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Ergativityc in English, Dutch and German: a Corpus-Based, Contrastive Study of Deadjectival Verbs

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Ergativityc in English, Dutch and German: a Corpus-Based, Contrastive Study of Deadjectival Verbs Universiteit Gent Faculteit Letteren & Wijsbegeerte Academiejaar 2012-2013 Ergativityc in English, Dutch and German: A corpus-based, contrastive study of deadjectival verbs Masterproef voorgelegd tot het bekomen van de graad van Master in de Taal- en Letterkunde: Twee talen Evi De Groote Promotor: Prof. Dr. Miriam Taverniers 2 Acknowledgement I am grateful to many people who have supported me during the past years. First of all, I want to thank my supervisor, Prof. Dr. Miriam Taverniers for her useful advice and for the confidence she has shown in this study. I am also grateful to Dr. Julie Van Bogaert for proof-reading parts of this work. A special thanks goes to Charlotte De Kuysscher, for her moral support and for the entertaining conversations. Finally, I want to thank my family and my friends for their kindness and support throughout my study. 3 Table of contents Acknowledgement ............................................................................................................... 3 Table of contents .................................................................................................................. 4 List of tables ......................................................................................................................... 7 List of figures ....................................................................................................................... 7 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 9 2 Literature Review ....................................................................................................... 11 2.1 The complexity of a definition ................................................................................. 11 2.2 “Ergativity” representing different phenomena........................................................ 12 2.3 Different approaches towards (lexical) ergativityc ................................................... 13 2.4 Ergativityc as a type of valence reduction ................................................................ 16 2.5 Contrastive study of ergativityc ................................................................................ 18 2.5.1 General ................................................................................................................. 18 2.5.2 Contrastive approaches so far............................................................................... 22 2.5.3 Ergativityc in English ........................................................................................... 28 2.5.3.1 Causativizing affixes ............................................................................................ 28 2.5.3.2 Causative constructions ........................................................................................ 31 2.5.4 Ergativityc in Dutch .............................................................................................. 36 2.5.4.1 General ................................................................................................................. 36 2.5.4.2 Verbs with prefix ver- .......................................................................................... 36 2.5.4.3 Reflexive verbs ..................................................................................................... 37 2.5.4.4 Periphrastic construction with doen/laten ............................................................ 39 2.5.5 Ergativityc in German ........................................................................................... 40 2.5.5.1 General ................................................................................................................. 40 2.5.5.2 Verbs with prefix ver- .......................................................................................... 41 2.5.5.3 Reflexive verbs ..................................................................................................... 42 2.5.5.4 Periphrastic construction with lassen ................................................................... 43 3 Methodology ............................................................................................................... 44 4 Analysis and discussion .............................................................................................. 50 4.1 Dutch translation strategies ...................................................................................... 50 4.1.1 General ................................................................................................................. 50 4.1.2 Prefixed verbs ....................................................................................................... 50 4.1.3 Attributive construction ........................................................................................ 53 4 4.1.4 Ergativec verbs...................................................................................................... 55 4.1.5 Deadjectival verbs ................................................................................................ 56 4.1.6 Reflexive verbs ..................................................................................................... 57 4.1.7 Other constructions .............................................................................................. 57 4.2 German translation strategies ................................................................................... 59 4.2.1 General ................................................................................................................. 59 4.2.2 Prefixed verbs ....................................................................................................... 60 4.2.3 Attributive construction ........................................................................................ 62 4.2.4 Ergativec verbs...................................................................................................... 64 4.2.5 Deadjectival verbs ................................................................................................ 65 4.2.6 Reflexive verbs ..................................................................................................... 66 4.2.7 Other constructions .............................................................................................. 69 4.3 Discussion and conclusion ....................................................................................... 69 5 Diachronic excursion .................................................................................................. 74 5.1 General ..................................................................................................................... 74 5.2 Hypothesis ................................................................................................................ 76 6 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 81 Appendix 1: Dutch primary data ..................................................................................... 83 Appendix 2: German primary data ................................................................................. 87 Appendix 3: Dutch results ................................................................................................ 89 Appendix 4: German results ............................................................................................ 94 References .......................................................................................................................... 97 5 6 List of tables Table 1. Terminology Table 2. Formal linguistic devices to express causation in Modern English (Baron 1974: 302, 1) Table 3. Comparison of Dutch and German strategies Table 4. A selection of features in Modern English and Modern German (Toyota 2008: 285) Table 5. A selection of features in Old English and Old High German (Toyota 2008: 285) List of figures Figure 1. Representation of Dutch translations Figure 2. Distribution of prefixes in Dutch Figure 3. Distribution of comparatives in Dutch Figure 4. Ergativec verbs in Dutch Figure 5. Periphrastic constructions in Dutch Figure 6. Representation of German translations Figure 7. Distribution of prefixes in German Figure 8. Distribution of comparatives in German 7 8 1 Introduction Ergativityc is said to be a well-studied and “widely recognized phenomenon” in linguistics (Horvath & Siloni 2011:2176). This linguistic phenomenon is illustrated by pairs such as (1) and (2). (1) a. The man breaks the vase. b. The vase breaks. (2) a. Smoke darkens the sky. b. The sky darkens. Many linguists take into account both syntactic and semantic features to characterize the ergativec alternation (Legendre et al. 1991, Levin & Hovav 1995, Zaenen 1993). In order to define the ergativec alternation syntactically, the position of the object is crucial: the object in the two-participant construction [henceforth ERG2] in (1)a and (2)a moves to subject position in the one-participant construction [henceforth ERG1] in (1)b and (2)b. Davidse defines the ergativec alternation semantically and differentiates between ERG1 and ERG2 on the basis of the feature instigatable. ERG1 potentially possesses this feature, whereas ERG2 is always “externally instigated” (Davidse 1998: 99). So far, different linguistic traditions have been concerned with positioning ergativityc within the grammar of a language and with defining the crucial characteristics of ergativityc in
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