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Argument Structure Constructions by Adele Eva Goldberg BA Argument Structure Constructions by Adele Eva Goldberg B.A. (University of Pennsylvania) 1985 M .A (University of California at Berkeley) 1989 DISSERTATION Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics in the GRADUATE DIVISION of the UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA at BERKELEY Approved: Chain v w A ****************************** Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. To the memory of m y father, Mel Goldberg, fo r showing me by example what it was to love to learn, and for better or worse, to ignore the odds, And to my mom, Ann Goldberg, for her easy laughter, her wisdom and her ele­ gance, and for being a pillar of love and support from day one. ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. C ontents 1 Introduction 1 1.1 A Brief Introduction to Construction G ram m ar ..................................... 6 l.*2 On the Need to Recognize Constructions ................................................... 9 1.2.1 To Preserve C om p o sitio n ality .......................................................... 9 1.2.2 Subtle Semantic Differences Between Constructions .................. 16 1.2.3 Circularity is Avoided ....................................................................... 21 2 The Interaction Between Verbs Sc Constructions 24 2.1 Frame-semantics ............................................................................................... 26 2.2 The Nature of Verb Meaning .......................................................................... 30 2.3 The Nature of Constructional M eaning ...................................................... 38 2.3.1 Polysemy ............................................................................................... 38 2.3.2 Humanly Relevant Scenes ................................................................ 50 2.4 The Integration of Verb and Construction .............................................. 57 2.4.1 Representing the Meaning of Constructions .................................. 66 2.4.2 The Possible Relations between Verbs and Constructions . 79 2.5 Unexpressed Profiled Participant Roles ..................................................... 90 iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2.6 C on clu sio n .......................................................................................................... 92 3 Relations Among Constructions 94 3.1......M otivation .......................................................................................................... 98 3.2 Inheritance .......................................................................................................... 103 3.2.1 Inheritance Links As Objects ........................................................... 107 3.3 Relating Particular Constructions ............................................................... 115 3.3.1 The Caused Motion and Resultative Constructions ................... 115 3.3.2 The Ditransitive and Prepositional Paraphrases ......................... 127 3.4 Generalizations Across Constructions ......................................................... 137 3.4.1 Multiple In h eritan ce.......................................................................... 139 3.4.2 Inheritance within Constructions .................................................... 141 3.5 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 142 4 In a Larger Context 145 4.1 Transformational Theories of Argument Structure ................................. 146 4.2 Lexical Rule A c c o u n ts .................................................................................... 158 4.2.1 Lexical Rules relating Subcategorization Fram es ......................... 160 4.2.2 LFG Lexical Mapping Theory ........................................................... 161 4.2.3 Semantic Changing Lexical Rule Accounts ................................... 171 4.3 Other Constructional Approaches ............................................................... 181 4.3.1 Jackendoff (1990a) ............................................................................... 182 4.3.2 M o n ta g u e ............................................................................................... 186 4.3.3 W ierzbicka............................................................................................... 188 iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6 The English Ditransitive Construction 225 6.1 In tro d u c tio n ......................................................................................................... 225 6.2 The existence of the construction ................................................................ 226 6.3 The Sem antics...................................................................................................... 228 6.3.1 Volitionality of the agent .................................................................... 228 6.3.2 Semantic Constraints on the recipient............................................. 233 6.3.3 On the notion recipient ........................................................................ 236 6.3.4 Other M etaphors.................................................................................. 237 6.4 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 241 7 The English Caused-Motion Construction 242 7.1 In tro d u c tio n ...................................................................................................... 242 7.2 The existence of the construction ............................................................. 243 7.3 The Various Interpretations ........................................................................ 252 7.4 Lexical Exceptions ......................................................................................... 257 7.5 Specific Semantic Constraints on the Construction ................................ 258 7.5.1 Defining the notion of a Direct Causation or a Single Event . 260 7.6 C o n c lu sio n .......................................................................................................... 276 8 The English Resultative Construction 279 8.1 In tro d u c tio n ......................................................................................................... 279 8.2 The Status of the Postverbal NP ................................................................ 282 8.3 Middle Formation ............................................................................................... 285 8.4 Other Accounts .................................................................................................. 289 v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 8.5 A Resultative Construction ............................................................................ 293 8.6 Other Constraints on the Resultative Construction ................................. 300 8.7 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 308 8.8 A p p e n d ix .............................................................................................................. 309 9 X’s Way Construction 315 9.1 The existence of the c o n s tru c tio n .................................................................. 317 9.2 The Semantic Interpretation ............................................................................ 319 9.3 Other Semantic C o n s tra in ts ............................................................................ 323 9.4 Variable Interpretation ...................................................................................... 326 9.5 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 332 10 Conclusion 333 10.1 Allowing for the Possibility of Syntactic Bootstrapping ........................... 333 10.2 S u m m a ry .............................................................................................................. 337 11 Bibliography 343 vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Acknowledgments I would like to thank my advisor, George Lakoff, for sparking my interest in linguistics, for his encouragement, his optimism, his wisdom, his enthusiasm for the data (“Wow, that’s wild!”), his ever-ready example and counterexample, for always asking, “W hy should that be?,” and for sharing his office, his time and his deep insights with incredible generosity. He has been everything an advisor should be, offering help and advice at every stage, and yet allowing me to explore what I wanted to in the way that I wanted to. I’d like to thank Charles Fillmore for instilling in me a deep respect for the com­ plexities of the data, and for sharing his wisdom. His enduring insights have pro­ foundly influenced this work in innumerable ways. I’m grateful to Dan Slobin for his encouragement and guidance, and for providing a reality check on the plausibility of psychological claims. In the final stages of writing this dissertation, I was fortunate enough to work closely with Annie Zaenen at Xerox PARC and CSLI, turning what could
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