f how the fake object is related to the
main verb.

8.5 T h e E x is t e n c e of a R e s u l t a t iv e C o n s t r u c t i o n

The generalization we wish to capture is that the occurrence o f resulta­

tives can be predicted in purely sem antic terms:

Resultatives can only be applied to arguments which potentially

undergo a change of state as a result o f the action denoted by the verb.

As claim ed above, the argum ent m ust therefore be classifiable as a type of

patient. A gain, we can use the traditional tesL for patienthood in order to deter­
m ine w hether the argum ent is o f this sort.
 The English Resultative Construction 189

(50) a. W hat X did to (patient) w a s ,. . .

b. W hat happened to (patient) w a s ,. . .

Notice there is no requirem ent that the predicate independently codes a change
o f state, only that it potentially causes a change o f state.
By now, the reader who has been following along might guess how we can
account for the occurrence o f resultatives w ithin a constructional approach.4
A resultative construction is posited which exists independently o f particular
verbs that instantiate it. In order to account for fake object cases, we need to
recognize that the construction itself can add a patient argum ent, besides add­
ing the result argum ent to nonstative verbs which only have an “ instigator" as
profiled argum ent. C onstructions as delined have sem antics and are capable of
bearing arguments. Thus the postverbal NP o f the fake object cases is an ar­
gument o f the construction although not necessarily of the main verb. U nder
this analysis, the verb retains its intrinsic sem antic representation, w hile being
integrated with the m eaning directly associated with the construction. The re-
sullative construction can be represented thus:

Resuliative-Construction

Sem CAUSE-BECOME < agt pat result-goal >

lR I I I
R: instance, PRED < >
means

Syn V SUBJ OBJ OBLAP/PP

Figure 8.1

To see how the construction is able to add argum ents, consider the following
cases. Verbs such as wipe and talk can integrate into the resultative construc­
tion because they have com patible roles:

(51) a. wipe (w iper wiped)

He wiped the table clean,
b. talk (talker)
He talked him self blue in the face.

In general, for a verb to occur in a particular construction, the participant roles

associated with the verb m ust fuse with the argum ent roles associated with the
construction, according to the principles described in chapter 2. The participant
190 Chapter Eight

roles o f the verbs talk and wipe fuse with the argument roles o f the construction
as follows:

Composite Structure: Resultative + wipe

Sem CAUSE-BECOME < agt pat result-goal >

| means
WIPE < w iper wiped >

Syn V SUBJ OBJ ADJ/PP

Composite Structure: Resultative + talk

Sem CAUSE-BECOM E < agt p at result-goal >

| means | j i
TALK < talk e r >

Syn V SUBJ OBJ ADJ/PP

Figure 8.2

Thus the construction adds only the result-goal argum ent if the verb has a
participant role which fuses with the patient argum ent o f the construction, as
is the case with wipe.'1 Alternatively, the construction can contribute both pa­
tient and result-goal roles, as is done in the case of talk.
Tw o other types o f cases are ruled out. The construction itself does not pro­
hibit a hypothetical verb with participant roles which are instances (types) of
agent and result-goal from integrating into the construction, since the construc­
tion could presum ably add the patient argum ent. However, the existence of
such a verb is disallow ed by the general constraint that instances o f the result-
goal role can only be predicated o f patient-like roles.
A verb such as becom e with the participant roles ‘(p a tie n t resu lt-g o al)’
cannot integrate with the construction, because the construction specifies that
the agent role m ust be fused with an independently existing participant role of
the verb (this is indicated by the solid line from the construction’s agent role to
the PRED role array).
Intransitive resultatives (i.e., resultatives with unaccusative verbs) require a
slightly different construction; however, the more general constraint on patient-
 The English Resultative Construction 19 1

hood is shared by two-place resultatives and intransitive resultatives (cf. ex ­

am ples 11 -1 2 ):

Resuliaiive-Consiruction

Sem CAUSE-BECOME < agt pat result-goal >

I
PRED

Syn SUBJ OBJ OBLPP/AP

ls : cause
Intransitive
Resultative
Construction

Sem BECOME < pat result-goal >

I I i
PRED < >

Syn SUBJ OBLpp/Ap

Figure 8.3

In figure 8.3 a subpart inheritance link relates the tw o-place resultative con­
struction to the intransitive resultative construction. T hat two constructions are
required is not necessarily a draw back o f the present proposal. It seem s that
Italian allows only tw o-argum ent resultatives and does not allow resultatives
with unaccusatives (cf. Napoli 1992).

The constructional approach captures the insight w hich led other researchers
to explore the possibility that the postverbal NP is not an argum ent o f the main
verb, namely, that the postverbal NP does not intuitively correspond to any
participant norm ally associated with the activity denoted by the main verb. The
resultative construction is itself associated with a particular argum ent structure
configuration, independently o f verbs w hich instantiate it. Particular verbs re­
tain their inherent semantics.
19? Chapter Eight

T he analysis can m otivate the existence o f fake objects cases. Since the fake
reflexive ca se s— the cases in which the resultative adjective is predicated of an
argum ent which is coreferenlial with the subjcct— are the most common (ac­
cording to V isser’s survey), the most prototypical exam ples, and for some the
only gram m atical cases, we can understand fake object eases as having arisen
from an expressive desire to predicate a change o f state o f an agent or instigator
argum ent. A construction which adds a patient argum ent to the inherent argu­
m ent structure o f the verb allow s the resultative to apply to a patient argument
w hile allow ing the patient argum ent to be corefenlial with the agent argument.
In addition, the syntactic expression o f the postverbal NP would follow from
general principles. A ssum ing a ternary branching structure (see Green 1973;
W illiam s 1983; and C arrier & Randall 1992 for argum ents against a small
clausc analysis) the patient argum ent is linked with OBJ by the canonical link­
ing conventions o f English (as suggested recently by, e.g., Gropen et al. 1991;
Pinker 1989; Dowty 1991).
Further, an account which situates the possibility o f resultative expressions
in the sem antics can naturally account for various sem antic constraints on the
construction. T hese are discusscd in the following section.
Finally, this approach also allows us to capture the fact that there is a great
deal of idiosyncrasy involved (Green 1972; Dowty 1979). Resultatives are of­
ten part of collocations w ith particular verbs. For exam ple, eat is most collo­
quial with the resultative sick:

(52) a. He ate him self sick.

b. ?He ate him self ill/nauseous/full.

Cry is most colloquial with the relative to sleep:

(53) a. She cried herself to sleep.

b. ?She cried herself asleep.
c.??She cried herself calm /w et.

T he follow ing minimal variants arc markedly odd:

(54) ?He ate him self asleep.

(55) ?She cried herself sick.

W hat needs to be noted is that there arc gram m aticalized instances o f the con­
struction w hich are partially lexically filled.
A dopting a usage-based model o f gram m ar as discussed in chapter 5 (which
draw s on the work o f Bybee (1985) and L angacker (1987a)), novel extensions
are acceptable to the degree that they conform to the semantic (and morpho-
phonological) constraints on existing clusters o f cases.
 The English Resultative Construction 193

e .6 C o n s t r a in t s o n th e R e su lta tiv e C o n s t r u c t io n

The construction suggested above only provides a necessary condition

on the appearance of resultatives. Several other, co-occurring constraints are
required in order to begin to triangulate sufficient conditions on resultatives. In
this section, the following restrictions will be argued to hold of (adjectival)
resultative expressions generally (m odulo cases in which the verb is lexically
causative independently o f the construction):

1. The tw o-argum ent resultative construction m ust have an (anim ate)

instigator argument.
2. The action denoted by the verb must be interpreted as directly caus­
ing the change of state: no intermediary tim e intervals are possible.
3. The resultative adjective m ust denote the endpoint o f a scale.
4. Resultative phrases cannot be headed by deverbal adjectives (Green
1972; C arrier & Randall 1992).

8 .6.1 (Animate) Instigator Constraint

For m any speakers (including m yself), only anim ate instigator argu­
ments are acceptable as subjects in tw o-argum ent resultative constructions. The
animate argum ent is not necessarily an agent, since no volitionality is required:

(56) She coughed herself sick.

(57) She slept herself sober.

In some dialects, inanim ate instigator argum ents are also acceptable. For
example:

(58) The jackham m er pounded us deaf. (Randall 1983)

(59) The alarm clock ticked the baby awake. (Randall 1983)

However, no speakers I checked with find instrum ent subjects acceptable:

(60) *The feather tickled her silly.

(61) *The ham m er pounded the metal flat.

This constraint does not hold o f lexical causatives, that is, verbs whose basic
sense entails a change o f state independently o f the resultative:

(62) Water filled the tub half full.

(63) The sleeping pills made me sick.

8 .6.2 Aspectual Constraint

There has been som e disagreem ent about which aspectual classes can
occur with resultative phrases. Van Valin (1990a) suggests that resultatives can
194 Chapter Eight

only occur with telic predicates. Dowty (1979) and Jackendoff (1990a), on
the other hand, suggest that resultatives can only occur with activity, or “ un­
bounded," predicates. It is at least generally agreed that resultatives cannot
occur with stative verbs (H ockstra 1988).
In this section I will argue that there is an aspectual constraint, but that it
does not coincide with a distinction between telic and atelic predicates, both of
w hich can be seen to appear in the resultative construction:

(64) a H arry shot Sam dead.

b. H arry shot Sam * for an hour, (telic, except on repetitive reading)
(65) a. Sam talked him self hoarse.
b. Sam talked for an hour, (atelic)

T he relevant constraint can be stated as follows:

The change of state must occur simultaneously with the endpoint of

the action denoted by the verb.

Allowed: Disallowed.

change o f state change o f slate

time

This constraint rules out cases in w hich there is any time delay between the
action denoted by the verb and the subsequent change of state.
N otice that in a neutral context, eat with an unexpressed argum ent normally
im plies that the agent finished eating a meal:

(66) He (already) ate.

However, when eat occurs in the resultative construction, the eating is neces­
sarily interpreted as extending over the period of time leading up to the change
into a state o f being sick. That is, (67) necessarily im plies that the agent’s con­
tinuous eating m ade him sick; it cannot imply that the meal he ate made him
sick. O r consider (68):

(67) He ate him self sick.

(68) Sam cut him self free.

This sentence cannot be used to mean that Sam cut himself, causing his captors
to release him in order to clean him up. It must mean that he cut w hateverbonds
w ere preventing him from being free, thereby imm ediately gaining his free­
dom. Sim ilarly with (69):
 The English Resultative Construction 195

(69) Chris shot Pat dead.

This cannot be used to mean that Chris shot Pat and Pat later died in the hos­
pital; instead it must mean that Pat died im m ediately from the shot.
T his constraint can be interpreted as a consequence of a more general
constraint that the causation must be direct: no intervening period is possible
in a causal sequence (cf. discussion in 7.4.2. for other constraints on direct
causation).

8.6.3 End-of-Scale Constraint

The type of adjective that can occur as a resultative is fairly limited. W hile
adjectives “ asleep/aw ake,” “ open/shut,” “ flat/straight/sm ooth,” “ free," ‘‘full/
em pty," "dead/alive,” “ sick,” “ hoarse,” “ sober,” and “ crazy " occur fairly
regularly, others occur rarely if at all:

(70) *He drank him self funny/happy.

(71) *He wiped it dam p/dirty. (Green 1972)
(72) *The bear growled us afraid.
(73) *He encouraged her confident.
(74) *He ham mered the metal beautiful/safe/tubular. (Green 1972)

Most o f the adjectives which can occur in the construction can be indepen­
dently classified as having a clearly delim ited lower bound and are therefore
typically nongradabte (Sapir 1944). N ongradable adjectives are said to be un­
able to appear (ceteris paribus) with quantifying phrases:

(75) ?a little sober

(76) ?a little flat/smooth
(77) ?a little alive/dead
(78) ?a little asleep/aw ake
(79) ?a little full/em pty
(80) ?a little free

Intuitively, one cannot be a little sober, because one is either entirely sober or
not sober: there is, all things being equal, no grey area.
Sick and hoarse, on the other hand, do not obviously code states with a
clearly delim ited lower bound:

(81) a little sick

(82) a little hoarse

However, when used in the fake object construction, they are interpreted as
 196 Chapter Fight

delim iting ihe clear boundary beyond w hich the activity cannot continue. Con­
sider (83, 84):

(83) He ate him self sick.

(84) He talked him self hoarse.

These expressions imply that the agent ate to the point where he could eat no
m ore, or talked to the point w here he could talk no more. N otice how in this
context the adjectives receive a nongradable interpretation:

(85) ?H e talked him self a little hoarse.

(86) ?She ate herself a little sick.

The adjectives crazy and silly are sim ilar in this respect:

(87) He drove her crazy/bananas/bonkers/m ad/insane.

(88) He tickled her silly.

They imply that the patient argum ent has “ gone over the edge,” beyond the
point where normal functioning is possible (o f course they are typically used
as hyperbole, not literally).6 R ender is interesting in that it lexicalizes this con­
straint, requiring a resultative adjective which codes a state o f loss o f function
(that is, the property m ust be the negative end o f a scale):

(89) a. It rendered them speechless/im potent/obsolete.

b.??It rendered them alive/full/free.

Therefore it is fair to say that the resultative o f the fake object construction
codes a clearly delim ited endpoint.7 The endpoint may be on some absolute
scale (in the case o f inherently nongradable adjectives) or on a scale of func­
tionality, in w hich case continued functioning is im possible beyond it:

old stale new state

lime

E xceptions to this generalization are o f tw o kinds. First, there are verbs

w hich are lexically causative, independently o f the resultative construction.
T hese verbs are much freer in the sem antic and syntactic type o f resultative
phrase they may occur in than render and productive cases:

(90) a. He m ade the metal safe/pretty/tubular/dam p/dirty,

b. He m ade her a queen.
 The English Resultative Construction 197

(91) a. He painted his house pink.

b. He painted his house a bright shade o f red.

O ther exceptions to the above generalization have been attested, but aside from
their apparent rarity, each can be seen to have a distinctly novel character. In
general, exceptional cases tend to be from the sam e sem antic dom ain as more
conventionalized cases, and can be seen as one-shot novel extensions from a
gram m aticalized pattern:

(92) “ Bees will suck them selves tipsy upon varieties like the sops-of-w ine.”
(OED: J. Burroughs, “ Locusts and Wild H oney" (1879))
(93) Till he had drunk him self sleepy. (R. L. Stevenson, Treasure Island
(1893))

There is one attested case, though cited by Rappaport Hovav and Levin (1991),
which truly seem s to fly in the face of this generalization:

(94) “ Look, isn't it lovely? It’s the stale loaf I put out for the birds and th ey ’ve
pecked it really pretty.” (cited by Rappaport Hovav and Levin 1991;
from Z. W icomb, You C an't G et Lost in Cape Town (1987))

However, this exam ple is judged ungram m atical by A m erican English speakers
I have asked. It is possible that South A frican English does not have the end-
of-scale restriction.

8.6.4 Restriction against Deverbal Adjectives

A general constraint that is widely recognized is that resultatives cannot
be adjectives derived from either present or past participles (Green 1972; C ar­
rier and Randall 1992):

(95) a. She painted the house red.

b. *She painted the house reddened.
c. *She painted the house reddening.
(96) a. She shot him dead,
b. *She shot him killed,
b. *She shot him dying.
(97) a. She kicked the door open.
b. *She kicked the door opened.
c. *She kicked the door opening.

This restriction has been attributed to a sem antic clash o f aspect (C arrier &
Randall 1992); however, the exact nature o f the cause clash— clash has proved
elusive.
198 Chapter Eight

8.7 C o n c lu s io n

This chapter has argued that the sem antic restriction that resultatives can
only apply to patient argum ents is viable, even in the case of fake object resul­
tative expressions, despite recent argum ents to the contrary. This analysis has
the advantages o f (1) assim ilating fake object cases to other transitive resulta­
tive cases, (2) motivating the existence o f fake object cases, (3) allowing for
the existing idiosyncrasy in a natural way, (4) predicting the syntax o f the con­
struction from canonical linking patterns and without ad hoc stipulations, and
(5) accounting for semantic constraints in a natural way.
The following specific sem antic constraints were proposed in order to re­
strict the applicability o f the lexical rule (or the instantiation o f the construc­
tion): (1) tw o-argum ent resultatives must have an instigator argument; (2) the
causation involved must be direct, with no intervening tim e periods allowed;
(3) the resultative adjective m ust have a clearly delim ited lower bound; and
(4) the resultative adjective m ust be considered a type o f path phrase, which
accounts for several co-occurrence restrictions.
9 The Way Construction

9. i In t r o d u c t io n

The construction to be discussed in this chapter can be skeletally repre­

sented as follows (where V is a nonstative verb, and O B L codes a directional):

[SUBJ, [V [POSS, way) OBL]]

Several large corpora were searched for exam ples. The m ajority o f the ex ­
amples (1,050 out o f 1,177) are from the O xford University Press corpus (oup),
which has been cited in earlier chapters already.1 A dditional exam ples have
been culled from exhaustive searches o f the Wall Street Journal 1989 corpus
(wsj), the Lund corpus consisting o f various spoken dialogs (lund), and the
United States D epartm ent o f Agriculture corpus (usda).

9.2 T h e E x is t e n c e o f the C o n s t r u c t io n

Instances o f this construction imply that the subject referent moves along
the path designated by the prepositional phrase. The construction’s sem antics
cannot be fully predicted on the basis o f the constituent parts o f the construc­
tion. For exam ple, (1) entails that Frank moved through the created path out o f
the prison.

( 1) Frank dug his way out of the prison.

Similarly, (2) entails that Frank m anaged to travel to New York.

(2) Frank found his way to New York.

However, none of the lexical item s involved entails motion. To see this, com ­
pare (1) and (2) with (3) and (4) below:

(3) Frank dug his escape route out o f prison.

(4) Frank found a way to New York.

The only interpretation for these exam ples is one in which the prepositional
phrase modifies the direct object. N either (3) nor (4) entails motion:

(4 ') Frank dug his escape route out of prison, but he hasn’t gone yet.
(5 1) Frank found a way to New York, but he hasn't gone yet.

199
200 Chaoter Nine

This is in contrast with exam ples (I) and (2), which do entail motion:

(2 ') * Frank dug his way out o f prison, but he hasn’t gone yet.
(3 ') * Frank found his way to New York, but he hasn't gone yet.

T he only difference between (1) and (3) is that way is replaced by escape route.
Exam ple (4) prevents us from postulating that way codes motion, because way
is present in this exam ple and yet the sentence does not entail motion. Without
belaboring the point, it should be pointed out that motion is not dictated by the
com bination o f bound pronoun and way either, since the expression in (5) does
not entail motion:

(5) He knows his way around town.

Here entailm ent o f motion is not present because the verb know is stative, and
the construction requires a nonstative verb.
Salkoff (1988) and Jackendoff (1990a) also point out that this construction
provides evidence for the claim that verbs do not exclusively determ ine com­
plem ent configuration. O ne solution Jackendoff proposes is (hat examples such
as those in (1 - 2 ) instantiate a particular clause-level construction: a pairing of
form and m eaning that exists independently o f the particular verbs which in­
stantiate it. As he suggests, “ in a sense, the w av-construction can be thought
o f as a kind o f ‘constructional idiom ,’ a specialized syntactic form with an
idiom atic m eaning, marked by the noun w ay" (1990a: 221).
Levin and Rapoport (1988) suggest instead that each verb in the construction
has a special motion sense, perhaps generated by a lexical rule, which predicts
its occurrence in this pattern. However, this pattern occurs with an enormous
variety o f verbs. For exam ple, we would need to posit such a motion sense for
each o f the verbs in the following:

(6) a. “ . . . he’d bludgeoned his way through, right on the stroke o f half-
tim e.” (oup)
b. “ [the players will] m aul their way up the middle o f the field.” (oup)
c. “ . . . glaciers which had repeatedly nudged their way between En­
gland and W ales.” (oup)

T hat is, we would need a special sense o f bludgeon, ‘to move by bludgeoning,’
a special sense o f maul, ‘to move by m auling,’ and so forth. These senses are
intuitively im plausible. The follow ing exam ples (presented in section 5.5.2 and
repeated below) involving m etaphorical motion would be even more difficult
to im agine as projections from a lexical subcategorization:
 The Way Consrrucfion 201

(7) a. . . their custom ers snorted and injected their way to oblivion and
sometim es died on the stairs.” (oup)
b. "B ut he consum m ately ad-libbed his way through a largely secret
press m eeting." (oup)
c. “ 1 cannot inhabit his mind nor even imagine my way through the
dark labyrinth o f its distortion.” (oup)
d. “ Lord King craftily jo k e d a nd blustered his way out o f trouble at the
m eeting.” (oup)

If new senses were involved, then it would follow that each of the verbs above
would be am biguous between its basic sense and its sense in this syntactic
pattern. Therefore we would expect that there would be som e language that
would differentiate the two senses by having two independent verb stems.
However, to my know ledge there is no language that has distinct verb stems
for any o f the meanings that would be required for the exam ples in ( 6 - 7 ) .
In addition to being im plausible, positing additional verb senses can be seen
to be less parsim onious than associating the sem antic interpretation directly
to the construction. The reason for this stem s from the fact that the proposed
senses occur only in this construction; they are not available when these verbs
are used with other valences:

(8) *Chris bludgeoned/m auled/snorted and injected into the room.

The same is not true of verbs w hich clearly do lexically code literal or m eta­
phorical motion, for exam ple, inch and worm:

(9) a. Lucky may have inched ahead o f Black Stallion,

b. He can’t worm out of that situation.

That is, both inch and worm can be used as (m etaphorical) motion verbs even
when they are not used specifically in the way construction.
Therefore, not only would we need to stipulate the existence o f additional
senses for each o f the verbs in exam ples ( 6 - 7 ) , but we would have to further
stipulate the fact that the new verb senses can only occur in this particular
syntactic configuration. Clearly it is more parsim onious to attribute the motion
interpretation directly to the construction itself.
Given that the interpretation o f way expressions is not fully predictable from
the sem antics o f the particular lexical items, a constructional analysis will be
adopted here. An explicit statem ent o f the construction will be preceded by a
more specific analysis o f the construction’s sem antics, since it will be argued
that the syntax o f the construction is motivated by its semantics.
202 Chapter Nine

9.3 T he S e m a n tic s o f th e W a y C o n s t r u c t io n
9.3.1 Tw o Different Senses
Both Levin and Rapoporl (1988) and Jackendoff (1990a) suggest two
distinct paraphrases o f this construction, one in which the verb designates the
m eans o f motion, the other in w hich the verb designates some other coexten­
sive action or m anner.1 For exam ple, Jackendoff notes that (10) is interpretable
in either o f the two ways given in (11):

(10) Sam joked his way into the meeting.

(11) a. Sam got into the m eeting by joking, (means)
b. Sam w ent into the meeting (while) joking, (manner)

These paraphrases together are taken to com prise a disjunctive interpretation.

However, logical disjunction is com pletely sym m etric, and there are reasons to
think that the m eans and m anner interpretations do not have equal status in the
g ram m ar— that in fact the m eans interpretation is primary.
In the O xford University Press, Lund, Wall Street Journal, and Department
o f A griculture corpora, verbs which designated a coextensive action or manner,
as opposed to the means o f m otion, were rare. In fact, the total number of
occurrences o f verbs with m anner interpretation in the corpora was 40 out of
1,177, o r less than 4% o f the data (the percentage was no more than 4% for any
o f the corpora).
In addition, it is argued below that the syntactic form of the construction is
m otivated by the sem antics associated with the m eans interpretation. The same
cannot be said o f the m anner interpretation. T hat is, recognizing a cline of
analyzability (or com positionality) o f idiom atic expressions (cf. Nunberg, Wa-
sow & Sag 1982; G ibbs 1990), the means interpretation will be argued to be
more analyzable than the m anner interpretation.
Finally, not all speakers find the strict m anner interpretation acceptable. A
case in point is (12), one o f Jackendoff’s examples:

(12) H e belched his way out o f the restaurant.

W hen asked for judgm ents o f this sentence, which was intended to have a man­
ner interpretation (the subject w ent out o f the restaurant w hile belching), sev­
eral speakers I checked with concocted situations in w hich the belching instead
w as the m eans by w hich motion was achieved. For exam ple, one speaker sug­
gested that the sentence would be acceptable in the context that the other diners
found the belching so objectionable that they cleared a path through which the
offending party could exit. A nother speaker suggested that the sentence would
be acceptable if the belching were understood to be a means o f propulsion.
O thers, including myself, find the m anner interpretation only marginal.
 The Way Construction 203

Since as w e've seen ii is natural for constructions to be associated with a

central sense, and with extensions from that sense, these facts can be easily
accounted for. We can analyze the m anner interpretation as an extension o f the
more basic means interpretation. This analysis predicts, for exam ple, that there
are no speakers who accept only the m anner interpretation and not the means
interpretation. And to date, I have found none.
Interestingly, there is diachronic evidence that the means interpretation of
the construction predates the m anner interpretation by more than four centu­
ries. The first citation of this pattern in the O ED is from the year 1400: "I m ade
my way . . . unto Rome. " 3 T he first citation with any other verb is from 1694:
"[H e] h ew 'd out his way by the pow er o f the Sword. ” The first exam ple cited
in the O ED that involves a pure m anner interpretation, “ The muffin-boy rings
his way down the little street," is dated 1836, more than a century after the
construction was first used productively with a m eans interpretation, and more
than four centuries after the first citation with make. The diachronic data o f
course do not directly support the claim that the m eans interpretation is syn-
chronically more basic; however, they do provide evidence that the extension
from means to m anner is a reasonable move for speakers to m ake, since at least
one generation o f speakers was willing to extend the pattern in ju st this way.
To summ arize, it has been argued in this section that the m eans interpretation
is the more central, or basic, in te rre la tio n o f the construction. The m anner
interpretation has been argued to be a less basic extension, on the grounds that
(1) m anner exam ples were rare in each of the four corpora analyzed (account­
ing for less than 4% o f the data), (2) speakers’ judgm ents as to the acceptability
o f the m anner cases range from unacceptable to marginal to acceptable, while
the means cases are all fully acceptable, and (3) the means interpretation dia-
chronically preceded the m anner interpretation by several centuries. A fourth
reason for claim ing that the means interpretation is more basic follows from
the observation, detailed below, that the syntactic form o f the construction can
be motivated by the means interpretation but not by the m anner inteipretation.
In the following, a particular sem antic constraint on the m eans inteipretation is
proposed, namely, that the motion m ust be through a literal or m etaphorical
self-created path. This constraint is argued to play a crucial role in m otivating
the syntactic form o f the construction.

9.3.2 The M eans Interpretation: Creation of a Path

Jespersen (1949) had the basic insight that the direct object, POSS way,
was a type of “ object o f result.” This can be interpreted to m ean that the path
(the way) through which motion takes place is not preestablished, but rather is
created by some action o f the subject referent. This observation can be used to
204 Chapter Nine

account for the fact that, with the exception of the pure m anner interpretation,
the construction is used to convey that the subject moves despite some external
difficulty, or in some indirect way: the path is not already established, but must
in some sense be created by the mover. C onsider the following:

(13) Sally m ade her way into the ballroom.

This sentence is understood to imply that SaJly moved through a crowd or other
obstacles. It cannot be used to mean that Sally sim ply walked into an empty
ballroom . In the ease o f m etaphorical motion, the necessity o f creating a path
im plies that there is some difficulty o r m etaphorical barrier involved. For ex ­
am ple, notice also the difference in acceptability between the following:

(14) a.??Sally drank her way through the glass of lemonade,

b. Sally drank her way through a case o f vodka.

Exam ple ( 14b) is much more acceptable because it is much easier to construe
drinking a case o f vodka as requiring that some barrier be overcome than drink­
ing a glass o f lemonade.
In fact, the m ost com m on interpretation o f this construction involves motion
through a crowd, mass, obstacle, or other difficulty that is, there is some rea­
son why a path needs to be created. The verb either lexically subcategori7.es
for the construction (e.g., m ake) or designates the means by which the motion
is achieved. For example:

(15) "F o r the record, Mr. Klein, as lead clim ber for the Journal team, pushed
his way past the others, tram pling the lunch o f two hikers in his black
arm y boots, and won the race to the sum m it.” (wsj)
(16) “ In some cases, passengers tried to fight their way through smoke-
choked hallways to get back to their cabins to get their safety ja c k e ts"
(wsj)
(17) "F or hours, troops have been shooting their way through angry, unarmed
m obs.” (wsj)

Contain verbs, such as thread, wend, weave, encode a slightly different in­
terpretation. They involve deliberate, careful, m ethodical, or winding motion.
In these cases as well as in the cases which involve some external difficulty,
the subject is not m oving along a preestablished path. For example:

( 18) “ This tim e, with no need to thread his way out, he simply left by the side
door for a three-day outing." (wsj)
(19) "A couple in fashionable spandex warm -up suits jogs by. headphones
jauntily in place, w eaving their way along a street o f fractured and fallen
houses." (wsj)
 The UZsy Construction 20b

The fact that the construction enlail.s that a path is created to effect m o­
tion— that the motion takes place despite som e kind o f external difficulty or is
winding and indirect— accounts for why high-frequency, m onom orphem ic
(basic or superordinate level) motion verbs are typically unacceptable in this
construction:

(20 )* S hc w ent/w alked/ran her way to New York (Napoli cited by Jackendoff
1990a)
(21) *She stepped/m oved her way to New York.

These vanilla motion verbs do not norm ally imply that there is any difficulty
or indirect motion involved, an implication which is required by the means
interpretation o f the construction. (Note that the m anner interpretation is also
unavailable, since these verbs do not code any salient manner.) If a context is
provided in which a basic-level motion verb is understood to imply motion
despite difficulty, these cases are decidedly better:

(22) a. The novice skier walked her way down the ski slope.
b. The old man walked his way across the country to earn money for
charity.

Another case in which a (m etaphorical) path may need to be created is given

if there are social obstacles standing in the way. C ontrast the follow ing
examples:

(23) a. #W elcome our new daughter-in-law , who ju st m arried her way into
our family.
b. Welcome our new daughter-in-law , who ju st m arried into our family.

Example (23a) is pragm atically odd because it implies that the daughter-in-law
in question managed to get herself into the family by m arriage, and such an
implication is incongraent with a sincere welcome. The follow ing exam ple is
relevantly similar:

(24) Joe bought his way into the exclusive country club.

This example entails that Joe managed to get him self into the country club
despite social obstacles. The necessity of the m etaphorical creation o f one's
own path despite social obstacles can account for the implication that the sub­
ject referent used some unsanctioned m eans to attain his goal. T hat is, if there
are social obstacles preventing one from attaining a goal, the only way to attain
the goal is to violate the social constraints. Attested exam ples o f this class
include bribe, bluff, crapshoot, wheedle, talk, trick, con, nose, sneak, weasel,
cajole, inveigle. Several lexical items seem to lexicalize this sense, for ex ­
ample, worm, weasel, and wrangle.
206 Chapter Nine

T he claim then is that way is analyzable as a literal or metaphorical path that

is created by the action denoted by the verb. This accounts for the semantic
constraint that the motion is effected despite some external physical or social
obstacles, by forging a path through or around those external obstacles.
Support for the claim that way is analyzed as a meaningful elem ent comes
from the fact that it can appear with modifiers. The following examples are
attested:

(25) a. . . the goats w ending their fam iliar way across the graveyard . . .”
(oup)
b. ‘‘[He] decided from then onw ards that he could make his own way
to s c h o o l. . . ” (oup)

In exam ple (25a), fa m ilia r is a m odifier o f w ay— that is, the path is familiar.
Similarly, in (25b), way is internally modified by own. These facts argue that
the phrase POSS way is not an arbitrary syntactic tag o f the construction, but
rather plays a role in the sem antics o f the construction.
Further support for the claim that the construction at least historically was
associated with the creation o f a path com es from the fact noted above that the
verb make, a verb which norm ally means “ create,” has had a privileged status
with respect to this construction: this verb was used in the construction for
alm ost three centuries before the construction was extended to be used with
other verbs, according to citations in the OED.
M ake continues to be closely associated with the construction insofar as it
is used with greater frequency than any other single verb, accounting for 20%
o f the tokens. This suggests that m ake may well have a privileged status syn-
chronically as well.
Finally, the recognition that the way is an effected entity motivates the syn­
tactic form o f the construction. As stated at the onset o f this chapter, Jackendoff
notes that there are reasons to assign the construction the structure:

[SUBJ, [V [POSS, way) OBL]]

He argues that the noun phrase ‘POSS w ay’ is a direct object, rather than some
kind o f syntactic adjunct or m easure phrase, because nothing can intervene
between the V and this phrase:

(26) *Bill belched noisily his way out of the restaurant. (1990a 212)

The O BL phrase coding the path is argued to be a sister o f the verb, rather than
a m odifier o f way, on the grounds that an adverb may intervene between the
two com plem ents, indicating a constituency break:
 The Way Construction 207

(27) a. Bill belched his way noisily out o f the restaurant. ( 1990a: 2 12)
b. “ He made his way cautiously along the path beside the lake." (oup)

Given the sem antics o f the means interpretation described above, the construc­
tion can be viewed as a kind of conventionalized am algam that com bines the
syntax and semantics o f creation expressions such as (28), w hich have two
argum ents— a creator and a “createe-w ay” — with the intransitive motion co n ­
struction exemplified by (29), which has two argum ents— a mover (them e) and
a path.

(28) He made a path.

(29) He moved into the room.

The way construction syntactically and sem antically am algam ates these two
constructions into a structure with three com plem ents: the creator-them e, the
createe-way, and the path. Thus the way construction can be viewed as inher­
iting aspects o f both the creation and the motion constructions, while never­
theless existing as an independent construction in its own right.
The sem antics involves both the creation o f a path and m ovement along that
path. As was true for the constructions discussed in previous chapters, the verb
may, but need not necessarily, code the sem antics associated with the construc­
tion directly. Cases in which the verb does directly code the sem antics o f the
construction include worm, inch, and work. In other cases, the verb may des­
ignate the means o f effecting the action designated by the construction; that is
to say, the verb may code the means o f effecting motion through a self-created
path. This is represented below by the means link between PRED, representing
the verb sense, and the CREATE-M OVE predicate.

Way Construction: Means Interpretation

Sem CREATE-M OVE < c reato r-th em e createe-w ay, path >
| means | : i
PRED < ' >

Syn V Subji Objway Obi

Figure 9.1

Any argum ent that the verb obligatorily expresses m ust be fused with one of
the arguments associated with the construction. For exam ple, the verb push has
208 Chapter Nine

one obligatory argum ent, the pusher. This argum ent is fused with the creator-
them e argum ent o f the construction (a pusher can be construed as a type of
creator-them e). Both the creatce-way and the path phrase are contributed by
the construction. The fused com posite structure is represented below.

Composite Structure: Way Construction + push

Sem CRKATE-MOVE < c reato r-th em e createe-w ay, path >

| means | ! :
E.g.; The demon­
PUSH < p u sh e r >
strators pushed their
way into the buildini

Syn V Subj| Objway. Obi

Figure 9.2

The verb lurch has two obligatory argum ents, a lurcher and a path. These
two argum ents are fused with the creator-them e and path argum ents o f the
construction, respectively. In this case the direct object argum ent, the createe-
way, is contributed by the construction:

Composite Structure: Way Construction + lurch

Sem CREATE-M OVE < c reato r-th em e creatce-w ay, path >
| means | j j E.g.: The drunk
LURCH < lu rch e r path
> I lurched his way oui
'o f the betting shop.

Syn V Subj, Objway Obi

Figure 9.3

The syntactic form o f the construction, given above, does not actually re­
quire much stipulation. The fact that the construction takes the syntactic form
it does is strongly m otivated by general principles. That is, the POSS-way
phrase is linked to the direct object, because effected entities are generally di­
rect objects. T he fact that the path argum ent is linked to an adverbial directional
follows from the fact that it is coding a path. The fact that the creator-theme is
linked to the subject follows from the fact that creators and self-propelling
them es are generally linked to the subject. It is only necessary to state that the
created-w ay argum ent must be realized in a particular fixed way: by the bound
 The Way Construction 209

pronoun plus way. Thus, little needs to be said about the syntax o f the construc­
tion once its special sem antic properties are captured.
To summ arize, the recognition that the path o f motion is not preestablished
and must be created by the mover accounts for the fact that the means interpre­
tation of the construction always entails that the subject referent moves despite
external difficulty or in some indirect way. This observation allows us to ana­
lyze way as a meaningful element, designating the path of motion. It also al­
lows us to account for the fact that make, a verb which in its basic sense means
“create," has a privileged status both diachronically (in being the first verb to
be used in the construction) and synchronically (in being the most frequently
used verb in this construction). Finally, recognition that way designates an ef­
fected entity allows us to motivate the syntactic form o f the construction.

9.3.3 The M anner Interpretation

The following attested exam ples do not admit of a means interpretation:

(30) “ [They were] clanging their way up and down the narrow streets . . .”
(oup)
(31) “ . . . the com m uters clacking their way back in the tw ilight towards . . ."
(oup)
(32) “ She clim bed the stairs to get it. crunched her way across the glass-
strewn room . . . ” (oup)
(33) “ He seemed to be whistling his way along." (oup)
(34) . . he was scowling his way along the fiction shelves in pursuit o f a
book.” (oup)

For example. (30) does not entail that the clanging was the m eans o f the m o­
tion, only ihat it was the co-occurring manner. A gain, not all speakers accept
this type o f example, but m.iny do, at least marginally.
W hile many o f the attested m anner cases involve motion in the face o f some
external difficulty or obstacles, just like the means cases, this does not seem to
be a general constraint on the interpretation of the m anner cases. Exam ples (31)
and (33), for instance, do not imply any external difficulties. It is because of
this that the syntax is claim ed to be less analyzable in the case of the manner
interpretation: there is no necessary implication that a path must be created.
The m anner interpretation only entails that the subject referent moves along a
(possibly pre-established) path. Thus the wav-phrase in direct object position
is not motivated. It is predicted that internal modification of way in the m anner
interpretation should be less acceptable than in the means interpretation. And
in fact, this prediction seems to be borne out:
2 10 Chapter Nine

(35) a.??Joe w histled his own way to the street, (manner)

b. Joe dug his own way to the street, (means)

The interpretation associated with this sense can be represented as follows:

Way Construction: Manner Interpretation

Sem MOVE < them e

A
O.
c3 —
| manner I
PRED < >

Syn V Subj, O bjway| Obi

Figure 9.4

In the representation above, the construction designates a two-place relation;

the way-phrase is not represented in the sem antics o f the construction, but is
instead encoded as a syntactic stipulation about the form o f the direct object
com plem ent.

9.3.4 Constructional Polysemy

It has been argued that the m anner interpretation is an extension of the
more basic means interpretation. The relation between the two senses can be
represented thus:

The constructions are related by an IP (polysem y inheritance) link (cf. dis­

cussion in section 3.3.2). The arrow specifies that there is a system atic relation­
ship between the two senses, in that the form is inherited from the means case
by the m anner case.
 The Way Construction 211

The claim that this is a case o f constructional polysem y raises a question:

what is the relation between means and m anner that allow s m anner to becom e
an extension?
Note that the means and m anner o f a motion event are often coextensive, in
that the means o f motion often determ ines the m anner o f motion. For exam ple,
consider the use of roll in (36):

(36) Joe rolled the ball into the room.

In this example the verb specifies not only the means o f m otion (Joe caused the
ball to move by rolling) but also the m anner of motion (Joe caused the ball to
move while rolling). The same is true of many motion verbs, e.g ., float, wiggle,
jum p, skip. It is likely that the polysem y was created when speakers began to
decouple these two often co-occurrent features. This type o f decoupling is in
fact a known source o f lexical polysem y (cf. T raugott 1989).
In order to further motivate the link between means and manner, note that
this construction does not provide the only instance o f this particular polysem y
in the language. English with is used both as an instrum ental or m eans m arker
and as a m arker o f manner: *

(37) Bob cut the bread with a knife, (m eans)

(38) Bob cut the bread with care, (m anner)

How is similarly polysemous:

(39) How did you cut the turkey? Answer:

a. W ith a knife, (means)
b. Carefully, (manner)

Interestingly, the noun way itself is polysem ous between means and manner
senses. An exam ple in which way is used to mean “ m eans” is (40):

(40) Pat found a way to solve the problem.

Way is used to mean “ m anner” in (41):

(41) He had a pleasant way about him.

It is possible that this latter fact has encouraged the use o f this particular co n ­
struction with a strict m anner interpretation, although it is som ew hat unclear
how to state this parallelism between the polysemy o f way and the polysem y
o f the construction.
To summ arize, attested exam ples involving a m anner interpretation— that
is, a purely co-extensive activity not causally related to the m otion— while
rare, do exist. These cases do not necessarily involve motion in the face of
2 12 Chapter Nine

obstacles or indirect motion. Therefore there is no reason to think that these

exam ples indicate the creation o f a path, and thus the syntactic expression of
PO SS w ay is not motivated directly by the sem antics o f the m anner extension.
Instead, the m anner sense o f the construction was argued to be an extension o f
the more basic means sense. The link between means and manner was moti­
vated by noting several instances of sim ilar lexical polysemy, including the
polysem y o f the noun way itself.

9.4 Se m a n tic C o n s t r a in t s
9.4.1 U nbounded Activity
There is a constraint that the verb necessarily designate a repeated action
or unbounded activity (Jackendoff 1990a):

(42) a. Firing wildly, Jones shot his way through the crowd.
b. *W ith a single bullet, Jones shot his way through the crowd.
(43) a. Bill punched his way through the crowd by pum m eling everyone in
his path.
b. * Bill punched his way (hrough the crowd by leveling the largest man
and having everyone else step aside.

For the sam e reason, we find the following to be unacceptable:5

(44) *She dove her way into the fire.

(45) *She jum ped her way over the ditch.

T his constraint also seems to hold o f the m anner interpretation. For example,
consider (46):

(46) He hiccupped his way out o f the room.

T his sentence entails that there were a series o f hiccups occurring over time,
rather than a single hiccup.

9.4.2 Self-propelled M otion

A further constraint on the m eans interpretation is that the motion must
be self-propelled:'’

(47) *The wood burns its way to the ground.

(48) *The butter melted its way off the turkey.

This constraint serves to rule out the use in the construction o f verbs which are
com m only classified as unaccusative (Perlm utter 1978; Burzio 1986), since
unaccusativity has been argued to be correlated with lack o f agentivity or lack
o f self-initiation (Van Valin 1990a; Levin & Rappaport Hovav 1990a; Zaenen,
 The Way Construction 2 13

1993). However, it seems that the relevant constraint is sem antic, insofar as the
normally unaccusative verbs grow and shrink are attested in the data, with an
agentive interpretation:

(49) “ The planned purchase furthers Bull's strategy o f trying to grow its way
out o f its extensive com puter-m arketing problem s.” (wsj)
(50) “The bank-debt restructuring is the centerpiece o f Lomas F inancial’s
m onths-long effort to shrink its way back to profitability after two
straight years o f heavy losses.” (wsj)

The subject referent need not be volitional, or even human, as long as the
motion is construed as self-propelled:7

(51) “ . . . som etim es it [the cyst] forces its way out of the ((plum pton)) at the
top.” (usda)
(52) "T he large seeds sprout quickly and dependably and the strong seedlings
can push their way through crusted soil.” (usda)

There are two lexical exceptions to the constraint that the motion must be
self-propelled, work and find:

(53) “The spending bills w orking their way through Congress don’t present
much of a problem in term s o f the G ram m -Rudm an law." (wsj)
(54) "B olivia estim ated that about half its sacred textiles had been sm uggled
out o f Bolivia and had found their way into A m erican collections.” (wsj)

Find in this use is further distinguished from the general case in that only the
goal or endpoinL of the path can be made explicit— the route itself may not be
expressed." This is evident from the fact that exam ples with an explicit path are
unacceptable:

(55) T h e textiles found their way through customs.

(56) *The statements found their way toward the right people.

The constraint that the motion must be self-propelled does not seem to hold
o f the manner interpretation; the follow ing m anner exam ple, which does not
involve self-propelled motion, is attested:

(57) “ ‘I knitted my way across the A tlantic.’ he reveals.” (oup)

However, even in this case, the action designated by the verb— the knitting— is
performed agcntively. Speakers only accept m anner exam ples in w hich the ac­
tion designated by the verb is self-initiated (otherw ise such speakers would be
able to give exam ples (47) and (48) a m anner interpretation, and they do not).
2 14 Chapter Nine

9.4.3 Directed M otion

Related to the constraint that the motion must be self-propelled is the fact
that the m otion must be directed— it cannot be aimless. This accounts for the
unacceptability o f the following examples:

(58) *She wandered her way over the field.

(59) *She meandered her way through the crowds.

Notice that it is actually not possible to state the constraint as a constraint on a

class o f verbs per se because the constraint applies to nondirected motion ex ­
pressed by m eans o f prepositions such as am ong as well:

(60) * Joe shoved his way am ong the crowd.

(Joe shoved his way through the crow d.)

This constraint also does not strictly hold of the m anner interpretation, al­
though there may be a tendency to prefer directed motion. Dialects which allow
the pure m anner interpretation differ as to the acceptability of (58 -60), with
some accepting them fully and others marginally.

9.5 T h e L e x ic a l C o m p l e x P r e d ic a t e A ppro ach

In addition to suggesting a constructional analysis o f the way expressions,

Jackendoff (1990a) proposes an alternative solution. He docs not decide be­
tween the two proposals The alternative proposal is that verbs which appear in
the construction undergo a lexical rule, turning, for exam ple, push into push
PO SS way. The com plex predicate push PO SS way can then be argued to select
for a path argument.
The problem with this proposal is that PO SS w ay is not only an N but an NP.
Therefore the com plex predicate analysis would have to posit a maximal phrase
internal to a word. Recent incorporation proposals (e.g., Baker 1988) have al­
lowed incorporated proform s, but not full NPs com plete with determ iners and
optional modification.
One might argue that the NP is unanalyzed, and is therefore simply a string
that form s part o f the com plex predicate. Support for this idea might be drawn
from the fact that, as Jackendoff notes, modifiers o f way often have only an
external (adverbial) interpretation:

(61) a. Bill joked his insidious way into the meeting. (Jackendoff 1990a)
(M eaning: Insidiously, Bill joked his way into the meeting.)
b. “ [They] m ake their noisy way along the Rue Saint A ntoine.” (oup)
(M eaning: They noisily m ade their way along the Rue Saint
A ntoine.)
 The Way Construction 2 15

c. “They made their weary way hom e.” (oup)

(M eaning: They wearily made their way home.)

However, there is reason to think that the phrase P O SS way is analyzed syn­
tactically and semantically as a noun phrase. First, it has the normal internal
structure o f a noun phrase, and is not idiosyncratic syntactically in any way.
Also, the possessive phrase is controlled by the subject, and thus its realization
is not predetermined.
The fact that internal modification o f way is possible, as in exam ples
(25a, b), repeated here as (62a, b), further supports the claim that the noun way
is meaningful, since being meaningful is a prerequisite to being available for
modification:

(62) a. “ . . . the goats wending their fam iliar way across the graveyard . . ."
(oup)
b. “ [He] decided from then onw ards that he could make his own way
to s c h o o l. . . ” (oup)

That is, if way were simply a sem antically em pty syntactic marker of the con­
struction, modifiers such as fa m ilia r or own would be im possible to interpret.
To summ arize, the fact that the postverbal NP is analyzed as a maximal noun
phrase argues against the move to treat the verb-plus-POSS-M'ay phrase as a
complex predicate formed by a lexical rule. One could adm ittedly take the tack
of looking such cases in the eye and calling them lexical items, or perhaps
“ functional w ords’” (in the sense o f Ackerm an & W ebelhuth. to appear, or
Mohanan 1990; cf. also Zw icky 1990), but this move would in effect equate
“ lexical item " with what we are here calling “construction.” That is, a “ lexical
item " would be any item that must be listed, that is, any listem e in the sense of
D iSciullo & W illiam s 1987 (cf. section 1.1). If this is done, it becom es im pos­
sible to distinguish the com plex predicate analysis from the alternative pro­
posal made by Jackendoff and defended here, that the way exam ples are
instantiations o f a particular extralexical construction.

9.6 R e la t io n t o R e su lta tiv e s

M arantz (1992) points out that the way construction bears a certain sim i­
larity to the so-called fake object resultatives discussed in chapter 8 and ex ­
emplified by (63):

(63) a. He cried his eyes red.

b. He talked him self hoarse.

In both the way construction and this construction, the direct object com ple­
ment is not normally an argum ent o f the verb. In addition, both constructions
2 16 Chapter Nine

disfavor unaccusative verbs (cf. section 9.4.2). M arantz does not propose a
specific account o f fake object cases, but we have seen that they also admit of
a constructional analysis (cf. scction 8.5).
Specifically, M arantz claim s that “ the path named by way . . . is the person
named by the possessor o f way extended in space (and tim e)’’ (p. 185). This
proposal allow s M aram z to predict the existence o f w hat I am calling external
modification, illustrated by exam ples (6 1 a -c ) above, since on M ar:intz’s ac­
count, these cases would actually involve normal internal modification. For
exam ple (61c), They m ade their weary w ay home, involves w eaiy modifying
M/ay, and Hay on M arantz's account is claim ed to designate the “ movers."
Therefore "the way” = "the m overs” are weary.
It is possible to reinterpret M arantz’s claim som ew hat to make it stronger.
Fake object cases have been argued to preferentially involve reflexives or in­
alienably possessed term s, specifically body part terms (Jackendolf 1990a). Il
m ight be claim ed that way, w hile in fact coding the path (and not the mover),
designates an inalienably possessed entity. Thus, w herever a person’s way is,
the person must travel. Support for this idea might be drawn from a certain
finding in G uaranf (Veldsquez-Castillo 1993). Guarani has a special noun in­
corporation construction that, with few exceptions, only allows the incorpora­
tion o f inalienably possessed term s, prim arily body part terms. Interestingly,
one o f the few n o n -b o d y part term s that is allowed is the term hape, translated
as “ way.” (O ther n o n -b o d y part term s include the term s for “ talk,” “ house.”
and “clothes.” ) This fact supports the idea that way is interpretable as an in­
alienably possessed path.
W hat exactly does it mean to say that a path is inalienably possessed? The
interpretation that the path (the way) is created by the mover as the mover
travels provides an answer: the path exists only where the mover travels be­
cause it is created by the traveler. The path is therefore inalienable.
On this reinterpretation o f M aran tzs proposal, we can no longer directly
account for the fact that external modification is allowed in this construction,
a fact that was predicted by Marantz. W hile a full explanation will have to be
postponed, it is possible to reduce this problem to a previously unsolved prob­
lem. It seems that way can occur with external modification even when appear­
ing in another construction— a construction in which way clearly does not
designate the mover:
(64) “ Rearm am ent proceeded on its gentle way." (oup)

It is likely that the use o f external modification is motivated by the use of way
m eaning “ m anner,” as in the following:

(65) He spoke in his am using/eloquent/interm inable way.

 The Way Construction 2 17

W hile il is imporiani 10 recognize Ihe relationship between the way construc­

tion and fake object resultatives, it is nonetheless necessary to posit a distinct,
albeit related, construction in the gram m ar to account for the way exam ples. In
particular, the following differences between the two constructions remain;
these differences prevent us from claim ing that the two are actually the sam e
construction. As observed above, the way construction is available for use with
a wide variety o f verbs, whereas resultatives in general, and fake object resul­
tatives in particular, are highly restrictive. For exam ple, the fake object re-
sultative analogs o f the exam ples in (7) and (8) are unacceptable:

(66) a. *He bludgeoned him self crazy.

(with a fake object interpretation wherein he bludgeoned [people in
general] until he w ent crazy)
b. *He mauled him self silly.
(m eaning that he mauled [people] until he becam e silly)
c. *He snorted and injected him self dead.

Moreover, the resultative construction cannot be used to predict the requisite

interpretation o f way expressions that a path is created— that the speaker must
construe there to be difficulty or obstacles to the motion. Finally, Dutch is a
language which has fake object resultatives, yet does not have the way co n ­
struction (A. Zaenen, personal com m unication). Because o f these various d if­
ferences. the way expressions cannot be directly assim ilated to the resultative
construction.

9.7 C o n c l u s io n

This chapter has argued that it is necessary to posit an extralexical gram m atical
construction in the gram m ar to account for way expressions, since the senten­
tial sem antics is not naturally attributed to any o f the lexical item s' inherent
semantics. In particular, no single lexical item can be plausibly assigned re­
sponsibility for the motion interpretation or the other sem antic constraints d e­
tailed in sections 9.3 and 9.4. It is claim ed, therefore, that the wav construction
is directly associated with a certain sem antics independently o f the lexical
items which instantiate it. This goes against the current trend o f placing an
increased em phasis on lexical— particularly verbal— sem antics and trying to
predict overt com plem ent configuration exclusively from the lexical sem antics
of the main verb (cf., e.g., Levin & Rapoport 1988: Bresnan & Kanerva 1989;
Pinker 1989; G rim shaw 1990).
The analysis o f the way construction given here extends Jackendoff’s sim ilar
proposal insofar as (he extralexical constructional analysis was argued to be
more appropriate than a com plex predicate analysis. In addition, the noun wav
2 18 Chaprer Nine

has been argued to contribute to the sem antics of the means interpretation,
instead o f being sim ply a syntactic flag o f the construction. On the basis of this,
it was suggested that the wav construction is a conventionalized amalgam of
two constructions: the creation construction and the intransitive motion con­
struction. The way construction dem onstrates the need to recognize construc­
tional polysem y, parallel to the polysem y often posited for lexical items and
gram m atical morphem es.
It has been argued that we need to allow for certain senses o f constructions
to be more basic (or prototypical) than others. In particular, the means interpre­
tation o f the construction was argued to be more basic than the manner inter­
pretation, in that (1) it is accepted by all speakers, whereas judgm ents about
the m anner interpretation vary widely, (2) it accounted for 96% o f the cases
in the data base analyzed, and (3) it was argued to m otivate the syntactic form
o f the construction. M otivation for the m anner interpretation was given by not­
ing a sim ilar pattern o f polysemy in certain lexical items.
10 Conclusion

This work has been concerned with explicating the nature of argum ent
structure constructions, the relation between verb m eaning and constructional
meaning, the phenom enon o f partial productivity o f constructions, and the re­
lation am ong constructions. Before sum m arizing the main findings, it is worth
discussing som e related proposals.

i o .i O ther C o n s t r u c t io n a l A pproaches

Elements o f the constructional approach that has been suggested here are
not w ithout precedent, and there are a few voices in the field who have gone
against current trends and have noted the need for constructional m eaning (cf.,
e.g., Bolinger 1968; Zwicky 1987, 1989; Zadrozny & M anastcr-R am er 1993).
There is also of course previous w ork within C onstruction G ram m ar (Fillm ore
1985b, 1987; Lakoff 1987; Fillm ore, Kay & O ’Connor 1988; Lam brecht 1987,
1990; Brugman 1988; Kay 1990; M ichaelis 1993, 1994; Koenig 1993) and the
closely related framework of Cognitive G ram m ar (Langacker 1987a,b, 1988,
1991; Rice 1987b; Kemm er 1988; Tuggy 1988; M aldonado Soto 1992). C om ­
ing from a different perspective, Einonds (1991) argues for a “ syntactically
based sem antics" in w hich syntactic deep-stm ctures are paired with semantic
structures.
O ther work has explored various means o f accounting for the mutual influ­
ence of various lexical items in a sentence. For example, M acW hinney (1989)
attem pts to capture the effects o f co-occurring com plem ents on lexical m ean­
ing in what he term s “ pushy polysem y” ; Pustejovsky (1991b) attem pts to
avoid rampant verbal polysemy by having nouns play a more central role
(cf. also Keenan 1984).
I do not attem pt to survey the full array of relevant literature here; instead I
will briefly discuss how the current proposal is related to the fram ework sug­
gested by Jackendoff 1990a, the general framework of M ontague G ram m ar
(M ontague 1973), and that o f W ierzbicka 1988.

i o. i .i Jackendoff 1990a
Jackendoff has touched on several o f the ideas presented here in Sem a n ­
tic Structures. For different reasons, based primarily on the econom y o f repre­
sentation as well as the idea that in many cases, an argum ent is not intuitively

219
220 Chapter Ten

a sem antic argum ent o f the main verb. Jackendoff suggests extralexical "co r­
respondence rules” to account for exam ples in which the verb does not lexi­
cally code the sem antics expressed at the clausal level. At several points he
likens these correspondence rules to “ constructional idiom s,” which are— on
the present view— constructions: pairings o f syntax and sem antics that can im­
pose particular interpretations on expressions containing verbs which do not
them selves lexically entail the given interpretations.
Jackendoff’s discussion o f the resultative and way constructions, as de­
scribed in chapters 8 - 9 above, is particularly close in many respects to the
proposals made here. However, there are several differences in perspective and
in focus between the two accounts. M any o f Jackendoff's correspondence rules
are stated as extralexical “ adjunct rules." For exam ple. Jackendoff proposes
that the postverbal N Ps in the following expressions are actually not arguments
but adjuncts:

(1) Bill pushed the piano into the orchestra pit.

(2) The critics laughed the show out o f town. (1990a: 233)

However, they fail traditional tests for adjuncthood. For example, they may be
passivized:

(3) The piano was pushed into the orchestra pit.

(4) T he show was laughed out o f town.

They occur directly after the verb, without any intervening material:

(5) *Joe pushed forcefully the piano into the orchestra pit.

And they cannot be left behind if the VP undergoes substitution:

(6) *Joe pushed the piano into the room and Bill did so the harp.

M ore generally, Jackendoff (1990a) considers all such com plem ents that are
not intuitively licensed by corresponding argum ents o f the main verb to be
adjuncts. In appealing to an argum ent/adjunct distinction lor these cases, the
more traditional distinction is rendered obsolete. But then Jackendoff’s claim
that som e direct objects are adjuncts reduces to the claim that some direct ob­
jects are not directly associated with an argum ent of the verb. This is the claim
that has been explicitly made here.
We have argued that som e direct objects w hich by traditional tests do cor­
respond to argum ents are not licensed directly by the verb: these arguments are
directly associated with clause-level constructions.1 Sometimes the arguments
associated with a construction are isom orphic with the participants directly as­
 Conclusion 221

sociated with the sem antics of particular verbs, but som etim es the argum ents
associated with the construction are imposed on the sem antics directly associ­
ated with the predicates. This approach allows us to retain the traditional ar­
gum ent/adjunct distinction between subjects, objccts, and som e PPs on the one
hand, and other PPs such as temporal or spatial modifiers on the other hand.
A nother difference between Jackcndoff's account and the one presented here
is that Jackendoff proposes that his adjunct rules apply to sentences “ on the
fly” to provide them with an interpretation (1 9 9 0 a:235). In the introduction
(1990a: 9), he draw s an analogy between rules that operate “on the fly” and
m etonym ic expressions as analyzed by N unberg (1979). Nunberg explicitly
makes the point that m etonym ic processes are general and pragm atic— not
conventional and not part o f gramm ar. Constructions, on the other hand, as
presented here, are by definition conventionalized pieces o f gram m atical
k n ow ledge’
On the present account, constructions play a more central theoretical role
than on Jackendoffs account. For Jackendoff. correspondence rules are only
required in exceptional cases, when the correspondence rule itself contributes
an argument. For the majority o f cases, he supposes that argum ent structure is
determ ined on the basis of verbal sem antics in isolation. It has been argued
here that verbs arc generally associated with fram e-sem antic know ledge that is
integrated with independently existing argum ent structure constructions.
M oreover, in the theory o f Construction Gram m ar, no strict division is
drawn between the lexicon and the more general inventory of constructions.
Therefore, w hile Jackendoff claim s that his adjunct rules should be considered
to operate outside o f the lexicon (p. 235), the constructions suggested here can
be viewed as free-standing entities, stored within the lexicon alongside lexical
items, idioms, and other constructions that may or may not be partially lexi­
cally filled.
O ther differences between Jackendoffs approach and the present one stem
from differences in focus rather than in theoretical perspective. Jackendoff does
not attempt to constrain the application o f many of his adjunct rules either by
adding specific sem antic constraints or by delim iting verb classes as has been
done here. In fact, he seem s to suggest that w hether his adjunct rules may apply
m ust be stipulated lexically. This is implied by his analysis o f hit vs. strike, in
which he argues that w hether a verb can occur with a directional m ust be stipu­
lated in its individual lexical entry He makes this point on the basis o f the
following:

(7) a. Bob hit the ball across the field,

b. "Joe struck the ball across the field.
222 Chapter Ten

Although I have acknow ledged there to be som e degree of lexical idiosyncrasy

(cf. chapter 5), the m ajority o f cases appear to be predictable once a sufficiently
detailed sem antic characterization o f the construction and associated verb
classes has been accom plished (see section 7.4.2 for a semantic account o f the
difference between hit and strike).
A nother difference in focus between the two accounts is that Jackendoff does
not attem pt to explicitly relate the various constructions that are proposed. One
general criticism o f C onstruction G ram m ar as it has been practiced is that it
has rarely attem pted to account for the systematic relation am ong constructions
(but cf. Lakoff 1987 and current work by Fillmore and Kay (1993) for notable
exceptions). In the enthusiasm to show just how much of language is necessar­
ily learned as idiosyncratic (even w here m otivated) bits of gramm atical knowl­
edge, attention to overarching principles and generalizations has often been
lacking. Chapters 3 and 4 o f the present work have attem pted to address these
issues.

i o. i .2 M o n ta gu e Gramm ar
M ontague and many linguists w orking within the M ontague Gram m ar
tradition have adopted the “ rule-to-rule” hypothesis (Bach 1976). This ap­
proach involves associating each syntactic rule with a sem antic rule which de­
term ines the m eaning o f the syntactic constituent formed. M ontague Gram m ar
is essentially a system for pairing surface structures with a representation of
the m eanings o f those surface structures, with no significant level o f “ deep” or
“ underlying” structure between the two (cf. M ontague 1973; Dowty, Wall &
Peters 1981). In this way. Construction G ram m ar and M ontague Gram m ar are
quite sim ilar in approach.
O ne difference between Construction G ram m ar and M ontague G ram m ar is
that the sem antic rules in M ontague G ram m ar are supposed to be determined
exclusively by the syntactic mode o f com bination. O ne cannot refer to sem an­
tic features o f item s being com bined in order to determ ine which semantic rules
apply. It is necessary to posit corresponding syntactic features (such as differ­
ences in type) in order to constrain the application o f the semantic rule. A lter­
natively, a sem antic filter may serve to rule out expressions generated by the
erroneous application o f a semantic rule. W hether these mechanisms can lake
the place o f explicitly referring to sem antics as part o f the “ m ode of com bina­
tion” is an em pirical issue.
A lthough M ontague G ram m ar has always allowed for the possibility o f rich
constructional meaning, the actual practice has been to have rules of com posi­
tion be defined in term s o f sim ple function application. The quotation from
G azdar et al. (1985) cited in chapter I reflects that w idespread assumption. To
 Conclusion 223

repeat their position: “ We assum e that there exists a universal m apping from
syntactic rules to sem antic translations. . . . We claim that the sem antic type
assigned to any lexical item introduced in a rule. . . . and the syntactic form of
the rule itself are sufficient to fully determ ine . . . the form o f the sem antic
translation rule" ( 1 9 8 5 :8 -9 ).
There may be a recent trend toward assigning richer m eanings and sem antic
constraints to the rules of com bination. Such a direction is suggested, for ex ­
ample, by Dowty (1991). Dowty suggests that an alternative to the idea that the
unaccusative/unergative distinction is purely gram m atical and lexically deter­
mined is an analysis in which this distinction is actually an epiphenom enon
arising from the semantic constraints on particular constructions. He states:
“Certain gramm atical constructions have certain m eanings associated with
them involving P-A gent or P-Patient properties, hence a given intransitive verb
is appropriate in such a construction only if it has the right kind o f m eaning.
The set of gram m atical rules/constructions appropriate to one sem antic class,
versus the set appropriate to the other class, thus isolates two classes o f verbs,
but via semantic constraints originating in the rules them selves” (1 9 9 1 :608).
This analysis presupposes that gram m atical constructions can be analyzed as
having meanings (1 9 9 1 :609).-'

io.t.3 Wierzbicka 1988

In her book The Sem antics o f Grcumnar, W ierzbicka argues for the idea
that gramm atical morphem es and constructions are directly associated with
meanings. She m otivates this move by noting the sort o f system atic sem antic
distinctions existing in related constructions that were discussed in chapter I,
noting that “ language is an integrated system, where everything ‘conspires’ to
convey m eaning— words, gram m atical constructions, and illocutionary de­
vices (including intonation)” ( 1 9 8 8 :1).
In arguing that gram m atical constructions are directly associated with m ean­
ing, W ierzbicka’s approach fits squarely into the approach o f construction
grammar, generally defined. She covers a breathtaking range o f data, including
causatives crosslinguistically, the Japanese adversative passive, the English di-
transitive and a variety o f com plem ent types, and particular cases in Polish and
Russian. However, the only construction she discusses which is entirely lexi­
cally unfilled, and thus directly parallel to the cases discussed here, is the d i­
transitive construction.
There are other differences between W ierzbicka's work and the present ap ­
proach. While I have argued that there are lexical exceptions to the generaliza­
tions and that there is a high degree o f conventionalization associated with the
association of verbs and constructions, W ierzbicka argues that the relation­
224 ChaprerTen

ship between syntax and sem antics is exceptionless. “ In every case . . . the
syntactic possibilities are determ ined by the underlying sem antic structures
(that is, by the intended meaning). G enerally speaking, w hat is semantically
incoherent, is syntactically incongruous. Syntax, so to speak, follows from
sem antics” (1988:4).
A nother difference between W ierzbicka’s account and the account proposed
here is the kind o f sem antics assumed. She adopts, follow ing Leibnitz, a reduc­
tionist approach to sem antics, attem pting to account for the full range of se­
m antic know ledge associated with open class (and closed class) lexical items
in term s o f a small set o f atomic sem antic elem ents including /, you, this, som e­
one, som ething, time, place, want, don't want, say, think, know, imagine, be­
come. and part. She provisionally includes also like, two, other, world, good,
kind o f and feel. She then proposes that the entire sem antics o f any lexical item
can be captured by paraphrases involving these atom ic semantic primitives
com bined in determ inate ways. We have taken rather the opposite approach to
sem antics, arguing that lexical items are associated with rich frame-semantic
or encyclopedic know ledge, and that decom position into atomic elements is
impossible.
Finally, the scope o f the two projects only overlaps to a limited extent.
W ierzbicka concentrates on exem plifying the existence o f constructional
m eaning in a w ide variety o f constructions and in a w ide variety o f languages,
w hereas the present account has focused alm ost exclusively on causal con­
structions in English. On the other hand, I have attem pted to detail the way
verbs and constructions are related, and to provide some overall picture o f the
way constructions may be related to one another in a hierarchical system.

10.2 S u m m a r y

This work has argued, counter to the current trend, that an entirely lexi­
cally based approach to gram m ar is inadequate, and that lexically unfilled con­
structions m ust be recognized to exist independently o f the particular lexical
item s which instantiate them. By recognizing the existence o f meaningful con­
structions, we can avoid the claim that the syntax and sem antics o f the clause
is projected exclusively from the specifications o f the main verb. In this way,
we avoid the problem o f positing im plausible verb senses to account for ex ­
am ples such as the following:

(8) H e sneezed the napkin off the table.

(9) She baked him a cake.
(10) Dan talked him self blue in the face.
 Conclusion 225

In none of these cases does the verb intuitively require the direct object com ­
plement. To account for (8), for exam ple, we would have to say that sneeze, a
parade exam ple of an intransitive verb, actually has a three-argum ent sense, ‘X
c a u s e s Y to m o v e Z by sneezing’. To account for (9), we would need to claim

that there exists a special sense of bake that has three argum ents— an agent, a
theme, and an intended recipient. This in effect argues that bake has a sense
which involves som ething like X i n t e n d s to c a u s e Y to h a v e Z by baking’.
To account for (10), we would need to postulate a special sense of talk, ‘X
causls Y to become Z by talking’.
On a constructional approach, aspects o f the interpretation involving caused
motion, intended transfer, or caused result are understood to be contributed by
the respective constructions. That is, skeletal argum ent structure constructions
are capablc of contributing argum ents. For exam ple, the ditransitive construc­
tion is directly associated with agent, patient, and recipient roles. We do not
need to stipulate a specific sense o f bake unique to this construction. Thus the
direct objects found in exam ples ( 8 - 10) are licensed not directly as argum ents
o f the verb but by the particular constructions. Several other reasons to prefer
a constructional account to a lexical approach have been detailed in chapter 1.
In chapter 2, it was argued that verbs must be associated with rich frame-
semantic meanings; at the same time, lexical m eaning is acknow ledged to be
highly conventionalized. In particular, which participants associated with a
given verb’s frame sem antics are inherently profited is determ ined by the lexi­
cal specifications of the verb itself. C onstructions are also associated with dy­
namic scenes, but their sem antics are m ore abstract: constructional m eanings
can be generally captured by skeletal decom positional stm ctures, e.g., 'X
C A USi s Y to k i x f i v i Z \ X a c t s ' . ‘X c a u s e s Y to m o v e Z ’, and so on.
It has been argued that constructions as well as lexical item s (which are also,
strictly speaking, constructions) are typically associated with a family o f
closely related senses. For exam ple, the ditransitive construction illustrates
constructional polysem y: the same form is paired with different but related
senses. A remarkably sim ilar pattern o f extensions was shown to exist for the
caused-m otion construction (cf. chapters 2 ,7 ). Since polysemy has been shown
in m any studies to be a natural and recurring phenom enon o f lexical items, the
existence o f constructional polysem y suggests that research w hich treats con­
structions and lexical items as the sam e basic type o f data structure, as is done
in Construction Gram m ar, may well be on the right track.
The central senses o f argum ent structure constructions have been argued to
be associated with humanly relevant scenes: som eone transferring som ething
to som eone, something causing som ething to move or to change state, someone
226 Chaptei Ten

experiencing som ething, som ething undergoing a change of state or location,

and so on (cf. the “ conceptual archetypes” of Langacker 1991). Evidence that
these scenes are sem antically privileged com es from certain language acquisi­
tion facts observed by Clark (1978). Bowerman (.1982), and Slobin (1985).
Concrete proposals have been made for how to relate verb and construction,
and for constraints on that relation.
System atic m etaphors have been shown to play more than a superfluous role
in the sem antics o f constructions. By explicitly recognizing particular meta­
phors, we can more accurately capture sem antic constraints on constructions
as well as the relation am ong constructions.
In chapter 3, various types o f relations am ong constructions have been dis­
cussed, including relations o f polysemy, m etaphorical extension, subsumption,
and instance. Constructions are related in an associative network via asym m et­
ric normal mode inheritance links. These inheritance links specify the relation
between the dom inated and dom inating construction; all nonconflicting infor­
mation is inherited by the dom inated construction from the dom inating co n ­
struction. Because the links them selves are treated as objects, they are able to
capture the specific nature o f the relations am ong constructions. In addition,
the links them selves can be related via inheritance hierarchies o f different
kinds. Different kinds o f links have different type frequencies, and as has been
discussed chapter 5, high type frequency is correlated with productivity. There­
fore frequently reoccurring links will be used productively, extending familiar
patterns in predictable ways.
C hapter 4 presents general arguments for a m onostratal approach to the re­
lation betw een overtly syntactic expression and semantic representations. It has
been suggested that the degree o f regularity in the relation between semantic
role types and overt syntactic expression is som etim es exaggerated, and that
many linking generalizations are construction specific. The cross-constructional
generalizations that do exist are captured by stating the regularity at a high
node in the hierarchy o f constructions; subregularities are captured by stating
the generalization at an interm ediate node. Exceptions are allowed, but only at
a cost to the overall system.
T he partially productive nature o f constructions has been discussed in
c h a p te rs. A dapting insights from Pinker 1989, it has been proposed that con­
structions are associated with clusters o f instances; new or novel cases are ac­
ceptable to the degree that they are relevantly sim ilar to existing cases. This
usage-based model o f gram m ar was proposed to account for different construc­
tions’ varying degrees of productivity (cf. Bybee 1985; Langacker 1987a.
1991). In addition, the idea that there may well be som e degree of indirect
negative evidence was defended,
 Conclusion 22 7

W hile current theories focus alm ost exclusively on the existence o f related
constructions, or “alternations,” in describing the sem antics o f particular ar­
gument structure expressions, it has been argued that by considering various
constructions first on their own term s, instead o f im m ediately focusing on their
relations to other constructions, interesting generalizations and subtle sem antic
constraints emerge. These constraints were detailed in chapters 6 - 9 for four
particular cases: the ditransitive, the caused-m otion construction, the resulta­
tive, and the way construction. Each of these constructions is argued to have
independent status, with its own particular sem antic constraints, radial cate­
gory structure, and lexical exceptions, and yet each is shown to be interrelated
to other constructions.
 Notes

Chapter One
1. Early questions about whether transformations preserve meaning were raised by Ku-
roda (1965). Pariee (1965, 1971). and Bolinger (1968).
2. Wierzbicka suggests that the ;o-plus-infinitive construction is itself associated with the
semantic elements “ thinking," “ wanting," “ future time.”
3. It is important to bear in mind that both semantic and pragmatic aspects of gram m ati­
cal form are relevani for determining synonymy. Only if two forms have both the same
semantics and the same pragmatics, they will be disallowed by the Principle of No Syn­
onymy of Grammatical Forms. This principle is impossible to prove conclusively, since one
would have to examine all forms in all languages to do so. Further motivation for ii is pro­
vided in chapter 3.
4. It is not neccsbury that every syntactic form be uniquely associated with a particular
semantics; there are cases of constructional ambiguity, where the same form is paired with
distinct meanings. Word order is not part of argument structure constructions, but rather is
inherited from other, more general constructions in the language. Thus the statement of the
construction, like traditional subcategorization frames, is abstract enough to be instantiated
by questions, cleft constructions, and so forth.
5. This definition of course leaves us with a degree of indeterminacy, since there may be
several distinct sets of basis constructions for a given language. For example, given three
patterns, ii may turn out that two would be predictable given the third, or that the one would
equally well be predictable given the other two. Determining which of the three patterns to
consider grammatical constructions is subjeciive, but the choice will take into account the
relative motivations of the various proposed constructions, economy of representation,
speaker intuitions about basicness, and so on. It may be possible that speakers actually differ
in some eases in the set of grammaticalized constructions they leam. even if their grammar
in an extensional sense is the same.
6. "M eaning" is to be construed broadly enough to include contexts of use, as well as
traditional notions of semantics. That is. a construction is posited when some aspect of the
way it is conventionally used is not strictly predictable. It would alternatively be possible to
define constructions as ordered triples of form, meaning, and context as is done by Zadrozny
Sl Manaster-Ramer 1993.
7. With Saussure and Aronoff (1976) among others, I take constructions to be relevantly
nonpredictable even if they are partially motivated (cf. seciion 3.1). as long as they are not
strictly or completely predictable.
8. I am using “ scene” in the sense of Fillmore (1975, 1977b) to mean an idealization of
a '‘coherent individuatable perception, memory, experience, action, or object" (1977b: 84).
9. Carier 1988:171. It should be noted that Carter goes on to argue that natural languages
are not strictly compositional.
10. This is not a general criticism of unification grammars, since such grammars are ca­
pable in principle of capturing extralexical effects and indirect rules of composition, for

229
230 Notes to Pages 16 -2 2

example, by making a distinction between external and internal semantics. That is. unifica­
tion grammars can capture these effects by allowing meaning to be contributed by nonlexical
nodes. In fact, a current version of Construction Grammar in Fillmore & Kay 1993 adopts a
unification system.
11. Although the constraint is not stated in terms of unaccusativiiy vs. unergativity in
chapter 9, the same issue arises: verbs which lexically designate directed motion nevertheless
cannot generally occur in the construction:

(i) * H e d e sc e n d ed his w ay do w n the stairs.

12. However, extralinguistic knowledge is undoubtedly required as well in order to arrive

at a full interpretation of an expression in context; cf. Lakoff 1977, Langacker 1987a.
13. A potential confound of this experiment arises from the possibility of a different
degree of bias in examples such as (28a) and (29a). I have not been able lo ascertain from
the authors whether the degree of bias was controlled for.
14. Unfortunately, only Gleitman 1992 required subjects to use a set of syntactic frames
to infer verb meaning, and this experiment involved adult speakers identifying already-
known verbs, so none o f these experiments provide conclusive empirical defense against
Pinker's criticism.
15. Fisher et al. (1991) state this idea succinctly: "/touch/ is mapped onto 'touch' because
(a) the child can represent scenes observed as ‘scenes of touching’ and (b) the wave form
/touch/ is likely to be heard when touching is happening. That this has to be at least part of
the truth about word learning is so obvious as to be agreed upon by all theorists despite their
differences in every other regard (see e.g., Locke 1690 and Chomsky 1965— and everybody
in between who has commented on the topic). You can't learn a language simply by listening
to the radio” (1991:2).
16. Even in this case it is clear that some amount of word learning is a necessary prereq­
uisite to the learning or identification of constructions.
17. Many lexicalists argue that all ''structure-preserving" (Emonds 1972) transforma­
tions are better handled in the lexicon (e.g., Freidin 1974, Bresnan 1978). A transformation
is considered structure-preserving if (1) both the input and output constructions can be gen­
erated by rules of the base component, (2) the forms share a root morphology, and (3) the
cooccurrence restrictions of one are predictable from the other. See Wasow 1977 for a more
conservative view of the role of lexical rules.
Several proposals involving lexical rules that have been developed recently have ques­
tioned many o f the traditional distinctions and assumptions usually associated with lexical
rule accounts. See. for example, the contributions to Alsina (1994) for discussion. I do not
attempt here to compare and contrast these accounts with the current proposal.
18. The question arises as to why the flooi can’l be interpreted meionymically lo stand
for "a place on the floor” in (32b) But the answer to that question is not a question about
ditransitives specifically, since the floor in Joe cleared the floor fo r Sam cannot refer lo a
behind-sized piece of floor either.
Example (32a), Joe cleared Sam a place on the floor, is acceptable on the interpretation
that a place was created for Sam by ihe clearing (cf. ’ / wiped him a place on the floor, which
is not acceptable since ihe place is not created by wiping). It may be that the creation sense
o f clearing is aided by using the indefinite a place. When the definite article is used, the
creation interpretation is not as likely, since it is all too clear that the floor and the place on
the floor (assuming the metonymy were available) already exist prior to the clearing.
 Notes ro Pages 2 S -4 3 231

Chapter Two
1. Ali Ya/dam (personal communication) points out that it would make more sense, there­
fore, to call the upper inside of the mouth the ceiling of the mouth, as opposed to the ro o f of
the mouih. as one does in Persian.
2. This view of verb meaning is parallel to Higginbotham's (1989) notion of the eluci­
dation of verb meuning. Higginbotham cites Hale and Keyser’s (1985) definition of cut:
" ‘cut’ is a V that applies truly to situations e involving a patient v and an agent x who. by
means of some instrument z, effects in e a linear separation in the material integrity of v"
(Higginbotham, p. 467). (A revised version appeared as Hale & Keyser 1987.) Elucidations
are like frame-semantic meanings insofar as they are an attempt to capture the entirety of Ihe
meaning associated with a verb. That is, like frame-semantic representations,elucidations do
not assume a strict division between dictionary and encyclopedic knowledge. Higginbotham
stales, “ I doubt that a criterial demarcation of lexical and wordly knowledge is necessary, or
even desirable, to pose the problems of knowledge and its acquisition that linguistic theory
hopes to answer” (p. 470).
3. Recent research within the GB framework has claimed that only the structure and not
the content of the iheta role array is relevant for syntax (Burzio 1986; Zubizarreta 1987;
Rappaport & Levin 1988, Belletti & Rizzi 1988). See Zaenen & Goldberg 1993 for a review
of one such approach, that of Grimshaw 1990.
4. The claim thut metaphorical extensions are based on the central sense is only intended
to entail that verbs which must be metaphorically understood represent extensions from the
basic sense. As pointed out by Maarten Lemmens (personal communication), not all meta­
phorical instances of the construction are based on the central sense. For example, (i) in­
volves the metaphorical transfer of a kiss, yet is based on a noncentral sense:

(i) Mary promised Steve a kiss.

5. Eve Clark (personal communication) states that give is also learned early and used
relatively frequently.
6. The distinction corresponds roughly to Dowty's (1986) distinction between "indi­
vidual thematic role" (participant role) and “ thematic role type" (argument role). However,
for Dowty, thematic role types are determined by intersecting the semantic emailments of all
corresponding arguments of a set of predicates; that is, a thematic role type, such as agent or
patient, is defined as follows:

Given a set S of pairs (P, i,}, where P is an n-place predicate and i, is the index of
one of its arguments, a thematic role type is determined by the intersection of all
individual thematic roles determined by S.

Therefore, if there are m predicates in a language, then S can be chosen in

ways. The total number of role types would only be upperbounded by multiplying K by n,
where n is the arity of the predicate with the highest arity. That is to say, there are more than
a handful of thematic role types on this view Dowty suggests that only certain role types
such as agent and patient are iiucresting for linguistics in that they have systematic gram ­
matical consequences; he leaves the determination of which role types are linguistically
232 Notes to Pages 4 4 -6 2

relevant as an empirical issue. (Cf. Dowty 1991 fo ra rnther different suggestion— the Proto-
Agent and Proto-Patient roles he there suggests are not determined by intersecting the set or
a particular subset of all entailments of transitive predicates, which might well yield the null
set. Cf. discussion in chapter 4.) On the present account, the linguistically relevant "role
types” are the roles associated with constructions.
7. Staiive verbs must be dealt with differently. I do not attempt to adequately discern their
basic meaning here.
8. In some dialects this sentence is in fact acceptable. Such dialects would involve a
different lexical entry for rob.
9. The verb rob normally also implies that the victim is present:

(i) ?Joe robbed her in Hawaii while she was in Chicago on business.

But contexts do occur in which rob can be used upon realization of the crimc, even if the
victim had not been present:

(ii) She walked in the doov and realized she'd been robbed!

10. This fact was observed by Jean-Pierre Koenig and Laura Michaelis (personal
communication).
11. O BJ; is the grammatical relation filled by the second NP in ditransitive expressions
12. The circumstances under which a profiled participant need not be overtly expressed
arc discussed in section 2.4.5.
13. This parameter may be vaned in languages which make extensive use of the applica­
tive construction.
14. Metaphorical extensions such as She gave him a kick art discussed in chapter 3.
15. This sketchy analysis of reflexives is inspired by work by Perlmulter (1989) and Al-
sina (1993). For discussion of broader uses o f the reflexive morpheme, see Maldonado Soto
( 1992) and Kemmer ( 1988).
16. There are often certain general default inferences about what was eaten (a meal) or
drunk (alcohol), but the more specific identity of the referent is unknown or immaterial.
17. It is clear that context does play some role. See Rice 1988 for an interesting
discussion.
18. An analogous question is raised by le- ical rule accounts. It can be stated: Can a verb
from any class be transformed into a verb of any other class?
19. Pinker (1989) similarly notes that Talmy's original example (i) cannot refer lo an
event in which someone carries a tub of water containing a bottle into a cave (cf. also Carter
1988).

(i) The bottle floated into the cave,

20. Talmy's (1985a) distinction between “ means” and “ manner” conflation patterns is
often misinterpreted. Talmy uses these terms to distinguish: verbs which primarily designate
an action performed by an agent, e.g., push (the “ m eans" conflation pattern), from those thai
primarily designate an action o f the theme, e.g., roll (the “ manner" conflation pattern). How­
ever, most conflation patterns involving “ m anner" verbs imply that the particular manner is
the means of motion. For example, consider (i):

(i) The bottle rolled down ihe hill.

This entails not only that "the bottle moved down the hill while rolling" but also that “ the
 Notes to Pages 6 4 -7 9 233

bottle moved down the hill by rolling." Therefore I am treating both of these cases as
"m eans” c a w and reserving ‘‘manner" for verbs which do not encode means.
21 Gruber f j 967) and more recently Landau and Gletiman (1985) suggest that in fact
look is a verb of motion. This analysis relies on a metaphorical interpretation of look.
whereby the glance of the person looking “ travels toward" the thing looked at; there are
several diffic-ulii^s with this analysis (Goldberg 1988); but regardless of the claim made for
look, it is clear that aim is not [+contact], so we need to extend the analysis beyond [+ m o-
tion, +contact] verbs in any case.
22. Many aspects of these conditions are similar to M atsum oto’s (1991) claims as to
which types of verbal predicates can be combined to create a complex motion predicate in
Japanese. He argues that the complex verbal form is treated as a single word (with respect to
argument structure) and discusses the constraints on combinations of verbs as constraints on
possible lexicalization patterns (cf. Talmy 1985a). He proposes the following generalization:
An event is semantically conflated with another event in one verb only when
1. the tw o events share at least one particip an t and
2. either
(a) it is the activity o r (resulting) slate w hose d u ratio n is co ex ten siv e w ith the d u ra ­
tion o f the o th e r event, o r
(b) it is the cau se o f the other event, or the m eans w ith w hich the other event is
caused.
However, the constraints on the Japanese complex predicate construction are actually some­
what less stringent than the constraints on English. For example, Matsumoto cites (i) below,
noting that this example can be uttered felicitously when arriving at a coffee house after
opening a window back at the office.

(8) Boku wa m ado o akete kita.

I l'oP w indow acc open cam e
'I cam e after o p ening a w indow .'

The relation between the opening and the arriving is only one of temporal proximity; this
type of relation between e v and e c is not possible in fcnglish. The fact that Japanese is freer
in its “conflation patterns” is likely attributable at least in this type of case to the fact that
there are two verbs in the Japanese construction

Chapter Three
1. It should be pointed out that the relation in form must be interpreted as representing
in some way the relation in meaning. We would not expect a relation in meaning to be moti­
vated by just any relation in form. As Clark, Gelman and Lane (1985) point out, compound
formation is a familiar way (in English and many other languages) to encode subordinate-
level categoric:.
2. Some authors have conflated the notions of inheritance and object-oriented design
since the two often co-occur in particular implementations. However, the ideas are concep­
tually distinct.
3. '-'olysemy links and instance links are relevantly like Langacker's “extension” and
"elaboration” links, respectively (see Langacker 1987a, 1988).
4. An anonymous reviewer points out that drive appears with other resultative phrases as
well, if the resultative is encoded as a PP:

(i) C hris drove Pat to su icid e/io d rink.

234 Notes to Pages 8 1-9 4

These cases indicate that “crazy” is perhaps too narrow, and that the moaning of the result-
goal argument is better described as “ to a state where normal mental processing is not
possible."
5. At the same time, a subpart link does not necessarily entail the existence of an instance
link; there exist subpart links between certain constructions which do not involve one con­
struction being an instance o f another construction. For example, the caused-motion con­
struction and the intransitive motion construction arc related by a subpart relation since the
intransitive motion construction is a proper subpart of the caused-motion construction, yet
the caused-motion construction is not an instance of the intransitive motion construction.
6. L. Levin, Mitamura, and Mahmoud (1988), as discussed by Rappaport Hovav and
Levin (1991), assume a metaphorical relation between the two constructions, although they
apparently do not provide explicit arguments for such an analysis.
7. At least one verb, render, seems to further require that the resultative phrase be an
adjective:

(i) a. The catastrophe rendered her helpless/inefleciual/impoteffl.

b ‘ The catastrophe rendered her out of commission.

This at first led me to consider that a further division should be drawn between adjectival and
prepositional resultative phrases; however, render appears to be an isolated case and is better
accounted for by a lexical stipulation linking the result-goal argument to an AP. In particular,
the lexica) entry for render will link the result-goal argument to an AP
S. Gruber and Jackendoff do not actually refer to a metaphor. Instead they propose that
the domains of ownership and physical transfer share an abstract shema (see also Langacker
1987a for a similar view). An approach involving metaphors is preferred here because of the
asymmetric nature of the relation between change of ownership and physical transfer. While
we find many words that are “ basically" associated with physical motion being used in the
domain of change of ownership, we do not find instances of the reverse. Moreover, physical
transfer is more directly understood than the more abstract domain of transfer of ownership
in that the former is directly perceivable. See Lakoff and Johnson 1980 for further arguments
against an abstractionist account o f similar phenomena.
9. They do differ in whether the recipient argument role of the construction is profiled or
not— whether it is expressed by a direct grammatical function; however they are semanti­
cally the same in designating 'X c a u s e s Y to k f c t i v e Z ’.
10. A definition of focus that is adequate for our purposes is found in Halliday (1967):
“ Information focus is one kind of emphasis, that whereby the speaker marks out a p a r t. .
of a message block as that which he wishes to be interpreted as informative. What is focal is
‘new’ information; not in the sense that it cannot have been previously mentioned, although
it is often the case that it has not been, but in the sense that the speaker presents it as not
being recoverable from the preceding discourse" (p. 204). Cf. Lambrecht ( 1994) for a recent
thorough discussion o f this notion.
11. Although (37) and (38) are acceptable, they seem to be slightly less preferred than
their ditransitive counterparts, indicating that the caused-motion construction generally tends
to prefer the goal argument to be focused and the transferred object nonfocused.
12. This is of course not lo say that every potential instance of a systematic metaphor can
appear in a particular construction, but only that the particular instances which are otherwise
conventional will occur in the construction, as long as the semantic and pragmatic conditions
are satisfied.
 Notes to Pages 9 5 -1 1 3 235

13. It is true that (40a-42a) and (4 4 a-4 5 a) are more marked than (35). This might be
because- (35). repeated here as (i). is sufficiently like the non-metaphorical case in (ii) to be
less noticeably an instance o f metaphorical extension.

(i) # S h e gave a brand -n ew house to him

(ii) She g ave a nickel to him.

Chapter Four
1. However, as Van Valin (1992) points out, what counts as "reasonably productive mor­
phology" is not adequately defined, since Baker suggests that the output of an incorporation
transformation can be regular, irregular, or even suppletive morphologically.
2. Since the world is necessarily filtered through our cognitive and perceptual apparatus,
what we really have access to are constructs of situations. This idea is by no means new, and
extends at least as far back as Hobbes.
3. Baker does not seem to recognize the difference in interpretation between these two
sentences since, citing Fodor 1970, he explicitly rejects analyzing kill from an underlying
cause to die because the two predicates are not synonymous. It seems clear that the same
semantic difference is involved in the Chichewa examples (Van Valin 1992).
4. This is a weaker claim than Dryer made in 1983, when he argued that a single rule
showing a difference between two kinds of arguments is sufficient evidence that the two are
distinct grammatical relations (Dryer 1983:139).
5. DO and 10 are not replaced by PO and SO; rather. Dryer leaves it an empirical issue
which of these grammatical relations exist in a particular language.
6. Dryer (1986) also Cues the following example:

(i) a. John baked a pie fo r M ary,

b. John bak ed M ary a pie.

He again assumes that the two forms must share a level of representation because of their
close semantic relationship; in particular, he assumes that one must be derived from the other.
The question thus arises which form is derived from which. In order to decide, Dryer relies
implicitly on the UAH. “The beneficiary nominal in [b] . . . behaves like a final term in its
case-marking and position. Since its semantic properties would suggest that it is an initial
non-term, It must have advanced to become a term ” [italics added|. If, because of semantic
distinctions, we no longer accept as given the idea that there necessarily is an earlier stage of
derivation. Dryer's account is immediately undermined.
7. There are of course overgeneralizations, but these conform to the general semantic
constraints of the construction.
8. This is done, of course, at the cost of complicating the relationship between underlying
and surface forms.
9. Some traditional grammars identify the first object of ditransitive expressions (20) with
the OBL complement of expression1: ;uch as (21), classifying both as syntactically Indirect
Objects. This move, which is motivated primarily by considerations of semantic similarity,
is cogently argued against by Faltz (1978) and Hudson (1992).
10. If we assume that this lexical rule is a nongcnerative redundancy rule, then both en­
tries must be stored in the lexicon, and the arrow is better represented as pointing in both
directions:

cooko (agt theme) <-» cook, (agt theme)

236 Notes to Pages 113-131

11. In order to account for the English ditransitive in a similar way. they would need to
suppose that the ditransitive did not necessarily add an argument, but could also alter an
existing argument to be a “ dependent" argument and thus able to receive the intrinsic clas­
sification of f —r].
12. In a subsequent paper. Ackerman (1992) assigns the theme argument the intrinsic
classification o f [ - o). This account moves away from previous ones in that it treats intrinsic
classifications as being assigned according to entailments of the predicates (a la Dowty 1991)
and adds the notion markedness to the mapping theory, but it still leaves us with a range of
“ intrinsic classifications" consisting o f [ - r], [+ o ], and [ - o ] for the theme argument, de­
pending on which construction is to be expressed.
13. Chichewa seems to allow a very sim ilar locative alternation as English at least for
some verbs (examples from Sam Mchombo, personal communication):

(i) a-na-pachira mchenga m'ngolo

SM-PST-load 3-sand in-9-can
‘He loaded Ihe sand in Ihe can.'
(ii) a-n a-p ach ira ngolo ndi m chenga
SM-PST-load 9-cart w ith sand
'He loaded the can with sa n d .’

14. In the case of undergo, sustain, and tolerate, the panicipant realized as subject is
causally affected (a Proto-Patient property), while the participant realized as the object
causes the affect (a Proto-Agent property). In the case o f receive, inherit, the panicipant
expressed as subject is stationary relative to the movement of another panicipant (a Proto-
Patient property), while the participant realized as the object moves (a Proto-Agent property).
15. See Hopper & Thompson 1980 for some debate about whether the prototypical pa­
tient is inanimate.
16. O f course one must be careful to avoid classifying certain sentences as syntactically
transitive solely bccause they encode a semantically prototypical transitive event. Otherwise
this crosslinguistic generalization could turn out to be vacuous.

Chapter Five
1. The epigraph was taken from a squib by Arnold Zwicky in which he lists twenty prop­
erties that are systematically associated with manner of speaking verbs. Unfortunately the
explanation alluded to in the quote is not forthcoming, as the quote is the last paragraph in
the squib.
2. 1 thank Jess Gropen for bringing this possibility to my attention.
3. Examples of the latter situation would seem to include the English middle construction
(e.g.. This book reads easily) and the way construction (cf. chapter 9). However, these par­
ticular cases are perhaps not convincing as cases which require recourse to Pinker’s sub­
classes, since they seem to be fully productive once general semantic constraints on the
constructions are identified.
4. Steven Pinker (personal communication) has suggested that differences in judgment
are only unexpected if they do not also hold for the input forms. For example, we should not
expect (i.a) to be better than (i.b):

(i) a. ’She blasted him a cannonball,

b. 'She blasted a cannonball to him.

And in fact, both examples are fairly odd.

 Notes to Pages I 3 1- >!>6 237

However, the question still remains, .is to why the input form is not fully acceptable, since
other verbs o f ballistic motion are acceptable in that form. How is it that the child learns that
blast is not completely felicitous in the input argument structure? Moreover, this line of
reasoning will not account for the difference in judgm ents between (30) and (31), since in
both eases the input forms are completely acceptable:

(ii) Sally designed a sculpture for him.

(iii) Sally crem cd a scu lp tu re for him.

5. More needs to be said about how exactly Mese cases would be worked out on a con­
structional account. ■do not attempt a full explanation here.
6. It is not clear whether this information is stored indefinitely, since Gropen et al.'s find­
ing of a tendency toward conservatism was only demonstrated in a single experimental en­
counter. It would he interesting to see if this tendency toward const.rvativism were lessened
by allowing an interval of a number of days to intervene between the acquisition of a novel
word and the subsequent production o f that word.
7. I have not attempted to apply a formal similarity metric so the relative closeness o f the
circles is not claimed to be accurate in detail.
8. The frequency of way examples is increased dramatically— to one example in every
2,500 words— in one particular subtext of the Lund corpus (not included in the above statis­
tic) taken from various sports commentaries. The difference in frequency can be attributed
to th.. '■omantic constructs on the construction: forceful or deliberate motion despite obsta­
cles is particularly likely to be described in competitive sport contexts.

Chapter Six
1. Subjects which metonymically stand for volitional beings are also acceptable:

(i) H is co m p an y prom ised him a raise.

(ii) T he orchestra played us the sym phony.

2. I would like to thank Dirk Geeraerts (personal communication) and Alan Schwartz
(personal communication) for indicating that this metaphor could be stated in terms of
transfer.
3. Many theories capture this constraint by postulating a beneficiary role for the first
object position of expressions that are paraphrasable with a benefactive for-phrase.
4. Examples (23) and (24) happen to be based on metaphors. What is relevant here is that
successful (metaphorical) transfer is implied: (23) implies that Chris has a headache, and
(24) implies that Chris got a kick.

Chapter Seven
1. See Napoli 1992 for some discussion of the possible existence of a resultative con­
struction in Italian.
2. Gawron is less clear about how the PP and verb are to be syntactically joined. At one
point he specifies that co-predicators are subcategorized for by the main verb (1986:328)
Thus, the PP phrase would be syntactically subcategorized for although not an argument of
the verb. Later (1986:368) Gawron suggests that instead the PP might be added by lexical
rule or as an adjunct.
3. See also Gawron 1986. Carrier & Randall 1992, and Hoekstra & Mulder 1990 for
arguments against treating the PP or adjective of the resultative as an adjunct.
238 Notes to Pages 15 6 - I 76

4. Hoekstra (1992) does noi address cases of resultatives which are applied to the direct
objects of transitive verbs put to their normal transitive use. In an earlier paper (Hoekstra
1988) he discusses the possibility of a "stripping" rule that removes all arguments normally
associated with a predicate before ihe resultative attaches. If this rule is assumed, his account
could extend to cover cases of transitive resultatives.
5. Rappaport Hovav and Levin are often cited as positing a Direct Object Requirement
(DOR) constraint on resultatives. However, recognizing that the NP o f a small clause is not
a direct object, they revise this constraint in the second half of their 1991 paper, to allow for
resultatives based on (unergative) intransitive verbs. Their final formulation is that resulla-
lives are restricted to apply to an argument which is governed by Ihe verb.
6. By choosing the term “ e-posiiion," Hoekstra seems to be alluding lo a Davidsonian
event variable.
7. This claim is factually incorrect. Although the majority of resultatives clearly involve
atelic verbs, tclic predicates also allow resultatives:

(i) a. She frightened him off his rocker.

b, He broke the walnuts Into (he bowl.
c. Sam elo sed the d o o r shut.

8. This view of coercion is somewhat different than that proposed by Sag and Pollard.
Sag and Pollard propose a rule of coercion that operates on particular lexical items but does
not make reference to any licensing construction. The view presented here is preferred since
it constrains ihe potentially all-powerful process by requiring that constructions coerce lexi­
cal items into having systematically related meanings.
9. In fact. Carter (1988) has proposed such a construction.
10. An anonymous reviewer of an earlier draft of this chapter pointed out that lure does
seem lo allow willingly to be predicated of the theme argument:

(i) He^ was lured into the room willingly,.

This can be interpreted as “ He allowed himself to be lured into Ihe room." I have no account
of why this case is different lhan ihe others.
11. It mighi be objected thai strike can be used when the impacting entity, and noi the
impacted entity is affected:

(i) The mosquito struck ihe window (example from Paul Kay)
(ii) The car struck a brick wall.

However, in these cases the argument whose locanon is in question— i.e., ihe theme— is the
subject, not the direct object, The following example is ruled out by the Unique Path Con-
siraini (cf. seciion 3.4.1), since ihe car and the wall would have to be interpreted as moving
along two distinct paths.

(iii) *Thc car struck a brick wall inlo pieces.

12. The distinction has also been casi, equivalently for our purposes, as one beiwcecn
“ ballistic" and “ controlled" causation (Shibatani 1973).
13. Their analysis differs somewhat from the one presented here in that they assume that
the difference in interpretation stems from a different sense of ihe verb, noi from a difference
in construction.
14. Pinker includes wad in this class, but I would not define wad a "lo force a mass inlo
 Notes to Pages 1 7 6-196 239

a container." I also do not find wad acceptable in either construction: “He wadded the hole
with tissues/*He wadded tissues into the hole.
15. Pinker includes a sixth class: "M ass is caused to move in a widespread or nondirected
distribution: bestrew, scatter, sow, strew." (1989: 126). However, I don’t find any of these
examples acceptable in the causative variant: *Joe scattered the field with seeds.
16. Many of the verbs in this class have a different sense in which the theme role is
necessarily volitional. This sense can occur in the intransitive motion construction:

(i) T he crow d c ram m ed /jam m ed /p ack ed /cro w d ed into the auditorium .

17. There is a potential problem with this characterization of the spray class since it
seems to violate the Principle of Correspondence posited in section 2.4.2. According to that
principle, profiled participant roles must fuse with profiled argument roles (except in the case
of a third profiled participant role, which is allowed to fuse with a nonprofiled argument
role). Recall that profiled argument roles are those roles expressed by direct grammatical
functions. Now. in the examples in (127), we find one of the two profiled roles, liquid or
target, fusing with a nonprofiled argument role (expressed as an oblique). This problem can
be solved in one of two ways. On the one hand, one might restrain the Principle of Corre­
spondence so that it can be overridden by the Principle of Semantic Coherence, which states
that any two roles that are fused must be semantically compatible. That is. as the participant
roles of spray are fused with the argument roles of the caused-motion construction, for ex­
ample, the Principle of Semantic Coherence will prevent both the liquid and the target role
from fusing with the profiled causer role of the construction: neither role can be construed as
an instance of the causer role. Therefore, in order to fuse successfully, the Principle of Cor­
respondence must be overridden to allow one of the liquid or target roles to fuse with the
oblique role.
Alternatively, one could resort to positing two distinct senses for each verb of the spray-
class: one sense would have all participant roles profiled, the other would profile only the
liquid and target roles. The two senses would be related since they share the same back­
ground frame, differing only in the number of profiled roles.

Chapter Eight
1. The interpretation of volitionality is not a hard-and-fast constraint, however; speakers
find Those rolls overbake easily to be acceptable. (I thank Annie Zaenen for bringing this
example to my attention.)
2. I thank Jane Espenson for suggesting this example.
3. This follows from the fact that in Role and Reference Grammar, the framework devel­
oped by Van Valin, English passive is stated as an operation on the undergoer.
4. To see how the account could be translated into a semantics-changing lexical rule type
of account, see Goldberg 1991a.
5. Note that if the verb's patient-type participant role is profiled, then it must be fused
with the patient argument role of the construction; if it is not profiled, then the construction
docs not rule out the possibility that it is left unexpressed, and that the patient role is contrib­
uted by the construction.
6. It is possible that example (16) in the text, repeated below, is also a novel extension
based on the idea that “ they" became fat to the point of being nonfunctional.

(i) W hose w hole life is to eat, and d rin k . . . and laugh th em selves fat. (O E D : T rapp.
C om m , and Epist. and Rev. (1947))
240 Notes to Pages 19 6 - 2 13

7. Napoli (1992) has independently suggested a sim ilar constraint that is argued to hold
even more strongly in Italian. Because 1 received her manuscript in the final stages of writing
this chapter, I have not attempted to compare and contrast our accounts.

Chapter Nine
1. I am grateful to Patrick Hanks for compiling these examples, and to Annie Zaenen for
forwarding them to me.
2. The distinction between means and manner that is used here is slightly different than
Talmy’s (J98Sa) distinction between ‘'m eans'' and “ manner” conflation patterns. Talmy
used these terms only to distinguish verbs which primarily designate an action performed by
an agent (e.g., push) from those that primarily designate an action of the theme (e.g., roll) in
sentences such as the following:

(i) a. Joe pushed the barrel down the hill.

(ii) Joe rolled the barrel down the hill.

However, both o f the verbs in the above examples would be classified as designating the means
of motion for our purposes. In particular, roll as well as push must designate the means of
motion, and cannot designate a contingent coextensive manner. Notice that (ii) could not be
used felicitously in the circumstance in which the barrel is being rolled between Joe’s hands
as Joe walked down the hill (cf. Pinker 1989 and Croft 1991 for further examples of this
point). That is, the rolling must crucially be the means of motion (as well as designating a
particular manner).
3. There existed in the OED other uses of way as a direct object previous to this date; for
example, A fter the enierment ihe kyng lok his way (1338). childe fiei ne dar guo his way vor
fie guos fiei blaufi ( 1340). However, these cases are instances of a different construction: the
path phrase is not obligatory as it is today, and the interpretation is quite different: the predi­
cates in these examples meant, roughly, either "to go away" or “ to lake one’s leave.” Notice
that the verbs lake and go are no longer acceptable in the way construction at all: *He went/
look his way to the beach.
4. I lhank Michael Israel for this observation.
5. Notice (45) is not excluded simply because it involves use of ihe verb jump, since the
following variant is acceptable:

(i) She jumped her way over the ditches.

This is because, as Jackendoff notes, jum p is acceptable in this construction just in case it is
interpreted iteratively ( 1990a: 224).
6. It seems that for some speakers, myself included, this constraint is strengthened in the
case of human movers to a constraint that the motion must be volitional (although the motion
may terminate at an unintended location). For example. She tripped her way down the stairs
is not acceptable for some speakers.
7. Jackendoff provides the following example, however:

(i) The barrel rolled its way up ihe alley. (1990a; 212)

I m yself find this example unacceptable, and I suspect (hat Jackendoff may have had a per­
sonification interpretation in mind because he further includes the following:

(ii) The barrel rolled its ponderous way up the alley.

 N o t t's to P r ig e s 2 l3 -2 2 3 241

He paraphrases (ii) as (iii):

(iii) T he barrel, ponderous (as an elep h an t), w ent up the alley rolling. (1 9 9 0 a . 217)

8. I thank Charles Fillmore for this observation.

Chapter Ten
1. An anonymous reviewer points out that showing that a phrase is not an adjunct is not
sufficient to show that it is an argument, since there exist cases of nonsernamic complements,
for instance, in raising constructions. However, it is clear that ihe complements in the present
cases are semantically constrained (cf. chapters 7 -8 ) . Therefore these cases are unlike rais­
ing ca^es, and are in fact arguments.
2. Jackendoff (personal communication) has said that his intention was not to imply that
the adjunct rule was not a conventional part of grammar by saying that the adjunct rules were
interpreted "on the fly." In a more recent paper (Jackendoff 1992), he argues in fact that
Nunberg's examples are also not purely pragmatic, in the sense o f being outside of the gram ­
mar (cf. alsoN a 1986, and in fact Nunberg himself in Nunberg & Zaenen 1992 for arguments
that certain metonymies are language specific). Therefore, allhough it was noi made clear in
the original text, Jackendoff’s actual view is that the correspondence rules are conventional­
ized pieces o f grammar.
3. A concrete proposal along these lines, albeit in a different framework, has been made
by Legendre, Miyata, and Smolensky (1991). They propose that each lest frame for unaccu-
sativity may be associated directly wiih its own semantic requirements; they further propose
that in addition each verb lexically encodes a binary syntactic feature which designates
whether the verb is unaccusative. They suggest that gram m atically is determined by allow­
ing for the interaction of semantic constraints of the various constructions with the syntactic
marker of unaccusativity.
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CLS n Papers fr o m the nth A nnual R egional M eeting o f the C hicago L inguistic S o ­
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 Index

abduction, 71 Carroll, J.. 36

Abelson, R. P., 26,31 Carter. R.. 8, 110, 159, 229, 232, 238
accommodation. See coercion Cattell, R.. 142
Ackerman, F„ 112, 113-15,215,236 Causal Relation Hypothesis, 62-65
Aissen.J., 105 causative construction, 61
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Anderson, J. R., 72 100, 107, 152-79, 234; polysemy of, 76;
Anderson, S. R., 2, 103, 175 relation of to resultative construction,
argument role, 43 -59, 65, 110, 231 81-97
Argument Selection Principle, 116 Channon, R., 106
Aronoff, M „ 23. 74, 229 Chomsky, N., 1,2, 8, 11, 23, 101, 104, 106,
Aske.J., 153. 158 230
associative memory, 133-35, 139 Clark. E. V.. 3.5, 27,40-41.48. 66, 67, 68.
Austin, J. L., 25, 32,44 70,226, 231,233
Clark. H. H.,27
Bach. E „ 222 cleft construction, 229
Baker. C. L , 121 co-predication. 155
Baker. E.. 19 coercion. 159. 238
Baker, M. C., 24-25. 102, 103. 214. 235 cognitive decision, 166-67, 174
■tartlett, F., 26, 31 compositionalily, 13-16.202
Baler r 70 Comrie, B.,49
Bellelli, A., 231 conative construction, 4,63-64
benefuctive construction, 77, 141, 149-51 conceptual archetype, 40.226
Bever, T. G., 165 conduit metaphor, 148
Jiijection Principle. 11 conflation pattern, 60
uloom, L.. •*!, 42 conncclinnism, 25, 71,74, 135
Bobrow, D. G., 5,26,31,72 construction, definition of, 4
Bode, J. V., 42 constructional polysemy. See polysemy,
Bolingcr, D. L . 2-3,6, 32,44,68,97. 219. 229 constructional
Borkin, A.. 2-3, 97 conventionalized scenario, 168-69, 174
Bowerman. M „ 5. 9.40-42,66, 105, 122. 226 correspondence principle, 50. 53, 177,
Boyes-Braem, P., 32.44 239
Braine, M. D. S . 120, 121 Croft, W , 61-62,66, 159, 240
Bresnan, J „ 7, 11,20, 23, 28,74, 104, 112, cutting, 57-58
113, 122. 142, 180, 182, 186-87,217.230
Brody. R. E., 120 dative construction (prepositional paraphrase
Brown, R , 19,42, 121 of ditransitive construction), 89-97,
Brugman, C. M ., 4,6, 32.44. 159, 219 104-6, 123, 130
Burzio, L . 212, 231 Davis, A., 72
Bybee, J , 29. 133, 134. 192, 226 DeHart, G.. 120
DeLancey, S., 6
Carlson, G. N„ 17 depictive predicate. 156
Carrie,, J., 180, 181. 182- 83, 184, 186, 192. Dinsmore, J., 175
193. 197,237 direct causation. 152, 165-75, 179

261
262 Index

directional phrases, 81-89, 152, 158-59, Garrett. M. F., 25

169-71, 199. 208 Gawron.J.M., 26, 154-56. 158, 165.237
DiSciullo. A.-M., 4, 21,215 Gazdar. G . 6, 7, 14, 222
dilransitive construction, 2. 3, 8, 49 -51, Geeraerls, D.. 237
53-55,60.75-77,82, 104-6, 141 51. Gelman.S. A . 70, 233
230, 235: morphophonological constrain) generative semantics. 6, 60. 101-4, 112
on, 128-29; polysemy of. 32-39; prag­ Gerard-Ngo, P.. 120
matic constraints on, 92-97; productivity Gergely, G., 165
of, 120-36; relation of to prepositional Gibbs. R „ 202
paraphrase, 89-97; semantic change in, Gibson, J. J., 24
132, verb classcs, 125-36 Giv6n, T., 3,6
Dixon. R. M. W „ 117 Gleitman, H., 19
dominating construction, 74,226 Gleitman, L „ 18-20,44.45. 57, 230, 233
Dowiy, D.,6, 14,21,57, 101. 116-17, 132. Goldberg, A. E „ 4, 81, 128, 231, 233,239
J92. 194,222, 223,231.232.236 Goldberg, R „ 8, 9.49. 105-6, 110. 112, 120,
Dryer, M.. 104-5, 106, 235 122, 124. 126, 128-29, 133, 137. 139. 142,
175, 192. 237
elaboration link, 233 Goldsmith. J., 35. 71
Emanatian, M „ 23, 32 Goldstein. I. P., 26
Emonds, J., 219, 230 Gordon, D., 21
encoding idiom. 155 Gray, W „ 32, 44
England, N . 117 Green, G „ 2, 126, 129, 131, 142. 146, 150,
Erteschik-Shir, N.,92. 123. 125 153. 192, 193, 195, 197
Espenson, J.. 239 Greenfield, P. M.. 48
extension links, 233 GnJgoire, A., 41
Grimshaw, J., 57, 131, 217, 231
Fahlman, S.. 5, 72. 74 Gropen. J , 8.9. 49, 105-6. 110. 112. 120.
Fait?., L „ 235 122, 124. 126, 128-29, 133, 137, 139, 142,
Farrell. P., 105 175, 192, 236.237
Fauconnier. G., 103 Gruber. J. S.. 43. 89, 233,234
Filip, H.,4 Gudeman, R., 120
Fillmore. C. J., 2. 4,6,7. 21.25, 26. 28.32, Guerssel. M , 63
39,43-45,48, 49, 57-59,66. 74, 102, Guillaume, P., 134
103, 108, 110, 132, 153. 159, 170, 175.
219,222, 229,241 Haiman, J „ 6. 32.44, 67 -69. 166
Fisch, S. M .. 120 Hale. K.. 63. 230
Fisher, C.. 19,44,57.230 Hall, G., 19,44, 57, 230
Flickinger, D., 72, 73 Halliday, M. A. K..43.234
focus, 92 97. 123-25, 234 Hanks, P.. 240
Fodor, J. A.. 25, 165, 235 Hanlon, C.. 121
Fodor. J. D.. 25 Higginbotham, J , 231
Foley, W. A., 6, 7,20,28,49, 110, 112. 116 Hinton, G. E „ 25
force dynamics. 76. 161-63 Hobbes. T , 235
frame semantics, 7. 25-31, 40,43-44,47, Hoekstra, T„ 153, 154, 156-58, 180, 185,
221.132 194, 237, 238
Frege, G., 13-14 Hollander. M.. 8, 9, 49, 105-6, 110, 112. 120,
Freidin, R., 20, 230 122, 124, 126, 128-29. 133, 137, 139, 142,
French, 134 175, 192.237
Frost, L. A.. 120 Hood, I... 41
funeiiona\ word, 2 \5 Hopper, P. 1. \ \&,Tits
fusion, 50. 58, 65 Hovav, M. Rappaport See Rappaport Hovav, M
 Index 263

Hudson. R , 72, 74. 235 Langacker, R W „ 3, 6, 7, 21. 26. 28. 40. 44,
humanly relevant scene, 39-43,225 49,66,70, 101, 103, 133. 148. 175. 192.
Humboldt, W von. 68 219, 226, 230, 233,234
Hyman, L,, 113 Laughren, M „ 63
Lebeaux, D. S., 120
indirect negative evidence, 121-27, 139, 226 Legendre, G., 71, 241
inheritance, 5,67, 72,73, 81,98-100, Leibnitz. G. W „ 224
108-10, 117,226,229; complete mode, Lemmens. M., 231
73; link, 5.71-81,99-100, 108. 138.226; Le Roux, C., 23
multiple, 73,97-98,100; normal mode, Levin, B., 1.6,8, 10. 12-13, 16, 28,49,55,
73-73,98-99 60,62,63.82,85-86, 107, 111, 112-13,
inslancc link. 79-81, 138,233 122, 126-27, 134. 137, 154, 156-57, 175.
intransitive motion construction. 3. 207,218 176, 180-82, 185, 197, 200.202, 212, 217,
Israel, 240 231.234,238
Levin, L.. 112. 234
JackendolT. R.. 2,6. 14, 21, 28. .17.49, 50,57, lexical causative, 165, 174
60.62,74,76, 89, 103, 104, 110, 112. 122, lexical rule approach, 7-9, 21 - 23,39,
143, 148, 165. 169, 175, 180, 182-84, 186. 224-25.230,232
194.200, 202, 205,206. 212.214-17. Lieber, R.. 23
219-22, 234.240.241 Lindner. S.,32,44
Jakobson, R , 148 lisleme, 4, 215
Jespersen, O., 203 locative alternation, 106-7, 175-79
Johnson. D.. 32,44 Locke. J., 230
Johnson, M „ 33, 143,234
Jurafsky. t).. 5, 72-74 McCawley. J D.,6.60,87, 101. 102. 165
McClelland, J. L.,25,71
Kanerva, J., 28. 112. 217 McKoon, G., 23, 72
Kapur, S., 124 McNamara, J., 19
Karttunen, L., 14 MacWhinney, B., 67, 70. 71. 134,219
Kat/, E „ 19 Mahmoud, A. T., 234
Katz, J. J., 101 Mokkai, A., 155
Kay. M.. 74 Maldonado Soto. R., 23,219, 232
Kay. P., 4.6, 21,34, 35.49.74. 108. 110. 165. Monaster-Ramer, A „ 74, 219, 229
171,219,222, m 238 Marant/., A. P., 16. 20, 120, 138,216
Keenan. E. L.,6,49. 101. 116,219 Muratsos, M., 120
Kemmer, S., 219, 232 Matsumoto, Y., 61.65, 66,233
Keyser, S., 231 Mchombo, S. 20, 58,61, 104, 112-15, 187,
Kiparsky, P.. 28, 57 236
Kirsner, R. S., 3 merging. 58
Klein, E,. 6. 7, 14,222 Mervis. C,, 32,44, 116
Koenig, J.-P.. 4, 111,219,232 metaphorical extension, 33. 75. 81,88-89,
Kuroda, S .Y ., 229 231
Meyer, D. E., 72
Lahey, M., 41 Michaelis, L.,4,219. 232
LakofT, G.. 4, 5.6, 7. 20,21. 26-28,32. 33, middle construction, 58, 183-85
44, 60. 67, 70, 72-74, 81. 87, 97, Miller. P., 41
100-103. 118. 122, 132, 143, 165, 167. Minsky, M . 26. 31
180.219,222,230.234 Mitamura.T., 234
Lakoff. R., 102 Mithun, M., 132
Lambrecht, K „ 4, 6.43, 219, 234 Miyata, Y.. 71
Landau, B.. 18-20.45,233 Mohanan, T., 215
Lane, N., 233 Moltz. C . C . 4 2
264 Index

Montague Grammar, 13, 14,219.222-23 Principle of Semantic Coherence, 50, 53 - 54,

Morolong, M . 113 177, 239
morphologically-marked alternation, 22-23 productivity. 77. 100. 120-40,226
Moshi, L „ 112, 113 profiling, 26.44-49, 56-59, 225, 239; con­
motion construction. 207 structional, 48-53,56-59; mismatches.
motivation, 67,68-73,99-100. 108 52-53; test for, 45
motivation link. See inheritance Projection Principle, 11
Mufwene, S.. 134 proto-roles. 116, 232
Mulder, R.. 237 Pullum. C.. 6, 7, 14,222
Pustejovsky, J.. 154-56,159, 185.219
Na, Y., 241
Naigles. L.. 19 Quillian, M. R.. 5
Napoli. D. J., 180. 182. 191. 205,237,240 Quine. W. V. O., 18
negative evidence, 121-25
Norvig, P., 5 Rakowitz. Susan. 19, 44, 57. 230
null complement. 58-59. 178 Randall, J. H.. 153, 180-84. 186. 192, 193.
Nunberg, G., 202,221, 241 197,237
Rapoport, T., 6.8. 10, 55,60.62, 113.200.
O'Connor. C..4, 6.21.219 202,217
Oehrlc.R.T.,2. 36. 106, 130, 142, 150 Rappaport Hovav, M., 8. 16, 49.55,62, 82.
Ogden, C. K.. 68 84-86, 107, 110-12, 126, 137, 154.
Oosten, J. van, 184 156-57,175, 176, 180-82, 185, 197, 212,
231.234,238
Park, T.-Z.. 4 1 Ratcliff. R „ 72
Parkes.C. H „ 25 recipient role. I I I . 146-48
Partec, B. H „ 2, 101. 103, 142, 175, 229 Reddy. M.. 128. 131. 148
participant role, 43-59,65. 110.231 reflexive, 232
patient role, 48, 180, 188.231,236 resultative construction, 3, 80 - 89,97-100.
Pereira. F., 14 136-37, 154, 180-98, 217, 234; end-of-
Perlmutter, D. M.. 102, 105, 106. 212. 232 scalf constraint on, 195-97; metaphorical
Peters, S., 222 interpretation, 81 -87; productivity of.
Pinker, S.. 6, 8, 9, 16, 19. 28-29,47. 49, 70. 136-37; relation of to caused-motion con­
103, 105-7, 110, 112, 113, 118. 120, struction, 87-89
122-31, 133-35, 137, 139. 142, 175. 176, Rice, M. L „ 42
192,217, 223, 226, 230,232, 236, 237, Ricc, S., 21, 22, 118, 148,219, 232
238,240 Richards, I. A., 68
Pollard. C.. 6,7,20. 72-74, 159, 238 Rizzi. L „ 231
polysemy, constructional, 32-39. 161 -64. Roberts. R. B . 26
210-12,218. 225 Rosch. E „ 32.44, 116
polysemy link, 74-77, 118, 233 Rosen, C .G .. 102, 132
Postal. P. M , 6. 101, 102,105. 106 Ross.J. R.,6, 102
preemption, 29-30 rule-to-rule hypothesis, 222
Prince. A., 129 Rumelhart, D. E.. 25, 71
Principle of Avoiding Synonymy, 3. 67, 68,
91,229 Sag. I A., 6, 7, 14, 20, 72, 74, 159, 202. 222.
Principle of Correspondence, 50,53, 177, 239 238
Principle of Maximized Economy. 67-69 SalkofT, M.. 200
Principle of Maximized Motivation, 67, 69 Sanchcs, M , 41
Principle of Maximizing Expressive Power. Sapir. E . 195
67, 68-70 Saussure, F. de. 4.69, 229
scene, 25, 229
 Index 265

Schank, R. C., 26, 31 Universal Alignment Hypothesis, 102, 235

Schieffelin, B. H.,42 Universal Theta Assignment Hypothesis, 102
Schlesinger, I. M.. 42 usage-based account, 133-39, 192, 226
Schvaneveldt, R. W., 72
Schwartz, A.. 237 Van der Leek. F., 34
Senrle, J. R.. 32. 127. 161 Van Valin, R. D „ Jr.. 6, 7, 20, 28, 49, 104,
semantic coherence principle. See Principle of 110. 112, 116, 180. 187-88. 193.212, 234,
Semantic Coherence 235
shading. 57 Velazquez-Castillo, M., 216
Shared Participant Condition, 65 Vendryes,J.,68
Shibatani. M.. 165, 168, 174,238 verb + particle construction, 97
Shieber, S., 14 Visser, F. Th.. 137, 180. 192
Simpson, J., 82, 86, 180. 181, 182
Slobin, D , 5.40, 42.66, 118. 162, 226 Walker, E. C. T.. 25
Smith, J., 48 Wall, R „ 222
Smolensky, P.. 71, 241 Ward, G., 23
Sproat, R. V.., 23 Wasow, T., 21.71, 72, 120. 202, 230
S towel I, T., 23 Watkins. R. V„ 42
subpan link, 78-79,81, 234 way construction, 16,62-63, 199 -218,236;
Sweetser, E „ 32,33,44, 162 productivity of, 137
syntactic bootstrapping, 19 Webber, B., 72
Webelhuth. G.. 215
Talmy. L . 29. 37,60,61.66, 76, 103, 153, Weisberger. M. J,, 120
155, 159-62, 173,232,240 Wheeler, D., 24
Tanenhaus. M. K.. 17 White Eagle. J., 63
taxonomic relation, 70, 74 Wierzbicka. A., 2-3,6, 34. 130. 219, 223-24.
Tenny, C.. 84-86 229
theme role, linking of. 112 Wilcox, S. A.. 70
Thomason. R. H.. 72 Wilensky, R „ 5, 26,71-73,75, 98. 146, 164
Thompson, S. A., 118, 236 Williams. E.,4,21, 192,215
token frequency, definition of, 134 Wilson, R „ 8, 9, 105-6, 110, 112. 120, 122.
Touretzky, D.. 72 124, 126, 128-29, 133, 137, 139, 142, 237
transformation, structure-preserving, 230 Winograd, T „ 5, 26, 31
transitive construction, 117-19 Wittgenstein, L., 32, 44
TraugoU, E. C\, 33, 211 word order, 109-10,229
Trechsel, F. R „ 117
truth-functional synonymy, 103 Yazdani, A., 231
Tuggy. D..219
type frequency, 77, 100. 134-39, 226; defini­ Zadrozny, W „ 74. 219, 229
tion of, 134 Zaenen, A., 15- 16, 112, 175, 180, 182,
186-87,212,217, 231,239, 240,241
unexpressed role, 58 Zubizarreta, M. L., 231
unification, 14, 229 Zwicky. A.. 120, 126, 215, 219. 236
unique path constraint, 81-86