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Appendix A: Some Verbs and Their Valencies Appendix A: Some Verbs and Their Valencies In this Appendix I give a small sample of the entries that compose a valency dictionary of Portuguese verbs. Notation Used in the List The diatheses are indicated in full, that is, after the eventual application of linking rules and coding of semantic roles by default. Thus, the list is neutral with respect to several hypotheses advanced in this book; for instance, the information that the VSubj of eat is an Agent does not depend on accepting the Agent<>VSubj rule. On the other hand, the notation does depend on the syntactic analysis proposed in Chap. 2, and on the delimitation of semantic roles as developed in Chaps. 3–9;I hope the syntactic and semantic analysis presented in this list may be acceptable to most linguists. Eventually, as explained previously, assignments that depend on linking rules will be marked with [LR], on transparency with [Transp], and on default assignment with [byD]. Here (as in the current Valency Dictionary) these marks are not given, since they still depend on some research. It was seen in Chap. 9 that in some cases we need role-coding by direct connection with the schema, which results in highly elaborate CSRs being attached to sentence constituents; one example is he rid the house of insects, where the VSubj is Agent, the object is Patient, and the of-complement is the thing.the.ridder. rids.something.of. In the valency list these elaborate CSRs are written without capitals; thus, one diathesis of livrar ‘rid’ will be VSubj>Agent VNP>Patient de NP>thing.the.ridder.rids.something.of © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015 227 M.A. Perini, Describing Verb Valency, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-20985-2 228 Appendix A: Some Verbs and Their Valencies References to these elaborate CSRs are merely descriptive, and do not entail theoretical commitment; they are sometimes taken from the FrameNet entries, which tend to be very elaborate. Each entry includes examples which, for the moment being, are all made-up sentences, but will be eventually complemented with examples from a corpus. A complete list of symbols utilized in the notation of diatheses can be found at the head of this book. Naming Diatheses The examples below contain several cases of the same diathesis occurring with different verbs. Such repetitions must be represented in the list in some way: it is important to know that assaltar ‘mug; burgle’, beber ‘drink’, and ler ‘read’ (as well as many other verbs) occur in the diathesis which we define as C1 VSubj>Agent VNP>Patient In order to facilitate reference, each diathesis is given a label—a conventional symbol such as C1 (C stands for ‘construction’). Then we can say simply that ler, assaltar and beber all occur in C1. Each single diathesis receives one such label, even those that occur with only one verb: C14, C24, C30 etc. Some of these constructions have traditional designations, which ease the task of reference and memorization: transitive, ergative, intransitive construction and so on, and these are used in the text. But even these keep their numerical designation: the transitive construction, for instance, is C1, the ergative is C4, etc. Numbering diatheses is important because one of the things we want to learn from the list is which of them occur with the greatest number of verbs.1 This is an ingredient of our definition of “rule” as opposed to “exception” in sentence grammar. The transitive construction (C1) occurs with thousands of verbs, whereas the diathesis C57, VSubj>Patient V de NP>Agent occurs with only two verbs, apanhar ‘be spanked’ and perder ‘lose (a game)’.2 The notation of these quantitative differences has obvious implications for the descrip- tion of the language, predicts details of the acquisition of the language, and provides advice on the planning of courses of Portuguese as a foreign language. 1 And also, of course, because we do not have traditional designations for all diatheses; currently (April, 2015) the Dictionary registers 232 diatheses. 2 The same distribution of semantic roles and syntactic forms found in C57 also occurs with a few compound expressions with light verbs, such as levar uma surra ‘to take a beating’; these compound expressions are not included in the Dictionary for the moment. Appendix A: Some Verbs and Their Valencies 229 This is the meaning of the codes added at the head of each diathesis in the list given below. The numbers (C1, C2 etc.) refer to our current list of diatheses, and reflect an approximate order of discovery.3 Shifts of Meaning As is known, for some verbs a difference in diathesis corresponds to a difference in meaning. For instance, apanhar in the construction given above means ‘be spanked’, but in the transitive construction (C1) it means ‘pick up’. The verb is only one, always apanhar, as explained in Sect. 1.5, but the meaning shifts according to the diathesis. In other cases, comparable meaning shifts occur without a change in diathesis; one example is bater, which in C1 (subject Agent, object Patient) may mean ‘defeat’ or ‘mix (e.g., eggs)’. This is a common phenomenon, and although difficult to describe in a rigorous way, it is important enough to deserve mention in the valency dictionary. In the definitive list, therefore, we plan to consignate major semantic shifts. The problem, of course, is to determine which shifts are major; this will have to depend on a quasi-arbitrary decision, and will be marked as an informal addendum, rather than as a full-fledged part of the entry. Notes and Doubts Finally, many diatheses are accompanied by notes, with references to passages in this book (labeled DVV), and explicitation of doubtful points. The latter, if nothing else, show the degree of uncertainty we are in with respect to the analysis of these constructions. As will be seen, doubts are many, although the general panorama seems reasonably clear. This means that there is still a great deal of research to be done; and I hope these quick notes will provide suggestions of possible roads to be taken in the exploration of verb valencies in the near future. And, whenever a note grows beyond a certain limit, we present it separately as a Miniarticle, of which we currently have about thirty, placed at the end of the Dictionary. Because of some cross-references among contiguous entries, the verbs in the following list are not in alphabetical order (they are in the Dictionary, of course). Constituents in italics are not relevant for the diathesis in question (“adjuncts” in a traditional terminology). We start with ficar, a particularly complex verb in the Portuguese lexicon. 3 That is, following the Kochel€ system; the BWV is more logical, but presupposes a complete and systematic analysis of construction types, not yet available. 230 Appendix A: Some Verbs and Their Valencies FICAR ‘stay’, ‘become’ C26 VSubj>Located.thing VX>Location O rapaz ficou no apartamento. ‘the young man stayed in the apartment’ We have ‘X’ here because the Location phrase may also be realized by an adverb: aqui ‘here’, as well as by prepositional phrases with several prepo- sitions: em ‘in’, perto de ‘close to’, longe de ‘far from’, etc. (see Sect. 1.6.2). .............................................................................................................. C81 VSubj>Location V com NP>Located.thing O deputado ficou com o dinheiro. ‘the congressman kept [stayed with] the money’ C81 and C82 are very similar in meaning, but C81 intimates that the subject kept the money on purpose; that is, we may have an “agent” ingredient to add to Location in this case. This ingredient is not present in C82. .............................................................................................................. C82 VSubj>Located.thing V com NP>Location O dinheiro ficou com o deputado. ‘the money stayed with the congressman’ A crianc¸a ficou com a ma˜e. ‘the child stayed with [its] mother’ [i.e., the mother kept the child] .............................................................................................................. C46 VSubj>Qualified.thing+Theme VX>Quality+Goal O rapaz ficou furioso. ‘the young man became furious’ That is, the young man “moved” from his former quality to the quality of furious (this analysis is inspired on Jackendoff 1972, p. 31). .............................................................................................................. C91 VSubj>Theme+thing.whose.manner.is.asserted VX>Goal+Manner Paulo ficou bem acomodado. ‘Paulo got comfortable’ 1. The CSR “thing.whose.manner.is.asserted” may be unnecessary in the diathesis, being probably derivable from features of the verb’s meaning. 2. This diathesis is possibly the same as C46, if Quality and Manner can be subsumed under a single semantic role, possibly State. The semantic Appendix A: Some Verbs and Their Valencies 231 difference can be taken care of by the difference between furious (which expresses an internal state, that is, a Quality) and comfortable, which is an external State. .............................................................................................................. C92 VSubj> Companion V com NP>Company O Alfredo ficou com a Soˆnia. ‘Alfredo stayed with Soˆnia’ 1. The VSubj here may have its CSR provided by default. 2. Companion and Company are paired (Companion $ Company); alter- natively, we may analyze Companion as Location, which is a possibility, in which case this will be an example of C81. .............................................................................................................
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