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Prepositions and Verbs in the Syntax and the Lexicon

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Prepositions and Verbs in the Syntax and the Lexicon NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY Prepositions and Verbs in the Syntax and the Lexicon A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS for the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Field of Linguistics By Robert Alexander Schumacher EVANSTON, ILLINOIS March 2018 c Copyright by Robert Alexander Schumacher All Rights Reserved 3 ABSTRACT Prepositions and Verbs in the Syntax and the Lexicon Robert Alexander Schumacher Natural languages provide structures for predication. Predication minimally involves a predicate (the verb) and a number of arguments. The number of arguments that a verb co-occurs with defines one of its primary characteristics: transitivity. In much of contemporary linguistic theory, the structural relationship between a verb and its external and internal argument(s) is generally consistent across verbs of all types (e.g, process verbs, activity verbs, inter alia). Syntactic operations and critical relations (e.g, case and theta roles) are therefore mediated for every verb in the same way. In other words, internal arguments will always originate with the same structural relationship to the verb, as will external arguments, and they will always receive case and theta roles in the same way, all else being equal. This dissertation concerns a class of verbs in which all else is not equal. Through a corpus study, it is demonstrated that a class of verbs (exotransitive verbs) exist where an obligatorily present internal argument is taken by a preposition. The preposition is rigidly designated by the verb, and it is argued on that basis of a sentence processing study that the verb contains all of the information about the preposition in its lexical entry. The lexical relationship between the preposition and an exotransitive verb allows for their structural assimilation to transitive verbs more broadly through a reconsideration of the structure of transitivity. The occurrence of the preposition is explained on the one hand by the contribution of its morphosyntactic features to the periphrastic verb-preposition expression, and on the other hand by an implicit association between prepositions and transitivity. This association is demonstrated with an artificial language learning experiment. From these facts, a conception of prepositions is proposed in which prepositions are members of a distinct syntactic category in which they are primarily argument licensing functional heads. At the same time, they contain semantic content which is employed in their argument licensing uses. 4 Acknowledgments As with any completed dissertation, there are a number of significant contributors whose efforts on my behalf are not otherwise evident. In my particular case, the number of individuals who deserve acknowledgment is not especially large, but the debt I owe to each of them is greater, I think, than is typical. To begin, I owe much to Jill Beckman and Bob McMurray, two of my undergraduate professors at whose urging I considered graduate school in the first place. I might not have pursued this doctorate at all but for their taking an interest in me and encouraging me along the way. I received sound advice from them every time I sought it, and for that I am indebted to them even now. I also owe a heavy debt to Brady Clark. It is inevitable for every student to be faced with tough choices - the kind which which no experience can properly inform on the right course of action. In such cases, it is essential to have a third party that can be trusted to give the proper counsel. Without Brady's help, I have no doubt I would not have made it to this point. Similar words apply also to Gregory Ward, who I also owe a considerable debt. The highest appreciation and acknowledgment for contributions to my professional development go to Janet Pierrehumbert and Masaya Yoshida. Their patience, their effort, and their assistance were absolutely indispensable. I learned and improved, as a researcher and otherwise, at their expense. Without their help, there is no question that I would have accomplished far less. Although I received support from my entire family throughout this process, the incalculable contri- bution of my father, Bob Schumacher, stands out. Bob rendered aid to me in every way and at every asking without hesitation. I cannot understate how important and essential that help was. An oblique acknowledgment is due here as well. I must acknowledge Aaron Kirschner, primarily for teaching me how to behave about and pertaining to dissertation writing, but also for providing a solid example of how to handle yourself when there is just too much paperwork to manage. Without that example, it is entirely unclear how things would be different. Some words must also go out to some of my Wordovators colleagues: Peter Baumann, Peter Racz, Jeremy Needle, and Clay Beckner. I benefited in many ways and on many occasions from being able to run things by each of them. A special thanks as well is owed to Patrick LaShell. At no time in the whole process did I learn as much and as quickly as from our interminable and often frustrating conversations. Finally, I need to acknowledge my wife, Carolina. I have heard you say that without the freedom 5 and flexibility of me undertaking graduate school, we would not have been able to endure the many years of being apart. Now it is my chance to tell you that, without your flexibility, your generosity, your patience, and your unwavering support, I would not have survived the many years of graduate school. Truly, it is you who I owe the most to, now and forever. 6 To the aspiring academic who, by necessity rather than choice, goes by their middle name rather than their perfectly usable first name. 7 Contents 1 Introduction 13 1.1 A Puzzle about Transitivity . 13 1.2 Exotransitivity and Transitivity . 19 1.3 A Synthetic Unification of Transitivity . 22 1.4 Methodological Note . 24 1.5 Structure of the Dissertation . 25 2 Exotransitives are a Verbal Class 27 2.1 Motivation & Criteria . 27 2.2 Establishing Exotransitives as a Class . 28 2.3 Design of the Study . 30 2.3.1 The Candidate Set . 30 2.3.2 Association Measures . 31 2.3.3 Final Considerations . 32 2.4 Results . 33 2.4.1 Verb Types Against Baseline Verbs . 33 2.4.2 Comparison of Verb Types on the Delineated Dimensions . 34 2.4.3 Comparison of Verb Types according to the Association Measures . 36 2.4.4 Quantifying Discriminability of Verb Types . 38 2.5 Discussion . 39 2.6 Extending the Findings . 40 2.6.1 Nominal Exotransitives and Transitivity . 40 2.6.2 Meaning and Argument Occurrence . 43 2.7 General Discussion . 45 2.8 Rejecting Other Assimilatory Approaches . 46 2.8.1 Idioms . 46 8 2.8.2 Selection . 49 2.8.3 Compounds . 53 2.9 Summary . 54 3 The Nature of Prepositions 55 3.1 Approaching Exotransitives Synthetically . 55 3.2 The Starting Point . 56 3.3 Prepositions as Nominal . 58 3.3.1 Fillmore's Original Preposition-Case Equivalence . 58 3.3.2 Subsequent Preposition-Case Equivalences . 60 3.3.3 Morphological and Semantic Treatments of Prepositions as Case Affixes . 63 3.3.4 Nominal Approaches and Exotransitives . 65 3.4 Prepositions as Verbal . 66 3.4.1 Shared V/P Properties . 66 3.4.2 Shared P/V Structure . 67 3.4.3 Verbal Approaches and Exotransitives . 68 3.5 Overview of Prepositional Category and Exotransitives . 68 3.6 Linking Prepositions within Argument Structure . 69 3.7 Exotransitive Verbs . 72 3.7.1 Exotransitive Prepositions are Cases . 72 3.7.2 Exotransitive Prepositions are Contentless . 73 3.7.3 L-selection . 74 3.7.4 Unification in the Semantics . 75 3.8 Summary . 77 4 The Lexical Representation of Exotransitives 78 4.1 Exotransitives at the Lexical Level . 78 4.2 Background on Prediction in Language Processing . 78 4.3 Syntactic Prediction with Exotransitives . 80 4.4 Filler-Gap Dependency Resolution and Prediction . 84 4.5 Experiments . 85 4.5.1 Experiment 1 . 85 9 4.5.2 Experiment 2 . 92 4.5.3 Implications . 96 4.6 Implementation in the Lexicon and the Syntax . 97 4.7 Summary . 101 5 Syntactic Analysis of Exotransitives 102 5.1 The Licensing Problem . 102 5.2 Exoskeletal Argument Structure . 104 5.3 An Outline of Exoskeletal Lexico-Syntax . 104 5.3.1 Application to Exotransitive Verbs . 107 5.3.2 Cleaning Up . 108 5.4 Linking to Interpretation with Full Thematic Separation . 112 5.4.1 Applying Full Thematic Separation to Exo/transitive Verbs . 114 5.5 Where the Preposition Comes From . 117 5.5.1 Exotransitive Prepositions as Periphrastic Realizations . 118 5.5.2 Exotransitive Prepositions as Lexical Semantic Realizations . 121 5.6 Summary . 125 6 Prepositions as Transitivizers 126 6.1 Introduction . 126 6.2 An Experimental Approach to Verbs and Transitivity . 127 6.3 Experiment 1: Valence-Increasing Morphology . 129 6.3.1 Motivation . 129 6.3.2 Design . 129 6.3.3 Manipulation & Predictions . 132 6.3.4 Results . ..
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