The English Resultative

The English resultative by Elizabeth Christie A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Cognitive Science Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario ©2015 Elizabeth Christie Abstract The purpose of this thesis is to augment our empirical knowledge of the English resultative and to provide a theoretical treatment of the syntax and semantics of the resultative using current linguistic tools. This involves using both theoretical and experimental methods to ensure that the model reflects human usage of natural language and follows the principles required for formal language modelling. The main questions addressed are 1) Is the result phrase an argument, an adjunct, or something else (an added/derived argument, sometimes called an argument- adjunct)? 2) How do we best capture the properties of the resultative in a formal model? In order to address these questions, it must be determined what falls into the overall category of the resultative and how the resultative can be sub-classified into further sub-categories to best reflect the potentially distinctive properties of related resultative constructions. These divisions are then tested for fit with the theoretical categories of argument, adjunct and added/derived argument. Lastly, an analysis is provided using Lexical-Functional Grammar and Glue Semantics. ii iii Acknowledgements The work of writing a thesis is never a singular effort. Many people become important partners in the project over the time it takes to complete, and my journey was no different. Without the tireless efforts of those around me, the work that I did would have just been one person sitting at a desk typing, and would never have become a complete project in the end. To begin with, I would like to thank the scholarships and funding bodies which made my PhD possible, including the 2010 President's Doctoral Fellowship, the Kevin Sampson Scholarship, and the Wargaret Wade Labarge Fund. Without their generous support, this project would have never begun, let alone come to fruition in the form that it is now. Next, I would like to thank the administrative team within my department: Colleen Fulton, May Hyde, Liane Dubreiul, Georgina Henderson, and, more recently, John Tracey. Your helpful knowledge and friendly smiles have made being in the department for the last five years much easier and more enjoyable. To the members of the Logic, Language and Information Lab: thank you for all of your helpful comments and feedback, as well as the opportunity to share my ideas in a small group environment. To my committee members, Kumiko Murasugi and John Logan, thank you for your support in designing and interpreting my emperiment. Without the many hours Kumiko dedicated to my study, I know I would still be sitting at my desk trying to decide how to get the type of information I needed from speakers. Of course, this thesis would not have happened without the support of my family and friends. Bryan, my loving husband, you picked me up when things got difficult, and helped me concentrate when my mind would wander. I do not know how I would iv have faced the sheer volume of effort this took if I had not had your unwavering support. To my mother, father and sister, you endlessly fielded questions about whether or not a given sentence was still considered \Englsih" or not, and you did so without thinking (or at least without saying) how weird my questions were becoming. You kept me grounded and never let me forget what the world was like outside of of academia. And, Deirdre, my best friend, you reminded me that my struggles were normal, that I could handle whatever life threw at me, and, most importantly, you always gave me the boost I needed to feel confident about myself and my ideas. Finally, and most important in the process of writing a thesis, my supervisors: Ash Asudeh and Ida Toivonen. Ash, your constant honesty and keen eye for the theoretical implications of my work kept me balanced and on track (no matter what speed I may, or may not, have been going). I could always count on your advice when things weren't at their best. Ida, although we didn't always see eye-to-eye on theory in our meetings, I always knew that you were there to support me and to make sure that I also enjoyed the social side of grad school. I know I could not have succeeded in completing my thesis without the two of you there to guide and support me. Contents Abstract . ii Acknowledgements . iii 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Defining the resultative . 2 1.2 Arguments and adjuncts . 5 1.3 A note about terminology . 7 1.4 Structure of the thesis . 8 2 Background 9 2.1 Semantics . 10 2.1.1 Pieces of the resultative . 10 2.1.2 Telicity and the resultative . 23 2.2 Syntax . 31 2.3 Conclusion . 37 3 The resultative and the argument/adjunct distinction 38 3.1 Introduction . 38 3.2 Tests for argumenthood . 42 v CONTENTS vi 3.2.1 Core participants (semantic selection) . 43 3.2.2 Syntactic obligatoriness . 44 3.2.3 VP preposing . 46 3.2.4 VP anaphora (do so)......................... 47 3.2.5 Pseudocleft . 48 3.2.6 Verb specificity . 50 3.2.7 Fixed preposition . 51 3.2.8 Prepositional content . 52 3.2.9 Uniqueness/iterativity . 54 3.3 Testing the result phrase . 55 3.3.1 Semantic distinctions . 56 3.3.2 Argument structure distinctions . 64 3.3.3 Lexical category distinctions . 72 3.4 Conclusion . 80 4 Experimental results 81 4.1 Introduction . 81 4.2 Experiment 1: Transitive resultatives . 83 4.2.1 Methods . 83 4.2.2 Results . 86 4.2.3 Discussion of experiment 1 . 88 4.3 Experiment 2: Unaccusative resultatives . 89 4.3.1 Methods . 89 4.3.2 Results . 91 4.3.3 Discussion of experiment 2 . 92 CONTENTS vii 4.4 Experiment 3: Unergative resultatives . 93 4.4.1 Methods . 93 4.4.2 Results . 95 4.4.3 Discussion of experiment 3 . 97 4.5 General discussion . 97 5 Analysis 100 5.1 Introduction . 100 5.2 Proposed resultative construction . 100 5.3 Resultative templates . 104 5.3.1 Resultative c- and f-Structures . 105 5.3.2 Target semantics for the resultative . 113 5.3.3 Proposed templates . 115 5.4 Walking through the proofs . 124 5.4.1 Transitive property resultative . 124 5.4.2 Unaccusative path resultative . 134 5.4.3 Fake reflexive property resultative . 141 5.5 Conclusions . 150 6 Conclusions and future work 152 6.1 Conclusions . 152 6.2 Future work . 154 Appendices 156 A Stimuli for experiment 1: Transitive resultatives 157 CONTENTS viii B Stimuli for experiment 2: Unaccusative resultatives 165 C Stimuli for experiment 3: Unergative resultatives 169 D Participant Means and Standard Deviations 172 List of Tables 2.1 Event Classes . 25 3.1 Argument/adjunct test results by semantic type . 65 3.2 Argument/adjunct test results by argument structure type . 72 3.3 Argument/adjunct test results by lexical category of result phrase . 80 4.1 Single stimulus item for experiment 1 . 85 4.2 Single stimulus item for experiment 2 . 90 4.3 Single stimulus item for experiment 3 . 94 D.1 Participant means and standard deviations per condition for experiment 1 . 173 D.2 Participant means and standard deviations per condition for experiment 2 . 174 D.3 Participant means and standard deviations per condition for experiment 3 . 175 ix List of Figures 4.1 Mean response by result phrase type (Expt 1) . 86 4.2 Mean response by target phrase location (Expt 1) . 88 4.3 Mean responses by result phrase type (Expt 2) . 91 4.4 Mean response by target phrase location (Expt 2) . 93 4.5 Mean response by result phrase type (Expt 3) . 96 5.1 LFG templates for the resultative . 116 5.2 Logical proof for the sentence Kim hammered the metal flat . 133 5.3 Logical proof for the sentence The syrup flowed down the tubes . 140 5.4 Logical proof for the sentence Kim laughed herself silly . 148 x Chapter 1 Introduction Sentences like (1) are referred to as resultatives: (1) Kim hammered the metal flat. In (1), Kim hammers the metal, and as a result, the metal becomes flat. This inter- pretation is what gives the construction its name: the final phrase of the sentence describes the result of the action of the sentence. Resultatives have many interesting characteristics and have thus received consid- erable attention in the literature for nearly fifty years of syntactic research. However, there is still disagreement about the exact specifications a resultative sentence must meet to be considered part of the construction. This includes which phrase types are possible in the final phrase (the result phrase); what the formal semantic interpreta- tion of a resultative sentence should be; and what kinds of result to consider. The purpose of this thesis is to augment our empirical knowledge of the English resultative and to address the question of how to treat the resultative in a modern grammatical framework. This will include both theoretical and experimental methods 1 1.1. DEFINING THE RESULTATIVE 2 to ensure that my model reflects human usage of natural language and follows the principles required for formal language modelling. The questions to be addressed are 1) Is the result phrase an argument, an adjunct, or something else? 2) How do we accurately capture the properties of the resultative in a formal model? In order to address these questions, I will first try to determine what falls into the category of the resultative and how it can be divided to best reflect the potentially distinctive properties.

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