Partee and Borschev, La Coruña Lecture 1 Partee and Borschev, La Coruña Lecture 1
Possessives, Relational Nouns and the Argument-Modifier Distinction1 1.1. Possessives/genitives and related constructions. Barbara H. Partee, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Terminology surrounding “possessives” and “genitives” is confusing, since the Vladimir Borschev, VINITI, Russian Academy of Sciences, and Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst correspondences among morphological forms, syntactic positions, grammatical relations, and [email protected], [email protected]; http://people.umass.edu/partee/ semantic interpretations are complex and debated, and vary considerably across languages. In the possessive construction John’s team, we call John the possessor, John’s a possessive, Universidade da Coruña, April 4, 2005 and team the possessum.
1. Background: Possessives and the argument-modifier distinction in NPs...... 1 1.1. Possessives/genitives and related constructions...... 2 Some basic data 1.2. Related issues in Russian...... 3 (1) (a) John's team 2. Two theories of possessives...... 4 (b) A team of John's 2.1. Partee 1983/1997: Non-uniform possessive, type multiplicity...... 4 (c) That team is John’s. 2.2. Jensen and Vikner (1994): Uniform possessive, type coercion of CN to TCN...... 5 2.3. What’s the difference? What evidence could decide? ...... 5 (2) (a) John's brother 2.4. In favor of (modified) Jensen and Vikner approach: Mary’s former mansion...... 6 (b) A brother of John's 3. Different kinds of genitives/possessives: why Jensen and Vikner may be right for Russian genitives but not for (c) #That brother is John’s all English genitives...... 7 3.1. Predicate possessives: a problem for the “one genitive” approach? ...... 7 (3) (a) John's favorite movie 3.1.1. Predicate possessives in English...... 8 (b) A favorite movie of John's 3.1.2. Russian prenominal possessives vs. genitives...... 9 (c) #That favorite movie is John’s 3.1.3. German possessive pronouns...... 10 3.1.4. Russian and Polish possessive pronouns...... 11 Informally, one can give a unified interpretation of the Saxon genitive John’s that applies to all 3.2. Conclusions about predicate possessives...... 12 References: ...... 13 of these cases: the possessor always expresses one argument of a relation, and the Saxon genitive as a whole forms a restrictive modifier of the head noun. But it seems that the relation can come from any of three sources: 1. Background: Possessives and the argument-modifier distinction in NPs. (i) the context, as in (1) ("plays for", "owns", "is a fan of", etc.); this happens when the noun Possessive constructions like ‘John’s teacher’, ‘John’s team’, ‘friend of John’s’ offer several is a plain 1-place predicate. interesting semantic problems and challenges. The first and most basic problem is a (ii) an inherently relational noun like brother, as in (2). compositionality problem: is it possible to give a unified semantic analysis to possessives with (iii) an inherently relational adjective like favorite, as in (3). both “plain nouns” (one-place predicates) as in ‘John’s team’, ‘John’s dog’ and relational or Call case (i) the "free R" (“free relation”) reading, cases (ii) and (iii) "inherent R" readings. Then “transitive” nouns as in ‘John’s friend’, ‘John’s teacher’? the semantic question is: do the possessive constructions [N(P) + of John’s] and [John’s + N(P)] Possessive constructions also offer an interesting test-bed for the argument-modifier have a uniform compositional interpretation? distinction in NPs, both in English and cross-linguistically. Many, perhaps all, possessors seem In our earlier work we considered that there were in principle three possibilities. to have some properties of arguments and some of modifiers, but some seem more argument- • (i): Assimilate all cases to the "free R" reading. That option was proposed by Hellan (1980). like and some more modifier-like. Recent proposals by Jensen and Vikner (1994), Vikner and Partee (1983/97) argued against it on the basis of the contrast among the (c) examples in (2- Jensen (2002) and Partee and Borschev (1998) analyze all possessors as argument-like. Partee 4). We return to it in Lecture 3. and Borschev (2001, 2003) argue that the uniform analysis may be correct for (“normal”) • (ii) Posit two different possessive constructions, treating “inherent R” possessors as type- Russian genitives, but incorrect for English. raised arguments and “free R” possessors as (intersective) modifiers (Partee (1983/97). The main issue to be addressed is the question of whether all, some, or no possessives are • (iii) Assimilate all cases to the “inherent R” reading. This option was introduced by Jensen best treated as arguments of nouns, and if so which ones? and how can we tell? The question and Vikner (1994), and further explored in Partee and Borschev (1998, 2003), Vikner and will be examined from several perspectives, including cross-linguistic perspectives, but will not Jensen (2002). be settled. • Challenge the presuppositions on which the preceding alternatives are based. We’ll do that too as we progress, ending up with a different basic split in semantic types of possessives, one modificational type with notional ‘possession’ as its core meaning, and a quasi- argumental type that includes both “inherent R” and some “free R” cases.
Another important distinction: “kind” modification vs. the normal “referent-specifying” 1 Acknowledgements. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. BCS- possessives (Munn 1995, Strauss 2002; similarly Kolliakou 1999 for French). Munn argued that 9905748. We thank many colleagues for suggestions and discussion, especially Carl Vikner, Per Anker Jensen, in addition to idiomatic compounds like men’s room, girls’ school, there are productive syntactic Elena Paducheva, and Ekaterina Rakhilina. Parts of this material were presented by one or both authors in graduate courses in Leipzig, Potsdam, Kolding, Moscow, and Prague, at UMass Amherst, and in lectures in Berlin, Munich, possessive constructions at the common noun level, so that men’s shoes, for instance, is Kleinwalsertal, Austria, ESCOL 1999, Oslo, Bloomington, Swarthmore, Tel Aviv, and Evanston. We are grateful to ambiguous. members of those audiences and seminars for useful suggestions. We thank Ji-Yung Kim for valuable assistance.
La Coruna 05 Lec1.doc 1 La Coruna 05 Lec1.doc 2 Partee and Borschev, La Coruña Lecture 1 Partee and Borschev, La Coruña Lecture 1
(4) (a) This men’s shoe was on the wrong shelf. (Kind-modifying only) (b) ?sosedskiji rasskaz o svoix*i problemax (b) Two men’s shoes were on the floor. (Ambiguous: two shoes, or shoes of two men) neighborADJ-m.sg story about selfPOSS problems (c) One man’s shoes were on the floor. (Must be shoes of one man) ‘a story about one’s problems, typical of neighbors’
Further evidence that these are distinct constructions: Russian uses genitive for the “referent- In the case of Russian, the question of whether the examples in (6) are all instances of a specifying” reading, but not for the “kind-modifying” reading: there one uses a denominal single construction is even more difficult than in the case of English, since the uses of the adjective instead. Russian genitive NP cover uses analogous to both the English Saxon genitive in (1-3) and English PPs with of + Acc. We return to the contrast between the constructions in (6) and (7) in
Section 3.1.2. (5) (a) Tufli mužčin byli na polu. To be slightly more precise about our relatively neutral assumed syntax for the English Shoes-NOM.PL men-GEN.PL were-PL on floor postnominal Saxon genitive and Russian postnominal genitive constructions, we represent the There were men’s shoes on the floor or Men’s shoes wee on the floor. syntactic structure as in (8) below, a linearized form of the schematic phrase structure tree of Unambiguous: the shoes must belong to some men Borschev and Partee (1999b):
(b) Mužskie tufli byli na polu. 0 (8) [N* N* NPGEN ] , where N* is a cover term for N and non-maximal N-bar Men-ADJ-NOM.PL Shoes-NOM.PL were-PL on floor (Montague 1973’s CN and CNP), and NP is a cover term for both NMAX and DP. Mens’ shoes were on the floor. Unambiguous: A kind of shoe, shoes ‘for’ men. We also assume (not uncontroversially) that the English prenominal possessive construction
We will not discuss the kind-modifying construction further here, but will concentrate on the John’s team is in effect a synthesis of the postnominal possessive team of John’s with an implicit definite article, perhaps via a raising of the possessive into a D position. issue of the argument/modifier distinction within the referent-specifying (‘normal’) type. Within The semantic question is: do the possessive constructions [N* N* NPGEN ] have a uniform the “argumental” type, we have also worked on sortal specifications in the lexical semantics of compositional interpretation? nouns and their role in mediating the intepretation of possessives and making sense of the fuzzy boundary between relational and non-relational nouns (Borschev and Partee 1999a,b, 2001) 2. Two theories of possessives. 1.2. Related issues in Russian. 2.1. Partee 1983/1997: Non-uniform possessive, type multiplicity. Russian has at least two different constructions that overlap with the English constructions The analysis of Partee (1983/1997) posits an ambiguity in the construction, with the head noun illustrated above. (i) A head noun may be followed by a genitive NP (or DP), as in (5) below; as (TCN) supplying the relation if it is relational, and with the construction supplying a “free the glosses illustrate, these may correspond either to the English construction ‘N of NP’s’ or to relation variable” if the noun is not relational (CN). ‘N of NP’. (ii) There is a prenominal construction with quasi-adjectival morphology, of limited (9) Predicative genitive: TR(John's ) = λx[R (John)(x)] (= R (John)) productivity, studied by Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Šmelev (1994) and by Babyonyshev (1997), t/e i i illustrated in (7) below; they convincingly show that the semantics of these constructions is like (10) Postnominal genitive: (i) CN/CN: free R: λPλx[P(x) & Ri(John)(x)] that of an English prenominal genitive, not like that of an adjective: (7a) means ‘the [specific] (ii) CN/TCN: inherent R: λR[λx[R(John)(x)]] neighbor’s story about her problems’, while (7b) means something like ‘a story about one’s (11) Prenominal genitive: basically function composition of TR(the) and postnominal problems, typical of neighbors’. Both languages also have possessive pronouns, which we are genitive, free or inherent. not separately addressing, although they deserve separate attention (partly because in Russian (i) free R: TR([John’s] ) = λP[ιz[P(z) & R (John)(z)] possessive pronouns can occur predicatively and genitive NPs cannot; also see Paducheva DET i λ ι 1984). (ii) inherent R: TR([John’s]DET) = R[ z[R(John)(z)]]
Note: For the “free R” case, the predicate (
dog-NOM.SG daughter-GEN.SG sky-NOM.SG Andrej-GEN Bolkonsky-GEN 2 There is already a problem in using this construction for illustration, since a number of authors, including Barker ‘the daughter’s dog’ ‘Andrej Bolkonsky’s sky’ (1995), have argued that the English postposed genitive is a reduced partitive, book of John’s books, and that there is therefore no simple construction of the form [N N NPGEN ] in English. The reason we are not using the (7) (a) sosedkini rasskaz o svoixi problemax construction John’s book for our ‘basic’ case is that the preposed genitive in English seems to combine the “basic” neighbor(f)-poss-m.sg story about selfPOSS problems genitive with an implicit definite article. We are assuming here that the postposed genitive is a basic construction in ‘[my] neighbor’s story about her problems’ English (see also Lyons 1986), but the general points we make would also hold for the preposed genitive “minus the meaning of the definite article”.
La Coruna 05 Lec1.doc 3 La Coruna 05 Lec1.doc 4 Partee and Borschev, La Coruña Lecture 1 Partee and Borschev, La Coruña Lecture 1 will return in section 3, concern predicate genitives and the differences in behavior between the The final result is the same; but for J&V the free relation variable comes in as part of the most clearly predicative genitives and the most clearly argumental ones. meaning of the shifted noun, while for Partee (1983/97) it comes in as part of the meaning of the But initially let us ignore predicate genitives and concentrate on the possibility of unifying possessive construction. Can this difference ever lead to different results? Yes: see Section 2.4. the “free R” and “inherent R” readings in the postnominal and prenominal positions. 2.4. In favor of (modified) Jensen and Vikner approach: Mary’s former mansion. 2.2. Jensen and Vikner (1994): Uniform possessive, type coercion of CN to TCN. Assumptions: Jensen and Vikner (1994) present an alternative proposal: the possessive must always i) mansion is lexically a 1-place noun. combine with a relational common noun (phrase). If a possessive occurs with a plain noun, the ii) former is an endocentric modifier, lexically a CN/CN, shiftable to a TCN/TCN. plain noun shifts its meaning to become relational. The possessive construction coerces the shift. a) former as CN/CN: former monastery, former dancer. Their analysis corresponds to the “inherent R” case of Partee (1983/1997). b) former as TCN/TCN: former owner, former friend. iii) The “free relation” variable in this case has as one of its most salient values something like (12) teacher of John’s: 8x[teacher(John)(x)]] “owns” or “lives in”. Coercion: a plain CN like chair or team is coerced to a TCN interpretation. Jensen and Vikner iv) Mary’s former mansion has two readings: follow Pustejovsky (1993) in appealing to the qualia structure of the lexical entry (details (A) a former mansion (perhaps now just a ruin) that is (now) Mary’s. I.e., now Mary’s, omitted here) to guide the coercion as in the shifted readings for chair, leg, poem below; Partee formerly a mansion. and Borschev (1998) have suggested extensions of their work to allow for the context to play a (B) what was formerly Mary’s mansion; it may still be a mansion, but it’s no longer role in the general case, as in the “free R” shift for team below for Jensen and Vikner’s Mary’s. “pragmatic” reading. Dölling (p.c.) would advocate reducing all such shifts to the “free R” case Argument: in the semantics, leaving the influence of lexical structure on the choice of value of R to a later On the old Partee account, there is no motivation for type-shifting to occur, and the “free R” level of conceptual structure. “owns” will be introduced with the possessive Mary’s, after former has combined with mansion.
λ CN chair: x[chair(x)] Then the free relation (“owns”) in the interpretation of the possessive Mary’s will never be λ λ TCN chair: y x[chair(x) & sits-in(x)(y)] [shift based on ‘telic role’ of chair] under the scope of former. As a result, Partee (1983/97) can derive reading (A), but not reading TCN leg: λyλx[leg(x) & part-of(y)(x)] [shift based on ‘constitutive role’ of leg] (B). See tree (14). TCN poem: λyλx[poem(x) & created(x)(y)] [shift based on ‘agentive role’ of poem] TCN team: λyλx[team(x) & R(x)(y)] [“pragmatically based” shift – “free R”] Compositional structure of Mary’s former mansion on the account of Partee (1983/97):
2.3. What’s the difference? What evidence could decide? (14) The main difference between the two approaches is in “where” a “free relation variable” is NP added in a case where context is driving a pragmatically based coercion. Let’s suppose that team 3 of Mary’s is such a case. NP’s CNP # 3 (13) NP Mary’s CN/CN CN
2 # # DET CNP former mansion # 2 a CN (of) NP’s < Partee: free relation HERE free R introduced here J&V: Shift CN to TCN HERE # # team of Mary’s But Jensen and Vikner’s account, with coercion of CN to TCN, does provide derivations for Jensen and Vikner: both readings, and is therefore better. λ λ of Mary’s: R[ x[R(Mary)(x)]] Jensen and Vikner’s account. λ λ (shifted) team: y[ x[team(x) & Ri(y)(x)]] For Jensen and Vikner, Mary’s coerces former mansion to a relational TCN. Given our team of Mary’s: λx[team(x) & Ri(Mary)(x)]] assumptions, there are two ways that former mansion could shift to a TCN. Partee(1983): 1) Initially leave mansion as a CN, treat former as CN/CN, combine them to form a CN, as on of Mary’s: λPλx[P(x) & Ri(Mary)(x)] Partee account; then shift that CN to a TCN, bringing in the free variable at that stage to get the (non-shifted) team: team shifted meaning of former mansion shown below: team of Mary’s: λx[team(x) & R (Mary)(x)]] i λy[λx[former(mansion)(x) & R(y)(x)]] [R: “is owned by”]
La Coruna 05 Lec1.doc 5 La Coruna 05 Lec1.doc 6 Partee and Borschev, La Coruña Lecture 1 Partee and Borschev, La Coruña Lecture 1
This corresponds to reading (A) above, with the free R introduced at the point where the CNP The other kind are true predicative possessives, basically of type
3. Different kinds of genitives/possessives: why Jensen and Vikner may be right The good examples in (17), namely (17c,d,e), all have predicate possessives that may be interpreted as for Russian genitives but not for all English genitives. elliptical NPs3: John’s teacher, John’s father, my favorite movie. The bad examples (17a,b,f) all have intrinsically relational head nouns (or common noun phrase in the case of 17b) that have to be interpreted 3.1. Predicate possessives: a problem for the “one genitive” approach? non-relationally in the subject but relationally in the predicate, assuming that (17a,b) have elliptical predicate possessives. The head noun in the subject in examples (17a,b,f) must shift to a non-relational reading in order to be compatible with the demonstrative determiner that. In spite of the theoretical appeal of the “one genitive” approach and its ability to solve the It may be that there is a restriction (perhaps a processing restriction) on shifting an expression “away problem of Mary’s former mansion, we are still not convinced that it is correct. One of our main from” its basic meaning and then “back again” (The “bad” sentences are probably indeed not worries concerns predicate possessives. We earlier observed that predicate possessives seem to ‘ungrammatical’, but are nearly impossible with respect to the intended readings ‘John’s father’, etc..) In favor “free R” interpretations; and predicate possessives are not in a structural argument position the good examples (17d,e) we have the relational readings of the head noun (phrases) in both the subject unless one posits an empty head noun accompanying all predicate possessives. Both of these and the (elliptical) predicate. factors support the treatment of predicate possessives in Partee (1983/97) as type
3 We thank M. den Dikken for pointing out that in Dutch, the predicate possessive in example (17c) is even more In the following sections, we look at evidence about predicate possessives in English, clearly an elliptical NP than in English, and that Dutch furthermore is a language which clearly distinguishes Russian, German, and Polish. The evidence supports the idea of two semantically different kinds elliptical from non-elliptical predicate possessives. In Dutch, in the rendition of (17c), the d-word die, signalling the of possessives, with some forms, such as English Saxon genitives, used for both. presence of nominal structure, is obligatory, as shown in (i). (i) Die docent is *(die) van Jan. One kind are argument possessives, which fit the Jensen and Vikner analysis; these occur in That teacher is *(that) of Jan construction with a relationally interpreted noun (or with an adjective like favorite plus a noun). ‘That teacher is Jan’s.’ By contrast, in (ii) both options are possible. Argument possessives do not occur in type
La Coruna 05 Lec1.doc 7 La Coruna 05 Lec1.doc 8 Partee and Borschev, La Coruña Lecture 1 Partee and Borschev, La Coruña Lecture 1
The relevant difference between the good (17c) and the bad (17a) may be that unlike father, teacher is lexically supplied with equally salient and closely related relational and non-relational readings, so that In the genitive construction in (24a), we analyze Peti as an argument of the relation which one wouldn’t have to ‘suppress’ the relational reading by shifting in order to interpret teacher in the connects it to stul. In the given case, the most salient relation could alternatively be seen as some kind of subject NP non-relationally.. possession as well; but ‘possession proper’ is not the prototypical interpretation for the genitive The data above, reinforced by the Dutch data mentioned in the footnote, strongly suggest that construction. The range of possible relations expressed with a genitive is extremely broad (cf. Knorina predicate possessives may sometimes be “elliptical” NPs or “Determiner-only” NPs. And if all bare 1985, 1988, 1990, 1996, Borschev and Knorina 1990, Partee and Borschev 1998, Borschev and Partee possessives in all languages could be interpreted as elliptical NPs, then predicate possessives would not 1999a,b). pose a problem for the “one-genitive” analysis; the difference between possessive or genitive forms that While this data is not completely conclusive, it supports the hypothesis that the Russian genitive can and that cannot occur “bare” as predicates would simply reflect constraints on NP ellipsis. construction is correctly analyzed as uniformly argumental, i.e. that Jensen and Vikner’s approach to But we believe that not all predicate possessives are elliptical. English genitives is correct instead for Russian genitives. And we believe that the Russian prenominal We do not have conclusive arguments for English; there are several complicating factors, “adjectival” possessives are basically modifiers, with the “free” RPOSS as the core of their meanings (see including problems in the analysis of copular sentences (Williams (1983), Partee (1986), Moro (1997), the analysis in (31) below for German). But the high overlap in possible interpretation of the two Heycock and Kroch (1998,1999), Partee (1999a).) So rather than try to support our intuitions about the constructions, as illustrated in (23) and (24), is a puzzle. English examples, we turn to some languages where we have found some syntactic and/or morphological distinctions that provide evidence for a distinction between modifier possessives and argument 3.1.3. German possessive pronouns. possessives. Tony Kroch (p.c.) suggested looking for languages that would given evidence from agreement behavior as to whether predicate possessives are more like simple (adjectival) 3.1.2. Russian prenominal possessives vs. genitives. predicates or more like full NPs. Sten Vikner (p.c) observed that German is a language that In Russian, possessive pronouns and the normally prenominal quasi-adjectival possessive forms gives some evidence: Predicate adjectives in German do not agree with subjects, but predicate can occur in predicate position but genitive NPs cannot [caveats]. This suggests that Russian genitive possessives do, suggesting that predicate possessives are indeed more like elliptical NPs than NPs may always be argument-like, and that the Jensen & Vikner uniform analysis with coercion of CNs like simple
(23) (a) Petin stul This would suggest that the “one genitive” approach may be correct for German, if all Petja-POSS-M.SG. chair-M.SG. apparent predicate possessives give morphological evidence of being elliptical NPs. ‘Petja’s chair.’ But it was further observed by Hans Kamp (p.c.) and others that actually, the non- (b) Mamin portret agreeing form can sometimes be used. It is used only in “standard” German, not in colloquial Mama-POSS-M.SG. portrait-M.SG. German, and it has an “archaic” flavor. Most interestingly, it seems that there are semantic ‘Mama’s portrait.’ differences between the agreeing and the non-agreeing predicate possessive, and if this data (24) (a) stul Peti stands up, it is extremely interesting. chair-M.SG. Petja-GEN.SG. (28) (a) Diese Bücher sind meine: can be any relation. ‘Petja’s chair.’ These- N.PL books- N.PL are mine- PL (b) portret mamy (b) Diese Bücher sind mein: (archaic) “Possession” only. portrait-M.SG. Mama-GEN.SG. These- N.PL books- N.PL are mine (no agreement) ‘Mama’s portrait.’
Further examples are given in (29) and (30). A newly naturalized citizen might say (29a), In these examples, both constructions can be used in describing the same range of cases; but the but (29b) suggests a conqueror is speaking. Any relation is possible in (30a), with the most meanings do not “feel” identical. In the possessive construction in (23), we would like to claim (as did likely possibility being the parent-child, but (30b) suggests a custody fight, i.e. a dispute about Schoorlemmer 1995) that the possessive Petin, mamin acts as a modifier of the head noun. We believe who is to be in ‘possession’ of the children. that the prototypical interpretation of the possessive modifier is indeed ‘possession’, understood broadly; see Heine (1997). Thus in example (23b), possession may be possession proper, ‘authorship’, or the relation of ‘being portrayed’. But the possibility of expanding the sense of ‘possession’ is evidently not 4 Further evidence that these predicate possessives are elliptical NPs was provided by Sigrid Beck and Irene Heim unlimited. Thus ‘murderer of Petja’ can be expressed in Russian by (25a) but not by (25b). (p.c.): the possessive pronoun in (27) can be followed by adjectives (i.e. there can be ellipsis of just the head noun), (25) (a) ubijca Peti while the adjective in (26) and the adjective-like possessive pronoun in (28b) cannot be. murderer-M.SG. Petja-GEN.SG. (i) Diese Bücher sind meine alten. ‘Petja’s murderer’ (murderer of Petja) These-n.pl. book-n.pl are my-n.pl. old-n.pl. ‘These books are my old ones.’ (b) Petin ubijca (ii) * Diese Bücher sind teuer neu(en). Petja-POSS-M.SG. murderer-M.SG. These-n.pl. book-n.pl. are expensive new # ‘Petja’s murderer’ [ok only as e.g. ‘a murderer Petja has hired’] ‘These books are expensive new ones.’
La Coruna 05 Lec1.doc 9 La Coruna 05 Lec1.doc 10 Partee and Borschev, La Coruña Lecture 1 Partee and Borschev, La Coruña Lecture 1
(29) (a) Das Land ist (jetzt) meins. cases of predicate possessives which are elliptical full NPs and in which the possessive may be The-N.SG land-N.SG is (now) mine-N.SG an argument of an implicit relational noun. (b) Das Land ist jetzt mein. Wayles Browne (p.c.) suggested that we should get data on Polish, because in Polish NP The-N.SG land- N.SG is now mine - be - NP requires Instrumental on the predicate NP, whereas in Russian the predicate NP may or (30) (a) Die Kinder sind meine. may not be Instrumental. And in Polish NP - be - Adj requires Nominative on the Adjective, The children are mine-pl whereas in Russian the predicate AP may be 1) short-form Adjective, 2) long-form Nominative (b) Die Kinder sind mein. Adjective, or 3) long-form Instrumental Adjective. The children are mine. The corresponding Polish data are as follows5.
(34) (a) Ten kraj był kiedys' moim. In all of (28b), (29b), (30b), the form which shows absence of agreement in the way a That-m.nom.sg country-m.nom.sg was-m.sg once my-m.instr.sg predicate adjective would is limited in its interpretation to “possession”. In other words, the ‘That country was once mine’ [‘possession’ or citizenship] form in which the possessive pronoun appears to be a simple predicate of type
In Russian, in the past tense, predicate nominals may be in the Instrumental case, The Polish data confirm the hypothesis that when a predicate possessive pronoun allows particularly when indicating temporary relations. Babby (1973), Siegel (1976) and others have an “argumental” reading, it is the remnant of an elliptical NP, and when it doesn’t, it isn’t. The used case and other agreement behavior to argue that some predicative adjectives are elliptical “possession” reading, which seems to be emerging as the clearest case of a non-argumental, or NPs and others are simple APs. The following data may provide a basis for distinguishing modifier, reading, can show up either in a remnant of an NP or as a bare
(36) [John’s]PRED : λx[RPOSS(John)(x)] type:
La Coruna 05 Lec1.doc 11 La Coruna 05 Lec1.doc 12 Partee and Borschev, La Coruña Lecture 1 Partee and Borschev, La Coruña Lecture 1
References: Hellan, Lars 1980 Toward an Integrated Theory of Noun Phrases. PhD Thesis, Trondheim University. Babby, Leonard H. (1973) The Deep Structure of Adjectives and Participles in Russian. Language Heycock, Caroline and Kroch, Anthony 1998 “Inversion and equation in copular sentences”. In Papers in 49:349-60. Linguistics 10, A. Alexiadou, N. Fuhrhop, U. Kleinhenz, and P. Law (eds), 71-87. Berlin: Zentrum Babby, Leonard H. (1997) Nominalization in Russian. In W.Browne, E. Dornisch, N. Kondrashova, and fuer allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft. D. Zec, eds., Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics, The Cornell Meeting 1995, Ann Arbor: Heycock, Caroline and Kroch, Anthony 1999 “Pseudocleft connectivity: Implications for the LF interface Michigan Slavic Publications, 54-83. level”. Linguistic Inquiry 30: 327-364.Jackendoff, Ray (1997) The Architecture of the Language Babyonyshev, Maria (1997) The possessive construction in Russian: a crosslinguistic perspective. Faculty. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Journal of Slavic Linguistcs 5.2, 193-230. Hobbs, J.R., M.E. Stickel, D.E. Appelt, and P. Martin (1993): Interpretation as abduction. Artificial Bach, Emmon (1967) Have and be in English syntax. Language 43.2, 462-485. Intelligence 63, 69-142. Bach, Emmon (1989) Informal Lectures on Formal Semantics. State University of New York Press. Jensen, Per Anker and Carl Vikner (1994) "Lexical knowledge and the semantic analysis of Danish Baker, C. L. (1978) Introduction to Generative-Transformational Syntax. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: genitive constructions", in S.L.Hansen and H.Wegener (eds.), Topics in Knowledge-based NLP Prentice-Hall. Systems. Samfundslitteratur, Copenhagen, 37-55. Barker, Chris (1995): Possessive Descriptions. Stanford: CSLI Publications. Jensen, Per Anker and Carl Vikner (1996) "The double nature of the verb have”, in LAMBDA 21, OMNIS Bierwisch, Manfred (1989): Event nominalizations: proposals and problems. In: W. Motsch (ed.) Workshop 23-24 Nov. 1995, Institut for Datalingvistik, Handelshøjskolen i København, pp. 25-37. Wortstruktur und Satzstruktur 1-73. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Knorina, L.V. (1985) Ob interpretacii genitivnyx konstrukcij. (“On the interpretation of genitive Borschev, V.B. (1996) “Estestvennyj jazyk — naivnaja matematika dlja opisanija naivnoj kartiny mira” constructions”) Theses of the workshop “Semiotic foundations of intellectual activity”. Moscow, [“Natural language as naive mathematics”], in Moscow Linguistic Almanac 1, 203-225. VINITI. Borschev, V.B. and L.V.Knorina (1990) ‘Tipy realij i ix jazykovoe vosprijatie’ (‘Types of entities and Knorina, L.V. (1988) Klassifikacija leksiki i slovarnye definicii. (“Lexical classification and dictionary their perception in language’), in Language of Logic and Logic of Language Moscow. 106-134. definitions”) In Nacional’naja specifika jazyka i ee otrañenie v normativnom slovare, ed. Ju.N. Borschev, Vladimir and Barbara H. Partee (1998). Formal and lexical semantics and the genitive in Karaulov, 60-63. Moskva: Nauka. negated existential sentences in Russian. In: Željko Bosković, Steven Franks and William Snyder, Knorina, L.V. (1989) Genitivnye sravnenija v poezii Pasternaka. (“Genitive similes in the poetry of eds., Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics 6: The Connecticut Meeting 1997, Ann Arbor: Pasternak”). In Stilistika i poetika (Stylistics and Poetics). Moscow. Michigan Slavic Publications, 75-96. Knorina, L.V. (1990) “Narushenija sochetajemosti i raznovidnosti tropov v genitivnoj konstrukcii’ Borschev, V.B. and B. H. Partee (1999a). Semantika genitivnoj konstrukcii: raznye podxody k (‘Violations of cooccurence and varieties of tropes in genitive construction’), in Contradictions and formalizacii. (‘Semantics of genitive construction: different approaches to formalization.’) In Anomalies of Text Moscow. 115-124. Ekaterina V. Rakhilina and Yakov G. Testelets, eds., Tipologija i teorija jazyka: Ot opisanija k Knorina L.V. (1996) The range of biblical metaphors in smikhut. Moscow Linguistic Journal v.3 .80-94. ob”jasneniju. K 60-letiju Aleksandra Evgen’eviča Kibrika. (Typology and Linguistic Theory: from Kolliakou, Dimitra. 1999. De-Phrase extractability and Individual/Property denotation. Natural Description to Explanation. For the 60th birthday of Aleksandr E. Kibrik.) Moscow: Jazyki Russkoj Language and Linguistic Theory 17:713-781. Kul’tury.159-172. Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria and Šmelev, Aleksej 1994 “Alešina s Mašej stat'ja (o nekotoryx svojstvax Borschev, Vladimir and Barbara H. Partee (1999b) “Semantic Types and the Russian Genitive Modifier russkix 'pritjazatel'nyx prilagatel'nyx’) [Alješa and Maša’s article (on some properties of the Russian Construction”, In K. Dziwirek et al, eds., Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics: The Seattle ‘adjectival possessives’)]”. Scando-Slavica 40:209-228. Meeting 1998, Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Publications. Landman, Fred and Barbara H. Partee (ms.1984) “Weak NPs in HAVE sentences”. Draft abstract. Borschev, Vladimir, and Barbara H. Partee. 2001. Genitive modifiers, sorts, and metonymy. Nordic University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Journal of Linguistics 24:140-160. Larson, Richard and Cho, Sungeon 1999 “Temporal adjectives and the structure of possessive DPs”. In Brown, Sue 1999 The Syntax of Negation in Russian: A Minimalist Approach. Stanford: CSLI Proceedings of WCCFL 18, S. Bird, A.Carnie, J. D. Haugen, and P. Norquest (eds), 299-311. Publications. Cambridge: Cascadilla Press. Copestake, Ann and Ted Briscoe (1995) Semi-productive Polysemy and Sense Extension. Journal of Lascarides and Copestake (1995). "The pragmatics of word meaning". In M. Simons and T Galloway, Semantics 12: 15-67. eds., Proceedings from SALT V. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. 204-221. Dölling, Johannes (1992): Flexible Interpretation durch Sortenverschiebung. In: I. Zimmermann and A. Lyons, Christopher (1986) ‘The syntax of English genitive constructions’ Journal of Linguistics 22: 123- Strigin (eds.) Fügungspotenzen, 23-62. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. 143. Dölling, Johannes (1997): Semantic form and abductive fixation of parameters. In: R. van der Sandt, R. Makarova, S. Ja.1954 “Roditel’nyj padež prinadležnosti v russkom jazyke XI-XVII vv.” [Genitive of Blutner and M. Bierwisch (eds) From Underspecification to Interpretation. Working Papers of the possession in the Russian language of the 11th-17th centuries”.] In Trudy Instituta Jazykoznanija AN Institute for Logic and Linguistics, 113-138. Heidelberg: IBM Deutschland. SSSR III, 7-31. Dowty, David (1993) Adjunct-to-argument reanalysis in a dynamic theory of grammar. Unpublished Montague, Richard (1974) Formal Philosophy: Selected Papers of Richard Montague, edited by paper, Ohio State University. Richmond Thomason, New Haven: Yale Univ. Press. Dowty, David (1997) Adjunct-to-argument reanalysis in a dynamic theory of grammar: the problem of Moro, Andrea 1997 The Raising of Predicates. New York: Cambridge University Press. prepositions. Paper presented at the Blaubeuren Semantics CCG/adj-arg Conference, University of Munn, Alan. 1995. The possessor that stayed close to home. In Proceedings of WECOL 24, eds. V. Tübingen, March 1997. Samiian and J. Schaeffer, 181-195. Dowty, David. 2003. The dual analysis of adjuncts/complements in Categorial Grammar. In Modifying Partee, Barbara (ms.1983) Genitives, have, and relational nouns. Handout for a talk, Amsterdam, June Adjuncts, eds. Ewald Lang, Claudia Maienborn and Cathrine Fabricius-Hansen, 33-66. Berlin and 1983. New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Partee, Barbara (1987) Noun phrase interpretation and type-shifting principles. In J. Groenendijk, D. de Freeze, Ray (1992) Existentials and other locatives. Language 68, 553-595. Jongh, and M. Stokhof, eds., Studies in Discourse Representation Theory and the Theory of Heine, Bernd (1997) Possession: Cognitive Sources, Forces, and Grammaticization. Cambridge: Generalized Quantifiers, GRASS 8, Foris, Dordrecht, 115-143. Cambridge University Press.
La Coruna 05 Lec1.doc 13 La Coruna 05 Lec1.doc 14 Partee and Borschev, La Coruña Lecture 1
Partee, Barbara (1983/1997) Uniformity vs. versatility: the genitive, a case study. Appendix to Theo Janssen (1997), Compositionality, in Johan van Benthem and Alice ter Meulen, eds., The Handbook of Logic and Language, Elsevier. 464-470. Partee, Barbara H. (1996) The Development of Formal Semantics in Linguistic Theory. In The Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Theory. Ed. by Shalom Lappin. Blackwell. 11-38. Partee, Barbara H. (1999a) Copula inversion puzzles in English and Russian”. In K. Dziwirek et al, eds., Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics: The Seattle Meeting 1998, Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Publications. Also to appear in UMOP 21: Issues in Semantics and its Interface, Kiyomi Kusumoto and Elisabeth Villalta (eds) Partee, Barbara H. (1999b): Weak NP’s in HAVE sentences. In a Liber Amicorum for Johan van Benthem on the occasion of his 50th Birthday, June 1999, edited by Jelle Gerbrandy, Maarten Marx, Maarten de Rijke, and Yde Venema, Amsterdam. Partee, Barbara H. and Vladimir Borschev (1998). Integrating lexical and formal semantics: Genitives, relational nouns, and type-shifting. In: R. Cooper and Th. Gamkrelidze, eds., Proceedings of the Second Tbilisi Symposium on Language, Logic, and Computation. Tbilisi: Center on Language, Logic, Speech, Tbilisi State University, 229-241. Partee, Barbara H. and Vladimir Borschev (2000): Possessives, favorite, and coercion. In: Anastasia Riehl and Rebecca Daly (eds.) Proceedings of ESCOL99, Ithaca, NY: CLC Publications, Cornell, 173-190. Partee, Barbara H. and Vladimir Borschev (2001): Some puzzles of predicate possessives. In: István Kenesei and R.M. Harnish (eds) Perspectives on Semantics, Pragmatics and Discourse. A Festschrift for Ferenc Kiefer. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 91-117 Partee, Barbara H., and Borschev, Vladimir. 2003. Genitives, relational nouns, and argument-modifier ambiguity. In Modifying Adjuncts, eds. E. Lang, C. Maienborn and C. Fabricius-Hansen, 67-112. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Partee, Barbara and Mats Rooth (1983) Generalized conjunction and type ambiguity. In R. Bauerle, C. Schwarze and A. von Stechow (eds.), Meaning, Use and Interpretation of Language, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 361-383. Pustejovsky, James (1993) “Type coercion and lexical selection” in J.Pustejovsky, ed., Semantics and the Lexicon, Dordrecht:Kluwer. (73-94) Pustejovsky, James (1995) The Generative Lexicon. The MIT Press. Rappaport, Gilbert 1998 “The Slavic noun phrase”. [Position paper, Comparative Slavic Morphosyntax]. Available: http://www.indiana.edu/~slavconf/linguistics/download.html [1999, Jan. 4] Richards, Karen Rondestvedt 1976 “Toward a history of the possessive in literary Russian: The demise of the possessive adjective”. In Papers from the Parasession on Diachronic Syntax, Chicago Linguistic Society, S.B. Steever et al. (eds), 260-73. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. Schafer, Robin (1995) “The SLP/ILP distinction in ‘have’-predication.” In M.Simons and T.Galloway, eds., Proceedings from Semantics and Linguistic Theory V. Ithaca: Cornell University Department of Linguistics (292-309). Schoorlemmer, Maaike 1995 Participial Passive and Aspect in Russian. Ph.D. dissertation, OTS [Utrecht Institute of Linguistics]: Utrecht. Siegel, Muffy 1976 “Capturing the Russian adjective”. In Montague Grammar, B. Partee (ed.), 293-309. New York: Academic Press. Stockwell, R.P., P.Schachter and B.H.Partee (1973) The Major Syntactic Structures of English. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Strauss, Uri. 2002. Possessor location and possessive interpretation. Ms. UMass Generals Paper, Amherst. Szabolcsi, Anna 1994 “The Noun Phrase”. In Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 27 [The Syntactic Structure of Hungarian], F. Kiefer and K. É.Kiss (eds), 179-275. New York: Academic Press. Vikner, Carl, and Jensen, Per Anker. 2002. A semantic analysis of the English genitive. Interaction of lexical and formal semantics. Studia Linguistica 56:191-226. Williams, Edwin 1981 “Argument structure and morphology”. Linguistic Review 1: 81-114. Williams, Edwin 1983 “Semantic vs. syntactic categories”. Linguistics and Philosophy 6: 423-446.
La Coruna 05 Lec1.doc 15